where the wild things are.....

last sunday, the day before the first day of school,

i took the kids to a creek with the intention of floating our little paper boats that we made.

 

 

our boats didn't last long and just became paper floating downstream...

 

 

 

but that certainly didn't stop the boys from enjoying the day

 

 

 

i know where the wild things are....

 

do you?

  

 



fun afterschool snacks....

what kid doesn't love a super fun afterschool snack?

i try to have something to offer my hungry kids after school, doesn't happen everyday

but i aim for at least once a week to offer them something fun,

other than plain old pbj sandwiches. 

 usually, it's cookies or cupcakes

 

but i've been seeing a lot of cute and creative goodies on pinterest lately,

so i thought i would share some super fun and adorable snack ideas with you.

 

here's some of my faves....

chocolate pretzel owls

 

(source)

 

oreo frogs

 

(source)

 

breadstick snails

 

(source)

 

apple owls

 

(source)

 

popcorn bar

 

(source)

 

while i see nothing wrong with cookies or cupcakes or even plain old pbj's

who wouldn't love coming home and seeing one of these awesome treats?

 

happy snacking!

 

 

*for more fun ideas....come check out my pinterest boards.

 

 

 

 



Sugar Cookies

Nathan and I baked some Sugar Cookies....

 

do you want our secret recipe?

 

*******

 

betty crocker sugar cookie mix...lol!

 

I'm so weird, I can bake just about any flavor of cookie there is,

but for the life of me, I simply cannot bake a decent sugar cookie

 

so I cheat

 

every time.

 

luckily, no one ever complains...they just like decorating and eating them.

 

 

and apparently sneaking a few spoonfuls of sprinkles ...

 

love these new cookie cutters...so cute.

 

although the jellyfish one looks a little like Squidward haha

 

Field Trip Fridays - Laurel Caverns

The kids and I recently took a trip with our local library to Laurel Caverns and also Ft Necessity.

Today, I will share about the Laurel Caverns.

 

 

 

from the website:  Laurel Caverns is a large natural cave located 50 miles south of Pittsburgh.   Most of the passage ceilings in its three mile labyrinth are between ten and twenty feet high (many as high as 50 feet) with an average width of over twelve feet.  This makes it the largest cave in Pennsylvania.  The cave itself is situated beneath a 435 acre privately owned geological preserve.  Because this property is at the top of Chestnut Ridge, all of the water that enters the cave is pristine.

 

The views from the mountain are incredible.

 

 

waiting for the tour to begin...

 

 

The tour we went on was about an hour long and took us about 14 stories deep underground.  Some of the passage ways were narrow or low to the ground.

 

 

 

They also offer cave rappelling, spelunking and educational field trips as well as the traditional tour (which is what we took).

 

 

At an additional charge, you can also pan for gemstones, fossils or play mini golf.

 

 

We opted to play mini golf which was held inside a cave like area...It was dark and hard to see in some areas but we all had fun anyway....a few of the kids are pretty good at it.

 

 

 Amanda even got a hole in one. 

 

 

I think I tied with Nathan for - ahem, last place :)

 

********

To learn more about the history of Laurel Caverns you can read about it here.

 

 

Up next week....Ft. Necessity and Mount Washington Tavern.

 

 

 

 

 

 



what do sharks eat?

 

we learned during shark week that sharks don't actually eat people.

most of them eat other fish, sea lions and things like that.

and some of them eat random things like garbage.

 

but the boys still had fun imagining all the things that a shark would eat if it could eat anything it wanted....which led us to this fun little project.

 

we had Sarah draw us a shark on a large sheet of paper.

 

 

Nathan decided to paint his with water colors

 

 

While Nick chose to color the outer edges of his with pencil

 

 

then the boys cut pictures out of old magazines of things they thought a shark would like to eat.

 

 

Nathan chose a truck, a few people, a cat and even pie...

 

 

Nicholas picked a goat haha!

 

 

there are a lot of fun books that you could incorporate with this project...a few worth mentioning are:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

hope you are enjoying shark week as much as we are!