RootsAndWingsCo

In this Home ~ pushing paint

2011-10-19T04:40:00.001-07:00

I love to push paint. Do you?

I love the feeling of slippery paint being pushed by a brush on canvas. The bumps of the canvas make me happy. Sometimes I will use a brush smaller than necessary to paint the canvas so I can feel the bumps and sliding of the paint longer.

It just may be a sickness, I’m afraid. Aren’t all those nooks and crannies awesome?

I’ve seen this saying floating around blog-land for a while and KNEW I had to have it in my home. I do have a mild obsession with houses so I had to put a house behind the saying. Also, I know usually you see this as subway art, but I’m not the subway art kind exactly. I like a handmade thing that looks a little imperfect. I am imperfect in a big way so this was more me than subway art.

Anjeanette

String quilt and hex log cabin pillows {spinning some webs for Halloween}

2011-10-11T05:33:00.001-07:00

I wanted to make some spider web throw pillows for my couch. When we moved, we purged a lot of things that now I’m wondering why we purged them. We had a 9 foot Christmas tree that never made it off the moving truck. Of course we didn’t figure it out until Christmas last year. I fear that some of our decorations didn’t make it to our new house either. All of our holiday decorations are quite …uhm lacking.

I had a lovely idea to make a string quilt block into a spider’s web. I made wider white strips and teeny colored strips.

The strips ended up being 1/4 of an inch. If you can imagine, when you put them together, there was quite a bit of bulk. I pressed them every way I could and still it just seemed a little bulky to me. My kids loved it though. I added a button spider to the web. Of course, those same sweet kids that love it, also told me that my or “Spee-I-der” is missing two legs.

I fussy cut another spider out and hung it on the back. The kids approved of that guy.

Since my first one was a bit too bulky to make me want to make another one just the same way, I decided to fussy cut the center spider in a hexagon shape. Then I did a kind of Log Cabin pattern.

I love the way this one came out!

Together, they are quite the pair!

How are you decorating for Halloween?

~Anjeanette

My exciting news…and a Giveaway!

2011-10-04T06:49:00.000-07:00

     I have amazing news! I’ll get to that in a minute but how was that for a nice long summer break from me? I had a wonderful summer with my kids. It was great to spend some down time with them before school kicked into high gear again! And WOW has it kicked into high gear!! My awesome news is that I have started Student Teaching! I know that Anjeanette already spilled the beans for me on this one, but I’m so excited about it that I wanted to tell you all about it! It has always been a dream of mine to be a teacher. When I became a Mom, I put that dream on hold to be a stay-at-home Mom (which was my number one dream). I have loved every minute of being home with my kids. While I have been busy raising my kids, I have also been busy going to school to be a teacher. There is finally a light at the end of my tunnel. I am Student Teaching Kindergarten and could not be happier about it!! Seriously, I have a grin on my face ALL DAY LONG!! I already have so many stories I could tell you about the amazing kids in my class! I just adore them all!
     As you can imagine, this is a HUGE change in my life. I have run a daycare out of my home for the last 10 years, but that is from the comfort of my home, with myself as my boss. Now I am venturing out into the outside world and it is exciting, intimidating, and overwhelming all at the same time. I have never had to worry about getting myself and my kids ready for school every day. For now I am loving that I’ve had to step up my dress attire. I do have a love of shoes, and to have HAD to buy new ones for work has been quite fun. I was lucky enough to have an amazing BFF who has given me a work wardrobe (seriously amazing, right?). To complete the polished look that is now required of this new step in my life, I was lucky enough to get to review COVERGIRL LashPerfection Mascara. This could not have come at a better time for me, could it? As a stay-at-home Mom, and in-home day care provider, I mostly went with the au natural look, and hair pulled up into a ponytail. It’s a scary thing going into any field right now. So, I need every advantage that I can get as I’m stepping into a new career. I think that looking and feeling my best will certainly help me as I am interviewing for my first teaching job soon, and even right now as I am trying to make a great impression during my Student Teaching.

    COVERGIRL LashPerfection Mascara works great. I went with black because I have really dark (and full) eyebrows so my eyelashes really need to step up to be seen against my eyebrows! HA! It goes on great, with no clumping (which is a pet-peeve of mine!). I’m so glad I got to try out this product right now, when it was the perfect time for me! While we’re on the subject of make-up and looking great, you might want to check out the “Looking Your Best” posts in the Life Well Lived section of BlogHer.com. There are some great application tips and ideas for switching up your look for fall!

Want a chance to win a $50 gift card to drugstore.com? In the comments, tell me about a time when using makeup gave you the added confidence you needed for an important event in your life.
Sweepstakes Prizing will be a $50drugstore.com gift card.
The Official Rules are available here. Enter between October 4th-November 4th.

Rules:
No duplicate comments.
You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
a)      Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
b)     Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
c)       Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
d)      For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older.
Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail.
You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
The Official Rules are available here.

BlogHer.com Promotions & Prizes Page:(aka Round-up Page):http://www.blogher.com/life-well-lived-covergirl-reviews
Sweepstakes Rules:http://www.blogher.com/covergirl-lash-perfection-sweepstakes-official-rules
CoverGirl’s Website:http://goo.gl/qHO5q

Super Easy No Sew Halloween Table Runner

2011-09-26T09:06:00.001-07:00

Who doesn’t like super simple? I know lots of our followers aren’t fans of the sewing machine. How this can possibly be, I just can’t understand. I mean, doesn’t everyone dream in fabric like I do? I start to wonder about non-sewers and my mind just goes into a blank dark place and I have to have a Pepsi Throwback STAT to come back to normal. But I guess there are people who don’t like to sew. Ouch. That hurt to even type out.

This was so easy, that I won’t fault you for wanting to try it. It was super simple and quick. The hardest part was wrestling with the contact paper. I am not kidding. It should be a sport like putting a sports bra should be a full exercise, but I digress.

Get yourself some contact paper, a ruler, paper cutters, paint, stencil brushes or dauber, and your material. (This would also look super cute with black rick-rack glued around the border, but you know I don’t like glue, so I didn’t do it…although, I REALLY was tempted to buy a glue gun to try it out.) When I did my little post about Smart-Fab, I was left wondering if you could really paint on it. Yes, you can! If you don’t have Smart-Fab, don’t worry. This would be totally cute on burlap or any other coarse weave fabric.

Start by making your template with your contact paper. I am a huge fan of pinwheel quilts so I went with a pinwheel pattern for this. Essentially, you could do any kind of design. I drew out a square on the paper side of the contact paper. Then I drew diagonal lines and then a horizontal and vertical lines intersecting in the middle. I just cut out every other triangle and left the negative ones attached.

Since the contact paper wanted to roll on me, I used a (gasp) glue stick (it is my kid’s glue, honest) to the cut contact paper to hold it for positioning. Think about transfer tape used to install vinyl. That is basically what I did here. Apply the contact paper, sticky side down on your fabric.

Using a fairly dry paint, carefully daub the paint on. I just used acrylic craft paint. Make sure you have a washable surface under the fabric incase it bleeds through. When stenciling, make sure you don’t shove the paint under the stencil. Move the paint away from the edges of the template.

Remove the contact paper and admire you quick paint job! It was super quick for me because I didn’t make sure it was perfectly painted on.

I added some polka-dots to every other pinwheel and Viola! You are done! Took less than an hour. Most of the wasted time, as I stated above, was wrestling with the contact paper to make it lay nicely on the fabric. The edges are not stitched one bit. Just cut evenly with the dimensions I wanted for my little table.

You could totally do this with freezer paper, or vinyl if you have either of those. I just happened to have contact paper handy.

Enjoy! Let me know how much you loved this quick project and send me pictures of your finished projects. Hurry up. You could totally have one (or five) of these done in a jiffy!
~Anjeanette

This is another project using Smart-Fab! I have to say what a fun medium this is turning out to be. I don't have to worry about the edges unraveling on this and there was no sewing needed!

Savoring Spring with Dump Cake

2011-09-22T02:00:00.000-07:00

This spring, we went and picked cherries for the first time.
Have you ever been cherry picking? It was a great family activity. We picked about 15 pounds in just over half an hour. Next time, we need twice that.

As it turns out, my kids really like cherries. They ate more than they pitted. After they filled their bellies with cherries, we made some yummy desserts then froze the rest.

We have made lots of things with the cherries, but this just may be my favorite because it is so simple. I am sure you probably know what a “Dump Cake” is. You open a few cans of fruit, dump them in a pan, cover with cake mix and bake. You can still do that with this recipe, but I kind of upped it a little by making my own cherry pie filling with cherries my family picked. It seems like the more times my kids hands touch something, the more likely they will eat it. (But maybe I don’t want them eating this because that means there is less for me. Hmmm. I’ll have to rethink this one;)
I froze the cherries in 3 cup servings and this works well with the recipe I tweaked for this.
I mix in a saucepan:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 Tablespoons arrowroot starch (you can use cornstarch)
Add:
3 c frozen cherries
1 teaspoon vanilla (homemade is best…It is time to start mine for Christmas this year but that is another post)

Simmer for 25 minutes. Then cool completely.

In a pan, mix together a large can of crushed pineapple and the cherries.

Take about 3/4 of a box cake mix and mix it with 4 Tablespoons of butter until all the mix is crumbly. This part is important to me because I don’t want to eat dry cake mix if it doesn’t have enough butter to saturate it. Blech. Spread the mixture over the fruit and bake for 40-50 min on 350.

It is ugly, it is heavenly, it is easy. Go forth and make some dump cake!

Of course, if you don’t have frozen, handpicked cherries, you can use a can of cherry pie filling and still enjoy this super easy and yummy treat.
~Anjeanette

Smart-Fab!

2011-09-19T02:01:00.000-07:00

(As seen on Roots and Wings Co blog)

Something fun about blogging is getting to learn about things that I may otherwise not have known about. The kind people from Smart-Fab contacted us and asked if we would like to try their product. Uhm…you had to ask? Of course!

I looked at the Smart-Fab website to see just what it was they were going to let me play with. It looked like a perfect product for schools, PTA and churches. You could make the most amazing 3 dimensional bulletin boards with this stuff. It isn’t fabric and it isn’t paper. It is a combination of the two. Once I got my hands on it, I have to say that although it is PERFECT for schools, PTA and churches, it is also an awesome crafting and creating medium.

If you know me, you know I dream in fabric. Yes I do. So when I saw that you could sew with it, I was ready to create. I received lovely fall colors just in time to decorate my house for fall. And now that I live in Maryland, I actually do get to enjoy and experience Fall!

For starters, Smart-Fab cuts like buttah! It isn’t as hard on my scissors like paper is (although I didn’t use my good sewing scissors). It is stretchy and doesn’t seem to want to rip or tear. It has a texture almost like a fabric paper towel. Sounds strange, I know, but it is a lovely cross between paper and fabric. It stitched up nicely and was so much like working with fabric. Ooh I love it!

We have only painted one room in the house (and it isn’t even quite finished yet.) My half bath is really drab and needed some seasonal color. It is small and strange to take pictures in there so stick with me here. I stitched up some fall leaves freehand and I love it! My bathroom is happier now too.

I would never have found Smart-Fab had they not sent me some samples. But I am happy to be able to suggest to you the use of Smart-Fab. You can purchase it online through their website. It comes in long rolls like you would see in schools. There are a lot of different colors to choose from. The colors aren’t supposed to fade. It is supposed to be water resistant so you can use it in a lot more ways than just paper. You are supposed to be able to paint on it and that is my next challenge.

The two bummers I see about it are:
#1 it isn’t available in craft stores or local teacher supply stores. But I find I order a fair amount of my supplies online now days.

#2 I am not sure how well it would work with glue. I am guessing white glue wouldn’t really work. (I did not try to use glue with it at all.) I don’t actually own a glue gun anymore and I’m not a fan of glue anyway. I think it would work with some real crafting glue like E-6000. But that is just a guess. Since I’m not a fan of glue anyway, this isn’t a downer for me.

Thanks so much Smart-Fab for turning me onto a great product. I’ve only just begun to figure out what it can do.

~Anjeanette

Slow Cooker Applesauce with Little Hands

2011-09-13T01:00:00.000-07:00

It is Fall here in Maryland. The leaves are just starting to loose some of the beautiful green. The air is crisp in the evenings and the mornings are often foggy. I didn’t get to enjoy real seasons in Arizona. It always seemed like we had two seasons: Hot and Hotter than HOT! I am totally enjoying each season and each change of the season now that we are in Maryland.

I thought it would be fun to smell applesauce cooking the other day while I was doing some other baking for a Sunday dinner. I had my 9 year old make the applesauce. He loves to help and this was something he could almost completely do by himself.

We started with a bag of about 10 large apples. I just used what we had. My little helper cut and cored them. I did a quick rough chop and we put the pieces in the slow cooker.

He sprinkled some cinnamon on top of the apples and added about 1/2 inch of water to coat the bottom of the cooker. We set it on high for 4 hours.

Oh, it smelled so good! My guy kept peeking in on the apples to see if they were breaking down yet.

He said he didn’t want lumpy applesauce so we scooped them into the food processor and pureed them a little.

We put them back in the slow cooker to keep warm.

Oh my! Have you had warm, homemade applesauce? It is heavenly. Two ingredients: apples and cinnamon. No sugar needed. My kids like to eat them with animal crackers.

The best thing about this, is my son felt like he really contributed something special to our dinner.

What do you like to make with your kids?

~Anjeanette

Pinterest is calling

2011-09-09T05:03:00.001-07:00

No silly, we aren’t just discovering Pinterest. But I thought I’d share our boards with you so you can see what we are loving right now.

My most favorite recent pin is all about making your own Pumpkin Spice Syrup for Pumpkin Spice Lattes from Cook like a Champion blog. I personally should not even have it, but it does smell divine! (I was in Starbucks the other day and managed to escape there without a single thing for me! Now don’t start thinking I have great will power…I can’t have a lot of the stuff in there;)

Find me...Anjeanette on Pinterest pinning everything from stuff I can’t eat, to things to help me with my quilting obsessions. My profile says it all “I love pinterest because I hoard ideas already;)” So glad they aren’t only being kept in my head. It is getting out of control up there. Now I can keep ideas and inspiration on someone else’s computer! Brilliant.

Rebecca is still the one mostly pinning under Roots and Wings Co's Pinterest. She is stacking up a ton of resources for teaching kiddos.

For Erika and Rebecca’s birthdays this year, I went through their pins to get their birthday gifts. So much fun! “I was doing research, Honey.” I said after spending oodles of time looking through their pins.

We are getting rained out here in Maryland. We are hoping for a break for two soccer games tomorrow. Hope your weekend is great. What are your plans?

~Anjeanette

Send a hug to a far away family member!

2011-09-06T03:34:00.000-07:00

Last year, we moved from Arizona to Maryland. That is just about as far as you can go in the same country, don’t you think? My kids miss their cousins and I miss my family a lot. We would love to be able to reach right through the phone or Skype and give them a hug. But as you all know, that just isn’t possible. Instead, we thought we would mail some hugs!
I had this nice roll of paper in the kid’s art stuff. I rolled out some paper and had them lay down on it. With their arms outstretched, I traced around them with a pencil. With little ones you may need to hold their arms and fingers still so they don’t end up with monster limbs.

I went back over it with a Sharpie to kind of *tidy* things up.

Then the kids got to make their hugs.

They got to add any details they wanted and color however they wanted.

All colored in.

Then I carefully cut the hugs out.

We folded the arms in like a hug.

I wrote out a little note on the arms.

And we packed it in an envelope with some drawings.

I guess my nephew loved his hug from his cousins. He came out of his room with the hug around him and told everyone he was getting a hug from my kids. Sweet! Years ago (when my son was much smaller and fit on the paper better) I traced up his whole body. He colored it in and we mailed it to my Grandma. She had it on her wall for a long time and thought of my son every time she walked by his outline. I love that. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to let someone faraway know you love them and miss them. Send them a hug!

Wouldn’t you love to get a hug in the mail? I know I would;)

~Anjeanette

Annnnd we’re back!

2011-09-04T05:10:00.000-07:00

Did you miss us?

Anjeanette here. Right now Rebecca is knee deep in student teaching, the rest of her teaching classes AND still being Mom to her three amazing kiddos. She is loving student teaching and I think falling in love with her students. Did I mention she is teaching Kindergarten kiddos? Perfect match for her, don’t you think? As you can imagine, being knee deep in the thick of it all, she needs a minute to get her breath.

I was talking to Erika (our youngest sister) the other day and we were both talking about missing the blog. So, we are back!

I moved from Arizona to Maryland a year ago. Both my kiddos started school this year. The kids wrote what they wanted to be when they grew up, like I shared with you a two years ago. This year, the 4th grader wants to be a singer.

The Kindergartener wants to be a scientist. Don’t let that cheezy smile fool you. He even has his evil scientist Mwa ha ha laugh.

And here I am. I was so busy getting the kiddos where they needed to go and all the right pictures, I barely was able to run a brush through my hair. But after the kids were in school, I was a little homesick for our usual traditional Boo Hoo Breakfast I used to host .
Both my boys were in school for the first time. So I wrote out the one constant thing I wanted to be when I grew up. I’ve wanted to be lots of things. I still do. But I’ve always wanted to be a Mom.

Here is a picture of our spunky littlest sister Erika. Erika is like a bubble of life and I do so love talking to her. Erika and her little family moved to Utah are are remodeling our Grandmother’s house. Makes me feel nostalgic for our childhood when we Skype with her. (Thank heavens that ugly fuzzy picture from the 70’s is no longer gracing those walls. Still gives me nightmares thinking about it.)

Her son is a little genius. They all came to visit us earlier in the year and let’s just say he knew the alphabet and all the sounds the letters make better than my little one after two years of preschool. I’m not sure what Erika is feeding the little fellow, but I totally want to eat a bit of it myself.

Anyway, hang tight and come back to see what we are up to.

~~Anjeanette & Erika

Oh would you please leave us a comment and tell us if you missed us at all? I totally missed the lovely comments from our dear readers.

Summer Camp Counselor

2011-07-05T07:59:00.001-07:00

Well today I am very honored to tell you that I am being featured as a Summer Camp Counselor, over at Design Dazzle!

I’d love for you to go over and check me out over there. I have been light on my posting here because I am busy enjoying the summer with my kids! Last weekend we went camping and I brought along our Rubber Band Guns. That is what my post is about over on Design Dazzle.

Then, be sure to keep going back to Design Dazzle because Toni has fun posts, with some other fabulous bloggers, for her Summer Camp for the rest of the month! There will be ideas and projects for summertime fun with kids!

I hope you guys are all thoroughly enjoying your summer as well!

Rebecca

PS Happy Fourth of July! I hope you all had great celebrations. I was lucky to be surrounded by family watching those beautiful fireworks from the comfort of my parents home! Lovely day!

Summer Fun With Books

2011-06-14T07:52:00.001-07:00

Every summer I hold summer school/summer camp for my children. I want it to be so much fun, and be educational! Here is a list I am gathering of fun for us to do, with books!

The above button is for Alison, from Oopsey Daisy’s Summer Camp which is a summer camp all about books! Go check it out!

Next up are my two favorite sites for crafty fun:

Dltk has a great section covering crafts to go along with books!

Starfall is absolutely a great go-to site for reading fun! My kids have used this site for years and this year both of my younger two kids’ teachers recommended using this site for extra reading help at home!

Ok, one more of my favorite go-to sites is the Scholastic website! It has so many fun activities for enjoying reading as well as fun activities that incorporate reading with other subjects!

Sara of Super Saving Sense gets crafty with the kids: bringing one of their favorite books to life with a display.

How about activity books? Pragmatic Mom got a bunch of Klutz Activity books.

Oh my word, if I could only go to this arts festival! Maybe you have one near you this summer!? Playing by the Book has many great ideas for book fun on her website. She is the correspondent for this festival and has already started posting about it! Go here for information from the festival!

What about a Festival of Illustration? Check out your local events to see if you have something similar going on around you this summer!

I am a sucker for a great reading list. Check out Babble’s list! It is full of action packed books to keep readers interested!!

Here is a book blog tour that looks like so much fun, from KidzBookBuzz!

Please share any summer book fun that you have going on!!

Rebecca

Mommy School-Top 10 Ways to Make Sure Summer Is Fun And Educational!

2011-06-09T09:11:00.001-07:00

I love teaching my children! I guess this is why I am finishing up a degree to be a teacher! During the summer I try to make things as educational and fun, for my kids, as I can. So, I come up with as many fun ways of learning during the summer as I can. I also make a list up of what things I really want to teach my children, in addition to just keeping up with their normal studies.

Here is my list of Mommy Summer School:

1. Teach my children the “other” subjects that I feel are important. I try to do one of these things each day. My list is Sewing, Manners, Photography/Videography, Crafting, Fixing (Home repair, bike repair, etc), Baking/Cooking, Outdoor Information (gardening, places, plants, “green” topics), Astronomy, and Sports.

2. Go to the library. I pick books for them and they pick books. We usually check out about 45 books a week. Make sure to participate in summer reading programs at your local library!

3. Read Mommy choice books for 30 minutes a day. We are avid readers and so they will read a lot more during the day but the other times are all free choice reading. I make up a new “book nook” corner every summer to entice them into more reading. This year it is beanbags in the corner by 2 bookcases. I would love to put up a tent but my house is too tiny.

4. Writing for 30 minutes a day. They can choose what writing they do. We are writing a family book where we pass the book from person to person and each person adds as much to the story as they would like. We have no plan for the book and anyone can add anything they want, as long as it makes sense in the story. We will end the book at the end of the summer. 2 of my kids are writing their own stories as well. Write up a family newspaper. Each of my kids has decorated their own book to use as a journal. I also made and printed up journal starters. This is a question or journal prompt at the top. Then, there is space for their answer and a drawing to illustrate. We also are writing letters to friends and family members and mailing them snail mail style. Who doesn’t love getting something in the mail?

5. Family newspaper. I am paying my kids $1 per newspaper that they write. The newspapers are something my kids started on their own. They include cartoons, ads, coupons, articles about our family life, etc. I love them!

6. Science Fun. I have put science experiment books on hold all summer long to give my kids plenty of new ideas to choose from. Some of the experiments that we do will take all summer long!

7. Fun educational games. I pull out a few things each day. They tend to automatically gravitate towards whatever I put out. One example would be flour in a cookie sheet, with a list of spelling words next to it. My kids then write their spelling words into the flour with their fingers. They LOVE this. I try to pull out games that will help my kids work on the skills they need help with and those that they enjoy the most!

8. Fun worksheets and workbooks. I have bought workbooks (and printed free fun worksheets) for each of my kids for the year the came out of and the year ahead. I let them choose what they want to do in these.

9. Educational Computer Games. I have a list of online games for my kids to have fun with (like Starfall). I just put the game up on the computer and they jump right on it! I have to drag them off of these. I do limit computer playing to about 30 minutes twice a week. This also includes fun educational apps I have on my IPad, and they have on their DS’s or electronic reading programs.

10. Keeping up with the news. I get the newspaper every day and I go online to get my news every day. During the summer I have the kids do these things with me. It is a great way to pick and choose what we read, as opposed the the nightly news on TV where they might show things I don’t want my kids to see. Plus, I think the TV news tends to be negative. I don’t view the world as a negative thing and so I always search out the positive stories, as well, for my children! Keeping up with the news obviously is great to open their minds to what is going on in the world. It also helps my children be thankful for what they have (we live in Phx, no flooding, no wars, no tornadoes, etc) and to have empathy for those that are having hard things happen to them. And I let my kids try to do the soduku puzzles, crossword puzzles, read the comics, etc. Every few days I have my kids go and highlight specific things throughout the paper or do newspaper hunts (where I read through it first then come up with questions for them to find the answers to by reading through the paper).

I’d love to hear what other people do to keep their children’s brains moving during the summer! So what are your plans? What do you do to educate or teach your children?

Rebecca

YEEHAW! It’s officially summer here! Super great summer fun ideas!

2011-06-08T07:28:00.001-07:00

I LOVE summer! Actually, my kids have been out of school for 2 weeks now! I am one of those Mom’s that absolutely LOVES having my kids home for the summer!

I’m already farming my kids out to different relatives to spend time away from home, and to get to enjoy more time with cousins, aunts, uncles, and of course Grandparents. They’ve stayed with both sets of Grandparents and my Brother and his family (thanks, Katrina). I think the time away from home is so important and fun for kids! Next week it is church camp for my daughter, we have a couple of trips to San Diego planned (to visit my BFF!!!). Squeee! I’m trying to squish in a few camping trips, too!

Other parts of my summer that I LOVE is the stuff we do at home. I’ve got science fair books on hold at my library so we can have lots of science fair fun all summer long! We are also busy gardening, hiking, movie watching, snuggling, popsicle eating, baking, cooking, crafting, and having Mommy Summer School. Tomorrow I will tell you all about my Mommy Summer School, here is where I have talked about it before and it gives GREAT ideas of super fun and educational stuff to do with your kids!! So, I’ve compiled a list of all sorts of different summer fun for you guys to peruse, of really amazing Summer Fun stuff to do.

Amy at Positively Splendid has a great Summer Survival Guide!

Mique from Thirty Handmade Days is running Funner in the Summer!

Megan with Brassy Apple has S.O.S Ideas to keep your summer fun running!

Kojo designs and Delia Creates just had a Color Your Summer Contest going on in the month of May.

My friend, Alison from Oopsey Daisy is hosting Summer Camp, every Friday this summer!

I follow The Nurture Store on Twitter and they always have fantastic ideas. Here they have a Play Academy Idea Swap going on!

Oh what fun! An Outdoor Play Link Up, filled with great ideas!! This comes to you from An Amazing Child! Also check here for ideas for how to spend your week outdoors!

Digital Reflections has this fun list of 100 free things to do with your kids this summer.

Also brought to you by Digital Reflections and Spell Outloud is a fun gathering called Big Summer Fun!

Tip Junkie has 38 Craft Boredom Busters and Summer Boredom Busters, and Activities and Crafts for the Kids, and more Activities for the Kids!

Crystal and Co has 80+ inexpensive ideas for summer fun.

Fun-Attic has a great list of summer fun ideas!

And of course don’t forget to peruse all the summer activities we’ve shown here, on Roots And Wings Co!

Also, do you Pinterest? I LOVE it! I have been compiling my own list of fun summer stuff to do. Check out my Summer Fun board for all the things I want to try/do with my kids!

How fun, on Blog Frog right now there is a discussion going on, about the topic of Summer Fun! Check it out!

Seriously, go check out each and every one of those sites! You wont be stuck wondering what to do this summer!

I’m off to go and play with my kids! Can you tell how much I LOVE when I get my kids to myself during the summer?! I just never get enough of them! What should we do first? A science experiment? Gardening? Finish their Doll Beds? or Camp out in our house?

Rebecca

If you are holding a bloggy summer camp of some sort let me know and I’ll add you to this awesome list of fun!!

The Romeo Cupcake Stand

2011-06-02T09:41:00.001-07:00

This is the Romeo Goblet Cupcake Stand!

I think these are super cute and we have so many more ideas for really fun cupcake/cake/dessert/condiment stands. It is fun thinking up all of the things we can make to match parties, get togethers, or just for gifts! This is made from acrylic, just like yesterdays Flower Cupcake Stand. My friend and I are collaborating on these cupcake stands (he has a laser cutter, oh yeah!). We would love feedback on them. What do you like? What don’t you like? Any ideas to change/fix? Would you want something like this?

Rebecca

I am linking up to Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design

Cupcake Stand Like You’ve Never Seen

2011-06-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

What would you do with acrylic and access to a laser cutter? Here is what my friend and I did.

Check out this amazing cupcake holder! My friend and I are collaborating on some really cool cupcake holders! We would love your feedback!

My friend has a laser cutter and so together we are brainstorming some innovative designs that we hope you have never seen somewhere else before. Isn’t that flower shape fun?

Check out the details on this like the top of the flower curling outward.

The bottom is 1 inch high to support anything you want to fill it up with. We used one small bag of Jelly Belly’s to fill this one up.
If we had finished these sooner they would have been my teacher appreciation gifts! They would also be fun to customize the color of the flower to the recipient’s favorite color, or to match the décor of a party! Wouldn’t a yellow one look like a pretty tulip?
We would love your feedback about this. We have a ton more designs that we are working on. I am going to show you our prototypes and am asking for any and all feedback on them. I would love to know what you think of them, how you would change them, what you like best, and any ideas you have for future design ideas.

Thanks so much,
Rebecca

Linking up to Someday Crafts, and the fun at WhipperBerry.

, Get Your Craft On

Strawberry Lemonade Slush

2011-05-27T04:00:00.000-07:00

I found this recipe a while ago and I LOVE it! It is so cool, light and refreshing. Just a few days ago I was out shopping and I saw an advertisement for McDonald’s Strawberry Lemonade Slush. I thought it would be the perfect treat. Not so much. It was gloppy, and didn’t taste any good. My Strawberry Lemonade Slush is sooo much better! And it’s easy too.

You need water, ice, Country Time powdered Lemonade, and strawberries. And I’m sure the top to my lemonade container is in the trash. Lovely.

First off you need to put 1/3 cup of the Country Time Lemonade powder into a blender.

Next, add 1/2 cup of water.

The recipe calls for three cups of ice. I eyeball it. I add some in first so that my blender can handle it. Blend until smooth.

Add in more ice and a cup of strawberries. I chop off the green tops and then quarter the strawberries so my blender can handle it. If you have a nicer blender like a Vita-mix, you could add all the ice at once and wouldn’t have to chop up the strawberries. Lucky you.

Blend until you reach the desired consistency. It should be icy but not have any large chunks of ice in it.

Here’s the recipe I got this from. They show such a deeper colored drink, mine NEVER looks like that! And it still tastes amazing!

Garnish and enjoy. It makes two servings. The leftovers can be frozen and thawed for later use. Like if you make some for your husband and he doesn’t want it. More for me!

Strawberry Lemonade Slush

1/3 cup Country Time powdered Lemonade

1/2 cup water

1 tray of ice (eyeball it)

1 cup of fresh strawberries

~Erika

Chocolate Chip Cookie Tip

2011-05-25T07:07:00.000-07:00

I love to make cookies but I've often complained that mine never look as good as those in the stores. This is purely a presentation tip, if your chocolate chip cookies don't turn out I'm no help. And I'm still on the quest to find that "perfect" chocolate chip cookie recipe. The ones I photographed were made with vanilla pudding as the secret ingredient.

Now onto the tip. When making your dough, don't add in all the chocolate chips, save some for adding to the top. Once you've placed the dough balls on the cookie sheets, then add some of the extra chocolate chips to the top of the cookies, pressing lightly to secure in place. Here are the dough balls before.

And after. They already look better, right?

And here's my cutie-pie helper. He HAS to watch the cookies as they bake.

The final product. I did one pan with the extra chips and one without to convince you that the cookies look better this way.

Yum!

~Erika

An Easy Way to Cube a Watermelon

2011-05-23T06:27:00.000-07:00

I was visiting a friend the other day and she served us cubed watermelon. I was totally in awe of how she cut it and decided to show how it's done.

First you need to cut the watermelon in half.

Then you want to cut it in half again. (So we have a fourth of the watermelon).

Next, you will make vertical cuts into the watermelon. You won't just be able to slice straight up and down, you will have to take the tip of the knife and swipe down right along the rind. Don't worry about accidentally slicing through the rind, it is much harder to cut through than the pink flesh.

Next, turn the watermelon on it's side and make cuts parallel to the cuts you just made and parallel to the other cut side of the watermelon.

Flip the watermelon to the other side and make cuts on the other side as well.

The picture below shows how you really have to cut. You have to swipe the knife tip close to the rind at the back of the watermelon. Again, it is really easy to tell when you are close to cutting the rind because it is much harder to cut through.

Here's the finished watermelon.

Once you have found a bowl big enough, put the watermelon inside and using a fork, pull out the pieces.

If you have cut it right it should actually just fall out of the rind.

This is what you will have afterwards.

The hardest part of this whole thing is cutting out the last pieces. And even that isn't too difficult.

I begin by slicing the leftover watermelon where I had cut the watermelon before, I just cut through the rind this time.

Then I flip those pieces on their sides and cut the pink flesh out. Pretty easy.

Ta-Da! A big bowl of watermelon ready to eat.

~Erika

Differences and similarities for kids with EE. National Eosinophil Awareness Week

2011-05-18T03:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks for stopping in again. There is really a lot to say about EE and I don’t want to go on for ever and ever. But I do want to help with awareness for this one week out of the year. This is my last post about it this year. Thanks for sticking with me for three days;)

Here is a video for National Eosinophil Awareness Week

There are a lot of heartbreaking videos about kids with Eosinophilic disorders on the internet. They make you cry. I can’t watch those because I live it. I can share this with you because it is just informative;)

My son is able to do all the things your kids can do, except when it comes to food.
When he had his ng-tube (nose tube) he could do anything but swim. He is pretty fearless. Here he was at 3, climbing a wall with a tube up his nose. Seriously, that boy is unstoppable!

As soon as his belly healed when he got his g-tube, he started swimming lessons. He does wear a shirt when he swims just as one layer over his button.

He has dreams just like other kids. Last year he wanted to be a cop when he grew up. This year he wanted to be a Karate Master. (That’s what we all want to be when we grow up, right?)

He tries everything and does it with everything he has!

He has fun parties like other kids. He laughs and cries too. Mostly he is a very silly kid!

He plays ball. He runs and jumps and plays.

There are some things that are different.
He gets sick more easily. Like I mentioned yesterday, he still does get sick and we don’t always know why. He throws up at the drop of a dime if he is sick. We aren’t always ready for it, unfortunately.

This one kills me. It kills him too. It is very hard to go to restaurants or people’s houses where food is going to be served. Two years ago, he didn’t have as many “safe foods” as he does now. In this picture we were with Rebecca’s kids, our Grandmother and some other family at a restaurant on vacation. My son wanted to eat real food with us. Unfortunately, all he could have was cotton candy at that time. He wants to eat the same thing other people are eating. Oh this is heart breaking! Imagine sports games where they pass out snacks after the game. Nope, he probably can’t have the snack. He usually can have the drink though. We do take our own replacement whatever it is to each thing. But it isn’t always easy to not be doing the same thing as everyone else.

For Easter he really wanted his own chocolate candy. We have found one kind of chocolate that he can have that he likes. I made some peanut butter candy for him. I can’t go to the store an pick up any random candy for him.

When each new school year starts, I have already met with the staff and gone over what he can and can’t have. It is so hard to let him go and trust that someone else will make sure he is not eating food that will make him sick. I send him with a sticker for the first few days that says something about not feeding him anything I didn’t send in. It is hard to not be with him all the time and know he is going to be ok. Next year he will go to Kindergarten and I’m a bit nervous about how it all will go. I am not worried or sad about him going to Kindergarten. I am worried that his teacher or other adults in charge of him, won’t understand the severity of him accidentally eating a food he is allergic to.

I can’t think of a holiday or celebration that doesn’t involve food. I start to dread each holiday or celebration because of the whole food thing. I always try really hard to have a replacement thing for events and celebrations. For example, for Halloween we do the game where you eat a hanging donut. (See Rebecca and I posing for our donuts? I do think her mouth is bigger than mine is. She does talk more than I do at least;)

We hung an apple for my son instead of the donut. We have to get creative about his alternative choices for everything.

For school celebrations of birthdays we have to get creative. One year we sent in bananas that we decorated with stickers for his snack to share with the kids.

He has had birthday cakes for the last two years. I just make them specially for him.

He still Trick or Treats for Halloween. We come home and sort out the candy into piles of candy he can have and candy he can’t have. We give him a nickel for each piece of candy he can’t have. We donate the candy to Operation Gratitude where they send your candy to the troops. You can tell that it is bitter sweet for him. He knows he will get something out of the candy. But he really just wants to eat it like other kids do.

We still do activities with food he just can’t eat it.

This one kills me. This year at preschool they had us bring in a dozen filled eggs. They hid all the eggs and the kids each got to collect a dozen. The part that kills me is that our eggs were accidentally used the day before his class. I had no idea that happened or I would have brought more in. He was so crushed that he didn’t get any eggs with candy he could eat. There was one person that brought in Play doh filled eggs and he did get two of those. But he was really crushed!

Something that I wish people knew about kids with food allergies is that it is hard for the kids. They want to be like the other kids. I can’t always make the exact thing other kids are having, but I can make a replacement that my son would be ok with. I believe it is my responsibility to provide alternatives for my kid. But what I would really like, is for people to tell me they are going to have this snack or that food. If I don’t know you are taking cupcakes or cookies to school for a birthday, I can’t provide a replacement. I am more than happy to bring anything in, I just need to know about it.

Thanks for following along with me these last couple of days. I hope you have learned a little bit about Eosiniphilic Esophagitis. There are different kinds of Eosinophilic disorders. Whatever part of your GI tract the Eosinophils are present in, is the second part of the disorder. Since our Eosinophils are present in our Esophagus, ours is called Eosinophilic Esophagitis. There are all kinds of life paths that kids with Eosinophilic disorders/diseases take. Some kids will never have more than a handful of foods they can eat. Some kids never have even that and are on elemental formula only. Sometimes you can suddenly become allergic to a food that you have eaten forever, and you have to take it out of your diet. Some families need medication to help them manage this thing. It is like any other challenge where they don't really know much about it. Even the name changes. Sometimes you will see the word "Disease" and other times you will see "Disorder". Sometimes the initials for Eosinophilic Esophagitis are EE and sometimes they are EoE. There needs to be more breakthroughs for this thing whatever it is.
APFED and CURED are two places that are working on figuring this thing out. Check them out and donate if you feel so inclined.

This was a very basic run down of what it is like for us. But hopefully it is enough to make you think a little bit. I wish there was a cure and my son could eat like other people do. I wish we didn't have to have 3 Epi-pens in the house. I wish I didn't have a cabinet full of medical supplies. I wish I didn't have a monthly battle on the phone with the insurance to cover his needs. I wish driving for hours to specialists and doctor’s appointments and biopsies and endoscopies weren’t a part of our regular lives. I wish we didn’t have scrutinize every ingredient in every food we eat. I wish I didn’t have the knowledge of hidden foods in places you would never suspect. (Did you know powdered sugar is made with cornstarch almost all the time? Did you know there is maltodextrin/aka corn in chicken at Boston Market? Did you know that there is barley in enriched flour?) I wish that I didn’t need to know about a week set aside for Eosinophilic disorders. But I do know all these things. This is part of my life. Of all the challenges in life that we could be handed, I am thankful this is ours. That is what life is...challenges and how you navigate through them, right? Rebecca posted this saying on her Pinterest "Be Kind: for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." So true. My husband and I have two amazing little boys. We are very thankful to have them. It was a tough road to get them and we are amazed by them every day. That doesn't mean that sometimes I am not very graceful navigating this. I stomp my feet and yell at the holiday and wonder why food has to be part of our lives. I do. At the end of the day, I accept that this is just a part of our lives. It isn't what defines my son. It isn't what defines me. It is just part of how we live. I realize that many other battles other people are fighting are much harder than ours.

I hope that by sharing with you, maybe you will maybe have a better understanding about what it is like for some people to navigate through this food filled world. Hopefully you learned a thing or two about our challenge. That is what this week is about...awareness.

Thanks for indulging me;)

Take care!
Anjeanette

Tube feeding 101 for National Eosinophil Awareness Week

2011-05-17T03:00:00.000-07:00

Hi again! It is Anjeanette and I’m back for a little 101 on tube feeding the way we do it. There are all kinds of different situations for tube feeding but this is our way. Not any one way is right for everyone. Something that I think we all do is look at people that are different. I know for me personally, I wonder what it is like.

When my son had his ng-tube, things were very obvious that he was different.

I mean, he had a tube hanging out of his nose for Heaven’s sake! How strange is that? I look at these pictures and it is like a whole other lifetime ago. The tube went down his shirt and we taped it up inside his shirt so it didn’t yank out of his nose.

Now he has a g-tube and really, I often forget that he is different. We have a lifestyle difference, but looking at my son, you would not know that he is different now. That is sometimes the hardest part about this disease. You can’t always see that he is sick. He looks normal. He does normal things. But food and eating is a whole other story for him.

We are in the process of finding the foods he is allergic to and avoiding them. Unfortunately, he can’t get enough nutrition from his “safe foods” so he is still fed supplementally through his g-tube in his belly.

If he is getting fed when he is sleeping or watching TV, we put his feeding pump on his IV pole for the feeding. I made a little hanging bag to keep our supplies at hand for feedings. We can move the IV pole to any place in the house we need it. It isn’t as sturdy as an IV pole in a hospital, but it does the job just fine.

One icky thing about g-tubes is around the hole or stoma in his belly, he gets granulation tissue. It is basically his body rejecting a piece of plastic in it. The granulation tissue can bleed and get infected and hurt. This is normal granulation tissue. Blech.
My son is 5 and he bumps his button (g-tube) a lot. It sometimes leaks too. But it is also nice to have sometimes. Right now, as I type this, my son isn’t feeling well. He has had a fever for a good day now and won’t eat or drink. We can run some Pedialite through his g-tube while he is sleeping. With a child sans a g-tube, you would have to try to coax them to drink the Pedialite. Sounds silly, I know, but a g-tube isn’t all bad. And actually for us, it is the only way to keep him from being sick all the time. He still does get sick. It is hard because we don’t always know why he is sick. Was it something he ate? Was it something in the environment that he breathed in? Was it a regular bug? We can never be sure.

Anyway, here is our basic set up for the feeding tube feed. We mix up the formula just the same way you would mix up baby formula. Remember how baby formula stinks? Well this stuff. Oh boy! This stuff makes baby formula smell like roses. Nasty.

We put the formula into a bag with a tube.

Part of the tubing slips into the feeding pump like this.

We are lucky to have this teeny back pack for day feedings. The whole assembly with the bag, tubing and pump fit nicely into the back pack. They are made specially for this purpose. There are holes in the sides of the bag for the tubing to go through.

There is a special pocket in the front of the back pack for the pump and to give you easy access to the buttons on the pump.

We zip up the bag and attach the tubing to his button.

We tape up the tubing to his belly because if he got snagged on something, the whole button could rip out. Ouch. That has only almost happened once.

If you look carefully, you can see the white tube coming out of the bag and under his shirt. The pump we have is quite light weight and fairly quiet. We set the pump to force the formula through it at a certain rate. He can handle a faster rate with his g-tube than he could with his ng-tube.

He can wear the backpack anywhere and you wouldn’t really know he was getting a full belly right that moment.

He has a Mini ONE button which doesn’t stick out as far as some buttons do. There is a balloon that is filled with water that sits inside his stomach. There is a tube in the middle of the balloon that the formula goes through. You would have to yank really hard to pull the inflated balloon through the stoma. BUT it can happen.

With the ng-tube, we had to change it a lot more frequently. With the g-tube, we only change it every 3 months. It isn’t a fun thing to change, but it is less bad than changing the ng-tube.
Now that you know a very shortened version of a tube feeding, maybe you won’t think it is so strange after all.

Thanks for checking in. I think understanding things that may seem different makes them seem less scary or strange.

Anjeanette

This week is National Eosinophil Awareness Week!

2011-05-16T03:44:00.000-07:00

Remember me? It is Anjeanette, the long lost sister on this blog;) My life got busy and I had to step away from the blog and let Rebecca keep it going. I’ll never run out of creative ideas, just life was more important.

I wanted to pop back in this week and remind you that this is a very important week for our family. It is National Eosinophil Awareness Week. My 5 year old son and I both have something called Eosinophilic Esophagitis.

This is my favorite video about EE partially because it was made by our old support group in Arizona, and partially because I think the information is good in it.

If you have been following along with this blog for some time, you will have seen this post from 2009 where I described what we were going through at that point.

If you haven’t, basically EE is an allergy in your esophagus. When you eat foods that you are allergic to, white blood cells end up attacking the tissue in your esophagus. It could make your esophagus swell, it can cause scarring, nausea and vomiting, food gets stuck…it can do all kinds of different things in that part of your body. The only way to diagnosis it, is to have an endoscopy done with biopsies. My son’s and my first endoscopies were performed and the white blood cells were visible on both. But it isn’t always so. Often times, you have to wait for the biopsy results to tell if there are Eosinophils present. If there are Eosinophils present, it means you are eating a food that your body doesn’t like.

My son had an anaphylactic reaction to some formula when he was given formula the first time 3 months old because it was based on cow’s milk. He was only able to tolerate soy formula after I stopped nursing. Actually, he was on soy formula until he was 2. He slept propped up for the first 5 months. When he would eat, he always seemed to be sick. He started talking and he said more often than not that his belly hurt. After about a year of different doctors, we were finally able to have an endoscopy done and sure enough, they were able to tell by the images (and subsequent biopsy results really confirmed) that he had EE.

We wanted him to feel well so we switched him to elemental formula only. No food was eaten at all at first. Elemental formula is formula that is considered medical food. They have broken it down so far that it is basically just amino acids. But in the process of making it fairly non-allergenic, it also becomes so nasty tasting. Blech. After he lost weight because he didn’t want to drink the formula, we quickly got an ng-tube for him. He got his nutrition through a tube in his nose. He was three at the time. Switching him to elemental formula made him not sick. We like when he is not sick! We knew we were on the right track.

Isn’t he cute? I think getting the ng-tube was the best thing for him and for us. It is hard to watch your child not feel well chronically.

He was able to do so much. But it is hard having something taped to your face and dangling down. It snags on things. Kids are mean. Heck, adults are mean. We accepted that this was going to be a long road so about three months after he got his ng-tube, we switched it over to a g-tube in his belly.

Life really has gotten so much better since he got his g-tube.
The plan for his diet changes every time we have a new endoscopy.

We figure out if Eosinophils are present and from there decide to either add more foods to his diet, or take some away.

Currently, he is avoiding: Soy, Milk, Barley, Fish and Shrimp, Bananas, Tomatoes, and anything from a four legged animal (no beef, pork or milk from any animal). As I mentioned earlier, I also have EE. My main allergies are: Wheat, Dairy, Lettuce and Oats. As a family we all avoid these foods for the most part. My older son does drink lots and lots of milk and both boys and my husband do eat wheat. The tricky part is that since my son avoids barley, that also means anything made with enriched flour. Enriched flour is pretty much used in most ready to eat foods.
After each endoscopy, we refer to allergy testing to see what foods to introduce or to take away. There are three types of allergy testing we have done at different times. RAST test is where they draw blood and see what your body is immediately allergic to.
There is a prick test.

They make up liquid solutions containing food. They take a clean poker like the one above and put them in each solution and prick your back. We wait for a reaction to the food.

Generally, they do a lot of different foods at a time, depending on the size of the kid and how bad the allergies are.

And there is a patch test.

They take foods and make pastes out of them. They put them in these little metal cups and tape them to your back. You wear the patches for 48 hours without getting them wet. After 48 hours, you take the patches off and check for reactions on your skin. You check again after 72 hours.

As you can imagine, your esophagus is not the same as your back. So these tests are just a pretty good idea as to how your esophagus reacts. But you can’t really do a patch test in your esophagus to find out for sure how your body reacts to it;)

To find out more about Eosinophilic Disorders, check out APFED. You can also donate to CURED Foundation.

Pop back in later this week and I’ll show you what is involved with tube feedings.
Anjeanette

End of School Year Party Ideas

2011-05-13T10:19:00.001-07:00

There is still time to put together an end of school party! Here is what I did, 2 years ago! I had a party where I played a movie I made from pictures of my children throughout the year. I passed out awards to them for the things I was proud of them for, during the last school year. A 3 ring binder commemorating the last school year was put together for them to look through. It includes pictures of my children (school pictures, field trips, etc). It has all the artwork and papers I kept over the last year. This 3 ring binder is just for the night as all of those papers will actually make their way into each child's personal school books.

My Mom raised my siblings and I to believe in celebrating life! I am thankful for this and now I am passing this on to my own children. We have parties as often as we can!

We just partied last night after my Daughter’s strings concert. We will be partying next week for my Son’s Kindergarten graduation, we will have an end of school party and then a first day of summer party.

Some of you make think that sounds crazy. However, just because I say celebrate and party does not mean put lots of time and energy into things.

For the First Day of Summer I will throw up a banner that I put up every year. I will let my kids sleep in. When they wake up they will get their favorite breakfast (Log Cabin French Toast), and we will play water games outside while munching on Otter Pops. Some years I will fill up a cooler with water balloons and take it to the park with us. I think this year I will have them fill up the balloons themselves. They will be soaked just doing that!

What are your favorite ways of celebrating?

Rebecca

End of School Class Phone Book

2011-05-11T08:08:00.000-07:00

School ends next week for my kids. So, I have taken out our class/friends phonebook we made a few years ago, to have the kids fill in their new school friends information. This class phonebook was Katrina’s idea. It’s a great way to help your kids stay in touch with their school friends over the summer. I made this one with small spiral bound index cards.

There are so many quick and easy ways you can make one of your own. My kids are going to school with this during these last two weeks of school.

This will be very helpful as I am trying to put together an end of school party with my kids’ friends. My plan is to have all the parents and kids join us at a local JumpStreet. It will be quite low key. It is just a way to celebrate all of their hard work, as well as a way to hopefully start the summer off by being more connected to their friends. We tend to get so busy doing stuff just as a family that my kids never spend near enough time with their friends.

What do you do to help your kids keep connected with their friends over the summer?

Rebecca

Keep coming back this week because I will have many more fun end of school year posts!!

Elephants, Monkeys, and Mice, Oh My!! Puppet Play Book Review, Interview, & Giveaway!

2011-05-08T22:23:00.001-07:00

I am participating in a virtual blog tour! I was lucky enough to get a copy of the book, “Puppet Play” to review and one to pass on to a lucky reader! To triple my fun I got to interview the author as well! Click here to check it all out!!!