Ocean Day and Our New Pets!!!!!!

Last week we had OCEAN DAY!!!! It may have been our best theme day yet! We made a polluted ocean in a jar. (Apparently you're supposed to use new sand, not old dirty park sand. The recipie didn't specify.) We also made paper bag octopus.

And paper plate jellyfish, which was kind of theraputic for me. I'll admit, I was hesitant to choose this particular craft at first, but I think it means that I've finally come to terms with getting beat by a jellyfish in the costume contest at the glow race. It feels good to let go. Then we went on a fun scavenger hunt, which led us to our ocean prizes.

We also made a very life like looking lobster out of fruit, all thanks to Melissa's culinary design skills and technique. We also had ocean/Sweedish Fish pudding and delicious homemade Panera macaronni and cheese.

And last but not least we played the ocean animal movement game. It was a big hit! This is Winston slithering like a sea snail. After that we went to Sonic to get a special drink, Ocean Water! (It's not on the menu anymore, but if you're old school like me, you know it exists.) Then we said good-bye to our friends, for a couple of hours at least, until they came back over to swim, and Hannah asked her parents to buy Stanton Doritoes since they're his favorite. So they did, and she has totally won his heart, so much so that she got him to face his fear of jumping off the side of the pool and going under water. They are all such cute little friends!

To top off ocean day, I took the kids to Petco to pick out their very own Beta fish, which they named Alien and Jewel Diamond Love Heart! Within the first few minutes we were there, Noelle dropped and broke a Beta fish cup. There was water all over the floor, along with a poor little fish laying on the tile. I tried not to panic, but it was a life or death situation and I would not have that fish's life on my daughter's very sensitive conscience. Plus, I really like animals, so I was rooting for this fish to pull through! So I picked up the fish with my bare hands and put it on the lid of the cup and ran across the store, shouting "Fish out of water!" The worker grabbed the lid from me and sprinted to the front of the store with my kids and I following behind him. I can still picture him yelling as he ran, "Fish can only survive for 3 minutes without water," which made the situation seem that much more intense. Luckily we made it in time, and the Beta fish lived (We didn't buy that one though. Who knows what kind of trauma it suffered) and the Petco man actually refered to us as heroes. He said that most of the time when people drop the Betas, they just leave them on the floor so they don't get in trouble. Unbelievable. Anyway, the kids were pretty happy to have saved a fish's life, and I guess that cancels out the fish sticks we ate for lunch a couple weeks ago. I'm happy to say that Alien and Jewel Diamond Love Heart are thriving in their separated tank, and Noelle is still knowingly calling her boy fish a girl, in hopes of him turning into one. She purposely chose a boy and gave him a girl name, I think in protest of boy fish being prettier and more colorful than girl fish. It really erks her.

And for Ocean Day closing ceremonies, we read some shark books and sang "Ocean, ocean," one of my many original, made-up songs. Then we made "Monstro" the giant paper whale stuffed with newspaper. It lives on Noelle's bed, along with her Elephant pinata left over from her birthday party that she refused to let anyone break open and a billion other stuffed animals and crafts.