Water and ice

This idea comes from two of my sisters. It originated with my sister who teaches special education and suggested to me by my sister who has two kids of her own. This apparently works really well in groups of kids as well as with just one.

My experience with this is just with my two year old.

I started by freezing a few trays of ice. We have some ice trays that make different shapes of ice and that makes it kind of fun. You can get these ice trays at the dollar store and we've gotten some from Ikea as well.

Next I put towels down on my kitchen floor.

On top of the towels I put bowls of different sizes. I filled 1 bowl with really warm water, 1 with cold water, another bowl with one tray of ice and left one empty. Any combination of warm water, cold water and ice will work, however.

I then pulled out different measuring cups and ladles and let my daughter play.

She really seemed to like the difference in temperatures. The water and ice got moved from bowl to bowl and eventually the ice melted.

That's when I brought out the next tray of ice (and the next one when that one melted).

It did leave a bit of a watery mess on our floor, even with the towels. However, our kitchen floor needed to be cleaned anyway. So it wasn't all bad.

My sister tells me that when she did this with a group of kids, some kids liked to watch the ice melt in their hands. I got the impression my daughter was just irritated the ice was cold. She didn't really seem to care the ice was there and was more interested in the water.

She did really enjoy playing with water and we will be doing this activity again with her soon.

Maybe I'll wait until the next time my kitchen floor needs to be cleaned.

Night lights

My daughter is having a really hard time sleeping through the night right now. We just moved her bed into her sister's room and the transition has been tough.

We have suspected that part of the problem is that she is in a new room and during the night, she wakes up and doesn't know where she is at.

I saw an idea for making garland out of Christmas lights and thought they would work well for a bright night light for my girls' bedroom.

Plus when you are a child, there is something magical about Christmas lights. I still get that excited feeling in my stomach when I see Christmas lights in my house.

Since Christmas season is approaching, Christmas lights are easy to find at the store. I bought a string of mini white lights from Walmart for about 3 dollars.

I had some pink and white striped fabric in my sewing pile and I thought it would go perfectly with my daughters' room. I cut it into strips and tied them on the strand of lights.

 I ran the string of lights over the bookshelf in their room. It turned out really well.

As far as helping my girls sleep, I went into their room about 2 AM this morning when I heard some screaming and found my two year old running in circles around the room while my ten month old watched happily from her crib.

The no sleep marathon continues.

Simple magnet toy

I don't know what it is with magnets, but they are so fun. Do you remember those days from elementary school when you got to play with magnets? I still remember learning about the north and south pole of magnets and being so fascinated with how they stuck together.

Along those lines, I saw this simple toy just using a plastic container, a magnet and cut up pipe cleaners.

I used a plastic crystal light container and a magnet from our fridge. Then I added some pipe cleaners I had cut into smaller pieces. Here's what I came up with:

When I made it, my two year old would hardly let me take a picture. She loved moving the magnet around and seeing how it made the cut up pipe cleaners move.

When she is older, we will talk about the science behind this. Until then, I'll just let her discover magnets on her own.

A few tips for making this toy: Make sure the bottle or container has flat sides. If your magnet isn't that strong (the one we used isn't), it won't attract the pipe cleaners very well through all the curves of the bottle.

Also, the stronger the magnet, the better.

Enjoy your magnets!

Card table fort

Sometimes as a parent I hit my limit. I just need a break.

This activity came from one of those moments. In the midst of my two year old following me around the kitchen and pulling all the dirty dishes back out of the dishwasher, I needed something to keep her busy.

I grabbed our card table and threw a flat sheet over it.

If I had known something that easy would make her so happy I would have done it long ago.

She went crazy for it. All her stuffed animals went in it. Lots of toys have spent time there. Her sister was invited in. And actually over time, both Mom and Dad have been invited in as the fort is now a staple in our living room.

I've seen some really cute patterns for sheets that can go over the top of card tables such as the one here. But my kids don't seem to mind at all that the sheet over the table is not cute and decorated.

Maybe kids just need a place to hide sometimes.

Later we added some tunnels. The dark blue one we got at a garage sale and the light blue one is from Ikea.

The fun never ends.

Birthday thoughts

Today's post is not so much a parenting post. Or an activity post. Today I wanted to talk about something that has been on my mind for awhile.

Today is not my birthday.

But it is coming soon, and turning a year older means different things to different people.

Sometimes it means more wrinkles and looking older.

Sometimes it means your body doesn't work as well as it used to.

Sometimes it means you are further from younger years- and sometimes happier times.

For some reason in our society, turning a year older is a bad thing. And I think that's really sad.

One summer in college I did a research internship in my home state of Oregon. I worked for an investigator who had been through a terrible car accident a few years earlier. She had brain damage from the accident as well as other physical ailments she still struggled with. It was her birthday while I was there and we asked her what her thoughts were on turning a year older. She proudly expressed her age and said that since her accident, she was happy and grateful to be alive another year.

Her attitude changed me.

How great is it that we get to be here one more year? Sometimes in the progression of life, we fail to recognize the small things that make life beautiful.

Here are just a small fraction of my favorite moments from this past year:

My life is far from perfect. We have no money. If we ever wanted more kids we literally couldn't afford to have them. Our two cars are too small, over ten years old and badly need to be replaced. Both our washer and dryer are only partially functional and need to be fixed or replaced. We haven't been on vacation in a very long time. There are many things we want but just can't pay for right now.

In the end, none of that matters. We have what we need. And I get to spend each day of my life with the three people who mean the most to me.

Bring on the wrinkles. I welcome aging because it means I have lived. For some reason, God gave me one more year of life.

Now it's time to celebrate.

Color hunt

My two year old loves to play games. When we say the word "games" her face lights up and she gets so excited. My husband and I went out and bought several kids games on some sort of Christmas sale years ago. We have Candy Land, Jenga, Hi Ho Cheerio, and a few other kids games that are much less complicated than we remembered them being when we were kids.

None of the games we bought were quite suitable for a toddler, however. So I made my own.

I tailored this game to where my daughter is at in her development. There are several similar games people have made that are specific to their child (although someone has probably come up with this one I made before too). Right now my daughter is just mastering colors so I made a game and called it "the color hunt."

I bought some clothespins. One package was about a dollar at Walmart. 

I found some markers I've been hiding from my kids.

I colored 4 clothespins in each of the 8 colors of markers that I have.

Then we put the clothespins in a bag and went on a color hunt. I would reach into the bag and pull out a clothespin. I would show it to my daughter the clothespin and ask her what color it was. Then we would search all around the house for something that was that color. When we found something with the color we were looking for, we would pin that item with the clothespin.

We continued until we had pinned all the clothespins.

Afterwards, we went around and collected all the clothespins. As we found each one, I would ask her again what color the item and clothespin were.

My daughter loved playing this. She also loved the attention and time with Mom and Dad.

Variations of this game I've seen have used shapes on the clothespin, letters, shapes and colors, etc. The possibilities are endless and can be made specific to your child.

Happy hunting!

Fun with glow sticks

I think it's pretty widely known that kids love glow sticks. I still love glow sticks and I'm an adult!

We discovered our two year old loves them on the Fourth of July this year when we went to the celebration for our city. There were glow sticks everywhere. She loved them.

Most of the time, there's not too many reasons to have glow sticks around. Until I discovered this.

Glow sticks are a great toy to play with in the bath. I turn off the lights and break out some glow sticks for bath time. Both my kids love it. (Remember to supervise bath time!)

I get glow sticks at the dollar store. I stock up every time I go. My favorite kind come 12 in a package. They look like this:

I don't have trouble getting my kids to enjoy bath time, but if you do you may want to give this a try.

Homemade Draino

I don't know what it is about the drains in my house, but they are ALWAYS clogged. It has been like that since we moved into our house about two years ago. In fact, when we moved in, the drains were still clogged from the previous owners.

Nice.

We spend A LOT of money on Draino. Last time I bought Draino I bought 4 bottles of it thinking it would last. Hmmm. Nope! I spent around $15 (after coupons) and it was gone in two days. Given, that was a bit of an unusual situation in that both bathtubs were clogged and we don't usually go through that much. But still. Two days.

I recently found this recipe for Draino you can make at home and thought it was worth a shot.

Here it is:

1 Cup salt
1 Cup baking soda
1/4 Cup cream of tartar

Add all ingredients to some sort of seal-able container and mix. Here's what mine looks like:

 I wrote directions on the back of the can.

Add about 1/4 Cup of this mix to your drain and store the rest.

Follow this with 2 cups of boiling water. When you add the boiling water, the powder mix should foam. When I saw this happen I started thinking about activation energy and catalysts and why this would work... it would have made for an interesting demonstration when I was teaching. Anyway, I digress...

Let the drain sit for about an hour.

Flush with tap water.

The results: It actually worked pretty well. It wasn't amazing (we have VERY difficult drains) but it was about the same as Draino. Next time I will probably try a bit more than 1/4 cup of the mix to see if it works better than Draino. And for a fraction of the price and no chemicals or harsh fumes, I think we have a Draino replacement!

Tea party

Today my two year old had a tea party.

She has her own card table that's just her size. It was a perfect location.

I wasn't invited to the tea party and neither was her younger sister.

But there was a bear who was invited.

And a rabbit.

And there was lots of tea for everyone.

Cheesy crisps

I'm a huge Alton Brown fan. HUGE.

I don't know if anyone else watches Good Eats on the Food Network but it has changed my views on cooking. Alton Brown teaches the science behind what you are cooking, the tools you are using and the reasons why you use certain ingredients along with the recipe. Every show I learn so much, even if a particular show is about cooking a type of food I would never make.

When I saw an episode about making crackers, I knew I had to give the whole make your own crackers thing a try. We eat crackers like there is no tomorrow at our house. I found this recipe to be much less crumbly (less mess!) and softer than regular crackers (but still a little crispy).

Alton Brown's version is called seedy crisps. The recipe for that can be found here. I have made his version before but I wanted to make a cheese version instead. It's more kid friendly and less expensive than seedy crisps.

So here it is. My version of seedy crisps I call cheesy crisps.

1/2 C Whole wheat flour
1/2 C All-purpose flour, plus additional for rolling
2/3 C Parmesan cheese
1 1/2 tsp Salt
1 1/2 tsp Aluminum-free baking powder (be sure to use the aluminum-free kind!)
3 Tbsp Olive or canola oil
3/4 C Water

In a medium bowl wisk together both flours, cheese, salt, and baking powder. I used my Kitchen-Aid mixer. I love this thing.

Add the oil and stir until combined. Add water and mix to create a dough. The amount of water you add can be tricky. If you add too much the dough doesn't stick together well. If this happens just add more flour.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead a few times.

Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces and cover with a tea towel. Let it sit for 15 minutes.

During this time, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. My oven takes 10 minutes to heat to this temperature.

Roll 1 piece of the dough out on a lightly floured surface to desired thickness. I usually roll mine out as thin as I can before it starts to get holes in it.

Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. The parchment paper makes the dough really easy to move once the dough is cooked.

If you can fit another piece of dough on the baking sheet, go for it. The baking sheet I used was too small for two pieces. At this point you can also make perforations in the dough if you want the crackers to be a certain shape. Just lightly trace whatever shapes you want in the dough with a knife or cookie cutter. I didn't bother because my kids are too young to care.

Cook for 4 minutes on the middle rack.

Flip the dough over and cook on the other side for 1-4 minutes depending on the thickness of your dough. You want it to be golden brown in color.

Place the crackers on a cooking rack. When they are cool, break into pieces and store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

Repeat until all your dough is cooked.

My two year old and ten month old both love these. They are softer than regular crackers and easy to eat.

And I love that they make so much less mess than regular crackers.

Indoor sandbox

My sister is a special education teacher. When she comes to stay at my house, my kids love it. She always has the best toys, presents, activities, etc. I owe the idea for this activity to her. It's kind of an indoor sandbox.

I don't have a picture of the ones my sister uses but here's what the one I made looks like:

I filled a bowl with rice and let my daughter play in it. A large tupperware container or box might work better but I used what we had. I also gave her bowls to move the rice into. She loves the feel and sound of the rice. I added split peas to this particular one but before I have added lentils. On this occasion I added erasers to the bottom with pictures of Disney princesses that she could dig for and find. It was here that I learned she knows the word princess (I'll blame that on my husband). When she's older we will be having a long conversation about how the Disney princesses all got their education before anything we see in the movies.

My sister says that they use this technique of "sensory boxes" to get kids who don't talk to start communicating. My daughter's favorite sensory box my sister brings is full of rubber bouncy balls.

The one drawback to this is my daughter never keeps any of this in the bowls, or anywhere near the bowl. Every time I bring this out I find rice or whatever was in the bowl all over my house for weeks.

Consider yourself warned.

Homemade Febreze

Here at my house, we go through A LOT of Febreze. In fact, here are some bottles we just recently emptied.

Yes, that's three different kinds of Febreze- the air effects, the one for fabrics, and the extra strength one (sport). All empty.

So when I saw this recipe to make your own Febreze for about 15 cents a bottle, I thought it would be a great way to save money. Febreze is expensive when you buy as much as we do.

Since I have 3 empty Febreze bottles, I just used one that I had for this recipe. But any empty spray bottle will work (just remember to label it so you know what's in the bottle).

1/8 cup of your favorite fabric softener
2 Tbsp baking soda
Fill with hot tap water

I used this fabric softener because I love the smell:

Add the ingredients, shake to mix, and that's it!

The whole bottle of fabric softener new from the store is about $4.15 (I used a coupon so it was a little cheaper than that). That's less than a new bottle of Febreze at the store and will make several bottles of this home made kind of Febreze.

As far as how it works, it worked well at our house. Everywhere I sprayed it smelled like fresh laundry. I also noticed the smell was pretty strong awhile after I sprayed it. The only kind of Febreze that I used that sticks around like that is the Febreze sport. Although Febreze sport smells good, I like the smell of the home made Febreze better.

Has anyone else tried this? Let me know what you think.

Simple shapes toy

My two year old is at that stage where she is into everything. She has to know how it all works and likes to figure things out for herself. Because of this need she has to keep her hands busy, I'm always on the look out for things that she can play with that are easy, simple, and that keep her attention. I read about a toy here that I thought would be easy enough to make.

Start with some sort of tall can. I used an old formula can but a Pringles can would work as well.

Punch holes in the lid with a hole punch. We didn't have a one hole punch and our three hole punch didn't work so I used a screw to made holes in the lid.

I gave my daughter pipe cleaners to put through the holes. She loved it.

We also found that glow sticks put through the holes (the small sticks, bracelet size) and she liked that better because they held their shape. Pipe cleaners bent as she tried to put them in the holes. 

This toy holds her attention well and has been a lot of fun for her.

There are different ways to change this toy to the needs of your child. You can color around the holes and have your child match the pipe cleaner to the color around the hole. You can also cut the holes bigger and have puff balls to put through the holes. You can also let your child decorate the can which mine did with a crayon (it matches our walls).

A variation I also tried was showing my daughter how to put pipe cleaners through the large holes in a colander. We bought this one at Ikea.

This didn't keep her attention nearly as well. But it was fun for awhile.

Jenn

Banana ice cream

I have a serious obsession with ice cream. It's probably the sole reason I never lost the rest of my baby weight after I had my daughter about 10 months ago. Ok that and I don't exercise. But who's keeping track?

My ultimate weakness is called Tillamook mudslide. It's like a chocolate party in every bite, along with about a million calories. For those who are not familiar with this ice cream, this is what it looks like (this picture is from www.tillamook.com). If you ever see it, buy it immediately. It's worth every penny.

Back in the real world, we really can't be eating ice cream every night. And neither should our kids. I have been looking for an ice cream alternative for quite some time. Finally, I read about turning bananas into ice cream and I knew I had to try it. Here's how it works.

First, slice bananas and put them in your freezer for about 1-2 hours minimum.

Next, put them through your food processor (I'm sure a blender would work too but I have only used a food processor for this). 

The bananas turn the consistency of soft serve ice cream. Scrape the sides and remove all your "ice cream" from the food processor. If you want it a consistency you can scoop, just put what you have removed from the food processor back in the freezer for a few minutes and let it harden a bit.

I was skeptical at first, but it really works. In fact, this is the bottom shelf of my freezer. Pretend it's organized.

I sliced each banana and froze each banana in its own bag. If you don't slice the bananas before you freeze them, you won't be able to get the banana to slice up in the food processor so make sure you don't freeze the bananas whole. I also waited until the bananas were starting to show brown spots on the peels before freezing them.

If I REALLY need ice cream, I put two of the bags of frozen bananas through my food processor, but usually one banana is a good serving size.

As far as taste goes, it's really strongly banana flavored (which makes sense since it's only bananas). I have tried adding various amounts of cocoa powder and peanut butter which turned out okay. It's no Tillamook mudslide, but it helps get rid of my craving for chocolate ice cream. I'd bet other fruit mixes with it well, but I haven't tried that yet. 

My two year old liked this pretty well and ate all that I gave her. I'm hoping to raise my girls on eating this for dessert as they get older. My "diets" when I was in high school always made an allowance for ice cream. Maybe that's why they never worked...

Jenn

Kid friendly broccoli

We all know broccoli is good for us. But sometimes it's really hard to eat. Even when it's steamed it sometimes can taste bland and not so good. Plus a mouthful of that leafy stuff is just... gross.

I found this recipe for cooking broccoli and it has changed our views on eating broccoli.I have made it for several people and have even gotten a few broccoli haters to eat their broccoli. Plus my two year old loves it. Last night she even asked for more "black key!" (broccoli).

This recipe comes from Good Things Utah. They called it Reagan's broccoli.

Take a head of broccoli and cut it up into small pieces. How small you cut it up depends on your preference. Usually the smaller the better.

As an added tip, at Costco they sell cut up broccoli in a bag for about 4 dollars in the produce section. I have also seen similar bags in the produce section at Target. I really like starting with the bags because you don't have to cut up the broccoli so much.

I usually take each floret and cut it into halves or fourths depending on how big of a hurry I'm in.

Put the cut up broccoli into a bowl.

Add canola oil. I usually estimate how much of this I need. It's just enough to coat the broccoli. If you put too much they turn out tasting like oil and that's no good. Too little oil and they turn out dry. The good thing is that extra oil will usually drain to the bottom of the bowl and doesn't make it to the next step. Stir to coat evenly.

Put the broccoli on a baking sheet.

Add salt. (Again, not too much or it will taste too salty).

Put the baking sheet in your oven on broil for 5-7 minutes. I just watch until the broccoli is just starting to turn brown at the tips.

So basically you just cook it like french fries by adding oil and salt. Luckily canola oil actually has several health benefits (see here). And as we know, so does broccoli.

Enjoy!

Popcorn

There is one thing not too many people know about me.

I HATE microwave popcorn. Only the microwavable kind. We're not talking just a little loathing here. I seriously get nauseated just thinking about it. I hate the smell. I think it's terrible for you. It's fattening and greasy. It's overloaded with salt. And oh... back to the smell again. Yuck.

Some long, rainy day I'll share my fun pregnancy story about why I hate microwave popcorn. It includes lots of vomiting and burned popcorn. It's a fun one. But here it's not important.

At our house we have a great solution for popping popcorn. And it doesn't include the microwave. A few years ago, my husband bought me an air popper for my birthday. We have made good use of it ever since.

Turns out, popcorn by itself is really healthy. Some of the health benefits include:

It contains antioxidants- you know, the kind found in chocolate. However, if it's between chocolate and popcorn, I'm choosing the chocolate.

It's high in B vitamins- that's a good thing, right?

It's high in fiber- good for digestion. Most Americans don't get enough fiber. Hmmm maybe popcorn can help.

It's a whole grain- the same kind of good whole grains as whole wheat and brown rice. And since it's not refined, those nutrients haven't been stripped away.

And it's low in calories- that is, until you add the butter.

(Sources here and here)

At our house, my two year old loves popcorn. We give it to her plain, without butter or salt. Hey, if she will eat it plain it will be that much better for her. One of her first words was actually "cop-key!" which was her way of saying popcorn.

When popcorn is air popped, you don't have all the grease and fat.

Or the smell of microwaved popcorn.

Jenn

Magnet board

I don't know about your kids, but mine LOVE to play with magnets on the fridge. They spend so much time reorganizing magnets and pushing them off the fridge and onto the floor. We have those alphabet letters, you know, the ones everyone has. So when my kids decide to take all the magnets off the fridge and put them on the floor, it makes a mess all over the kitchen (although not really that high up there on the list of annoying messes that are usually on my floor).

I saw this idea for making an alphabet board for your kids. I thought it might clear up some mess in my kitchen if I put one in each of my daughter's bedrooms.

To begin with, I sent my husband out to Autozone to buy some oil drip pans. Turns out they are $9.99 each which is a great price for a magnet board that's bigger than my kids are.

Next I cleaned them with Simple Green. The oil drip pans come with a film on them that's kind of greasy/oily.

I decided to paint the drip pans the colors of my kids rooms. This was just a style choice. They could be really cute if they are left as just a metal color depending on where you put them in your house but I didn't want it to look like we pulled a piece of junk metal out of the garage and attached it to my kids' bedroom wall. So I painted them with left over paint from when we painted the inside of our house.

I had intended on painting them with a lot more detail and design to make them really nice but I decided it probably wasn't worth the time. My kids don't care and the boards are probably going to be covered with magnets most of the time anyway. I was also concerned about how long the paint was going to last on the drip pans (scratching, etc.)



I hung them on the wall with 3M picture hanging strips (appx. $6.50 per package).

As a warning, this mostly worked. If I had used an entire package of them on one board they probably would have stuck better. Both boards have fallen off the wall since I hung them up. Luckily you can just stick them right back up if they fall. I have also bought more 3M picture hanging strips to fix the problem.

My two year old really likes having these boards in the bedrooms.

To add to the fun of these new magnet boards, I made some magnets to go along with them.

I bought some magnet strips to add to the back of pictures I printed from the computer then laminated. The magnets were about a dollar a package at Walmart. I selected the strips so they would be big enough that if they came off the pictures, my 9 month old wouldn't choke on them.

Here's what I ended up with:

If you notice, there is an owl and a star magnet that I made. This is from a YouTube Twinkle Twinkle Little Star video that can be seen here. It's my two year old's favorite video. She watches it over and over and over. It was also the inspiration behind the name of this blog. The makers of the Twinkle Twinkle little star video also have a Hickory Dickory Dock video. I made magnets of the clock and each of the animals in the song that ran up the clock.

I picked up the alphabet cards shown in the picture at the dollar store. Again, I just laminated them and put a magnet on the back of each one.

On my list of future projects is to make some Yo Gabba Gabba! magnets. I may be trying to get my husband to dress up like DJ Lance Rock for Halloween this year too. If that happens, there will definitely be pictures.

Jenn