The celebration of Bastille Day continued with a day dedicated to France’s iconic Effiel Tower.
As part of this project we crated our own towers. We started with two dimensional towers made of straws and pasted to card stock.
The Princess added a cute little sun.
Cinco’s Tower
I really liked the less technical and more artistic version of the tower created by Cinco.
Then we decide to try a few 3D versions of straw towers.
Again we consulted YouTube and watched a few quick videos on the Effiel Tower. We learned a that the tower was built to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution.
Then it was time for a trip to the Las Vegas Effiel Tower at the Paris Hotel. After a trip to the top and a chance to see the Bellaggio water show with a bird’s eye view, we stopped for a little cream treat!
which features lots of fairies including one that shares The Princess’ name. To top it off we watched Epic 
which takes place on the Summer Solstice, but doesn’t actually involve fairies.
Next, we made mini baseball caps together. We made two sets of 9 caps each, enough to field two fairy teams. Cinco and I like the blue cap best because they remind us of the KC Royals.
This year the kids wanted to go with more of a nature theme and he decided to create a cave for the fairies. He covered the entire outside of the cave with stones.
The house was lovingly created from an old Go-gurt box. Rocks and shells added to the nature theme. The fairies also have an outdoor picnic area complete with mushrooms for stools.
and Cinco got a sports inspired quidditch necklace 
. These are sprinkles commonly eaten in Holland, and were inspired by our trip this summer to see The Dutchman. I haven’t had these since I was in grade school… and personally, I am looking forward to eating them as well.
Start by cutting out a bill for your cap. Hot glue it to the bottle cap.
Glue a medium pom-pom to the top of the bottle cap. Then carefully cover your hat in duck tape taking care not to tape down the pom-pom too much or you baseball cap will look more like a civil war officer’s hat.
The next craft was a dragon! The idea for this one was borrowed from 
in the car. The audio version is abridged. But, it is read by Rob Reiner, which is kinda cool. Thank heaven it’s been keeping the kids quite in the backseat as we do our chores! As aside note, they have yet t actually watch themovie!
Cinco also spent a lot of time reading a Choose-Your-Own Adventure style book about knights.
The film as recently been released on DVD. I loved it as a kid and it’s a great way to talk the kids about the Magna Carta. (Have I mentioned that ever summer I plan to do a Magna Carta Day for Mom Camp and ever summer, I miss it? If I ever get to Magna Carta Day, we will be watching this again.)
The Search for Pillow was not exactly a hit with The Princess. She did a lot of complaining this it was “lame”–Ouch.
Meet the Lalaloopsy Girls, was cute and explain who each on was and what made her special.
Party Time was a cute story about each ‘Loopsy bring something that they made to a fun little party!
And, 
and we glued his bat on him!
The boys also had fun playing a fun game Cinco got from his grandmother for his B-day. You throw soft cloth baseballs at a target and depending in what you hit, you move small plastic men around a ball field. The boys abandoned the ball field and players and more fun throwing the balls! But having fun is the point so who cares?
!
This activity book worked out really well for us. It was more than just a coloring book, because heaven knows we DO NOT NEED ANOTHER COLORING BOOK. Instead, this offers mazes, puzzles, codes, and even a simple math problem or two. What I really loved about this little book is that worked for both the 4 and 7 year-old. It offers games and puzzles with three levels of difficulty, so both kids used the book!
“Play-doh” style Angry Bird kit was hit with both kids. It comes with three cans of “doh”, two molds, and some heavy cardboard panels. The kids were able to construct their own angry bird sets and had a blast trying to knock them down. Plus, I really liked the consistency of the Softee dough better than “play-doh”.
Cinco loved this book. Like the Star Wars Lego books, this one has pages where you have to find the right sticker and fit onto a certain page. There are also pages with scenes that your fill out with stickers. It has tons of character stickers, Darth Maul, Darth Vader, Luke, Leia, Han… It is very much like the Lego sticker books–so if you like them, you will like this.
The Booky Mom 