{Tuesday's Tip} Fun Things to Do in the Snow

It snowed at our house a couple weeks ago and hopefully we will get more snow throughout the winter months. I know that not everyone loves winter and snow as much as I do. It takes effort to get those kiddos in all their winter gear and then they are back inside after only a few minutes.  But I love all of the fun snow activities, and if you enjoy the snow with your children they will stay outside and play longer because they love being with you!

Here are 21 super ideas that you can play in the snow to enjoy your time together:

{1} Build a snowman.  Have items on hand to dress your snowman (hat, scarf, carrot, rocks, leaves, twigs, etc.)

{2} Snow ball fight

{3} Build forts to hide behind

{4} Play "Fox and Geese."  You stamp down the snow in a large circle.  Then stamp two lines across the middle of the circle making an "X."    After you have a nice path in the snow, it is time to play.  Your fox is "it."  The fox stands in the middle of the X, closes his/her eyes, and counts while all the geese move around the circle.  The fox opens his eyes when he is done counting and chases the geese.  They can only run on the paths you created.  If the fox tags one of the geese, then that person becomes the fox.

{5} Snowshoe on trails or in the mountains.  Hiking trails are like a different world in the winter than during the summer.  My favorite is snowshoeing by rivers, they are so pretty in the snow!

{6} Sledding

{7} Cross country or down hill skiing

{8} Make a pretend house in the snow by stomping pathways for hallways, bedrooms, etc. all over the yard

{9} Fill spray bottles or squeeze bottles with water and food coloring to color the snow or make a picture

{10} Make a big snow hill to sled down

{11} Shovel.  Have shovels that are kid-sized

{12} Use sand toys in the snow.  Pails, shovels, mods and make snow castles, or just practice digging

{13} Make an igloo using bread pans it make your bricks

{14} Ice skating

{15} Ice fishing

{16} Make snow ice cream. Use fresh snow, of course. ;)

{17} Find ice cycles

{18} Make snow angels

{19} Play "Follow the Leader"

{20} Blow bubbles see what happens in cold weather

{21}  Build snow sculptors

Then, when you are done playing in the snow, you can warm up together inside with some yummy hot chocolate or hot apple cider!

Letterboxing

Letterboxing is a fun family activity.  It is really similar to geocaching except you are given clues to find the hidden item instead of GPS coordinates. 

Also, letterboxing is about collecting stamps--like the kind you use ink and notepad.  Each letterbox has clues that lead to a hidden container that should contain a stamp and a little notepad.

{A letterbox we found.}

 The idea is that once you find a letterbox you leave your stamp in the letterbox book (indicating that you actually found it) and then use the letterbox stamp in your own stamp book for you to keep and remember.  (If you're a little confused by my explanation, visit the links below for more detailed instructions.)  

To start letterboxing, you will first need a stamp book.  This is for collecting the stamps that you will find at each letterbox.  You can have one stamp book for the whole family or you can have one for each child, whatever works best for you.  I like to use sketch pads (the stamps look really nice on the blank paper) and then cut them in half so I really get two stamp books from each sketch pad.

Next, you will need to buy or make a stamp.  This stamp is going to be your "signature" that you use when you find a letterbox.  Here again you can either have a family stamp or individual stamps.  There are los of tutorials available online that show how to make your own stamp.  This can be fun because then you're stamp will truly be unique and one of a kind.  

You will also need to buy an ink pad so that you actually use the stamps (most letterboxes don't include an ink pad, plus you don't know how used the ink will be once you find it).

Once you have those three things--stamp book, stamp, and ink pad--you ready to find your first letterbox!

You will find the clues for the letterboxes on these websites:

www.letterboxing.org  

and

atlasquest.com.

 When you go to these websites, simply enter where you live or where you are going to see if there are letterboxes in that area.

Once you pick a letterbox and have the clues, you are ready for the search!

I love letterboxing because sometimes they are hidden in locations you've never explored before.

{A beautiful waterfall we found while letterboxing}

Plus, it feels like a treasure hunt as you try to decipher the clues. 

If you like geocaching or outdoor activities, then you are sure to love letterboxing!

Fairy Garden

My daughter and I have been working on a fun project...we're creating a fairy garden. In case you don't know, a fairy garden is a place where the fairies live and right now we are getting the garden ready for winter so the fairies have a nice warm place to stay.  It's still a work in progress, but this is what we have added to our fairy garden so far.

This has been such a fabulous project because it is exciting to see the joy, imagination, and excitement that my daughter has for the fairy garden.  Plus it has been inexpensive.  I have only purchased a couple items, but everything else I had around the house .

We created our fairy garden under a nice tree in our yard.  The bird house, which is the fairy house, we found on clearance at the store.  It has a small door at the back for a perfect fairy entrance and the hole at the top is a great window.  We put some grass inside the house so it is soft and comfortable for the fairies.

We also put a small pot of food out for the fairies so they will know to come and stay.  We walked around our yard and found fairy-sized tomatoes, crab apples, seeds, and flowers.  The small flower pot is my daughter's that she used to grow her own sunflowers.  We turned it upside down and now it is a table for the fairies.  We also found a large flat rock as another fairy table.

Surrounding the fairy food and house we decorated the fairy garden with lots of pine cones and fake flower bouquets--they provide more shelter for the fairies.We found lots of pine cones for small trees

{Tuesday's Tip} 20 Fun Things To Do on a Walk

The weather is getting a bit cooler and it's time to enjoy evening walks together as a family.  There are always fun things to discover on your walk.

For instance, we saw this tree with hundreds of birds all talking together (at least that's what it sounded like!).  I didn't have my best camera with me while we were out on our walk, so this is the best I could get.  It was cool to see and fun to watch them.

{birds in the tree}

We also found a tree with seeds like long beans that we used to sword fight.  We also pretended they were light sabers and fought off the bad guys on our way home.  There are always fun things to do, see, and pretend.

To make your walks enjoyable for the entire family, I came up with 20 more idea's to use the next time you go on a walk with your family!

{20 Fun Things to do on a Walk}

{Helicopter seeds}

              Find "helicopter seeds" and make them fly
(I learned you have to break them in half and then throw in the air and watch them twirl down)  

 Jump over cracks

Find sprinklers to run through.
Make a scavenger hunt and see what you can find

{coin toss}

Bring a coin and toss it when you get to a corner. Go left on heads and right on tails.
 Have a race to the corner

Play follow the leader
Play "I Spy"

{skipping}

Play "Paper, Rock, Scissors" and the winner decides how to cross the road (like skipping, jumping, galloping, tip-toeing, etc.). Be sure to watch for cars.

Roller-skate

Find a pine cone to throw and see who can throw it the farthest
Go to the park or other nearby trail to walk

See how many animals or bugs you find

Find a rock to kick and see who can kick it the farthest

Balance on the curb

Collect leaves

{beautiful sunset}

Go at sunset
Take pictures doing funny things
If there are farm animals in your area take grain, carrots, or apples to feed the animals

Sing a song like The Ants Go Marching or The Princess Pat

You can add to this list with your own ideas, it's easy.  Enjoy your walks before it becomes too cold!

{Tuesday's Tip} Climb Every Mountain

All summer I've been wanting to go on a local hike.  Yesterday, I finally did it!  It was just me my baby yesterday with no other appointments, so I packed us up and off we went.

I used a hiking backpack for the trip to carry my baby on my back.  The backpack I used has a shade canopy and a pouch to carry other essential items.  In the pouch I carried some water and snacks for both of us along with my camera and extra baby clothes in case the lake area was cold.

There are lots of different styles of hiking backpacks out there.  These backpacks are great for both the carrier and the baby because: 1) the carrier has the advantage of using his/her hips (and legs) to carry the bulk of the weight instead of it resting all on your back and shoulders, and 2) the baby gets to sit comfortably and either enjoy the view or take a nap.

We are blessed to live so close to beautiful mountains where I live.  I picked a hike up a local canyon that I had never done before and one that I thought would challenge me, but not take all day.  I chose to hike up to White Pine Lake.

Being in nature all by yourself gives you a lot of time to think.  To be honest, I kept asking myself on the way to the lake, "Are you sure you can make it all the way with a baby on your back?!"  But each time I just kept hiking and, eventually, we made it!

We didn't stay at the lake for very long.  Just long enough to rest, stretch our legs, and have lunch.  But it was still so much fun!

If you want to find out about hiking trails--easy or hard--you can purchase brochures and books online or at your local bookstore or town visitor's center.

You can also find several hikes available online.  Here are some websites I found helpful:

1. http://www.utah.com/hike/
This website is for all of Utah, although it does not include


2. http://www.fs.usda.gov/recmain/uwcnf/recreation
This website is for the Unita-Wasatch-Cache National Forest.  There is a list of other ranger districts in Utah on the right column of this page.


3. http://www.tourcachevalley.com/outdoor/hiking.php
This website is for Cache Valley only.  But you can go to your own city or county website and search for hiking trail information.

4. http://www.trails.com/
This website was very helpful.  However, my search was limited because I don't have a login.

5. http://www.localhikes.com/Default.asp
This website shows a list of hiking trails near U.S. metropolitan areas in every state.


6. http://logancanyonhiking.com/
This website is specific to hiking trails in Logan Canyon, UT.


It's such a great feeling to finish something you started and to achieve one of your goals.  Good luck finding a hiking trail near you.  Now is the perfect time of year for hiking, so go out and enjoy!

{Tuesday's Tip} Waste Not

Recently I had a lot of leftover bread pieces from several different loaves of bread (for some reason my family doesn't always eat the loaf ends).  It was time to either give the bread away or throw it away, so we opted to go feed it to the ducks!

Feeding the ducks is a great summer time activity.  It gets both you and yours kids out of the house and enjoying nature!  We are lucky to have a couple dams near by that always have ducks.  But if you have trouble finding some, look for the little canals, streams, or ponds that ducks would love.

To be honest, it took me a few days before we actually went and fed the ducks.  But I had my bag of bread already to go so that I'd be able to grab it and go when I was ready.

This is a cheap and easy activity too because you can either use leftovers (as long as their safe for birds to eat) or sometimes there are bird-food dispensers that only take a dime or quarter.

Pressed Flower Bookmarks

Before I get started with today's post, I wanted to remind you that today is Free Slurpee Day at 7-Eleven (because the date is 7/11). So, go and get yourself a free, refreshing slurpee!!

Now onto today's post...pressed flower bookmarks!

Last week I posted about our family picking wildflowers (read about it here).  Well, I saved the wildflowers we picked and made them into pressed flower bookmarks! They turned out so cute! Here's what we did.

First, to press the flowers we wrapped them in plastic wrap and set them under a heavy book for an entire day.

{Wildflowers being pressed in plastic wrap}

The next day I cut out pieces of card stock for the bookmarks.  You can make the bookmarks pretty much any size you would like.  I made enough for everyone to make their own pressed flower bookmark.  To decorate and label the bookmarks we used regular, washable markers.  Then we carefully placed the flowers on the card stock and laminated them.  You could use a little piece of glue or adhesive to keep the flowers in place if needed, but I recommend only using a little. 

This was an easy and educational craft.  And now it is a fun momento from our summer vacation.  We had enough flowers to make a few extra to give as gifts to grandparents.  Homemade gifts can be some of the most precious.

{Tuesday's Tip} Stop & Smell the Wildflowers

On the way home from our vacation a couple weeks ago, we were driving through a canyon and we kept seeing lots of wildflowers.  Finally we had to stop and take a closer look at the beauty around us.  We went on a short walk and examined the flowers and wildlife.

Later, when we got home, I pulled out our book on wildflowers so we could discover more about our flowers.  I like using everyday events as teaching opportunities, especially during the summer when school is out.  It makes learning fun and interesting for me and my kids!  What have you been learning about this summer?

While we walking around seeing the wildflowers,  I had everyone pick a few and saved them in a bag for another little craft I'll be sharing with you. Here's a sneak peek:

{Tuesday's Tip} Notice What is Around You

The other day as my daughter and I were walking on a small nature trail, we had a surprisingly fun learning experience.  You see, my daughter loves butterflies.  She also is one of the most imaginative children I've ever met.  She believes that butterflies are really fairies only we (normal human beings) can't see them, we just see butterflies.  But, if we could see butterflies with magic, we would see the beautiful fairies as they really are.

Naturally, we were looking for butterflies along the trail.  As we were walking I just happened to notice one butterfly hanging upside down from a branch.  It had just come out of the cocoon but wasn't ready to take off and fly away.  While we watched the butterfly I explained what the butterfly was doing and how it had changed from a caterpillar inside the cocoon to a beautiful butterfly.

This turned out to be a special little teaching moment because she was so fascinated by the butterfly.  It was very exciting!  It was a good reminder that we need to take in more of the beautiful world we live in.  Afterwards, we took a trip to the library and searched online for more cool facts about butterflies.  I love watching my kids learn, and it is good to keep their young minds active even during summer vacation.