Garden Stepping Stone

Our little garden is really coming along thanks to Tim.  I think he may be addicted.  He has me running all over town looking for pots because he's run out of space to plant in the garden.  So far we've harvested a LOT of lettuce, herbs, radishes and string beans.  The cucumbers are starting to come in as well as the sugar snap peas.

I found this cute stepping stone kit on clearance at Hobby Lobby and thought it would be a fun project to do with the girls.  It came with everything I needed except the photos (of course) and a pencil, which I used to make the flower petals.  Since our garden is technically located at my brothers house, I included pictures of my kids as well as both of my brothers' kids in the stepping stone to make it a family garden.

If you want to make your own stepping stone, click here for an easy tutorial.

A couple years ago we made these cute little ladybugs using smooth, black rocks and paint pens.  They've been sitting in my desk all this time.  I thought the garden was a better place to enjoy them.

Hopefully, as we harvest more food from the garden, the girls will be excited to try some new foods.  And if they do, they can record it in their Summer Food Passports!

Summer Food Passport

Our Summer Family Fun Passports were such a big hit with the girls that I decided to make Summer Food Passports for them.

As Ralphie said in A Christmas Story, "Every family has a kid who won't eat."  We have Sidney.  I'm hoping that this activity will encourage her to try some new foods.  So far she has tried grilled chicken, pineapple and spaghetti with pasta sauce!

On the inside the kids record what they ate, where they ate it and when they ate it. And then they draw of picture of the food they ate.  Click here to see how to put together the book.

Click here to download the Summer Food Passport!

Father's Day Gift Ideas

If you're like me and you're running out of time to come up with a Father's Day gift, I have the solution:

The Teachers Pay Teachers website has tons of stuff you can download.  You don't have to be a teacher.  You just need to create an account and then you're free to download as much as you want.  There is A LOT of free stuff!  Here are some of the great, free printables I downloaded:

Click here to search for the perfect gift for Dad on the Teachers Pay Teachers Website.

If you want to see the Daddy Date Cards we made last year for Father's Day, click here.

And this is an easy Father's Day card you can make with your kids.

Have a Happy Father's Day!!!

DIY Gift Tags

I was putting together a baking gift basket for my cousin who's getting married and I made her some gift tags like these with her married name.

To make them, I downloaded some free clip art and formatted everything on a Word document.  Click here for the file.  I printed the file on colored card stock.  Then I used my large gift tag craft punch to punch out the tags.  Lastly, I hole punched them and strung a thin, white ribbon through the hole punch.  It was so easy that I ended up making gift tags for a bunch of friends that enjoy baking like me!

I also have some crafty friends that sew, which prompted me to make these tags:

Click here for the file to make your own gift tags!  These are so easy to make.  I think I'll make some generic "Happy Birthday" gift tags for all the kid birthday parties that my girls are invited to.  Stay tuned!

Dollar Crafts: Melty Beads

The Pink Eye Epidemic of the Summer of 2014 is OVER!  After 18 days of taking care of 3 sick kids and Tim (who had to call in sick to work for the first time ever in his life - seriously people), summer has arrived at the Reeves' household!  Due to our prolonged illness, I don't have anything fun to report on, but this was a project that we did pre-Pink Eye Epidemic.  If you need an inexpensive craft project that will take the kids a long time to complete ON THEIR OWN, let me introduce you to Melty Beads!

I bought these Melty Beads in the dollar bins at Michaels last year and hid them away for a rainy day.  I must have hid them too well because I just dug them up the other day!

Ava and Sidney were so excited to do the project even though they had no idea what Melty Beads even were.  We had to wait for Ava to get home from school, which meant Sidney asked me no fewer than 10 times if it was almost time to pick Ava up from school.  "Is it this much time left?" Sidney asked holding her hands less than an inch apart.  With all this build up, I was really hoping that the Melty Beads were as exciting as the girls imagined they'd be. 

SPOILER: They were even better! Honestly, I don't get what all the fuss is about, but I am not going to question it.  This project kept the girls quiet and busy the entire time I got dinner ready.  That is nothing short of a miracle.

So, without further ado....Melty Beads!

I found these little pre-packaged crafts that had all the melty beads needed to make the picture on the front of the package.  Or you could just make whatever you wanted, which is what Ava and Sidney did.  The instructions suggested using tweezers, but the girls did fine using their hands.

Here's what they created:

Ava made a girl with colored pony tails and Sidney did a cover-all!

To melt them, you place a piece of wax paper (typically provided) over the melty beads and, using an iron with medium-high heat, apply pressure directly to the melty beads for 10-20 seconds, moving the iron in a circular motion.  Here is what it will look like:

Let it cool down for a few minutes and then remove the wax paper from the melty beads. Then you should be able to remove the melty bead creation from the peg tray.  And wha-la!

Now, let the summer fun begin!!

Summer Family FUN Passport

Summer is finally here! Unfortunately, not for my family.  We are in a bad, bad funk.  We just started Week 3 of "The Pink Eye Epidemic of the Summer of 2014".  Don't scoff.  This isn't your average, run-of-the-mill Pink Eye.  This Pink Eye comes complete with a horrible sinus infection, ear infection, sore throat, achy body and - the topper - 24 hour a day chest cough that will make you feel like you've been punched repeatedly in your rib cage by someone big and beefy. I know first hand.  And I'm still bitter that I had to take care of my kids while sick - moms never get a break.  

Tim just started up with the symptoms yesterday and Ava and Clara just started a round of Amoxicillin today after our Monday morning trip to the doctor's office with all 3 girls (lovely) identified that Ava has a sinus infection and Clara has an ear and sinus infection.   I'm in a panic right now because Sidney, who started this pandemonium on May 18th, has been itching her eyes all day...Please, dear God, let this be a coincidence.  I can't handle Round 2.

Anywho, enough of my pity party.  I mentioned in my A-Z Guide for Summer Fun in St. Louis that I'll be featuring a "Family Field Trip" series this summer.  That may never happen.  But if your family is lucky enough to enjoy the summer, you'll love these cute little passports.  I got way too excited making these (which makes it even more sad that we've yet to even crack them open).  I hope your family can get some use out of them!

They were easy to make and you can download your very own Summer Family Fun Passports by clicking here.  Some people have contacted me saying they can't access my files on Google Docs.  If you're having trouble downloading the file, just email me or leave a comment with your email address and I'll send it to you.

I printed the front/back cover in colored printer paper and multiple copies of the inside pages in white printer paper.  Then I used my paper cutter to cut the inside pages in half.

I folded the front/back cover in half, inserted the inside pages, and stapled them together along the fold.

Then the kids can document our field trips on the pages - where we went, who went and when we went - and draw a picture of the what we did on the field trip.  For my little one, Clara, I may just print out a photo from the field trip and tape it to the paper.

I have a some summer-y stamps (flowers, sun, butterfly, etc.) that I'll use to stamp the back of the page (like getting a stamp in your passport) once the girls are done.  I don't know about your kids but mine LOVE stamps!


If you like this passport, check out my Summer Food Passport too!

Have fun filling up your passport!