We were so lucky we got a white Christmas here in Denver!
Since animal poop and eat every day of the year I had to spend some time at work with some awesome, dedicated, passionate people!
After that it was time to head home and I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate than with snow ice cream! Now I first experienced this deliciousness in Vegas....I know weird right! We took the dogs up to Mt. Charleston to play in the snow with some other great danes and someone brought the ingredients for snow ice cream!
It's so simple! One big bowl of snow, about 1 cup of milk, about 1/2 cup sugar, and about 1 tsp of vanilla! I put all the ingredients and some spoons in a bowl and headed outside with Evin and Karl.
We found some clean snow, scooped it in to the bowl!
Added the sugar, vanilla, and milk.
Then stirred and enjoyed!
We also added some blue food coloring too!
Hope you get a chance to enjoy some of this delicious treat!
We decided we didn't have to carry on the alphabet theme forever, we hit B week hard so we thought we'd give ourselves a bit of a break with jungle week.
Sunday night: Decorate the house! Not only are we learning about the rainforest, but we're living in one too!!!! We used balloons and streamers to decorate!
Here's the funny story... I got SO excited about decorating but I had to pee. Nicole suggested that I take a break and go to the bathroom.
I said, "No, I'll be fine."
She said, "You're gonna pee your pants."
That was it that was all it took, I started hysterically laughing and squatted down on the floor. You know where this is going I'm sure.....and sure enough. I peed my pants and filled my shoe with pee, to the point that it squished when I walked......what can I say.....I was EXCITED about Jungle week!
So was Evin!
Monday: We crafted ourselves some binoculars to use on our safari.
We glued together two toilet paper rolls and then added some tissue paper.
Last dad punched some holes and we hung a string around them.
For some other fun safari ideas check out the Thoughtful Spot!
I was working on some animal butt magnets for the girls at work. I used Safari Limited's WILD toob (we LOVE these by the way). These are awesome for sensory boxes! I asked the husband to cut them in half, first he used a jigsaw, then remembered he had a band saw and that worked LOADS better apparently.....There are a few different kinds of magnets you can use. The best ones were about 1/4 of an inch, silver, and packaged in foam (sorry no brand name). The black ceramic ones, hold the butts up but nothing else. Sort of like the difference between a pair of SPANX and a pair of jeans. PS if you don't know what SPANX are.....click here.
So anyways.....After I finished the butt magnets, I had a lot of heads.....
so I decided what a fun puzzle game! I put magnets on the heads and Evin had a great time putting them on the fridge, matching them up, and then putting them back on the fridge again. Awesome activity.
Tuesday: Jungle sensory box. I used animals I hadn't cut in half, green rice (2TB water, 10 drops of green food coloring, mix together, let dry, voila!) and some silk plants from the hobby shop. He played with it quietly for 1 WHOLE hour! Granted it was a mess, he was loading animals and rice up in his trucks and driving them around and dumping the rice out but let me repeat. QUIETLY FOR A WHOLE HOUR!
The Picky Apple is where I first discovered these awesome things and she has some great ideas!
We also had some foam stickers that were on sale at hobby lobby and we created a rainforest/animal theme on a piece of foam. And our arms. And our face...... He had a great time identifying all the animals and is trying to say a lot of the names!
Wednesday: Probably the best day ever if you ask me. I hid his animals all around the house and we got out his binoculars. Then we went on a safari.
He loved it! It was over an hour of him finding the animals handing them to me, me giving them to Nicole and Karl and then re-hiding them again! We had a great time identifying all the animals and making the noises they would make!
You HAVE to watch the video! AWESOME!
Thursday:
This day was a bit of a bust when it comes to jungle week, Grandpa came in to town, we were in a mad rush to finish Christmas presents, and auntie Nicole was planning for the end of the world! We did squeeze in a pretty fun shape matching game. He doesn't quite catch on to this, but if you point to where they should go he catches on pretty good!
Friday:
I worked late this day so we did an abbreviated safari game when I got home from work at 8pm and face timed with Grandma!
Saturday:
Evin hadn't taken a nap.....YIKES....it was still 6pm so too early to send him off to bed so we dove in to activities. For Evin, sleepy means even shorter attention span so we started with a snake craft,
then painted with animals which we a lot of fun.
He was fine with the animal's feet getting dirty but anytime paint got on his fingers or on their sides we had to go clean off!
Then we played around with making some cardboard tube animals too.
Overall, I'm pooped! I'd say Jungle Week was quite the success!
Here are the pdf's for the different activities and the activity list! ENJOY!
Thanks Bakerella! You, my dear, are AMAZING! And you appear to understand what it's like to operate in a pinch or between a dog and a hard place so thank you!
I was able to make desert for the family AND desert for the work peeps in 5 min with 40 min of baking time!
Here's how you do it......
Dump a can of peaches in a pyrex, cut them up smaller
Dump a box of yellow cake mix on top of that (don't mix)
Cut up some butter and place the slices around the pan (don't mix)
Sprinkle some brown sugar on top of this.....don't get carried away or your husband might start calling this diabetes dessert. Hypothetical of course.
Then sprinkle some chopped walnuts on top of that.
Put in oven until it cooks! at 325 ish?
Tastes great with ice cream, warm, cold, or otherwise! YUM!
These are my work peeps enjoying our interest party! Johan the elf joined us too!
