Rainbow Day

This is another example of just how much we have fun together. Life is meant to be full of flavor and enjoyed, not just endured. It's meant to be shared too. The people in your life have a huge impact on you, you just need to make sure they're making the right impact. My friends build me up, and encourage me so much. I pray that I in return have opportunities to build them up and bless them back.

This summer we chose a rainbow for our theme day, a promise of God's love for us.

"When the rainbow appears in the cloud, I'll see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and everything living, every last living creature on Earth." Genesis 9:16

We started the day off with the color RED. We treated our Rainbow Day a little bit like a scavenger hunt. We were on a mission and that mission was to explore all the colors of the rainbow. Some of the colors we found in the house, some outside in the backyard, and some as far away as our car took us. It was a lot of fun and we had a different activity for each color.

For RED we made homemade playdough! I've included the recipe too, in case you'd like to try making some of your own playdough.

• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 tablespoon cream of tartar
• Food coloring
• 1 cup flour

1. Combine water, oil, salt, cream of tartar, and food coloring in a saucepan and heat until warm.
2. Remove from heat and add flour.
3. Stir, then knead until smooth. The cream of tartar makes this dough last 6 months or longer, so resist the temptation to omit this ingredient if you don't have it on hand.
4. Store this dough in an airtight container or a Ziploc freezer bag.

If you couldn't guess, Ariel made this cardinal!

My mother's handiwork

It's time for YELLOW, my favorite color. Our mission took us all the way to the backyard this time. We relaxed a little and shared some frozen bananas together. They make a wonderful, nutritious snack for a hot day. Much better for you than a popsicle too! They are very simple to make. You just need to peel the bananas. Cut them in half, and then dip them in some lemon juice to keep them from turning brown. Add a popsicle stick to it, and freeze. It's easier to freeze them on a cookie sheet first, then you can later put them in a ziploc bag and they won't stick together. Very Yummy Treat!




GREEN, another one of my favorite colors! This time we took a few minutes to draw with some sidewalk chalk. We tried to come up with as many green things as we possibly could think of. There are green grapes, trees, dinosaurs, snowmen?, leaves, frogs, turtles, watermelons, flowers, apples, and even green spiderwebs.

I believe Mark is working very intently on a green frog.

Now for some reason BLUE, was the kids favorite thing. I would think they might grow tired of swimming, but no. Swimming is a classic activity for children, that never gets old.

After working very diligently on our colors all morning, we took a break to stop for lunch. We tried to incorporate all the colors of the rainbow into our food. This is what we came up with, a very tasty meal, colorful, and very kid friendly. And if you couldn't find it, no, we are not missing blue. The plate is blue!

For the color PURPLE we had to go as far as our cars could take us, to the playground. I don't know how well you can see it from the picture, but the ground is even purple here!

We all got back in our cars, and headed home for a delicious, tasty, cool drink, ORANGE Julius. I found this recipe online, and it was WONDERFUL. If you're ever in need of some cool refreshment, this will do the trick for you.

6 oz. frozen orange juice concentrate
1 cup milk
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
10-15 ice cubes

1. Combine all ingredients except ice cubes in blender.
2. Blend for about 1-2 minutes, adding ice cubes one at a time.

We were very fortunate to have our friend Michelle with us on her birthday. Gabe whispered in her ear that this whole day had been a surprise party just for her. So sweet!

A RAINBOW birthday cake!

She did a great job of blowing out all her candles, didn't miss a single one!

We finished all the colors of the rainbow, and decided the fun should not stop there. Now it was time to put them all together! The kids ran around through some rainbow colored smoke bombs!

This is a great idea if you have lots of old crayons that the kids no longer want to use. You can recycle those short little crayons that are too small to grip, into a new RAINBOW crayon.


And what a beautiful picture you can make with your new crayons!
I think what made RAINBOW day just perfect, we all went to the backyard to make our very own rainbow. It was a success!! We adults were much more impressed than the children were! All you need is a sprinkler or hose with a fine mist, and a bright sunny day. Then you have to put on your rainbow eyes, and find that Rainbow.
What a beautiful reminder that God gave us!
Before everyone went home, we took another Rainbow photo, since some of our friends weren't there in the morning for the first picture. Don't we look colorful??


Now it's a beautiful day, so don't let it get away from you!