¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Normally, today (or one of the weekend days near Cinco De Mayo) I'm doing a lot of cooking. I, myself, am part Japanese with no Mexican heritage at all, but husband is 100% (aside from not speaking it) Mexican. So... it's important to us that we celebrate the occasion with the kids. This year however, with his extremely long hours, I've scaled our celebration down to just a Cinco De Mayo muffin tin and a quick art project. With our busy schedule, it's the perfect compromise without completely passing the day by.

Robbie helped with the Muffin Tin. The goal here was the Mexican flag rather than serving actual Mexican dishes (easier on mom). We had green: grapes and edamame; white: yogurt covered raisins and tortilla chips; red: salsa and pepperoni. I also made Lyssie a quesadilla since she wasn't a fan of edamame today - nor did she eat the yogurt covered raisins.

After lunch, we made maracas the quick and easy way with little to no mess - that's my kind of art project! Pictures are not great again because this project is so quick, I don't have time to retake them if they don't come out. Hopefully you get the gist of the project.

Spoon Maracas

Materials:

• Plastic spoons
• Mini plastic eggs (you can use larger, you'll just need a larger circle of fabric)
• Fabric cut into a circle to cover the egg with a little excess (mine was 6") - we went for colors of the Mexican flag.
• Rubber bands
• Rice

Step 1: Scoop rice into one half of the plastic egg and close the egg.

Step 2: Place the plastic spoon onto the fabric circle (toward the bottom half) and place the egg on top of the spoon.

Step 3: Fold the fabric over the egg and gather it around the base of the egg.

Step 4: I had the child hold the fabric onto the egg while I put a rubber band around the bottom of the egg to hold it to the spoon. And that's it! You have a maraca!

If you are concerned that your child will open it all up and fling the rice during your fiesta, I recommend either gluing the eggs shut or using duct tape around the base (or string as long as it can't be slipped down the bottom.