Storytime Snacks - Froggy Books

For our Storytime Snack this week, we read all about frogs and made Fly Pie.  I found mini graham cracker crusts at the grocery store and filled them with vanilla pudding with a few drops of green food coloring to make it green.  For the "flies" we dropped a few chocolate chips on the top.

Here's a couple great frog books: Froggy Plays Soccer, Froggy Goes to Camp, any of the FROGGY series books by Jonathan London, and A Frog in the Bog by Karma Wilson.

Eat your Fly Pies while reading your frog books, then play a fun game of leap frog together with your kids.  Make some great memories together this summer!

Our Neighbor Surprises - from our Summer List

One of our things on our Summer List was to surprise a neighbor with treats.  Brayden picked that we would make our favorite cookies - Cranberry Chocolate Chip Oatmeal cookies - to give to a few of our neighbors.  

I wrapped them up in a cellophane bag and tied on a small tag that said, "Just because...from the Grays. 1 John 4:19"  That verse says, "We love, because He first loved us."  I pray that we show others the love of Christ in the way that we live and love as a family!

How can you show love to your neighbors today?

Storytime Snacks - Horton Hears a Who!

Horton Hears a Who! by Dr. Seuss is a classic children's book.  The movie is a fun one too to watch with (or without!) your kids.  In the book, Horton the elephant finds a speck that has tiny people on it (Whoville, to be exact) and carries it on a pink clover to safety.  For our Storytime Snack, Brayden and I started by making a pink "clover." 

Here's what you'll need:
Big marshmallows
White almond bark
Pink sprinkles
Chocolate chips
Skewers

Melt your white almond bark in a small bowl or cup.  I melted just 2 squares since we were only making a couple "clovers."  Put a marshmallow on the end of each skewer and dip completely into the melted white chocolate.  Immediately after dipping, pour on pink sprinkles to cover the marshmallow and place a single chocolate chip as the "Whoville speck" on the clover.

At the beginning of the book, Horton is in the Jungle of Nool and jumps into the cool of the pool.  To go along with the pink marshmallow clover snack, I made some blue JELLO as the "Cool Pool in the Jungle of Nool."

 Enjoy reading Horton Hears a Who while eating 

a delicious pink marshmallow clover and cool pool Jello!

Blueberries!

One of my favorite things to do at the beginning of the summer is going blueberry picking. There's something about it that makes me feel primitive having to pick my own food.  It makes me think back to what people had to do 'back in the day' when they had to grow and harvest all the food that they would need to live.  I actually enjoy getting out in the heat and spending time filling my bucket of blueberries.  It's something that I could do all day. My son, not so much.  He lasted about an hour.  We had fun though.  Saw some good friends out picking too.  I know that made it a lot more enjoyable for Brayden.

Gotta get deep in the bushes to find the best ones!

It was sweet to see them share blueberries with each other.

The buckets are filling up! (kind of!)

It was great time spent with my boy!

A Wedding Weekend

Over Memorial Day weekend, we had the chance to head back to Oklahoma for my cousin Kristin's wedding.  It was a beautiful outdoor wedding, and it was especially special because Jonathan performed the ceremony.  Kristin was a beautiful and radiant bride, and I'm so excited for her and Josh as they begin life together as a married couple!

Josh's best man had a broken foot, so he was riding a push scooter down the aisle at the wedding.  At the end of the wedding, Shannon, my cousin and the maid of honor, pulled a scooter out from the bushes and rode out on one too.  Hilarious!

After the wedding, Jonathan was walking around with Karis.  He walked down the aisle and back, and I caught this moment.  His first time walking her down the aisle.  Tear.  I know the years will go by so fast, and before we know it, it will actually be his time to walk her down the aisle.  It was a precious moment seeing them together like this.

The rehearsal dinner was at this beautiful home in Edmond overlooking Lake Arcadia.  

It turned out to be a perfect night to celebrate Kristin and Josh!

Sweet time with cousins!  We are so glad Emsleigh and 

Cohen live closer so we can see them more often!

The girl cousins - Shannon, me, Kristin and Amy

LOVED this photo booth!  They had such fun props, and you got to keep 

one pic and give one to put in Josh and Kristin's album.  It was so fun!

We were so thankful we got to be a part of a great weekend!

Congrats, Josh and Kristin!

Our Summer List

For the past couple summers, I've seen blogs that have posted their "Summer List" that they did with their families, but it's something I never really thought about implementing at our house.  (Surprising, because I am an avid list maker.  Ha!)  This summer, I've been challenged by some good friends to truly be intentional with the time we have this summer. Summer is a time that tends to be without a lot of structure or schedule, and a lot of times I find that days go by without adding in a little extra fun or special time with the kids.  It's not about doing stuff that is big or extravagant or that costs a lot of money.  It's about setting aside time to just BE with your family, break the routine a bit, and just have fun!  I want my kids to look back and have great memories of family time spent together.  Hopefully some of these things will be some great memory makers.  

Here are the things we put on our Summer List:
Zoo
Homemade Ice Cream
Astros game
Blueberry picking
Feed turtles
Fort night - build a big fort in our living room
Lowe's Build & Grow - FREE kid's building clinic at Lowe's
Old Macdonald Farm
Splash pad
Picnic at Discovery Green
Book Bonanza in Bed - read a stack of books together in Mom & Dad's bed
Snow Cones
Surprise a neighbor with treats
Campout indoors - put up the tent and sleep in it INSIDE the house...no lights (except AC)
Driving range
Tennis
Chick-Fil-A Mini Moo
Main Event - bowling & arcade
Play in sprinklers
Lunch with Daddy
Mission Project
Firecrackers
Galveston
Chuck-E-Cheese
Fishing
Drive-In movie
LEGO night
Pajama Day / Breakfast at all meals
Movie Night
Game Night
Children's Museum
S'Mores on the grill
Shaving cream fight
San Antonio
Restaurant at home - let the kid(s) help be the "waiters" at dinner
B's Special Night - our daughter is too young for this, but it will be a night where our son gets to pick what we have for dinner, what we do for the night, etc.
Four Square / Chalk / Wiffle ball - an outside game day

I can't wait for our summer, and I am excited 

to make these memories with our family!

Storytime Snacks - Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault is a great book for kids just learning their letters.  It goes through each letter climbing the coconut tree and in the end all falling down out of the tree.  An easy Storytime Snack to go along with this book is making your own coconut tree out of pretzel rods, apples and grapes (not pictured).  I saw this idea on a blog awhile back, and I can't remember where it's from, but it's an easy way to make a tree.  Use the pretzel rods as the trunk, and cut and fan out apple slices for the branches/leaves.  You can even use grapes as the "coconuts" and put them at the top of the tree trunk.

Since this book is all about letters, you've gotta have some for the snack.  You could even turn this into lunch - a sandwich without bread!  Take a slice of cheese and a slice of turkey (or whatever you want to use...you could even cut a letter out of a sandwich).  Cut out the letters by hand, or you can buy letter cookie cutters to use to cut out the letters.  Remember, this doesn't have to be perfect!  Just make it resemble the letters you want to cut out.  :)  I cut out an A and Z for our snack.

 Have fun, and enjoy your snack with Chicka Chicka BOOM BOOM!