musical instrument extravaganza

No matter how many real instruments we have in our house, my oldest is always begging to "make" an instrument. Its usually rubber bands around a stacking block, but I decided to get involved and make a whole day out of it. Least complicated was the whole wax paper on the toilet paper tube kazoo, secured with a rubber band, then the dried beans or rice in paper plates stapled together (the plates we used were particularly noisy so my husband put the kibosh on those pretty quick). We got a little more complicated when we took the rubber band guitar a step further and made the floppy guitar with macaroni boxes and said rubber bands. This was the most popular for the longest amount of time. We then made a colorful glass xylophone and Jonas was really able to make some songs after I tuned it a bit. Most complicated was this flute. So complicated it took me a few days to want to get out the drill and figure it out. We had to take a trip to Home Depot for the pvc pipe, then get the energy to make the whole dern thing. Sadly, the thing that took the most effort worked the least well. The boys still have fun pretending that it makes amazing sounds. There is some tutorial on how to play it, and someone with more fluting experience might have better luck than I did, but its not about me, now is it.

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The best way to cut a watermelon

Oh summer fruit, I love you so. My favorite is watermelon. Unfortunately, I've been very unlucky with picking out a "good one". Even this one I have here wasn't very good. Once its cold though, I love it just for its texture and the memory of better tasting watermelon. But its messy and annoying to cut, but then I figured this out (I saw it on Iron Chef). I do this for big and small watermelons, cantaloupe, and honeydews.

Cut the ends off your melon so it can stand up on the cutting board and have a starting point for the next cuts .

Cut downward, cutting off all of the rind, all the way to the bottom.

Cut the melon in half. Then cut into rectangles, then squares.

The watermelon is the perfect size for eating and loving. Nothing like sitting down to watch Oprah with a big bowl of watermelon while the kids are napping (they can have some later).

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