Only 3 weeks to go!

Here we are--only 3 weeks until my daughter's first day of Kindergarten.  I cannot believe how fast this summer is going. At the beginning of the summer I had a list of summer activities.  I remember looking at that list and thinking it wasn't nearly enough and now I doubt we'll even finish half of it.  We have kept ourselves busy; however, this past week I have felt like a mom neglecting her child since we had three showings for our house and I have spent much of the last week cleaning. My self-diagnosed OCD goes into overdrive when we have a showing so imagine me on my hands and knees scrubbing every little inch of my kitchen--not a pretty sight. In last couple of weeks we have managed to do some fun art activities, go school shopping, see a couple of free movies at our town's theater, play outside, and attend a festival.  Highlight of the last couple of days was actually getting rain! I haven't seen drought conditions like this in my life and have never been so happy to see rain.

I have gone off track with my order of days so I'm grouping these pictures together in no particular order from the last couple of weeks.

 We had a Game Day! This is a great idea for any family and it costs nothing-if you already have games at home.

 I LOVE Melissa and Doug products! They are so durable and good 'ole fashion fun which children love. This cupcake toy is a blast for kids. They can take the 'frosting' off and put on a different one.  The 'icing' tubes are markers which you can use on the 'frosting' part of the cupcake (they wipe off with paper towel). It also comes with an oven mit, pan, and cupcake holders. Lastly, you can attach a candle on the top (Velcro).   I also recommend the ice cream cone set from Melissa and Doug.

 School Shopping! She was so excited to get a big girl backpack and lunch box. Again, I love Melissa and Doug items!

Barbie Day! Our tomboy does occasionally play with Barbie's.

At the end of our local library's summer reading program names are picked for certain prizes that children were able to sign up to try and win for reading a certain number of books.  Our daughter got this prize. The Color Twister by Crayola is an easy to use paint spinner. It requires no batteries-children simply push the plunger down and it spins. 

Our very first project from Pinterest! I found these two projects on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try. All we needed were crayons (which are dirt cheap right now because of school starting), a canvas board (2 for about $7.00), a hot glue gun, and a blowdryer. 

We hot glued the crayons to the top of the canvas

We then used a blow dryer to melt the crayons as much as we wanted.  For the other art we also used a canvas and simply hot glued crayons into the shape of a letter (although my middle line on my 'E' should have been shorter) and then melted a pink crayon on the tip of the hot glue gun to make the drops and splatters on the canvas. They easily hang on the wall with a nail.  

Has anyone else done a project from Pinterset?  I'd love to hear about it. I'm excited to try even more.