Other Fun and Such

Summertime is here and we are soaking up all the fun we can!

I wanted to play with the 'magic eraser' on my new phone.  Since there were other people a the Oldsmobile rally, like a lot of other people, it seemed like a good time to try it!

poof!

Emily found a Jello mold for $.25 at a yard sale, and made us a 'fancy' Jello cake!

We added the unfancy ones from the day before and some sliced bananas to fill in the empty space.  The overall effect was very pleasing!

Grace came with me on errand day, and we found ourselves at the mall (trying to recycle her old tablet, at which we were unsuccessful.)  She got some only child treatment when we passed by the motion park.

I looked at the sign after she was mid ride, what a rebel!

Billy made up some tasty bbq chicken, which pairs so well with light summer fare!

On my walk back from dropping the big girls off at the bus (which has happened many days, but not every day) I  saw a 'drop zone' of flowers from one of our neighbors trees.

We do some 'light' learning in the summer, just to keep our minds sharp.  If Billy has the day off, we take the day off too, and they get the first and last week of summer schedule free.  Each of the other days we follow the schedule and no electronics until noon (unless of course you're on the app of the day!)

Juliet really liked the Morse Code section she found in one of the puzzle books, so I found a website to translate English into Dits and dahs! She's gotten pretty fast, and recognizes most of the letters!  She doesn't care much for the listening though, so I don't know how beneficial it will be for her. 

I have a list of things I hope to accomplish each summer, and by waking up to take the big girls to the bus stop, I usually have some time before the little ones awaken to knock out something before managing the summer schedule.  A few weeks ago it was wiping down the front porch siding.

Juliet woke up first, and she helped me do the really low panels. = )

Sometimes, the big girls bring home creations from their summer camp.  These are the fairy gardens that they made.  Alice's is the pink one and Emily's has the 7 ducks.  (William is the one in the "hole.")

On another day, they brough home paper mache hot air balloons with a basket that they wove!

We went to an estate sale one day, and when the twins finished, Avia walked them over to a playground, while Emily and I finished our shopping. 

We went to Oliveburger Fest with the Cornishes, and saw some interesting art...

....took some selfies...

...played some giant games...

...and of course ate some tasty oliveburgers!

We found an Anna wig at a rummage sale, so we had two princesses in the house!  (Once the wig came out of quarantine, of course.)

Aunt Rocky bought everyone McDonalds on what would have been my Grandmother's 100th birthday!!

I scored 5 packs of 50% tenders at Aldi!  I saw a video where someone used scissors to trim the meat, and it changed my life!!!!

Trimmed and ready for the freezer!

We bought a tiny Bingo game at an estate sale.  We are all ready for Jellystone!

The piles of boxes in the mudroom finally drove me crazy, so our first free weekend, Emily got to have her sale and the twins got to set up their lemonade stand!  

The stand came out really cute, considering they were all boxes from the takeaway pile at BJs!  Grace and Juliet made up the sign weeks ago, and I helped print out a totally legible one for them to add to the front.  I think they probably drank more lemonade than they sold!

We sorted and set up on a Friday afternoon, so she was open from 3-6, then the next morning from 9-12, but she wanted to go a little longer, and since the rain did not appear to be coming, she stayed open until 2.

At the end of the sale, we put everything on the curb for people to take for free!!!  We got rid of quite a bit that way, but got a spirt of rain that had Emily and me scrambling to box everything and load it in my car.  Thankfully it wasn't a hard rain, and we finished before the water really started coming down.

I bought a new container to set out cut fruit for the kids, and so far I'm really liking it!  It always looks so pretty!  (Sadly, that is not one of our cucumbers, yet...)

I love fresh bread, and made a loaf last week.  It sits overnight, so I have to have two days during which I am willing to make it, which makes it a little trickier.

For fourth of July Alice made us some Firework pancakes!

And my mom brought over a platter of deviled eggs. These were the only ones left, and now they're gone too. = )  Billy grilled out a feast for us, with enough leftovers for the kids and Avia to eat on while we were gone, and they still didn't finish it all!

I took the rest of the bbq chicken and made it into Tikka Masala tonight, made PB&J hot dog buns for lunch, and we'll have hot dogs and beans to finish of the rest of the hot dogs tomorrow!  

We still have some summer to look forward to, but August seems to be rushing at us full speed.

later days

Crafts and Projects

December is always a fun time for crafts and cooking and projects, so here are a few that didn't get their own post. 

I posted the front side of Emily's hat in this post, but not the tricky/scary part of adding the zipper!  It's not super impressive, but it took me about an hour and a half and came out okay.  She has a functional pocket in her hat, which is at least a partial success.

The Helterbrands sent Alice a slew of Pusheen stickers for her Christmas gift.  They are so cute!  I decided to fancy it up just a bit, and sewed some paper pockets on a stiff backing so that they would stay separated a bit, and be easier for her to find.

Alice was invited to Willow's 13th birthday party.  Sadly, the squishimal she picked out online would not arrive on time, so we ended up going to Walmart one day after school (and the first cooking club day) very late, and they only had a few options.  She picked her favorite from their selection.  Since she was a bit disappointed, I offered to make up a fancy box for the stuffie she selected.

The school glue did not work very well with the fancy tissue paper, so I ended up using quite a bit of tape to hold the edges in place.

I think she ended up covering the stuffie with a layer of tissue paper in the end, to make it a bit of a surprise.

Emily chose a butterfly theme for her upcoming birthday party, so we were practicing origami butterflies for her invitations.

Once we mastered it, it was just a matter of folding the printed invitations!  The netting below the butterflies here came out of the free bin at the MSU thrift store.  I thought they looked like butterfly nets, and they were free. ; )

One night I made burgers for dinner.  The little girls thought that was fun, and decided to make up "mutti-donalds."  We didn't have many fries, so everyone was 'forced' to eat apple slices as a side as well.  (In my defense, Aldi was out of fries, and so I was just going to serve chips.)

For MLK day, I decided to try something new and spent about 4 hours making some Biryani.  It was pretty good, but spicey.  The Basmati rice was amazing though.

Emily and Grace came with me to the thrift store and Aldi, since they had the day off of school.  Grace picked out a home popsicle making kit.  We bought some orange juice for her to fill them.  Emily wanted some mini-cupcakes, but she was able to make more full-sized ones from a mix, than it would have cost to buy the little ones.  And Juliet got some pudding mix, because they didn't have cups, so she had to fill our ramekins, but it came out tasty!

My current project is to make Valentine's for my crew out of cutouts from Billy's coke zero boxes.  I don't know quite how they'll look just yet, I'm sure it will depend upon how many I am able to make before Valentine's day arrives.  But I like them so far.

 later days