Super Sudsing Dinosaur Eggs

After seeing on Pinterest this fabulous idea from the blog Red Ted Art's Blog, I just couldn't resist making soap dinosaur eggs. The warmer weather has turned my kids into little mud balls and we already had our Jello egg mold out for Easter - the timing was perfect!

We gathered our supplies: melt and pour glycerin soap (bought 40% off at Hobby Lobby), a pourable measuring cup, tiny dinos, and our Jello egg mold

Can you feel the excitement?

Levi was really fascinated by the texture of the soap - before it was melted and after.

First we put our little baby dinos into the mold. Having never done this before, I started off by just making 3. One for each child.

Levi was really, really interested in this project. Clayton was semi-interested - he had already moved on to something else at this point. And Clarey, well she thought the solid soap was ice and wanted to eat it so I had already moved her and given her something else to keep her occupied.

After we melted the soap in the microwave, very slowly - per package directions, I very carefully poured it into the mold. A very tiny funnel would have been helpful. Levi just couldn't get enough of feeling the soap. The melted soap was so different from the solid pieces.

Then we had to wait. This was the patience portion of the lesson. Only an hour. But to Levi this was eternity.

After the soap had cooled, we unmolded them. Look! One is already trying to hatch!

The kids thought it would be easy to hatch them. They'd just pick away at them like they've done with other eggs. If only it had been so easy...

I gave them a tub of water in a very deep sink and let them play with these super sudsing eggs. My younger two played so nicely together for over 30 minutes as they squished and tried to grip and made bubbles and worked so hard to get those baby dinosaurs out. Clayton played in the bathroom sink, not wanting to compete for water. This did make for some very quiet time in our home. And I did get a lot done while they played. Yes, I did have quite a bit of water to clean up off the floor once they were done, but it was well worth it.

A Dinosaur Dig

After reading about the Missouri dinosaur dig site, the boys have been so excited about digging for dinosaurs. I took 8 little plastic dinosaurs and put them in a sand dough. After letting it dry for 3-4 days, I created this dig site. I layered on play clay, sand, pea gravel and mud.

We also had a grid so we could record where on our dig site we found the dinosaurs.

We had a variety of tools. The boys thought they'd be able to just use their fingers, but quickly realized it's not so easy to dig out "fossils."

After getting through all the layers, the boys began chiseling out the dinosaurs. (At this point, Clarey had lost interest and I was inside dealing with her - so no pictures!) All in all they excavated 8. They recorded their find on the grid and washed up the fossils. They couldn't believe how long it took to get to the fossil layer and then how hard it was to get them out.

It was a great sensory experience, team work challenge and a test of their patience and persistance. Our next museum trip will be to the Bollinger County Museum of Natural History to see the Missouri dinosaur - the Hysibema, a hadrosaur - and all of the other fossils there.

A Dino-mite Birthday Party

I decided to have the boys' birthday party a little early. I knew I could do more and enjoy the party more if I had the party before the baby. The theme was, what else?, dinosaurs.


As favors, I made paper mache eggs and filled them with a few dinosaur goodies that the kids got to "hatch" out.


For the younger guests, I snatched up hats in the dollar section at Target and painted them a paleontologist tan. I added a dinosaur patch, "Digging for Dinosaurs," and the child's name.


The main activity of the party was the fossil dig. I had shovels, brushes and magnifying glasses ready for the little paleontologists to use.

A simple banner hung over the site, showed the kids where to dig.

Clayton couldn't wait to get his hand in the dirt. He'd been waiting days knowing about the fossils and hadn't been able to get into them.

Levi really liked the magnifying glass, though he wasn't quite sure what to really do with it.


Ashley loved the tools, but not the dirt.

Digging, digging, digging...

found! To make the "fossils" I bought a dinosaur bone sand mold kit and used quick setting concrete that I then painted white. I did three full sets of bones and not all were found!

After all of that hard work, we needed refueling. Dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets were for the carnivores of the group, while french fries and veggies were for our herbivores. We also had "Swamp Juice" (lemonade poured over Pop Rocks) to drink.

What's a birthday party without a cake? A dinosaur party wouldn't be complete without a cake featuring a volcano, some footprints and dinosaurs. (I cheated on the dinosaurs and used these really cute little dinosaur candles my mom sent me.)

The boys got to pick the flavors - chocolate for the top two tiers was Clayton's choice and strawberry for the bottom was Levi's.

Blowing out the candles was lots of fun...

...but not quite as much as eating it. Clayton couldn't resist while waiting for a fork.

Levi ate every morsel off of his plate. It's a wonder he took a nap at all! Thank you to all of our friends who came to help us celebrate! It was a great party!

Campfires to Dinosaurs

Well, I wasn't going to update this until August, but we've been so busy I've got lots to add.
Cyle's been wanting to take Clayton camping. It's not really worked out for us to go anywhere, so last weekend they were going to camp in our woods. But they were calling for thunderstorms, so we settled for a campfire and a hot dog and marshmallow roast. Clayton thought it was very cool to put a hot dog on a stick and even better when we did "icing" marshmallows. He didn't really care if they were roasted or not. And the best part was - we all got to sleep in our soft, comfortable beds as the thunderstorm raged on.


One day last week, I had to run downtown for some errands and wanted to give Clayton a break from the car so we stopped in at the Children's Museum. Ottawa has a FABULOUS children's museum inside the Museum of Civilization. We spent the entire morning outside in their Adventure World where Clayton got to play games from around the world, dig in a giant sandbox with" 'chines" (machines) and he even got to build a boat and float it in a small river. He had a blast and was pretty much asleep before we got out of the parking garage.

This week we traveled to Morrisburg, Ontario (about an hour away) with some friends to visit Prehistoric World. Two brothers (sculptors) have created over 50 life-sized dinosaurs that are in the woods along a walking trail.
Clayton ran from dinosaur to dinosaur and at each one would say, "Dine-saur!" like it was the first one we had seen. They were really well done. The size was definitely amazing. We had a picnic lunch around a sand pit where the kids could dig up dinosaur bones. It was such a fun day. Thanks, Laura, for taking us!
Have a great last week of July!