Its an Olympic Summer!

 The Olympics this summer have been providing a great sense of direction for the kids and I over the last two weeks.  Sometimes I get to the middle of the summer, and I think, "Yikes!  What are we going to do now???"  Maybe its the age of my kids this summer, and how much more capable Roscoe is or something, but I've hardly thought that!  We've been going to the beach a lot, and had family visiting, and so much more.  All the same, I love working within a theme, my kids love having a craft to look forward to every couple of days, and the honest truth?  I just need an excuse to start another Pinterest board (check out my Olympics Kid Fun Pinterest board)!!!

 So, last week we did a great painting activity using toilet paper tubes to paint the Olympic rings.  Have to say, pretty low mess, and easy clean up (I threw the tubes away... no washing brushes!).

 As we painted I talked to the kids about how everything always points back to Jesus' love for us: nature, the seasons, the Olympic rings...

BLACK reminds us of our sin, all the bad stuff we do, say or think.

RED is for the incredible LOVE that Jesus has for us, and because he loves us, he died for us, shedding his blood and taking our punishment, 

that we deserve for our sins.  

He loves us that much!

WHITE is for forgiveness.  For saying that we're sorry to God and others for our bad choices, and having our sins cleaned off us, forever!

GREEN is for new life, for the new, fresh start we get to have 

because of being forgiven: freedom!

YELLOW is the hope that we have of spending the rest of our lives 

with our true best friend, Jesus, every day.

BLUE is for telling others about Jesus and his love.  

One way we can do this is through baptism, 

as well as through our kind words, kind hands (actions) and kind thoughts.

 On another day we were watching tennis with the kids, and thanks to my Pinterest board, I had organized several crafts ahead of time for us to do, and pulled out this beauty!

 Little Tennis Puppets!  Aren't they cute?  We used supplies that I had around the house: pompoms, googly eyes, and feathers.  The kids had fun picking out the colours and then I glue-gunned them on to the balls.  

The puppets are great for storing treasure in too!

We've also built different models of boats to test which ones float the best, but were too busy having fun to take pictures!  Here are some of the ideas we used from other blogs:

Little Mermaid Party - Aria Turns 6!

Yes, this post is a little slow in coming!  The party was way back in April, but... better late than never!  Right?  So, apparently April is a busy birthday month for Aria and her friends!  It was a challenge finding a day that worked for everyone, and I think most weekends in April had a party scheduled!  We ended up combining Aria's party with one of her closest friends, Stella, as their birthdays are only a week apart, and I'm SOOO glad we did!  It was such fun!

Stella's mom and I were talking one day, and we quickly realized we should just combine the parties, as both girls wanted a mermaid party, 

both girls had the same friends they wanted to come, 

and neither of us moms thought the friends should bring gifts!  

So instead we had a loonie and twonie party, where the birthday girls had little treasure chests that their friends filled with money!  Aria needed a new bike this year, so her money went towards that purchase.

 

 I had been planning Aria's party for several months already, as I really enjoy the creative end of decorating and planning towards a good theme!  

So I took care of hosting, decorating and some food, and Stella's mom made a super fun cake!

 There are so many great ideas out there for doing a mermaid party, 

and the trouble is focusing in on only a couple ideas.  

We decided to go with a turquoise, purple and green colour scheme, 

and then started finding decor that fit in with that!  

Aria and I had fun shopping for jewels and stones and shells at the dollar store to decorate the table.  And then Superstore had plastic dishes for outdoors this spring in a great turquoise, and for super cheap!

 I've decided that as cute as cake-pops are, 

dipped marshmallows are WAAAAY easier, 

and just as big of a hit with the kids!  

So we used some purple dipping chocolate and the purple sprinkles 

(left over from last year's Tangled Party) for those!

 The mermaid tail towels were an awesome take-home/thank you gift for the guests, and doubled as chair decor!

 I found this fish net at the dollar store and filled it with balloons for an under the sea theme in the living room.  

The starfish were made with sandpaper (again, courtesy of the dollar store), and I made the tissue paper flowers - super easy!  

Just use about 8 sheets of tissue paper, 

accordion fold it, 

use a twist-tie in the middle to hold the folds together, 

shape the two ends (I rounded them off, or cut a a triangle), 

and then fan them out.

  

 My hubby helped out by making these super cute "sushi" sandwiches.  He spread cream cheese on slices of bread, and then put sliced cucumber, cheese, and ham in them, rolled them up and cut them into rolls.

 Here's our new pet fish that acted as a centrepiece on the party table!

 Isn't that cake so cute?!  

The birthday girls got to keep the mermaid dolls that were on top.  

I made the ruffled streamers the night before.  Again, super easy!  

Double up the streamers, and then force them into the sewing machine, allowing them to bunch as you sew to get that ruffled look.  

And then cut them to the length you want them.  

The more imperfect the better!

 The birthday girls!

 I ended up not planning much for party activities, which turned out to be a good thing, as the girls were happy to play barbies for the whole party!  I think thy really enjoyed just being together, without the school agenda to contend with!  We did play musical chairs to the Little Mermaid soundtrack, which progressed into a full-on Mermaid dance party!

Our six year old!  Where has the time gone!  

And now starting into grade one in less than a month.  

I can hardly believe it! 

Mermaid Tail Pseudo-Tutorial

DISCLAIMER: I say this is a "pseudo-tutorial", because I don't want to claim if you follow my directions step by step it will end up a certain way!  I am definitely NOT a seamstress, and when I do sew, I would say that I am an "interpretive-sewer" (kinda like interpretive dance??!)  That being said, I saw the idea for a mermaid beach towel, and thought, "I could make that!", and I did, for about $5 a towel!  Not bad!

 So, first off, I went to WalMart, 

and found towels at $5 a shot in the colours I wanted (purple and turquoise), one towel per child (I needed 6: so 3 purple, 3 turquoise).  

I chopped the bottom third off each towel, 

and then I made a fin template using tissue paper.  

I folded the tissue paper in half, drew half a tail freehand, cut it, opened it up and voila!  A perfectly symmetrical fin!  

I pinned it to a the bottom third of the towel that I had cut off, and cut around it, leaving a 1/4 to 1/2 inch for the seam allowance (a trick I learned in pattern making from the UVic Theatre Costume department!).

 Then, as I am not much of a seamstress (as mentioned above), I waited to do the actual sewing until I was at my in-law's house in March, because my mom in law is a fabulous seamstress, and often takes my crazy ideas and figures out how to make them work!  We serged the fins (an easy job for me!), and then she and my sister in law figured out a way to use crochet string (not yarn) to gather the unfinished edge of the top two-thirds of the towels in order to sew them to the fins.  Are you with me still??

 Here's the finished product!  

After the visit, I took the finished towels home and attached velcro to the top of each tail so the girls could wear them!

 Here's my husband's mom and sister hard at work on my crazy scheme...

And here's the finished product, modeled by the birthday girl.  

The towels were a huge hit at the party, and a great 

take-home gift instead of a goody bag!  

It was super cute seeing them all wearing their towels 

while they played barbies at the party.

September Catch-up: A month in Review

I can't believe its been a month since I last posted!  We've had a full month of launching youth and children's ministries at our church, and a month of adjusting to having Aria in all day, every day kindergarten!

We had a really HOT September... probably on account of summer not really starting until August... so we thought up some fun water activities with help from Pinterest, and some other creative moms!

One of our new favorite outdoor toys are these sponge balls!  They are super easy to make and tonnes of fun to play with.  I bought a pack of all-purpose sponges from the dollar store and used some zip-ties that I already had at home.

 

 Its as simple as cutting the sponges into three, alternating colors with another sponge (6 pieces total) and then using the zip-tie to cinch them as tightly as you can together.

 You can use different textures of sponges too to create even cooler looking sponge balls.  We like to use them in lieu of water balloons (way less mess to clean up! And they're re-usable) for water fights or water balloon tosses, or just for playing in the pool!

 We also found a great new friend in our backyard when we were moving some rocks...

 We were moving rocks so that we could set up our fabulous new swing set!  The kids have loved having their own "park" in their backyard.  August was SO crazy hot, I found I was often driving to the park, because it was too far to walk in the heat.  But, next summer, we'll be able to keep cool and have fun swinging in our own backyard in the 30 degree weather!

 Another fun activity we did to beat the heat was to freeze some toys and water in a bucket, and then hammer away to free the toys.

 I gave the kids a couple different kinds of hammers and tools to use so that they could experiment and figure out what kind worked the best.

 Aria preferred Daddy's hammer, while Roscoe liked his plastic hammer from his workshop playset.

 I tried to insist on the kids wearing their sunglasses to protect their eyes...

 But I guess Roscoe thought it made it difficult to see what he was doing.

 My suggestion if you want to try this yourself is to use toys that if broken won't cause upset children!  Some of the tails came off in the ice, and a few lost their feet or paws.  But, it kept the kids happy and entertained for a good 20-30 minutes!

Milk Carton Blocks Tutorial

When I was a kid, I can remember my mom buying milk in glass bottles, in bags, and then in cartons.  It wasn't until I was older that she switched to buying jugs of milk, probably because my brothers and I LOVED drinking milk.  I still love it.  Now that I have my own family, we also enjoy drinking milk, and usually go through two 4L jugs in a week and a half (is that average??).  On occasion though, we do buy milk products (like cream, buttermilk, whipping cream, eggnog...) in cartons.  But what to do with those lovely cartons when you've emptied them?  They're not really recyclable, unfortunately.  

We make BLOCKS.  

My mom did this when I was a kid, and we used them for absolutely EVERYTHING!  They could be food for our kitchen, we could use them to build towers or houses, do bowling with them, make birdhouses...

Here's a quick how-to on making your own milk carton blocks.

 After you've finished using your carton, rinse it thoroughly and stash it somewhere until you have enough to make a couple blocks.  Each block requires TWO cartons.

Then open up the tops...

 Cut off the tops... you won't need them.

 Then take two cartons that are the same size.  Squish one slightly to insert it into the other, and PUSH until they form a block!

 Voila!  Your own milk carton blocks!  They are super durable for both indoor and outdoor play (although my dog has chewed them apart on occasion!)

Enjoy!

For more great ideas on what to do with leftover milk cartons check out Frugal Family Fun Blog