Thankful Thursday: Cousins

Since we are traveling, our kids have been able to play with their cousins.  It's one of the things I am most thankful for right now!  It makes my heart happy to see them running around and giggling.  I was blessed to grow up around my cousins and got to see them often.  And for weeks at a time during the summer.  I can't wait for my kids to experience all the fun cousin activities to come.  Of course, I wish we got to see their cousins more, but I am so thankful for the time we've had over the last week, and this coming week and a half.

Wordy Wednesday: Best Made Plans

I've seen that poster twice on Facebook in the last week! I love the message. For once, I'm not currently in the midst of "needing" this message, but I know many who are.  It's a great reminder, whether you need it today, next week, or next year. God can ALWAYS take the junk, the trash, the tears, and the pain, and HE will make a way. The pain in this world came with sin, but our peace and redemption comes through Christ. 

We are traveling, sorry this one is so short. Love you all!

Taco Tuesday: Italian Soda

Taco Tuesday Week #8: Italian Soda

You will need:

Club soda

Sugar

Water

Flavored extract

Half n half (optional)

1. Chill club soda

2. Make simple syrup. Combine two parts sugar to one part water in a saucepan. Stir over medium heat till the sugar is completely dissolved.

3. Add flavor extract to the simple syrup (to taste) like: vanilla, orange, almond, cherry, or rum. Some flavors are stronger than others, I'd start with 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of extract per cup of simple syrup. Let cool.

4. Put ice in a glass, pour flavored simple syrup over ice, then add club soda, and half n half. (I add a lot of syrup because I'm a terrible person, use your own judgement)

You can buy pre-made flavored syrups at the grocery store, usually near the coffee and tea, or in the liquor section. Grenadine is yummy!!!

Manic Monday: Glow Bath

Manic Monday Week #8: Glow Bath

You Will Need:

A tub full of water
1-2 highlighters
1 Blacklight bulb

This is one of those attempts at fun, that kind of fell flat.  Thankfully, I was able to google search while they were still in the tub, and salvage the experience.  My first attempt was with tonic water, which I read would make their water glow.  It didn't.  I used 2, 1 liter bottles.  Maybe I needed more, but I feel like that's too pricey, but if you don't like the idea of ink, this might be something you'd like to try.  Still not sure why ours didn't glow with the tonic water, but it didn't.

I'd also heard that you could use a glow stick, but let me just warn you now, that someone tried that, punctured the the glow stick and put the contents in the tub, and it BURNED their child's skin.  So, don't do that!  But you could use glow sticks as long as you make sure they don't get opened.

What ended up working was a yellow highlighter, one I already use, because I was desperate!  It worked like a charm.  I just cut open the marker and put the loverly glowing ink in the water.  And, yes, I said, "loverly", and I meant to!  Then I put the blacklight bulb into our lamp, turned off the overhead lights, turned the lamp on, and it was a magnificent glowing bath!

I think, after Halloween, I'm going to have to find some cheap gl
This is not something I would do too often, just because it's ink.  In all reality, my kids enjoyed their plastic glow in the dark toys, with the lights turned off, more than the glowing water. I think, after Halloween, I'm going to have to find some cheap glow in the dark toys to add to the fun! I think if I'd had a larger sized highlighter or used two, it would have made the water stand out more.

Another idea I read online was glow in the dark bath paints.  The major drawback, for me was the price point on the paints that you had to buy.  You mixed the paint with shaving cream and then have the backlight on for them to glow.  The paints were $20-$50, that's crazy!  I'm considering mixing highlighter ink with shaving cream to see if that works.  If so, I'll make it a future post!

Flashback Friday: Flying, Family, and FUN!

Friday:

Kees has been into legos after the last week.  Kora gets into his work, so I convinced her to build with the mega blocks.

Laundry...

Kora reading her Morris the Moose book Aunt Sandy gave her.  She's obsessed!

Free slushees at 7-11, AND we found out there's a Sonic ten minutes from our house, how am I just now figuring this out??

Saturday:

7th Annual Park's Day in CDA.  It was at the park that has the splash pad, so we came prepared.  Free pancake breakfast, tons of booths set up with sensory activities, games, and giveaways.  Free hotdogs for lunch, and hamburgers for dinner.  We were at the park from 9 am to 3 pm!  

Two of the stands gave away free books, Kora got a free Dora coloring book. When we got to the next booth, she just sat on the ground to look at it.

Aunt Sandy got talked into sharing Kora's chapstick.

Mudgy the Moose, and Millie the Mouse

Worn out!

Sunday:

We visited our neighbor's church. I didn't realize they didn't have childcare, and was not prepared with enough activities for Kora.  We didn't make it through the whole service.  Doug and Kees stayed, I took Kora out to the car.

She kept asking for a drink and a snack.  I think this picture looks like, "Dear God, please let us go to a church that has fishy crackers and juice."

Momma's shoes

More legos!  He sorted them by color.

The kids decided it was the Duck's birthday.  Kees also named the duck: Marvel.  Both of my kids gifted the duck with undergarments. 

Kora got comfy writing for a little while, then crawled into my lap to take a nap.

Kees joined soon after.

Monday:

I was not as productive as I wanted to be on Monday, but I did catch up on cutting words off of boxes!

Tuesday:

This is how Doug got ready to go to Oklahoma, he roasted coffee beans.

This is how Kees got ready to go, he packed some bags and got Kora to do the same.  They were thrilled to be seeing family!

Doug showed the kids which plane we were going to ride on. The first leg of our trip was the fox.

Joke peanuts, we were gonna bring them, but I think we forgot.

This is how Kora and I got ready.  Kees got his toes in the picture too.

Wednesday:

Finally traveling day!  Aunt Sandy and Uncle Alan drove us to the airport.

There was a giant hole in our blue suitcase. We stopped at Dollar Tree to buy duct tape, and then Doug taped it up at the airport.

While we were checking in, I had the kids keep their hand on the counter.  They made their babies do the same. So cute! (All of Kora's babies are named "wife")

The Spokane airport has cold filtered water you can fill your bottle up with, once you get through the checkpoint.  AWESOME!

On the first plane, I gave the kids Care Bear babies. Kora's got put in the seat belt with her.

Kees gave us frequent reports about what was happening.

About halfway through our first flight, Kora really NEEDED Daddy.  She is such a Daddy's girl!

At the Denver airport, our first flight took twice as long as it should have, so we were circling (in the air) above Denver for over an hour.  We landed 30 minutes after our previous flight should have taken off!  Thankfully the second flight was delayed and we made it just in time.  Kids ate their dinner on the floor before we boarded.

Kora was galloping! She got so happy when we hit turbulence.  She was smiling, clapping and cheering!

The second plane was the otter.

We made it to OKC about 20 till midnight, then got back to Grandpa and Ginny's place around 12:45.  Made for a long day and a late night!

Thursday:

Grandpa Boo's birthday celebration day!

Kids helped Grandpa move this chair.