Friday Fun

Prince Charming brought a giant box home from work the other day. He had the idea we would make it into a pirate ship. I was behind him 100%! Yesterday when I dragged it out the kids wanted it to be a playhouse. So, I changed gears and here is the result:

Here is the back of the house, with curtains :)


Sorry for the sideways view here, I couldn't figure out how to flip it. Anywhoo...we made a nice front door that they can walk in and out of. We have since added marker and crayon artwork to all sides of the structure. They seem to like to stand in it to watch a show and to pretend it's where they cook the food when we play restuarant. Hey, whatever makes them happy!!!

We also started some Valentine fun. Last year I tried to adopt a really awesome tradition that some family friends do. It involves a Valentine train, making each other cards and presents, and then a big unveiling on Valentine's Day. My kids are really just a little young for it, so I think we're going to try that again in a year or two. For now we talked a little about who first loved us, Jesus! Then we made a little garland of hearts and wrote down all the people we love on them.


Next week we have to make some actual Valenine's for our preschool coop friends. Looking forward to the kids having their first ever Valentine's party with friends!!

Friday Fun

I had a rare moment with JB today. I say rare because usually from 1-3 he naps and Miss M rests (usually for only about an hour). Today, however, Miss M slept for two hours and JB only dozed for about 45 minutes. I had seen this idea either on pinterest or in Family Fun magazine and thought it would be fun to try. This was the perfect opportunity, some one-on-one time with the boy doing something just for him.

Out came the cornmeal, a cookie sheet and an old bed sheet, to save the carpet. He picked out all his construction trucks and we played "digger". He LOVED it, I mean really, he was in his glory!! The mess was really minimal, noises coming out of his mouth were at the max...too cute!



Of course Miss M eventually woke up and she thought she should get in on the fun. I had actually figured this into the equation and knew it wouldn't work to have them both working in the same pan of fun. So I unloaded a bag of dried beans into another pan, gave her a bunch of kitchen tools and told her to have at it. Unfortunately that didn't tempt her much but JB was willing to trade so they took turns going from one tray to the other.

I made the mistake of getting up to go to the little girl's room...


Oh well, they had a blast for another 15 minutes making pies and soups with the mixture. When they were all done I cleaned it up in less than five minutes. It was definitely worth it for the fun and the memories :) C'mon, give it a try!!

Friday Fun

Today's fun is slightly sad and totally a chore, not a fun activity. Well it wasn't a fun activity, until I opened my big yapper!!!

We have to take the Christmas tree down today. It is a fire hazard, has been for about a week now, but I didn't want to take it down. If the branches weren't so brittle I'd probably leave it up until the end of January (I guess this is an advantage to fake trees...they don't die). Last night, when I mentioned to JB that we were taking the tree down he burst into tears. I remember last year, after we disposed of the fire hazard, one of them kept asking "Christmas over?". Too sweet!

So in the middle of the outburst of tears over the dead tree I heard myself say, "Oh buddy, don't cry, taking the tree down in a fun game". Really??? Did I just say that??? Am I brainless??? Of course this comment did not go by unnoticed by bionic eared Miss M! She squealed with delight at the prospect of a fun game (the squeals of delight will turn into squeals of horror if she doesn't perceive herself as the "winner" of whatever the game is...that's a whole different post though).

So today after nap we are playing the "Christmas Tree" game. I'm going to take down all important, breakable ornaments while they are napping (I'm not completely brainless). Then we are going to have some fun! We'll start in the dining room, I'll give a command like "go find an ornament with a mouse on it" and they will run to the tree, get the ornament and run back to me in the dining room. Then I will lovingly put the ornament back in it's box while the kids run to get "one that looks like a candy cane" and so on...

Dumb? Sort of! Time consuming? Yup! A memory with my kids that will probably have us all giggling and possibly the tree falling over? Absolutely :)

When we're done I'll have hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles all ready!!

Hold Your Breath

Don't lick the screen, don't breath too deeply, and DO NOT for any reason, come to my house. I have the flu...self diagnosed...I started yesterday feeling not so well, which quickly turned into feeling horrible! Fever, chills, swollen glands, achy everything...it's fabulous!

Why am I blogging then? Well, I just took three advil and I can swallow without feeling like razor blades are rubbing together in my throat. The kids are happily watching Curious George Christmas, so I thought I'd type for a minute. But to be honest, it's been a minute, I'm exhausted...

Friday Fun is cancelled today due to lack of energy...

Friday Fun?!?!?!

Whew...it's been a little while. I have gotten myself a little busier this fall than I probably should have. Today, is a down day, well until about 3 o'clock when the "weekend" begins and we will run, run, run for 2 1/2 days. Ugh!

So, since today is a down day, I think we are going to have some fun at home. I need to run a few errands first thing, but then we're going to work on some fall activites.

On the list (with no promise of completing):
1. Make a giant tree to begin adding leaves of thanksgiving. It's never the wrong time to teach your kiddos to be thankful, we're going to get a head start this year and enjoy a leaf filled tree for a couple of months!
2. Paint apple prints. I got some nasty apples the other day, called Jonagold. I don't recommend this variety, although the kids don't seem to mind them. Anyway, I have a few giant ones in the fridge that will be perfect to dip into paint and then use like a stamp. I might add in a potato, celery and whatever other produce looks good for painting.
3. Take a walk outside, if the weather holds up, and find fall evidence! The days of spending time outside are numbered, I want to enjoy each fall day we can.

If, and by if I mean when, we don't finish all of these ideas today, they will be for Marvelous Monday. I have book-ended my week so all the business is T-Th...well, except for the week I have MOPS, than it busy T-F. Oh well, Miss M will go off to school next year and be busy five days a week for the rest of her life! This is good practice :)

"cool" color fun :)

It's been smokin' hot here this last week. When I say hot, in case one of the two of you reading this isn't from Bucks County, I mean HOT...100 degrees and hotter! Now, I love me some heat, summer is not my enemy. I would make a great Floridian, but it does require one to think creatively to keep the kiddos busy, cool, and happy! I tried this a few weeks back, tweaked it a bit, and went for it again this weekend!

First I put water in an ice cube tray, added about 6-8 drops of food color (I wanted clear, vibrant colors this time!), covered it with saran wrap then stuck a toothpick into each one. They've been sitting in the freezer for weeks now, Prince Charming kept asking what they were for, I think he was glad it wasn't for dinner!!!
Sunday afternoon, after nap, I was feeling especially energetic and Prince Charming was hoping for another hour or so of sleep so out we went...in the heat...

I found an old roll of paper when I was cleaning out closets this week. It was perfect, had a kind of shiny side and was just thick enough to withstand big drops of water (otherwise known as puddles). The toothpicks really helped them not get sooooo much on their fingers, still looked like a rainbow exploded on their hands, but they didn't mind!

Their creations were nothing "spectacular" except that they were colorful and bright. When the water dries the color lessens a bit, that's why I used so much food coloring. Their papers dried nicely so I think I'll keep them for wrapping paper...colorful, homemade and free :) Three of my favorite things!

In case you're worried about the colored hands...when they washed their hands after we finished they were still pretty colorful, but after baths last night, the color was completely gone. No harm, no foul...cool, free fun! Give it a try :)

Sunday Fun

I haven't done Friday Fun in a while...we've been having fun, I promise, I just haven't been posting about it! We had some fun today, so I decided to blog about it. With pictures and everything :) Hold onto your hats folks...it's almost like a real blogger....

I found the idea for sidewalk chalk paint on quite a few blogs I follow. They all had the same basic recipe: 1/4 c. cornstarch, 1/4 c. water, 6-8 drops food coloring.

We decided to just try two colors for starters...Miss M picked pink, I picked blue for JB...so stereotypical aren't I?

Then the painting began! The kids were happy to paint, although real brushes would have worked much better than the sponges. The sidewalk ate them up...oh well, thankfully they were 20 for $1 at Michael's at the beginning of the summer.

When it dried, it looked just like sidewalk chalk, just lots of it! Nice and bright too! The upside of this activity is it's cheap, it's fun, and it lets your child show off his/her creativity! The downside is that you are using food coloring...so when the two year old takes the brush and hurls it at his sister, the blue "paint" is up and down her arm to stay. The other downside I'm slightly concerned about is staining the sidewalk. If you were on blacktop, it might not be as noticeable. We, however, were on our sidewalk, you know, the one the association owns. Oops! I'm sure after a few rains it will come off...what's that, we're headed into a heat wave with no chance of rain for over a week!?!? Oh well, I'll expect a letter from the association, I'll pay the fine and I'll send them a bottle of sprinkles to go with it :)

UPDATE: I gave the kids a bath and all the food coloring came off...hopefully the sidewalk will be as forgiving as their skin :) Maybe a little boiling water tomorrow will help!?!?

Friday Fun?????

You know what I did for fun today? I cleaned some mini blinds in my bathtub...not impressed??

It all started yesterday. I took the kids to Tanner's and the grocery store and came home ready to blog. You see, while we were driving to Tanner's Miss M informed me that she was Tiger Lily and JB was actually Captain Hook (we're a bit obsessed with Peter Pan this week). From that point on I was corrected any time I used their birth names. At the grocery store I put them in the cart with the car in the front for them to sit it. I HATE those carts, but I only needed about 5 things and I knew they would be completely thrilled to sit in the car. They carried on their Peter Pan theme with JB shouting ARG! to everyone passing by, he also stuck his fist out with one finger curling around like a hook. I thought it was hysterical, most of the people he "addressed" had no idea what was going on. Miss M, I mean Tiger Lily, kept asking where they kept the pixie dust.

So, I came home, got the kids fed and down for naps, and was ready to blog. Then I got the bright idea that it was beautifully cool and sunny and I should open the windows in my bedroom. The rest of the house was already opened up, our bedroom is a bit of a mess and opening the windows meant quite a lot of effort. We rarely open these windows, so after much strain, first one went up, blinds up, sun shining in!! Was I happy? No, I had to open both windows. Proceed to next window, pull up the blinds...CRASH, BANG, dust flying, I am now holding the entire aparatus of mini blinds...the whole thing landed on me. The noise it made and the noise I made were nothing compared to the filth that was on these blinds! I have NEVER cleaned them...I'm gross, I know. I wipe down the ones in the rooms people see, but c'mon, who cleans their bedroom blinds??? Well I do now! The amount of dust and muck was apalling so I put them in the bathtub and scrubbed them until they were white again (I actually had assumed they were almond colored...nope, white). Today I woke up and did the other windows worth and attempted the kitchen. I couldn't get those down, I'll try again tonight when Prince Charming is home. I now intend to clean them all, in the tub with dish soap. It's time consuming, a bit messy, and slightly dangerous...but it's making me happy and motivating me to clean other things I never touch.

So have fun doing all sorts of holiday things this weekend, as for me and my house, we're cleaning mini-blinds! :)

Friday Fun

The other day Miss M requested that we bake something. I was all for having a treat in the house but turning on the oven was OUT of the question (see previous post). So we whipped up a makeshift banana cream pie that was fun for her to make and yummy, and cool, for us all to eat!

Ingredients:
1 premade graham cracker pie shell (I stock up on these when they are 10 for 10, you can make all sorts of yummy things with them)
1 large box of cook and serve vanilla pudding
1 tub of cool whip
2 bananas, sliced thin
chocolate sprinkles

Directions:
1. Prepare vanilla pudding as per box directions.
2. While the pudding cools, have your child slice the banana with a butter knife, or plastic knife.
3. Lay slices on the bottom of the pie shell so that the bottom is "covered". We noticed it looked like a flower :)
4. Chop up any remaining banana slices and toss them in the pudding and stir. Pour pudding over top of slices in the pie shell.
5. Put in fridge to "set" for at least an hour.
6. When you're ready to serve, spread the cool whip over the top and garnish with chocolate sprinkles!
7. Eat it up!!!

You don't want to leave left overs laying around too long, even in the fridge. The bananas start to brown, and although you and I know they are still safe to eat, small children shriek at the sight of them!

Miss M could do most of the steps with little to no help, with the exception of stirring the pudding while it was on the stove. Even JB got into the action with the laying of bananas on the bottom. Miss M was very proud to serve Prince Charming dessert that SHE made.

Enjoy!

Friday Fun

Today's idea comes from a blend of an idea from Family Fun Magazine, a Jake and the Neverland Pirates episode and my own crazy brain! We don't have a yard to play in and my kids are young, so this version of an obstacle course worked for us. You could do so much more, if you had space, bigger kids and a little extra energy on any given Friday :)

I made an obstacle course for the kids with sidewalk chalk. I tried to take a picture to upload but the computer and my camera are not getting along!

First I drew some circles to represent the tires you have to run through in a real obstacle course. Than I drew a long foot wide rectangle to be a "balance beam". Next were three squiggly snakes to jump over. Finally they had to take a piece of chalk that was sitting just beyond the third snake, and run it to the bucket we keep our chalk in.

It took a good deal of practice, but Miss M got the hang of it. JB can do each thing, he just doesn't choose to do them in order. We had a lot of fun with this and it used up a TON of time. While I drew it all out the kids busied themselves collecting sticks, rocks, pinecones and woodchips. We spent quite a bit of time just practicing and figuring it out. Then we tried to see how fast we could do it. They are excited to show Prince Charming...I'm sure he'll add some "apparatus" to it when he sees my lame attempt. But if the kids are happy, I guess I'm not as lame as he might think :)

Happy Friday!

Friday Fun

Today's fun was a bit of a surprise to me. We did it earlier in the week and the kids have played with them every day since! We're working on an expansion project for the future :)

For Easter Miss M and JB each got a new Zhu-Zhu pet to go with their previous rodent. So now we have four of these strange little toys in our house (Jilly, Nugget, Rocky and Hook--you already know how important names are in my house). I refuse to buy the whole habit trail system...we have no place to put it, it looks pretty cheap, and of course you have to buy each piece separately...so they mostly were just playing with them on the kitchen floor and carting them around in little buckets and purses.

After a visit a week or so ago to my friend Kelly's house Miss M mentioned she wanted a house for her rodents. Kelly is one of the most creative parents I know, she will create or find a way to get whatever cool thing her kids want...in a good way, not a spoiled rotten way! So there in her daughters room was a cardboard box that they had transformed into a home for the rodents. Of course it was complete with beds, hammocks and curtains...her kids are older...details are more important to them :)

So we collected two shoe boxes and on Monday we got to creating. I thought, "they will be entertained for a few minutes, maybe even the morning, then I'll throw them away and move on." But they LOVE them...I made them really simple, cut out doors the rodents can pass through and made some windows. Now that I see we've played with them soo much we're going to upgrade their accomodations a little and perhaps expand their community. All with boxes and scraps laying around the house! This idea is so simple it's ridiculous, but we forget that simple things can make BIG impressions! If you're more fortunate than I, and you don't have these little rodents in your home, make a house for polly pocket, or a vets office for the pet shop gang or really go crazy and make a dream house for those barbies!! I'm sure robots, monster trucks and matchbox cars could be accomodated too.

I remember when I was young my parents went to Florida and left me home with my sister and her family. We made a Barbie apartment out of cardboard box and made furniture with tissue boxes, dixie cups, egg cartons and fabric. I played with that apartment for years! Have some fun with your kids, let them be creative and recycle the 'stuff' laying around the house!

first ever Friday Fun

I taught first grade for 9 1/2 years and I loved almost every minute of it. Don't get me wrong, teaching is hard work and sometimes very stressful. But the reward is far greater than the cost! A few years into my adventure in first grade I began doing what I ever so creatively dubbed "Friday Fun". It changed from year to year, even week to week sometimes. But the bottom line was, the students worked hard all week toward a specific goal and their reward was some Friday Fun. This came in the form of free recess, a video, a popcorn party, baking cookies, etc.

As I am getting into this whole blogging stratisphere I began to think I'd like to go back to Friday Fun. So my goal is to mention some activities, websites, places to visit, or whatever other fun thing I can dive into every Friday. And the best part is, unlike in my classroom, you don't have to do anything but log on. No pressure to remember your library books, or your sneakers for gym class, or your homework...just come visit me here and see what I have in store for you :)

The irony of today's post is that I've been thinking about it all week, waiting excitedly for Friday to arrive so I could post my idea. Of course neither Miss M or JB would take a nap today so I here I sit at 8:30 pm writing my post that I usually do around 1:30 in the afternoon, darn those two!

So here is my idea for this week, and it's not my own, it's just fun and yummy and it goes with Easter. Have you heard of resurrection cookies? This is a great activity to do with your kids tomorrow night before Easter. You can have some fun baking together, you can read scripture surrounding the story of Christ's death and then in the morning you can celebrate his resurrection with a yummy treat! I know, I know, who gives thier kids cookies for breakfast? Well, I figure if you're giving them a basket full of junk, what's one little cookie? Pack up the extras with a little note of explanation and send them to Sunday School to give out to the others in your child's class.

Check out http://annieshomepage.com/resurrectioncookies.html for directions.