For those of you who actually get a winter this time of year, take your kids outside for some snow painting! Fill up some squirt bottles with water and food coloring (or water + tempera paint) and decorate your yard. Bottles with a spray nozzle are great for adding color to snowmen and other snow creatures without melting too much of the snow.

If you live in a warmer climate and want to pretend you live in a place with real seasons paint a sparkly winter picture, mix up one of these "snow paint" recipes:

Sparkly Snow Paint:
Dissolve 1 cup Epsom salts in 1 cup of boiling water; let cool. Use paintbrushes to paint on dark paper or over previously-drawn pictures. When the paint dries, frosty-looking crystals will form on the paper.

Thick Snow Paint:
Mix equal parts flour, salt and water into a thick, dough-like mixture. Pour mixture into squeeze bottles for easy painting. When the paint dries, the 3D pictures will sparkle.

This Saturday, come ring in the Year of the Pig at the Asian American Cultural Center in Austin, Texas! This free family-friendly celebration will include music, dance performances, martial arts demonstrations, food, a Lion Dance, and more.

The AACC is located at 11713 Jollyville Road, and the celebration will last from 10am to 3pm on Saturday, February 10th. See www.asianamericancc.com for the program schedule.

It's almost spring, and windy days are here! Take your kids out to enjoy the sunshine and fly a kite. Don't have a kite? Help the kids make one with objects you already have around the house.

Materials:
- for the kite: plastic trash bag, paper grocery bag, or a sheet of paper
- for supports: drinking straws, sticks, bamboo, lightweight wooden dowels, or chopsticks
- markers/crayons to decorate the kite (optional, but fun!)
- tape
- paper hole punch
- paper clip
- string (at least 7 feet)

Directions:
1. Cut your trash bag or paper into a shape that looks like this: (Click the picture for a larger version you can print out as a template.)

2. Cut your supports to be the same height as the kite. Tape the supports onto the kite where the red dotted lines are.

3. Put a few pieces of tape on each side of the kite where the green rectangles are.

4. Use the hole punch to punch a hole through the kite (and tape) where the blue circles are.

5. Cut off a piece of string (if your kite is about 10" wide and 8" tall, the string should be about 3 feet long).

6. Tie one end of the string to the kite through one hole; then tie the other end through the other hole.

7. Clip a paper clip to the center of the string.

8. Tie a long piece of string (at least 4 feet long) to the bottom of the paper clip.

9. Decorate your kite if you'd like.

10. You're ready to fly!

If you're in Austin, take your new kite out to Zilker Park this Sunday, March 4th, for the 79th annual Zilker Kite Festival. It's a blast even if you don't fly anything, and it's completely free! Kids can build their own kites at the festival, and there are loads of contests to enter and watch, including Smallest Kite, Largest Kite, and Most Unusual Kite.

I remember spending hours and hours blowing bubbles as a kid - playing in the soapy water, trying to make the biggest bubble possible and then attempting to catch it again without popping it. Lucky for me, Ethan loves bubbles, too! We make our own bubble solutions when the store-bought ones run out.

You can play around with the proportions, but my favorite bubble solution recipe is this one:

Super Bubble Solution

Ingredients:
2/3 cup dishwashing detergent
1 gallon water
2-3 tablespoons glycerin

Directions:
Gently mix the ingredients together in a gallon jug, and let it sit overnight with the cap off. (If the kids can't wait, no big deal. You can use it right away.) Pour it into smaller bubble solution containers for easier portability.

Tips:
1. If you have the time, make your bubble solution and store it for a while before using it. The older it is, the better!
2. Dawn and Joy seem to be the best dishwashing detergents for making bubble solutions.
3. If you have hard or well water, you might consider using bottled distilled water for your solution.
4. You can find glycerin at drugstores or often at craft stores. Our grocery store carries it in the first aid / medicine section.
5. Glycerin is expensive, but you can get similar results by using light (as opposed to dark) Karo Syrup.

When it's bubble time, we bring out some shallow plastic bowls or metal cake pans and pour some solution in them. I pull out lots of things to use as bubble wands:

- drinking straws
- fly swatters
- metal coat hangers
- plastic cookie cutters
- six-pack holders (those plastic rings that hold all the soda cans together)
- funnels
- strawberry baskets
- cotton shoelaces tied into a circle
- our hands!

Bubbles are great for experimenting in all sorts of ways: What happens if you touch a bubble with a dry finger? How about a wet finger? Can you blow a bubble inside a bubble? Can you catch a bubble on top of another bubble? Try blowing bubbles on a rainy day when the yard and sidewalks are wet. Your bubbles will decorate the ground!

Spring is here, and that means giant herds of kids will be running around outside with baskets, trying to find hidden eggs. Doing the hiding? Stock up on fun treats to fill their plastic eggs. Candy attracts ants and bees, and many children are allergic to milk, nuts, and/or dyes in candy. This year, skip the sweets and try filling eggs with some of the following treasures:

- stickers
- bouncy balls
- friendship bracelets
- finger puppets
- sparkly or polished rocks
- temporary tattoos
- matchbox cars
- packages of seeds to plant
- mini bottles of bubbles (like the ones for wedding favors)
- erasers in fun shapes
- hair barrettes
- legos
- kid-sized soaps
- coins
- small art or hobby supplies for older children (beads, thread, jars of paint)
- inexpensive jewelry
- coupons or movie tickets

If you're in Austin and are looking for some local egg hunts, there are quite a few going on this week. Check the City of Austin's Parks & Recreation website for specific details.

Here's something I can't wait to make with my 17-month-old son. He loves to draw, and I'm sure he would be very excited to draw all over the ground outside with chalk. Older kids can make the chalk themselves, but my little guy will have to settle for just helping me tear the chalk out of the molds and decorating our sidewalks.

Ingredients:
- Plaster of Paris
- Water
- Food coloring or tempera paint (powdered tempera works best, but liquid is fine)

Molds:
- Paper cups
- Egg cartons
- Toilet paper tubes (taped closed on one end with duct tape)
- Use silicone ice cube trays, candy molds, or mini muffin pans to make chalk in different shapes.
(If you use molds that aren't flexible (like a metal muffin pan), line them first with wax paper or foil to help the chalk slide out more easily.)

Directions:
1. Mix equal parts plaster of paris and water.
2. Add powdered tempera paint, liquid tempera paint, or food coloring until you get the color you want.
3. Pour the plaster mixture into molds, and let harden.
(Don't pour any extra plaster down the drain. Let it dry and throw it away in the garbage.)
4. Peel away the mold and use your new chalk!

Fun Variations:
- Try swirling togther a few different colors of paint to make marbelized or rainbow chalk.
- Add a bit of glitter to the plaster mixture to make sparkly chalk.