Shaving Cream Creations

All right, I've been a blogging dud for the past week.  But the truth is that this week I've been....boring.  Yes, boring.  Oh sure, we've been to the zoo and we went swimming and we read lots of stories but as far as creativity....NOTHING.  It's not that I don't have lots of ideas swirling around in me head waiting for me to use them.  No, it's that I feel a total sense of summer idleness setting in.  Luckily there's only a few weeks until school starts or I might melt into a blissful puddle of summer goo.  So, I decided to dig into my picture archives to find out what we did for fun when I was using full speed school year style brainpower.

And, this was a good one.  As you may have noticed from post such as shaving cream painting and shaving cream wars, I have an affection for shaving cream.  It's so smooth and moldable and washable and it has so much potential. It's like frosting, or paint...only...more shaving cream like.  So, one day a few months ago the natives were restless and I was trying to think of something to keep everyone busy until dinner time and we found two cans of leftover shaving cream under the bathroom sink.  Did I mention that I love the way that you can spray it out of the can into little designs?  You can use it to make moustaches, eyebrows, and beards.  You can add food coloring, mix it around and paint yourself.  Why would you want to do this?  Because your kids will find it wildly funny.

Then, if its still not time for dinner you can pull out some cake pans, and pretend that you are cake decorators.  We got out the pastry bags and tips, colored our shaving cream like icing, turned our pans upside down, and went to work.  We used spatulas and knives and made some mighty fine looking cakes.  If you try this be sure to put a bowl full of water in the middle of the table to rinse hands and tools in (they can get quite goopy.)

Meanwhile, we smeared it all over the table and then scraped it back into a pile and smeared it all over again. (make sure your table is shaving cream safe...no fancy wood or anything.  You might want to use your countertop)  My kids giggled with glee as they added drops of food coloring and squished their fingers into the goop to mix the new colors in.  It was pure freedom of expression.  And, when we were done we just scraped it all of the table with a spatula, rinsed the dishes in the sink, and wiped ourselves off.  Spontanaiety at it's best.  If you don't have cans of shaving cream on hand I would highly reccomend you stock up.  You never know when a you might need to host a last minute shaving cream creation fest.  Good times.

Shaving Cream Wars

It's Spring break...(translation: we have a lot of time on our hands this week).  Fortunately for us our good friends called this morning with a proposal...a shaving cream war.  I've painted with shaving cream and made myself a beard with shaving cream. I've sprayed shaving cream all over and played with it.  But, I've never had an all out war with it. So I was feeling kind of excited.  Here's all you do:

1.  Dress in swimming suits (this is going to get very messy)
2.  Get a can of shaving cream for each kid (or adult)
3.  Explain the rules, which are:

• The object is to cover each other in shaving cream and just have fun

• Spraying or wiping the shaving cream in the face in not allowed

• You will get sprayed off with the hose when you are done so don't worry about how messy you get

That's pretty much it.  It works better if you spray it in your hand first and then smear or throw it.

 But, if you want to spray it straight out of the can go right ahead.

 Ready? One, two, three, four, let's have a shaving cream war...

There was laughing  and running, slipping and sliding,

crazy hair doos

 and snowman impressions.

And when it was all done we just hosed the kids down and they were off to bake in the sun and play in the water. 

I think they felt quite free.  Good times.  Try it out the next time you want your kids to think you are a really cool parent.  For about a dollar per can of shaving cream it's worth it.