A Few Summer Fun Ideas

I just had to share these fun ideas we have enjoyed this week as part of our Summer Plan.  As a kid, we would always make "rock animals" when we went camping.  We'd find rocks, glue them together to resemble an animal, and paint them.  I ran across this cute idea, and thought it so reminded me of those cute rock animals from my childhood.  These are "Rock Pets."  

I had each of my boys pick a rock they wanted to use.  As I have 3 boys, there are always plenty of rocks (and sticks) around our yard.  I had told them ahead of time what they would be used for so they had a bit of an idea what size and shape to pick.  Then, they each decided what their "pet" would be.  They both wanted to do a monster.  They painted the rock one main color.  Then we added a mouth and teeth with another color of paint. 

 We finished them off by adding googley eyes and hair out of yarn.  The pig has pompoms for the ears and a button for the nose. 

 Here they are with their creations.  I had a niece and nephew in town and they joined us for the project.  We had a lot of fun and I think they turned out super cute.  Now, they are on display in our front flower beds for all to see.  This morning, my oldest got up and went and sat on the sidewalk in front of the rocks, and just looked at them for a bit.  He is pretty proud of his "pet." 

This next project we did for our "Tastee Tuesday."  I wanted to make homemade ice cream and I thought it would be so much more fun if the boys could "be one with their work."  So, I found this recipe and thought I'd try it out.  It was super easy and fast.  We needed ice cubes, rock salt (I took mine from my water softener brine tank) and two sizes of ziploc bags.  (I used the slider zip top bags, but next time, I'd use a regular zipper bag.  The seal was not very good on the slider bags and kept popping open.) 

 So, in the smaller of the two zipper bags,  place 1 cup of milk, 2 Tablespoons sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.  The recipe called for half-and-half but I just used what I had and it worked fine.  My youngest even chose chocolate milk and it was great.  Then, seal the bag. 

 Place it inside the larger zipper bag and fill around both sides with ice and rock salt.  Then, let your kids roll it around for five minutes and . . .

Voila!  Ice cream!  It really was that easy, and I was surprised to see that it froze that quickly.  I did snitch a taste or two, and it was super good.