10 Ways to Make Today Magical

Happy Monday!  Looking to make some fun and easy memories with your little (or big) ones this week?  Here’s a few ideas, lifted from April of 2010…..

1.  Go walking in the rain.  Or the drizzle, if your rain dance doesn’t work. 

(We currently have snow outside instead of rain, but I’m telling myself that it can’t possibly last forever!)

2.  Visit the humane society and volunteer to brush cats, exercise kittens and take dogs for walks.  They’re generally happy to have extra help and the animals love the attention.

3.  Decide on a totally silly word or saying to say when you answer the phone.  A friend of ours absentmindedly answered the phone recently with “Three!” and the kids and I found it so hilarious we vowed to do the same.  Hint:  caller ID makes this much easier to do without too much harm or embarrassment.

4.  Go off the beaten path, literally, and explore somewhere you’ve never been before.

5.  Play an old fashioned game with your kids like marbles, hopscotch or jacks.

6.  Grab a pack of colorful sidewalk chalk and head out to make the world more cheerful.  Have the kids leave happy faces, sweet notes, rainbows, silly cat faces, flowers, goofy aliens, you name it, in various places just to make people smile.

7.  Play mud tag.

8.  Get a DVD of a favorite TV series from your childhood from Netflix or the library and watch it with your kids.  Prepare to feel old and cheesy. 

9.  Plant a row of sunflowers and see if you can get them to grow taller than the kids.  Even better, see if you can get them to grow taller than you!

10. Make a bean teepee for the kids.  This year we really must finally get to this project!

Have a magical week!

10 Ways to Make Today Magical

Artwork Copyright Katie Daisy 2010, http://www.flickr.com/people/thewheatfield/, Visit her etsy shop at http://www.thewheatfield.etsy.com

Happy Monday!

I hope all is wonderful in your little corner of the world.  Winter is holding on tight around here but we’re planting seeds and making plans anyway.  My spring fun Pinterest board is stocked with ideas I want to try with the kiddos.

Here’s a few ways to make a little magic this week…

1.  Tie long sticks to ribbons and go ribbon dancing in the back yard or park.

2.  Make grapevine wreaths and bracelets.  Click here for a tutorial from my Victoria a few years back.

3.  Mop the kitchen floor by letting the kids sock skate.  Or take it a step farther like this family did and make some sponge skates.  If you go for the mop hockey idea (which is brilliant, if you have a large enough floor and the bravery to say yes to such a thing!), I’d definitely recommend helmets though. 

4.  Cheer up your bill-paying.  Have the kids use crayons or colored pencils to draw a picture on the back of each bill as you mail it in, plus decorate the envelope and write something cheerful.  You might make someone else’s day magical as well.

5.  Make some seed bombs.  You can make these little guerilla gardening goodies with shredded paper or clay, plus a bit of dirt, compost and wildflower seeds.  Then have fun flinging them into unloved areas that could use a bit of color (including your own back yard!).  Be sure to use native wildflowers that will not be invasive and follow all those commonsense sort of rules.    Find tutorials at every(nothing)wonderful (with free printable labels!), The Ecologist (where you can learn the very old history of seed bombs and lots more), Mademoiselle Chaos (where you can make moldable little seed bomb shapes with recycled paper), or use this basic formula from BH&G:

Guerillagardening.org recipe: Combine two parts mixed flower seeds with three parts compost; stir in five parts powdered clay (available at art or crafts supply stores), and moisten with water. Form balls one inch in diameter; let dry for 24 to 48 hours (stash in an empty egg carton). Gather in paper and tie with raffia; add easy how-tos on a tag.

6.  Got any Harry Potter fans?  Make their day with homemade Butterbeer, complete with sugared rims on the glasses.  Now if I could only figure out how to make those tiny brooms….

7.  Start a weekly project of making homemade toys together.  These can be simple (like turning unwanted stuffed animals into puppets) or sophisticated (like making homemade dolls).  Check out my Homemade Toys board for lots of tutorials and inspiration.

8.  Start some seeds.  You can start them in egg shells, egg cartons, newspaper pots, muffin tins or toilet paper tubes (cut in half) in recycled plastic boxes (the clamshell boxes from organic salad mixes are perfect) for mini-greenhouses.

9.  Do electric griddle drawings.  These are so much fun that even I have to take a few minutes to make some melty crayon art.    Click here for our tutorial and be sure to be safe.

10. Go puddle stomping!  You too. 

And with that, my pretties, I’m off to start a nice pot of soup to try to kick this spring cold that thinks it’s going to get us down.

Have a magical week!

A Little Snow and Cold Fun When You Don’t Have Snow and Cold!

If you’re lucky enough not to live in one of the freezing cold places right now, you can still take part in lots of fun with snow and ice!

Here’s a list of ten ways to make the day magical, warmer style for warmer climates.  And here’s a little round-up of online snowy fun.  Help the kids make some snowmen, “cut” some snowflakes and more. 

10 Ways to Make Today Magical

Happy Monday!  I hope you’re staying warm in your little corner of the world.  We have some crazy temperatures here lately (even for Minnesota!).  I’m hoping it gets above 0 today.  How’s that for a crazy wish? 

Cold, snow or not, here’s a few ways to make some memories with your kids this week….

1.  Make watercolor snowballs.  Just bring in a pan of snow and give the kids some watercolor paints and paintbrushes.  They can pack the snow into snowballs and then paint them.  Store them in a bucket in the freezer until you’re ready to return them to the wild.    You can decorate the yard with them or the kids can toss them, but let the kids know they should toss at targets like trees and not people since they freeze a little hard.

2.  Go sledding inside!  Get out a big towel and drag the kids around the kitchen floor.  Kids can pull each other around, too.

3.  Make a “gingerbread house” for the birds and squirrels.  Get together some graham crackers, peanut butter or sunbutter and a variety of bird seeds and then assemble like a regular house with peanut butter as the icing/glue.  Take a picture of your masterpiece and then leave it where it’s visible from inside so you can watch to see who visits.

4.  If you’ve got snow where you live, head to one of the spots where the snowplows dump it off to play.  It makes for instant mountain ranges!

5.  Get glow in the dark paint and help the kids write secret messages and pictures on their ceilings.

6.  Use kitchen gadgets to make supper fanciful.  For instance, use a cookie press to pipe out mashed potato stars.

7.  Make giant ice suncatchers.  Here’s the easy instructions.

8.  Make up a couple dozen fortunes and stash them in cereal boxes, snacks, the cookie jar, etc.  Make some especially silly (Beware of odd rabbits today.  You will have a monkey on your head….) and some sappy (Your mama loves you more than peanut butter cups.  I’m proud of you…).  Slip some in drawers and leave some for your sweetie, too.

9.  Take advantage of the cold and do some cold weather science experiments.  Vaporize hot water in the air, blow frozen bubbles, experiment with salt and water on colored ice, and more.

10.  Start a pride jar.  Every time you’re proud of your child, write the reason on a slip of paper and put it in a pretty jar. Encourage the kids to peek in their jars!

And with that, my pretties, I’m off to do the magical job of catching up on laundry!  Perhaps with a whimsical side of kitchen cleaning…  And a bit of hugs and kisses and crafts and silliness with some marvelous little people scurrying about. 

Have a magical week!

 

 

 

10 Ways to Make Today Magical

Happy Monday!  I hope you’re warm and cozy in your little corner of the world.  We got snowed in for the first time in a very long time this past weekend and it was a little bit delightful.  My boys spent most of the day outside building a snow fort and throwing snowballs, and even 12 year-old Anna was out making snow angels.  Victoria got some gorgeous pictures of it all, and Fiona just stayed inside where it was nice and toasty.  Alex brought her a little bowl of snow to play with, but she decided she didn’t care for it at all. We also made lots of holiday treats and started on our billions of kid-made Christmas cards, which we’d better get moving on or they’ll be Valentines cards. 

Here’s a few ways to make a little magic with your kiddos this week…

1.  Got snow?  Bring a big tub of it inside to play with.  Add matchbox cars, sand toys or colored water and eyedroppers.  (Tip:  I use a big under-the-bed storage box for the snow and put lots of towels down underneath it to contain the melting mess.)

2.  Make a paper chain of happy memories and accomplishments from the past year.

3.  Make a snowball target!  I love this idea from Nurture Store: “Draw a chalk target on an outside wall, line up some snowballs and shoot to score. Award different points for hitting different areas and keep tally with a score chart. Lots of adding up practice.”

3.  Leave ice wreaths as colorful surprises for your favorite decorated houses.  Freeze one ice wreath for each member of the family (put water in a bundt cake pan and add berries, sprigs of pine and/or food coloring and colored ice cubes and freeze).  Tie a note around it, thanking folks for making the world more magical.  Let each family member leave a wreath on the lawn of their favorite decorated house.

4.  Build a snow dragon or a snow house.

5.  Take the kids sledding inside.  Have them sit on bath towels and pull them around the kitchen or down the hall. 

6.  Put on the happiest music you can find and dress up really silly to clean the house together.  Wear tiaras and aprons, superman capes and so on.  Have fun and be silly!

7.  Make gingerbread houses.  Here’s plans to make real ones, with lots of recipes and tips.  Here’s advice from a seasoned gingerbread house decorator on how to make it fun for kids and how to host a decorating party, plus a basic recipe. 

And Mary Engelbreit has plans to make darling permanent ones from recycled materials and craft supplies.

8.  Let your little ones help make a magical holiday scene with this interactive Christmas card from Ashland University.  They can click to make it snow, build a snowman, decorate with lights, hear a choir and more.

9.  Make some treats together.  Here’s a round-up of whimsical, healthy (-ish!) ones to balance out a bit of the junk of this time of year.

10. Find a few minutes to do something really nice for yourself.  Buy yourself a couple of truffles at the check-out and go enjoy them on the porch swing.  Take a relaxing bath with a magazine.  Call a friend who makes you feel fabulous.  You get the idea!  Extra credit if you come back and tell me what you did! 

You can also check out this list of 50 free (or almost free) ways to make the holidays magical for children. 

And with that, my dears, I’m off do the magical task of cleaning my living room — and maybe kissing on some little people while I’m at it.  Have a magical week!

 

10 Ways to Make Today Magical

Happy Monday!  Here’s a few ways to make a little magic with your kiddos this week….

1.  Make a paper hideaway.  Hang strips of crepe paper (or toilet paper in a pinch) from the ceiling in a corner of the kids’ room or the living room.

2.  Head to a pet store.  Spend some time with the fishes, birdies and beasties.

3.  Have the kids draw with markers or crayons just using their feet.  It may help to tape down the paper on the floor.

4.  Learn a song together and videotape yourselves singing it.  Be as flamboyant as possible!  Send the clip to loved ones and spread some smiles.

5.  Head outside to do a photo shoot.  Put the kids in charge of choosing how and where to pose!

6.  Make some of these lovely glue suncatchers. These ones are from tales from a corner house.

7.  Make jeweled princess bracelets. Crafts by Amanda shows you how to use cardboard tubes, felt, craft glue and some baubles in this child-friendly craft.

8. Leave silly notes in hiding places all over the house. It may take months for somebody to stumble on all of them, but it’s a wonderful way to break up an ordinary day to suddenly stumble on a note that says “Mama loves you” or “Kisses!  You must come give your grandma 18 kisses immediately upon finding this!”.

9.  Assemble a feast for the birds and beasties outside.  Leave it where you can watch them nibble. Ears of dried corn, peanuts in the shell, berries, seeds and sliced fruit are all favorites.

10. Got Friday off?  Spend the day together at  home.  Watch movies, pop popcorn, bake treats, make crafts, whatever.  Start the holiday season doing something you love with people you love.

Now I’m off to get started on approximately one hundred and five things on my to-do list.  And drink tea.  Lots of English tea with too much almond milk and sugar. 

Have a wonderful week!!!!!

10 Ways to Make Today Magical

Happy Monday!  Sorry I keep disappearing for so long!  Since I didn’t have nearly enough things to keep me frazzled, I decided to take part in NaNoWriMo this year and I’ve been writing a book all month, too!  Fifty thousand words takes a bit of time, it turns out. 

In any case, here’s a few ways to make a little magic this week…

1. Grab some leftover Halloween face paints (or makeup) and do face painting with the kids.

2. Bake cookies for loved ones and decorate them with words representing all the things you love about them.

3. Sit and draw crayon portraits of each other. No artistic talent necessary.  Display the finished masterpieces.

4.  Bake no-knead bread together.  Gluten free?  Then make this one.

5. Make a fun portable hammock with a sheet and two grown ups
holding the corners.  Swing your favorite little person in the middle of it.

6. Hide funny little notes all over the house. See how long it takes for people to find them all.

7. Take fun family photos of your shadows.

8. Climb a tree together and do something up there (homework, read a book, sit and talk, have a snack…).

9. Look at the moon through binoculars.

10. Get a blank book and encourage all of the family members to write, draw, etc. it in every day or two as a sweet family memento.

And with that, chickadees, I’m off to a play date at a library and a stack of to-do cards bigger than my head.   

Have a magical week!

10 Ways to Make Today Magical

Happy Tuesday!

I hope all is well with you and yours.  Here’s a few ways to make some memories with your kiddos this week….

1.  Make some playdough pumpkin faces.

2.  Make a spooky family message for the answering machine.

3.  Play Household Chore Bingo.  Add some silly ones too!

4.  Cancel everything and just hang out together.  Sit on the porch swing and talk, go for a walk, bake bread or sort through old pictures and do a scrapbook together.

5.  Make painted jar luminaries like these from Crafts By Amanda.

6.  Assign each family member the task of writing up 3 interview questions for the family.  Drop them in a jack-o-lantern or big bowl and put them in the center of the table to read during lunch.  Take turns drawing a question and answering it, then pass the pumpkin to the next person.  The questions can be silly (If you were an ice cream flavor, which one would it be?) or serious (What is something you did but later wished you hadn’t?  What is something you’re really proud of?).

7.  Take the time to write a letter to your child, just saying how much you love him and some things you’ve enjoyed doing with him lately.  Tuck it in a school book for him to find later.

8.  Go to a book reading at a local bookstore.

9.  Gather a pile of leaves and dive into them together.  Make a wild, wonderful mess.

10. Set up a picnic table or card table outside and have a fall picnic supper.  Light a Jack-o-lantern for a centerpiece and serve hot cider or cocoa to keep folks toasty warm.

Also check out my list of 50 fun ways to connect with your child in fall here. 

And with that, chickadees, I’m off to go on a fall walk with some small children and a Sharpie marker, and graffiti some fall leaves for passers-by! 

Have a magical week!

 

10 Ways to Make Today Magical

Happy Friday!

Long time, no see, huh?  Life has been busy here, but in mostly wonderful ways.

Among our biggest new developments…

• Our family took a trip to Ohio to see my long-lost father’s family and my grandmother.  My late mother hid me from my father until after his death and I grew up not knowing that side of my family.  I found them in 2001 and got to go home and meet them all when the girls were itty-bitty, and this trip I got to return so my kids and husband could meet them too.  I am so happy to have them in my life.  They have told me and my kids so many wonderful stories of my dad and they are such loving, fun, fabulous people.  It was just a profoundly wonderful trip back!
• Little miss Fiona is getting ready to turn one year old next month!  How did that happen so fast?
• Best of all… Victoria had her three month PET-CT scan and the doctors found no traces of cancer!  She needs to wait five years before she can be officially declared cancer free, but this is such wonderful news! 

Now, how about we get back into the swing of things with a few ways to make a little magic this week?

1.  Go on a natural toy hunt.  Head out with your favorite small people and tromp through the woods, park or neighborhood looking for all sorts of wonderful autumn items to take home and play with, craft with and imagine with.  Acorns, seed pods, gorgeous leaves and chestnuts are just a few of the wonderful goodies you can collect this time of year.

2.  Have a cleaning party with the kids.  Dress up in fabulous play dress-up clothes (party hats and/or tiaras are a must!), blast some happy music, grab some fun treats and clean like crazy together.  Set a timer for every 15 minutes to take a break and enjoy some treats together, and concentrate on being as wild and wacky as possible as you clean.  Who says cleaning has to be dull?!

3.  Make up some masking tape inside games.  The kids can do target practice, tic tac toe and lots more. 

4.  Or just give the kids a roll of painter’s tape.  Let them make roads, targets, towns, mosaics, paths, words or whatever their hearts desire.

5.  Carve and dye some mini pumpkins!  Isn’t this a darling idea?

6.  Make leaf mazes.  If you have a large yard full of leaves, rake a maze pattern in it and have the kids run, walk or bike it.  Challenge them to make lots of leaf mazes and then rake the leaves into piles for jumping.  (When you’re done, put the leaves on your gardens or in your compost pile or offer them to gardeners to keep the bags out of landfills.)

7.  Make pumpkin pie playdough.  We made this every fall for years and I need to make it up again with some gluten free experimentation for my little guy.  It smells heavenly and is so much fun to play with!  Note that this makes a lot, so feel free to use some math with the kids and make smaller batches!

Pumpkin Pie Playdough Recipe

• 5-1/2 cups flour
• 2 cups salt
• 8 teaspoons of cream of tartar
• 1 container (1-1/2 oz) of pumpkin pie spice  ( If you don’t have pumpkin pie spice, just substitute cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves, or whatever combination of them you have on hand!)
• 3/4 cup oil
• orange food coloring (2 parts yellow, 1 part red)
• 4 cups water

Mix all ingredients. Cook and stir over medium heat until all lumps disappear. Knead the dough on a floured surface until it is smooth. Store in a plastic bag.

8.  Make crab apple cider.  If you’re lucky enough to have access to crab apple trees, you have to try making crab apple cider with the kids!  It’s easy (no apple press required) and the cider is beautiful ruby red and delicious.  We have friends who go to a park near their home every fall to harvest unsprayed crab apples for this stuff since we introduced them to it.  It’s a fun, tasty tradition!

9.  Make a spooky family message for the answering machine.

10. Go find a big pumpkin and plop your favorite tiny person inside it.    I still smile when I see pictures of when we did this with baby Jack all those years ago.

And with that, chickadees, I’m off to clean some messes and make some new ones!  Have a wonderful weekend!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10 Ways to Play With Your Kids Today

Photo by Victoria Bayer

Is summer slipping away as fast for you as it is for us?  Here’s a few easy ways to take advantage of the end of July with your kiddos this week…

1. Grab some boats (or make some simple floating ones with bark or paper) and spread out a tarp, shower curtain or plastic tablecloth in the yard.  Drizzle water on it with the hose and sit right smack in the middle of it — getting cool, floating boats, making little island getaways, you name it.
2. Have a photo shoot outside.  Be sure to let the kids take your picture too!
3. Shoot some hoops — even if that means tossing balled up socks into a bowl on the coffee table because it’s 115 degrees outside.
4. Go on a sprinkler walk.  Head to an area of town where people have their sprinklers going and sidewalks that go through them, and try to walk through as many sprinklers to cool down as possible.
5. Make some real fruit slushies.  Toss frozen fruit like strawberries in the blender with some water and sugar to taste.  Blend like crazy and enjoy.  Make it extra fun by playing chef with a big variety of frozen fruit choices.
6. Freeze lots of ice cube trays and muffin tins full of colored water and then put all your multi-colored ice treasures in a big bowl.  Head out to the kiddie pool and grab some buckets of water to melt and color mix like crazy.
7. Take blocks of ice to the top of a grassy hill and go ice blocking.  Here’s more info on this activity that’s on our bucket list this year!
8. Make mud pies.
9. Play balloon volleyball.
10. Go camping.  Can’t do that?  Camp in the back yard.  Can’t do that?  Camp in the living room.

And yes, I know it’s winter for some of you!  I think a lot of these are still options.  If not, please do something fabulous and then come back and tell us about it.