Munchies for Game Nights

There is a little detail to which my mother consistently paid attention when we were growing up that I am convinced paid off exponentially in making our home an enjoyable place to be. Every time our family played a game together she was tireless in making sure we had tasty and healthy munchies at hand.

It gave people a little something to do when it wasn't our their turn, and made sure that everyone's blood sugar stayed at happy levels. Mostly she cut up fresh fruits and vegetables, but sometimes there was fresh popped popcorn too.

Such a simple thing, but a definite happy trademark of our home growing up- something our friends remember as well.

Has your family discovered any details that help to make game nights successful in your home? Please feel free to share them in the comments section.

Free Family Fun in Austin: Bats Under the Bridge

I just love exploring a location to uncover all of the interesting places and events that can be enjoyed for free or inexpensively. Our family has lived in Austin, Texas for a little over a year now, but before last week we had never gone to see the bats make their nightly emergence from under the bridge downtown. (And not just a few bats either- 1.5 million of the creatures live under that bridge, making it the largest urban population of bats in the world!)

It was definitely something interesting to behold. Just before sundown the bats began to flow out from under the bridge in a steady stream, and remained clustered together in a dark, silhouetted trail that reached across the sky for miles (pictures don't do it justice).

It turned out to be a very pleasant and unique family experience. We arrived at the bridge about a half an hour before sundown, and so had time to take a stroll by the lake during that golden hour before dusk. Then we found a place to sit together on the lawn and listened as the high frequency bat noises grew louder and louder and a few began to trickle out from under the bridge. For the next fifteen minutes or so they continued to fly out, and we chatted and watched.

Apparently, March is not the most exciting time to view the bats. (There aren't as many as there will be as the summer goes on). I imagine we will go back another evening later in the season to see them again.

Does your hometown have some frugal, unique activities or locations? It would be interesting to hear about them!

Painted Rocks Color Matching

M and I had fun the other day mixing tempera paints. "Let's see what color we get when we mix a little (yellow) into this (red) paint." I would say. "Orange!" she exclaimed as the colors began to mix.

After the paint was mixed into a new shade we used a cotton ball to paint one pocket of an egg carton. We painted a small rock the same color. Once every pocket and rock was painted we left it to dry for a couple of hours. When we came back, M had a new game for matching (find the rock that is the right color to go in each pocket). The nice thing about this toy is that the lid can be closed and so it can be carried around easily.

The bad thing about this toy (as we discovered) is that if you leave it outdoors to get rained on, you are back where you started with a gray rocks and a dingy egg carton! :-)

Manners Night

This is a tradition from my husband's family that we really like and look forward to carrying on with our own family when our children our old enough.

Every once in a while when my husband was growing up my mother- in-law would tell her family early in the day that dinner that night would be a "manners night." Dinner would be served in the dining room instead of at the kitchen table. A fancy tablecloth would be spread, and the table was laid with the best dishes and silverware. Each place setting was complete with all of the extra fancy silverware, etc. It was an opportunity to practice using the best manners and to learn about table etiquette. That night, absolutely no elbows were allowed on the table; everyone placed napkins in their laps, and no one talked with mouth full, etc.

I think it is a kind thing for parents to teach their children how to behave properly when they are at other people's houses and so they will not feel out of place or awkward in fancy situations. And I think this is such a fun way of doing it- turns learning the rules into a special, exciting occasion. One could add all kinds of little touches to make sure that everyone looked forward to these nights- a special dessert, flowers on the table, maybe posting the menu on a board ahead of time, a special activity afterward.

Have you used/ seen any good ideas for teaching manners in a fun way? I'd love to hear about them. I'm especially keen to read about ways of teaching manners as consideration for other people's feelings. It seems like our culture today often treats good manners like they are nothing more than snootiness --when in reality, the foundation of much etiquette is the Golden Rule. It would be really neat to hear about fresh or creative ways that people are finding to show their children the sense and usefulness of good manners.

Counting Book for Toddlers

I don't believe I ever showed you the counting book my mother made for M a while back. Its title "How Many, Many?" is in the spirit of "The Foot Book," (How many, many feet you meet!).

As with this book that I made for M, the goal is to help her understand the concept of counting more than helping her to memorize the names and shapes of numbers. Most baby counting books go up to ten- which is fine, but in order to really understand what it means to count, it seems like a toddler needs lots of practice with counting small numbers of objects (no more than three).

Each page has a picture with one, two, or three of something. The child's responsibility is to count the objects and to lift up the correct number. If she gets it right, there is a smiley face. If she lifts up the wrong number there is nothing there.
If you're wondering where my mother got all of the cute pictures, the answer is that she always keeps her eyes open for possibilities when she browses magazines (Country and Reminiscing magazines are particularly good for this kind of thing). You can purchase blank books for making your own toddler books here).

Upcoming Review: Fisher Price Water Table

Here in Texas, it's starting to show signs of soon being warm enough to splash around in the water outdoors. I remember that when I was little, I looked forward to that season with sooo much anticipation. My mother's rule was that we could play in the sprinklers when the temperature reached 75 degrees, and when it reached 80 we could play in the inflatable pool. You can be sure that we watched the thermometer with diligence so as to be sure not to miss an opportunity (we lived in Michigan, after all, and we had to make the most of every little scrap of summer)

To help melt the winter blues away a bit, CSN will be giving me an opportunity to review an outdoor water toy. (CSN is a family of online stores that is currently promoting, among other things, a diverse line of kids bedding).

The toy I will be reviewing is a Little Tikes Island Adventure Water Table. It looks like a lot of fun- the sort of thing that might really entice little ones to want to play outdoors. Can't wait to try it out and tell you what I think.

I thought too, that on the day that I write the review for the water table, that it would be fun for all of us to share some of our best outdoor water activities/games/toys. I would love to hear your ideas so we can be ready with an arsenal of fun for when the hot weather hits!

Here is a picture of my cousin and I years ago using plastic bags to fling water at each other (we had run out of water balloons at my house and had to improvise!)

Pretzel Stick Letters

This is actually an idea for an activity that M came up with herself. One day she was eating pretzel sticks for a snack and exclaimed to me--LOOK, MAMA! It's an A! I looked, and sure enough it was a capital A made out of pretzel sticks.

So the next time we had school we turned it into a structured activity. I would make a letter out of sticks. Her job was to count the number of pretzel sticks in the letter, count out that number of sticks for herself and try to make the letter while looking at mine as a model. (for some letters she needed a lot of help).

Restaurant Napkin Doll Tutorial

If you have been following this blog for a while you may remember a post I did about a year ago with ideas for passing the time while waiting with your family at a restaurant. Well, the other day, I was browsing Valerie's blog Frugal Family Fun and was tickled to find a great idea to add to the list.

Wouldn't your kids love it if you could make them a little doll to play with every time you went to a restaurant? You can! I tried this tutorial the other day and it was EASY and turned out cute (and I can assure you that I am especially UN-talented at all things origami-related).

If you try it, I'd love to know how it turns out for you (and whether you impress any waitresses with your fun new skill)!

Daffodil photo cards

Recently our playgroup did a project for an elderly lady in our church. The idea for the cards came partly from a recent issue of Better Homes and Gardens. This is what we did:

1. Took a picture of each of the children hugging a teddy bear. Printed the pictures off the computer, and cut them out as circles.

2. Glued the picture to the center of a muffin liner.

3. Glued the muffin liner inside of a second liner to make a daffodil shape.

4. Glued the flower to a card (folded construction paper)

5. Cut a number of green stems and leaves out of construction paper. The children then used glue sticks to glue them to the card. (something they could easily do, got them involved, and still left the card looking nice)6. Gave the teddy bear and the cards to our friend in the nursing home, showing her that the teddy bear came bearing hugs from all of the little children at church.

I really liked the way this worked out. Bringing all of the children to the nursing home would have been overwhelming to our friend, but the craft gave us all a sense of connectedness, and our friend seemed to really like knowing that we all had been thinking of her during our playgroup.

Toddler Box Train

My friends who are moms and I have often wondered what it is about trains that so fascinates little children. They sure like to ride them, talk about them, look at them, etc.!

M made this train today out of toy boxes from the playroom. It kept her (and her stuffed animal menagerie) happily occupied for about 45 minutes.

Daily Schedule with 2 Little Ones

A while back a reader asked me to do a post describing our daily routine. It seems like things are often changing, but we have been doing what we do now for a few weeks. (I should mention that my girls are roughly 6 months and 2 1/2 years old).

Here is the skeleton of a regular day with the girls:

6:00am- Rise and shower
6:30am Bible reading and prayer
7:00am- G rises, eats, I make breakfast
8:00am- M rises, dresses,
8:30am- Breakfast- M and I work on memorizing bible verses
9:00am- G goes down for morning nap; Morning chores (M's job is to sort the clean silverware into the drawer- when she is done, I continue working while she has free play time)
10:00am- M's "school time"
11:30- G eats followed by errand running about town on some days; on other days this is outdoor play time
12:30pm Lunch
1:15pm- Story time with both girls
1:30pm- M goes down for nap, G's alone play time with me
2:00pm- G goes down for nap, My project/cleaning/napping/emailing time
4:00pm- M and G get up; M gets snack, G eats
5:00pm- I make dinner; M has a "Blanket Time"
6:00pm- Dinner and talk time with husband
7:00pm- Daddy play time with girls
7:15pm- Bible bedtime story with M, get her ready for bed
7:45pm M in bed, G eats and goes to bed

Of course, some days aren't like this at all- either because of unusual circumstances, or because of laziness. Do any of you have any tips or suggestions for arranging daily routines with little ones? I'm really very eager to hear about them. Hearing about other families' days is one of the best ways I have been able to make progress in this area.

Playdoh snake writing

Here is another activity that really will work better when M isa little older, but we did have a fun time with it today too.

I showed M how to roll playdoh out into skinny snakes. When we had made lots of snakes of varying sizes I took her magnadoodle and drew a large number on it. Then M and I worked together to place snakes along the lines of the number until the entire number was formed by snakes. Each time M was proud of the finished product. Fun and easy activity!

(This one also came from The Toddler Busy Book).

Clothes Pin Spelling

Yet another use for foam stickable letters. Spell simple words on the back of a paper plate. Stick the same set of letters on clothes pins. Let child match the letters one at a time to the letters of each word. Tell child that he/she has just spelled that word with the clothes pin letters.

This activity really was a little beyond M. (partly because she still has difficulty clipping clothes pins) I think I'll pull it out again in a few months.