craft day

Kara and Kiersten both earned a craft day by doing their chores yesterday. So I decided to get out some popsicle sticks and let them make something. Kara wanted to make a pencil holder, so Evie decided to make the same thing. Kiersten wanted to make a trinket box to keep her "most special secret treasures". Kiersten got to paint first, since I thought that made sense with how I planned on having her do the box. the other 2 were pretty impatient waiting for the glue gun to heat up, since I thought it made sense for them to glue their sticks on first, and then paint.

Karalee was so proud to use a glue gun by herself for the first time. she did a decent job, but gave up with about 6 more to go, and begged me to just finish it for her so she could watch Kiersten paint. 

A fly got into the rinse water, and all three girls were freaking out. Kiersten was crying and wouldn't go near the table. She insisted that it was a bee, and that it was trying to get her. Kara was upset because she wanted to save the fly. But I eventually got them calmed down after he was down the drain and out of sight. At least he died in pretty, sparkly pink water. 

Evie did such a good job painting, much better than I had expected. She was so careful to paint the sticks one at a time, and rinsed out her brush after each one, whether she was changing colors or not. She only used pink and purple, but asked me to paint some blue strawberries for her. But then she ended up painting over most of the ones I did for her. 

Once Kara and Evie were ready to paint, Kiersten was about done, and it was her turn to watch the others as she waited for her sticks to dry and be ready for gluing. 

Kara's rainbow pencil cup. She took forever because she painted the inside as well. I told her I didn't really think she needed to, and she said, "don't worry, I don't plan to drink out of it or anything".

Evie is very proud of her pencil cup. she keeps showing it to me as if I've never seen it before, and waits for me to act all surprised and impressed. She also keeps saying, "I paint wike a big girl!"

Kiersten's box was kind of a pain to put together, because I ran out of glue gun sticks, and had to use tacky glue. So that took longer, and had to be propped/held together longer. But she is so happy with it. She keeps reminding me that it is delicate, and assures me that she'll be super careful. 

Ben gave Evie her first sour gumball this weekend. she felt so betrayed, and I felt awful for going along with it. 

Kara had picked out a big lolly pop, and did actually let Evie have a taste. 

kiersten got a crown that was full of little candies, and lights up. 

yesterday the girls were eating lunch, and Kara started saying, "turkey vulture! turkey vulture!" As I was coming over to see what she was talking about, convinced she was exaggerating, I was pretty surprised to see that she was right! My unreasonable fear of birds of prey made me pretty uncomfortable to see this guy right out on our deck. 

here's a closer picture right before he flew off. We have a bunch of mouse bait boxes outside right now, and probably some dead mice, so if that is what attracted him, I hope he doesn't die from eating the poisoned mice. But hopefully, we wont see him again any time soon.