Rainbow Pudding Pops

Last week the girls asked if this week's theme could be about rainbows.

I'm not one to refuse a request like that!

;-)

On Monday we made Rainbow Pudding Pops!

This "recipe" is about as easy as you can get.  Seriously.  Which is why the girls took over the project.

Rainbow Pudding Pops

One package instant vanilla pudding

Milk (amount depends on the recipe listed on the pudding box)

food dye

Popsicle Mold is helpful but paper or plastic cups and tongue depressors (found at craft store) can also be used. 

Make the vanilla pudding according to the instructions listed on the box.  Stir. Stir. Stir. (we used an electric beater) Spoon out equal amounts of the pudding into four different bowls (we only did four different colors; you may wish to do more colors).  Add a different color food dye to each bowl (we used red, yellow, green and blue).  Stir to evenly distribute the dye into the pudding.  Spoon one color at a time into the popsicle molds (ours came from Ikea) until you get a rainbow effect.  We started with red, then added yellow, then green and finally topped off with blue.  Replace the sticks/handles carefully into the pudding. Freeze.  Enjoy!

Ava was in charge of the red and yellow layers

 Annika was in charge of the green and blue layers.

 Carefully spooning the green pudding on top of the yellow layer.

 We had a lot of extra green and blue....so that's why there's a popsicle with only green in it.

 Ready for the freezer!

 Talk about perfect timing!  The girls had their friends over (here is Wynne with Ava) yesterday afternoon and the rainbow pudding pops were a fantastic dessert!

 Shae and Annika

 Paige thinks they're fun too!

 Annika's current classic pose.  

I got the idea for these pudding pops from this blog.

So, it's definitely not a health food but they are fun!  I think if we make these again I know how to make these healthier and fun- use fruit purees!  I think I'd use blueberry, strawberry & raspberry, orange, banana & lemon and kiwi purees to create a rainbow effect.  Or something like that.  It's worth a try!

I've also been up to my elbows in strawberries!  I've got red stains EVERYWHERE.  LOL!  So far I've made 17 half-pints of strawberry freezer jam, gotten a double batch of strawberry ice cream goo ready to be churned, frozen other strawberries whole (to cook and use throughout the winter!) and I'm planning on making a strawberry/whipped cream layer cake.

Anyone want to come over and help us eat the ice cream and cake??????   Seriously!

Do you have any awesome strawberry recipes you can't live without?  Please share them with me!

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Bird Craft- Week 1 of Summer Fun!

Happy Summer!

Our summer vacation started out with a "BANG!" as we did a super fast trip to visit family in Michigan (photos to come).  

After a couple of days to recover we're finally celebrating....

I just love Annika's Creative Spirit.  She surprised with a "party".  The girls put on a Dancing Show for us.  And then we all danced for a bit in our own special way.  LOL!  Annika loves pretending to be a robot while dancing.

Late last week (after a few days of down time) we started our little summer school program.  Well, that really should be summer "school program" because we're not following any strict schedule- we're just going with the flow at this point.

Before school was out I was getting a little stressed out trying to create or find a summer curriculum we could use at our leisure.  It seems like a silly thing to get worried about, doesn't it?  While I love to let the girls have free play I also wanted to include a little bit of school work into our daily life- math, reading, art, science, geography, etc.  What I REALLY wanted to avoid is hearing, "Mommy, I'm BORED!"

And that's when I remembered that Rachel (my friend IRL!) over at Sun Scholars had created a Summer Program!  PERFECT!  Here's a link to her Summer Program you can purchase.  She has a free sample kit you can download to see if it will work for your family.  The nice thing is that she offers tips on how to do the activities with younger children and how to make the activities more challenging for the older kids.  While we may not follow it exactly day-by-day we are using it and it also gives me a sense of control over our summer days.

We also started the Bird Sleuth- Most Wanted Birds investigation kit (I talked about it on this post).  The first Investigation included listening to mystery sounds of various animals and trying to describe those sounds.  I never realized how difficult it is to describe sounds!

Anyway...after the bird activity the girls wanted to do a Bird Theme for the rest of the week (so that was only Thursday and Friday).  The girls really wanted to do a bird-themed art project that day.  Ack!  What to do with the stuff we had at home?

And that's when I remembered the bird nest plates recently posted on Whatever. (Thank you Megan!) We even had everything we needed to make them.  Yippee!!!!

Annika working on her nest.

 My plate is in the middle.  Ava and I used a LOT more paint than Annika so ours needed drying time.  That's why Annika is already getting to work covering the brown half with "nesting" materials.  In our case the nesting materials ended up being twigs, various yarn and raffia.  And lots and lots of Modge Podge (glue) to hold it all together.

 I cut the bird shapes out of cardstock and we decorated the birds with whatever we had on hand....more paper, buttons and feather.  The purple bird is Ava's.  Love the button beak on hers! Mine is the brown with red/white checkered tummy.

 Annika created a blue bird with red tummy and blue tail feathers.

Ava was sooooo excited as this was her first time getting to use the (low-temp) hot glue gun.  She also learned that the pointy end of the gun can be quite hot.  Ouch!  She also LOVED gluing on all those buttons!

 We also cut out some eggs from various blue paper and added them to our nests.  I poured a ton of the modge podge glue all over the nests.  They took over a day to dry.

 

 Ava's

(hmm....I should take better photos of the finished -and dried!- project)

On Friday we made Bird's Nest cookies using the recipe I found a few years ago on the m&m website.  No photos.  Why?  We ate them up too fast!  LOL!

This week the girls have asked for a Rainbow Theme.  So we'll see what we do!

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Fast & Fun {Father's Day} Gift

Need a {thoughtful} Father's Day gift idea?

This is something I've been doing for the past several years.  I seem to only have one example of it at home to show you but hopefully it'll demonstrate what I'm talking about.

Updated: Check out this link for another example (the first photo in the post).

Step 1: I take a series of photos with the girls holding the letters D, A and Y (to spell Daddy or just Dad).  The first few years I printed the letters out on paper and colored them in.  As the girls have gotten older they have become more involved in the project.  Now they create and color the letters by themselves.  

I think it would be super cute if you could find wooden letters instead of using printed letters. (I just never seem to remember to pick any up while I'm at the craft store staring all the bazillion wonderful things to purchase and craft away!)  

I can also think of many variations using this theme.  For example you could have a series of photos that spell out "We Love You" (each photo having a different word) or some other meaningful phrase to you. Get the kids involved!

Step 2: I pick out the cutest photos of the bunch to have printed.  (the photo size depends on the frame opening) 

Step 3: The hardest and most time consuming part of this project is finding a photo frame with the correct number of openings: if you want to spell out DAD you'll need a frame with three openings.  If you want to spell out DADDY you'll need one with five openings (more difficult to find).  I've had good luck finding frames at Kohl's and I just saw some at Ikea the other day. (why oh why didn't I pick some up??? Ikea is only four hours away.  Ack!)

Hmm...logically Step 3 should come before Step 2 but it seems like I'm always searching for the right frame last.  LOL!

Note: Mark just told me that this gift means a lot to him.  :-)  He hangs up the frame at his work as a constant reminder of what matters most in life!


I'm sharing this Father's Day gift idea at Sun Scholars: For the Kids Friday.

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Last Day of School Owls

For Hooting Good Fun we made these cute Owl Pillow Boxes to hold The Last Day of School Thank You cards/drawings/small gift for the girls' teachers.  

I got the cute idea from Kerry at Kerry's Craft Blog via Meg over at Whatever.  Thank you!  You guys are totally awesome!

{I found a pillow box template on the internet and used it to make several boxes out of cardstock.  I had lots of precut cardstock circles plus I used the Creative Memories oval and circle cutters- I knew my scrapbooking supplies would come in handy again!  The beak and the feet are two hearts (I cut them out freehand).  The wings are ovals.  I used a low-temperature hot glue gun to help make the project go faster and so that the girls could participate in making the owls.  Sweet and easy!}

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Our Fairy Village: A work in progress

I've had an itch to create a Fairy Village for a few years now.  And my timing couldn't have been more perfect.  While Ava got to have a blast at her best friend Wynne's birthday party, Annika and I got busy and PAINTED and PAINTED and PAINTED fairy houses.

Okay, so they're actually little wooden birdhouses I bought at Michael's but

they're Fairy Houses to us!

I love Annika's creative spirit- I just let her do her own thing....

Here are the finished Fairy Houses

 (I can't decide if I should cut the hangers off or not)....

I only painted the little house with blue roof and scalloped edges, the toadstool house and the one with the rainbow roof.  The rest were done by talented Annika.

Fairy House Village, Take One 

(a few rocks and flowers on a green felt base)

Birds Eye view of the village

Here's the Toadstool Cottage.  Complete with flower-filled window boxes!

Annika's cute yellow, pink and purple cottage.  

Now here's where you need to help me.... what's missing?  I feel that the Fairy Village isn't complete.

I've found some wooden logs to use (not exactly sure what to do with them).  I'm planning on making some clay toadstool mushrooms and snails.  I was also thinking of making tiny signs for each cottage (so that we'll know which Fairy lives in which cottage).  I'd like to make a tree of some sort but not sure how to go about doing that.  

Any suggestions?  

(Hooray!  This is my 500th post!  )




ETA- We've made some modifications on Our Fairy Village!  Come check it out!  It's still not quite finished...we love working on it and changing it.  :-)


I'm sharing this with Sun Scholar's For the Kids Friday, BNOP's Metamorphosis Monday, Skip to My Lou's Made by You Monday, Magic Onion's Friday Nature Table, A Marvelous Mess Monday

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Egg Carton Flower "Wreath" (ok, so it's not really a wreath but what else do you call this?)

Do you remember my colorful fingers from this Saturday?  I finally finished my Egg Carton Flower Wreath!  I've only had this on my to-do list for the oh....past three or four weeks. LOL!  

without further ado I give you...{My Egg Carton Flower "Wreath"}:

I used a GIGANTIC cereal box (opened up at the glued seam) as the base for my letter B (hand drawn). I eyeballed the size of the letter...I got lucky!  I kind of wish I'd used a sturdier backing as the finished product is curling/buckling slightly. 

I painted the cardboard B with three shades of green acrylic paint.  Don't really know why...but I think it looks nice.

Here are those little egg carton flowers that took so long to make!  (actually, they're really super easy but I kept postponing making them and I have no excuse for not getting them done sooner) 

I used whatever I had on hand for the centers- pom poms and foam shapes.

Almost there!  Last step- hot gluing the flowers on to the letter B form.  

I used a green ribbon from my ribbon stash to hang the "wreath" on my door (used a thumb tack at the top of the door to secure the ribbon).

Adds a bit of Spring Time Cheer to our house!  Especially considering the fact that the temperatures took a nose dive and on Saturday morning we woke up to snow!  Ack!  

Posted this at Skip To My Lou's Made by You Mondays:

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Our Easter Trees for 2011

a parade of our 2011 Easter Trees:

(thus far)

Ava's very simple but lovely tree (it has lots of purple ornaments...because that's her favorite color)

 Ava posing with her tree... (note her drawing on the stretch canvas...and do you see my fish cloud on the wall?)

Annika's slightly larger tree with lots of green ornaments (and yes, green is her favorite color)

 Goofy Annika posing with her tree!  (ten points if you know what that photo in the foreground is!)

And here's the Family Easter Tree....

Creating Easter trees is a family tradition I grew up with.  I need to ask Mama how far back the Easter tree tradition goes in our family (my family comes from Austria and I do know many other Germans & Austrians make Easter trees as well).  I remember watching Mama decorate the Easter tree when I was little.  We'd cut pussy willow branches since they grew along the roadside in Alaska and use those for our trees.  I do miss those pussy willows! 

This is an Easter tree at my Grandparent's home in Austria ...when I was about four years old (the year before I entered Kindergarten- which translates to a few decades ago- circa 1977 or 1978!).  This Easter tree was made with pussy willow branches.

 

This year I used the branches from the freshly pruned shrubs (Weigela and Viburnum shrubs) as our tree base.  Maybe they'll leaf out for us!  We've been collecting Easter ornaments for years (thanks largely to Mama!).  The super old and very fragile ornaments are still in hiding- until the girls are older and not as likely to knock stuff over!  

:-)

I'm thinking of making a few more Easter trees.  So far this is it for our Easter decorations.  Hopefully the girls will help me decorate this weekend.  I've got a few spring crafts up my sleeve but lately - with the weather being so nice- the girls have been outside playing (so not doing the craft projects).  It's kind of weird to be hoping for bad weather but I think that's what we'll need in order to get those craft projects going!

*Today was Parent-Teacher Conference day so the kids had the day off from school.  Hooray for no school!!!!  And boo on Mommy making the kids help clean the house!  I'm such a mean Mommy, aren't I?  (please say, "no"!)  On a happy note, Annika appears to be doing very well in school and we're happy with her progress.  :-) Keep up the good work Annika!


I'm sharing this post over at Sun Scholar's For The Kids Friday linky love party!

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