Boredom Buster: Camping

We bought tents about 3 years ago.  They have been packed away in the garage, and today I pulled them out.  I set them up on the front lawn to air them out and to make sure that we still had all of the pieces to them.  Well, we do need a few extra pieces and a repair kit before we do any real deep woods camping.  But now I have them in an air tight container ready to roll and we know what needs to be done to them to get them up to par. 
We chose dome tents, for ease of set up.  My husband had always done the setting up before.  Hmmm, well until today, when I had the task of setting all three of them  up by myself.  I figured it out, and was able to do it with a little help from the kids.  Actually, I was glad they helped me out… this taught all of us, how to do it.  Kind of like a trial run.
My youngest two, kept running in and out of them excited about the mere idea of camping.  My 4 year old wanted to sleep in them tonight, he didn’t care that they were on the front lawn.  But before the sun set and the dew settled, I packed them back up.  Knowing a camping trip would be in the near future, my son even helped us pack them up.  Ah!  I was so proud of him.
Even though we didn’t  go camping today, it did renew my hope to do so also.  I always loved camping, and it brought back peaceful memories of childhood.  A sense of adventure and nature.  Now we can’t go camping soon enough.  I cannot wait, even if it will probably only be in the backyard on a weekend for this summer.  
I would love to hear from you, about your memories of camping and adventures.  Until next time I hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful fulfilling summer!

Boredom Buster: Marbles

I came across a bag of marbles a few years ago.  I know marbles is a really old game, and I swear that I am 33 years old.  But I grew up inside a museum, and marbles was a game that my best friend and I loved to play.  We were constantly exposed to games and ideas from long ago.  I can now pass on to my children some of the ideas that date back from our own ancestors time.  That is rewarding in itself.
We played inside or outside, and we didn’t play for keepsies.  You see she had her own bag of marbles, like mine.  Finding marbles sets today is still quite simple.  I found a few listed at Amazon.com for under $10, a package.  
We start by making a circle, either on the sidewalk with chalk, or in the dirt with a stick, or if you want to play inside with a string. 
                                       
We each had 13 smaller marbles (called mibs) and 1 larger marble (called a shooter) for shooting, that we played with. 
                                      
The object is to get as many mibs out of the circle as possible without your shooter leaving the circle.  If your shooter leaves the circle the mibs that you knocked out don’t count and go back into the circle.  Each of us collected our “captured” mibs in piles next to us. We played  by taking turns every turn, regardless if the last person “captured” any mibs or not.  The person with the most marbles “captured” at the end when all the mibs are gone wins. 
There are so many different variations to playing.  The most important thing is to make sure all of the rules have been clearly discussed with everyone at the beginning, and everyone agrees to them.
I mainly loved the beauty that the marbles have.  As a child I was very careful with my collection.  To this day, they are one of my most cherished belongings and they sit right on my desk (since I found them).  I would love to hear from other marble lovers as well. 

Skill Building: Dip Rules!

The kids and I needed a fast lunch the other day, and I decided to cut up fresh veggies and fruit and have them be able to dip their food as they ate.  Dip can be great fun or a total embarrassment in a formal situation.
What a great opportunity to teach you kids etiquette, in a controlled setting, before they have to deal with a situation that is more public and it gets out of control.
These are the rules that I taught my children as they ate, mindfully.

1. No double dipping, if a plate is accessible then take some dip with a spoon and place a dollop on your plate.
   
2. No knuckle dipping, it isn’t polite to touch the dip with your fingers or hand at any time.
   
3. No dripping with dipping, be polite and do not load your food up with so much dip that it will drip in excess.
   
4. Chips are often tricky, if there is a situation that involves them always try to use the dollop method.  If a chip breaks in a bowl of dip it can become gross for everyone afterwards.
   
5. No horizontal or drop dipping, laying a carrot, or celery stick into the dip so one whole side is covered is inappropriate, and messy.  Its not nice to be messy when you are using a community dip.

Preparing your children for social situations and teaching them be polite and tactful is your job.  If there is a time of embarrassment when you didn’t have your children prepared, then teach them the way you feel is correct during that situation.  If your children do not not know how to deal with the situation, a hand over hand form of instruction is sometimes necessary.  And it shows great etiquette with you to be teaching your children instead of reprimanding them or completely ignoring their behavior and avoiding it altogether.

Recipe: Sweet Cream Crepes

We try to do a special treat breakfast every Saturday and we tried this recipe, and of course I changed it up to make it my own.  My husband doesn’t like the rubbery texture of “Crepes”, so we used our favorite pancake mix and thinned it out with water instead. 
Ingredients:
Crepes:

• Pancake Mix made as instructed on container.
  
• 1/2 to 1 cup of water (to thin pancake batter into crepes.)

Additions:

• 4 Cup sliced strawberries
  
• Sweet Cream Spread
  • 1- 8oz. softened cream cheese
    
  • 1/2 cup half and half
    
  • 1 1/4 cup confectionary sugar
    
  • 1 Tbsp. Lemon Juice
    
  • 1/2 tsp. Vanilla

Instructions:
Crepes:
Take batter for pancake mix and thin out with milk until it reaches a heavy cream consistency.  On a griddle (300 degrees) start cooking your crepes in about 6”-8” oval shapes.  Flip crepes after about 1 1/2 minutes. 
Sweet Cream Spread:
In a bowl, combine cream cheese, half and half, sugar, juice, vanilla with a hand held mixer, until well blended. 
Filling Crepes:
The sweet cream is then placed onto the fully cooked crepes, down the center, along with a few of the sliced strawberries and then the two sides are folded in to complete.  Serve immediately.
Tips:

1. Only apply a thin layer of the cream onto crepes, otherwise it will break the crepe and make a mess.
   
2. If you want more cream mixture add it to the top of the crepe after it is folded.
   
3. Kids love to garnish, let them pretty up their plates with any extra fruit.

Boredom Buster: Become a Puppeteer #2

In this part of making our puppet theater, we are priming and decorating our box, to give it the style that we desire.

Here we have primed our box with spray paint in a grey color, and my daughters are painting on the color they chose by mixing washable paint. 

We used a decoupage technique to apply the lettering.
We made the curtains for the front and back of the box by:
Measuring the cloth that we wanted on the box, and made two pieces the same size.  One of those we cut in half for the front.

I sewed up the rough edges on all sides.

I hot glued the top piece of the back to the top of the backstage.
 
I folded down the corners and hot glued the edges only.

Then I sewed a seem across the top of the curtain pieces for the front.

I ran a string through both front pieces and hot glued the string to the box.

I left the strings hanging to the side so that the curtains could be tied up during ShowTime.  Here it is finished.

Stay tuned for Boredom Buster: Become a Puppeteer #3, where we will be

• Showing different ways to make puppets.
  
• Ideas for what plays to choose for your shows.