Pajama Party With A Cause

My husband and son left town this weekend so my daughter asked if we could have a girl's night.  I thought it was the perfect opportunity to have a pajama party and collect pajamas for the Pajama Program.

Pajama Program donates new pajamas and books to children in need including foster children, orphans and at risk youth.  They have a campaign going currently to provide "One Million Good Nights" to children in need.  They are working to collect one million pajamas and one million books to children by the end of 2015.  Bedtime and reading time are two of my favorite parts of being a mom and I think that every child deserves some peace and happiness at bedtime.  If I can help even a little bit with that, I'm all in.

In addition to the party I posted on Facebook to my family and friends that we were having a pajama & book drive and asked if anyone else wanted to help.  Before the party even started we had over 20 pair of pjs!  Amazon Prime and Target make it so easy to ship free so it's easy for people to help, even if just one book or one pair of pajamas to help make a difference in the life of a child.

We invited some of her friends over and asked them to bring new pjs or books with them.  Here they are with all of their donations.

I kept the decorations and food cheap as I wanted to spend my budget on pajamas and books.  I stapled up some dollar tablecloths to my windows and strung up some garland from my baby's nursery.

 

 

I wrote their names on the cups so we didn't go through more than necessary.

They strung fruit loop necklaces while we waited for everyone to arrive.

 

 

I threw out the idea of "pancakes & pjs" but she insisted on pizza so I ordered pizza and served fresh fruit & veggies.  Simple and done. For dessert they decorated pillow shaped sugar cookies.  I just used a knife to cut out pillow shapes.

I stitched up two pancake bean bags in the morning and we had a relay race with pancakes, bathrobes and teddy bears.  Then we played "hot pancake" with one of the bean bags.

 

 

 

Last I handed out glow necklaces and sent them to dance in the basement to the Frozen soundtrack.  They were in girl heaven. 

We sent them each home with donut skewers.

It was a fun night for a great cause and I'm excited that my kids are old enough now to get involved in serving others and seeing the results of their labors. 

At the end of the night, including things that were shipped this week, we ended up with over 50 books and 36 pair of pajamas.  We have more coming our way and are still collecting for another couple of weeks before we take them all to our local Pajama Program chapter.

I'll let you know what the final tally is in a couple of weeks!

Paint Chip Learning

Kids games and learning time helps don't have to be overly complicated.  And they don't have to cost a fortune.

A while back I snagged two each of the rainbow color paint chips while at Wal-Mart one afternoon.  I wrote capital letters on one copy and lower case letters on the others.  It was a quick, simple matching game that is teaching her something along the way. 

Valentine Activities & Crafts for Kids

Here are a few Valentine things we've done in the past.  Enjoy!

1.  Heart sun catchers to hang in the trees
2.  Kids Valentine's Party
3.  Crayon hearts {complete with my secret to easily unwrapping the Crayolas}
4.  Valentine Snowflakes
5.  Shaving cream marbled hearts
6.  Valentine count down

Let me know if you try any of them out!

Strawberry Pickin'

 

Picking Strawberries was on our bucket list this summer.  So, one morning I loaded the kids up and we found a U-Pick berry farm not too far away.  There's something about popping fresh, sun-ripened berries into my mouth that I LOVE.

When we got out of the car we could smell the berries!  Yum.   It didn't take long to fill up these two boxes.  We lucked out with big berries as this particular farm had just opened for picking and wasn't picked over yet.  The kids did most of the work as bending over in the heat 8 months pregnant just isn't as productive as you'd think.

 

 

We came home and made a batch of strawberry freezer jam the first day.  I like to use Certo Liquid Pectin by Sure-Jell and I always follow their recipes from inside the box.  The jars are Ball Plastic Freezer Jars.  I can find both at my local grocery stores or big box stores.

 

We cooked and processed two batches of strawberry peach jam the next day.  The strawberry peach was my favorite of the two.  Next time I'll try raspberry peach.
 

Do you pick fruits with your family?  What do you make with them?  I want to do peaches next summer!  In the mean time, I'm off to make more toast.

Tie Dye Shirts

 

I love tie dye.  When I saw a Jacquard Tie Dye kit at Goodwill for $2.99 I snagged it and have been waiting for nice weather to use it.  

I also bought a Tulip One Step Tie Dye Kit from Michael's so I had a few more colors to work with.

I soaked our clothes first in soda ash {the Jacquard kit came with some but they do sell it at Michael's} for 30 minutes.

Then I scrunched them up in different ways and applied the dye according to the package instructions.  I did a couple of rainbows, a few swirls and attempted a heart.  I watched several YouTube videos on how to do the swirls well and the heart but I couldn't find instructions for the rainbow so I guessed.  And it worked!  Here's what I did:

Basically I started gathering the entire side down to the bottom hem of the shirt.

Next I tied increments off with rubber bands and applied colors in ROYGBIV and blue on the ends.  I scrunched up the blue but didn't band it off.

I love how the rainbows turned out!

I let my son apply the dye for his shirt.  He was little heavy handed but his shirt turned looking great.

We wrapped them in plastic and let them sit for 24 hours then I rinsed them in my utility sink, washed them and dried them.

Here are all of the shirts I made.  One for my son, a couple for my daughter, one for me and a couple of onesies for the new baby!  I had plenty of dye left and extra powder from the Tulip kit so I passed it along to a friend and she made several shirts as well.

Summer Bucket List

We like to make lists around here to force us to enjoy each season fully.

We made this summer bucket list two years ago and wanted to make another one this year.

We made a list of the things we want to do this summer and I filled them all in on a poster board.  I wrote most of them this year now that my son can read.  I drew a few pictures to color in and as we complete each one, they can color in that square or picture.

 

I kept our list VERY simple this year as our new baby arrives in July and I'm tired/worn out/done walking long distances/ready to be done.  A few things we included:

• farmer's market
• blow giant bubbles
• write a story
• water balloon fight
• find a new park
• catch fireflies
• lunch with Dad
• fly a kite
• children's museum
• skip rocks
• go fishing
• outdoor concert
• pick strawberries
• putt-putt golf
• lemonade stand
• Slurpee run
• baseball game
• summer reading program
• go see Monster's University and Despicable Me 2 (they can't wait!)
• make s'mores
• go to a festival
• fireworks
• camping (with their dad this year...I'm not sleeping on the ground!)
• play in the rain
• Dippin' Dots

Do you make bucket lists with your family?  What fun things do you include?

We are participating this summer in the Happy Family Movement Summer Bucket List Challenge.  Click here to find out more and sign up yourself! 

Play-Doh Valentines

I've seen cute Play-Doh Valentines all over the web and I knew they'd be an easy, quick valentine this year.  I was still feeling pretty nauseous in February so I was all about simple.

I purchased the Play-Doh in a 24 box for $15.00. 

I found a cute printable label over at Random Thoughts of a Super Mom but I couldn't get it to print clearly for me.  So, I recreated my own.

I printed the labels on card stock.  Then my son just punched out the circles with my EK Success Whale Scallop Punch.  {Love those!}  He glued them on with a tape runner and we were done!

 

I volunteered in his class on Valentine's Day and there was much buzz about the Play-Doh.  They were so much more fun than the paper ones from the store and so simple.

Thanksgiving ABC Book

I found this cute ABCs of Thanksgiving pdf printable over at This Reading Mama.

I printed out the one with writing lines for my kindergartner and the one for strictly drawing for my three year old.

There's a coloring page for each letter of the alphabet.  I printed the pages on copy paper then stapled them inside a 12 x 18 sheet of construction paper.  Then I glued on her cover printable to the front of each.

We started on November 1st and went through the end of the month writing one thing each day, starting with the particular letter, that they were thankful for.  It was a fun, easy activity.  Thanks for the cute printable!

One day he was thankful for m&ms.

She was thankful for me.  Looks just like me, right?  

Kiddie Olympics

We held an Olympics for the kids in our neighborhood this summer. 

 

Every parent came up with a game and brought something yummy to eat.

I made popcorn torches.

Someone else brought this cute flag fruit cookie.

Another brought red, white and blue rocket pops!

The events included a long jump on bubble wrap, discus throwing, a scooter relay race, squirting down foam cups, shooting foam rockets and a cup relay race.

I handed out kazoos to have them hum the national anthem (which they didn't know) and then handed out gold medals.

I thought it only appropriate that Caitlin, dressed for the occasion, hand out the  medals. 

I made the medals out of cardboard coasters I found on clearance in the dollar spot at Target. I spray painted them gold, added some designs with gold glitter puffy paint, then hot glued on the ribbons.

Christmas in July

We celebrate Christmas in July around here because, well, it's just fun to do.

This year on July 25th we listened to Christmas music and read Christmas books.  We even watched The Grinch.

Then we made a gingerbread house.


I'd wanted to make these Borax crystal snowflake ornaments so I thought this would be the perfect time.

I saw the snowflakes when Jim Noonan "Professor Figgy" showed their kits on the Martha Stewart show.  You can find the directions here on Martha's site.  You can also buy the kit from the Professor Figgy website with everything included.

First we made the shapes with pipe cleaners.


My son mixed everything up. 


Then we hung the pipe cleaners from sticks in the solution.  They have to sit for around 12 hours.  And I learned the hard way not to have the pipe cleaners touching the solution that settles on the bottom.  That part won't crystalize.

Here are our finished snowflakes. 

Back to School Treats

My son started kindergarten this year so I wanted to start some fun traditions.

We decided to make treats for his friends and the neighborhood kids to wish them luck in the new school year.

We found these large rolls of Smarties at Five Below so I bought an entire case.  I printed up the labels and punched them out with my circle and scallop EK Tools punches.  The kids punched them out.  Then I tied on bows with tulle ribbon.

Simple, cute and cheap.  They'd make a great class gift, graduation gift or test week treat.