Sidewalk Paint or Ever Feel Like Life's a Conspiracy, Until You Go Back and Check Your Resources Only To Find You're a Doof?

This may seem like an odd (and lengthy) choice for a blog title, however after the start I had this morning, I assure you that it is perfectly logical. I have been very busy lately and have not spent a lot of quality time with the kids. After being inspired by this book, I made a commitment to myself to try to do three fun things with the kids each week. I spent Sunday searching the net for activities and came across this brilliant blog. I quickly found three that seemed doable and were cost effective. I woke up this morning energized and excited at the prospect of engaging the children in a fun and memorable morning painting the sidewalk with homemade paint. I had scribbled the directions on a piece of paper and with that in hand Emily started to mix the paint. (Emily wouldn't smile for the camera while mixing, so Javan stepped in to show her how it's done)

We quickly moved the party outside and enlisted the three girls to help. See how happy they are to help?

Well, we got the corn starch mixed in and it was pretty thin so I told the girls to keep stirring as the mixture would get thicker the more we stirred. I told the girls that the directions said that the paint would thicken to the consistency of tooth paste. We stirred and stirred and stirred and stirred. I began to get agitated and we lost half our participants due to boredom.

Maia "finishes" the bug Josiah was stomping on!

I told Emily I couldn't believe this wasn't working and suggested we use the blender, to which she promptly responded, "No". I said, "you would rather stand here and stir forever?" She said, "If we use the blender I'll have to wash it." "I'll wash it!" I said, and took a few of the cups upstairs to the kitchen and threw the contents into the blender. I set it on "stir". After a few minutes I checked it, liquid. Blend some more, check, liquid. Blend, check, liquid!!!! Why does this always happen to me? The directions seemed so simple, so clear. How could anyone enjoy this activity when it took so much time to prepare? I finally added more corn starch and took my cups back downstairs for Emily to add the color to. We had thickened up the concoction quite a bit by adding the extra corn starch and so felt we were ready to paint. Now I hear the girls complaining that the paint is too thick and they can't spread it, there is a chorus of whining, "this doesn't work, it's not fun!" UGG! Emily suggests we thin the paint, so we do. I take a paint brush and try out the newly thinned paint to find that it works beautifully. So now I am wondering why the directions said "the consistency of tooth paste". When I finally have a few pictures worthy of sharing I head to the computer to post and decide to include the above links so I can show you the incorrect directions and let you know the better way of doing homemade sidewalk paint. Only when I go to the page I need I reread the directions and see that there is no mention of toothpaste!! She clearly says that the paint will seem thin but it works fine. Double UGG!! Where in the world did the "consistency of toothpaste" enter my feeble brain?
Oh well, alls well that ends well, right?