summer is here! and finding things to do with my kids to keep them busy can be a challenge- especially when I don’t have the energy to take all four of them to the pool by myself or boil in the heat at the park! 96% of our week is spent in our swim suit and this fun sensory activity is just another reason to hang out in our suits for the afternoon.

I LOVE following other mamas on instagram – I always get the best ideas to try with my babes, including this one with the magic water beads. the beads take a couple hours submerged in water, so while the girls were eating breakfast I filled their table with water and poured about 1/2 of a container for them to soak. they were ready to go by the time Brady went down for nap! a little goes a long way!lots of questions about the twins bathing suits yesterday after posting to my stories! they were a gift from their Auntie at Easter from old navy. Baker is wearing a hand me down of the twins’ from last season- we LOVE Kortni Jeane! I’ll mention that I feel like KJ girls’ suits run a bit small :: Baker is wearing a 4T in top and bottom and the bottoms are a tad big but the top fits perfectly-  she’s pretty much a solid 3T in everything right now. just for reference! back to the beads! after seeing these magic water beads everyyyywhere I decided we for sure needed to try them! I had seen another mom put them in a water table, so that was the logical option for us!

I also ordered these really cute scoops for the girls to use while playing with the beads! 

Brady woke from his nap just in time for the girls to need a popsicle break, so I brought him outside to play, too and he thought the beads were so fun! he yelled and screeched in delight and babbled on and on about the little squishy beads, showing me his handful about every two minutes. he was more interested in picking the stray ones up off the ground than playing with the ones in the table. he did try and put one in his mouth.. and so I stayed really close by while he was playing. thankfully he didn’t try again! another mom sent me a message about the beads and said her little boy about Brady’s age got one or two in his mouth and after she called poison control they instructed that these beads “pass right through without harm” .. from one mama’s wisdom to another 🙂  I don’t want anyone to think their wasn’t a “mess” to clean after the fact.. because there was! I made the girls pick up the beads that found themselves on the ground and in the grass and put them back in the table and then we scooped them into a Tupperware container (filled with a little bit of water to keep them full) so we can play with them again a time or two before making new beads. the container says they are biodegradable, which means they will eventually dissolve if you miss some in the yard! for us, whatever is left out out there will get eaten by the lawn mower this weekend, anyway 🙂