I Have Some Freetime!

Hello Friends,

I've been silent lately and I apologize! One of the parents of the boys I nanny was laid off so I haven't been working with them much and the other set of boys haven't been feeling too well so not very many pictures or exciting activities happening! I have started caring for J- a 7 month baby boy- for a couple of hours every Friday to give his mom a break but that mostly involves entertaining him with toys, naps, diapers, and feeding :)

SO I have some freetime! If you know of anyone that needs care for their children- one-time or part-time- let me know! I'm available Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday and sometimes Saturday! Email me if you have any questions angela@harle.cc. Feel free to pass along my email to friends or family :)

In the mean time I've been able to spend some time to myself, organizing life, playing with babies, cleaning, and having fun!

Ice Cream Deals & A Summer Wishlist

Another BEAUTIFUL day today! So much time spent outside
(which of course means less for me to clean! :-) )

Took G & C to the park and because they were SO good and the weather was so nice we headed over to Baskkin-Robbins and found out they were have a huge sale on ice cream- Guest Appreciation Week!

Since the weather is supposed to nice for the next couple of days take advantage of this great deal! (Although they say one scoop cone- they allowed me to put it in a cup for the kids since it's easier to eat that way and ended up being a nice size serving for both kids!)

Before we headed to the park while C was napping, G and I composed a list of things he wanted to do this summer so I'm sharing with you! I think I'll be making this poster sized with check boxes so that as we complete an activity we can check it off! I'll be making a similar list with the other boys, K & T, and I'll post that and we can compare the two lists!

Tricked by a Two Year Old

Today was a very chill day, I got to hang out with little E all day. E is two and VERY easy going. We played with some blocks, danced a little, watched Sesame Street and Yo Gabba Gabba on Netflix, napped, had lunch, like I said a very chill day.
E is really good at entertaining himself and playing alone, it's amazing!

During snack time he was eating some Kix and I asked him for some... and this is what I got!

Day of Sunshine & Outings

Today was a rare day in Washington, it was sunny and warm during the spring. I think when I drove by a bank it said it was 57 degrees out! SO, the boys and I definitely took advantage of the sunshine! We waited for T to get home from school and do a little homework so we weren't able to get out until about 4:45 but the weather was still nice (but we did wear hoodies to keep us warm from the wind).

We headed down to Mike N Terry's (otherwise known as the Putting Zoo) to play some Mini Golf. It was decently priced for the three of us at $16.25. If you go on a Monday or Tuesday and bring a non-perishable food item to donate to the local food shelter it's half off a round! We didn't keep score and we went through this course really fast (they have two different golf courses) but the boys still had a blast doing something different!

Afterwards we went next door to Paintball Sports Park.  The boys are too young to actually play but they were able to go into the shooting range by themselves and just shoot at the targets! (They wouldn't normally be allowed to do this because you have to be at least 10 years old to actually play but I work there on the weekend and my boyfriend manages the field.) They had SO much fun I had to tear them away! I mean what boys don't want to shoot guns and have them make a mess??

We left having had a lot of fun, but if we go back next time I would make a full day out of it! Give the boys enough time to actually play golf and play both courses, which they had wanted to do today. They also have go-karts at Mike N Terry's and I promised them next time they would be able to ride them and buy popcorn from the concession stand! :)

Colored Spaghetti

So today was a short day with K & T, their mother is still recovering from surgery so I'm just there to give her a break for a couple hours a day and get some chores done around the house. We got to play outside today in some dry sunshine on the trampoline and just running around in the yard!

So today's post will be based on something that G, C, and I did a few weeks ago! I was there on a Saturday night so we had the chance to prepare a fun dinner together.

Colored Spaghetti

This is seriously SUCH an easy way to put a fun spin on an already easy meal!

Supplies
-Spaghetti Noodles (really you can use any kind of pasta)
-Sandwich bags
-Food Coloring
-Pasta Sauce
OR -Butter/Olive Oil and Parmesean (the boys don't like sauce so this is what we did and you could really see the colors since it wasn't covered in sauce)

• Cook the noodles as you would normally. 
• Once it's done cooking, strain and separate into sandwich bags. 
• Add food coloring into the bags and close the bags. I blew some air into the bags so the noodles would mix and shake better.
• Hand to the kids and let them shake it up!
• Cover in sauce or whatever you want to top it with and enjoy!

I've also seen online people cooking the noodles into separate pots and adding food coloring to the water. I didn't do this because I didn't want to make more stuff for me to clean up since bags I can just throw away!

Lava Lamp

This might be one of my favorite projects so far!

Supply List
-Oil (I'm not sure if it matters which kind, but I used vegetable oil)
-Empty Plastic Bottle (I used Dasani bottles)
-Food Coloring
-Funnel (for pouring your liquids into the bottle)
-Alka Seltzer

• Pour 1/4 cup of water into an empty, clean watersoda/ bottle (if using a larger bottle you do not want the water to fill more than 1/4 of the bottle)
• Fill the rest of the water bottle up with oil
• Choose a food coloring color and put a couple drops into your bottle (we tried mixing and it turn out, maybe mixing it ahead of time could work)
• Break the Alka-Seltzer tablets into fourths, and drop 1/4 of the tablet into the bottle! After a few seconds I let the boys drop another 1/4 tablet into the bottle.

WARNINGS:
- I didn't put more than 2- 1/4 pieces of Alka-Seltzer tablets (so 1/2 a tablet) into the bottle at a time.
- Do NOT put the bottle cap on the bottle if there is still a reaction going on in the bottle- the pressure will build up and cause the bottle to shoot the cap off or explode (I think, I didn't try this but I read this warning off of another blog so I didn't even attempt)
- Remember that you're using oil and food coloring so if this were to spill on clothes or carpet it would be highly staining!



We kept the bottle caps to save the project so they could show their parents later. I've heard that it will continue to react up to 15 Alka-Seltzer tablets.


This activity doesn't take up too much time, but it ended up being an all day activity. The boys wanted to wait for all of the oil to settle and set it all of all over again! It was fun for their parents to come home and the boys show their parents the lava lamps! Their parents loved them too!

"Awesome City" & Slime

As I was just typing that title, I realized how thankful I am that those two things did not meet.

Awesome City was our Lego City creation. The boys had started it with their mom before I arrived and we continued it for another couple of hours. Usually we don't do something for that long but the boys weren't fighting, getting along REALLY well, and not going nuts... so I went with it and we played until they started bickering (which was for a good 2 1/2 hours)!


Like I said, I'm really glad that the boy's didn't think to have the slime over taking the city or anything, I cringe at the thought of the mess this could have potentially created.

This SLIME is another one of my favorite's because it is SOOOO easy to make, entertains the kids for a decent amount of time, and clean up really isn't too bad.

Supplies
-Liquid Starch (found at Walmart)
-Glue (regular white or clear works- changes how the slime looks [clear or solid] but the consistency is the same)- I used 16oz bottle's this time
-Food Coloring
-Bowls
-Table Cloth- i usually use just to help with clean up, but didn't feel like it this time.

• In a bowl pour our all of the glue. I used two different bowls- one for each boy which also ended up being one of each color since they wanted theirs different.
• They then added some food coloring to each bowl. We used quite a bit to end up with a more vibrant color. Using a plastic utensil we mixed the color into the glue
• Slowly pour some liquid starch into the colored glue mixture. This is when I started using my hands to mix it, keep pouring the liquid starch (about 1 tablespoon at a time) into the mixture until the slime is no longer sticky. It should not have a much slimier consistency and not so sticky and messy.

At first, the boys were totally not into it because it was SO slimy from the starch but as soon as one started playing with it, the other joined in. After playing with it for a while it ended up not so slimy but more like gak. They LOVED making it make farting noises into a cup. We ended up saving the slime in sandwich bags where I poured 1/2 a tablespoon of the liquid starch in for safe keeping to keep it moist.

Sidenote- it didn't stain the table at all but did stain our hands a little bit. I'm not sure what glue and liquid starch does to clothes in the long run, BUT I do know it's not fun to get out! The first time I did this was with younger kids and got all over their clothing, K & T didn't have this problem. For clean up I just used some bleach wipes for the area we played in and peeled off the residue from the bowls, I soaked what was left on the bowls in some soapy water for a few minutes and it cleaned right off!

Mini Volcanoes

When I took this project off Pinterest it was called Mini Volcanoes... When we actually did it, there was nothing about it "Volcano-like" except the fizzing and bubbling which I'm assuming is supposed to be lava? I did the project two different times with both families- but only one child from each family participated (the other was napping or at school).

The left is G (5) and the right is K (4).

You can see in the pictures that I tried it two different ways, the first time with G and a cookie sheet and the second with K and a 12-well muffin tin. Personally I liked it with the muffin tin much better- mess wise and being able to repeat the experiment was much simpler this way.

I'm going to be explaining the muffin pan method to keep it simple but it's SUPER easy to adapt if you're going to use a cookie sheet or other type of tray instead.

Project Supplies:
-baking soda
-vinegar
-food coloring
-Droppers (pipettes) (purchased here)
-Some kind of a pan (again I prefer the muffin pan)
-Small Bowls (if you're not using the muffin pan for the colored vinegar)

(Sidenote: I have I storage bin of "nannying supplies" in the trunk of my car just in case the family doesn't have something in their normal pantry, like the pipettes. Also, because I have multiple families it's nice to have pretty much everything I would need for a "normal" project or craft with me at all times, I'll do a post on this another day)

• In 8 of the wells pour in baking soda- I only poured enough to cover the bottom.
• In four other wells pour in vinegar- I eyeballed the amount but it filled the well about 1/3 of the way.
• Mix food coloring into each of the vinegar wells. I had four colors so each color had it's own well. You can mix color's if you want to get fancy!
• Using a pipette, squeeze up some of the colored vinegar and empty it on top of some baking soda! Watch it fizz and bubble! Both boys were amazed by this for quite some time.

• After you use up all 8 wells of baking soda, you can pour some more baking soda to cover up the already used mixture and start again!

When I did it with K, we put it to the side of the kitchen and saved it for when his brother came home from school and refilled each well with baking soda! Even T, who is 7, thought it was cool and was entertained for a good 15-20 minutes. The younger boys G (5) and K (4) were both entertained for at least 30 minutes!

Just to put it out there, I did not come up with this project by myself. I've seen it posted on multiple blogs and all over Pinterest. I do not take any credit for the idea of this project.