Category: Inspiration

Spy Party Fun

My middle son Oliver recently turned six. I don’t throw the boys a “friends” party every year but this was one of those years for him. At Christmas time the boys got Spy Gear and loved it; then while looking at party ideas I came across a laser maze idea, I was inspired. I then googled “Spy Party” and came up with plenty of sites of Mom’s who had done it, yay!

I sent the invites out via Evite, not my first choice, but it’s so fast and convenient I caved. Here is what the invite said:

Your mission should you choose to accept it:

You have been selected to attend STA – Spy Training Academy. You will complete the steps necessary to become a Level 007 SuperSpy.
Hot Dogs, Hamburgers and Cake are necessary parts of this training.

Hope you Accept this Mission!

For the spy party we decided to have the kids start off with training at our Spy Training Academy. Training started with distribution of essential spy gear: sunglasses and ID badges with their own pictures on them. On their ID I also assigned everyone a code name using colors and animals (black panther, pink dragonfly, silver cheetah, etc.).

Next we had set up an obstacle course. We set up cones for them to ride a big wheel through, then off to the army crawl mats, laser under the trampoline, through a mystery black curtain, finishing with a crawl under/jump over the bar. Each trainee received a gold medal to wear around their neck.

Spencer cruises through the course.

Adam sports his new ID Badge and Glasses, MR starts the obstacle course in the background.

Then while they were training, someone stole the CAKE! They were to immediately start their mission. We brought them into the living room for a short video we made. After that they received their first clue verbally which lead to the next clue and so on.

We attached one clue to a helium filled balloon in the front yard, then one in the gate, one in a backyard tree, then back gate, finally ended up in the alley to search for a pink box. This was filled with the thief’s stash of money and a clue where the cake was. (click here to download the Clue template and Spy Training sign)

R was thrilled to find the package in the alley!

Another game we played was a huge hit with the kids and parents. We went to google map images and printed up satellite aerial shots of each party guests house. We laid them out on a table and read a clue, as they all were looking at them… they started to realize that these were their neighborhoods and homes. Each guest took home their image. They all really loved that.

We had a pinata, at the boys request, it was jammed packed with candy (thanks Grandma Peanuts).

MR takes a swing.

We served the “Juiciest Hamburgers Ever” a recipe from allrecipes.com, Undercover Hot Dogs from Pinterest, the world’s most delicious Macaroni Salad (thanks Grandma Tootsie), chips and lemonade. I was thinking of making a dynamite cake or a briefcase. I wimped out and bought a chocolate cake from my grocers bakery, it was good, just not “cool”.

Each child took home a file folder stamped TOP SECRET, inside they each received a mustache, an eye patch, a laser pointer that attached to their finger, money and coins from the thief’s stash box, their own ID badge, neon sunglasses, a satellite picture of their house and a Superman ring.

It lasted 2 hours and we had a wonderful time!

May 15, 2012
An Educational Trip to the Flea Market

You might call it a Swap Meet, Rummage Sale, Outdoor Market, those are all other names for Flea Markets. I noticed our Flea Market changed their named to Mile High Marketplace, sounds better but we all still call it “the flea market”. We took a trip 1 early Saturday morning. We woke the kids up, we all got ready and got in the car. We arrived at the Market at 8:30 AM. No line to get in, plenty of great parking!

We left without eating and figured we would play it by ear. What a good idea, there were fresh fruits everywhere. Since we could not wash anything we played it safe with bananas. They were perfectly ripe, fresh and a hit with the kids. Yummy!

This turned out to be an excellent educational opportunity. We talked about bartering and trading. We had learned of this concept when we were studying the pioneers. Now they get to see how that can play out.

More learning fun:

Learning about the hard and hot work that goes into delicious kettle corn. How does it pop? What do they flavor it with?

Hot and Fresh Kettle Corn

Seeing tons of fresh produce, learning names and sampling them

What are these? How are they cooked? What do we use them in?

Did you know there are hundreds of cheeses in the world? This store has a good variety of Mexican and other cheeses.

We talked about how all cheese melts differently, some are hard, some soft and why it’s good to have variety because of all we use cheese for. We took turns naming dishes with cheese.

The best part, in my opinion, was teaching the boys how to spend their money wisely. When we first got there, they ran to every booth, wanted something from each. Once they realized that they each had a budget and there was hundreds of booths, they learned to be conservative and more picky about what they chose.

Preston counts his money at a vendor booth.

Paying the seller

The boys showing off their first finds!

This was a great experience and the kids were thanking us over and over for bringing them. We will be back!

April 12, 2012
10000 Reasons and Forever More

I love this song by Matt Redman!

April 5, 2012
An Easter Banner

I have a dear friend who does fun crafts with her Mother. The first really cool thing I saw that they each made for their homes was a Christmas banner. It was made of felt squares that were strung together on a pretty ribbon to make a banner. Each square had a letter on it and it spelled out “Joy to the World”. Each letter was made of crafty items like buttons, ribbon and other appliques. So cute! My friend had told me she wanted to make one for Easter too. A couple of months later she pulled me aside to show me her Easter banner. It was adorable, I was so bummed I didn’t have my camera on me.

I was definitely inspired. I was out and about the other day and wandered into a fabric store. I was set on getting the materials to make my own banner. Unfortunately the store I walked into was strictly a fabric store. No fun stuff, kinda of “stuffy”, I felt intimidated and left.

When I got home I decided to go through my scrapbooking stuff to see what I could find…

I came up with some cute things and decided to scale it down and use paper…

Cutting out a banner piece

my selection of colors

A little too plain…

Much better, I decided to add patterned paper.

Drying, just need to hang it up, probably in the front window.

I used cardstock because I didn’t have ribbon thick enough to hold. If you have ribbon use it, this looks a little stiff.

April 5, 2012
Sunday’s Coming!

the reason for the season…

April 4, 2012
Give Thanks to the Lord

1 Chronicles 16:34

March 26, 2012
Homemade Puffy Paint

Have I told you I love Pinterest? Of course I have! My most recent inspiration came from a Microwave Puffy Paint Pin, which led me here: Mom’s Crafty Place. She posted really great pictures, my kids and I were sold. We did it right there and then. We loved it and used every last bit, will do this again!

Thanks to Mom’s Crafty Space for the inspiration!

March 11, 2012
God Has a Plan for You!

March 3, 2012
Green Chile “Smothered” Burritos

This is a meal that has always been a tradition in our house when I was growing up. Here in Colorado we eat a kind of green chile that you don’t find in many other parts of the country. It is a pork green chile and it comes from “New Mexican” food. My Mothers family is from Southern Colorado and before that from Northern New Mexico and Spain prior to that. This type of cuisine is a hybrid of deliciousness. The base for most of the foods are green chiles, like Hatch, Anaheim and Pueblos. I prefer Pueblos, then Hatch, then Anaheim. In Colorado you will find Chile Roasters on almost every street corner from late August to mid-October. Read here for our tradition of picking up bushels for the year!!

The list of delicious food you can make is endless. I will start sharing more recipes as I continue to go through our family cookbook. This time I made classic Smothered Burritos. We call them smothered because they are covered in Pork Green Chile, yum.

This is the recipe we use in my family, however, in this particular recipe I have modified and updated it.

Ingredients

Chile Base

Browning the flour, most important step! See the brown, carmely color starting to develop? That is perfect!

Add diced pork, brown

Brown the pork

Blend Chile base, add to pan with browned pork

Inside: homemade refried beans, sour cream, cheese

This is the Green Chile looks like when done

Smothered Burritos

Recipe:

Lobato Family Green Chile, modified by Mrs. O

1.5 lbs Pork Tenderloin, diced

4 cups Chicken Broth

2 cans Rotel (medium)

1 large can of Green Chiles

1/2 small can of Jalepenos

2 tbsp Vegetable Oil

3 tbsp Flour

1 tsp Garlic Salt

1 tsp Onion Salt

1 tsp Salt

Dice pork, heat oil in pan, add flour, stir until brown. Add diced pork, cook until brown. In blender mix: 1 can chicken broth, Rotel, Jalepenos, Green Chiles, Salt, Garlic Salt, Onion, BLEND.

When pork and flour have browned add the blended ingredients, last can of broth and the water. Bring to a boil, then let simmer for at least 1 hour. I let mine cook for around 2 hours. It is even better the next day!

For burritos, construct burritos with refried beans, sour cream and cheese. When chile is done, pour over burritos add cheese, cover and bake for 2o minutes at 350. After 20 minutes, remove cover and bake for an additional 5 minutes or until cheese bubbles.

February 20, 2012
Fun with Kitchen Science
Being a homeschooling Mom I am always on the look out for fun, hands on projects to do with my boys. They are in 2nd Grade, Kindergarten and Preschool they especially love science projects. They love to experiment. My kindergartner and 2nd Grader keep science journals. They keep track of supplies used, what they think will happen and then they record what actually happens. These are usually accompanied with pictures, it is a perfect way to track their learning adventures.

I have found some Homeschool websites that offer great suggestions on fun experiments. One website that I recently discovered is from Clorox. It is called Clorox Recipes for Fun, it is a great resource for all things fun to do with your kids. Not only is there a Wacky Science page there is also recipes for Kiddie Cooking, Arts and Crafts, and Creative Cooking. There are so many fun ideas. I can not wait to get cracking at all the fun projects we found.

You can also submit your own recipes.

They have a contest running now through March 27th, you could win $10,000. If you sign up you get entered, if you share a recipe you get an additional 10 entries!

My husband had recently told my boys about a science experiment he did when he was a little boy. He gave me the list of ingredients, we had everything we needed so I sent the boys on a treasure hunt in the kitchen to round up the ingredients on the list. They liked that part and it built up the anticipation of creating something cool.

The Superfizz Volcano Ingredients

Start with Vinegar, dishsoap and food coloring

I let the boys each pick their own colors.

Add baking soda, watch the smiles

Experimenting with more baking soda

My Pretty Yellow SuperFizz Volcano

Smiles all around!

Adam and his Green Machine SuperFizz

Sam joining the fun

This experiment was a huge hit! The boys did it 3 more times, using different colors and different amounts of the ingredients. They played with this experiment for over an hour. Will do this again, the boys were wondering if we could do it outside with an entire bottle of vinegar and box of baking soda, hmmm….

I wonder what kind of mess that might make?! We did have a bit of a mess, so be prepared with clean up materials. We use and LOVE Clorox Clean Up. I used it for clean up on this project and it cleaned up the food coloring with no problems!

Here is the recipe my husband shared:

Super Cool, Super Fizz Volcanoes

Clear Glass Cup

1 Cup Vinegar

2-3 Drops of Food Coloring

1 Tablspoon Baking Soda

1/2 teaspoon of dishsoap

(we quadrupled this recipe for all four boys)

The kids love it, do it and watch the joy bubble up as the experiment does, priceless!
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February 18, 2012