Friday, June 26, 2009

S'mores & Cookies

Last night cub scouts had a campfire pack meeting with s'mores for the treat. The kids had a blast! They were shocked that the parent actually let them eat sweets after bedtime (the pack meeting didn't start until after 8pm).

Today we combined snacks and crafts. We painted cookies. We used to paint them with food color but now there are companies that make markers and paint brushes that are filled with food color. These things work great and they're a lot less mess. When we were finished they got to clean up in the sprinkler.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Water Bombs

For our Tuesday craft we made water bombs for our Wednesday water activity. They prefered the homemade water bombs over the store bought ones we already had. The kids said they were much better I guess because they made them themselves. We cut a ton og sponges into little strips, stacked 12-15 strips into a cube and put a zip tie around the middle. They had a lot of fun making them and even more fun playing with them.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Procrastination

Saturday afternoon Oscar was supposed to go get a haircut but decided to take a nap instead. By the time he woke up every barber shop and hair salon from here to Hulen had closed. We did find a cool cuts and after explaining what happened they agreed to cut his hair.

We tried to get him to sit on the fire truck or taxi cab but he wouldn't. It was a very cute place with movies and games and lots of fun things for kids to do while they get their haircut.





And of course they offer a wide variety of toys that parents can buy to bribe their kids to get them to leave they store because it's so much fun.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

The Tiny Egg

Sharla brought her tiny egg over to share with our family. We have had giant eggs before and double yolkers but never tiny eggs so we were all very curious to see what was inside.
Check Spelling
It had a very cute tiny little yolk.

Thanks Sharla for sharing :)

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Playdate and Cake

Yesterday while reading another blog I found a post about a candy barrel cake and deceided I needed to make one. I invited best friend chicas mamma (Cherilynns name for Sharla) and her kids over to enjoy some cake too (I as willing to eat it myself but figured I might oughta share).
It was a three layer chocolate cake with chocolate chips in the mix. Frosted with chocolate whip cream frosting. It had crushed butterfingers between the layers, wrapped in KitKats, and topped with M&M's
Some of the kids didn't stick around long enough for pictures.
Mhari doesn't eat chocolate so she entertained herself with the M&M's.
Zander didn't eat any cake but did have some candy. He was more interested in bugging the baby than eating.
I think Sandra got the bowl with the biggest piece and surprisingly ate most of it.
Grant couldn't quite finish his.
Sarah went around and ate every ones leftover candy.
Tanner was a little upset that he couldn't have seconds.
Talmage and Brendan didn't stick around for pictures.
And this was breakfast this morning.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Project of the day

At the end of every school year my kids come home with a bunch of broken crayons in the bottom of their school supply boxes. Every year we try to find a use for them. I was stumped for ideas so this is all we did with them.
You just peel the paper off the crayons, sort the colors, and bake them at 350 for about 10 minutes in paper cups. If you want the to stay perfectly round you can use a muffin pan but a cookie sheet holds twice as many cups so I never do. You could also use candy molds in the microwave but they don't come out as nice.
The kids love watching them melt in the oven. When they come out of the oven the colors start swirling together and then separating again as they cool. It's sometimes very entertaining to mom too.
When they've cooled you have a bunch of crayons that look like rainbow peanut butter cups.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Big Bug

From the giant plants in my garden comes giant bugs!
At it's shortest length it was three and a half inches long. When it stretched to crawl it was just under six inches long. It's about as fat as my thumb.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Brendan's Sleepover

Ten reasons why boy sleepovers are way better than girl sleepovers.


First, no matter how many invitations you send out only a few boys show up (unlike girl sleepovers where you get more girls than invitations go out).



Second, this is all the food you have to make for a boy sleepover and there's leftovers for lunch the next day.



Third, you don't have to send the little kids away. They can just upstairs and entertain themselves.


Fourth, they entertain themselves. We didn't have to do crafts, have dance competitions, play group games, nothing. We put them in front of the TV and they entertained themselves with games and movies.


Fifth, Dad gets to stay up until 4am and sleep on the couch.

Sixth, they sleep in and if they wake up they go back to sleep instead of trying to wake everyone else up.



Seventh, this is breakfast and no one complains.



Eighth, you don't get a bunch of crap that your daughter can't wear or isn't allowed to use. Boys bring gift cards so parents can decide what the kids get for their birthday. His will be used to buy minutes for his new phone.
Ninth, boys request simpler cakes so I can make then a couple of hours before the party instead of starting three days ahead.
And the tenth reason boy sleepovers are better than girl sleepovers - you don't have to tell people to put their clothes back on, their jokes are funny not hateful, they don't act like snots, boys don't have clicks, and their dancing is funny and not totally inappropriate.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Where to sleep?

A friend once asked me how it is that I find time in my day to get things done like blogging and sewing. My answer was that we have a mandatory 3 hour naptime (well actually it takes them like 30 - 45 minutes to fall asleep so they don't sleep for the full three hours but you get the point). Then she asked where in the world all those kids sleep. I actually have 13 beds and mats for kids to sleep on. I used to have more but we lost some in the move. I don't know how we managed this, our new house is only like a five minute drive from the old house and nothing was put into storage so my only thought is that when we loaded the trailer the night before the big move maybe someone took a few things off while we were sleeping. Today for the first time this summer we ran out of beds so Zander volunteered to give up his bed for an alternate nap spot.
He chose the freshly laundered pillows that he has been eyeballing all day for his clubhouse. Doesn't it look cozy? It's times like these that I wish I could take naps too.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Sarah's Purse

My friend Sharla and I did a bag for bows exchange a few months ago. Sarah was a little upset because I got a cute new purse ans she didn't. She wanted a new purse too. I told her she had to do a service for Sister Williams to exchange for her bag and she choose jewelry. We made her a necklace, earrings, and a bracelet. Tanner was a little jealous of the mommy Sarah time we were having so he helped a little.


So this morning we were all supposed to be cleaning the backyard and pulling weeds so I can clean the barn later but when I looked up there was Sarah in new clean clothes walking through the yard with her new purse.
She decided she was done so she went inside and changed her clothes and got her new purse ready for the day. She is such a booger.
Isn't it cute! And it matches mine which is very exciting for Sarah. She can't wait for us to go shopping so we can show off our purses. Oh, and to a ten year old initials on your very own purse is absolutely amazing.