Smoothies!!!

One of are new favorite snacks are SMOOTHIES!!! There are tons and tons of different way to make them and they are good for you!!! (shhhh, don't tell my kids!) Are favorite is strawberry yogurt w/ frozen strawberries (the ones we picked at the strawberry patch), banana, kiwi, w/ a little splash of fruit juice! It is a great drink to cool down on a hot day! Plus you can turn them into popsicles!!!

All you need is yogurt your favorite fruit and/or berries and something to blend it all (blender, food prosesser, magic bullet....)!!!

~Yumm-E~

~Enjoy~

The Magic of Chalk!

Something that I have been doing with my kids ever since my oldest was about 3 was making roads, race tracks, and towns out of chalk for their cars! If you have a side walk, patio, or paved drive way and children you should have chalk! I bought a big bucket of chalk early this spring and it is already half gone! Which means my kids even at 11 and 8 still love chalking up the driveway and racing their hot wheels!!! Lol =) And the nice thing about chalk is that it is cheap (you can often find it at the dollar store) it washes way with rain, hose, or a bucket of water and even though the kids can become covered head to toe in chalk dust, that too washes away very easily!!!

And who said that chalk roads are for boys,

my little girl loves to play with cars too!!!

And now it is nice that the boys are old enough

to make the road I can kick back and watch the

creativity! They spend hours making the "track"

and then another half an hour to hour playing on it!!! They add very creativity things to their race track(s), like lava and water obstacles (they loved the 'Hot Wheels World Race' and 'Hot Wheels AcceleRacers' movies which has given them tons of ideas for race tracks)!!!

So on a day (morning or evening after dinner) when it is not to hot outside

chalk can be a MAGICAL thing, an entertain thing, for a couple of hours!!!

You can join in the fun and magic or sit back and watch the creativity!!!

~Enjoy the Summer~

Our Solar System!!!

A project that I have been wanting to do with
the boys is making the Solar System!!! I have looked into getting the styrofoam balls but that gets costly so.... I thought we should try Paper Mache! How hard could it be? I googled how to make the paste and found a very cheap and easy recipe:

1 part flour to 5 parts water, boil for 3 minutes, wait till it cools!!!

Sounds easy and very cheap =)

I also read not to do more than 4 layers (should probable tell children to do 2 since they will over lap with out realizing). Let them dry completely before adding more (up to 4) layers and repeat till you get desired feel to your project!

So we blow up some balloons to the sizes we wanted, dipped shredded news paper into our past, and started layering our planets!!! (Oh and it gets quit messy so put down some news papers on your work area)!!! Finding a place for them to dry were children would not mess with them was a little hard to figure out.... I ended up stringing them up out of reach of the toddler (big girl now that she is potty trained, lol)! I used paper clips and safety pins pining very carfuly so not to pop the ballon on the opening of it so I could hang them up!

Now that they have had the weekend to dry Monday we are going to do another layer! Then we will probably add one more layer I am thinking Wednesday and by Friday I am hopping to PAINT them!!!!! And last but least by Saturday HANG them in the Boy's Room!!!! Yay!!!!!! =) Will post the finish planets when they are all done!!!!

Wish us luck!!!! =)

Story Time!!! Reading Program = Free Book!!!!

(my childrens' "Passport" for B&N)

Most book stores offer free Story Time for young children, which is a great way to spend a hot 1 indoors! Barnes and Nobles is also doing there Summer Reading program this summer!!! Children between 1st to 6th grade log 8 books that they read, the author name, and places that the book took place (visited) and turn in there "Passport" in by September 7, 2010 and they can pick out a FREE BOOK from B&N list of free books!!! Plus a chance to win the complete autographed set of The 39 Clues books!!!! Please check out all the details plus print out your own "Passport" HERE or visit a B&N near you!!!

You can also check out other book stores and libraries near to see if they are offering a summer reading program or Story Time!!! We are still looking for a reading group for the middle school age that interest my 11 year old over the summer (he loves reading)!!! I think we will try are local library!

~Enjoy a good book or 8~

Free Movie!

Another great thing to do on a hot day, as many are in summer, or a rainy one is the movies! The Regal Entertainment Group is showing some free ones throw out the summer!!! I have heard that it is a fun way to spend your morning and we are looking into checking it out!!! If you would like to find a theater near you please click Here!

(Lila kickin back at the movies)

Father's Day Treats!

My Hubby loves a good sweet but with back to back birthdays and a wedding I am all caked (and cup caked) out! I think I have gained a few pounds just in the last couple of weeks!!! So I wanted to make something different for Father's Day.... My husband loves the holiday corn flake wreathes so I thought I would use that recipe to make them into ties for Father's Day! It is very similar to rice crispy treats so they are very sticking to handle but I think they came out pretty well! And very tasty!

A Simple Science Experiment w/ Wild Flowers....

The first week of Summer Vacation is over and we are still working on getting a schedule going, hoping we get a more organized next week!

But early this week we went on a nature walk (we saw a box turtle and picked black berries) and picked little wild white flowers. So when we got home Cole (my 8 year old) and I thought it would be cool to magically change the color of the flowers!!! So he picked green since that is not a normal color for a flower and we put the flowers in a small cup (well a shot glass since we never use it! Lol! now it has a kid friendly purpose) and put green food coloring into the water!!! Then waited....

and waited....

and waited....

(could not use the flash on the last 2 b/c it would

take out the green color on the petal)

Cole thought his green flowers were really Cool!!!

What color should we do next?

Cooking w/ Little Ones

One thing we started to do last summer was making the boys pick out a different (or some sort of variety) meal each week and cook it for diner! They complained about it but once they got started they did not mind cooking! And dare I say my middle child even love this activity (maybe b/c durning that one meal it is just him and me or he really likes to cook!)!

Cole Cooking Shrimp Alfredo!

(and it is so easy just a bag of frozen shrimp, a jar of

alfredo sauce, what ever noodles they like, and a

good side!)

Jesse's meal is a little more, Enchiladas w/ Mexican Rice and Quesadillas!

Both these Meals are picked out by them b/c it is their favorite (which is a great way to start the summer)! And they are learning how to make it so that they can grow up knowing how to feed them selfs with out a drive throw window or a delivery guy! Not that there is any thing wrong w/ that every once in a while!

So this active starts w/ the kid picking out what meal they would like to 'help' with then you sit down talk about what goes into it, make their own (or you can write it out for them) grocery list! Then while you are grocery shopping they can pick up their items off the shelf and cross it off on their own list (keeps them busy while grocery shopping and you can always add other favorite items to look for)! Then on their day to make the meal they can help read the directions, get the ingredients out, pour, mix, stir, making sure they don't handle anything hot or leave them alone while thing in the kitchen are still hot, make sure everything you ask the kid to do is age appropriate (my son in the first pix is 8, I would not ask my 3 year old to stir w/ hot pan, she is better w/ stirring cake mix, they are not hot!).

Cooking Meals are a good way to work on reading and following direction recognizing items, and even math as you are comparing prices! Plus if they are writing the list out they can work on spelling! And they are learning a valuable skill they will use all their life: How To Cook!!! If your lucky they will sprinkle in a little "Love" w/ every meal!

New idea to keep the kids writing all summer....

So I have a "NEW IDEA" (light bulb over my head idea)

for the kids summer vacation....

They are good about doing their big work book I get them every summer, they love doing the math and tolerate the rest but when it comes to getting them to write it is like pulling teeth!!!

And getting Cole to work on spelling....

Since they love mommy's blog I have set them each their own little blog

under my account and my name, everything from getting on to proof reading before they hit

publish goes through ME! Any responses they may get (I have yet to get one so not to worried about it) I will see first and can delete if not appropriate.

They are very excited about this idea and if it gets them writing more which will help

with spelling and typing skill (which I don't think the school is teaching)

I think this will be great!

And I can change the topic of what they write like:

~write about your day

~write about the book you just finished

~make up a story

~write about this picture

and so on.....

So what do you think? Is this a creative way to get

them to write since writing on paper is

BORING!!!