Snacks In No Time: Groovy Guacamole

Dips or Sauces are excellent with kids around.  They are fun and different, which catches their interest.  Avocados are so good for you, and kids are sometimes very picky.  But the tanginess of guacamole, and the fact they can dip chips into it really encourages them to try new things.
Ingredients:

• 10-12 cherry tomatoes, peeled.
  
• 4 ripe avocados, skin and pits removed.
  
• Juice from 1 lime, or 2 Tablespoons of reconstituted
  
• 1/2 a small onion
  
• 2 garlic cloves, or 3 tsp. chopped garlic (already prepared)
  
• 1/8-1/4cup dried cilantro

Instructions:
Place all ingredients in a food processor and process until desire texture.  Season with salt to taste.  Place in an airtight container in refrigerator and use within 4 days.  Serve with tortilla chips or crackers.  (serves 6)
Tips:

1. Remove skin from tomato's:  Place tomato's in a bowl, and pour boiling hot water over them until they are covered and allow to sit for 3 minutes. Peel skins off with a paring knife until all have been removed.
   
2. Remove skin and pit from avocado:  Cut avocado in half, remove pit with a spoon.  Scoop flesh out with a spoon.
   
3. This recipe can be done also with a blender if you prefer.  It is quite thick so you will need to stop and keep scraping the sides with a rubber scraper.

Snacks In No Time: Peach Mango Punch

My daughters and I had a girls night out last night and we had homemade pizza, and toffee popcorn with peach mango punch, while we settled in for a great movie on Netflix.
Ingredients:

• 5 Peaches
  
• 2 Mangos
  
• 1 Can of Sprite.

Instructions:
I took the stones out of the peaches.  I took the stones out of the mangos.   Using my juicer, I juiced all fruit and poured equally into three tall glasses.  I topped the glasses off with the can of sprite, equally.  I carefully stirred, being careful not to let the drink foam up too much and voila!  A wonderful sweet, fresh punch.  (3 Servings)
Tips:

1. Removing stone from a peach:  I did this by cutting the peach in half along the seam up against the stone. Twist the halves to open fruit, and pop the stone out with a spoon.
   
2. Removing stone from a mango:  I did this by cutting the mango lengthwise, about 1/2 inch from center out,and repeated on other side, so the stone would be still in the center. Then took the center part and cut around the stone.
   
3. Using a blender instead of a juicer:  You would want to peel your fruits and remove stones from them.  Take fruit instead of placing in juicer, place in blender and add a liquid to help liquefy your ingredients.  I would recommend using water or juice, not using a carbonated beverage because that could foam up with the blending action.  Blend until desired thickness.  Then pour equally into three tall glasses. Top the glasses off with the can of sprite, equally. Carefully stir, being careful not to let the drink foam up too much.  Then serve.

Boredom Buster: Coloring Pages

We were planning on heading to a farm for the morning, but the gloomy weather helped us to choose to stay inside instead.  We can move the fun indoors.  I have searched the web and wanted to share with you our preferred sites for finding printable, fun and educational activities.  Having an idea of what you can do during bad weather, limits TV, game system and computer time.  We let our kids choose what they want to color, then we throw in a couple that we think are fundamental as well. 
Our Favorites:

1. The Delaware Estuary- Older Kids.
2. Kids Coloring Pages- Any Age
3. Crayola- Any Age
4. PBS Kids-Preschool
5. Nick Jr.-Preschool
6. Disney Junior-Preschool
7. Sprout Online-Preschool
8. Discovery Kids-Preschool
9. Educational Coloring Pages-Any Age

There are many options out there, a quick search online can help you come up with some ideas.  Feel free to add any websites that your children love as well. 

My 9 year old colored this, she wanted to share it and tell you that she name this dragon “Fraggle”.

Skill Building: Staying sharp during summer.

Having a nice vacation clears our minds and helps restore tranquillity.  Our kids tend to clear their mind so well over the summer break that they forget essential skills in Math and Reading.
Incorporating review into their normal day can be a challenge when all they want is free time.  So we take the challenge and try to make it fun for them at the same time.  This is what we do to help them stay on track.

• Scheduling and Planning Ahead.  Meal Planning and a trip to the grocery store can help young ones with spelling, reading, following directions.  (Include them in making the grocery list, reading the list and finding the items in the store)  Older kids can learn price comparison.  Not to mention the lessons in attention to detail, they pick up from being helpful and following directions.
  
• Counting.  My 4 year old helps make coffee everyday.  He counts the scoops of coffee we put into the coffee basket.  He is so excited he gets to push the button to start it.  If we are reheating it in the microwave, we tell him what numbers to push on the microwave.
  
• Reading.  Going to the library often, really encourages them to read.  I know my 12 year old is outside reading through book after book, while she sits in the sun.  My 9 year old is trying so hard to find something that she is interested in, that she starts books and doesn’t finish them.  The point is she is reading regardless.  My 4 year old loves the library and enjoys our trips there,
  
• Computer Skills.  I have set my girls (12 and 9 years old) up with limited email accounts, and have encouraged them to become pen pals with their friends over the long summer break.  This teaches them essential skills in computer literacy, reading and typing skills, they can’t get enough of it.
  
• Intermediate Math.  Helping cook in the kitchen.  My 12 year old is adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing fractions. While my 9 year old is learning and becoming familiar with fractions.
  
• Basic Math.  Now to brush up on memorizing simple math facts, I have replicated a game for them that I played in my 4th grade class. I found that it really helped me.  It was called  “Beat the Clock”.
  
•   Making sure to creatively incorporate fun learning skills into as many activities as possible. Will really help your children from forgetting fundamentals over the summer.  Good Luck, I hope this helped.

If you have other ideas about helping kids stay on track over the summer, please feel free to comment and share with others.  Thanks!

Boredom Buster: Local Events

We are all so busy, sometimes we don’t have time to scout out what’s going on around us.   Like in our area right now there are tons of signs for the circus that is going on tonight, so its pretty obvious we are going to know about that one.  But there are a lot of places or events you could attend that are inexpensive or sometimes even free.  Examples of places we look for are:

• Museums
  
• Zoos
  
• Amusement Parks
  
• Gardens/Farms
  
• Aquariums
  
• Community Centers
  
• Library
  
• Fairs

To make sure we don’t miss out on times when these places offer lower or even free admissions.  This is how we find recent opportunities to do just that.
Doing a little legwork we:
-Local Newspaper/Nearest City Newspaper
-Word of mouth. Getting out there and just striking up conversations with people in the area.
Ways that we set up to conveniently come to us are:
-Signing up for online newsletters- this can be a wonderful way to stay up to date on discounted admission fees or possibly free days.  *Note:  I do this myself, but I devote an entire email address specifically to this, so I can just check it whenever I am planning my weekly events and it won’t overwhelm my regular email.
-Subscribing to websites RSS feeds, and using a wonderful feed reader like “Google Reader” or “Windows Live Essentials” to organize them conveniently.

1. “Google Reader” is an online only application that organizes everything so brilliantly, and it tracks back to the beginning of the feed.
   
2. “Windows Live Essentials” is a desktop application that you can download to your desktop completely free.  It does everything from organizing your Calendar events, checking several emails at once, organizing your contacts, has a feed reader and it even picks up your newsgroups all at once and in one convenient place.

-Social Networking sites.  An example is Facebook, you can find the businesses page and click on the link to like it, and you then receive all updates that they post.
*These are a few to get you started on having a less expensive summer filled with events with your kids.  Please leave any additional ideas that you would like to add in my comments. 

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