Diggin' A Hole

When I was a kid, we had a sandbox in our backyard.  It was made of logs and had a little triangular seat in each corner.  It was the site of many hours of imagination play as I ran my cars and shovels and buckets through the sand.  It was the site of a mudslide with the garden hose that resulted in a TON of muddy, gloopy fun.  And, unfortunately, it was the neighborhood ash tray for some of the local kids, and communal cat litter box!  There was many a surprise found in there some days!

Now that I'm a mom, it was really important to me that Jellybean got a sandbox.  Fortunately for her, her wonderful Uncle Travis (aka Uncle T-Bone- don't ask!) bought her the perfect sandbox last summer.  It is shaped like a pirate's treasure chest and had a little spot for her to sit and a lid on it.  It is by far her most played with toy in the backyard!

Placement is everything when it comes to your sandbox.  We have ours set up on the corner of our patio next to our deck stairs.  This fulfills a lot of needs for us. First of all, by being on the patio, we don't have to worry about a huge, rectangular dead patch of grass if we ever move the sandbox.  Secondly, we have it set up in a spot that has maximum shade which not only allows maximum play time, it also makes sure that the sand doesn't get too hot to play in.  And, by having it by the deck stairs, it's a great seat for mom and dad so they are within reaching distance of all of the fun!

Stocking your sandbox is also very important.  We are HUGE Dollar Store fans, and bought most of Jellybean's sandbox toys from there.  There are a few pieces that we got from Michaels and IKEA, but for the most part, everything cost us a dollar!  If you're on a tight budget, plastic cups and forks also make great tools!  And, honestly, your little one really won't care what type of toys she has to play with, especially if mom and dad are out there having fun, too!!

Pasta-liscious!

Today we tried our hand at dying and playing with pasta.  We started out with small wagon wheel pasta, and moved on to large tube pasta.

SUPPLIES NEEDED

Pasta (anything with a hole in the middle)

Rubbing Alcohol

Food Coloring

Plastic Zipper Bags

1.  Place 1/4 cup of rubbing alcohol and 10-20 drops of food coloring into your zipper bag.  Then, add your pasta.  You want to make sure to have enough liquid to fully color your pasta, so you may need to add a few extra drops of color and a bit extra rubbing alcohol.

2.  Mix your pasta and color together.  Shake the bag (just make sure the top doesn't open!), roll the pasta through the liquid; have fun with it!  

3.  Let the pasta hang out in the zipper bags for a couple of hours.  WARNING:  The rubbing alcohol will smell quite strong when you open your bags, so make sure you don't have your face right over the bag when you open it or you might be knocked off of your feet!  Don't worry!  Once the pasta dries, the strong smell disappears.  

4.  Lay out your pasta in a single layer on some paper towel.  I poured mine onto an old cookie sheet to avoid spillage.  Let these dry for at least a couple of hours (I let mine dry for about 10 hours, overnight).

5.  Play!  Use them to make jewellery, glue them onto paper for a craft, make a sensory tub out of them and let your child dig in, create patterns out of the different pasta shapes and colors.  Have fun!!

We created a necklace and bracelet out of our creations!  

Menu Plan: July 30-August 5

Breakfasts:
Su 31)  Pancakes with wild frozen blueberries
M 1) Scrambled eggs and toast
T 2) Cereal and milk
W 3) Frozen fruit smoothies
Th 4) Carrot muffins and yogurt
F 5) Eggs and toast

Lunches:
Su 31) Grilled Cheese and veggies
M 1) Macaroni and cheese
T 2) Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches and strawberries
W 3) Noodles and Veggie stir-fry
Th 4) Waffles and fruit
F 5) Peanut Butter and Jelly

Dinners:
S 30)  Leftover night  (Scour your fridge for those leftovers and place them all on the table buffet-style)
Su 31) Slow Cooker Lasagne with spinach and beef  (I love using my slow-cooker when it's hot outside!  We get a delicious meal without heating up our entire house!)
M 1) Leftover lasagne
T 2)  Beef tacos with lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, cheese & olives
W 3)Chicken salad (Romaine lettuce with slices of carrots and peppers with sliced chicken)
Th 4) BBQ Chicken and rice with carrots
F 5) Take and bake pizza **

** We go to WalMart and buy one of their vegetarian pizzas.  Then, we bring it home and add more goodies.  We like adding sliced chicken, pineapple, olives, peppers and mushrooms.   It's only $6.50 for the pizza which will feed us for 2 nights (or 1 if we are watching a movie that night!!), and it hardly costs a thing to add the extra toppings!  Plus, you know exactly what's in your pizza, and it's something that everyone will enjoy!

***  After I make my meal-plans, I go through my pantry/fridge/freezers and see what I have and then make a shopping list of what I need to purchase.  If it's something that might expire before I use it, I will sometimes make a plan to go later in the week to get it ***

Food For Thought

I'm doing a weight-management program right now, which teaches you the skills to maintain a healthy weight.  You may think "what a waste of time!  I know what to do!  More calories out than in!"  But have you ever stopped and counted out all of your calories?  You might be surprised at what you find when you do!  You may think "Sure, I know how much a tablespoon of oil is", or "This steak is about 6 ounces".  Little do you know that your 1tablespoon of oil is actually 2, and your 6 ounce steak is closer to 12.  These are all things that I've been encountering over the last few weeks with my new program, and it is so eye-opening!  K and I are working really hard to make healthy choices not only for ourselves but for Jellybean as well, and it is hard!  It's so easy to stop at McDonald's and grab a snack, or to serve cheese and crackers for dinner.  But, in going along with the theme of teachable moments, we want Jellybean to learn from us and make healthier choices.  This is where making a meal plan and having a grocery list will come in handy.

Let's get started!

First of all, pull out your calendar.  It's really hard to know what to plan if you don't know where everyone is going to be.  For us, it's not as big a deal as Jellybean is only 3 and K is typically home by 6:30, but if he has to work late or if we're going out, it's important to know what types of meals to prepare.

Once you have your days all figured out, make a list with the days of the week and the calendar day in the margin (ie:  Saturday, July 30).  Then, start thinking about what types of meals you want to eat.  Do you want meals on the go, or formal sit-down dinners?  What else do you have going on in the day?  Do you have a full-time job or are you a stay-at-home mama like me?  Do you have time to do a lot of cooking, or are you running short on time?  These are all things that are going to be super important as you embark on the world of meal-planning.

Food planning and prep is also going to be extremely helpful to you.  For instance, do you have 2 or three ground-beef meals on your menu?  Maybe you have tacos on Monday, Stroganoff on Tuesday and chili on Wednesday.  On Monday, cook up enough ground beef for all 3 meals.  Then, store it in the fridge in a container with a tight-fitting lid and use it as needed (conveniently enough, the 2-cup prep bowls from the Pampered Chef are a perfect size for this task!!  {shameless plug!}.)  You can also plan ahead when you buy your meat and vegetables as well.  Like if you buy a pack of chicken breasts, separate the breasts into individual meals with enough pieces for everyone.  You can even add your marinades and spices before you freeze them, and then they'll marinade as they thaw!  I try to keep a supply of carrot and celery snacks in my fridge for snacks, and Jellybean seems to quite enjoy them.  Wash the celery and carrots and peel the carrots and slice them into sticks.  Then put them in the fridge in enough water to cover them to keep them fresh.  The Ziploc Twist and Serve containers work well for this, and Tupperware also sells a gadget that has a handle that you can pull up to drain the water off so you can get your veggies.  Then you have go-to snacks in a pinch!

So once you have decided what to make, it's time to make your meal plan!

Once you've filled out the meals you want to make, figure out what ingredients you'll need, and that becomes your shopping list.  When you're making your list, don't forget to add essentials like TP and toothpaste, and then take that to the store and DON'T stray from the list!  The only exceptions that I make to this rule are if there are things that we regularly use that are on sale.  We seldom splurge on things, which not only helps stick to our list but our budget as well.  Don't forget to plan out your breakfasts and lunches as well, or you'll find yourself making more than one trip to the store!

And that's it!  Those are the basics, and you can adapt it any way you need to.  I'll be posting menu plans over the next few weeks!

Tissue Crafts

Jellybean just turned 3, and I was trying to figure out what to do with the MANY sheets of tissue paper that were in her gift bags!  Being a toddler, she LOVES the sound/feel/look of tissue, so many of the papers were wrinkled or ripped.  I was going to recycle them, and then I thought, why not craft with them!  I sat down in front of a good movie and started cutting tissue squares.  I cut and I cut and I cut...  I didn't realize I had so many!!!

When cutting the tissue, there were 3 things that I found to be VERY important:

1.  Never EVER do this in front of a fan.  EVER.  Trust me.
2.  Make sure your fingers aren't sticky or wet.  When crafting with the tissue squares, make sure your fingers aren't gluey at all, or you will find that they gum up very quickly!
3.  Store your tissue squares in a container with a lid.  Otherwise, you will be surprised at how quickly your little artiste can get her hands in there!!  Jellybean LOVED sticking her hands in the bag of squares and rooting around.  She loved the feel and the sound they made, and it was a great learning opportunity to give her new words to use like slippery, sparkly, rustle.

This was the first project we tried was a Stained Glass Shaker

SUPPLIES NEEDED

Dried Beans or Lentils

Cylindrical Container With A Lid (I Used an old Pringles Can)

Masking Tape

Water/Glue Mixture (1/4 water, 3/4 glue)

Old paintbrush

Tissue Squares

1.  Clean out your container, and make sure it's dried really well.

2.  Add your dried beans or lentils.  We put the lid on a couple of times to see how it sounded, and we added a little bit at a time to change the sound.  When Jellybean liked the sound, we used the masking tape to seal the lid to the can.

3.  Using your paint brush, mix together your water and glue.  Then, spread it on to your can.  Add your tissue paper, making sure to layer it so that it hangs over from the top onto the side of the can.  This will give your lid extra staying power, which will make sure it stays on when it gets shaken!!!  Trust me, you don't want those little lentils all over your floor!!

4.  Let your can dry for at least a couple of hours.  You are going to end up doing a couple of layers, and you want to make sure your glue is dry before attempting another layer, as it can lead to a kind of gloopy result.  If you want, you can leave it outside in the sunshine or in front of a fan to speed up the drying process.  

5.  Apply multiple layers of the tissue paper for a more stained-glass look.  We used two layers, and chose darker colors to put over the Pringles guy's face to cover it up more.  We also used this technique on the ingredient list and the barcode.  

This was our finished product!!

Jellybean had a blast making this, and even more fun playing with it!!  Make a whole band!!