Submarine search and find!

Summer is half over!  I can't believe my kids will go back to school in 1 month!

We have been busy this summer, with camping and trips and swimming and all the other fun things to do this time of year.

One of the big hits this summer has been GeoSafari JR. SubScope.

My kids were so excited when it came in the mail.

It's for ages 3 and up.  My little girl loves it as much as my 13 year old niece.!!

We have been taking it everywhere with us.

The lake, the pool, the river, and anywhere in between.

My Kollin loves that it has some bright LED lights on it so he could look for seashells even in the dark!

And little miss loves to play with it in the bathtub.

We decided that a game would make this fun toy even better!

So here is how to set up and play our submarine search and find!

Get a large glass/see-through container.

Fill it water and dish soap,  (about 2/3 of water to 1/3 of bubbles)

you could even add food coloring to make it a bit more fun!

Laminate the search and find pages so the water doesn't ruin them.  And outside or somewhere that you don't mind a little splashing put the clear container over the page.

You'll want the lights on if the water is colored .

And then you play search and find.!!  

When it was each child's turn I told them what to look for.

On the JR page there is one of each image.

On the Pre-K page there are multiple, so I would say something like "Find 3 sharks"

When they found all the images it's the next child's turn.

My kids Loved this game, and I loved how hard they worked at finding each picture.

 I have put my search and find pages below.  Simply right click on the picture and open image in a new tab.  From there you will save image to computer, and you can print from there!!

JR Search and Find

Pre-K Search and Find

To buy the GeoSafari JR. Subscope  go  HERE

 *I was not financially compensated for this post. I received a sample GeoSafari JR. Subscope for review purposes. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.*

Summer Time and Bug Hunting

Are you guys ready for summer?  If you're like me you've  look forward to it all year long because you dream of those endless summer nights.  Swimming, popsicles, fireworks, late nights, fire pit, bbq.  You know, the "highlight reel" of summer, as I refer to it.  Because the truth is sometimes (most of the time) summer rolls around and the kids begin to complain.  "What are we doing today?"  or "I'm bored".  Am I right?

Well, here is the good news.  I have ideas for you (and for my kids).  Summer boredom can be crushed, and the best part is, you - Mom, don't feel like you need to supervise every activity.

First and foremost, I have my kids keep a schedule in the summer.  It still leaves time for fun activities, but it also lets them know that "hey, it's not ok to sit around in your pj's all day long and watch tv."  I also have a huge list of boredom busters that my kids like to do and of course summer reading.

Also, we got the cutest bug hunting kit.  Sometimes what works for little kids doesn't always work for my big kids so I was excited when I got this and it said ages 8+.  At first I thought it was just an ordinary kit.  You know, the kind that has the terrarium and you just run out and catch a bug and watch it die within a couple of days.  But I was pleasantly surprised when I opened this and discovered it was much more.

 

The kit came with all sorts of things including a booklet that gives you ideas on how to find bugs and different activities to try.

One of the suggestions was to set a trap for the bugs using some kind of food.  My kids opted for a cookie and placed their trap outside. 

In the end I had a very happy little boy.  It was fun to watch him catching bugs and finding new ideas in the booklet.  It was also great to get my kids outside and interested in something other than electronics.

You can buy this kit (Nancy B's Science Club® Bug Discovery Lab and Incredible Insects Journal)  here.

Summer Schedule  and Boredom Busters

Kids Summer Passport and Printables 

SUMMER READING 2016

Scholastic Summer Reading - May 9 - September 4.  Free online reading program for kids with book lists, activities, and tips. 

Barnes and Noble Summer Reading - Read books, keep a journal, earn a free book.

Pizza Hut Book It

Book Adventure - Read books, take quizzes, earn prizes

DIY Summer Reading Camp  - free printables and ideas for hosting your own summer reading camp

Check around your own town for fun activities for your kids.  Most public libraries have summer reading programs. 

For all my Southern Utah Locals, here's a list of summer events in our area:

1,000 Books Before Kindergarten

Sunset on the Square - Free Summer Movies

St. George City  - summer activities, arts & craft classes, day camps, Lego classes, Lil Detectives, and so much more

Washington City Community Center - swimming, lap pool, and rock wall

Tuacahn Center for the Arts - summer performances

Hurricane City - summer camps and clinics

Hurricane City Free Movies

Washington County Fair - August 10-13th

I hope this list helps all of you Mommas out this summer.  Summer time can be completely amazing with just a little bit of imagination.

 *I was not financially compensated for this post. I received a sample bug kit for review purposes. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.*

Ultimate Lego Storage

Let's take a minute to talk about Lego's.  They are fantastic!!  Aren't they?  Here's the problem, at least at my house.  My son is 7.  His absolute favorite toy is Lego's.  He gets them for Christmas, and Birthdays and for doing extra chores around the house and...you can see the problem.  He has so many sets but for a long time we haven't had a good way to store them.

We live in a small house.  No basement, no extra bedrooms or a playroom, and not much closet space.  Our kids have to keep their toys in their bedrooms.  Most of their toys are packed tightly in their closets.  Toys & clothes & shoes all kept in a tiny closet.  We've tried storage bins and a toy box, but things still get jumbled.  Then there is the issue of trying to keep Lego sets together. 

Honestly here is our Lego routine.  My son gets a set of Lego's, builds it once, then I try to put it in a zip lock bag with the instructions, but somehow most of the Lego's end up in a little blue container in his closet with instructions floating all over the place.    He has tons of Lego's, but it seems like every single time we go to the store he is begging for another set.  (Don't worry, I usually don't give in).  I couldn't understand why he kept asking for more sets when he already had so many.  Then it sort of occurred to me...trying to build something when you have to dig through hundreds of Lego's to find the right pieces was a daunting task, especially for a little boy.  It was easier to just get a new set.

I decided to find a better way to store his Lego's.  I found tons of great ideas online, but our space is limited and I really wanted to keep each set together.  I remember when my girls where little we used to keep a lot of their toys in containers under their beds.  I found a big flat container made to fit under a bed.  It had wheels and was light enough for him to lift.    Once I had the big container I went in search of some smaller containers to fit inside.  Our Walmart happened to have pencil boxes for less than a $1 and they happened to fit perfectly inside the box. 

I pulled out all of his Lego's.  The storage bin we already had some in, every instruction booklet I could find, every set still in a box, and also those in zip lock bags.  At first it didn't seem too bad.

Not bad right?  Ha!!  You would be amazed to know how many bazillion Lego's fit inside that blue container.   I started by laying each booklet out.  Then I went through each booklet and found all the pieces to make that set.  1 hour turned into 5 turned into 2 straight days of sorting Lego's.  2 days.  Think about that.  If it took me that long to sort these Lego's, think about how long it would take a 7 year to build something with all of his Lego's jumbled together like that.  Frustrating right?!! 

After 2 very long days I was done.  Each small container holds one set - pieces and instructions.

As soon as I was finished, I had a happy little boy busy putting together each set, then cleaning up and putting that set away before moving onto the next.  He kept saying how cool it was.  Now I have a happy boy and a happy momma because the Lego's are finally, finally under control.  Plus we have plenty of space for more sets in the future so this storage will work for a long time with his growing Lego collection.

As a side note, the large container was about $17.00 at my local Walmart and each pencil box was $1.00.  The large container can hold 28 pencil boxes.  So this project cost me just under $50. 

"Beef Mine" Valentine

We've been getting ready for Valentine's day around here.  Baking cookies and making cards and treats for our friends.  We wanted to come up with a creative valentine this year.  Something that didn't involve chocolate or peanuts, since so many of my son's classmates have allergies.  We started by looking around to find some of our favorite treats and ended up picking out some mini slim jim beef sticks and designed a valentine for them.  We used a tan card stock to print on.  I think they turned out pretty great and my kids are super excited to hand them out to their friends.

PDF version here.

Homemade Suckers

When I was a kid my mom made suckers once a week.  There were a billion of us kids (ok, only 10 but still) we didn't have a lot of money so our treats were always homemade.  Instead of other kids that had fruit roll ups, and fruit snacks and store bought treats, we had homemade suckers, carmel popcorn, and jello jigglers.  So when my son asked if we could make suckers it brought back all sorts of fantastic memories.

The only problem was trying to find the good metal sucker molds that my mom has.  I checked our local craft stores to no avail. Everyone seems to have the cheap plastic molds made for chocolate but not the metal ones.  I checked on amazon and even eBay, but they were crazy expensive.  I tried to google it but still nothing.

A few weeks ago when my mom came to visit I asked her to bring her sucker molds so we could make suckers.  My sisters brought their kids over and we ate dinner, then afterwards we all stood in the kitchen and made some suckers.

Homemade Suckers

2 c granulated sugar
1/2 c water
1/2 clear corn syrup
1 tsp oil flavoring
food coloring (optional)

Set up the sucker molds on a cookie sheet, then spray with non-stick spray.

Bring sugar, water and corn syrup to boil over high heat.  Cook, stirring occasionally till it reaches a hard crack stage - 300 degrees.

Once it reaches this temp, take the pan off the heat and add the flavoring and food coloring .  Stir it till it stops bubbling.  Then carefully pour it into the prepared sucker molds.  Let them cool completely before you take them out of the molds.

As a side note, there will be some of the candy that spills over the sides of the molds, that's ok, that's the best part.

While we were making the suckers we asked my mom where she got the molds and she told us there use to be a store in Salt Lake called Gygi.  We googled it and found that they are still in business.  Plus you can order online.  Woohoo!!!

Here's the link for the sucker molds.  Gygi Old Fashioned Sucker Molds

How to get GUM out of fabric

Today started out to be the loveliest of days. We slept in late and woke up to the most glorious sunshine.  We had plenty of time to get ready for church.  There were no obnoxious arguments and no bickering.  I had time to get dinner put into the slow cooker and even time to vacuum the house.  Maybe I should have realized this morning that it was all too good to be true, but.....

Church was nice and went by quickly.  The kids were excited to get home so we could eat dinner and watch a movie as a family.  We pulled into the garage, grabbed our stuff, heading into the house and I began getting things ready for dinner.  I opened a cupboard to grab a pan for rice and a glass dish fell out, shattered to pieces on the floor and cut my foot in the process.  This is were things quickly went down hill.

As I started cleaning up the glass I hear my oldest daughter ask my son what is on his pants?  "I don't know"  he says.  "It's like pink stuff all over the back of your pants" she says.  "Oh ya, I accidentally dropped my gum and sat on it....   It's okay though, I picked it up."  This is when I turned around to see the damage.  Gum, pink gum all over the back of his church pants.  The ones we bought just 2 weeks ago for my daughters graduation.  The same pants that he has only worn one time.  I decide they are ruined.  Gum never comes out of anything.  I have him go change and I toss the pants in the garbage.  All of a sudden it dawns on me.... "Buddy, where were you sitting when you dropped your gum?" I ask him.  "In the car."

I'm about ready to lose it at this point.  I can't even bear to look in the car.  I send my daughter out to look.  She comes back in and says its all over the seat.  Uggg!!!!!!

I decide I've got to figure out how to get gum out of fabric.  I check online and find a couple of people that suggest using ice, but this has not worked for me in the past.  I have some goo gone that I've used to get gum off of hard surfaces but decide it's too greasy to use on fabric.  The only other thing I can think of is nail polish remover.  I've used it for so many other things,  seriously you would be surprised to know how much I use nail polish remover.  It might just work.

I grab the nail polish remover and the bag of cotton balls and I get to work.

How to Remove Gum from Fabric

Nail Polish Remover
Cotton Balls

Put a little bit of nail polish remover on a cotton ball.  Start with one section at a time and rub the area until the gum dissolves.  Continue this process until all the gum is gone.  Then wash the piece of clothing according to instructions.

For the car seat it was the same process, but then I used a wet wash cloth to wipe the seat to remove some of the nail polish remover.

Twenty minutes later and tada!!!,  the gum was gone and dinner was served.  Now back to enjoy my Sunday evening.

Summer Reading

Summer is upon us and I am so, so excited to have all of the wonderful things that go along with it; swimming at the pool, late nights, bbq's, hiking, fireworks, rodeo, derby, popsicles, sprinklers, water fights, family reunions, and so much more.

But as always, I'm concerned about how my kids are going to be spending most of their days.  My hope is always that they don't park themselves in front of the tv and sit there for 12 hours a day, the entire summer. 

I, like so many of you, am a working mom, so they have to entertain themselves most of the time.

Last year we came up with our Ultimate Summer Boredom Busters and the Kid's Passport Printables that we will be using again this year, because we actually didn't get to do everything.  But I also want my kids to read more this summer, since I feel like they lose a lot of what they learned the previous year in school over the summer. So I found a few great reading programs that might keep them interested in reading. 

SUMMER READING 2015

Scholastic Summer Reading - May 4 - September 4.  Free online reading program for kids with book lists, activities, and tips. 

Barnes and Noble Summer Reading - Read books, keep a journal, earn a free book.

Pizza Hut Book It - Starts June 22

Book Adventure - Read books, take quizzes, earn prizes

DIY Summer Reading Camp  - free printables and ideas for hosting your own summer reading camp

American Girl - Read-a-palooza - Select Stores have free reading events, printables and activities online. 

Chuck E. Cheese - Incentive Program, earn tokens


Check around your own town for fun activities for your kids.  Most public libraries have summer reading programs. 

For all my Southern Utah Locals, here's a list of summer events in our area:

1,000 Books Before Kindergarten

Summer Reading Program - Starts June 1st

Sunset on the Square - Free Summer Movies

St. George City  - summer activities, arts & craft classes, day camps, Lego classes, Lil Detectives, and so much more

Washington City Community Center - swimming, lap pool, and rock wall

Tuacahn Center for the Arts - summer performances

Hurricane City - summer camps and clinics

Hurricane City - movies in the park

Thunder of Utah Air Show - July 25-27th St. George Airport

Washington County Fair - August12-15th

I'm sure there are a ton of other things going on to, but I hope this list gets you started.

Zombie Valentines

Happy February!!  I hope you are having a lovely month so far.  We are getting all ready for Valentines Day.  We even started a little early.  My kids decided it's more fun to make their own Valentines than to buy them at the store because we just don't have that much of a selection.

We decided on a couple of themes this year.  Zombies and Hearts.  My amazingly talented daughter MaKady got to work on designing these Valentines and I just love how they turned out. 

For PDF Versions click the link below:

Zombie Valentine

Heart Valentine