Operation Kindness Matters

It is very easy with summer vacation upon us for the kids and I to start getting short with each other and lose our tempers.  So much togetherness! Hahaha  I decided what we needed was a day to focus purely on others.  Thus, Operation Kindness Matters was born.  Each of the kids had "secret missions" to help make the world a kinder place.

We made tons of cookies and cards.

All 5 kids decorated each card.

A cute card my husband made for us to give out to people "just because."

Noel's first mission:  Leave a card and small gift for our postal carrier.

Cookies and a card to our neighbors

More neighbors

Rodney's mission:  Leave someone a free drink

We brought blankets and toys for the animal shelter and cookies and a thank you card for the people that volunteer there.

Our dentist is awesome to us!  We left his office cookies and a card.

We made cards for people in assisted living.  We gave them to the receptionist and asked him to hand them out to people that might need cheering up.

Cookies and a card to the post office

Cookies and a card to the local police

We handed out bubbles to kids at the park.

We met a real fireman and gave him cookies and a thank you card.

Each kid took $1 and hid it in the toy aisle of the dollar store.

Jacob hid a Books a Million gift card in a book at the store.

Isabella gave a lady with her dog at Petsmart a gift card to buy it some treats.

We remembered our favorite librarians!

We also adopted a soldier.  We have already heard from Sgt D and are thrilled to get to know him and send him care packages.  www.adoptaussoldier.org

At this point we came home exhausted but with smiles on our faces!

Scooby Dooby Doo

My little man just turned the big 5 and requested a Scooby-Doo party.

 I just used a roll of brown craft paper from the Dollar Store and construction paper to make this sign for the door.  I made the shorts with fabric I bought at Jo-Anns and his shirt came from here.

I loved how these monster puddings came out.  Plus, they were super easy:  vanilla pudding, green food coloring, crumbled Oreos, and a monster face drawn with a Sharpie.  I got the idea from this lady's blog:  http://www.aturtleslifeforme.com/2011/10/halloween-pudding-cups.html

The dog bowl is from Target.  I slapped a Scooby sticker on it and put some Scooby snack graham crackers in in.

 

This is the cake my poor husband stayed up all night making.  Not bad, eh?

  

 We got out little dog in on the action by buying a plain white dog shirt and writing Scooby Snack on it.

 What Scooby party is complete without monsters?  These cute balloons were turned into monsters with a little construction paper.  You can check out the inspiration here.

 

 This is just a spare piece of black fabric I had.  I draped it over a bookcase, pinned Styrofoam "eyes" on and TA-DA, we have ghosts.

 Banana ghost with chocolate chip eyes and mouths and pretzel ghosts dipped in white melted candy with chocolate chip faces.  Found these cuties here and here.

 

I'm not a big fan of the plates you buy at the kiddy section in stores, so we used plain plates, napkins, and utensils and then I spruced up the cups.  Each party goer had a cup with a "dog collar" on it with their name followed by "Doo."  I hot glued ribbon on the cups to be the dog's collar and used construction paper for the dog tag.  I based it off this.

 

We made swamp water punch with 2 cups of sugar, 2 cups of water, 2 packages of lime drink mix, 1 can of pineapple juice, and 1 bottle of ginger ale.  We put in inside of another punch bowl with dry ice to give it a spooky, smoky effect.  You can check it out at http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/brew-ha-ha-punch-10000000257698/

 I LOVE a good photo booth.  My hubby cut this one and painted it for me.  I ordered the props from here.  They were super cute!

Bubble Fun (For Some)

Do you hate those blogs with those perfect mothers who always have such perfect ideas that turn out, well, perfectly?  Read on...

Today I found an activity for the approximately 1,562 socks in my house that no longer have mates.  (Well, at least 5 of them.)  I found these bubble snakes over here.  My 6, 7, 9, and even my To-Cool-For-Any-of-Mom's-Ideas 12 year old loved it.

• Cut the end off an old water bottle
• Put a sock around it
• Duct tape the sock into place
• Dip into a mixture of dish soap and water
• BLOW (This is where things got tricky for my 5 year old.)

Like I said, the oldest 4 LOVED it.  They tried to see who could make the longest bubble chains, made bubble crowns, and bubble beards.

My 5 year old, however, could not get the hang of blowing out and ended up with a mouthful of soap.  He made himself gag and cry as if he had swallowed poison with only moments left to live.  This more or less ruined his entire afternoon and he had to take a nap to reset, so keep that in mind if you try this with the younger kids.  If I did it again, I would have him practice blowing with just water first to make sure he had the hang of it.

Cut the end off a water bottle.

Tape a sock over the end you just cut off.

Dish soap and water

Dip your bottle in the solution.

and BLOW!!

Comforting my youngest after the fiasco.

Fun with Face Painting

I've been thinking about this blog for months now, and it always comes down to the fact that I don't know where to start.  Well, I decided to start with today!

I made a list of 101 things I want to accomplish in the next 1001 days and this blog made the list, so it's time to get busy.  Learn more about this at dayzeroproject.com.  It's a great way to motivate yourself to do all those things you've been meaning to do but never got around to.

Today is a sunny day, but it's too cold to go to the pool.  (Mean ole Mom insists on it being at least 80 degrees first!)  I decided to let the kids make face paints and "decorate" each other.  It started out nicely on the face and ended up being arm and leg paint too, but the kids had a blast!

I mixed:

baby powder
cold cream
water
food coloring

Honestly, I started out measuring and then just went for it.  It's by no means perfect, but luckily, the kids weren't looking for perfection, only fun!