Kool-Aid Play Dough

My kids love play dough and there's nothing like the homemade kind. 

 It's guaranteed to entertain them for hours! 

 Here's a fun recipe that was passed along to me when I was first married. A nice lady felt sorry for me and my (eh-hem) lack of cooking skills.  She kindly wrote down all of her favorite recipes for me, and the recipe for fruity play dough was included.  I can't tell you how many times this recipe has come in handy! 

Adding unsweetened Kool-Aid is fun because it not only colors the dough,

 but it also adds a little fruity scent that the kids love. 

Fruity Play Dough

1 cup flour

1/2 cup salt

2 tsp cream of tartar

1 pkg unsweetened soft drink mix

1 cup boiling water

2 Tbls. vegetable oil

Combine flour, salt, cream of tartar, and soft drink mix in medium bowl.

  Add boiling water and oil.  Stir until a soft dough forms.  Knead until smooth.

  Store in airtight container.   

Ahhhh, I love those chubby fingers!  Hours and hours of endless play dough fun! :)

Kid Friendly Fun Food

Are you looking for some more fun ideas

to do with the kids this summer?

You don't want to miss this for sure!

Have fun creating "breakfast" and "lunch"

out of sweet ingredients!

We got this fabulous idea from our favorite Preschool Teacher Janice.

All of our kids have gone to her and now my little girl gets to attend

Little Miss Homemaker each summer with her.

She has the most wonderful and fun ideas

that I admit....I'm pretty jealous I didn't get to do something like that as a kid!

We gathered all the cousins and let them cook up a feast!

You'll need:

vanilla wafers

chocolate thin mint cookies

green food coloring

coconut

soft macaroons

vanilla sugar wafer cookies

yellow m&m's

pretzel sticks

yellow & red frosting (we just got the ready made in the tube kind which was really easy to use)

white chocolate chips

Color the coconut with a couple of drops of green food coloring

till it's a perfect lettuce hue.

Use the frosting to create your beautiful burger.

Next up are your fries!

Cut each wafer cookie in half lengthwise for your perfect fry and smother with a bit of "ketchup"!

For Breakfast you'll want to crumble up your macaroon to mimic the hash browns.

Lay out 4 pretzel sticks in a row and top with two dollops of melted white chocolate. Then just top them off with your yellow m&m's for perfect sunny side up eggs!

This was so much fun and the kids loved it!

The eggs just made me smile, they were almost too cute to eat.

Well, I said almost.....

4th of July Aftermath...

We had a fun Fourth of July!  We started the morning with all of the breakfast bakes and topped it off with the berry trifle.  Later we had swimming, a BBQ, and of course... fireworks!  My boys would be perfectly happy if I only bought tanks, smoke bombs, grenades...and maybe some of those parachute men!

Fire...Fire...Fire!!

My sister in law brought cute red, white, & blue popcorn to eat while watching the fireworks.

I straight out copied the Glorious Treats Flag Cake. 

(She is a cute food genius, I eagerly wait to see what she'll come up with next!) 

I knew when I saw the cake that it would be perfect for our Fourth Of July picnic.  The flag cake has been all over blogland, but it was all new to our family.  The kids and adults got a big kick out of it!

Everyone sang patriotic songs and watched with anticipation as I cut into the cake.  Some of the little ones had a great time guessing what was inside the cake after I told them there was a surprise!

Ahhhhh!  Only regret...it's PINK!!?  Shucks, I will remember to buy gel dye next time! :)

Such a great idea and it actually tasted good besides having an entire bottle of red dye added! 

Hope you had a great day too!

Do you have any fun 4th of July foods that you make?

Spray Tye Dye Towels

Who doesn't love tye dye?

We have kids that love to swim during the summer heat,

so of course we can never have enough beach towels!

 We thought we'd put the kids to work this time

and let them have some fun too!

We picked up some inexpensive white bath towels

and used some masking tape to create their names and desired designs.

The neighbor kids saw what we were up to and wanted to join in

so we were scrambling to find any white t-shirts in the house!

We mixed up the dyes and put them into spray bottles we picked up at Walmart.

Then we let the kids just spray away!

It was sooooo much fun!

We were surprised that the boys gave in and used Hot Pink!

It definitely showed up the best!

We hung them up to dry on the fence because they were so drenched....there was no way they were comin' in the house!

The masking tape really did the trick and kept the white white!

My hands....were these colors for about 3 days.....

My nails are still hot pink around the edges.  No, it's not a cool new manicure. :)

We are going to set the color by adding vinegar to the wash.  Haven't done that yet....

How do you set tye dye? We used TULIP brand kits found at Walmart.  Any setting tips sent our way would be greatly appreciated, we would hate to wash away their beautiful :) artwork.

Results were grins from ear to ear,

happy kids, happy moms, and there will surely be

no confusion over the owner of each towel. :)

Sharing with Eighteen 25 Kid's Crafts

Cheap Water Thrills....

Are you looking for some quick and easy

projects to keep the kids busy and cool this summer?

This one is a must do!

We knew when we saw this fun sprinkler project by Kelly over at Here Comes The Sun....

we had to do it.

For her full tutorial and supply list head over and check it out!

We made a few small adjustments to fit our needs.

First off we used 1" pipe. 

The price difference was just a few cents but it makes it a little stronger.

We also drilled holes instead of using misters.  In this case, the boys thought "more" was better.

We also glued everything  (like Kelly) and

it was a fun learning experience for Candace's boys

who were more than eager to help.

We have so many fun memories of putting sprinklers together with our Dad,

 the smell of the glue was a sweet reminder.

Who knew this would be a quick lesson in plumbing 101?

The glue and primer come together in a cute little kit!

The boys love Legos, so putting this together was fun!

Everyone wanted to help even the baby.....who thought it was fun to hide some of the parts....

We found them in the back hatch of his Fisher Price tricycle, along with the missing bag of grapes.

We drilled holes every 2"
along the top and then drilled 4 holes down each side.

Another great tip was to make sure to use a metal hose adapter. 

If you are connecting and disconnecting the hose multiple times, it will strip out the plastic PVC,

so the metal adapter insures a longer life span. (The Home Depot guy easily convinced us!:))

Of course we needed some color so the kids spray painted their sprinklers!

After drying for about an hour they were ready and so were the kids!

They had a blast running and riding their bikes through.
I think the adults had just about as much fun watching them!

It was hilarious!

We figured we made each sprinkler for about $11.

Yup, not bad?

We have been scrambling for ideas to keep our kids busy. 

 Come take a peek this week to see what we have been up to!

Get Your Lemonade!

Yesterday Candace and I caved

in on the incessant pleas for a lemonade stand...

 A couple of weeks ago Candace's boys actually had

Lemonade Wars, with competitive stands set up across the street from each other.

All the neighborhood kids rallied around to help them succeed. {maybe just one of them}

Don't worry, some adults eventually felt sorry for him and bought lemonade.  He did fairly well too!

Unfortunately this set the bar high for the hopes of my little girl. :)

Don't they look sweet?

We even had Strawberry Lemonade.

They worked so well together.....

for the first 1/2 hour or so.....

and then.....

We had a hard time figuring out where all the lemonade and glasses were disappearing to?

They are already planning their next lemonade stand adventures

and how to do it better.

We'll chalk it up to teaching them how to work. :)

Stay tuned for some other fun kid ideas we have to share!