Apple Nutella Blossom Snack

Now that Big Brother is an official kindergartner, it means I need to start thinking about real after school snacks. His busy and long day mean that he arrives home pretty hungry. On the first day of school I treated all of us to this yummy snack: Apple Nutella Blossoms.

For quite a while now this has been an easy weekday dessert, 

but it also makes a great afternoon snack!

35+ Fall Painting Ideas for Kiddos

With fall on the horizon it's time to start thinking about what fall activities and projects we might be looking forward to. We love painting projects, and especially enjoy finding new things and ways to paint. In order to be inspired we've collected over 35 different ideas for fall painting activities from some amazing bloggers!

$500 PayPal Cash Giveaway! 

We've also teamed up with a group of bloggers to cohost an amazing giveaway: $500 Paypal Cash to one lucky winner! More information can be found at the end of the post.

Painting Ideas by Themes

We've found so many amazing ideas for fall painting, we decided to group them by themes: Apples, Leaves, Pumpkins, Fall Colors, and More . . .

Kindergarten Count Down Chain

It's hard to believe, but a week from today I will have a kindergartner in my house. I shared a little about how I'm feeling about it earlier this month in my Monthly Goals post.

But even though I may be feeling sentimental, Big Brother is a bundle of excitement, anticipation, and a few nerves. He's been asking daily for count of how many days are left until school begins. So, with one week to go I put together this Kindergarten Count Down Chain to help keep track of the days.

We do something similar for the winter holidays, so Big Brother knows a little bit about how the chain works already. It's a little like an advent calendar, there is one link for each day. Each day he removes one link. The last link is taken off the day kindergarten starts.  

Crab Apple Print Making

It's hard to believe that autumn is around the corner, but you can sense it in the air. 

School starts next week and I've already spotted a few colorful leaves on the ground! So it's not hard to believe we're getting in the mood for a few fall crafts.

The crab apple tree in our yard is very abundant in our yard this year, and although we never do much with these apples, this year we're feeling a little more inspired to use them in some way. To start with we used them for some crab apple print making. 

An ABC Treasure Hunt

It's no secret we love pirates around here. In the past we had so much fun with our Pirates' Gold Number Play we knew that we wanted to extend it into some letter play. That lead me to create an ABC Treasure Hunt.

It's great to do these types of activities during the summer, so we can be outside. But, the materials are simple enough it could be recreated inside as well. 

Castle Week (Simple Summer Theme Week #4)

As I let Big Brother help come up with several of the themes for our Simple Summer series, some of them have made me stretch my imagination a little. It's been interesting to see what I can think of that sticks to the point of our simple summer weeks, yet still matches his theme idea. Castle Week was a bit of a stumper, but I think I came up with some good activities.

Castle Week was another week where I had several different aged kiddos, my two boys plus two visitors, so I had to think of activities that were approachable for all the kids.

Pool Noodle Sword

This homemade toy was a huge hit in our house recently! We had thought about buying some foam swords for our Simple Summer Theme Castle Week, but were a little surprised to see them for $5 each. We knew we needed four: for the boys, Little Buddy, and Big Cousin.

Rather than spend $20, I spent less than $3 on putting together all 4 swords. 

Monthly Goals: August 2105

As a teacher there's something about August 1st that has always left a slightly bittersweet feeling in the air for me. It means there are a few more weeks of summer to go, a few more relaxed days before the busy days, a little bit of time left to squeeze in a few more things from our summer bucket list.

But there is also that beginning anticipation and excitement of a new school year ahead, new students to expect, and all the plans to be made.

Only this year, as August 1st rolled around there was a new feeling: the realization that at the end of this month my big guy will officially be a kindergartner. And as soon as I think about that, I just want to slow summer down as much as possible.

When people ask me how our summer is going, I feel like I can honestly answer that while it's been busy, it's been good. We've been enjoying our Summer Bucket List, Simple Summer Themes, and our attempts to Plan to Unplan. We've spent time with friends and on our own, we've created and played, we've explored and just hung out too.