83 Days of Summer- Cards and Cookies

 Writing 10 Love Notes

Our 83rd Summer Adventure is preparing of for our 82nd. I wish I could take the credit for thinking this one up, but I can't. When telling my cousin about my adventures this summer and the idea for this blog, she suggested this one and today seemed like the perfect day to do it.  

If you know me, you know how much I enjoy cooking and baking. No seriously, I would love to take some classes to sharpen my skills because I truly do enjoy it. My mom is an excellent baker. Her drop sugar cookies are down right mouthwatering. 

Today the kids asked if we could make cookies. I am really trying to cut sweets out of picture this month (a whole other topic) so I really didn't want to make my favorites. Isaac asked specifically for my cut-out cookies.  They enjoy making them, just as much as eating them.  

I've included in the post my recipe.  I got it off the internet years ago, and every where I take them people rave and ask for the recipe...here it is. No big secret.  Oh, and I use store bought cream cheese icing from Betty Crocker and dye it the color I need. Again, hold my cape. I don't have the time, nor the energy to make homemade. But the thing with this recipe is it either goes perfectly well or a complete and utter disaster.  I always am holding my breath to see how the dough comes out after chilling overnight.  Yes you have to do some pre-planning with this one because I've found overnight ALWAY works better than 4 hours. Sometimes it's perfect. Sometimes it's way to sticking and an absolutely pain to work with throughout the process. 

Luckily for me, the dough was perfect today. I put a little flour out on the rolling mat and rolled it out. Kids both chose two cutters. Isaac chose a train and a star. Olivia picked a crown and a heart. I had cut the recipe in half and we got 38 cookies. I think it all depends on how big your cutter is that you are using to determine how many cut-outs you yield. So if you plan on not cutting out forever, may want to cut this recipe in half. We will icing and decorate tomorrow before we head out to deliver our goods, so hang tight to see the end product! But chef hats and all, we had a "sweet" time baking together. 

The second part of our adventure today was making homemade cards. My kids LOVE art time. With a little construction paper and stickers, markers, glue, scissors and my endless scrapbook and stamping supplies, I can entertain these two for hours. 

The beauty of children making cards is that they don't need to be perfect. When I make homemade cards, I'm measuring and aligning and looking online to see what colors coordinate perfectly. These two just put what makes sense or is neat to them.  So if you see a gemstone next to a zebra sticker, that makes sense. I don't restrict them, although I did tell Isaac to start asking me how to spell things. (He just came from a Kindergartner classroom that encouraged to spell how it sounds.  Makes sense to me, but most likely will just look like a bunch of random letters to others!). 

Each kiddo made five cards. What do you think?  I opened them up and took a picture too, so you could see how much work they put into them.  I bet they worked on these cards for over an hour! Olivia did say as she finished up, "I hope people like our cards and don't just throw them away!" Awe, baby girl, I hope they love them too!

84 Days of Summer- Picnic

Pardon Me, We Are Having A Picnic! 

Well the 84th day of summer brought beautiful weather just in time to have a picnic.  This adventure is something so little. You have to eat right? Why not take your lunch on the road and get the kids and you out of the kitchen and into nature?! Sounds like a double dip win for me. 

We decided to head to a nearby school to have our picnic before letting the monkeys play on the playground. Unlike school lunches, I pretty much let the kids pack whatever they wanted.  We headed down to the grocery store to pick up some things first (mother hubbers cupboards were bare!). I have to bribe Isaac to pack something nutritious in his lunch. Otherwise I'm pretty sure it would consist of chips, chocolate and cheese. 

While I love the idea of themed picnic as the Pinterest-worthy ideas are endless, I pretty sure the hours preparing the perfect themed picnic, would get woofed down in three minutes or less and I would chalk the entire idea up for a loss. So whatever they want to pack in their school lunch boxes and reusable bowls works for me.  Don't get bogged down in the details. After all, it is summer! 

We packed up at home with blankets and lunches and headed down the road.  The insist on their blankies. I tried to explain the checkered picnic blanked, but again, they weren't buying it. So we don't get caught up in the details and away we go. We actually were originally headed to a different spot today, but decided in mid-drive to detour to somewhere closer. (I'm sure you'll hear all about the Children's Garden later.)  

We were at the playground picnic for about 10 minutes before a daycare kids came out. Two of the little guys actually knew Isaac from the different sporting activities he plays throughout the year. The teacher started a game of freeze tag and graciously let my two join! The squeals of summer filled the air and my heart grew a little larger with love.  

85 Days of Summer- Parade

Happy Memorial Day! We are back at home in Lima and we couldn't wait to go to the parade. The kids love going and it's FREE so who doesn't love a great parade?

Kickoff of the parade was at 10 a.m. and it was already 77 degrees. Plenty warm enough to sit on the blacktop. But much to the kids delight, plenty of candy was collected. Enough to make the 85 in the picture here- a Memorial Day Parade on our 85th day of summer!

The highlight this year was the two fighter jets who flew above through the parade route. It was amazing. Since rain seems to always be in the forecast, today was projected to be perfect. Not a cloud in the sky and smiles on everyones face. Maw and Paw were able to join us and smart enough to remember to bring lawn chairs this year. Happy Memorial Day friends. Go enjoy a parade and thank those who serve for our freedom. (These are the our real super hero's!)

86 Days of Summer- Walleye Festival

 Still hanging out in Port Clinton and this weekend is the 20th anniversary of the Walleye Festival! It was suppose to rain all weekend, but lucky for us, meteorologist are frequently wrong. So we headed down to the festival.

The coolest thing about the festival is that they actually drop this "Willie the Walleye" like the NYE ball.  That happens late at night so the best we could do is get a picture in front of the fish.




We headed down mid-afternoon on Sunday around 3 p.m.  Ride bands were $20 per kid from 1-5 p.m.  I wasn't about to pay $40 for both kids to ride for a couple of hours, so I told them each the could pick there very favorite ride and go one time.  For $7 they both thought long and hard what their ride of choice would be.

Olivia picked the spinning dogs.  Funniest part of the whole thing is that she wasn't big enough to spin it.  Another little boy jumped up in there with her, but he was no bigger than her.  She told me when she got off she told him, "We can't get this to spin so just sit back and enjoy the ride." LOL.

Isaac chose to use his ride tickets for the yo-yo. Swings in the sky. As you can tell from the video, he loved it. Who wouldn't love a smooth swing in the sky? I want one in my backyard. Other than the rides there was a really cool park across the street we discovered and of course delicious overpriced festival food. Maybe next year we actually stay up late enough to see Willie drop, but if you want some fun people watching and good food, head on over to Walleye Festival.

87 Days of Summer- Ring Toss Game

Here we are at day 87. My parents have a home at Lake Erie in between Port Clinton and Marblehead so we headed north for the holiday weekend. You won't get bored at the Lake. Especially if you have a disposable income that doesn't stop. Since we don't have the luxury of endless fun with no concern with cost, we often have to find affordable or free fun! So today we got out a sand toy that was mine and my brother's 25 years ago!

All we did is simply stick them in the yard and scored two points if they got them on her head and one point for the hands. You could do this with anything that sticks down in the ground and some rings (diving pool rings would work great). 

For how simple this was, they had a blast.  I bet they played for 20 minutes with this trying to outscore each other.  My dad worked hard with Isaac to try to teach him how to throw the rings properly. Olivia started moving closer and closer so she could score more easily. In the end Isaac was more successful, outscoring Olivia 8-5. Good old fashion fun.

88 Days of Summer- Ada Community Park

I've wanted to do this for the past three summers, but I'm finally going to start it.  We start with 88 days of summer.  I love exploring and filling up our days with adventure! So I am going to share with you what we do to fill our days. We are from NW Ohio so most things will be around this area. But we plan on exploring on day trips, so stay tuned.

Our first day of summer is spent in the college town of Ada, Ohio. Home of Ohio Northern University. However they have a really nice community park.  Today we grabbed lunch and met a friend and spend an hour playing.  They loved the merry-go-round.  Because of safety, many parks have done away with this classic, but not Ada.

There are picnic tables and park benches with plenty of shade trees. Today was only about 65 degrees, so the table in the sun was just perfect for our picnic lunch and then I visited with a friend while the kids played. I made them pose with the tires to try to make the 88. See what I did there?  I don't know if I'll be able to actually keep that part up, but I'll try my best.

Hope you enjoy the blog posts this summer. My hope is to inspire some of you other mommy's with super hero capes to have someone "hold your cape" while you make memories!