Busy Hands: Ice Play

It's been hot.

Reeeally hot man.

The kids have been cranky.

Reeeally super-@*&! cranky.

What's a mother to do?...


PLAY WITH ICE!

What you need:
 - ice
 - a good blender or some other gadget that will shave your ice to snow consistency
 - food coloring

What you do:

Shave ice. Dump in bucket. Add food coloring. Let play. Sit back and enjoy...

This activity started at the table in a big plastic container, it then evolved into a build-your-own-snowball-then-eat-it-or-throw-it-around event.
Whatevs... they were happy, entertained and cooling off.
Success!

A simple sensory play idea that they thought was the bee's knees... lol!

I know the boy looks sad, but that's only because I wouldn't let him dump the entire thing in the pool... wah wah...

Happy Creating!

:)

P.S: don't forget to save some of that ice for a margarita :)

Please leave me a comment, I would love your feedback. Thanks!

Home, Sweet (organized chaos), Home... the (not) TV unit

Last year when we decided I would leave work and stay home to care for my mom and kids, one thing became immediately apparent...

Order was needed.

Some kind of system to find stuff and put stuff where stuff belonged after stuff was being looked for and stuff was not found. Another thing also became achingly apparent... we had a lot of... shi.. I mean, stuff!

There were homework supplies on the kitchen table. Fast food (yeah, yeah, we go there!) toys in the sofa and randomly surprising us throughout the house. Paper and crayons were wherever we last used them. Play dough in a grocery bag in the kitchen. And my checkbook and papers wherever there was a spare corner.

I would have taken a before photo, but 1) we have been using this for a while now, so that would have been forever ago and 2)I would have had to take a photo of every corner of the house, between pillows, under chairs and places where spiders want to be left alone.

So, here then, is one of the many areas I simplified and organized to help not only hide the mess but also try to make sense of it and bring things together that were often used in a common, neat area.

What you see here is an old TV stand. It was brown and sticky colored... yep... sticky colored! It had two rickety glass doors on it that were barely hanging on their hinges and also a couple of screws loose.

Don't we all!? ... I don't judge here... :)

Anyway, we used it at first for the TV sure, cause that is what we bought it for. Later it held my son's toys in his room and when he outgrew the little toys we used it as a side table in the living room to hold board games. Until our daughter was born and decided it would be a whole lotta fun to dump all the pieces of all the board games on the floor. At the same time.

Fast forward to some sanding down and a lousy paint job on mama's part and I re-purposed this old thing into something (still not quiet attractive) kinda useful!

Each shelf holds three Ikea baskets. The top one has one for me and one each for the kids (dad has his own area for his stuff... also, dad doesn't need something the size of a basket to hide his mess). No need for an insider view here. There are checkbooks, a calculator and a couple of binders in mine. My son has school folders, forms and toys he gets from parties, friends, etc. that don't really belong with anything else. He also keeps his empty wallet in here. No need to put it anywhere safe. It is, after all.. always empty. Maya's basket holds the same kind of crud, minus the school work.

I actually love their baskets, cause any time I find something lying around the house I don't even need to ask where it goes, I just pick it up and toss it in their basket. They know where to look if they can't find something. It's the single Hotwheel car on the floor, the pair of sunglasses, the one lost My Little Pony, the three Lego blocks or the homework from under the table. I don't really care... it all goes in the baskets.

Next shelf is...

scrap paper and coloring books with a box of crayons and a box of colored pencils.

All. The. Stickers. (and tattoos)

and the play dough.

Then on the bottom shelf...

all the other kinds of colors. No, not the paint... I'm not that stupid.

It's metallic markers, dry erase markers, high lighters, twisty crayons, regular markers, Wondercolor pens, erasable window markers, oil pastels and dot markers.

all the glue. all the scissors.

And lastly, it's the other random supplies. 

Colored tissue paper squares, for, you know... spreading around the room like confetti (according to Maya) and tape... glorious tape, which in this house is like crack for my kids... HOURS of entertainment with tape. Tape the fort together, tape sticks together, tape on our bodies, on the wall, let's put some under the table... you get my drift.

Up top...

My day planner, a kid-made can that I use for highlighters, pens and pencils, an empty decorative box 

(shh... it's actually where I put the slinky when I don't want the kids to ruin yet another one, or where I hide a toy they are fighting over and I don't want them to find... *insert evil mama laugh here*).

And my favorite sign in the entire house...

Yes, I cleaned up the table for the photo. It doesn't always look so... clean.

No, I cannot lend you my monkeys!

Happy Organizing!

:)

How do you keep it together?

(the house I mean... not you... we all know none of us are really keeping it together)

:)

Busy Hands: Rock Art

Soooo.... this was originally supposed to be Rock Monsters, which would involve the same process but with the added googly eyes at the end.

Mama was a little sad... I really wanted to see some cute rock monsters. Oh well, my little princess still included googly eyes in her play time... mostly scattered all over the living room floor... but I guess I cannot be picky! lol

This was a really fun outdoor activity (of course it is totally suitable for even a rainy day... but why mess the inside of the house when that's what the outside is for?!)


Rock Art!
(and yes, art does rock!)


What you need:
 - ROCKS! any size, any shape... although smoothly textured would be better
 - acrylic paints
 - paint brushes... or fingers!


What you do:

Prep table with paints and brushes and scream at kids not to touch so you can get one good photo before they dig in.

Let the three year old do her thang...

And the 10 year old his...

And even though you scream and lose your shit often... you still get one of these in the end!...

This is an embarrassingly easy craft, but the kids really got a kick out of painting on part of nature and of course the inevitable mess is always fun too! For them!

Happy Creating!

:)

Busy Hands: Sandpaper Art

Even though this needed some mama guidance, the kids really had fun with all the stages of this project.
Especially the 'reveal' at the end!

Sandpaper Art!

What you need:
 - medium grain sandpaper (too fine and you won't see the texture... too coarse and it will eat up your crayons)
 - pencil
 - wax crayons
 - scissors
 - paper
 - clean towels
 - iron
(Sorry, got way too excited about this project I guess to actually take a photo of all the supplies!)... lol


What you do:

First, we used the pencil to draw some shapes on to the sandpaper. I put a few basic shapes down for my toddler since most of her stuff is still linear and wouldn't work very well for cut outs. My 9 year old was left to his own devices on this step.

Next was too outline with a crayon (yeah... I did this for her too... whatcha gonna do about it?!)

Now it was all her coloring in the shapes. It really didn't matter if she went out of the lines since we would be cutting the shapes out anyway later.

Quick note: The shapes should be big and bold. Anything thin will be difficult to cut out and iron later. Same goes for shapes with cut outs on the inside. Not impossible, but a little more work.

This is where you will realize if your sandpaper is too think... the crayons will last about three strokes before they disintegrate into the paper.

My son's creation... when all else fails... print your name!

When everything is colored in it's time to cut the shapes out of the sandpaper. At this point the kids were at two different stages and the iron was already on, so I didn't have time for a quick pic of the cut outs.

I ironed on the kitchen counter for this craft. The ironing board is in the deep dark recesses of the garage and I refuse to get it out when my husband isn't home to kill critters that have made it their home. Yuck!
I laid a clean towel on the counter and a clean piece of paper on the towel. This paper is what the final design shows up on. Doesn't necessarily have to be white. My daughter opted for yellow paper and that worked out great too.

On that goes the sandpaper cutouts... upside down. When you iron it, the wax will melt and transfer onto the paper, so you want it facing the paper, not facing the top towel ;)

Now I covered with a double layer of a clean towel...

...and ironed. I used the highest setting and steamed it too once in a while.

We ironed each paper for about a minute or so. You can tell by a quick check if it is working and done...

Yay!

Some of the designs from my son's paper...
He ironed his own stuff! (Now I just need to train him to think that ironing shirts and pants is a craft too!)

Another note: If you are writing names, etc. you need to sketch it as a mirror image since you will be turning it around to iron it. When you turn it over it will come out the right way round. Learned this one through trial and error. Mostly error! 

Happy Creating!

:)

Menu Planning (Version 1)

OK... I have a couple of different ways I do our menu planning. And oh yes!... I DO do menu planning.

(*snort*... I said do-do)
Sorry, I will stop being 6 years old now.

I started the original version years ago and slowly evolved it to something simple to set up and maintain. I was so tired of seeing food go to waste. I would literally be throwing dollars down the drain and bags of cash into the garbage bin. And somehow still, I would manage to stand in front of the fridge in the evenings and utter that same old phrase... 'there's nothing to eat'!

Before summer began I knew I had to make a revision to my menu planning. Not that it wasn't working. It was. But in the spirit of letting my kids pick their activities, I thought I would involve them in picking out how the menu would look for each week.

Before anyone has a full on melt down about giving kids the freedom to choose mac 'n cheese for dinner every night... please read on :)

Today I am showing the revised version - my summer version of menu planning.

Step 1: Ye Good Ol' Paper & Pencil!

For this stage I only focus on what's for dinner. I know I have to make dinner 7 times a week (although Saturday and Sunday meals are interchangeable with lunchtime too... more to come on that later). So I list 7 main ideas I can use for dinner. In case you cannot read the chicken scratch above, our main choices are:
 - Chicken
 - Chicken Salads
 - Ground Meat (usually turkey)
 - Beef
 - Fish
 - Vegetarian
 - Light Dinner
After that is decided I then think about what my week looks like and start allocating a day to each main item. For example: I know that on Tuesdays and Thursdays our days are packed so I chose ground turkey for Tuesdays because I know I can make it in the morning and have it ready for dinner later and Thursdays is a light dinner. Round this household, that means we make some whole wheat toast and bring out an array of healthy 'toppings', like sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, olives, hard boiled eggs, cottage cheese, fresh mozzarella cheese, etc. It gives us a break from heavy foods (and mama a break from cooking!) and helps us eat light.


Step 2: Ideas!

Now that we have what we want to eat and when we want to eat it, the next part is the fun part!
The first thing to decide is how long you want this menu to last.
I knew that summer was about 10 weeks and I also knew I would have zero time to menu plan when the kids were home with me, so I decided to go ahead and make a 10 week menu plan.
This plan works for 2 weeks or 20 weeks. It's so simple!

I began with listing my menu item for each day. So I would put down 'Fish' as my header with 10 lines under it (one line per week for my 10 week plan). Then I came up with 10 ideas using fish that I knew my family would enjoy. Sometimes I stick to the favorites, but now and then I will throw in something new to try. Same with each of the other daily ideas. That way if I screw up royally on a dish I can say, 'Oh well, at least next week it's back to fish sticks!'... lol

Once that is done I made a little sketch of the week and added a column for lunches (grr... no need to pack lunches during summer break but those mouths still need to be fed come noon!)

As you can see above, I keep Saturday and Sunday 'dinners' interchangeable with lunches on those days. We are sometimes out in the evening with the kids or my son's basketball game ends just at noon and we feel like grabbing lunch out.  I also have a 'Pantry Raid' (I said PANTRY!!) on the weekends. That's when the soups come out, or cereal, or frozen food, or sandwiches, or leftovers... get the idea? Mama doesn't want to cook, so help yo'selves!

Step 3: Bring It Together

I found some left over pink poster board, trimmed the side and made my little sketch above come to life on it. And by 'life' I mean I Sharpie'd it on! ;) I knew I would be using business card sized cards for the menu items, so I sized the spaces accordingly.

Then this baby went up on the side of the fridge. I made little pockets (cause I was too lazy to go out and find tiny envelopes) with some yellow card stock and stuck them next to the menu plan. These little pockets hold the business cards. The business cards each have the ideas I wrote down earlier for each meal item. I printed them out on the cards. Cause. I. Am. Anal. Like. That.

Step 4: Ready To Use!

That's It! The menu plan is ready!

Every Saturday or Sunday my husband and the kids reach into an envelope and pull out something they want to eat that week. Then use some tape to stick it on to the matching space on the board.

Once they have put their choices up I go through and add a veggie to go with that dish (the green sticky notes) and if needed some kind of carb to go with the dish as well (the orange sticky notes). That way I know it is a complete meal. 

(The blue sticky notes are for the days we have basketball practice and the pink is for my daughter's gymnastics class. The yellow sticky notes on the right side are quick breakfast ideas for the week.)

This menu plan has made life so much easier and saved us so much money. No more 'what's for dinner?' whining at 7pm and no more throwing out veggies and meat that looked so good in the store and you just knew you would end up making something delicious with them but never actually got around to finding it because it was buried under the old broccoli in the drawer (true story!... hahaha). Now, everything I buy... I USE! Shopping is super easy too since I just go off of what's on the menu for that week.

I bring out my recipe book if I need to look up a list of ingredients for a dish so that I am not guessing on the same day what I need.

**The beauty of this system is that they feel like they are in charge of the menu, but in reality I have already chosen the item I feel like making. In my case, I kept summer quick and easy without too many new recipes and hours of cooking**

 --I have since revised this version with changes to lunch ideas and more healthy choices--

 --I will post those changes soon--

Busy Hands: Days Like These...

Sometimes, there are days like these...

When all they really want is to spray silly string and run around screaming.

And ya know what?...

Let 'em!

"Hey buddy... look here so I can take a quick pic of you", said mom, while holding the other can of silly string inconspicuously behind her back.

GOTCHA!... He got me back too!

Thankfully it came right off her hair. Whew!
They had so much fun until some old mama said 'clean up time!'... hahaha

Lots of squishy, stringy tactile fun :)

We used this product which we got at Walmart...

Happy Creating!

:)

Busy Hands: Homemade Lollipops

These were so quick to put together and make.
The kids loved that they had just made their own candy!

Homemade Lollipops!

What you need:
 - Jolly Ranchers hard candies, unwrapped
 - mason jar lids or cookie cutter shapes
 - lollipop sticks
 - cooking spray (for goodness sake, please don't use olive oil or some such flavor, your kids will never forgive you!)
 - parchment lined baking/cookie sheet

Yesterday the kids were out in the pool since it was almost 100 degrees out and that was the only sane place to be, so I brought the necessities out to them and let them build their own before taking it in to bake.
My son had a friend over, hence the 4th lid... and mommy wanted to try make one too! Duh!
I sprayed the baking sheet lightly with the cooking spray as well as the inside of the lids.
Do. This. Step!

This is what they looked like after baking in a 350F oven for less than 10 minutes. I kept my eye on them (and the kids in the pool!) the whole time. Even though the lids were flat on the baking sheet, these little suckers still 'bleed' all over the place if they feel like it, so don't get your heart too set on whatever shape you have used.

I immediately used one of the lollipop sticks to swirl the colors together. In all honesty, these could have used another minute or two in the oven. They were still a little thick as I was trying to swirl them around.

Oh, and they harden VERY quickly!

Next, it's time to remove the lids. You want to do this as soon as possible so that it doesn't harden with the candy. My tool of choice: nearby scissors. Yehhhhs... they were clean! This looked pretty cool too. Keep scrolling down to see the artwork that came from this step ;)

Then I swirled the lollipop sticks into one side of the candy. It was already hardening, but still warm enough to get the stick in.
SO COOL!
Yes, I'm shouting! I get super-excited when something actually works the way I wanted it to! heeeeeeheee

I let them cool in the fridge until after dinner and before basketball. Ha, you see what I did there?... sugar AFTER dinner but BEFORE burning it all off at practice. Anyway, they only managed to eat a quarter of it before it was stored in plastic bags for the next day.
Sneaky mama!

Now... check this out!....

These are scraps of hardened candy I had after cleaning up. 

'aint it pretty?!

And this is what I was referring to earlier... the lid of pulled candy.
I want to live in here!

His lollipop...

'Mommy, mommy... take a photo of mine too please!'

Happy Creating!

:)

Thanks to http://www.playathomemomllc.com for the great idea!