Passports for the Summer

Last summer I got the kids each a notebook to journal about their summer, draw about it, etc., and I think they wrote all of 2 sentences in it.  One of the moms from my son's preschool shared with me her great idea of making passports for the kids to date stamp their activities.  This was a brilliant idea for a few reasons:  1.  they are used to the idea of a passport because with their "Highlights, Top Secret Mission" puzzle book they get it comes with a passport and they get to add a country sticker to their passport every time.  I think this is actually their favorite part of receiving a new puzzle book.  2.  Now they can just date stamp an activity when they do it if they want, or add a little more if they want.  Lynn showed me how she did hers, but I improvised some.  Here are the pictures: 

I took brown cardstock and cut it in half for the cover and back.  I stamped their names and the title on the front with my stamp letters.  I bought the tag on the front from hobby lobby.



Then I thought of what activities we would be doing this summer, and found some clipart.  I printed the clipart, cut it out, and glued it onto black construction paper, like so:  :)

I cut computer paper into the size of the passport and added 2 pages for each activity which includes things like swimming, sports camps, California, Family camp, bowling, etc.  Here is another picture:



Obviously this isn't professional work, but we are talking a 7, 5 and 2 year old here.  They can take a picture of something and add it, date stamp it (I have stamps with each month as well as number stamps but you could get a date stamper or just write it), draw something, write something you liked about the day, etc.  Hopefully they will actually do it and have a little journal of their summer at the end of summer!

Top Secret Mission - Highlights

We have started receiving in the mail one of the Highlights products - it's called "Top Secret Mission" and it is similar to "Which Way USA" except that you learn about a country instead of a state.  (Just for clarification this is an independent assessment . . . Highlights is not using my help to sell their products) The kids LOVE this activity.  When we received the first one they were beyond excited and literally sat down for 2 hours and finished the whole thing.  The envelope came with a passport and a sheet of stamps that included one stamp for each country.  Each time you finish a country, you put the corresponding country stamp on the passport.  It also came with a keychain I think, a top secret mission letter, a book containing all kinds of facts about the country, and the puzzle book.  When the second one came in the mail, they both yelled loudly with excitement.  Here are some pics of the product:

the envelope it all came in (Egypt was the country this time)

the top secret letter instructing them what to do

the fact book and the puzzle book



This product is kind of expensive, but if you have it in the budget and your child likes this kind of thing, I highly recommend it for about age 6 and up.  It is a great way to learn about another country, and unlike Which Way USA, this one only comes about every month and a half I think.  This coule be a great summer activity, and if you don't like it, just cancel after the summer is over!

On-Line Pictorial Recipes for Kids

I found this super fun link today and thought I would share.  It's http://www.makinglearningfun.com/ and on part of the site there is a tab with recipes where the kids can totally do it themselves (there are also recipes where they can help an adult).  The recipes include pictures to help them understand what to do!  I am definitely going to be trying this out and will be including some of these in my summer plan for the kiddos!  Here is the link to the recipes:

http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/RecipesPictorialDirections.htm

Also, if you share my love for Jesus, I just listened to a short podcast by Jen Wilkins, our women's Bible study leader at The Village church.  It was so good and had so much truth in it for the ladies.  Here is the link in case you are interested in a little you time today where you feed your soul a bit:

http://jenwilkin.podbean.com/2012/03/07/robe-your-minds-for-action/

Spring Break Plan

Spring Break is upon us!  For our family it is next week, and we aren't going out of town, and I don't want to spend a bunch of  money.  So . . . I thought I would share our plan for next week and encourage you to make a plan as well!  They don't stay little for long and if you are anything like me it is much more fun to spend time together when you have a plan (even if you need to change the plan!).  It's also going to be raining next week, so my original plan of visiting a different park every day is a no go!  So . . .

Yesterday I visited Teacher's Tools (or teaching tools?) for the first time which is Lewisville off of Business 121.  I've been meaning to go there for quite some time and was expecting a small store.  This store was HUGE and there was so much fun stuff for the kids.  I of course hit up the 75% off section first which is way back in the right corner of the store.  There I found some great finds!  Ever heard of the Mailbox magazines?  They are for teachers and are full of activities, worksheets, and craft projects.  In this section they had one for each month of the year and so I bought April and May.  Now I am thinking I want to go back and get the rest because they were about $4 each (regularly 15), and I got so many ideas from it.  I also got a couple of workbooks for .73 each - GREAT deal.  I also got a few things that weren't on sale, including those dot painting thingies that you see your child using in preschool, and a few workbooks that were $3 each.  So . . . here is our plan!

Monday:  it is going to be sunny, so we are hitting up Andy Brown park in Coppell, playing, feeding the ducks, and having a picnic lunch.  In the afternoon while the 2 year old is napping away, the boys will be having fun with a couple of art projects and other educational fun from my mailbox magazine.  After she is done napping, off to the cul-de-sac we go to ride bikes and enjoy the sunshine.

Tuesday:  no rain on Tuesday, so it is off to Cortadera park we go where we will play, practice some baseball, have a picnic lunch, and go to our favorite yogurt place for dessert.  More art fun during naptime, and then it is time for a walk/bike ride around the neighborhood.

Wednesday:  Rain!  We have a membership to the Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas so we will be headed there.  The kids LOVE it.   If you are reading this and want to come with us, I have a couple of free passes!  (KARLIE/KIM?).  :)  When we return from the museum, there were some fun rain art projects from the book so it only seemed right that we do these on a rainy day!  After naptime, I have some fun stampers that I got for the 2 year old, so she will be having fun with that while the boys work in some of their new workbooks.

Thursday:  Rain!  Starting out the morning with a craft/game from Mailbox magazine, and then heading out to either Chick fil a or McDonalds to play and then have lunch.  Join us!  :)  During naptime, the boys and I will be having Sorry, War, and Farkle tournaments, and I have a prize basket for the winners!  (The prize basket is always present in our house and is where the toys from kids meals go and other random things they get from parties, etc.)  After naptime they are making some fun bunny baskets (not too early for Easter stuff right?)

Friday:  Cloudy, but no rain.  Off to Austin Kent Ellis Park we go to play and have a picnic lunch.  Frog craft during naptime, and winkids free time from 3:30 - 5.  My kids go crazy over WinKids so they will be very excited.

If you are following this blog, in a couple of months I will be sharing my summer plan with you!  Last summer I had a plan for every day of summer before it started, and it made all of us so much more excited about our precious time together.  Anticipating is half the fun!

2 Recipes, Crafts, and Kids in the Kitchen!

2 easy meals - one of them naturally gluten free and one used gluten free bread crumbs to make it GF, so you can just use real bread crumbs if gluten doesn't make you feel CRUMMY!  Ha!  Get it?  :)

Meatloaf- Kids Loved It!: (I made the meatloaf prior to dinner and stuck it in the fridge til I was ready to cook it - you could do this in the morning before leaving for work)

Ingredients:  1 lb ground beef, 1/2 cup GF bread crumbs, 2 T dried minced onions, 1 T dijon mustard, 1 T worcestershire sauce, 1 large egg, 1/2 dried basil, 1/2 t salt, 1/4 t pepper

Glaze: 1 8 oz can tomato sauce, 1 T brown sugar, 1 T worcestershire sauce

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease meatloaf (loaf) pan.  Using hands combine all ingredients except glaze in bowl.  Combine all glaze ingredients and add half of mixture to meatloaf and mix in.  Press meatloaf mix in pan.  Add other half of glaze to top of meatloaf.  Bake 45 minutes to an hour.  Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Ham

Ingredients:  1 4 lb bone in ham, 1/4 C dijon mustard, 1/4 C maple syrup, 8 garlic cloves.

Preheat oven to 350.  Lightly score surface of ham using a sharp knife and place on rack in a baking pan.  Whisk mustard into maple syrup until blended.  Brush ham with mixture.  Press garlic cloves into top and side of ham.  Bake 60 minutes or until meat thermometer reads 140 when inserted into center of ham without touching bone.  Remove and let stand covered with foil 30 minutes.  Slice thinly. 

This is such an easy recipe.  I made it with steamed green beans.  I melted butter (microwave - fast!) and mixed it with chopped garlic and poured that over the green beans.  I also baked sweet potatoes.  Literally poke holes in potatoes and stick them in the oven.  They come out so amazing.  And salad - mixed greens, toasted pine nuts, sliced strawberries, and a little balsamic vinagrette.  YUM.

So . . . do you have this steamer?  We steam all of our veggies and it is so easy.  I am including a picture and if you don't already have one I highly recommend it!  Just stick it in a pot.  It will almost reach the bottom, and fill the gap between the pot and the steamer with water.  Put the veggies in the steamer, and cover the pot.  Boil the water and veggies will be steamed within 10 minutes.  Piece of cake!  Here is the pic:

Craft Time!
OK so enough about cooking.  I made a couple of things this week that I was excited about . . . so I had to show you the pics.  :)  You can find all of the instructions for these on pinterest, but if you'd like instructions let me know!  Here are the pics!

Valentines Time!
I did this little baking project with my 5 and 2 year old yesterday and they could both do it.  Fantastic!  I don't know about you but it is hard to find ways for my 2 year old to help in the kitchen.  There are onlyt 3 ingredients needed . . . square pretzels (made some for myeslf with delicious gluten free pretzels), hersheys hugs, and valentines m&ms.  Place hugs on pretzels, place on baking sheet, and bake at 200 for 3 - 4 minutes.  Then add m&m.  The 2 year old could unwrap hugs, place on pretzels, and place m&ms on top.  If you need an activity today on this chilly day - there you go!  The m&ms are probably at a discount today!  I got this idea off pinterest (of course), and here are pics of my kids making them:

DIY Craft

OK moms - I need your help!  I know there are a handful of you reading this blog, and maybe more, but I simply can't tell.  And . . . this blog was never intended to be for me.  I started it because I truly have a passion for moms of young children and the unique and challenging phase of life that it is.  So . . . if you are reading this, I would truly love your input.  What kinds of topics are you most interested in?  I'm willing to put time into just about anything if I believe it is helping someone, so even if I don't have my own experiences to rely on and share with you, I'll look into and offer any info I can to help.  Some ideas:  recipes, keep kids engaged, toy/game reviews, education . . . I'm sure you have more ideas.  And if you don't have any feedback/ideas, and you are following/enjoying the blog, please let me know that too.  I don't know how much I will continue it if I don't feel it is really helping anyone.  Thank you!

But for now, I will tell you that one of the primary ways I keep my sanity is through crafts.  For awhile I was scrapbooking, but I have sort of fizzled out on that and have (as many of you have) discovered pinterest.  I love it!!!  My amazing friend Sarah has been teaching me so many basics that should keep me occupied for a very long time.  I am including a picture of something I made today, and if you are reading this blog, and your last name starts with E, you may have a gift coming your way . . . :)  Here is a pic:

I borrowed the idea from pinterest and then put my own twist on it.  If you are interested in the details of how to put this together, let me know! 



December Activity Calendar Added

Just a highlight that the December calendar has been added (on the right side of the blog).  Check it out for many ideas of fun things to do with your kiddos this December.  Anna Frye gave me a bunch of these ideas - thank you soooo much!  She is an INCREDIBLE blogger and writer.  She also pointed me to a site called Enchanted Learning, and I got most of the craft ideas from there.  You can go there if you would like to see pictures of the crafts.  (I have to see it).  I added the instructions to a word doc, but couldn't get the pictures to paste.  The calendar has links for the crafts that will take you to the word doc.  Have so much fun this December with your children!  They light up the holidays and just make it such a treat. 

Lego Advent Calendar

A couple of weeks ago I was wandering through Legoland at Grapevine Mills Mall and found a lego advent calendar.  Starting in December, on each day you build a new section of a lego Christmas scene.  I thought my boys would really enjoy it, so we purchased it and will start it tomorrow.  Just an idea for something to create more anticipation and engage with your children all month!  :) 

Thanksgiving Printables & Activity Calendars

OK - I finally figured out how create a calendar that is editable and has links to activities that we are doing. I've been trying to figure this out since creating the blog. One of my first posts talked about the summer activity calendar we had and how I planned things out for the whole summer so that we weren't waking up with the kids saying "I'm bored" . . . and they had things to look forward to throughout the summer. I've now decided to do one of these for each month, and we'll see how it goes. It may have a few out of the house activities, worksheets, holiday stuff, etc. You will find the first one - November 2001 - under the "Activity Calendars" section. You will find links that you can click on and you will be able to download the activity if you like.

I also created a "Printables" section where you will find fun little worksheet activities or crafts to do with your kids. The ones that are there right now are all related to Thanksgiving, and some of them are on the calendar as well. Have fun!!!

Halloween Candy Poker Night

Ever wonder what to do with your leftover Halloween candy?  We have 3 kids and they are all very excited about going to as many houses as possible on Halloween night, and so needless to say we came home with a boatload of candy.  Last year we started a new tradition - Halloween candy poker night.  We used the candy as chips and assigned 3 different values to the candy . . . 25 cents, 50 cents, and a dollar.  All of the really good chocolate was a dollar, the skittles and starbursts and the not so good chocolate (in my opinion) was 50 cents, and all of the little candies or onesie twosies were 25 cents.  We made a little cheat sheet with 3 columns listing the value of all of the candy. 

We invited a couple of families over and had poker night with the candy!  It was so much fun and a great way to get rid of the candy (unless Melissa intentionally leaves her bag at your house).  We had our new annual tradition last night and it was a blast.  This is a great way to fellowship with other families . . . the kids had a great time hanging out as well!

Halloween Food and Games

So this past weekend we celebrated my daughter's 2nd bday, and since we had a bunch of big kids coming to the party (since she doesn't really have her own friends yet), we decided to go with a fun Halloween theme.  We made a bunch of Halloween food and played some fun Halloween games.  Here are some pics in case you are interested in trying these for your own party!

crooked teeth! (Apple slice with almonds)

brain cupcakes!

eyeball cupcakes!

salty bones

closer look at some spider cupcakes

edible eyeballs!

digging for edible boogers and eyeballs in the spaghetti noodles - EWWWWW!

We did a few other games and it was a lot of fun!  We gave out prizes for the games that I got in the dollar bins at Target - they had so many!!  Good times!

Supporting a Cause

This morning our family participated in a walk for Alzheimers. This was just a 1 mile walk so the whole family could do it, and my grandfather died of the disease so the family could also relate to it. I think this is a great way to get the younger ones thinking outside of themselves a bit and come to more of an understanding about what it means to serve and support others. They really enjoyed it - especially since it was at the mall and they got free carousel rides afterwards! We made shirts for it with our loved ones names on them (my husband had a great aunt that died of it as well) and the kids had a great time with that as well. In November they have another one at the Dallas Zoo and I think we will plan on attending . . .

DIY Coasters

So there is a blog I follow that has tons of great ideas called 24/7 moms (I think) - I've included a button for this blog at the bottom of my blog.  Today they highlighted an idea by Lee La La for Do It Yourself Photo Coasters.  I haven't tried this yet, but am going to, and if it works - this is pure brillance.  So many new gift ideas and stocking stuffers will be in the works!  Here is a link to the instructions if you want to try it:
http://leelala.net/2011/02/diy-tile-coasters/

And here is a pic of the finished product from her site:

SUCH a good idea!

Bday Idea

I am in the midst of preparing for my youngest child's 2nd birthday.  Last year when I was thinking about what I could do that would be really special for my 4 year old's bday, I came up with making him a personalized shirt special for his day.  He really appreciates individual attention and anything nice that you do for him.  He lit up when he saw his face on the front of his shirt and his name on the back.  Needless to say, I think I have started a tradition.  I made one for my daughter's bday this year and included a pic of it below.  Just an idea to help make your child's bday extra special!  All you need are the transfer sheets from the craft store (if you want to iron on any picture like i did below), the shirt ($3 at the craft store), and any iron ons you want (like numbers or letters).  The site that I used to get the picture was http://www.purplechimp.com/.  I selected the clip art I wanted and then typed her name and "Birthday Girl" like you see in the picture.  It's actually kind of fun!

Which Way USA

Thanks to Jill Surdek we are now subscribing to the Highlights magazine for kids called "Which Way USA".  This is a puzzle magazine for kids that is focused on teaching them about each of the states.  Each magazine comes with a map of the state that the magazine is focused on and the map has all kinds of fun facts on it.  I subscribed to the regular Highlights magazine for awhile, but the boys were never really all that interested in it.  Noah LOVES this one.  He has been working on it every night.  It does require a little help from us, but it's been fun for us as well!  I love anything that helps get them focused on learning.  I included a link in case you are interested . . . http://shop.highlights.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=16151&productId=690724&catalogId=17603