More Fun Than Allowed…with Kids

I found an easy recipe for baked Ornaments and we spent the day, literally, decorating the two dozen I made the night before.

ornament recipe

4 cups flour

1 cup salt

1 1/2 cups warm water

Mix together to form a dough.  Roll out to about 1/4 in thickness and use cookie cutters to cut out desired shapes. Use a straw to cut out a hole at the top for ribbon to hang.  Put 4-6 on a microwave safe plate and heat for 3-5 minutes (depending on microwave).  Repeat until all ornaments are cooked.  Decorate.

We used washable tempura paint, glitter glue, and sequins to decorate ours.  I made the ornament the night before after the kids were in bed.  Next time I’ll let them help cut them out.  I had the table set with the ornaments and all the supplies when they got up in the morning.  Boogie had school and Puddin’ Pop had 2 friends come over in the morning.  The girls spent about 45 minutes decorating before they moved on to something else.  They returned to the craft table just after lunch and worked for another 45 minutes.

When Boog got home from school, he and the neighbor girl came righ in for Hot chocolate and decorating.  They spent about an hour decorating theirs and it was quiet time for me.  Overall the project was a success.  All our guests for the day got to take home their ornaments and we will put ours on the tree and use some for gift tags.

I think it worked out well to have the table set up all day rather than a timed activity and the kids keep begging me to make more.

My children love to listen to music and dance.  Unfortunately, they usually get stuck on one or two songs and want them played over and over again.  While I’m making dinner, we usually put on music and dance around the kitchen, dining and living rooms.  We’ve done this since before Puddin’ Pop could walk.  I would put her in her Tigger Bounce (the one that attaches to a door frame) and we would watch her spin and bounce while Boogie and I would dance around her.

It’s a great mood lifter and gets us motivated to cook dinner and burns off any leftover calories from snack time to insure we have plemty of room for dinner. 

Here’s a little dance from my family to yours…Enjoy!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

That’s what we did last night.  We took our hellions lovely children to their Mima and Papa’s house and made allowed them to spend the night.  It’s important to pay attention to your “adult” relationship and while I know this, it isn’t often that Hubby and I get a whole night without the kids.  We took advantage of it.

Today is Hubby’s birthday so I convinced the in laws to take the kids for the night (last night).  We went out to eat.  A meal without interruptions is a good thing.  Then we came home and I made brownies.  We settled in to catch up on all the adult TV we tape and never get to watch.  When the brownies were finished, we topped them with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup and pigged out!  We would never do this with the kids around (we would have to share).

We watched TV until we fell asleep (that’s my story) and got to sleep in this morning since Mama didn’t bring the lovelies until noon.

Happy Birthday Hubby!

We are a family that loves to watch movies.  We also love to share with the kids the shows that we enjoyed when we were little. Both kids LOVE Tom and Jerry, all the Disney movies, and the classics like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Wizard of Oz.

While they (at least Puddin’ Pop at 2.5) are a little small for “game night” we’ve started a new tradition of Friday night Movie night.  We get pizza for dinner.  It’s the one time a week that the kids get to drink soda (pop, where I come from) and we settle in for a good movie.  When we finish eating, we all snuggle up on the couch and enjoy the bonding time.  I also try to make sure we have brownies or cookies on hand for our sweet tooths.  Nothing goes better with pizza then a dessert of warm brownie topped with ice cream.

We let the kids stay up late. and hope they sleep in (which, of course, never happens).  It’s a tradition I hope we can keep for a long time.  I know it won’t be long (it won’t seem like long, anyway) before the kids have lives of their own.  Slumber Parties, and interests other than us, will get in the way of this precious time we have together.  I want to hold on to it as long I can.

Have you ever played with cornstarch?  It has the neatest texture and is easy to clean up.  Here’s a couple of ideas of what to do with it.

Mix equal parts cornstarch and water.  Add food coloring and voila…sidewalk paint.  The consistency is the same as real paint, and yet it washes away as easily as chalk does.  My kids love to paint the side walk and make hopscotch boards to play on.

Mix cornstarch with water(start with a little and add more to see what happens) in a bucket (or tub, we use our sand and water table) the kids love the way the mixture get dry and hard and then just melts in their hands.  I’m braver than most, and set up this activity in the kitchen on rainy days.  I then just get a damp cloth and wipe down any “splashes” on the floor, walls and cabinets.

If you have never really played with this, you should.  I love it!

You can also use cornstarch with baking soda and water to make a “dough” for those fun Christmas ornament projects.

2 cups baking soda

1 cup cornstarch

1/4 cup water

Heat on stove to desired consistency, let cool, start molding!

Another Rainy day Idea…Facepaint

1 cup cornstarch, 1/2 cup vegetable shortening (white) add food coloring as needed.

You now have “greasepaint” like clowns wear

It’s important, as parents, to realize that every issue pertaining to our children is not life threatening and stop acting as if it is.  I allow my 5 year old to dress himself and try not to cringe at what he comes up with.  I think little ones are just drawn to colored socks, in our case it’s red.

I know this is an important lesson for children to learn, to dress themselves, and I wish I was organized enough to have  2 outfits ready for him to chooses from in the morning, but I am not.  On school days I just bring down his clothes and he gets dressed.  He has no problem with what I set out so it is never an issue.  The weekends are different.

He goes to get dressed, we sometimes have to give him a weather update, and he dresses in appropriate, although not always matching apparel.  IT’S OKAY!  Hubby has a hard time with this. I have all ideas he was dressed his entire life, and was never allowed to choose what he was comfortable in.  He was told what would be most appropriate, how dressing nice makes you feel better about yourself, and to always keep his appearance neat (shirt tucked in, belt, etc.) so he struggles with some of his sons choices, but I explain it’s okay and calm him down.

When it’s all said and done, I think I would prefer my son to dress himself and possibly be ridiculed for mis-matching clothes (although at 5 I doubt it) and be able to change his choices, than to have him be dressed in what I or Hubby would like him to wear, get ridiculed for being “overdressed”, and have no power over changing it.  It’s clothes, afterall, not life threatening last time I checked (as long as he has some on)

Putting it into Perspective

Over this past summer, Boogie (that’s the 5 year old son) had his 5 year old check up.  I sent him to get dressed.  He came down in orange shorts, a green shirt (that had some orange in it) and the coveted red socks.  I giggled to myself, felt proud that he had chosen his own outfit and suggested he wear sweatpants to cover the mismatch because it was a little chilly.  We arrived at the doctors office and while waiting Boogie played with another little boy, also there for his 5 year check up.  This new friend had on blue shorts an orange shirt and red socks.  I doubt the boys noticed, but I had to smile at the other mom, knowing she knew how to pick her battles, as I did, and a little envious that she wasn’t afraid to let it show.

It’s easier said than done.  I try my best to give my kids the opportunity to have all the child hood experiences I had.  But things just aren’t the same.

My parents used to just let us run around the neighborhood with our friends and merely told us when to be home.  Yes, things were a lot safer for kids then, but why can’t our children have the same freedoms?  They can, it just takes more effort. 

We are fortunate to live on a cul de sac, so the kids do get to play outside with little supervision.  Either my husband and I, or the neighbors, are usually outside doing yard-work or just chatting with neighbors and the kids are riding their bikes, power wheels, scooters, and any other moving “vehicles” they may have.  Sometimes they play tag, or just run around playing super heroes.  They get to be kids.

We take them to the park, or indoor play areas at the mall in inclement weather, and let them run around.  At the park, the big one anyway, we tend to follow close behind, so as not to let them out of our sight, and this is the “effort” part.  We don’t avoid going because we might have to follow them around, we interact and play with them.  Or stand back and watch them make friends with other kids, and marvel in how quick they are growing up.

Bottom line.  Don’t insist that Kids have to grow up to quick because it’s easier to keep them safe that way.  Give them some “perceived” (by them) freedoms and watch them thrive.