Still Plowing Through Our Snow Themed Activities - Winter Bucket List Link-Up

I realize that the past few days I have left everyone that only follows our blog hanging (there has been a bit more activity that happened only on our Facebook page). However it is Monday so of course there will be a post, IT'S WINTER BUCKET LIST LINK-UP DAY!!!  The days we missed posting were days that I spent with my kiddos working through some of our activities (as well as some sledding and archery lessons).

So what had we been so busy doing? We marked off another three ideas and started a fourth (which we may have to restart). First we started with our ice candles. I wasn't sure if this was going to work or not. I found the basis for the idea on Pinterest, and many of my Pinterest finds don't always work how they describe them. The idea was to freeze water and food coloring in a balloon. Once it is completely ice you remove the balloon and you have a cool colorful lawn decoration. I figured why couldn't you place a tea lite (or the like) on one and have a festive candle. Tying water balloons isn't one of my strong suits, it's 50/50 if I'm going to spray half the water before I get it tied. Sadly, I'm the only one that know how to tie balloons, so we chanced it. The boys each chose a color they wanted for the balloon and a color for they'd like their candle to be. They squeezed a few drops of dye into the balloons and I hooked them to the kitchen sink. Each boy was in charge of holding onto their balloon while it filled and to let me know when their balloon was the size they wanted. Joey was our first balloon and after filling it we were left with a "nub" on both ends of the balloon, so we decided a little bigger worked better. Sorry no pictures of the filling process, my hands were full at the time, but I managed to tie every balloon without spraying food dye throughout my kitchen. YAY! After all the balloons were filled we placed them outside in the freezing cold (it was 10 degrees that evening). At first we placed them in the snow for fear of them rolling down our sidewalk. The next day half our balloons were frozen, the top halves. The snow was insulating them, so we moved them to our patio. In just less than 24 hours they were completely frozen. All the balloons went straight into the sink, where everybody took turns cutting their balloons away. While the colder temperatures were great for our balloons they were not for us so inside our house was pretty toasty. By the time the last ice ball was released the others had started to melt. It worked out well that in most of our "candles" had a weakened or shallow  spot from the air bubble, which fit a tea light well (except our little nubby blue one). After a quick couple pictures (I mean really quick, they were melting fast), we placed them in our front garden as decorations. They boys were able t get a closer look at the ice candles while the others cut their free. They noticed the looked like a balloon inside a ice balloon, as the dyed portion formed its own bubble. We loved his project and plan on repeating it in the future.

  

 

And we made snwflakes

You can see on the table in the background the drying stage of our second activity. We made our Q-tip snowflakes while we waited for our ice candles to freeze. Actually we made a version of these a few year ago and I made them with Joey's second grade class as well. (I high recommend this activity with small groups of children, helping 30 eight year olds is pushing your luck. It can be done with larger groups but request help from other parents). Again a really basic craft. All you need is 15 Q-tips per child, glue, wax paper, and whatever you chose to decorate with. Start with placing the wax paper down so it will make removing the snowflake easier. You can either dip your ends of the Q-tip into the glue or arrange your snowflake then glue the tips where they meet, I recommend the latter. Arrange 5 Q-tips in the middle, I told the boys to make it like a person a head, arms, and legs. Then you use two Q-tips making an upside down "V" to connect an arm to a leg, arm to the head, and so on. Remember it doesn't have to be "perfect" all snowflakes are different and unique. Allow time for them to dry, they ay be a bit flimsy we just flipped them over and added extra glue to the where all the tips meet. This year we used glitter to our snowflakes. In the past I had taken pictures of the boys and cut the pictures to fit within the center of the snowflake, these is also what I chose to do with the second grade class. Seems the snowflake is "empty" there are so many possibilities to creatively decorate them, thinking about using Christmas theme color tissue paper to glue on the backs for this Christmas.








And built a little fort

Sunday is a day spent with the grandparents, but also their backyard which still has a decent amount of snow. While we have a huge mound of snow in front of our home after the snowstorm that came through two weeks ago, it is too packed and mainly ice chunks. Papa and Grandma were away for a few hours at the theater so we were left to entertain ourselves. Seems we unable to produce a snowman for them to admire a few weeks ago we thought they would love a snow fort in their back yard. We started out using small buckets, then Joey started filling their recycling bin. We quickly opted for the recycling bin as we were able to make larger "bricks". Some of the snow was packable while most from the yard was too fluffy. The boys took to shoveling down  the small mounds that were created from shoveling the driveway. Once getting to the icy parts they used the wheelbarrow and tackled the ones from the front yard. We worked on our bottom layer for 45 minutes before heading in to warm up. By the time we could feel our fingers again it was time for archery lessons, so our fort had to wait. After archery (which Jacob participated in this week. Yay!) we went straight back to work as we were losing daylight. The down side of using the recycling bin was that only Jordan and I had the muscle to lift and flip it after the other boys packed it full of snow. We decided two layers was enough for it to be considered as a fort. Well that and it would have been extremely difficult to left them high enough for a third layer. By the time we finished the second layer, after another 45 minutes outside it was getting dark.

We also start growing our icicle candies, but from the looks of it two of our jars aren't forming any "ice", we may have to restart this one. As it takes a week to "grow a icicle" we'll be sharing how successful we were next Monday.

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Winter Bucket List- -More Snow Fun!!

 

We only got around to doing two things off our list this week. One didn't work out they way we have thought, live and learn. Both ended up being a great project idea, but for different reasons.


Our first one was snow art. After getting a couple feet f snow just a week before, it was melting quickly with the warmer temperatures and wet weather. We thought we better do it now, before we miss our chance (last year we have very little snow for the entire winter). After a quick stop at the dollar store to get mote spray bottles, and we lucked out and they had the same colors we were using. It's really simple, just fill spray bottle with water and a couple drops of food coloring (we don't "do dyes" in our house, but keep them on hand for crafts/projects). We just went out on the front yard and I set the boys loose. It took them a few minutes to figure out how hard of a spray to use, but once thy got he hang of it, they came up with some wonderful masterpieces. They were standing with their feet apart so they didn't step on their art work, but also so they didn't spray the dyes on their boots. Jacob was playing around and coloring in our footprints and accidently made a cool smiley face. We use really short spray bottles and I had to make several trips into he house to refill them. When I was younger my brother and I use to do this to decorate out snowman (and varies snow creatures), I don't know why I haven't of thought to so this with my boys before now. This s definitely something we'll be doing again on a snow day.

After playing in the snow making our pictures oh course we had to have hot chocolate. With the hot chocolate I put the container of mini marshmallows on the table. Joey reminded me that we were suppose to use the minis for our marshmallow igloos. I swapped them out for larger ones for our drinks and grabbed some craft paper. This turned out being another great in theory but not I practice projects. Jordan tried licking the mellows to get them to stick then opted for using glue like everyone else. (The marshmallows were going to get stale anyways may as well use glue.) The first layer worked well, but it was downhill fro there. It was too difficult to get the minis to balance and remain offset. We ended up using some of the larger marshmallows to help hold the smaller ones in place. None of them turned out the way we had envisioned them. I'm calling it a successful project though. Everyone completed theirs and there was a lot of table talk about different ways to try to get the marshmallows to cooperate. There were tons of smiles, giggles, and joking around; that makes it a successful craft. Also we got to munch on some marshmallows while during the craft :)


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It Was A Snow Day But We Didn't Even Play In The Snow

Today was an unexpected snow day, due to icy roads. The roads seemed fine to me when I drove Jordan to school, before I released school had been canceled. While I had some things I would have liked to get done while the boys were in school, it worked out well for us and we got some other things done. Thankfully I had things we could do today, because for a snow day it was too rainy to get outside and play in the snow.

Around here snow days = electronic days, so the boys were slow moving this morning. Jacob didn't even get up until 10 this morning. Once I pried the games from their hand we headed to Five Below so the boys could pick up some Christmas gifts to give. On the way there I talked with my mom who volunteered to take the boys shopping for gifts for me. It's always hard to help them shop when they already a gift for me in their baskets, they worry I might accidentally see me present. We started off with a $2 per person budget, and soon changed it to $3. Most of the things they kept choosing were five dollars and soon their budget jumped again. I want to teach them to learn to shop within their means, but just about everyone goes a little over budget around the holidays and I caved. They were for considerate of what each person might like or would use. This was a new concept for Jacob, he has a history of buying his brothers toys HE wants and after they open them and don't actually play with them, he takes them as his own.

After shopping we headed home to wrap their finds before snooping brother could discover what they got. I made sure we had enough tape, but of course we ran out of wrapping paper and had to double back to the store again.

I'm still only 3/4 done with Jacob's stocking, I got distracted with making scarves and throw blankets. The stocking they have from last year are really too young for them, Jacob refuses to use the Elmo one. I grabbed a couple felt stocking from the dollar store and some glitter from the craft store. They were given complete freedom to do what they wished on them. I only requested that they have their names on them. I plan on keeping these as a keepsake, as their writing style and artist abilities change so quickly. You can tell from Joey's that we have really been working on him writing smaller. I love that Jacob's is written on slant, and Jordan's letters are more uniformed. Jacob didn't really want to decorate the red portion on his (Glitter is for girls! *Sigh*) but decided to add dots after watching his brothers go to town making snowflakes. Oh course I made one too. I have a stocking my mom made for me when I was maybe Jacob's age, but I needed one that says Mom instead of my name. Having boys doesn't give me many opportunities to use glitter, I forgot how difficult it can be to clean it up. I believe hours there are probably still traces of glitter on and/or around our table.

We finally made our baked apples from our Fall Bucket list. They we delicious!! I have some very talented chefs, we enjoyed them with our movie tonight. We had attempted a few time the past couple of weeks and often time didn't allow for it and once someone ate our apples for snack. With technically hours to spare we complete our whole Bucket list! I'll have a wrap up of our Fall Bucket List up hopefully within the next couple of days. We have been planning our winter one but we still have tweaking to do on it before we post it, but it should be up soon.

A quick Orange Rhino update:

In spite of the full moon, I am very proud to report I completed my mini goal of not raising my voice for a whole week!!! I had been challenge plenty of time this past week also. My new goal is to finally get to and through day 11. Earlier this year when I first took the challenge I could repeated get to day 10 and blow it. My main goal is to make it 365 days straight without yelling, but I'm taking baby steps to reach it. It's a bad habit that I had got into a long time ago and one I can't wait to break (along with some other bad habits).

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Christmas Around the World- Russia

Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva is Novim Godom!

Aren't you glad you don't have to write that out on every Christmas card? All that is simply Merry Christmas in Russian. The Russian "Santa" is "Ded Moroz" which would be Grandfather Frost or more commonly known as "Father Frost".

Today we started our Christmas Around the World, for no particular reason we chose Russia. Here's some of the cool facts we found about Russia.

They celebrate Christmas on January 7th, and consider it as part of their Festival of Winter. The Festival of Winter is 39 days long, and begins at the end of November and goes until the evening of the January 6th. During the festival people exchange gifts, go to parties, go skating and go tobogganing. They also fast for 40 days. Which means not eating eggs, milk, meat, cheese, or any other food made from animals.

On January 6th dinner starts when the first star is in the sky (or if it's cloudy when it gets dark). They have 12 different courses for dinner; the 12 dishes represent the 12 apostles. Example of what their dishes may consist of; fish, cabbage, dried, fruit, and beet soup (borsch). the most traditional dish is a special porridge call Kutya (Koo-T'YA). Even during dinner they not allowed any of the "fasting foods", also alcohol/wine is not permitted. After dinner kids go door to door singing/caroling and receive treats. To celebrate people go to church, say prayers, and sing hymns and carols.

Jordan's finished Nesting Dolls

Russia is known for their babushka (Matryoshka) dolls also known as nesting or stacking dolls. While I told the boys about how Russians celebrate and the types of traditions they have, they worked on a simple nesting doll craft. I found a template for the babushka dolls on line and ran off copies. In order to "nest" them we used a bathroom cup to glue the largest doll to and placed the dolls in the cup.

To help make this a hand-on learning experience we attempted in making Kutya. The Kutya didn't go over too well. My boys are usually good about trying something new; with the exception of Joey, he likes what he knows and knows what he likes. Jacob and Jordan said it was just alright, Joey took a no thank you bite. I liked it, I wasn't something I would want to eat all the time, but it wasn't bad. It reminds me of eating oatmeal but the poppy seeds makes it taste grainy. I explained to Jacob that his ancestors from his dad's side are for Ukraine and this is what they also at during Christmas. Then I explained what ancestors meant. He cracks me up, he asked "Wow! How many Aunt Sisters do I have?" If you would like to give this porridge a try the recipe is listed below or you can try another variation which can be found on line.


Trying a traditional
Russian Christmas dish.

Joey didn't really care for it.

Kutya

 

1 cup wheat

4 cups water

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup ground walnuts

1/2 cup poppy seeds

Honey 2-3 Table spoons

 

 

1) Was wheat in cold water, then put it in a bowl or pot and soak it in water over night.

2) Pour water out, and wash wheat again. Place wheat in a pan, then add 4 cups of water and cook for a few minutes until ready, you can add more water if needed. (It didn't tell me, but you have to wait for the wheat to pop open and get gooey for it to be ready)

3) Meanwhile, put the poppy seeds in a bowl, pour water over them to cover them. Then cover the bowl and leave it stand for about 1 hour. Pour the water out and use a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle.

4) Put the raisins in a bowl of water, pour boiled water over them, cover and leave for 20 minutes or until they swell. then pour the water out.

5) When wheat is cooked, add honey, ground walnuts, poppy seed and raisins. Serve in a bowl.

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Thankful to be able to Give

We have had a couple opportunities this season to help out those who are less fortunate then ourselves. While we don't have much, I feel it is important for my boys to realize there are people with less than we have. Also that there are many ways we can help out even though we can't give a monetary donation.

The boys participated in Scouting for Food through the cub scouts and handed out donation bags to approximately 300 house, which the families of those houses could donate food items and the scouts would come pick up from their porches the following weekend. We were going to help collected whichever bags that had been placed upon the porches, but thought we'd give the other scouts who hadn't passed out bags the chance to help out.

Again through the scouts, they were able to participate with Operation Christmas Child, bringing in some items to be added to the "shoeboxes". While I  wanted to take the lead and tell them what to donate, I stepped back and allowed them to choose what they thought the children would like to receive. They were very thoughtful about their choices and had thought of some things that I had not. Last night they attempted to help with the "shoebox" filling. I goofed what time we needed to there to help; they were only there for the tail end of project but folded some shoeboxes and made some cards to donate to the senior living center.


We also started part one of our bucket list item -Donate to a local pantry- and went shopping. Again I wanted the boys to be the center of this activity and hung back so they could make their own choices. I was just there to supervise in the store and to pay the bill. They all grabbed their own shopping carts and were given a set amount they could spend. They were thrifty looking for sale items, so they could purchase more things. Jordan remember that a few years back when we received help from the pantry that there weren't many of things geared toward children and there were no "treats". All the boys made a point of grabbing the kid cereal or fruit snacks. They also added a "treat" either brownie mix, hot chocolate packets, or a bag of cookies. Joey had a valid point that every one likes to have a snack, and they usually only get just the healthy stuff they need. They were thoughtful about what they put in their carts, if it wasn't something they would eat, they weren't going to give it to someone else. (Comment from Jordan "How many people really eat canned creamed corn?"). They made a point of either picking things that would go together to make a complete meal or choosing things that could be stretched for more than one meal. Once they thought they were close to there total, we headed to the checkouts where they rang up and bagged their own orders. They found out pretty quickly that $25 isn't much money even if you buy things on sale. They had to think about which items they really wanted to keep and what needed to be put back on the shelves.


Part two- Donate to a local pantry- dropping off the food items. We set up an appointment with our pantry to drop off the items. After school and practice we meet up with some people to drop off our items. The boys unloaded their donations and carried them to the back room where they'll get sorted and stocked on the shelves. The gentlemen thanked the boys for their generous contributions and my by glowed with pride. When we were in the van, Jacob said he didn't feel like he did enough to help, all he did was bring some food. We talked about how every little bit helps and someone will love receiving the item the brought in.

A few years back, I had just lost my job a month after we moved, and we needed help to make it through a week or two. While the younger ones were too little to remember Jordan does. I am blessed with a very supportive family, but at the time of my need they had just left on a much needed and well deserved vacation out of state. We were grateful that our pantry was able to help us out, after being turned away from a nearby church. It's not one of my proudest moments, but I had a 1.5 year old, 3 year old, and 6 year old I needed to provide for. My cupboards were not completely bare, but we didn't have enough to throw together to make decent meals.We were able to get help with a little more than  bare essentials. The point Joey made about there not being any extras is corrected. My main goal was to get what we absolutely needed until my money ran out, which meant no snacks. When we received a couple packages for fruit snacks it was a wonderful feeling to see their faces light up the little extra they were given. I know from experience what it feels like when you realize you'll barely be able to provide for your family, it was a scary and humbling experience. The people we mainly help through our local pantries are not lazy, unwilling to work people, or people looking for a hand out; they are people who fell on hard times and need a helping hand for a while. Many people never would have suspected that my little family receive help through a pantry, as we have been back on our feet for a while since then.

50.1 million Americans struggle to put food on their tables. While everyone seems to get caught up in the season of giving around the holidays, the needs of other people are there year round. 20 million children receive free or reduced lunch each day at school, when the summer months come it can be very difficult for these families.

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Soda Geysers...More of a fizzle

A few years ago my cousins did this really cool soda geyser. This thing shot many feet in the air. The boys and I thought we would give it a try. Even though we didn't have the neat little tube my cousin had that stopped the mints. Joey came up with using an empty pill bottle upside down with a hole cut into it. It only held 5 mints so we fit a toilet paper tube around the bottle so it would hold all the candies. Jordan made a stopper out of cardboard that we could pull out of the way with a long piece of yarn. We gather some original Mentos candies, some soda, and our own homemade tube, and headed to the park. (There was now way I was chancing having soda explode all over my yard). We set them up, Joey was first, he yanked the string and we watched the soda shoot up a whole foot from the bottle. Not what was supposed to happen. Jordan thought he'd try dropping the mints in with out using the tube. He managed to get 5 or 6 in before it started to erupt, again only about a foot high. Jake used our contraption but only put in 5 candies. His only bubbled out the top. Determined to make this work they even tried shaking the bottles with the mints that were already in there. They tried to shake up the soda and drop in a few more mints. It just wasn't happening for us.  

Although our geysers weren't nearly as impressive as we had hoped they would be, they were glad we had attempted them. At least they did something, even if it was just a fizzle. We  are going to  shop around for one of those tubes, so we can send soda flying higher than our heads. I have heard that the trick is to use Diet soda, so we will give that a try too. It may take us a couple tries but eventually we'll figure it. I'll post pictures when we finally get the good geysers going.

Helping hands

Our second attempt at volunteering went a lot better. The boys were really excited to help with filling the backpacks. They quickly fell into a pattern to efficiently fill the packs. Jordan filled the pencil boxes with some of the small supplies, pencils, sharpners, scissors, etc. Joey put in notebooks, a ruler, and folders. Jake checked to make sure everything was in them before moving them to the finished pile. They were able to fill all the backpacks that were available which was 60+. 

 

After taking a lunch break they wanted to go back and complete more. During our break time the people from the pantry went shopping for more packs. The boys made quick work of most of those packs too. They also prepped the supplies so that after a dinner break they can come back to help with more of the filling. It became too late in the evening to return, the boys are hopeful that we will receive a call tomorrow inviting them back. There is still some more work to be done, they would like to see this project through.

 

They really enjoyed helping out. This was a perfect volunteering opportunity for our family. I'm so thankful that we're able to get connected with the right people and participate with the project. This has also sparked their interest and they are looking forward to future volunteering chances.

We also had helpful hands pet sitting for a friend that is out of town for a couple days. They have gotten a taste of what it is like to take care of a dog. They have had to make sure they wake up early enough to head over and let the dog out and to feed him. Also stop by during the day to let him back out, and again at night to feed him and let him out again. They like that the dog was excited to see them (our cat could care less about when we're home and when we're not).

Any Volunteers?

I really want to teach my boys the importance of volunteering and to giving back to the community we live in. We may not be currently able to financial help other, but we can always give our time and of ourselves to others.

Before school even let out Jordan has inquired about working at a nature center we frequent. This was a choice he made totally on his own. After learning that he was much to young to get paid, but was more than welcome to apply for a volunteer position. Jordan has spent every other Sunday throughout his summer vacation volunteering at one of our metro parks nature centers. He loves it and doesn't realize that he being a huge help to the center. He does it because he loves the animals and sharing his knowledge about the animals there. He has learn a lot of cool facts about both animals within the center and in near by areas.

Both of the younger boys still have a few more years until the will be able to volunteer at the nature center. In order to show them that they are able to help out regardless of what their age we started looking for opportunity near our home. We had talked about going to a senior living center and spending time there. They really like the idea of using those really cool sticks and picking up garbage off the side of road. We checked into helping distribute food at our local pantry, unfortunately we were turned away due to the being too young to uphold the privacy policy. The pantry had suggested we call the fire department and maybe they could lead us in a direction of something we could do as a family. We were connected to a guy from the DPW, whom we met up with Monday morning. The boys got excited thinking "Yes! we're picking up garbage with those garbage stabbing thingies!"; they were close, we were handed garbage bags but also 3 pairs of gardening gloves. We were set up with pulling weeds from the flowerbeds in front of our village offices. Although it was not their first choice as to what they would have liked to do, it was a job that needed done. The 3 of us (Jordan was camping, therefore missing out on our fun) got right to work. It took us just over an hour to fill up two garbage bags with weeds. I was proud of my boys for following through and helping with the weeding, and the teamwork they used to accomplish it. They were also proud of themselves for making the plants look so much better.