The other night I chopped up peppers to serve with dinner.  I started by chopping  the tops off horizontally . As I set the tops on the counter, I thought they looked like flowers.  I knew that I needed to save them. So I stuck them in a plastic bag and tossed them back in the fridge, because Mama had an idea.















It's two days later, and I'm finally getting around to the peppers I shoved in the back of the fridge. They still look just as pretty and vibrant as when I first cut them.  So what did I save them for? Painting with Peppers!!

With the help of my two youngest, we gathered up finger paints, paper, newspaper, a Styrofoam tray and smocks.  My youngest also found a green Bingo dauber and an ink pad and stamp that he had to have too.  But he was being a forward thinker because the green stamper was quite coveted and came in handy.

After setting up a painting area in the kitchen and getting my 3 year old into her painting smock we were ready! My toddler was not interested in a smock.  He just wanted the mysterious green bingo dauber to play with.

My daughter loves to paint and she took right to messing about with the peppers.  Because little brother was coveting the green bingo dauber, she of course had to use it too! So there were a few tiffs with little brother over the green bingo stamper, and a few talks about sharing along the way.  But otherwise there was a lot of creating going on.

Seeing them getting into the paint and exploring different ways to use the materials inspired me.  I used the peppers to stamp out flower heads, then used the green stamper to make stems, leaves and grass.  My daughter saw what I was up to, but I didn't force her to partake in my project. She did ask me what I was doing though.


I think using the peppers to stamp out flowers would make a nice Mother's Day or Spring art project. You could add embellishments, attach a poem or even make a greeting card. Just putting that out there.

All in all both my littles had a good time messing about with the paint and peppers.  I even got to get a little creative myself. It was an easy activity to pull together, and it gave us something to do together.

I hope you find something that inspires you to do with your kids.  Remember sometimes the little things, like the tops of peppers, can lead to bigger things, like making memories with your kids.  Happy Mother's Day!

• 

My 13 year old wanted chocolate milk this morning, but we are out of milk.  I compromised by suggesting we make chocolate smoothies. My 3 year old loves to help me in the kitchen, so she immediately yelled, "I want to help!"

I gathered up the following ingredients:

• Hershey's Chocolate Syrup
• Juicy Juice Passion Dragonfruit
• Honey
• Vanilla Greek Yogurt
• Frozen Whole Strawberries
• Frozen Maine Blueberries

Daughter helped scoop out the yogurt and put the frozen strawberries into our Magic Bullet.  I didn't exactly measure anything, but I usually fill the pitcher only halfway.  If I were to guesstimate...we probably used a half cup of yogurt, 2 tablespoons of honey and chocolate syrup, maybe a cup or 2 of juice, and a half cup of blueberries and strawberries.  I cook visually, so if I like how it looks I go with it!

After filling the Magic Bullet we blended for about a minute or until all the berries are pulverized. If it looks too chunky add more juice.  I served our smoothies with straws, so I wanted it liquid enough to be easily drinkable.

The result? My 13 year old said, "This is crazy good!", my 11 year old finicky eater drank it up, my 3 year old asked for seconds and my 14 month old grabbed my cup. So I think it was kid-approved.

I love any chance to get my kids in the kitchen and cooking, because I feel that learning to cook is a valuable life skill.  Smoothies are one of those kid-friendly activities that provides a great sensory experience too.  Do your kids ever help you in the kitchen?  Have you made smoothies together?  What do you put in your smoothies?

This is also an activity that Older Kids could do independently.  Also makes for a really healthy snack. Cheers!!

I've been unpacking food items to put into my new pantry.  Today I found all of our peanut butter jars. My two year old daughter immediately saw a play opportunity.  She lined them up by colored lid; made patterns (red lid, yellow lid, red lid, blue lid); and of course counted them.  She even asked me about the contents at one point. The reds were creamy, the blue crunchy, and the yellow jar contained sun butter. She even investigated the labels for letters and pictures.  She combined her play with her other new toy, an old sushi mat. Who needs expensive learning toys when you can learn in your pantry!

We have been celebrating fun holidays lately.  Today we baked up several batches of Chocolate Chip Cookies for Chocolate Chip Cookie Day.  The cookies were a big hit with my kids. I would like to say we made them from scratch but we used boxed mixes this go round.  We just had to, because we got each box at our local surplus store for 79 cents a box.  Can't pass up that deal!  Plus we still had to mix them up, measure and bake them. So a great hands-on Math activity too!