A Week With Noah - Part 2

Thursday was Marketfest in White Bear Lake and it is always a fun place for kids. Noah loved the attractions.

                                          He was so patient waiting for his turn.

                                                               Time to buckle up.

And Noah is ready to jump to the moon and back. He had a blast. He ate some cheese curds and we went home with a bag of cotton candy.

Korea has some of the cutest air-dry clay kits.  They are not cheap, though. This one was about $18.00 but it comes with everything you need. You don't find much polymer clay because most Korean kitchens do not have an oven.

                                     This is what the kit looks like when you open the box.

                 Each kit comes with step by step instructions along with photos to make all sorts of things.

We made the penguin. 

The week of crafting ended with painting drinking glasses. 

       Noah did a great job and he had a lot of fun too. So now his momma has some new glasses.

This week Noah fell in love with Sam-Shik, the pig from the Korean drama "My Name is Sam-Soon." I had bought the pig during our first stay in South Korea.

 

The week with Noah just flew by although not for Louie. Being terrified of everything except Rocketman and myself, Louie spent the week hiding under our bed. He would come out at 10 pm only when he was sure Noah was asleep.

A Week With Noah - Part 1

Continuing the summer tradition, we had the pleasure of having our 7 year old grandson, Noah, for a week. We started the week with our annual journey to The Red Balloon Bookshop, a wonderful children's bookstore. It always brings back so many memories of bringing his mama and uncle there when they were little. He was so excited.

   They have the best selection of children's books I have ever seen. It truly is a magical place.

These were the books he chose, some with grandma's help and he even picked out a few for his little brother Ezra.

The next day we were off the see my sister to get Noah an extra pair of glasses. He breaks his often and then he is without glasses for sometimes a few weeks.

                          He loves his great Aunt Wendy and she is so wonderful with kids.

 We were told the lenses were in stock so we had about a 1 1/2 hours to kill. We ate lunch and we rode the merry-go-round.
I had also signed him up for some kid's classes at the White Bear Center for the Arts. This is what he made the first class.

                     We also made some homemade strawberry popsicles with real strawberries.

                                       I was in charge of filling the popsicle containers.

 Here they are ready for the freezer. These were really cool popsicle containers. They worked great!

I got the recipe for the strawberry popsicles from this book. The popsicles were delicious and so easy to make.

Noah's second class was all about Native American art. It was a two day class and these photos are what he made in the two day class.

But we are not done with the week yet. There is still a lot more to come. Stay tuned.

Noah's 7th Birthday Party!

Noah's Ninja Birthday Party!

 Last Saturday, Rocketman and me celebrated Noah's 7th birthday with a ninja themed party put on by his Mom and Dad.  Invited were his entire 1st grade class and some neighbors.  But because it was a holiday week a lot of kids were on vacation and the party ended up with 8 or so kids.  The kids had so much fun from checking out the baby chicks to playing Just Dance.

                                        Rocketman spent time keeping little Ez occupied.

We also did a clay project. We made a little polymer clay ninja. Here are the instructions so you can make your own ninja.

 

Polymer Clay Ninja

 

Materials:

Polymer clay: black, beige (flesh) and apple green

 

Instructions:

1. Sword - Roll a 1/4" green ball into a 1 1/2" long tapered log. Bake according to manufacturer's instructions and let cool.

2. Body - Roll a 7/8" black ball into a cone.

3. Arms - Roll two 3/8" black balls into tapered logs and press onto each side of the body. Hands - Roll two 3/16" beige balls into teardrops and press onto each arm.

4. Head - Roll a 11/16" black ball. Face - Flatten a 1/4" beige ball into an oval and press onto head. Eyes - Roll two 1/16" black balls and press onto face. Press head onto body.

5.  Press sword into the hands and position.

6. Bake according to manufacturer's instructions.

 





Here are their creations which I baked during the party.  They cooled in time to send home with each child. It was a fantastic time.

Tie-Dying With Noah

We had the grandkids for New Year's Eve so Noah and I got our crafty on.  I had some leftovers from tie dying the baby onesie.  It was also Noah's first time doing this particular craft.  I bought a bunch of t-shirts in different sizes and off we went.  We made two matching sets so the brothers could wear the same t-shirt.

 

We had enough supplies to made a couple of t-shirts for Noah's folks too.

Here we are with little Ez a little bored with it all.

He's such a cutie!!

Abstract Art - Crafting with Noah

I wanted some artwork to go with the new paintjob in the the bathroom and I thought it would be a great idea to have Noah create it for us.  I chose the colors he could use and just let his imagination take off.  He was a little worried to begin with until I showed him some pictures of abstract art and I told him that there are no mistakes and that is what is great about it.

                                                                          He dove it!

This ended up being a whole day affair.  Two of the canvases were quite large and so it took him awhile to paint them.  We took lots of breaks when he got bored but he was always eager to get back to them.

                                                      These are the two for my bathroom.

                                             These are the two he made for his Mom and Dad.

I'm dealing with a nasty cold that has zapped my energy.  I'm taking it easy this week and hoping to feel better soon. 

Cooking with the Grandkids!

We did a bit of cooking while we had the grandkids and I got Noah involved as much as I could.  One night for dinner I decided to make homemade pizzas.  I had never tried it before but I figured it couldn't be that hard.  I used this recipe for the dough and a store bought sauce.  Noah liked cheese pizza so that made it pretty easy.

                                                      He really got into making the dough.

                           I spread the sauce over the dough and he took care of the cheese.

                                  The pizzas turned out great and both kids loved them.

I also decided to try out making cake pops and I had bought a kit.  I had a cake pop mold which made it easy to make the cake pops in the oven or so I thought.

Frosting them turned out to be a challenge.  I followed directions and chilled the cake pops but the icing just turned out to be a little too thick.  Noah didn't mind and he loved how they turned out anyway.

                                                         Ezra sure loved eating "Korean style."

Minnesota State Fair 2012

We decided to take the grandkids to the Minnesota State Fair.  We knew we would get an early start since the kids are usually up by 6:30am.  We got to the fair by 8 and were able to park in the fairgrounds.  We had to remember how to navigate with two little ones.  It's been a long time for us.

               We bypassed this until we were leaving when we bought the kids a little something.

You know it's the Minnesota State Fair when you see these kind of offerings.

 

                                         Spaghetti on a stick!!!  I had never seen that before.

                                                  Noah was hungry and wanted cheese curds. 

                                                I love to watch the product demonstrations.

                                                                        I had to get these!!!

                                                                                  Yummy!

                                                           I saw some Korean at the fair... opa!!!

                                            Ez loved eating a little snowcone with Grandpa.

                                          Noah made a necklace while hearing a story about Jesus.

Then we hit the rides and this is my last photo right before the Tilt O' Whirl started.  I got soooo sick on this ride.  Everything I had eaten almost came up.  I was dying!  I managed to survive the ride but that was it for me.  Noah rode more rides and then wanted to leave which was great with me.  My stomach was upset the rest of the day.  We had a great time but next time I will definitely do the rides first before the food.