A Week of Summer Fun- The Random Edition

I hope you're all having an awesome Summer Break!  We're enjoying ours.  We've decided to slow things down a bit this summer.  I've deliberately kept our summer schedule light.  What a relief after last year which involved too.much.driving!

Musical Note Egg

 While Mark and Ava were preparing the waffle batter for our Sunday morning breakfast Ava kept saying there were musical notes on one of the eggs.  Huh?  Mark and I looked at the egg in question and sure enough!  It did have what appeared to be musical notes.  Good Eye, Ava!  Must have come from a musical chicken!

The Classic Mentos Experiment

A one-liter bottle of Diet Coke...drop in a few Mentos...and this is what happens!

(stand back)

The geyser didn't last long.  (only a couple of seconds)

 The Happiest Rainbow Cookies I've made.  

I used My Favorite Sugar Cookie Recipe.   The cookies were based on the Play Dough cookies we've made but this time we divided the cookie dough into six equal parts and colored each division with gel food coloring.  I layered the colored cookie dough in rainbow order and then sliced to create these cookies.

The girls are building Forts.

 And in since it's Summer I've decided to let this particular Fort stay up.  The girls keep saying they'll sleep overnight in it but so far that hasn't happened.

Rainbow sugar concentration experiment.

 FAILED.  

The girls wanted to do a rainbow theme- so I tried to find a science experiment that used stuff we already had.  I found this experiment.  The idea is to create layers of sugar water that have different amounts of sugar (to create a rainbow density column).  Only ours really didn't work.  

 One morning the girls went to town playing with chalk in the garage.  They labeled lots of things.  Including Mocha's food.

 And they labeled the Wood pile

 They also labeled the car...now where is that photo?  Humph.

And here was the greeting they wrote as you stepped out into the garage from the house:

and I have no idea why that photo is sideways as the original isn't!

We'll see what happens this week!  I think the {wild} black raspberries might be ready for picking.  That means we'll be making black raspberry jelly!  Woo hoo!  Hope you have an awesome week!

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My I-Love-Hawaii Bars of Soap

I wish you could smell these lovely bars of soap!  It's Hawaiian goodness at its best.  As is usually the case, the bars of soap start out ultra fragrant and then mellow to a light, pleasant scent.  I used Pikaki Fragrance Oil from Sweet Cakes.

Instant Love.

 Check out the mold Mark built for me!  This is the first batch of soap made in the new mold.  It produces perfect bars of soap!  None of them are wonky or weirdly cut.  I think we should have made a mold like this years ago!

The bars need at least another week to cure and then they should be ready.  Just in time too as we're nearly out of soap here.  I can't stand the thought of buying soap!

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Happy Father's Day!

So, what did you have for Father's Day dinner?

We had fantastic sushi rolls made by Daddy! 

:-)

He made these awesome inside-out rolls (his first time making the inside-out ones).  The filling? Carefully cut English cucumbers, thinly julienned carrots, avocado and either cooked Copper River sockeye salmon, cooked shrimp or canned crabmeat.   

 Mark- The Talented, Up & Coming Sushi Chef!

 Hey Annika, what's with the My Little Pony?

Was it good?

YOU BET!  It was absolutely fantastic!  Almost like being at a fancy sushi restaurant.

And for dessert I made Strawberry Country Cake from Ina Garten.  Oh yeah.  It was sooooo good!

Happy Father's Day to all Fathers!  Our lives wouldn't be complete without you!

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Going Fishing in the Gravel Pit

The girls have been BEGGING and PLEADING us to take them fishing.  Ever since Grandpa gave them fishing poles last summer. 

They got their wish!

On our recent, super-quick trip to Michigan we headed to what Grandpa called The Gravel Pit.  Apparently, Grandpa and Aunt Beth took all the kids there last summer (while Mark & I were in Finland) and all the kids caught fish.  That made a HUGE impression on both girls.

Sadly, the fishies weren't in a biting mood on our recent fishing excursion.  We did have lots of mosquitoes that WERE in a biting mood. LOL!  Plus poison ivy to watch out for.  But hey, it was a GORGEOUS day to be outside.  

Grandpa is showing Annika how to use her fishing pole. (how to properly cast without catching a tree branch)

Cousin Henry and Aunt Beth

 Annika and Ava

 The Fishing Excursion Gang- Cousins Lily, Gregory & Henry, Aunt Beth, Uncle Ray, Grandpa (and Mark & me)

Cousin Gregory caught a fish!  (don't know what kind but it's a keeper!)

Do I spy something on the end of Annika's fishing pole?

 YAY!  

Annika caught a fish!!!!  This one's a keeper too!

Mark also caught a fish....three fish total.  

Some exploring. Some dreaming. And lots of fun!

Thank you for the wonderful time!

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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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