Let's Paint Mommy!!!

This is the phrase I have heard A LOT in the last 24 hours! I decided yesterday to do a fun rainy day activity. We didn't have pudding (which was my first thought) but I knew we needed something that the boys could eat if we were going to do any painting around our house. It seems that everything that is put in front of them still goes straight towards the mouth! And also, this helped kill 2 birds with one stone - a fun activity to keep the boys entertained on a rainy day AND snack time!

I took vanilla yogurt that we had in the fridge and put it in small containers. Then I used food coloring to dye the yogurt pink, blue, green, and yellow. I happened to have a couple of paint brushes that I had never used too so we broke those out. And for easy cleanup, I covered a big area on our kitchen island with wax paper that I taped down. I handed the boys the materials and just let them explore. What a hoot! You can tell both of them have a little of their daddy in them because when I stuck their hands in the yogurt, they both freaked out!

Soon, they figured it out and were painting up a storm. Talk about a fun and educational (yes, the teacher in me had to make it educational) activity. They had to ask for the colors - so that right there is practicing colors, we drew shapes and they named them for me, we wrote our names and Whit told me what letters I was writing. We used paint brushes, spatulas, straws, and even basting brushes. It was great!!

Now, about 5 minute into this activity, Parker thought, "humm...I wonder if I can eat this?", and therefore, painting stopped, and snacking began. We started running low on "paint" and I didn't want to waste ALL of our yogurt so I added a little applesauce and let them go to town again. Of course I HAD to take pictures of all of this. By the time we were done, Whit was begging me to take more pictures. He kept saying "Mommy CHEESE!!" What a ham!!

I love letting the boys explore and seeing their reactions to it all. It was a lot of fun and took up a good hour of our morning - a good hour that we didn't have to watch Choo Choos (Thomas the tank)!