Kids museum day

I live in a big metropolitan area. I'm not sure what the population is exactly, but I know it's over a million people. With size like that you would think we have things like a decent museum, but you would be wrong. Until this year.

Our previous pathetic building of a kids museum was just renovated, and now we have something worth mentioning to visitors. Since I'm always looking for fun things to do with the kids in a place where my shoes won't melt to the pavement, I bought a membership. I'm sure we will spend plenty of time here this summer.

Summer reading program at the library

I think every library across the country has a summer reading program for the kids to stay interested in books, and not loose their skills gained from school during the break, complete with game boards and prizes. This week we went on down to our closest library and signed up. The kids are really excited about it, let's see if that excitement lasts long enough to finish the game! Lol

(I like this picture... You can just barely make out the top of "Molly Dolly's" head smooshed beneath the books.)

Winter Break Sledding

It's amazing how quickly winter break flew past us! It was so jam packed with activities that I didn't even have time to sit and write about them!! We took a trip to the local children's museum, traveled out of state to visit family, had a sleepover with some friends, but I think the highlight of the vacation was sledding. It started by going out in the backyard to play. You know, throw a few snowballs, make some snow angels, that sort of thing.

 

I expected this to last only 5 or 10 minutes before everyone froze and was back inside with wet socks asking for hot cocoa, but no. Instead they found the sleds (and the lid to the recycle bin) and asked to go sledding. So we took a walk to the park where the biggest hill in the area is.

We weren't the only ones with this idea, the hill was packed with excited kids bundled up, screaming with joy. Even with some wipeouts, tumbles, and a close call with a tree, no one was hurt. We sledded until my behind was frozen (I really need to find adult sized snow pants!) so I made the call and we headed back home. The way the kids talked about the fun they had on that hill made me any frozen cheeks a joy.

County Fair

It seems like I've made so many outings lately, but there's just so much to do over the summer that it's hard to stay home! And I realized this morning that we hadn't been to the county fair yet, and there aren't that many days left to make the trip.

I piled the kids in the car at around 10am, stopped at the ATM to make sure I had cash just in case I needed it to park (which I did), and about a half hour later was going through the entry gate. I thought we'd only be there for about 2hrs, but there was simply so much to see and do that we didn't leave until over seven hours later!

We saw lots of different animals; in petting zoos, livestock show barns, and educational farm mock ups. By far my sons favorite was the baby pigs. He could have spent the entire seven hours petting those pigs if I let him!

We found a mini circus that had shows every hour and a half, so we had to watch. I was really amazed at the quality of those performers. They had good tricks, were fast paced, and very entertaining. Well done!

We found a pottery wheel demonstration. They even let the kids take a little dollop of clay to shape. Unfortunately they didn't get to keep it, but add this one to the list of things my son wants to learn now.

There was an area that explained how weaving works. They had a large table set up that let you feel how different fur feels from different animals. The other side of the table had tufts of plant based fuzz to feel, like bamboo and hemp. I thought this area was really interesting, I liked how hands on it was.

A guy selling knives was demonstrating how sharp they are by making some really cool vegetable sculptures. I'm going to have to try some of these for myself.

There was an area set up with all sorts of good info for people to grow their own plants at home. There was this really neat picture frame box to make a vertical garden. This is another thing I want to try and make now.

I still can't believe that we stayed there over seven hours! But it was well worth it because we all had fun. My feet ache now, and the kids stayed up way too late, but oh well. That's what summer's for, right?

Neighborhood Bike Ride

Thinking back to when I was a kid I have so many fond memories made on my bicycle. I rode that thing everywhere, it was attached to my hip (ha ha). I'd ride it around town to get from point A to point B. I'd ride it with my family to the park. I'd ride it down to and along the river, and I'd ride it through the country roads where I wouldn't see a car for miles. I even competed in bike rodeos as a child, and still have a trophy I won one year. As a teenager I rode it on weekend bike tours, completing 300 miles in a 3 day weekend, stopping to camp overnight. It was fantastic.

Even now a-days I bike when I can. I've made several trips to the grocery store with the kids in the bike trailer (I can fit three bags of groceries in there along with the kids). And I took my son to school many times this last year riding in the trailer. But I had to stop. He simply got too big for it. And he wasn't a strong enough biker to ride alongside me yet. So you can imagine my excitement this summer when he finally decided to leave his training wheels in the dirt and become a two wheel riding "expert".

He's been practicing hard, and today I felt he was ready to try a "real" bike ride. With my daughter in the trailer, my son on his two wheeler, and my husband next to me on his bike we rode all over the neighborhood. We went passed three different parks, stopping in at one so my Olympian in training could show Dad a trick he can do on one of the play structures. We found a new bike trail, but the sign alerting us of the coyotes made my son nervous. The thought of climbing back up the steep hill that sloped downward at the trail head made me nervous. So we kept to the sidewalk and made our way back home.

It was so much fun. I'm really looking forward to many more family bike rides, and I'm so happy that I'm helping my children build their childhood memories with this kind of summer fun.

Art Festival

I'm pretty sure that most cities have art festivals during the summer months. I love them. There's so much to see and so many beautiful and interesting things to look at. I love supporting artists, and keeping creativity alive in the world. There's a pretty big art festival that comes every summer here and lasts for about 2 months before closing. I didn't make it out to see it last summer so it was a definite must do this summer. Today was the day I took the kids to see it.

I was pretty amazed at the set-up. It was like other "art in the park" kind of set ups I've been to, with artisans varying from glass ware to painting, from leather to jewelry. The difference was instead of pitching camp under a quick shade for a weekend these stands were uniquely crafted permanent looking structures. They were laid out along a meandering path of wood chips under a beautifully landscaped canopy of trees. 

We had a nice surprise of finding a glass blower making some pieces on site. I love watching glass blowers work, it's very mesmerizing. But this was the first time my kids had seen the art in motion. My daughter was only interested for a second, and then something shiny far away caught her eye. My son, however, could have watched that guy all day! He thought that was the most amazing thing he'd ever seen and now it's topping the list of things he wants to learn how to do. I told him about a friend of ours in Michigan that owns a studio that I'm sure would show him some cool things. Now he can't wait to visit our friend and watch this art some more!

It was hard to get a good picture through the safety bars. It didn't feel like it while watching him, but this picture sure feels like one of the zoo pictures I just posted a few days ago.

We finished the day by stopping for ice cream on the way home. I think it's really special that my kids could see such wonderful things today. I think exposing them to all different kinds of art the world has to offer is so beneficial.

This was a really cool fountain in the back.

Magician's Secret Bag

Today's project turned out so cool! I'm giddy with my excitement about how neat it is that I hardly know where to start my story. I'll begin with saying that whenever the library offers a magic show we're there sitting front and center. My son is very intrigued by magic, and as cheesy as these school performers are they know their audience... grade school age boys are in awe. As we left he couldn't stop talking about doing magic when we got home. My mind went into overdrive to come up with a trick he could do. The library magician did a trick with bag that I was pretty sure I could duplicate. Here's instructions for my version of the magic bag.

Start by cutting 2 pieces of black fabric 9.75"x11" & 2 pieces of decorative fabric (the blue star fabric) 9.75"x12". You'll also need a 5" hoop, a 7"-8" zipper, and a strong magnet (you can buy these at craft stores, or save the ones from the backside of refrigerator to-do lists... they're great... super strong).

With right sides together stitch the black fabric along the long sides using a 5/8" hem. Do the same for the decorative fabric.

Attach the zipper to the bottom. Start by sewing the zipper to the decorative fabric, right sides together. Do this for both sides.

Bring the black fabric over the decorative fabric, wrong sides together. I hemmed the end first, or you can hem it at the same time you sew it to the zipper.

Stitch the black fabric to the zipper, sealing in the raw edge.

Turn bag right side out. Hem the tops of the fabric. This can be done by folding over the top just 1/4" to seal in the frayed ends, or by surging the ends like shown in the picture.

If using a refrigerator magnet cut it into 2 equal pieces. Sew one magnet onto the wrong side of one of the black pieces, using a small square of black fabric to hold it in place. It will actually go UNDER the square, not on top as shown in the picture. It's just there to show placing and pieces used on this step.

Sew the other magnet into the wrong side of the decorative pieces, again using a small square of black fabric to hold it's place. Put it where it lines up with the other magnet.

Use the hoop to measure how far to make a casing with the decorative fabric. Remove hoop and sew the casing, leaving a gap 1"-2" wide to insert hoop into later.

On the side of bag that does NOT have magnets stitch the black fabric to the decorative fabric along the same stitch line you just made in the casing. Leave the other side of the bag open.

Take the outer hoop and fold over the metal pieces that stick out. (I used some needle nose pliers for this part.)

Then thread hoop into the casing.

I left the gap open. You can close it up with some hand stitching. And you're done!

Now here's how to use the bag. Before performing trick take a piece of play food from the toy box and put it in the secrete pocket you've made in the bag between the black lining and the outer decorative fabric. Close the secrete pocket with the magnet. Open the zipper.

When ready to perform the trick say, "I brought a snack to share, it's just right here in my bag." Put your hand in the bag and it sticks right out the bottom. Act surprised that your bag has a hole and now you lost your snack. Close the zipper. Say some magic words, wave a magic wand if you have one. Reach back in the bag, only this time you secretly put your hand in the secrete pocket, and pull out the toy food. Ta-Da!! Take a bow and soak in the applause.

Olympic Pizza & Olympic Flags

From the time I was a little girl I've always adored the Olympics. My husband's a huge fan too and the kids have picked up on the energy as they've counted down the days to the opening ceremonies. With that much excitement flowing through our house of course I had to come up with a fun way to make a party out of tonight. Olympic Pizza was my answer!

I was going to make some pizza dough from scratch, which really isn't hard if you have a bread machine. Just dump the ingredients in the machine, turn it on, and come back and hour and a half later and you've got dough! But I spent too much time at the park with a friend, and so I stopped by the store on the way home and picked up some refrigerated pre-made roll dough. First divide the dough into 5 equal parts. Roll them out into a tube.

Connect the ends of each tube making a circle.

Place on cookie sheet in the shape of Olympic rings, 3 on top, 2 on bottom.

Now (this was my kids favorite part) smoosh the dough flat.

Cover with mozzarella cheese and bake according to package directions. Voila! When done serve with pizza sauce to dip it in.

The flags are such a big part of the parade of nations which made me think that the kids would like a flag of their own to wave while watching it. I started with a piece of off white canvas. I was going to hem it, but that seemed like too much work. So I just cut it with some pinking shears. It's approximately 6"x9".  I drew the Olympic rings on it with pencil, tracing around the base of a small glass to make a good circle.

The kids then painted their flags with fabric paint.

After the paint dried I hot glued a bamboo skewer to the backside of the flag, hiding the pointy side inside the folded over part of the fabric.

It all was a huge hit! The kids ate more of the pizza than they do when I make it the regular way. And the flags provided much entertainment for them, and I'm sure will continue to be waved enthusiastically the next several days.

A Trip to the Zoo

The last few days I might not have posted anything, but like before it's not because we weren't busy. My sister flew into town (whom I haven't seen in three and a half years) and the kids and I have been showing her the town. We've done many of the things I've already written about this summer, like paddle boarding and swimming. And we've done things that we don't normally do either, like take the time to look at the little unique shops in town. You know the ones. They don't have anything on your weekly grocery list and as you pass by them you think, "One of these days when I'm by myself and can take the time to look and not worry about the kids breaking anything". Well, I did those shops with the kids. But the highlight of the week was our trip to the zoo.

The kids couldn't wait to get there. Days beforehand the questions were coming, "Are we going to the zoo today?" "When can we go to the zoo?" "Is it time to go to the zoo yet?" Unfortunately my husband couldn't get the time off work, so I was flying solo with the kids. Thankfully the only thing I was worried about was getting overly tired (which I did).

We got there at about 11am and met my sister and her husband at the flamingos. We wandered around the monkeys and stopped for lunch after we found the tiger. I packed sandwiches and food I knew the kids would eat, but treated them to the biggest ice cream cones ever! Seriously, there was this teeny tiny cone stacked with a half gallon of soft serve on top! I put my daughters' in a cup for her to eat upside down before she dumped it on the ground. Score one for Mommy diverting the problem.

My brother in law really wanted to see the polar bears. What we thought would be an easy walk to their exhibit ended up being a 4 hour detour around a broken walkway! We were all so beat, and just pushed onward and upward on our mission to find those polar bears! We passed by some really cool animals along the way, elephants, this weird looking bird, and in the end we met our goal and found them!

I was so beat at the end of the day! After dinner and the highway drive I made it home at about 11:30pm! I spent most of today moving as little as possible recuperating from it all. But we all had so much fun, and I would do it again in a heartbeat! Thanks sis!