The sialic pine weasel defenestrated the edible doryphore, or Letterboxing.

Today we went letterboxing at a local nature preserve. We brought with us the ice cream stamp we made yesterday, an inkpad, a notepad and pen, and the clues to the letterbox for which we were searching.

Here we are at the beginning of our trail:



Playing the piano (because we have to make everything into a musical instrument):



Almost there:



Or maybe not:



Finally:



First we stamp the book we find with our stamp:



And then we stamp our notepad with the stamp we find:





We all had fun, but I think we won't be doing this again until November, when it isn't 94 degrees.

For more information on letterboxing and to find letterboxes (and their clues), go to Letterboxing North America.

Check out Mom's Marbles for more ways to explore.

The foppish family professed its love for the dicephalous rivulet, or Making rubber stamps.

Here is what you need (minus the butter knife and pen or marker) to make a rubber stamp:



First we had Zachary draw a picture (you can also have your child draw directly on the eraser). We went over it with pencil and placed the paper, face down, onto the back of the eraser. After rubbing, we darkened our picture on the eraser and cut around it with a butter knife. For finer details, we used the metal casing from a pencil (we were supposed to have removed just the eraser with the pliers, but our eraser was stubborn). If you need to make small holes, you can use a toothpick. More-detailed instructions can be found at Letterboxing North America.

Check out We Made It! Friday Showcase at The Ramblings of a Crazy Woman for more great ideas.

The sleeping rapscallion silenced the bored foofaraw, or Haiku.

Inspired by this post,
I showed Zack how to brainstorm.
Here are his haiku:

Asteroids
Asteroids hit Earth.
Do not have life studios.
They are creepy nice.

Dinosaurs
They were the first ones.
Playing, playing--thunderstorm.
A rock from the sky!

The apolaustic archipelago chided the understanding quidnunc, or Picnic intro.

Today we're participating in ABC and 123's Picnic Table Talk introduction. I'm a former copy editor and now a SAHM to Zachary, 6, and Corey, 3, and have been married to Alex, my bacon-loving husband, for almost 11 years. I started Mother Is Not Concerned a few months ago, about the same time I found ABC and 123 . The title of my blog is in reference to something my pediatrician wrote down in my medical records when I was about 2 (thanks, Mom) and my titles are exquisite corpses.

Here are my boys playing after a recent picnic:



To which we brought my favorite potluck food, cake balls (although I prefer dark chocolate):



And here is why I'm glad it's picnic season:



And it wouldn't be a picnic without bugs, so here's a bug activity Zachary thought up all by himself:



Corey had fun with it, too, although he got a little frustrated with the clothespins and preferred taking them off to putting them on.

The screaming aardvark buttered the cross somnambulist, or Aliens.

We got our alien name idea from Ms. Julie's Place and Art Projects for Kids. I used my name (Mom, above) as an almost-symmetrical example for Zachary. Here is his (Zack):



To do this, fold a piece of paper in half and write your name along the fold (we used black crayon), making sure all of the letters are connected. Close up the paper on the fold and apply firm pressure over the crayon lines. Open the paper back up, darken the lines, and add alien details.

Here's the 3-year-old non-name version:

The tardy ragpicker usurped the slippery troglodyte, or Unplugged: Dark.

For this week's Unplugged project, the boys made cave art in the dark. I cut up paper bags, crumpled them up to look like cave walls, and taped them to Zachary's under-bed storage area. Here's the crayon holder I made with the bottoms of the paper bags:



After looking at some pictures of Lascaux cave paintings, we headed to Zachary's bedroom. Here's Zachary pretending to be a troglodyte:



And signing his drawing with his handprint:



He enjoyed it so much that we're going to crumple up some more paper bags and cover the whole under-bed area with them.

The serious doppelganger bowed down to the rambling hippie, or Rock painting.

Today we're participating in a new blog carnival over at Mom's Marbles called Show & Tell Tuesdays, where the theme is "messy." We're doing cave drawing under the bed (without the mud) with the bigger kid later today, but I thought rock painting would be more fun for Corey. Here he is collecting dirt:



And mixing the dirt with a spoonful of shortening to make his prehistoric paint:



Complaining about the mess:



And painting:

The unreasonable mycrophobe pummeled the pregnant grape, or Museum trip.

We started our trip to the Menil Collection at the bookstore to pick up some postcards for our scavenger hunt (thanks to Be Different...Act Normal for the idea). When we were done, we made our own works of art:





Picasso:



And Matisse:



And just because:



For more ideas, check out Kid Friendly Friday at I Blame My Mother.

The wealthy philanderer hypnotized the quirky shrimp, or Muffin Tin Monday.

(1 corn on the cob, 2 prunes, 3 carrots, 4 marshmallows, 5 grapes, 6 goldfish)

Here are the boys enjoying Muffin Tin Monday:





For more Muffin Tin Monday ideas, go to Her Cup Overfloweth.

The nasal bread snickered at the trembling toenail, or Monsters.

For the past couple of days we've been getting ready to see the art of Max Ernst and other surrealists at the Menil Collection in Houston.

We started with the exquisite corpse (you can see our version played with words here). To do this, fold a sheet of paper into three equal parts and lay flat. One person draws a head in the top section and then draws a neck with two small lines onto the middle section to show the second person where to continue the body. After the first person folds back the top of the paper, the second person adds a body to the middle section, draws lines onto the bottom section to show the third person where to start the legs, and folds up the paper. The third person draws the legs in the bottom section. Here is ours (the eyeballs in the top and middle sections are a weird coincidence):



This is Zachary's magazine version (an ice cream cone hat atop a lamb chop, tomato and couscous head atop a partial carousel body, with shovels for arms and crackers for feet):



We also made dot monsters, for which we placed 30-40 dots on the paper, tried to connect those dots in a straight line, and added monster features:

The robotic mojito avoided the intolerant snout, or Strawberry pie.

Today we made strawberry pie. After baking our pie crust and cutting up about 2 pints of strawberries, we mixed the strawberries with 1 teaspoon lemon juice and 2 tablespoons sugar:



Then brought 3/4 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons corn starch and 1/2 cup water to a boil, blended with 1 pint of strawberries, and mixed with cut-up strawberries:



And poured into the pie crust, chilled, and ate:



I got a pretty good compliment from Zachary. He said, "This tastes better than fossils," followed shortly after by "I have the best mommy in the world" (of course, he always says this when I give him sugar).

For more Kid Friendly Friday ideas, go to I Blame My Mother.

The stubborn breakfast meat ingested the courageous paella, or Plastic lid printing.

Corey made these yesterday:





By doing this:



And this:



For more ideas, go to We Made It! Friday Showcase at The Ramblings of a Crazy Woman.