Travis' hoop

I am not sure Travis called his a hula hoop so I will just call it a hoop. I let him use a pipe cutter himself.

I am NOT suggesting you let your child use one. It has a blade inside and all children (and parents) are different. Travis was very careful and I watched him the entire time.
He was excited when he got this far (about 5 minutes of cutting).
A few more minutes and he cut the hose in two.

He made his a bit short for the thickness of the tube. I was tempted to tell him that but I thought I would just let him learn on his own. I will talk about the differences between his and Demi's sometime in the next few days. I will ask him if he wants to try making a few more different sizes and then compare how they look and work. I doubt he will make another one this week because he really wants to use what hose is left to make a phone from one end of the yard to the other. I didn't take any pictures of his hoop after he cut it. Baby Zee woke up and I had to care for her. I think he painted his after he attached the ends together. He used duck tape to connect the ends on his hoop. I will try to remember to take a picture of it tomorrow. His has a large bend in it because the hose is to short and firm to bend together nice. He is very happy with it. After all, he got to use a pipe cutter, duck tape, and water pipe to make something. I think that was more important to him than having a perfect circle.

DIY Hula hoop

We wanted to make a huge marble run, the other day. Travis asked if we had any tubes around. I dug around in the garage and dug out a large amount of water tubing. We couldn't use it for the marble run because our marbles wouldn't fit in the tube so we had to come up with other ideas. We decided to try and make some hula hoops. We did this right after painting so Demi is a MESS! The shirt she has on is her "painting top". It is one of Travis' old shirts I use to cover her up when she is painting.

Here is my messy child adding handfuls of rice in her water pipe.



After many handfuls she decided to pour all of the rice in the pitcher into her tube.
She taped the ends together.

She asked if she could paint it . I didn't think paint would show up well on black so she added some tape to paint on.She painted the tape to decorate her hoop.
I came up with this project as a way to play with materials we had at our house. If I was purchasing materials to make this project I think I would have done it a bit different.
I think I would have bought a thinner hose. I would have looked to see if Lowe's sells a clear tube and if they did add color rice, paper confetti, ribbons, and such inside it. I would have looked for a color other than black. I would have either stuck something to the inside the tube (spot the ends meet) so it couldn't bend any at that spot or bought a thin hose connector to slip over the ends. If I couldn't find anything like that to work I think I would have added some hot glue to the ends or use a stronger tape to attach the ends.
I did think about all of this when we made it but I didn't feel any of that was worth the money or the effort. Plus doing that stuff would have made it my project NOT Demi's. Demi was having a blast and that is all I cared about. We had loads of fun. We used only stuff we had on hand, and after all, it is a hula hoop for a girl just turning 3 (she doesn't know how to use a hula hoop the right way. If she had an interest in hula hoops I am sure I would have done it different.

We made them almost a week ago and Demi has tossed it,walked on it, played in it, and played very rough (abused) it and it is still holding together. It is on our porch in very humid 90 deg. weather. I am very surprised it only has a tiny bend in it. I thought by now the ends would have slipped loose.

Crafty Children

After Travis saw Daddy's parachute man Travis sat down and started painting peg people.

Demi gave her cars and trucks a fresh coat of paint.
I guess Travis likes to craft.... Look he is smiling!
My cookie and paint covered little girl.

Summer fun! Paint clean up is a little easier outside. I carry the plastic table over to the hose and spray it down.

Crafty Daddy!

Daddy made this for Travis yesterday.

My hubby says he is not crafty but it looks very crafty to me! He took a wooden dowel and made it look like a man (used markers). He drilled a hole and ran some ribbon (couldn't find string) and tied it to a grocery bag. It is a little parachute man! He works! I bet my children make up a lot more of them this summer. Don't you agree Rob has a crafty side?