Oobleck

My girls love Oobleck and we've made it a couple of times in the past.  Bug has been asking me to make it again so I whipped up a batch and they took it outside and played with it until it fell apart.

OOBLECK

1 cup water
1.5 cups cornstarch (more if needed)

  

And that's it!  We added some food coloring to ours to make it pretty but it's not necessary to enjoy it.


I made them take the bowl outside and told them they could do whatever they wanted with it.  Needless to say they both were practically covered by the time they finished.

They asked to make it again the next weekend and this time we made a pretty green color.

The more you play with this the drier it gets so you might want to have a cup of water handy to rehydrate it occasionally.  My girls enjoyed using it as chalk when it started to dry out.
They made so much of this that we ran out of cornstarch!

My August Book Pile

I started the month of August strong with my reading and started shooting through books like crazy.  About halfway through the month the girls started back at school and my sporadic work hours turned back into daily shifts.  My writing just kind of dropped off and I had to scramble at the end of the month to finish up a few things I was forcing myself to get through.

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill was my favorite this month.  I've mentioned before that I LOVE Joe Hill.  So far my top three books this year include two by him and one by his dad.  NOS4A2 wasn't as fun as The Fireman but I still raced through this behemoth because his world-building is just so top-notch.  Christmasland was written about in such amazing detail that I could picture it perfectly.  Fun fact:  If you Google this book when you're done reading there is a lot of great fanart that bring the story to life even more.

Ollie's Odyssey by William Joyce was a close second for me which was a surprise.  Honestly I only ordered this from my library because I thought the cover was cute and that it would be a fun picture book for Bug.  Color me shocked when I get handed a giant chapter book.  I was going to just take it back but Goose picked it up one day and told me she liked it a lot so I read it after her.  The story was beautiful, about a little boy who loses his favorite stuffed toy and searches for him.  The illustrations are what put this book over the top for me.  They were gorgeous.

 How could I not love this?

I was pretty proud of myself for reading another nonfiction book again this month.   It was around 300 pages of nothing but the history of the Post Office and while I had a lot of problems with some things I still kind of enjoyed it.  History is my jam.

I am most proud of finishing off the Narnia series and finally completing Crime and Punishment which has honest to god taken me 8 months to get through.  It was a chore. 

The Chronicles of Narnia Wrap-Up

My Bug and I started reading the Narnia series this year and we powered through all seven books but believe me, it took a lot of willpower.

Neither of us liked this series to be honest.  Bug says she liked The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but that's just because she's seen the movie several times and was able to follow along easier with the book even when the writing confused her.

I think that was my biggest problem with this series.  It seems like a Middle Grade type book but the speeches from some of the characters felt like eighteenth century classic literature.  It was really hard for Bug to tell me what the plot was sometimes.  She normally asks questions as we read and sits patiently waiting for the exciting parts but when I read these books she pretty much ignored me the whole time.  I finished the final three pages of the last book by myself because after almost seven books of this world she was just done with it all.

This is a popular classic kid series that I'm glad I was able to cross off my TBR list but I'm disappointed Bug isn't going to look back on it as a well-beloved read aloud with her mommy.

Oh well.  There's always Beverly Cleary.  Her stuff is like sugar to my kid.

Funko Collection

I have a bit of a Funko Pop obsession and it's been very hard for me to try and stop buying so many to save some money up.  They're usually less than ten dollars so buying one here and there is no big deal and it's only when you see them all together that I'm finally like
oh
...
That's a lot of money...

So since I'm on a Funko Pop ban for a while I wanted to showcase my collection as it stands right now.  These are just the ones that I claim.  The other three in the house have their own collections.

My Star Wars collection is small compared to how many there are but I still am happy with it.  There's not really any more Pop's I want to add to it so I think that unless I just randomly come across one later that I like I am saying this is complete.  (I do want Queen Amidala but unfortunately she is very, very expensive.)  My favorite is Darth Maul, of course.  He's been my favorite Star Wars character since high school and I'm not even ashamed that I had a birthday cake of him.

 

The Avengers pops are my biggest collection.  I don't have all of them but this is still a pretty big percentage of what is out there.  Vision was the first Funko I bought and Paul Bettany is the star of my favorite move of all time, Legion, so of course this Funko was destined to be my favorite.

Eventually I would like to buy Twelve to add to my Doctor Who collection.  I love his version of the Doctor, I just haven't had a chance to pick him up yet.  Ten is forever my favorite Doctor though.

Leeloo from the Fifth Element and Diablo from Suicide Squad have to stick together since they're the only ones from their series that I wanted.

Pocahontas is another who's all alone.  The only other character in her series is Meeko but I can't get Meeko and not have Flick, too.

Last we have the Game of Thrones section of my bookshelf.  I only bought one for each book so that's why I stopped at five.  I wanted to buy my favorite character from each book that I read and Tyrion came first since he's the king of Westeros to me.  I watched the series while I was reading the fifth book so that's why Sam's in there instead of a book character.  I loved him from the show more than I loved any one person in the book.  The only thing I regret from this collection is that I have Dany and not Littlefinger's Funko.  After watching the tv show I really don't like her character anymore and would love to go back and buy his instead.

Goose's Birthday!

My little Goose turned 11 last month and it seems like she turned into a tiny little woman overnight.  Momma doesn't like it :(

She is really into a computer game called Transformice and for her birthday all she wanted was a gift card to use to buy some stuff for her character on it.  Easy peasy done.  We also bought her a used desk off an auction site for only $30 because she's in junior high now and I know she'll need somewhere just for herself to read, study, craft, write, anything she wants to do.  I really wanted to buy her a nice antique one that she can use for years and pass down but that will have to wait until I can save up for it.  This one is pretty nice though and she seems to like it a lot so that's all that matters.

She had a sleepover with her best friend and we went to Fazoli's and to see the new Ghostbusters movie.  When we came home we had her cake that she decorated all by herself (it's a mouse since she loves Transformice so much).

I love how she's growing up and becoming a mature little lady but sometimes I miss that tiny baby who slept on my arm every night and who would sit in my lap all day while we watched Noggin and read books.  Sweet Goose I love you so much.

My July Book Pile

I went a little overboard in July...
Like-
A little too much overboard.

 

There wasn't really anything I wanted to watch on TV since Game of Thrones ended so I decided to spend all of my free time just reading.  And I accomplished that with a bang.

Most of these are library books that were due back at different times so I wasn't able to get a pic of the whole pile but I imagine it would have been glorious.  As in, won't even fit into the frame properly kind of glorious.

Two of these books are more than 700 pages which is almost like reading two books in one so I'm especially proud of myself for how much I accomplished.  I absolutely hated A Little Life and it was pure torture to finish it, but the other doorstop I read (Alexander Hamilton) was actually pretty good and even though it was dense it was really interesting.

My favorite was Paper and Fire by Rachel Caine which is the second book in The Great Library series.  I still wish there was a little more character building but the universe is so in-depth that I am okay with more of it and less character buildup. 

I disliked quite a bit of this month's books, unfortunately.  As I said above, I hated A Little Life and had to force myself to finish it.  I couldn't even finish Rome but since I read 230 pages of it before giving up I'm still counting it as a full book on my list.   Most of the books I read this month received 2-3 stars and I hate that.  I miss loving everything I'm reading.

St. Louis Magic House

The girls and I took an all-day trip to St. Louis where we left at 7 in the morning and didn't pull back into the driveway until 9 at night.  We crammed a lot into our day and I hope the two girls loved it as much as mommy did.

They've gone to the Magic House a couple of times but it's been years since our last trip and they have been begging to go back.  I really honestly thought they might be a bit too old for it but after almost five hours I was proven wrong.  They had an absolute blast and I'm so happy I let them lead the way and explore wherever they chose to go.

The Magic House is gigantic and it's pretty much impossible to get a good photo of the entire thing. 

Their favorite part of the Magic House is always the little village where you can explore and go into themed rooms and every time we've gone there's been new rooms added.  They probably spent the most time in the library because they're my little booknerds.  You can make your own library card and scan books out like a real librarian and they got such a kick out of that.

Another popular spot was the art area.  This is a new one for us but it was practically heaven for my two creative girls.  They have a craft bucket at home that isn't as popular as it used to be but they are still such big lovers of being creative.

Outside in the garden area they had a special summer beach exhibit.  We didn't go inside since the girls had tennis shoes on and the thought of them climbing back into my car with sandy feet made me cringe.  If I had known about it though I would have sent them with flip-flops and play clothes because it looked like a lot of fun.

After we left we made a beeline for IKEA.  We've never been to one before and we were excited to check it out and grab some supper.

I got the famous meatballs and they completely exceeded my expectations.  I can't wait to go back and have them again!