Happy Independence Day!

Ice Paint!

This week Corky and I made Ice Paint. To make it, you just fill an ice tray and add food coloring. Then cut drinking straws into thirds and add them to the tray (these serve as handles) and freeze. We made the ice on Wednesday. I let her put the food coloring in the tray (once she figured it out, she squeezed the little food coloring bottle as hard as she could- so funny). She also got to put the straws in. When it was time to put them in the freezer, she was a little reluctant! She wanted to paint now! I told her that we would paint tomorrow. As soon as she woke up on Thursday, she said, “We play with Ice Paint?” So of course, that is exactly what we did!

This was a really great summer project. We just took the paint outside that way she could get a little messy (it kept her cool outside too since she decided to eat the ice when she was done painting)!

*I got the idea for this project from the blog, Chasing Cheerios.

YAY!!! I’m so happy! Our air conditioner is fixed and our house is so cold! Yay!! Ok, I’m done celebrating now! Now it’s time for me to catch up on my laundry. I let our laundry go as long as I could while our AC was down because it made the house hotter (I was desperate- anything to make it a little less hot). Plus, our washer and dryer are in the garage which is not insulated or air conditioned. And since I was trying to stay as cool as possible, I only ventured in there if I absolutely had to! Even Corky didn’t want to go out there! I refer to it as our “sweltering jungle”. Anyway, I just piled it all in front of my washer. It looked a little something like this:

Four loads later it was a little better:

Still pretty bad! I guess I will keep working on it!

How To Save A Roast

Since we spent the weekend at my parent's house, and it was my dad's birthday today, my mom and I decided to grill a pork roast on the outside grill (low and slow so it would be tender). Well, "something" happened and it looked like this:

Actually, the roast isn't in there, but you get the idea- burnt! We were delighted to find that it was very delicious and tender on the inside. so we decided to save it! First, we scraped off the fatty layer, which was really the only burnt part (there was a little burnage on the bottom). Then we placed it in a covered dish with about an inch of water (I've heard of people using watered down apple juice to revive meat but we didn't have any so we used water).

We put it in the oven, very low. when it was done, it was falling apart and delish- so yummy, so yummy (Yo Gabba). This is the half eaten finished product:

Anyhow that is how we saved our roast!

Arts and crafts...

Friday and Saturday, Corky and I had fun making some things:

First, She decorated one of those foam visor hats with foam flower stickers! Oh how she loves stickers! I didn't get a picture of it but she went a little overboard! Foamy sticker on top of foamy sticker... It was on both sides of the visor... so cute! Afterward, she carefully peeled the stickers off so she could put them back on again!

While she was busy with that, I decided to make her some play food out of those foam craft sheets. I got the idea to do this because I caught her using real food in her play kitchen! She was also trying to feed her stuffed animals with real food! I don't really know why I didn't think about getting her play food before. She has a play kitchen, play dishes, play silverware... but no play food! Silly mommy! Anyway, it turned out pretty good and she played with it for hours when I was done! I got a picture of it, but by the time I peeled it from her Chef Boyardee hands, she had already misplaced the orange, broccoli, a piece of bacon, and a pretzel!

On Saturday, she made Papa's birthday present! Papa has a huge boat and ship collection, so we got him a little wooden toy boat and Corky "painted" it with markers. She had fun doing it but then she wanted to give it to him right away. I tried to explain that his birthday is tomorrow, not today... it took a lot of convincing. I think I had success when I mentioned something about happy birthday cake!

I am so thankful today!!! Remember how I don’t like summer all that much? Well, our area has been in a heat advisory for the last week and a half! It’s been in the triple digits for a solid five days now. To top it all off, our AC has been on the fritz and we have had a horrible time convincing our landlord that it needs to be replaced! He thinks its okay to keep your house in the 80s in the dead summer heat! Grant it, 84 degrees feels good compared to 102 outside. But as for me and my house, the 80s stink!! Anyway, I am thankful today because he finally decided to replace it!!! But not until Monday. So in the mean time, we are doing whatever we can to stay cool. I finally had an epiphany and rigged a fan underneath the vent above our refrigerator, in order to blow some cool air into the kitchen (the air is cold, it just isn’t blowing very strong). We will be spending the Saturday and Sunday at my parent’s house to stay cool over the weekend, and then Monday our AC problems will be OVER!! Hopefully! Here is a picture for you to laugh at…

The Ramp

My parents recently had a wheelchair ramp put in for my dad. It is huge and we all think it's hideous! The shiny metal blares against their beautiful log home! Everyone think it's ugly except my daughter... Corky loves it. She thinks it is a big shiny new toy, just for her! She likes to roll her ball up and down and chase it. She also likes to hang on it. She has a lot of fun at Papa and Granny's!