Make Your Own Bubbles

My family and I play outside a lot.  My kids are classic sprinkler, chalk and bubble kind of kids and we go through them a lot.  After my son dumped the entire jug of bubbles for the tenth time yesterday I decided we needed to come up with a new tactic as opposed to going out to buy more.  Right away I found a great recipe on Pinterest from Ashley Ann Photography.  You probably already have the ingredients somewhere in your home, here is how it went for us:

You will need

• 1 1/2 Quarts (6 Cups) of Water
• 1/2 Cup Light Corn Syrup
• 1 Cup Liquid Dish Soap

It went very well and the kids are already using them.  To solve the issue of Charlie dumping the bubbles out we decided to use our drink dispenser we haven't used for a while.  The kids use old yogurt cups and bubble wands that we had collected last summer.  I am so excited to use this permanently! 

We are always looking for new ideas for outdoor play, let me know what you do for fun outside!

Happy Easter

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter, I know I did.  We started our day off with a wonderful Easter service at our church, Windsor Heights Lutheran Church.  We then had an Easter breakfast with church friends.  My husband had a soccer game, which he unfortunately lost, but I love watching him play, so it was worth it.  We ended with family and friends over to my mother's house for a HUGE Easter dinner and egg hunt for my kids.  The adults had a blast helping the kids with the eggs.  Finally, my husband and I are watching one of my favorite movies, Easy A.  I laugh every time I watch it.

My hubby the grill master!

I thought this bag would fit her outfit.  Her egg hunting bag.

My mom has had these for a long time, I used to look at them for hours when I was younger.

A very Trader Joe's Easter.

These are pictures of flowers in my mother's garden.

Big sissy helping her brother find eggs.

The Lorax Party Theme

My daughter just had her 6th birthday party.  I thought I would share some of the pictures to show you the cake and decorations we made!  First was the cake.  I had been wanting to try cake pops for a while now, and I thought it would fit perfectly with the theme.

So this is her oh so yummy cake.  We made the cake pops from directions found on Bakerella.  It was pretty simple, but very time consuming.  I made about 45 different cake pops, and they were detailed.  The Bar-ba-loots are chocolate and the Lorax and the truffula trees are yellow cake.  I think it turned out pretty well.  

For other foods we made Bar-ba-loots (chocolate Teddy Grahams) and Marshmallows, since in the movie they loved the mallows.  We also made truffula berry cakes (blueberry pancakes) and fruit kabobs. The kids loved it!

For decorations we put up your usual streamers (in the color of the truffula trees) and lots of balloons.  I also made these truffula trees and found the idea for them at Gwynn Wasson Designs.  She didn't have a tutorial for them so I thought I would tell you, quickly, how I did these.

You will need:

• Styrofoam disk
• boas
• glue gun
• Tidy pins
• Sticks
• black and white paint

    I pinned one end of the boa to the middle of the disk.  I then wrapped the rest in a swirl around the disk until it covered the front and edges of the disk.  I had mine up against the walls, so I didn't need to do the back of them.  All the while wrapping in a swirl, I was also pinning the edges.  When I finished, I went back and glued spots where white was showing through.

    The kids and I went on a walk and picked up sticks, brought them back and spray painted them white.  When they dried I painted the black rings around the sticks and then stuck them into a spot in the foam.  Voila, truffula tree!

Time to blow out the candles!!!

Our fruit-kabobs and what was left of the truffula berry cakes