Train Up Tuesday: More Fun in the Sun

Well, last week, depending on where you live, you may not have been able to get outside much due to massive amounts of rain! You may still have had fun in the rain, but if it’s dry where you are this week, try the activities we posted last week. :)

Here are a few activities this week for general fun in the sun and enjoying what the outdoors have to offer.

For my family, as soon as the first signs of spring began to appear, it was PICNIC time. You have to love picnics! Messes still get made, but you can often just shake out a blanket and “voila”, all clean! Picnic for lunch and even dinner (let the hubby do the grillin’).

We also love going on walks...especially nature walks. Even if you don’t have a lot of land, you can still go on a nature walk or nature hunt (even if it means visiting a neighbor or relative to use their yard). Collect interesting finds and sort them together into different groups. Make a collection board, basket, or box for your finds. Have fun observing nature....trees, flowers, creatures, and the like.

My oldest son (“Sunshine” as we call him) loves hunting for mushrooms....

and then squashing them!

Look for things that are out of the ordinary....like a spiderweb with "stuff" in it...


Or what we call “marshmallow farms”.... ;-)

Visit your local farmer's market. There are so many interesting colors and textures! Maybe you are fortunate enough to live on or near a stable or farm. We live near a stable, and our neighbors are kind enough to let us know when there is a new foal, colt or even ducklings :)


Grandparents love being involved in helping little ones enjoy the outdoors (and parents are appreciative of anything that gets kids out from in front of a television or video game!). Encourage them to involve your kids when planting a garden.


“Sunshine” has even coaxed his Grandpa into making a tire swing and is still working on him to build a treehouse.

Of course, there are the easy backyard fun things to do....like playing in a creek bed, blowing bubbles, and just climbing a tree.


A couple of projects that you could try:

Find stickers or nature objects and place them on a piece of construction paper. Leave it in the sun for several hours (or a whole day). You can either do this by mounting it on a window from the inside or by securing the paper outside on the sidewalk.

After the sun has bleached/lightened the paper, remove stickers or objects to reveal a fun print:


A friend shared another fun idea that I hope to try. It involves treasure hunts. Since her oldest son is “obsessed” with dinosaurs, they make paper mache eggs using balloons, newspaper, and paint. Then, after mom maps the clues the kids hunt for each clue, leading them to a “nest” of pine needles laden with the “eggs” (which she has also stuffed with surprises!). What a fun mom and a great idea! (Thanks Natalie)

I KNOW you ladies have some great ideas to share, too. Please feel free to post them in the comments section.

Enjoy your week!

-Ashlie

Train Up Tuesday: H20 + Summer = FUN!

I hope you enjoyed some chalk activities with your kiddos in the last week! This week for our Summer Time Fun series, we talk about water activities (a few that my kids enjoy and some that I came across while “surfing”).Water is a fascinating “material” to work with. I’m sure there are several homeschooling moms or teachers that could share some wonderful teaching activities with us (feel free to share them in the comments below!). You can explore the liquid, vapor, or solid versions of H20.

My boys seem to really enjoy the water. If they are ever fussy (or aggravating!), one of 2 things usually works: 1. Taking them outside to play. 2. Letting them play in water (either outside, in the bath, or even the sink).Here are a few ideas to get you started:

SMALL POOL OR BUCKETS

I’ve noticed my little guys enjoy transferring water from one container to something else (another container or just pouring it out). Have a small pool or buckets close together along with smaller cups, bowls, watering pitchers. They may end up using ladles, sponges, or other containers to do this..For some reason, it keeps them entertained! It’s also an easy way for them to fill up the watering can to give your plants a drink.

I don’t yet have a sand/water table for my boys, but I’m sure this would be a great toy to add to your backyard for activities like these.

For sensory fun, add smooth pebbles or shells (you can find at a dollar store) into the pool along with plastic bath toys. My boys and nieces enjoy getting in the pool and hunting for treasures.

Use water in a pool to wash babydolls, toys that need a cleaning, or to have a miniature car/bike wash!

I mentioned last week that cleanup time for chalk art could be a great activity for children. Using paint brushes or sponges and water as “paint” can be equally entertaining, inexpensive, and in a snap the art disappears. The sidewalk or even your house outside walls could be “painted” with water.


HOSE PIPE

Okay, I know some of you simply call it a “hose”...but you know what I mean. ;-)

First of all, if you have a hosepipe you MUST have some type of sprinkler. A standard sprinkler is great, but there are also some really fun ones for kids. I like this one (below) from Target or Wal-Mart (both are carrying it this year) in particular because you can set the spray low for the little guys, and it’s quite long allowing several children to play at once without running into each other.

A sprinkler is great for playing the game “Jump the Creek.” (I loved that game in elementary school...the dry version, of course!)

The hose ;-) is also good for filling up water balloons. What fun you can have with those!

ICE ICE BABY

Ice activities are wonderful in the south during summertime, for sure!

A few that we’ve enjoyed are:

Painting with colored ice. We freeze ice with food coloring (I think you may even use coloring from flavored drink packets). Then, we use the ice to paint paper outside. Plus, my boys like licking them while they "paint"....


Also, ice is an alternative way to fill in those paint with water books (that seemed to be much easier to find when I was a child!...they don’t sell them in enough places if you ask me).

Ice treasures. This HAS to be my oldest son’s favorite ice activity. We fill a small plastic container with small toys, rocks, shells, and such along with water. We allow it to freeze overnight. The next day, we take it outside, dump the ice block from its container and then and he either chips away at the ice block (small hammer, fork or other scraping tools) or squirts it with warm water to melt away to find his treasures.


Another similar activity that I haven’t yet tried but is on my list of things to do soon is filling a container with water and then fruit. Again, you freeze this and the next day chip away at it to reveal TASTY treasures. (We saw this idea on Sid the Science Kid.)

Ice ball surprise. This is another activity I hope to do soon. Similar to the ice treasure block, with this activity you fill a water balloon with water and a single treasure or trinket. Again, you freeze the balloon and then later cut open the top and swirl the balloon in a pool or bucket to reveal what’s hidden inside. This idea came from amazingmoms.com. The suggestion is that it could also provide a novel favor at a summertime birthday party. LOVE that!

I have smaller children (under school age), so most of my ideas reflect that. You could likely adapt many of the above ideas for older children.

Here are a few other links I found with ideas I liked:

Lots of relay style games for older kids/teens on parentingteens.about.com

Ideas about the "science" of water and more water games found tlc.howstuffworks.com

The Ice Ball Surprise (mentioned above) as well as several other games for young children on amazingmoms.com

These ideas are for a "preschool classroom"...but you could adapt the ideas for your own home.

Have fun getting wet and staying cool this summer!
And PLEASE share ideas with me. You know I’m always looking for fun ways to entertain my boys. ;-)


-Ashlie

Stay at Home Saturday

When it comes to cooking chicken, I have pretty much always been a scaredy cat. I don’t like to touch skin or bones, and no gross stuff, thank you very much. I mercilessly trim my chicken before I cook it and I only use boneless, skinless breasts. I have never known what to do with other chicken parts, so I’ve stuck with what I know. However, this is an expensive practice! I only buy chicken breasts when they are BOGO (and I stock up to hold me until the next sale), but even then they are almost $3 a pound!

My grocery store has been having specials lately on split chicken breasts. Not nowing what to do with those, I’ve always just avoided them. However, my sister recently enlightened me on a great way to use them and now I’m excited to buy them! She got this method from Mary Ostyn's Family Feasts for $75 a Week. Here’s what you do:

As soon as you get home from the store, stick the chicken in your slow cooker with 2-3 cups of chicken broth. I had to do this in 2 batches over 2 days.

Cover, turn cooker on Low and cook 6-8 hours until the chicken is so tender it falls off the bone. After cooling, start to pick the chicken off of the bone and remove the skin. This is very easy because the chicken is so tender. The skin peels right off.

As I pull the chicken apart, I shred it and put it into containers in about 2 cup proportions. I did 9 chicken breasts and got this much meat (it’s approximately 9 cups):

The best part? The next time I have a recipe that calls for cooked, shredded chicken, all I have to do it go to my freezer and pull some out! Not bad for about 30 minutes of work. The second best part? This chicken was on sale for $.88 a pound!!! I paid about $8 for all of this white meat chicken! Yea!!

If you have any other chicken tips, please share them! But please don’t try to get me to eat dark meat – I’m not that brave yet!

Love,

Amy

Train Up Tuesday: Chalk Talk

Honestly, I really wanted to use the phrase “Chalk It Up” in my title, but in searching the web for inspirational ideas...EVERY other blog uses that phrase ;-) This is the first in a series of fun activities to do with the kiddos out in the sun. Thanks to those who responded to my requests for ideas.


I adore chalk...though I don’t really like the feel of chalk (blecht!). Maybe there’s some nostalgia about it that creates it’s appeal to me...Bert from Mary Poppins as a "screever" (I think that would be a GREAT way to get paid) and Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings:



Chalk is such a great, cheap tool for the amount of fun you can have with it. Plus, a sidewalk is the perfect poor man’s canvas....just a good washing and time in the sun...voila, good as new!

We have loads of chalk...in most any color and many shapes. If I have no activities planned, it’s one of those things I can go to for instant fun and inspiration and open ended play with my boys. Here are a few (who am I kidding...SEVERAL) ideas for fun with chalk:

The Basics:

Draw something. That’s all there is to it. Draw ANYTHING. If you have a sidewalk or driveway, you have an amazingly HUGE canvas. There is something novel about drawing on the sidewalk. Not only does it present a beautiful work of art, but for the little guys, it helps exercise those gross motor skills.

A snail drawing by my 4 year old

Trace your shadows and fill them in. Or trace them every hour or so standing in the same spot to learn about the earth’s rotation and how shadows change.

Some areas of the country are known for Sidewalk Chalk Art Festivals. I’d LOVE to find one of those. But, if you are like me, and don’t get to see too much performance art in your neck of the woods, why not have your own Festival. You could host it at your home in your driveway with your kids and their friends, or if you are fortunate enough to live in a neighborhood with lots of children, perhaps the whole area could be a sidewalk work of art! Be sure to take pics. And “google” “sidewalk chalk art” for some REALLY cool artwork (3D & trumploi images are incredible...you can create a similar effect with 3D glasses, like the ones we received with a Crayola 3D Chalk package).

Leave a message. What a great way to welcome home “daddy” or a loved one! Plus, you can always take a photo of it to preserve the message or artwork for later (great way to make a “thank you” card in the future).

Games:

No doubt we’ve all played a round or two of hopscotch. But you should check out variations of hopscotch. Look up some different ideas online. I came across Monte Carlo & Italian variations in the book "The Daring Book for Girls" by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz.

Hopscotch

There’s more than just hopscotch, though! Many classic sidewalk/playground games use chalk. I came across an idea for making leaping lily pads with numbers to encourage number sequencing. You could also use various shapes, symbols, letters, and numbers to teach math and spelling skills, for starters.

Leaping Lilypads!

Use chalk to make a classification system.

For more learning fun, check out "More Chalk Fun".

You could also trace shapes (we used sand tools) to make a puzzle.

Tracing shapes for a "puzzle"

Basically, any game you could play with pen/pencil and paper could be played on the sidewalk...on a GRANDER scale!

Pretend play. Make a track or road using chalk. You could make a whole village or town and include 3 dimensional items for tunnels.

Mix it up:

Don’t be afraid to let chalk get wet. It transforms pale chalk into magnificently brilliant colors! You can create your own wet chalk or chalk paint. (Thanks to reader Elizabeth for the link for making chalk paint: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Chalk-Paint)

OR a simple rain puddle works nicely for getting chalk wet.

So, what if your one of the many unfortunate ones who either has gravel in your driveway or no place to draw? Easy! Save some old boxes (or salvage some), open them up and an instant canvas! Actually, anyone can benefit from an old box for chalk drawings. Use it for a rainy day when you want to bring outdoor fun inside, too! ;-)

Clean Up! Even cleaning up after using chalk can be fun. Use large paint brushes, squirt bottles, buckets, sponges, a hosepipe. You can imagine that it may be even more fun for the kids than even the drawings!

Well, you can tell from my library of personal photos, that chalk ranks up there as one of my favorite things. I know there are many more ideas for chalk, so if you have some, please post them in the comments section!

Have fun,
Ashlie

Thrifty Thursday ~ The Weight of Debt

When I first started blogging I read that it is best to keep posts short and concise. This goes along with my personality and writing style so it hasn't been a problem for me. However, I must say that The Weight of Debt is such a heavy topic on my heart that this post may get wordy. Please read it. Please learn. Please change.

Last Sunday my Pastor of 20 years preached one of the best sermons I've heard. He summarized my journey for the last 3 years and the reason I started couponing...to get out of debt, be content, live by a budget, and honor God. I try to get these things across in my Coupon Workshops, but somehow Pastor did a much better job. Do you think he'd come with me? I doubt it. So, let me summarize a few of my favorite points:

DEBT AFFECTS YOUR RELATIONSHIPS

• With Your Spouse. I have two memories from my first year of marriage. 1. Guys are very messy to live with. 2. Money- we didn't have enough and we didn't know what we were doing. We both had debt (he had a car loan and I had student loans and credit cards). Neither of us had been taught how to properly manage money and we were lost. Our finances controlled us for the first 5 years of marriage. When money was plentiful, we were happy. When money was lacking, we were stressed. Now, we control our finances and it is such a positive change for our relationship!
• With Your Children. Your kids are not going to be happier, better people, or better Christians if you have more money. I remember when I met with my "financial mentor" a couple years ago. She told me to shop consignment for clothes/toys because young children don't know the difference. It's true! The last two months have been a real life example for me. We sold our house and have been living in a small apartment during the transition. More than half of our toys are in storage. At first the boys were "bored", but now they make forts out of pillows, love sharing a room, and help out more around the house. When I asked their favorite thing about the apartment they said, "mommy and daddy being here". On the other hand, I've noticed everything wrong with this place-from the stray cats that roam, the endless poop in the grass because people don't pick up after their pets, the drivers speeding through the parking lots, and even the used condom in the bushes. BUT, they don't care! Don't parent out of guilt by getting them things. They just want to be with you.
• With Yourself. When you make bad decisions there are consequences. Don't let your pride and selfishness lead you down a path of debt. I will never forget the feeling of creditors calling me in college and then working to pay credit cards off years later. You are valuable. Make decisions that will help, not hinder you.
• With God. Just like we have rules to protect our children, the Bible has rules to keep us from harm. Romans 13:8 says we shouldn't have debt. Luke 14:28 says to count the cost and budget. When we acknowledge that He gives us everything and we are simply handling the blessings we want to use it wisely.

DON'T BELIEVE THE LENDER

Just because they say you can afford it doesn't mean you should. Wouldn't it be nice if those credit cards in college didn't offer me those high limits? I learned the hard way. Just last week we bought a house. Our mortgage company qualified us for a huge mortgage-- we bought a house $100,000 less.

BE CONTENT

Sure it'd be nice to have a new car or a bigger house, but you shouldn't go into excessive debt to keep up with your peers. Beware of covetousness. 1 Timothy 6:6-10 explains that we can't take earthly riches with us. Money is not bad, but don't spend your life trying to get it because you will miss what is really important!

Pastor recommends The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn.

You may not know how to get out of the hole you're in, but you have to start somewhere. If you want to hear my Pastor's sermon click here and select the video from May 2nd. It's a great place to start.

Pastor, nor I, claim to be financial advisors. Click here to access Dave Ramsey's website. It will change your life!!! If you're in the Charlotte area you can attend the "Total Money Makeover" Live event at Central Church of God Saturday, June 26th. Click here for more details.

Train Up Tuesday: Preserving the Past and Present

Okay, confession time! I am the “crafty one” in the family. I’m ALWAYS looking for something fun to do with my boys...partly because I want to do it, too ;-) Since I’m the “crafty one”, I also wonder if I will be forgotten on important days like Mother’s Day, my birthday, Valentine’s day. I am always hoping for something homemade from my kids (okay, they are way too young to come up with all these great ideas themselves...so I usually hope dad or a grandparent want to guide my boys into making something for me). Sometimes, I even have them (I mean, encourage them to) work on something for me. Is that sick or what?!

So, in honor of Mother’s Day, I will share a fun idea with you that I stumbled across last year. I't something you can do to put a smile on your face as a mom - an interview you do with your child that has opened ended questions (as in...finish the sentence). I did it with my then 3 1/2 year old and loved the result so much that I repeated it for Father’s Day (see, I share the love and homemade goodness with others!). You can get a great list of such questions on Let's Explore or you can come up with your own, I’m sure.

Here are a few answers from my now 4 1/2 year old:

I really love it when my mom “takes me places like to the library and playing in the play area there, or to Discovery Place, the beach, and the Disney Store.”

My mom always tells me, “It’s nap time.” (Those words are music to my ears)

The best thing she does is “make special things for me to eat like that cuckoo clock sandwich.” (Followed by a “hey mom, will you make one of those again for me tomorrow?”)

When my mom shops she likes to buy “pork chops.” (I have no idea why he would say that...obviously, he never sees me go shopping for enjoyment.)

I love my mom because “you cuddle with me and I’m your cuddle bug & you’re my cuddle girl.” (My favorite answer, by far.)

Wouldn’t it be fun to repeat this every year to see the progression in their language and in their ideas?

It’s also a great way to preserve the present, before you forget about it in a few years...and trust me, the cute, funny things they say one day are easily forgotten within a few weeks.

This leads me to part 2 of this week’s entry. My family has recently been inspired and motivated to chase down our family tree (you can, too, quite easily on ancestry.com!). Mine is quite segmented and splintered (adoptions on both sides of my parents’ lines) and my husband’s is getting quite full! The best part of it so far has been learning new things about our families. All that happens when you actually talk to people. Sure we “communicate” quite regularly with many people now days (text, IM, video chat, email, Facebook, etc.), but we so often are missing out on the real stories of people we love...not even really important stories, but stories that are real, nonetheless. My husband recently connected with family members at a funeral. Upon learning of his family tree quest, they sought him out, answered questions he had, and invited us to come over any time. How precious!

I know we think we learn history through textbooks. But most of these dedicate a paragraph to the most important events in life and never tell us how those events impacted our families (generations before us) directly. This has given me a desire to ask my mom questions now and preserve her answers for the future.

me & my Mom, way back when

You will never guess what I found this weekend (at Aldi’s of all places) - a “Mother Tell Me Your Story” Journal. (I couldn’t find this available online, but Amazon has many different varieties of such journals). It starts off like a baby book (name, parents’ names, siblings, toddler years), but then, it gets into more personal questions about childhood, growing up (was she involved in any big issues of their time, what news events made her sad or worry, what was her favorite bands, movies, shows of their time, how has her personality changed/stayed the same from adolescents), questions about mom & dad (how they met, initial thoughts, how they handle marital conflict), starting a family (feelings of pregnancy, parenting goals, handing down traditions, similarities/differences between parent and child, advice for grown children and their families).

Even if you can’t find such a journal, you could still make your own. You will cherish it, and so will future generations, including your children. But that only happens if we make time to preserve it now.

Hope that inspires your Mother’s Day weekend!

Much love,
Ashlie

Stay at Home Saturday

I was thumbing through a magazine the other day (because that’s what we stay at home moms do, right? Smile.) and I saw an ad for Arm and Hammer baking soda. It was one of those ads that mentions a way to use baking soda that you may not have come across before. It said to use baking soda to scrub your fruits and vegetables to naturally remove waxes and pesticides. Who knew?!

I decided to visit their website and see what else you can do with baking soda. After all, isn’t it something like $0.75 a box? Here are some ideas straight from their website (http://armhammer.com/) and into your mental file for baking soda (I just know you have a mental file for baking soda!). By the way, I’m sure you can do all of this with store brand baking soda, but I used the Arm and Hammer website for all of these tips.

- Deodorize Baby Bottles For safe cleaning and deodorizing, fill bottles with warm water and add 1 teaspoon of ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda. Shake, rinse and thoroughly clean as usual. For extra cleaning and deodorizing, you can also soak bottles and nipples overnight in a solution of 4 tablespoons of ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda to 1 quart of warm water. Then rinse and clean as usual.

- Hair Care Sprinkle a small amount (quarter-size) of ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda into your palm along with your favorite shampoo. Shampoo as usual and rinse thoroughly. The ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda helps remove the residue that styling products leave behind so your hair is cleaner and more manageable.

- Facial Scrub and Body Exfoliant Are you a fan of the self-tan? Before applying products that give you a ‘glow’, give yourself an invigorating, yet gentle, facial and body scrub with ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda. Removing dead skin cells will leave your skin soft and smooth, perfect before application. Make a paste of 3 parts ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda to 1 part water. Rub in a gentle circular motion to exfoliate the skin. Rinse clean. Gentle enough for daily use!

- Dry Baths for Dogs Help dogs stay fresh-smelling by giving them periodic dry baths. Sprinkle ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda into their fur and rub, then comb or brush it through and out. The ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda is safe for your pets and a quick way to a fresh dog!

- Liquid Laundry Detergent Booster Add ½ cup of ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda to your laundry to make liquid detergent work harder for you and your family. A better balance of pH in the wash gets clothes cleaner, fresher, brighter!

- Chlorine Bleach Booster For thumbs up whites with less harsh chemicals that tend to damage clothes add ½ cup of ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda with a ½ cup of bleach (instead of the usual 1 cup of bleach). Do you smell a cover up? We do! Adding ½ cup of ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda instead of using a full cup of bleach will reduce smelly chemical odors too!

- Deodorize Drains and Garbage Disposals What goes down sometimes comes back up. To deodorize your drains and disposal, and keep lingering odors from resurfacing, pour ARM & HAMMER® Baking Soda down the drain while running warm tap water. Baking Soda will neutralize both acid and basic odors for a fresh drain. Here' s a tidbit to remember - when replacing your box of Fridge-n-Freezer® Odor Absorber (every 30 days!) pour the contents of the old box down the drain to get a little extra mileage.

Love,

Amy