Our Week at a Glance!

I thought of this project WEEKS ago, and am just finally finishing it up! My kids already love it so I think it was worth the wait :)

I am always trying to get my kids to behave better by telling them what fun things we are doing during the week, and letting them know if they don't behave appropriately throughout the week they won't be able to participate. That's great and all, but frankly I don't think telling my 2 and 4 year old that we are going to the splash park on Thursday really means anything to them! And every morning my kids wake up and ask me what we are doing that day. This was a project that I thought would help solve those little problems and help me stay more organized!

First I got this old magnet board I have had for ages, it used to be a hair clip holder, but I have recycled it into our Week at a Glance :) Then I used ribbon to make 5 strips, just attaching it with a touch of hot glue at each end.


Using my Silhouette I cut letters for each day of the week, Monday through Friday.



Then I just cut a cute little design and some big ric rac out of vinyl to make it a little more decorative :) I grabbed these cute clothespins I had in my craft bucket from years ago and was ready to put together our week!


I quickly scrapbooked some of usual activities like Library, Zoo, Park, Dino Museum and more. Then I printed them off in a wallet size and attached them to each day using the clothespins.



And there you have our Week at a Glance! The kids love knowing what our plan for the week is and I love feeling more organized and having this cute calendar to hang up in my dining room.



Below I have attached the different activities I scrapbooked, feel free to save them to your computer and print them off if you decide to do this little project at your place :) Have a fantastic 4th of July weekend, and thank you SO much for stopping by!!

Linking up with Fingerprints on the Fridge

The Shabby Nest

Beyond the Picket Fence

Craft Goodies

I Heart Naptime

Make your own sponge balls!

I've seen a cute idea floating around the blogosphere and thought I would try it out today! I looked and looked, but for the life of me could NOT find the original post I saw these on, so if you know please leave a comment so I can give proper credit :)

Who doesn't love water balloon fights??! I'll tell you who....ME! Because I am the one stuck blowing up a million water balloons, attempting to tie the dumb things, and then in 10 minutes they are all gone and the kids are crying because they want to keep playing!

Introducing.....SPONGE BALLS!! (I'm sure there is a better name for them, but I can't think of one!:)

All you need are a few packs of sponges, scissors and ribbon or floss.

Once you have your sponges take 3 of them and cut them each into 4 pieces like so.

Once you have them all cut, stack them back together with the floss/ribbon underneath. Then you simply tie the ribbon in the tightest knot you can and it creates a pompom effect with the sponges.


This is what your finished product will look like...aren't they cute?!

We are filling up the pool after the kids wake up from naps and I know they are going to have a blast throwing these at each other again and again and again!!

Hope this sparked a fun idea for you and your kids this summer, this is a cheap, easy, fun way to entertain you and your kids for hours on end! Happy Water Fighting!! Thanks so much for stopping by :)

King of the Jungle cupcakes!!

We had a great time yesterday whipping up some cute lion cupcakes! Here is what you need to make your own:

Two VERY enthusiastic stirrers :)

One VERY impatient cupcake watcher :)

Once those two important jobs have been done, you frost your cooled cupcake with white frosting and use frosting to make eyes and a mouth. Skylar had the brilliant idea to use sprinkles to make whiskers....a girl after my own heart!

Once you've made the face you take caramel popcorn and add it all around the cupcake, creating the lions mane. I made these a few years ago and used corn pops for the mane and it worked as well. I just happened to have some yummy caramel popcorn laying around this time :)





And here is what you have once you finish the mane. Isn't he too cute?!

We used these last night for a family home evening about prayer where we talked about Daniel and the Lion's Den, but they would be adorable for any jungle themed party or just because! I loved these also because the kids could really get involved!

I love cooking with the kids, they get so excited about the littlest things. I hope you all have a fantastic day and thanks SO much for stopping by! :)

Shapes Week!

The theme for this week at our house is a pretty simple one :) I wanted to do something basic that could include all of my kids and that would help my daughter that is starting preschool in the fall. Every day we have some time set aside for "school time" and these week we are learning all about shapes!

For just about all the things we are doing I printed off worksheets and bingo games and coloring pages from http://www.dltk-kids.com/ If you go to their Shapes Buddies section they have tons of fun activities and worksheets that will help your kids become more familiar with shapes.

A fun activity I am looking forward to is making muffins with my kids. I have a bunch of silicon molds in all different shapes that would be perfect for muffins: hearts, stars, triangles, circles and squares. Once they are all cooked we will take them out and sort them according to shapes...then we get to eat them! :)

We are also going to play with Play-doh and use our shape cookie cutters to make all different kinds of shapes, and finally using my Sihouette I cut a bunch of shapes in different sizes and colors and the kids are going to use them to create different works of art :)

Our letter of the week is the letter S for Square, and HERE is where I printed off our tracer pages and HERE is where I printed off the S template that we have hanging up to remind us what letter we are focusing on this week.

Have a fantastic week everyone and stay tuned for a fun way to motivate your kids to keep reading, some 4th of July projects and a cool family home evening for next week!D

Best seat in the house!

Are your kids as excited as mine for the new movie Cars 2?! Mine have been talking about it for weeks, and we were lucky enough to be invited to a special screening tomorrow night. They were SO excited I thought it would be fun to make something a little special with them. Disclaimer: I had this idea at 4 this morning while I was feeding Avrie, so I just made do with what I had...if I had more time these would been a lot cuter. However, with that disclaimer aside, my kids really don't care if they are not perfect and as you can see they just love them!

We thought it would be fun to watch the original Cars movie tonight to get the kids excited for tomorrow night. And wouldn't it be even more fun if they each had their own "Car" to sit in while they watched??

I whipped these babies up during naptime today and actually think they turned out pretty cute! I just used boxes we had in our basement, spray paint and white and black construction paper.

I printed out a large 9 and 5 for Mcqueen...plus a lightning bolt of course! :)

Mater was a last minute decision....ok....I ran our of red spray paint and the only other color I had was brown :) He is not my favorite but actually the kids got a huge kick out of him.

And here are my cuties in their sweet new rides!! They were SO excited when they came out from their rooms and saw them. So if you have some spare boxes laying around and some spraypaint make some for yourself!! The kids will love helping you and it will make just one more special memory for you and your kids! Thanks for stopping by!! :)

Father's Day Family Home Evening

This year I thought it would be really great to have a little family home evening all about father's. You could do this on Sunday as a way to celebrate dad, or you could still do it on Monday and keep the celebrations going one day longer....the dad's deserve it, right?!

My desire for this fhe is for the kids to get to know their dad a little bit more. You could definitely throw in a lesson about the priesthood or talk about some father's from the Book of Mormon. We are keeping it very simple this week so here are just a few activities we will be doing.

Before our fhe I found this little questionaire online for the kids to fill out about Dad. I LOVE when my kids have done these for me, it is so funny to hear what they think about me! Have these done beforehand and then Dad can sit back and enjoy hearing what his little ones think about him :)


My daddy is ____ years old.
He weighs _____lbs. and is _____ft. tall.
His hair is _____and his eyes are _________.
My dad loves to relax by __________________ and he likes to wear ____________.
He loves to cook _________________.
His favorite household chore is ________________________.
His favorite TV show is and his favorite song is ______________________.
Daddy always tells me _______________________.
It makes him happy when _________________________.
When my dad shops, he loves to buy __________________________.
If he could go on a trip, he would go to and he would take ______________________.
I really love it when my dad _____________________________.

After we read these to dad, we are going to do a little game for the kids. I cut out a bunch of ties on different pieces of cardstock. Then on the back of each of them I wrote different questions about dad with the answers on a different tie. We are going to play a matching game where the kids will have to find the answers to the question. Some of my questions are:

Where did daddy serve a mission?

What sport did daddy play when he was little?

What's daddy's middle name?

Where was daddy born?

Who is one of daddy's heroes?

What's daddy's favorite story from the Book of Mormon?

Where does daddy work?

What kind of pet did Daddy have when he was little?

You can switch up the questions for your home, depending on the ages of your kids. Finally its not fhe without dessert and for this one, I think its only fitting to make daddy's favorite treat! In our home, that happens to be Honey Bun Cake! We also call it donut cake, because it has a glaze on it. Whatever you call it, its delicious...and here is the recipe! :)

Honey Bun Cake

1 package yellow cake mix

3/4 C vegetable oil

4 eggs

1 (8 oz) container of sour cream

1 C brown sugar

1 Tbsp ground cinnamon

Frosting:

2 C confectioners sugar

4 Tbsp milk

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl combine cake mix, oil, eggs and sour cream. Stir by hand until most large lumps are gone. Pour half of batter into an ungreased 9x13 baking dish. Combine the brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the batter in the cake pan. Spoon the other half of the batter into the cake pan, covering the brown sugar and cinnamon. Twirl the cake with a butter knife until it looks like a honey bun (or whatever design you want.)

Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Frost cake while it is still fairly hot, serve warm.

To make the frosting:

In a small bowl, whisk together the confectioners sugar, milk and vanilla until smooth. Then poor over hot cake to make a beautiful glaze!

I hope you all have a wonderful Father's Day and a great weekend!!

Last minute Father's Day gift idea

If you are STILL trying to find something to make the Father's in your life feel loved this Sunday, here is one more idea :) I quickly threw this printable together this morning...

And thought it would go along super cute with one of my husbands favorite movies of all time!!

The best part about this?? This week at Target the Back to the Future Trilogy is on sale for $16.99!!! Amazing, right?! I wasn't able to find it at my local Target, but I was able to get it on Amazon for the same price. I checked this morning and it has gone up to $24.99, but that is still pretty great for the whole trilogy...and its a Blu-Ray! Here is the direct link if anyone else wants to get it.

I think this would be a fun gift for your husband or your own dad as well! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend celebrating the men in your life that do so much for us, stay tuned for a fun Father's Day themed family home evening that you could do on Sunday night, or keep celebrating til Monday! :)