Celebrating Earth Day

This year we celebrated Earth Day. And normally we do not formally "celebrate" Earth Day. Everyday, we recycle absolutely everything we possibly can, use cloth bags at the stores, are working to go more organic/locally grown with foods, rarely use the a/c, blah blah blah. But this time I had been putting off several projects with the kids for too long, and both projects seemed like they could be an Earth Day theme. So...

Here are the kids after painting their garden frog and turtle. The plan was to put the completed projects outside into the garden for beautification. However, both kids complained too loudly that they didn't want their works of art to get wet, so instead they are in their bedrooms. Olivia made her frog with very large red lips so that someone can kiss the frog and turn him back into a prince (we have been watching "The Princess and the Frog" too many times!).

Ethan's turtle masterpiece.

The second "project" was one I had planned to do for April Fool's Day, but forgot. So, I saved the Dirt Cake surprise for Earth Day. The back story - I had a dirt cake for one of my birthday parties (maybe in eighth grade?), and I clearly remember the look of shock on all of my friends' faces when I began to eat the "dirt" from the potted plant. I had been waiting for my kids to get a bit older to fully appreciate this joke, as it can really only be successfully done once. So, I mixed up the cake, put in some flowers (orange and blue of course!), and told the kids that Joe had purchased these "lovely" flowers for me for Earth Day. The cake sat on the table as we ate dinner, and when we were done I started complaining about how hungry I still was. Neither kid would share their strawberries with me, so I told them I was so hungry I would eat the dirt - and I did. Olivia's jaw dropped to the floor and she almost fell off of her chair (I wish that I would have had a secret camera set out for this reaction), and Ethan started crying about what I had done (oops...didn't mean to make him cry!). I had to convince each of them that the dirt was oreos, and then they both laughed hysterically. They still talk/laugh about it 2 days later.

Olivia and Ethan slurping their gummy worms. They just appeared with every shovel scoop of the cake!