F is for.....

Funny faces- from Family Fun

Fudgesicles- (1 pkg chocolate pudding, 2 C milk, 1/2 C heavy cream, 1/2 C sugar- beat together, pour into plastic cups, cover with foil, push popsicle stick through foil and freeze)


Frozen yogurt- we love "Swirl It" where you can build your own froyo sundae using every single flavor and every single topping and Jayden did just that. (Notice the big scoop falling off Maddox's spoon? Yeah, it wasn't a pretty picture by the time he got finished.)

At what age do kids become aware when their face is completely smeared with food?


French tips- cause Kylie needed something to do while Jayden was at a playdate.

Finger painting- (1 1/2 Tbs cornstarch, 1 C water, food coloring- mix well and boil until thick, cool). I love Reynold's freezer paper, it comes in a huge roll (in the tinfoil aisle at Wal-mart) for like $5.50 and keeps my kids entertained for hours so I can cook, clean or waste my time on the computer.



I wised up and took this shin dig outside where it quickly turned into body painting and ended with everything and everybody getting hosed down.


Forts- games, stories and a sleepover

Fondue- I was just going to melt chocolate chips in the microwave and use skewers but I forgot about this little set a friend gave to me like 3 years ago. It's amazing how the bribe of pokey sticks and bite sized anything dipped in chocolate can get chores done in no time at all.

Fossils- I used plaster paris because I had some on hand, but here is a link for a salt dough fossil recipe

Fingerprint art- I was at the $ store and they didn't have the multi-colored ink pad so instead of buying 10 different ones I bought one then just used markers on their fingers for the other colors.

Artistic Mess

Today we had some fun doing "Toe Painting" (instead of finger painting). Parker had so much fun and made a beautiful picture with his feet. I think he had almost as much fun getting his feet washed off with the hose when he was done as he did painting his picture. We'll see how long it takes for the rain to wash the colorful little footprints off our driveway now.

I stripped Connor down to his diaper and let him paint a picture too. Now remember that this is the boy that started gagging when he touched some yogurt. He handled the painting about like I thought he would. He was all smiles and having a great time while the paint was nice and neat in the bottles. But then...

"All right mom! This will be fun! I can't wait to get started!"

I put some on his paper and he stuck his hand in it - not too sure. (That's red paint on his leg, not blood. I know, it looks terrible.)

"This is disgusting."

Curious, he poked around and squished it a little more.

"Mom, do you see the mess this is making?"

About thirty seconds into the project, he decided he'd had enough.

"This is dirty and slimy and I am so done!"

"Would somebody please clean me up?"

Cleaned off, Connor shows off his masterpiece. Deep down inside he loved the experience (or not?).

Opposites attract

He plays Barbies with her (but makes her promise not to tell his friends). She plays Batman Wii with him. You can catch him singing songs like "you change your mind like a girl changes clothes..". You can catch her humming the Star Wars theme song. He gets excited to watch her performances. She had to get a pink glove so she could play baseball with him. He rolls his eyes but will still watch "16 wishes" and other Disney channel movies with her. She grumbles that "Chuggington" is a baby show but will still watch it with him. He tells her when she looks pretty. She helps him pick out his clothes. He tells her he loves her the most out of everybody in the family. She tells him they should never fight again. Siblings. Best friends.

Tadpoles and Pickle Juice

We didn't have anything going on this evening (which is a rare thing these days). So after dinner we decided to go to a park in town that has a little stream full of tadpoles. The kids grabbed their nets and were looking for a jar to put their catch in. Kambry has recently discovered that she is a pickle lOvEr. She had the last two pickles in her lunch today so she asked if she could drink, yes drink, the pickle juice so that we could use the jar. After getting a thumbs up, she chugged it down without even a single pucker. Wow!

With an empty jar and a handful of nets, we headed out. There were so many tadpoles! The kids ended up catching a ton of them - some of them with their hands even. We told them that we would keep three of them and watch them turn into frogs. Once they are frogs (if they survive long enough to reach frog-hood) we'll take them back to the stream and let them go. Ricky and I had a fun time watching the kids with their enthusiasm and excitement as they were catching the tadpoles. Connor enjoyed being outside watching the kids too and kept clapping for them. He can't wait until he's old enough to really get in on the action. It's so great to be a mom and to be reminded of the joy that can be found in such simple things.

B is for.....

Balloon Yo-yo's

Beanbag balls

Blankets- our church is making the fleece blankets for "Project Linus". I didn't take pictures because I pretty much did it myself, but in theory it was a good idea to do it with the kids.

Bread dough art (Rhoades dough roll creations, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and dipped in powdered sugar frosting)

Beaded animal keychains (kit from Wal-mart)

Button bookmarks

Bubbles: I forgot to take pictures, but here's the recipe: 3 C water, 1 C Joy dish soap, 1/2 C corn syrup. Mix atleast 4hr ahead and put in shallow pan, make wands out of pipe cleaner or wire hangers

Blow art

Bowling

leave it to Jayden to get a gutter ball even with the bumpers :)

Letterboxing

We've discovered a great new hobby - Letterboxing! I heard about this last summer from my friend Jill, but last summer was way to crazy for us to do it. I stored it away in my mental file and have been so excited to try it out. You can go here for all the details, but here's a quick overview. Let's see if I can make it make sense. People all over the country (and maybe even the world) put together letterboxes and hide them. They register each box online and put clues/directions to find the box the that they hid. There are some different websites that you can look up clues on, but the above link is the one we use. Inside each box is a rubber stamp and a notebook. Each person or group that is looking for a letterbox has a "trail name" and a few supplies. We are the Stealthy Falcon (we worked together to come up with that one). Here's our letterboxing kit:

We have a large notebook to write the clues in (Abby designed the cover - nice job!), a small notebook to put the stamps in that we find, a pen, our stamp and an ink pad. If we want to follow some harder clues (we stuck with the easy ones for now) we'll need to get a compass too. They are common and inexpensive items, most of which we had around the house already. We spent a little more on our stamp then I was hoping too ($8) but the feather was such a perfect symbol for the Stealthy Falcon that we had to get it.

So, you look up some clues, find the letterbox (hopefully), you put your stamp, trail name and where you are from in the notebook that is in the letterbox then you put their stamp in your notebook along with the date and where you found it. We want to find some more in the area and would really like to find some when we go on vacation later this summer. I think it might be kind of addicting:) After finding a few more I think we might try and make one to hide. We'll see.

Back to our adventure. We found three clues in our town that looked like they may still have an active letterbox. Things happen to the letterboxes so it's not guaranteed that it will always be there. We tried to keep expectations low and decided that we'd be happy to find at least one. We lucked out though and found two of the three that we were looking for! We're not sure if the third one was missing or just too hard to get to. The area that it was located in was quite overgrown with poky vines so we didn't look too hard.

We were all hot and sweaty when we finished so we headed to Sonic for shakes. Connor had his first taste of milkshake and is in love. He sure put up a fight if anybody even thought about touching his cup. The protective look on his face in this picture cracks me up!

So, if anyone is looking for a fun and inexpensive new hobby or some summer fun with the kiddos, you should give letterboxing a try!