Space Mommy

Got no sleep last night...well, does three-ish hours count? I'm not sure what my problem was...probably just the typical and especially cruel pregnancy-induced insomnia that is your body's way of "preparing" you to wake up every hour or so with a newborn. Fun. The upside of my painful night is that I watched a new cooking show on Tivo at 4:30 a.m. and got some great, easy weekday dinner ideas. The theme of the show was five meals you can make with only one trip to the grocery store. Here are the recipes (click on the link and scroll down to "Episode 408 Supermarket Savvy). Mommy Town always has your back.

We had plans today to hang out with some friends in DC and so I figured I'd make the gas usage worthwhile and have an all-out DC museum day. We had lots of fun splashing and digging in the Children's Garden at the U.S. Botanic Garden (wow, some fancy plants going on there). Then we headed to the National Gallery for a "trip to Paris" art class. The kids got little passports and were "transported" via art and stories to Paris. We sat in front of Renoir's painting "The Pont Neuf, Paris" and talked about what kinds of things we might see, taste, smell, hear if we were in that painting. We talked about the use of light and how you can tell that it is daytime even though you can't see the sun.

And then we read this book...I think a lot of it was over their heads. (Charlie kept shouting out, "when are we going to the rocket museum?" at inappropriate times. ) But they enjoyed making the craft, which was to finger paint with Color Wonder finger paints onto transparent Color Wonder paper that had been affixed to a matted picture of the Eiffel Tower (whew, awkward sentence). The end result was pretty cool and is much more tasteful than most of the kid art we currently have hanging on the wall.

Then we headed over to the "Rocket Museum," a.k.a The Air and Space Museum for some airplane/rocket fun. We hadn't been there in about a year or so, long before Charlie could fully express his absolute love of all things winged. It was an ecstatic experience for him to see all those airplanes and rockets. Truly, he radiated airplane/rocket-induced joy. Emma liked it too. In fact she requested that we have a space party ASAP.

What's a space party you ask? I have no idea. We are making this stuff up as we go. I think we might go to Michaels and purchase one of those kits where you can paint the solar system. That would be fun. While we're at Michaels we might also pick up some Color Explosion art supplies so that we can make our own constellation pictures. I also think it would be cool to get one of those projector things that shines all the constellations on the ceiling, but this is sort of expensive, so instead I might just poke holes in some card stock and stick it over a flashlight. The only thing we're really sure of is that this space party will involve a rocket cake. I might try to talk the kids into some rocket sugar cookies instead because heaven knows I do not need some big rocket cake sitting around the house tempting me for the next week.

Emma really wants the space party to happen tonight. She's already prepping by making princess party hats. (I know that does not really "go" with the space theme, but I am not terribly rigid about these things.) It's unlikely that the space party will happen tonight seeing as I am about to fall asleep as I write this. I think we'll continue the space theme tomorrow when Mommy is fresh and doesn't feel, well, quite so spacey.

Got any other crafty ideas we can do for our space party? Don't keep 'em to yourself. Please share!