Homemade Sandbox

I have a love/hate relationship with sandboxes. I love how they keep the kids entertained outside in the fresh air for so long, but I hate sand in my house, all over the patio, and on heads and in diapers.

We built this sandbox a couple years ago and the kids loved it.

However, we moved several times and it never got set up again we just hauled the sand around in a big tupperware storage bin.  The problem with that was that the kids didn't like bending over to play in the sand and so they brought the sand out to where they could play with it comfortably (meaning all over my patio).  Also, when they wanted to add water, it stayed wet forever in the tub. Our sandbox has a canvas bottom (the same kind of ugly canvas as the lid -we got it at the thrift store for really cheap) so the water can drain out easily.  Overall it wasn't working for us and we either had to give up on sand altogether, or we had to rebuild the sandbox.

So this Fall we moved into a house that didn't have anything but grass in the backyard.  It's nice and big, with plenty of room for the kids to run around, but they were bored and wouldn't stay outside for very long. So we finally decided to resurrect the sandbox, adding in a new feature that we hoped would encourage the kids to play in the sandbox but not "in" the sandbox if you know what I mean (see above).

Benches!

not that they always use the benches...

  Not only that, but the benches are also the lid!!

This was taken a different day than the above pictures. It was raining. Otherwise they would have been playing in it.

We are also planning to add a lock for when kids lose sandbox privileges for doing things like this:

This was when it was in that blue tupperware. Apparently wet sand is fun to throw.

  or this:

  

 

  ...and thus continues my love/hate relationship with sandboxes.

Heaven.

The other place.

Ah sand.  Can't we just get along?

A Few Fun Projects --Rock Pets, Magnet Fun, and Sun-dried Fruit Leather

So I have a few recent handmade ideas I thought I'd share.  

What was at first a way to keep the kids occupied while I got stuff done ("Go outside and find me some cool rocks!"), turned into a fun project with the kids one day.  They found a couple nice round rocks (the order of the day) and I decided to make some rock pets with hot melt glue.

They turned out super cute, but with just hot melt glue, they couldn't stand up to being handled by kids, so they turned into fun garden ornaments instead.  I'll have to figure out what kind of fast-setting glue would work better for holding rocks together.

So while I was in Utah,  I made the most of the resources available to me, as usual.  

When my oldest son found an abandoned speaker by the side of the road, he wanted to smash it open to get the large magnet out.  (He had just learned that speakers have magnets a few days earlier when his cousins found a smashed sub-woofer and got that huge magnet out.)  He was so excited to use a big hammer to smash something too. 

Well, this magnet wasn't quite as big, but it seemed almost stronger.  We had to go over magnet etiquette a bunch before releasing the kids to roam around with a super powerful magnet (...no going near TVs, computers, phones -basically anything with a cord or battery, not to mention painted objects such as cars).  It was a very educational activity as well, allowing the kids to discover certain properties of various objects.  Finally, we made a fun toy out of a clear plastic container and some metal shavings from under my dad's metal lathe.

Also while in Utah, we got to sample a bit of the summer harvest, my mother has an apricot tree, but alas, to the kid's disappointment, they weren't quite ripe.  However, my mom, who can't stand any kind of waste, still puts up as much fruit as she can each year.  Now that all seven of her kids have moved away, she doesn't have as many people at home to help eat it (although we do our best each time we come to visit).  So, to help her rotate some of that old fruit, we put her old bottled apricots and peaches to good use making homemade fruit leather!

This stuff was older than my first child, and a bit discolored and mushy, but still tasted fine and was safe to eat.

 We drained off the syrup,

And blended it, about 6 cups worth, along with 2 TBS lemon juice, and 2 TBS Honey.  (We did end up picking some apricots from neighbor's trees that were a little riper, and with the fresh fruit, I added 2 more TBS of honey since it didn't have the extra sweetness from the syrup).

I spread out some freezer paper on my parent's trampoline, securing it with clothespins, and sprayed it with cooking spray (actually, the first batch, I forgot that VERY important step and had to throw it all away because I couldn't get it off the paper --so sad!  If you try this don't forget the cooking spray! Pam it!).  

Then I poured/spread 6" circles of the mixture on the paper about a 1/4 in thick.  To make it even and smooth, I tapped on the trampoline next to each circle to flatten it out a bit.  It worked great.

We hit the weather perfectly, since it reached a very dry 100 degrees on a mostly wind-less day, and it only took about 6-7 hours for these to dry out.  (There have been years when the weather didn't cooperate for trampoline drying, but otherwise this is a great method for high-volume dehydration).

Once they were dry, they came right off the paper and I rolled them up and put them in freezer storage bags.  I left the bags open to allow them to cure for a few days, getting rid of any extra moisture just in case --like you would for dehydrated fruit, so they would store well without any danger of mold (not that I needed to store them though, they didn't last much longer than a few weeks anyway, maybe if I had been there longer to make more... all this was the product of just one day). 

I have to admit that this is my favorite way to enjoy apricots, well, next to jam -but I have a feeling this is healthier.

Delicious!

5

I can't believe my first child is five years old already!

My Father-in-law made this lovely dinosaur cake to celebrate his birthday the weekend before.

On the day of his birthday, he woke up to this dinosaur balloon (which he calls a kabloon) and a pancake breakfast (which I didn't get pictures of because the battery died on the camera).  About the balloon, he said, "That balloon is so amazin'.  I've been waiting for one like that for years!"
His 3 yr old brother commented about one of the dinosaurs on the balloon saying, "See that dinosaur right there?  That's a chomposaurus!"

After it got warmer, (and after I recharged the battery on our camera) I brought out one of his surprises. A block of ice!  You should have seen his face when I handed him a hammer.

Inside were some tiny dinosaur figurines!  I added some dirt to make it more like an archeological dig, but I don't think I'll do that again.

 We only had one hammer, so they took turns using a flathead screwdriver and a rock like a chisel as well.

Other activities included super forts, (notice how the baby wants so bad to keep up with his brothers)

And a family water fight.

Moving his barricade?

It was almost too cold in the shade (this is Jackson after all), and I'm afraid I added to my summer collection of freckles.

Happy 5th Birthday Little Man!

High Volume Play Pen

Filled it with toys... had a picnic lunch...

It was amazing how much I was able to get accomplished.
It kept them busy (and safely contained) for at least 2 hours.

DIY Mini Terrarium

I know this isn't that original, I see it all over Pinterest, but I thought it would be fun anyway.

All it takes is:
~a jar ( I used a nice big pickle jar, although I've seen it done in lots of things --even big empty light bulbs.  I also have plans to take the paint off the lid),
~some rocks for drainage at the bottom (I got mine at the dollar store, and now I'm kicking myself because I should've just picked up pretty ones near the river instead of wasting money --especially since you can't see them very well anyway),
~some potting soil (I may have put too much in here, but maybe it will compress over time),
~some moss and other little plants. (I gleaned some from a nearby spring, but I know you can buy it all from the store as well.  Then maybe you won't get little stowaways --So far I've found small slugs, tiny beetles and some almost microscopic snails.  Oh, and a mosquito of all things, but I think he adds to the mesozoic theme we've got going, I'm sure they had giant bugs like that --or maybe I've been watching too much journey to the center of the earth).

Look closely, do you see it?

~a small figurine if you want. (I didn't have any cute woodland creatures, but I did have some dinosaurs, so that's what we put in there for fun.)

 ~Add some water and voila!  It's its own little ecosystem in there.  (Although, I open it up and blow in it every once in a while to give the plants some CO2 just in case).

It makes a nice centerpiece.

The kids think it's pretty cool (although it's hard not to want to get that dinosaur out).  We'll see how long it lasts.

Car Activities for Toddlers

So, we planned an epic road trip to Southern California for our Spring Break (pictures to come).  While 30-plus hours in a car over the span of five days with three small children is not ideal, I found that if you plan well enough, you all just might survive.

Here are some of the ideas I came up with:  (The first two I have pictured here are actually completely original. The third was from Family Fun, I think, and some of the others were from friends and neighbors as well as just what we had around.)

So when I think of travel games, I think of magnets. So I bought some tins at the second hand store, some magnetic tape, some dollar store stickers and fun little erasers, and printed out pictures I had drawn on the computer or found on the internet onto cardstock.

I taped a clear page protector onto the tin, and so the cards were interchangeable.  My favorite was the I spy page, which I made two copies of and with one page made magnets out of some of the objects by cutting them out and sticking the magnet strip to the back.   The other tin simply had alphabet and number magnets, although I planned to do shapes -tangram style but didn't get around to it in time. The kids really seemed to enjoy it -until most of the magnets got lost in the car -but it kept them busy for at least an hour, which is all anyone could hope for.

The second idea was quite ingenious I thought, although more complicated than it had to be, and flopped in the end, but not because it wasn't a good idea.  I made a paper dispenser scroll out of a pencil box, two Crystal light containers, some pencils, some tractor wheels from an already broken toy, and some rolls of old-school fax machine paper that I found at the DI.

I melted slits and holes in the Crystal Light containers with my wood burner, and stuck the pencils through for spindles, drilling holes in the pencils and attaching the wheels by the axles with glue to use as knobs.  (Did that make any sense?)  Then I put the paper roll in the first, pulled the paper through and taped it to the pencil/spindle inside the container opposite side, and put the lids on.  Then I glued the canisters to the bottom of the pencil box, and voila!  I also attached a snap-button closure to the lid on the underside to keep things inside while drawing.  I filled the box with pencils, crayons, markers, stickers, and stamps. I also found out that you could draw on the paper with any hard stylus type thing, including your fingernail, because it was pressure sensitive paper, so if the kids lost all the pencils and stuff, it would still work!  Well, the thing lasted for about an hour before the canisters on the sides fell off --note to self, don't use hot melt glue for things that are going to be handled by toddlers!  I also left home without all the things I originally filled it with (pictured above), although luckily I had pencils and crayons in the car. So, it didn't go over as well as hoped, but my four year old got a little use out of it, and I plan to resurrect it before our next car trip.

The third thing I made was some little mazes I saw somewhere, made out of waxen string (Bendaroos work best, but I couldn't actually find those so this off brand had to do -which actually glowed in the dark), and some old CD cases, and some small round balls or beads I had around.

I only got this one bad picture of one of the two mazes after the kids had been playing with them with their grubby little hands, and to be honest, they may have been a bit young for it.  Another note to self, glue them shut next time, because the contents are just too interesting looking to not be touched and dismantled.  Needless to say, they didn't last past this trip, but again, they gave us a good hour or so of peace.

The other tricks I had up my sleeve included:
-Surprise bags, filled with dollar store party favors and treats, given at intervals throughout the trip.
-Pipe cleaners
-Travel size Etch-a-sketch and Magnadoodle
-Books -especially Eye Spy books, and board books with flaps for younger kids.
-Kid computer/Toy that has buttons, lights and sounds --not too annoying though.  (I honestly think my 2 year old knows his alphabet better ever since this trip, and I have a toy that I am going to take the batteries out of for a while.)
-Pom pom puffballs --for throwing at each other.  Good for laughs and relieving stress. Only lasts until they're all lost and out of reach in the car though.
-Bubbles --didn't actually have to pull this one out.  I forgot about it.  But it has worked wonders for keeping really young kids happy and entertained.  (I blow, they pop, otherwise it would be a mess.  AC/heater fans make it more exciting, and I can actually get bubbles all the way to the back of my minivan that way).
-Glow sticks --great for driving in the dark.
-Wooden beads for stringing (-until they all got lost on the floor that is). Fruit loops or cheerios could also be fun if you're not afraid of the mess.
-A Laptop with DVD's or movies on the hard drive (we can't afford a portable DVD player).  We plugged it into our tape deck adapter for surround sound, and turned the music to play in the back of the van.  We were actually able to read our book out loud in the front, while the kids watched a movie in the back without bothering one another!  I am also proud to say that we only watched three full length movies the entire trip --that's better than most weeks at home!
-Snacks snacks and more snacks!  We got the kids some Lunchables, and used the trays over and over to pass other small finger foods back.  We tried to keep the sugar at a minimum, but crackers, cheese sticks, teddy grahams, grapes, apples, raisins, beef sticks, and the occasional gummy worm seemed to do the trick. For the baby, who is just learning to self feed, we got some Baby MumMums (organic rice rusks) that kept him busy, a mesh feeder to put bananas, grapes, pineapple or whatever else we thought he'd like to chew on, and when all else failed we popped those freeze dried yogurt melts into his mouth, which prolonged his time until feedings/naps sometimes half an hour --long enough to get to a good park or play place.

That was another trick.  Stopping every two-three hours for some good kinesthetic-oriented fun (while I fed the baby in the car).

We also bought some new toys for the baby, including those little links to go on his carrier handle to keep him from losing toys, sippies, and the mesh feeder.

He was a messy baby, but a happy one. We just rotated through things at intervals to keep it new and interesting.  Luckily he took naps very well as we drove, and was pretty happy even when awake.  The kids took good naps too.  That was a blessing!

Overall, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  All my planning and preparing worked out to be just enough, despite some of the seeming flops, but I don't think we'll do it again for a long long time.  (Unless we have to for a move next Fall, but then I'll be prepared!)

Hope some of this is helpful to any of you!  If you have any other good ideas, feel free to share!