The Minneapolis Color Run

We just attended the Minneapolis Color Run, “the happiest 5K on the planet.” I love everything colorful, and this was an event to remember. There is an amazing color party at the finish line.

The color cloud is made from a special blend of colored cornstarch that is safe and natural. They hand out a packet of color to each racer, and then there are more bags of color available for purchase. They are designed to be exploded into the air, but my kiddos enjoyed throwing the color at each other, and basically having all all out color fight. It was a blast!

Kaleb made a colorful water bottle popper, by adding some of the powdered paint to the bottle. Another fun way to make a colorful explosion. Follow the link for instructions on how to make one.

This is my current favorite family photo. I love how colorful we are!

A few tips if you plan on attending a Color Run:

Wear white shirts! Be prepared for the color to get everywhere.
Sunglasses are a must! They will help protect your eyes!
Bring old sheets or towels to cover the seats for the car ride home. It worked great for us, and minus a bit of color on the seat belts our car is color free.
Use a zip-lock bag to try to keep your camera clean and dust free. The color dust will get everywhere, so just be prepared.
Sign up early! Spots fill up really fast. However, the event is free and totally family friendly. Even if you are not a runner, this event is for you. The color party is open to everyone.

They had a guy that was blowing everyone off as they left. The kids decided that they did not want to get blown off since they still wanted to be colorful. Ha! I tried to explain that it would just remove the loose color, but nope they wanted to keep all their color. They were not ready to give any of it up! I love those kids!

This is a great family event! My kids LOVED it. I’m sure this will be something that they will be talking about for a really long time.

The Smell Eraser

Kaleb was given a Super Stinky Experiment Kit a while ago. I was a little leery of the “super stinky” label, but since The Smell Eraser experiment involves spices from the kitchen I decided it was probably the safest of the bunch to try first.

Materials to build your own Smell Eraser:

2 paper cups
Sharpie
Ground Cinnamon
Cocoa
Teaspoon
Water
Spoon for stirring

Using the sharpie pen, mark one cup “A” and the other cup “B”

Cup A

4 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
4 teaspoons of cocoa
Add 1 teaspoon of water
Stir all ingredients until well mixed and the spices are damp.

Cup B

Measure 4 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
Add 1 teaspoon of water
Stir until well mixed

Now that you have everything all set up, you are ready to begin your magic show and erase your audiences sense of smell.

First have your subject tell you what cup “A” and cup “B” smell like.

Next, have your subject take 10 whiffs of cup “A” and then take 10 whiffs of cup “B”. Quickly have them go back and sniff cup “A”.

What does cup “A” smell like now?

The kids were amazed by this simple smell eraser trick. When you smell one order for a really long time, your olfactory receptors get a little tired out. They become temporarily unable to smell that particular order anymore. This is called an odor adaptation or odor fatigue. Since you are smelling lots of cinnamon in this experiment, your olfactory receptors go “on strike” and you can only smell the cocoa.

Pretty cool. This also happens when you first walk into a house, car, room etc that has a strong odor. As a result, that initial waft of turkey dinner that everyone comments on as they walk your house is soon a case of odor fatigue. Initially it is a wonderful strong smell that soon fads into the background. Our body is pretty amazing!

Have fun playing with this simple smell eraser experiment and enjoy learning about your sense of smell.

Here is a link to a fun list of great experiments that my kids love.

Carrot Cake Pancakes

Simple Fall Recipe ~ Carrot Cake Pancakes

My kiddos love pancakes and have a bit of a sweet tooth. When I told them that we were having carrot cake pancakes for breakfast they were super excited. What could be better than mixing a normal breakfast food combined with cake! Yummy!

These pancakes are light, fluffy and delicious! If you love carrot cake, then you have to try this recipe. I stumbled upon this recipe on Multiply Delicious, when searching for something to spice up our Saturday morning routine. It has since become part of our recipe rotation.

Carrot Cake Pancakes

1 1/4 cup white whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup low fat butter milk (I use the milk we have on had, often 1percent and it works great)
1 TB canola oil
1 1/2 tsp vanila
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups of freshly grated carrots (it takes about 1 lb of carrots to make 2 cups grated
Butter or cooking spray for your pan

Combine flour and the next 6 ingredients (through nutmeg) in a bowl. Stir with a whisk. Next combine brown sugar and the next 4 ingredients (through eggs); add sugar mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Finally, gently fold in 2 cups of grated carrots. Stirring just until combined.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Coat pan with butter or cooking spray. Spoon batter (about a 1/4 cup for each pancake) onto pan, spreading gently with the cake of your spoon. Cook for 2 minutes or until tops are covered with little bubbles and edges start to look cooked. Carefully turn pancakes over; cook 1 minute or until bottoms are lightly browned. Repeat procedure for the remaining batter.

These are perfect when served warm with honey butter or cream cheese sauce. Both are delightful, although the kids are partial to the honey butter! Follow the link to the recipes.

This is a little tip for keeping your pancakes warm and yummy while waiting for the rest of the batch to cook. Heat your oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit and place a metal cooling rack on a cookie sheet in the oven. This will help keep your pancakes hot, but also keep them from getting soggy.

If your are lucky enough to have any left overs, these make great honey sandwiches. Use the pancakes as the sandwich bread, and spread with honey. This is one of my kids favorite sandwiches in their lunch, but they also make an easy to go breakfast when you are rushing out the door. Quick and nutritious, got to love that.

Check out this fun list of fall ideas!

Turn your smartphone into a Microscope

My friend brought over one of the coolest little gadgets that I have seen! This fun little pocket microscope is portable and inexpensive which makes it perfect for our family. You can use it to turn your smartphone into a microscope.

Currently these microscopes are selling for under $5 on amazon! They are intended for Jewelers, but works great for learning and exploring with kids! You will be surprised at what these little 45x microscopes can do, plus the price is right:)

The great thing about this little microscope is that it is totally portable. No expensive science lab is needed, and you don’t have to use prepared slides. This little guys can go anywhere you want it to, and you can conduct your observations right where you are. The things to view are endless, but here are a few thoughts…plants, trees, the sand, dirt, the water in a pond, flowers, seeds, the carpet, the food that you are eating, insects, your arm…the list of new discoveries is endless.

My kids love pretending they are scientists. The kids loved discovering things in our back yard up close and finding things that you never knew were there. We were viewing our regular surroundings in a whole new way. The kids were totally amazed when they put it to their arms to see skin cells up close. So cool!

As you can see, there is no need for a smart phone to make these little microscopes work. They are great on their own, however check out what else they can do!

The next thing our friends showed us was INCREDIBLE! You can use it with the camera on your smart phone. Instead of only one kid looking through it, you can view things as a group! How cool is that. All you need to do is line up the viewer with your camera on your phone and zoom it way in. It can get a bit tricky to hold everything still, but totally worth it.

Check out how cool that is. Since it is connected to the camera on your phone, you can take creative images of all the cool things that you are discovering and share them with everyone.

I love discovering new learning tools, and I know our family is going to have a ton of fun playing with this little microscope. Plus microscopes are cool, but one that you can carry around your back yard or take with you on a hike is seriously great.

Here is a link to a fun list of great experiments that my kids love.

Water Bottle Fireworks

Since discovering how to shoot the top off a water bottle, Kaleb can’t seem to get enough. We don’t use very many recyclable water bottles, so he is always scrounging for them any where he can. We were at a garage sale the other day and instead of purchasing something fun he asked the lady if he could have their empty water bottles out of their recycling bin. Love it! Go here for a simple tutorial to see how to make a water bottle popper.

We fashioned a simple water bottle firework. You will need…a hot glue gun, curling ribbon used to make gifts cute, and an empty water bottle. Simply place a dot of hot glue on the inside of the cap to hold the ribbon in place. The ribbon will create the “tail” of the firework. Insert the ribbon into the bottle, and screw the cap on. You will need to turn the bottle upside down and tap all the ribbon to the top of the bottle. When you twist the bottle, make sure all the ribbon is in the top “chamber”. When ready to shoot it off, simple aim the bottle and twist the cap. The addition of the ribbon makes these poppers very festive.

Make sure you are cautious when aiming the bottles since they shoot off fast! Next we need to try it with loose confetti. they would make cute DIY party poppers.