Making messes

Homemade play-dough

The children wanted to help me make play-dough. Their old play-dough had been drying out from being played with so much and also got left out a few times. We love making our own play-dough. It's cheap and we love the consistency of it, and there's only one color which means no fighting over colors!After we make play-dough we get to play with it!

Play-dough Recipe

1/2 cup salt
1 cup flour
2 tsp. cream of tarter
1 Tblsp. vegetable oil
1 cup water
food coloring

Combine all dry ingredients and oil in a saucepan. Add food coloring to the water until desired color is reached. Gradually add water to other ingredients. Cook over low heat stirring continually until dough forms a ball and is no longer sticky. Cool and store in an air-tight container. (From an old Young Women Leader- Paige Nemrow)

Homemade finger-paint

We had this big long piece of brown paper that had been used as packing material in a package we got. I ironed it and then it was just begging to be finger-painted. So, I looked up a recipe online and made some finger-paint. We made 5 different colors.
And had a fun and messy time painting away!And making hand prints, then smearing them.

Finger-paint recipe

• One-cup flour
• 1 1/4 cups hot water
• 1 1/2 cups cold water
• Two-tablespoons salt
• Food coloring or tempera paint

Mix the flour, salt, and cold water in a saucepan. Beat the mixtures (with whisk or rotary beater) until smooth. Add the hot water and boil it until the mixture is thick. Beat until smooth. Add food coloring to add color. Store this in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
(http://www.everythingpreschool.com/recipes/paint/finger.htm)

I enjoy doing things like this with my children, but I just don't do it enough. I wish I did it more often. I've found when I take time to involve them in an activity with me our whole day goes much more smoothly.

Poopy day

Yesterday was a poopy day. Rebekah pooped in her pants during nap time and stuck her hands in it and got it all over herself and her floor and a couple of blankets. That took about 15 minutes to clean up (not counting laundry time).

Then, not more than two hours later Marc pooped in his pants. (Two poop accidents in one day is normal at our house, but these were the two most messy AND in the same day.) So I walked him to bathroom and started cleaning him up. As I was I realized that there had to have been more poop that must have fallen out of his underwear and shorts because his underwear wasn't too messy, but his leg was covered. So, I thought I'd better go find the "fallen poop" after I finish cleaning him up. Anyway, I got him cleaned up and by this time Hyrum was fussing so I sent Marc to his room to get clean clothes and went to check on Hyrum. Well, Hyrum was covered in poop. He had it all over his face- YUCK!- his hands his clothes, his feet and sandals. He had two toy animals in his hands and they were covered in poop, he had managed to smear it all over one half of the couch and it was all over the kitchen floor. By this time I figured I had three options: clean it up crying, clean it up yelling, or clean it up laughing. I decided to laugh- it was much more pleasant than my other two options. I got Hyrum in the bath and confined the other to their bedroom to play until I got things cleaned up. After Hyrum's bath I scrubbed the couch and floor and toys and sandals for probably 30 minutes.

So all in all I spent over an hour cleaning poop yesterday- what fun!
Sorry this a no picture post. I figured I'd spare you that kind of detail. :)

Fire!

This morning I woke up to the smoke alarm going off. I jumped out of bed and grabbed my glasses (of all things.) We rushed the children out the front door and to the mail boxes (our designated meeting spot.) Timothy said he thought the fire was in the oven. He left us outside and went back in to check on things. Sure enough there was a fire in the oven. Here's how we figure it happened.

Timothy and the children had been up for about an hour and were letting me sleep in because I wasn't feeling well. Timothy had made muffins for breakfast and got them into the oven. Then, he went to change Hyrum's diaper. While he was changing him Brigham must have grabbed a measuring cup and an empty box of pepto bismal and opened the oven and tossed them in. Then they caught on fire and set the smoke detector off. (We found white melted plastic and half a burned pepto box in the oven after it cooled down.) Brigham said he threw a measuring cup in there. He also said that he would never do that again. (I hope he keeps his word.)

A scary bath

We normally bathe the children on Saturday nights to prepare for church, but we had been busy the night before and so ended up bathing them on Sunday morning before church. This was Sunday, March 14th.

I had just gotten them into the tub and they were playing happily so I stepped out for just a minute to grab church clothes. Just as I was grabbing the last pair of socks and heading back into the bathroom I heard a loud crash and then all three children started screaming. I ran the last few steps into the bathroom and saw this:
Glass all over the bathroom floor. I ran to the tub and it too was filled with glass. Hyrum had gotten the glass sliding shower door out of it's track by swinging it out and it went back and slammed against the other glass door and shattered. (looks like ice, but no, it's all glass)

I was in a panic when I realized what happened and yelled for Timothy who was shaving. We grabbed the children out of the tub as fast as we could. I noticed right away that Hyrum's arm was bleeding- no spurting blood, thankfully. The children were all covered in glass. Since Hyrum was bleeding the worst I took him and put him in the sink to try to wash off all the glass and see how badly he was cut. He was bleeding all over, but in was a miracle that he wasn't hurt worse. Only about 20 minor cuts and four bigger cuts on his left arm and another on his right hand.

Since I had the sink occupied and there were still two children covered in glass. Timothy took Rebekah and held her up under the shower- which made her cry more- to wash off the glass. Then, he set her on the changing table with her towel while he did the same thing with Brigham. By that time I was done with Hyrum so I wrapped the boys up in towels and took them into their room with two boxes of band aids. We spent about 20 minutes drying off and putting band aids on. Brigham didn't have too many bad cuts, but he probably had about 500-1000 little nics all over his body. They didn't bleed, but they were red and probably itched. His knees got the worst cuts. For a few days he asked if he could sit to pray instead of kneel because his knees hurt. But, that was a week ago and he's back to kneeling.

Rebekah was the furthest away from the glass door when it broke. She only had a few cuts on her feet mostly, but a few on her legs and one on her hand.

After looking at how much glass was in the tub I realized that it truly was a miracle that we didn't end up rushing them to the emergency room or calling 911.

1. It was a miracle the children froze when the glass broke instead of scrambling trying to get out. If they had scrambled their feet and probably hands would have gotten cut badly.
2. It was a miracle that though they were covered in glass- it was even in their hair- that none of their faces had even a scratch.
3. It was a miracle I was wearing shoes or I would have gotten all cut up trying to get my babies out. (I normally wear my socks until it's time to walk out the door on Sunday mornings, but that particular morning I just had the thought when I was getting dressed, "I should put my shoes on so that I don't have to worry about it later." - prompting from the spirit.
4. It was a miracle that they weren't afraid to take a bath on Wednesday.
5. It was a miracle (if this had to happen) that it happened when Timothy was home to help me take care of three screaming, bleeding, glass-covered toddlers.
6. It was a miracle that my friend, Katrina, offered to help me clean up the tub on Tuesday because I was slightly traumatized and didn't have the will-power to do it myself.
7. It was a miracle that I had finished putting my thoughts together for my talk in church the night before, because I didn't have time to touch it Sunday morning.
8. It's a miracle we made it to church on time and the children were recovered emotionally enough to go to church.

Now, a week later, most of the little cuts have healed and the larger ones are getting there.
We now have a shower curtain instead of glass doors in our bathroom.

It could have been worse, I know the Lord was watching out for us and protecting my babies and for that I am grateful!

The power of powder

Brigham and Rebekah got into the pantry and decided to make "muffins" for me. They mixed the rest of my jar of baking powder and the rest of a salt canister in mixing bowls. Later (after the photos were taken) they added left over muffins, crumbled. Tasty!




Hyrum got into the pantry and got out the cocoa. He decided to taste it too.


Brigham and Rebekah got into the baby powder in the bathroom and managed to cover the bathroom with a fine layer of powder.



Rebekah had wanted to put some baby powder on her bottom, hence the almost naked girl. Brigham saw the fun she was having and decided to join in. It took me a half hour to get the powder cleaned up and there was still a layer of powder that wouldn't wash up coating every surface in the bathroom.




Rebekah climbed onto the counter and decided she needed a little more salt in her life.

(This was actually a few weeks ago, and happened over a two day span, but we've been busy so I haven't had a chance to post it yet.)