Star Crayons!

On one long morning after the boys had enjoyed the cool weather outside, they were ready to come in. Unfortunately, they found nothing productive to do on their own (and I personally don't love the fighting that comes from their boredom) so I decided maybe they would enjoy making star-shaped crayons. It was a hit (and, yes, I did pat myself on the back for that quick-thinking successful project)!

Eli and Micah love tearing the paper off crayons, but I usually discourage it. When I gave them permission to tear off all of the paper from the crayons for this activity, they looked at me in disbelief--and dove right in!

They chose their own colors and filled their star-shaped cupcake liners.

Next, we put them in the oven to melt. The boys kept asking, "Are they crayons, yet?" It was a long 7 minutes for them! When we removed the molds from the oven, the boys were shocked that their crayons were "water." We let them cool while we ate lunch, then the fun part....COLORING!

Besides coloring, the boys also still love helping their dad work on anything! One evening, Paul decided to go out and remove the two dead shrubs from in front of our house, weed the flower beds, and rake the pine needles. Eli and Micah wanted to go and work, too!

I missed most of the sawing and branch removal, but got outside in time to see the three of them digging up the roots. (Eli in green shorts, Micah in black)

Eli and Micah each took a rake and a flowerbed to clean out. They did a pretty good job, but enjoyed putting all the pine needles in the wheelbarrow more than raking them.

They helped Paul push the wheelbarrow to the backyard and dump it out. They also helped us pick up all of the dead branches from the shrubs. They loved helping out and we love how great the flowerbeds look now!