Showing posts with label family fun list. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family fun list. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Hello Summer Vacation!

Woo hoo! School's out for summer....
I made up a REALLY quick "Welcome to Summer" banner for the girls. They were very excited! School let out at 11:30am today and we went out for a nice lunch and then came home for a little playtime with a friend.





Here's our last day of school photo - the girls are right in front of the mosaic at school. 

We're going to have lots of swimming lessons and do some family fun activities this summer. What are your plans?

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Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Geocaching for GIS day

Today is Geographical Information Systems Day. To commemorate the day the Department of Conservation Services launched a series of geocaches and challenged everyone to find them. Boy was this fun!  As soon as I heard about this yesterday, I loaded an app on my blackberry, gathered up the kids and went off to search. One of the government caches was hidden in the Arboretum (#3) and when I searched online at www.geocaching.com (free basic membership gets you 3 downloads every 24 hours) I saw that there was another cache there also. I had no idea that geocaching was so popular here - there are so many to find!


I don't want to give away the locations so these are some seriously cropped photos!! I also won't tell you which one was which cache. Also due to my camera problem -- these are from my phone so not the best!


The Department on Conservation services had rubber GIS day bracelets in it as well as the log book-- Rose claimed the bracelet  I thought the others would not be happy having only one bracelet and 3 of them to share it but they did not mind at all. The fun is really in the hunt! Amy and Rose were racing ahead with the phone yelling "this way!" and counting down the meters -- 100m, 75m, 50 m etc. I kept calling them back so that we could stay together ( and also monitor that we were in fact going basically in the right direction! )


We also had a little fun running around in the park. It was slightly windy and overcast.

Even Emily was happy about our outing

We can't wait to find the one at Cooper's Island. The girls had just visited there on the weekend but I didn't know that they could have been searching for one!

There are some rules that everyone should be mindful of :
Sign the log book inside and read about who else has been there.
If you take any treasures out be sure to put a treasure of your own of equal or greater value in its place.
There are some little travelbug tags often found inside a cache and attached to a keychain or small item. If you take one of these out of a cache you must go to the website printed on it, log in it's serial number and retrieve it. Then you should put it into another cache and log it's new location online. Don't take it out and just keep it!! The owners can track online where their travel bug has traveled. If you just keep it and don't pass it on to another cache it will spoil their fun.

This was not an activity on our family fun list -- but by golly it should have been! Definitely adding it to the next list -- find at least 5 geocaches :) This was a great way to spend our day off while the teachers had a Professional day!

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Banana Splits for Dinner!

Yup. You read that right. #69 on our family fun list is to eat only ice cream for dinner. Well we did it last week! We all had Banana Splits for dinner. I set up a 6 cup muffin tin with several toppings, mini chocolate hips, cherries, rainbow sprinkles, chopped nuts, gummy bears and Butterfinger crunch bits. I gave the girls each a split banana with ice cream on it (no banana for Amy - she doesn't like them). Then I let each of them put on their own toppings. I added whipped cream, chocolate syrup, strawberry syrup or Dulce de Leche upon request. This was the most fun we have had at dinner in a long time!





I am sharing this special dinner in tribute to Ryan Roberts who passed away on July 8th. You can read more about Ryan's Banana Split Party here or sign up on the Facebook page here.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Easter Sweets

For our Good Friday celebration at my brother's house the girls and I made a few sweets to bring along.

Cupcakes: we made one batch of cupcakes and
then decorated them all sorts of ways :)
Lammy cupcakes
Heidi's is on the left, Amy's is on the right. Rose was feeling sick so she didn't make one. These are from our children's cookbook that we are using as part of our Family Fun List activities #103 - cook every recipe in a children's cookbook.

Easter Basket cupcakes
The girls put the jelly beans on. Amy did some of the green grass but it's kind of hard for her to squeeze. We used a Wilton #233 icing tip to pipe the grass.  This isn't a new design for us I make these often at Easter. The basket handles are just piped candy melts. I usually use a template but couldn't find it fast enough so I winged it!

Bunny Cupcakes
I saw this really cute idea online at Toys in the Dryer. It was a little bit difficult for the girls to help with. I did most if it and we were running late by this point so we had to be quick!
Easter Pick Cupcakes

I found a very cute set of Freebie Easter Party Printables at Amanda's Parties TO GO. I will definitely use the rest of this set for a future Easter Party. This time I just made the cupcake toppers :)

Sugar cookies
Simple sugar cookies. Everyone helped to  bake them. Only Amy helped with the decorating. We put these together really quickly using Betty Crocker cookie icing. I was going to fill in the carrots a bit more for a complete icing cover like the bunnies, but then decided that I kind of liked the variation. Amy did some of the bunny icing and then added all of the embellishments -- eyes, ears, tails.

Pretzel Bites

Saw these on pinterest and made them with the supplies we had in the house. This recipe was very easy -- I don't think I even pinned it! These were really fast and the girls basically made these by themselves. We put wax paper on a cookie sheet, the girls laid out the pretzels and then topped each one with either a Hershey's kiss or candy melt. Then we popped them in the oven for a few minutes. Our oven was hot from a previous use so I just watched it very carefully. I believe the recipe said 5 minutes at 275F. Once the chocolate is soft quickly pop a candy on top. We used Hershey's candy coated chocolate eggs, but you could easily use anything that fits -- M&M's, jelly beans, Cadbury's mini eggs (we used them when we ran out of the others!). The kids even did this last step but I helped to get it done quickly. I told them to be careful of the hot pan and not to worry about going too fast. These were very tasty - a sweet & salty bite :)


Funfetti Popcorn

Super easy recipe found at Cooking Classy. We made a slight variation. We coated half the popcorn with blue candy melts and half with white confetti candy melts and left out the M&M's as we didn't have any. It was delicious. I didn't plan on making this ahead of time and kind of stumbled upon the recipe at the last minute and just used what we had at home - hence the half blue, half white colours. I think it looks nice this way. Bonus. The recipe yields A LOT. Good for gifting in clear little bags with a decorative bow & tag.
The party was fun. Delicious lunch including our local Good Friday favourites - Hot Cross Buns & Codfish cakes, Easter Egg Hunt, kite flying, and a great time spent with family.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Baby goat!

The children had the opportunity to see a baby goat soon after it was born. We haven't made it to a real working farm yet as part of our family fin list, but this is a start. The baby goat was very friendly and kept coming right over to them and let them pat him (or her! I don't really know) under the fence.

  

 It was a bit like herding cats to get a photo as they were enthralled with the goats. I sort of got them to look in my general direction for a split second! haha.

The baby goat was running after it's mother. They couldn't believe how fast it could run so soon after being born. It was feeding time and it's Mom was running to the feed bin with the kid in tow!

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Painting Pottery

A family member had a pottery painting birthday party last month. The girls enjoyed this as expected but I was very sad to learn the the pottery painting studio was closing as the owner had some serious health issues.  I was glad that we had the opportunity to go right before it closed! Painting pottery is on our Family Fun List. It was a great way to spend an afternoon - especially with cake included ;)


Daddy started out giving Heidi a little assistance but as soon as she realised that Rose was holding her own piece, she had to follow suit.



Lots of concentrating faces in these photos!

The staff put all of the painted pieces in the kiln and we got them back several days later. Here's their finished work. I think they did a great job!

Rose's Puppy, Heidi's Kitty, and Amy's heart coaster

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Our Fairy Garden

This is another activity that was on our family fun list - plant a fairy garden.
This is the very beginning of the task. The girls were eager to start planting and although we had made many little embellishments already, we had not yet painted our fairy house. so we used the unpainted to one to help keep the spot!

 We had planned on using one container but as the designs progressed we ended up with three small planters for our fairy garden.

Amy proud of her work laying out our blue gravel river and small pond.


This is the fairy sink, toadstool seat and mussel shell bath.
That was one HUGE mussel!

Rose & Heidi watering the garden.

still watering...


The first two planters in their spot.  We couldn't find any little fencing to purchase here, so I made that one with balsa wood and mini craft sticks. It didn't really hold up well as the girls have been constantly tending to their fairy garden and re arranging it!

Here's our current fairy garden with all three planters -- it's in need of a little grown-up  tending now! I'm sure there have been many fairy visitors :)

Amy thought we should leave a treasure box of items that the
fairies might want to borrow :)

The fairy house is painted and glittered, and the girls added a little fairies welcome shell sign. The blue glitter from our looking glass faded - it's still pretty as a silver looking glass.


This one has become a bit overgrown. I think we'll give it a little love this weekend!





Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Kid's cookies

Well that was an unplanned blogging break! Life was busy and blogging went to the bottom of the list. Good news is that I have some fun things to blog about :) First up will be food... progress on the family fun list #103 cook every recipe in a kid's cookbook.
This is actually two recipes. 3 in 1 cookie dough plus Jam Sweetheart cookies. I really liked that these recipes don't make too many so we don't have sweets around the house for days at a time !!

The girls' cookies cooling.

Their sandwich cookies assembled.

It was pretty easy. Bake cookies - half regular hearts, half with mini heart cut outs. Pair them up and spread icing on the plain hearts, add a dollop of jam, top with the cutout heart cookie. Heidi's was the green plate. There are four since my nephew was here and he made one too.



Sunday, January 22, 2012

975 to go ...

Paper chain links that is. We're working on our Family Fun List #34 - make a 1000 paper chain. Since we are a family with 5 able paper chain makers, it probably wouldn't take us that long to just go ahead and make a huge paper chain. While it would be fun and we can marvel at the magnificence of 1000 links, it's not all that challenging. So we're kicking it up a notch and writing on each link the title of a book that either Amy has read by herself or one that has been read to Rose & Heidi &/or Amy. Basically each link represents a children's book read in some fashion. So far we have 25 links completed. Woo hoo!
I didn't come up with this idea right away on Jan 1st, and we really have just started this past week. I think we will need to step it up a notch on the reading to make up the time, but I believe that we can get it done. Here are our chains so far. (Since taking the photo I have added one more link.)

I am currently letting them make 2 separate chains that we will join together later. Mostly so that Amy can see her reading chain on it's own and track her personal reading progress. I am going to have her write the book titles on her own links from now on for the handwriting practice, this week  we have both written the titles.

The only hiccup in the master plan is figuring out how to keep the duplicates out of the chain. The littles tend to want to have the same books read over and over so I don't know what to do about that. So far it hasn't been an issue since it's only been a week. The plan is not to read 1000 different books, just 1000 books so I might not worry about the duplicates and just try to encourage variety with trips to the library etc. Anyone have any suggestions about the handling of duplicates? If someone has an idea for an easy system I can keep the duplicates out. Once we go over 100 books I know I won't be able to remember which ones are on the chain and which ones aren't. My memory is good, just not that good - there's a lot of other stuff floating around in there! I also don't want to skim through a list of 100's of books each time we read one either.

Comments & Suggestions welcome!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Strawberry Cream Surprise

The girls made a fun dessert tonight. It's out of our children's cookbook by Anabel Karmel - Children's First Cookbook. It was pretty fun and very tasty!
It was easy for them to make together. Bash up some meringues. Mash and slice strawberries. Layer in a glass with strawberry ice cream. I didn't have to help with this except reaching some of the items from the cupboards, freezer etc. and read out the directions.

Rose's turn mashing


Amy slicing strawberries


Heidi's turn mashing strawberries



Ready to eat! We added a bit of whipped cream and left out the mint from the recipe. We also used pink crushed meringues instead of white.
 

They each made two, one for themselves and one for Daddy, Mommy or Nana. Delicious!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Sunny Scrambled eggs

We have started work on our family fun list #103 cook every recipe in a children's cook book. We choose one of our children's cook books to use and started cooking out of it yesterday. The book is by Annabel Karmel  called Children's First Cookbook.

Sunny scrambled eggs with buttered toast.
 Clockwise - Amy's with the ketchup, Heidi's, Rose's
Amy cracked the eggs and added the milk, salt and pepper. Rose stirred it all up (Heidi is sick but she stirred it a little too) and I cooked it on the stove. They all buttered and cut their own toast and arranged it to look like the sun. Very cute and extremely easy. I made some bacon to add. Normally, none of the girls like pepper in their eggs but since they were making it and following the directions, they didn't even mention a problem and neither did I. They just went along and added the pepper and then ate all of their eggs. *Might* be on to something here. I think they liked twisting the pepper mill. When I put pepper there are protests of "I don't want that black stuff in my eggs" - LOL!

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Family Fun List for 2012



Yesterday, on New Year's Eve, we sat down as a family and came up with a list of things that we would like to do in 2012.  It's more short term than a life time bucket list, but I don't actually expect that we'll get everything accomplished in 2012. Some of the activities are really easy and some are a bit more extravagant/difficult as I really can't imagine a surprise Disney World vacation, Disney Cruise and a trip to play in the snow, plus a trip somewhere to pan for gold all happening in the same year! We didn't want to leave any wishes off so they are all included. Well except one - milk a cow - it was my idea, the girls were not impressed and Daddy thought they might be too little so we'll try to visit a dairy and watch someone else milk a cow (or even a goat) instead!

We only came up with our list last evening, so now that I have it all typed up I plan to format it, print it all out and post it on the wall so that we can all keep track of how we are doing. If all goes well and this turns out as planned kick starting a year of fun family memories, we can create a new list every year. Ahem. A fine idea for #99 create a new family tradition. ;) So here's our list. 119 strong. It's such an odd number, I resisted the urge to come up with one more just to round it out - haha.

  Our Family Fun List
1)      go to the beach
2)      make a homemade pie
3)      eat at a teppanyaki grill table
4)      visit the Aquarium
5)      make a gingerbread house
6)      bake roll out cookies
7)      enter a running race
8)      take swimming lessons
9)      go to a parade
10)   watch a real ballet
11)   go on a nature hike
12)   make play dough
13)   go somewhere fun to ride bikes
14)   visit an old fort
15)   go on the glassbottom boat
16)   make a nature collage
17)   build a model
18)   make a diorama
19)   donate some toys (Dad's idea!)
20)   visit the library
21)   go to the movies
22)   paint pottery
23)   make homemade ice cream
24)   make a volcano
25)   wash the car
26)   play BINGO
27)   have a pool party
28)   go fishing
29)   Visit the Deliverance
30)   go to Snorkel Park
31)   swim with the dolphins at Dolphin Quest
32)   visit BUEI
33)   pick up trash with KBB
34)   make a 1000 paper chain
35)   do a 100 days of school project
36)   complete a green activity for Earth Day
37)   plant flowers
38)   stargazing
39)   send a message in a bottle
40)   camp out
41)   Random Act of Kindness – leave a nice note on a strangers car
42)   visit a dairy
43)   visit a vegetable farm
44)   see the glowworms
45)   ride a horse
46)   see a horse show
47)   watch the sunrise
48)   take a ferry ride
49)   take a bus ride
50)   learn some Portuguese words
51)   play miniature golf
52)   watch a gymnastics meet
53)   build a giant sand sculpture
54)   play outside in the rain/puddles
55)   have a monthly family movie night
56)   learn how to eat with chopsticks
57)   take more family photos!
58)   name a star
59)   have a stay-cation at a nice hotel
60)   plant a tree
61)   visit the crystal caves
62)   watch glassblowing
63)   go on a horse and carriage ride
64)   make and bury a time capsule
65)   learn 3 constellations
66)   grow an herb garden
67)   pick our own Halloween pumpkin
68)   have a pajama day
70)   visit the lighthouse
71)   organize a bake sale for charity
72)   visit Nonsuch Island to see the cahows
73)   create a family cook book
74)   colour every single page in a new colouring book
75)   read the Ramona Collection to the girls
76)   host a tea party
77)   create a 365 day photo journal
78)   go on a picnic
79)   Disney Cruise!
80)   surprise Disney World vacation
81)   go whale watching
82)   play in the snow for the first time
83)   make a haunted house
84)   take a train ride
85)   go on a carousel
86)   see a double rainbow
87)   go bowling
88)   sleep under the stars
89)   go see a magic show
90)   learn to jump rope
91)   find a 4 leaf clover
92)   enter something in the Ag Show
93)   Hang a bird feeder
94)   make wind chimes
95)   make homemade Christmas cards
96)   revive and then everyone contribute to our vegetable garden
97)   take a surprise trip on our Minivan Express & see the holiday lights in our PJ's
98)   take a family portrait
99)   start a new family  tradition
100)                       tie-dye a shirt
101)                       go on a scavenger hunt
102)                       build a game for the Spring Fair
103)                       cook every recipe in a kid’s cookbook
104)                       visit Spanish Rock
105)                       keep up with our family meetings
106)                       paint a new talking stone
107)                       see fireworks
108)                       make smores in the front yard
109)                       frequent the local farmer’s market
110)                       pan for gold
111)                       plant sunflowers
112)                       start a butterfly garden
113)                       make a fairy garden
114)                       take a metal detector on the beach and search for treasure
115)                       learn a magic trick
116)                       have afternoon tea at the Princess
117)                       pick strawberries
118)                       redecorate our fish tank
119)                       reduce our carbon footprint for the year
 Hopefully this will inspire you to come up with some fun activities for 2012 also! I'll do my best to keep this updated, crossing out as we go along.

Wishing you a Healthy, Happy & Prosperous New Year where all of your wishes come true!

Update: to see all of the family fun list activities that we have done and that I managed to blog about click here :)