Goldilocks and the Three Bears

My daughter loves to act out books she reads. One of the most recent was Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We made three bowls of porridge (which was really old rice cereal I had lying around from when my son used to eat it). I stuck one in the microwave, put ice cubes in one, and left the other room temperature. 

We then went into the living room and sat on three different chairs.

Finally we laid down in three different beds. The first one was too hard.

The second one was too soft.

 

But the third one was......"Just right" my daughter shrieked, which sent me into a giggling fit, because it obviously wasn't.

 

Almost There!

We down to our last leg of the alphabet. It's taken us about six months to get here. This is what we have:

V is for vegetable.

 

W is for wagon.

 

 X is for x-ray.

 Y is for yarn. 

 All we have left to finish is Z. It's a good thing because we're going to be moving soon and we'll have a brand new door to start all over again.

Have Yourself A Lolly Little Christmas

This weekend the kids and I made Christmas gifts for their friends. My daughter saw me looking at Pinterest, saw these lollipops, and insisted that we make some. We got all the supplies and sat down to make them. That's when I realized I don't have a candy thermometer. I wasn't sure what to do next, so I turned to my good friend the internet. Did you know you can make hard candy in the microwave?? I know. I blew my mind as well. That solved our problem because you don't need a candy thermometer in the microwave. This is how the first batch turned out:

             The kids were in charge of sprinkles and sticks. They did a pretty good job, huh?
           
After we made the first batch, we tired using some white peppermint chocolate instead. The first    batch was prettier, but the second batch tasted better (in my opinion). 

 

The kids of course had to sample both kinds. 

It was hard convincing them  to only eat one of each kind. There was some grumping involved (especially from the youngest one). Then I had an idea: Bananas on sticks dipped in sprinkles! They like the banana lollipops just as much as the chocolate!

More Letters

I know it's been a while. I've kind of been on a hiatus. Here are some more letters from our door. Enjoy.

O is for octopus.

P is for princess.

Q is for queen.

R is for ring. 

S is for snake.

T is for tree.

U is for University of Utah. It's kind of a big deal at our house. 

Pumpkin Window Art

I had read online that if you spray a little water on a window you can get foam shapes to stick to it. A while ago I bought foam sheets in bulk. I still had some black, orange, yellow, and white..all the colors perfect for a Halloween craft! We started out making jack-o-lanterns and then quickly added spiders, bats, a moon and stars. Now our window looks ready for Halloween!

More Letters

I've gotten behind posting about our 'letter door', but we haven't gotten behind making them. We have:

G is for grass:

 

 H is for house:

 I is for ice cream:

 J is for jellybeans:

 K is for king:

 L is for ladybug:

 M is for money:

 N is for noodles:

 And this is how our door is looking so far:

Sneaky Snacks

Sometimes being a parent is all about being deceptive. Recently, trying to sneak move veggies into my kids diet, I started adding carrot puree when I make mac and cheese. Doesn't look very out of the ordinary, does it? I don't think they would actually mind if I told them (like do like vegetables, they just like cheese more), but I know my husband would ABSOLUTELY mind (I hope he doesn't read this post!).

 I feel like I'm constantly struggling to get protein in my kids. While they're big fans of nuts, they are usually not to thrilled about meat. I decided to try getting them to eat some 'eggs in a basket' (toast and eggs). The plan was to throw on some sprinkles and call it 'Party Toast'. They went for it, hook, line, and sinker.

Now let me clarify, I'm not really a proponent of sugaring up regular meals, but I figured it couldn't hurt when trying something new, right? Oh, and just for the record, this picture was taken before I finished cooking. I didn't actually serve them raw eggs.

What creative things do you do to get your kids to eat something they wouldn't otherwise?

Scrubbing Bubbles

We've been using quite a bit of chalk lately. It's such a fun way for the kids to practice writing and since it washes off, I basically let them chalk on everything. As you can see in this picture, there's chalk on our grill, our fence, our porch, our garbage can, and even the kids' bikes. My husband mentioned that it was starting to look like a graffiti artist lived at our house. I laughed, but then looked out and realized he was right. That afternoon, we headed out with two pans full of soapy water and two sponges with the task of cleaning up our back porch just a little.

 My boy mostly splashed around in the bubbles. My girl, however, found this task very rewarding! She meticulously scrubbed the fence. With each fence post she would get really excited and shout, "Look how clean it is!" I think she found a lot of pleasure in this task (which is great! I've always wanted my kids to love cleaning!).

Shortly after she made it all the way around the fence, my son found a piece of chalk and started the artwork all over again. He would dip the chalk in the water and then draw, making the lines extra dark. That didn't deter my daughter for a second. She just followed right behind him, cleaning the trail he left behind.

Oh, and just for the record, the next day it rained and all the chalk that was left got washed away.

Walk About

What started out as a trip to the park turned into a walk around the neighborhood, which ended up being way more fun. It all started when we were getting out of the car to go to the park and my daughter looked down the street and said, "Mom, can we go on that bridge?" I thought about it for a moment, and then said, "Sure!". She was as pleased as punch. Off we went. Once we got to the top of the over pass, the kids got a thrill from seeing the cars drive under their feet. I'll have to admit, it's been a while since I've been up on one of these things and I kind of got a thrill as well.

After we went on the bridge, we saw a high school football team out practicing. After several shouts of "Football! Football! Football!" from my son, we headed over to go watch. We walked around a little more and not only watch the football practice, but also cheerleading practice, soccer practice, and across the street, baseball practice. For an 18-month-old who is obsessed with balls, it was a very successful afternoon!

So Crispy!

I really like the idea behind 'sensory play'. I spend lots of time on pinterest looking at different ideas. With a limited budget and limited space for storage, its sometimes hard to come up with ideas for sensory play, but when I saw this, I thought it was fantastic! Rice Krispies play! My son usually eats whatever we're playing with anyway, so why not make it something delicious?  We used play dishes to scoop and dump the cereal. They did this over and over and over again. My daughter even tried to count how many spoonfuls she could get in a little cup. 

We also got out the trains because they made an excellent CRUNCH noise and they were driven across the cereal. They also loved the noise it made when they walked across and squished it with their toes. However, once feet were involved, I figured it was probably time to stop snacking.

 

"Do it Myself"

 "I want to do it myself!" is a phrase I hear a lot. Last week I had an epiphany. I thought, maybe my daughter keeps saying this because I'm not letting her do enough by herself. So, when she asked, I let her do several things all by "myself". I was pretty amazed by the outcome.

She cut up her own banana.

 

She vacuumed the living room (and even got most of the corners!).  

 She buttered her own toast.

And she even came up with this idea, to sit on the bottom rung of the stool and use the seat as a table. Her brother thought she was genius and quickly followed suit.

Maybe I should be embarrassed that I never let my kids do these things before, but I definitely have learned something. I've made it a goal to listen when she asks, and try not to be so impatient.

2 Ingredient Dough

Oh how I love Pinterest! I pinned this recipe a couple weeks ago, and I am so glad. This is a bread dough recipe that uses 2 ingredients. That's right. 2. I know, this picture looks like we used WAY too many dishes for a recipe that only requires 2 ingredients, but I'm learning that whenever I cook with these two, it ends up looking like I cooked a ten course meal. Anyway, back to this dough.

All you need is:
1. Self-rising flour.
2. Greek yogurt.

Use equal parts of both, or a little more flour if it is sticky, and just mix it up and bake at like 375 for 10-15 minutes.

The beauty of it is that you can do whatever you want with it. Flatten in out and make a pizza. Mush it together an make bread. Whatever. We made little balls and then squashed in some shredded cheese and ham.

The result?
It was pretty delicious. It tasted kind of sourdoughy (is that a word?) because of the yogurt. The kids really liked it. I'd call the whole thing a success.

Sound Walk

It's amazing the noises kids can make with sticks, rocks, and even metal water bottles on all different surfaces. We went on a noise walk around the Botanic Gardens and listened to all difference surfaces. This was the favorite.

Different Ways to Make Bubbles

There are so many ways to make bubbles. First, I gave my girl a pan full of baking soda, and several cups full of colored vinegar. She used all different sized spoons (and a turkey baster) to mix it all together. And boy did it bubble!

 Next we made home-made bubble solution. I made a whole bowl full before I thought about the fact that I didn't have any bubble wants. My solution (pardon the pun)? I just used one of those campfire lighters to burn a hole through some plastic spoons. Problem solved!

Finally, and old classic: Dawn in the kitchen sink. I am always amazed how clean I can get the rest of the kitchen when the kids play like this in the sink. It entertains them for a solid half hour, if not more. This time my little one had the idea to go get all her toy dishes and wash them with the scrub brush. Awesome! I'd been meaning to wash those for a while.

Letter Walk

We make this letter wheel out of a paper plate and then walked around the neighborhood looking for letters on signs, license plates, and utility boxes. Whenever we found one of the letters, we fold it down on the plate. We never found Q, but we did find all the rest.