Did you ever miss a day?

I've had a couple people ask me this question, and my guess is that there are others who are wondering. So here it is:

Was there ever a day this year you forgot to take a picture?
I'm dying to start this project, but I'm afraid of failure. :)

 

My answer? ABSOLUTELY. Not many, but a few. Do you know what happened a lot more often than that? I had two great pictures (of different events/subjects) from one day and lousy ones on another day. So do you know what I did? I simply allocated the two great pictures to two different days and skipped the lousy ones.

 

I didn't do it all the time, but probably at least one picture every couple weeks or so was taken on a day other than the one for which I posted it. (And no, I did not apologize for or draw attention to it. It's my project, folks.) Most of the time I did it so that I could get at least one picture of each of the kids each week. Really, when your kids play outside every. single. day., does it really matter too much if the picture taken on Day 346 gets posted to Day 347, especially considering that the only pictures taken on Day 347 were boring and/or blurry? Nope. Not one iota. :)

 

And sometimes I did it when something like the creek flooding happened on a particular day, but I also got a super one of the kids that I wanted to use. Occasionally I'd post two pictures a day (if there were two big events), but I really tried to keep it to just one. So in that case, I'd move the picture of the kids to a different day if I liked it better than the pictures I took on that day. My bigger goal was seven pictures a week ... and if that meant dropping the pictures from one day so that I could use two pictures from another day, so be it. :) It was my project. Nuff said. :)

 

It's okay. Try it. You'll be glad you did! :)

 

And since I now have a random post, I'll add a picture I really liked from last week but didn't get to use. :) Colors are popping out along our driveway!

  

Cool kitchen fun with my munchkins!

What do you think of our Penguin Pops? :)

I LOVE it when ideas work!

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Hannah's been choosing our Friday evening meals. (Pretty much) anything she'd like from my Simple and Delicious or Taste of Home magazines--including both main meal and dessert. For dessert this week she chose these cute little critters:

Cute, but they require circus peanut candies, Nutter Butter cookies, and green candy melts. As a general rule, we try to avoid significant amounts of food coloring, and I don't overly care for either circus peanut candies or Nutter Butters. So we compromised with Mommy's idea for Penguin Pops, which could be made entirely with ingredients I already had on hand (minus the Oreos, which I'm never loof to purchase.)

We had a lot of fun, and the project is just right for the 5-7 age range (plus or minus a few years). :) Two year olds can "help" Mommy. ;)

Step 1 Ingredients:

• Cool Mint Oreos (any round sandwich cookie would work ... I just happen to be very fond of Cool Mint Oreos.) ;)
• Vanilla almond bark (approximately 1/2 block per cookie pop)
• Lollipop sticks

1. Melt the almond bark in a large mug. (Microwave for 30 seconds, stir; repeat until smooth.)
2. Twist apart the cookie. Dip the lollipop stick in almond bark, place on cookie half, and replace cookie top. Refrigerate for about ten minutes until set.

 3. Dip cookie pops in white chocolate.

4. Place cookie pops in foam blocks and refrigerate for about an hour until firm.

Couple notes about the foam blocks:

• Punch the holes BEFORE you're trying to stick a just-dipped cookie pop into the block. It just works better that way.
• Cookie pops are top-heavy. Foam is not heavy. Secure foam prior to carrying top-heavy cookie pops to fridge. (Not that I speak from experience or anything ... eh-hem...)

Step 2 Ingredients:

• Sweet helpers! :)
• Cookie pops from step 1
• Butterscotch chips
• Chocolate chips
• Chocolate almond bark, melted (approximately 1/3 block per cookie pop)
• Small amount of remaining vanilla almond bark, remelted

5. Dip chocolate and butterscotch chips in vanilla almond bark and arrange on cookie pops to form the penguin's eyes and nose.

6. Dip the sides and back of cookie pop into chocolate almond bark to create the penguins wings. Matthew "helped" Mommy with this part ... ;)

7. Enjoy your cute creations (and your cute helpers!)

Hunt and click!

I've had a set of pictures waiting in my pictures-to-post queue since July! Not quite sure why I never got around to posting them sooner (although three munchkins have much to do with that!), BUT ... we had so much fun and it's such a super simple activity, I wanted to share it for others to enjoy and for us to remember to repeat. :o) And another bonus? Posting this in January makes a nice memory of the colors and warmth of other seasons ... ;o)

:::

We enjoyed a "scavenger hunt" ... but rather than collecting items, we simply took pictures of them and had lots of fun in the process! :o) You could do this with any theme you wanted--shapes, letters of the alphabet, colors, and numbers are just a few of the ones I've wanted to try.

So here's a sampling of our pictures ...

A Leaf

A Rock
Cute Kids
(Amazing how much of a difference six months makes at this age!)

A Flower

Tree Bark and "Mushrooms"

A Tree Root

Something Red
Something Yellow
Something Blue
Any ideas for a repeat performance?

And let me know how yours goes! :o)

Engineer At Play (umm, Work ...)

Peter may have wanted to dig, but Daddy wanted to go sledding. Unlike northern climates, sleds aren't a particularly high demand item around here. However, about once a year, you really wish you had one. And since everything else, including work, was closed, Chris set to work with parts and pieces left over from various projects (as if we have any lack of those!) to build a first-rate toboggan. :o) (He wasn't too disappointed to use his toys, umm, tools, either!) ;o)

A scrap lumber frame:

A sheet metal curve:

A vinyl flooring bottom:

And the inaugral run:Nice job!

It was definitely a blessing to have the tools and pieces available to put it all together! :o)

:::

I would like to go on record to say that the vinyl flooring idea was my contribution to the project. I noticed it in the corner as I was getting the box of winter gear from the storage room. However, my idea was simply to cut a rectangle and use it like a floppy sled (I think I've seen things like that in the stores ...) My husband was definitely more creative. :o)

I am not an engineer.

I am far too practical for that. ;o)

I do however, appreciate engineers' contributions to our lives, especially one particular engineer ... :o)

Homemade Baby Wipes

Here's a random "how to" article--feel free to skip it, but it might be of interest to some, so here we go! :o)

We use homemade baby wipes at our house--the home nurse who visited after Hannah was born told me about them, and we've been hooked ever since. They're considerably cheaper than storebought wipes, and there's no chemicals or anything to make little bottoms sting. I've given the supplies as a baby gift at lots of baby showers, but just the other day I had someone else ask me how to make them. I decided to take some pics as I went through the process this morning.

Supplies:
- 2 quart plastic container
- 1 roll Bounty Select-a-Size paper towels
- 2 tablespoons baby bath (any variety)
- 3 tablespoons baby oil
- 2-1/2 cups boiling water

Instructions:
1. Cut the roll of paper towels in half. If you have two containers, you can make two at once, otherwise, save the other half for the next batch.
2. Place towel roll in container (cut side down).
3. Drizzle baby bath and oil over top of towels.

4. Pour boiling water over towels.

5. Once cooled, remove core from towels.

Wala! Simple homemade baby wipes! (And as long as you keep the supplies on hand, you never have to worry about a run to the store when you find that you've used the last one--just make a new batch.) :o)