Turkey Cookies

It's great when your child gets old enough to start helping out in the kitchen. It's wonderful time spent together making memories, developing skills, and it opens the door to have great conversations with your children.
Usually when it's my daughters' turn to bring a snack to pre-school, we have her take something healthy. Because that's the way we eat at home.
But, with Thanksgiving next week, I thought it would be fun to have her help me make a fun snack to take. And it involved sugar. Lots of sugar!
But,the Holidays come around only once a year, right?
We took fudge striped cookies, Nutter Butters, mini m&ms, and frosting and made these!

Cute little booger, huh?

Enjoy creating memories with your children in the kitchen this Holiday Season!

Traveling with Kids

After doing a vacation this past weekend with my kids, I was ecstatic. The vacation was wonderful! We had a great time traveling and seeing parts of Utah we hadn't been to. So, I thought I would post on traveling with kids. Here are a few things that worked for me ( my kids are 3,2, and 5 mths):

1-Plan
I made a day to day plan which included where we wanted to go, cost, contact info; what we were eating; where we were staying. I didn't put times by things because I want to be flexible enough to make changes where needed and also not feel like I had to rush from one thing to the next to meet a time constraint. It also kept all the important info in one place (ie directions, phone number to call, confirmation numbers, etc.) so that they were easily reachable. We never ran out of anything to do! With little kids, this is a must!
2-Car Boxes
I made car boxes loaded with different things for them to do ( ie. aqua doodle, coloring books, cars, books, stickers, etc.) This kept all their stuff in one place and I wasn't searching to find them something to do. PS - I found the coolest thing at KMart. It was a make your own Golden Book (those books with gold binding). The pages were blank. So I got one for CK and Alli. I let them draw pictures of different places we went and helped them write words and it became their vacation travel log.
3-Snack Sacks
I usually keep my snacks in a picnic basket in the car. Then when the want something, I lean over and pull something out of the picnic basket. But, I knew our car was going to be packed and with 3 kids, leaning over to reach anything is hard. So, I got each kid a ziploc bag. Before we started driving, I loaded their bag with snacks from the picnic basket. That's what they got til we stopped. When we stopped, I made a point of filling their bag again, so they always had something to munch on. If they ate it too fast, too bad, they didn't get anything else til we stopped (they learned pretty quick). I also kept a cooler of water in the car and filled up their drink cups with water at every stop.

Wonderful Croquet

I love a good old fashioned croquet set. Not only is is a fun backyard game in the summer, with a little creativity it can be even more! My brother-in-law took a set with us camping and we played a game of "mountain croquet". The traditional game was made more interesting when trying to navigate brush, trees, rocks, and holes. A croquet set can also be used in a homemade version of mini-golf. Use old plastic cups as the holes and bits of paper (or other markers) to show the starting positions. Then, using a croquet mallet and a golf ball (or other small ball), have everyone try to run the mini-golf course that the family has created.

Water This Week

My theme this week is water. Honestly, a lot of my ideas come from Family Fun! They are amazing!
There website is http://familyfun.go.com/

Here are some of the things I'm thinking of doing with the kids or making:



Swimming and toddler games



Whale Water Scoop



Backyard Watercolor

We'll probably also talk about water safety and do water balloons!

'Painting' with water.

Now that the summer months are upon us, I thought I would share an idea to keep the kids cool outside! All you will need is a big bowl or bucket of water, and a paint brush or two.

Let your child dip the paint brush in the water, then let them start 'painting' the fence, the water turns the wood a darker shade. It looks like it's been painted! After the sun shines on it for awhile, it dries and looks just as it did before! I let my 3 1/2 year old do this last summer, and she loved it!


She's already asked me if she can 'paint' the fence again this year! This will keep your kiddo busy for quite a while. The older they are, the more 'artistic' they can be. Also, this will work on any wood item you have outdoors, not just a fence. Let your child 'paint' your patio, planters etc.

Melted Crayons

FOR LITTLE ONES

Children need practice pinching small objects between thumb and pointer finger in an open grasp in preparation for a correct writing grasp.
So once my boy is big enough that he can be trusted not to eat the activity, I'm going to melt down old crayons and roll them into balls that he can color with and practice the pincer grasp.

To Melt Crayons:
1. Gather leftover crayons and take off the wrappers.
2. Place the crayons in a 200-degree oven in paper-lined muffin tins for just a few minutes. (Put the colors you want to melt together in the same tin).
3. If desired, pour crayons into molds (or melt them in molds).

Themes

I am a theme person! It makes planning so much easier, and I believe that some (not all) play needs to be organized and planned. So for example here is my theme for this week:

A Mad Hatter Tea Party
this is because Orem Library is having a Mad Hatter Tea Party Teddy Bear Picnic the week of June 7-12

Here is what we plan to do to get excited for the teddy bear picnic:


Mad Hatter Hats fro TLC
These are made out of a brown paper bag!






Edible Teacup from Disney Family
Totally looks simple!


And of course we will head outside for a round of croquet!

I only do one thing a day, so I plan for 10-15 minutes to do our activity.