Later in the afternoon we picked up the older boys from the Adventure Club where they had been enjoying cookies and playing Wii. As they began to pitch their I-duwanna-leave fits I reminded them about the water slide and we were rolling.

Bummer about the slide: There is no lifeguard at the top. It is a great slide and my kids (and I) had a blast on it but the many kids in line to use the slide were left to their own judgement on an appropriate length of time between riders so I saw my kid shoot out the bottom once only to have a rather large tween girl land right on top of him. Once my kids decided to go down together, stand in the middle of the slide and wrestle we were done with that activity.

Dried off and hungry we prepared for our Ko’Sin evening dining experience. The restaurant was a bit fancier than I had anticipated and very beautiful. While we waited, Jack noticed this “nest” hanging from the ceiling. The highlight of this restaurant is definitely the kids menu. Kids items were prices just as reasonably as you would find them anywhere else and came with a bowl of fruit, followed by their entree and then dessert. Wow!

The adult menu is priced in the $20-30 dollar range, quite steep for me. Allen had the Pan Seared Marinated Pork Porterhouse Spiked with Mole ($28) while I ordered the Oven Roasted Game Hen ($28). My culinary trained husband called both dishes “crazy yummy and unique”. We shared bites and ooohed and awwwed but I will admit to being jealous of Jack’s burger at the same time. Jack ordered the cheeseburger ($5.25) off the kids menu which included everything you see here. Wow. I was glad we didn’t order an appetizer. The other boys got macaroni and cheese ($4.25), their standard.

I will hand them this, Ko’Sin knows how to treat a kid. After their plates were cleared the were each served a bowl of chocolate mousse covered in cookie crumbles and garnished with a couple of gummy worms. You guessed it: worms in the mud. Now, that’s what I’m talking about. Allen and I shared a piece of the most beautiful Big Fat Chocolate Cake I’ve ever seen which we didn’t even come close to finishing. We were happy campers!

After dinner, we retired to our room and woke up on Father’s Day to go to church with my family in Ahwatukee, quite conveniently located just down the street from the resort.

Bottom line: We had a great time last year at the Wild Horse Pass Resort & Spa’s LEGO Mini-Build but this year they outdid themselves. We would definitely do it again and have recommended the package to our friends and family. Thanks Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort & Spa!

Disclaimer: We were hosted by the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort & Spa for the weekend and by Ko’Sin restaurant.

We arrived at the resort Friday night, unloaded our things and headed straight down the the pools we grew so fond of during our stay last year. Then we turned in early with visions of multi-colored LEGO bricks dancing in our heads.

I knew better than to worry about breakfast Saturday morning. The snack spread at the Mini-Build included fruit, granola bars, cookies, chips and breakfast bars… a little something for everyone in my posse.

I even let my kids go for the sugary drinks that early in the morning. Hey, what is vacation good for if you can’t throw your every day dietary guidelines and restrictions out the window?

When things got rolling each boy sat down with his own commemorative LEGO barbecue grill kit with one brick engraved with the place and date. Why a barbecue grill? Why, in honor of Father’s Day of course!

Once finished with their barbecue grills, the kids participated in the LEGO free-build on the floor (out of which came some phenomenal LEGO sculptures) or in races to see who could build the most LEGO men in a given time period. My William had no trouble keeping up with the big boys and Chris wasn’t much behind him! As a bonus, each of my kids went home with a super-cute green LEGO tractor which they put together in our room later.

Since the older boys were headed to the Adventure Club after the Mini-Build, Allen and I took Jack on a boat ride down the river. Last year the boats shuttled folks to and from the old casino, now you can ride out to Rawhide and we even picked a group of out-of-towners up from the golf course.

Tune in tomorrow to hear about our adventures at the pool, the kids’ first trip down a water slide and our review of the Ko’Sin restaurant at Wild Horse Pass Resort & Spa!

And be sure to check out last year’s trip here!

Materials:
White paper
Construction paper
scissors
crayons

Step 1: Fold your sheet of white paper in half lengthwise and then open it back up and fold each side in to the center line.

Step 2: Open up the page and turn it over, spiny side up. Fold the top inch back but only crease it through the middle two quarters.

Step 3: Turn the paper back over and fold both sides in to the center once again.

Step 4: Flatten the top corners down to look like the collar of a white shirt.

Step 5: Turn the card face down  again and flip the bottom of the tail back up so it touches the bottom of the collar.

Step 6: Flare out the inside corners for the sleeves.

Step 7: Add a tie or use patterned paper and add buttons. If Dad’s not a tie kind of guy, have your kids decorate the shirt to look like his favorite then add buttons.  If Dad is a uniformed worker, check out this variation on the shirt card. Find more detailed instructions on this design here.

For a matching gift idea, create a brag book like the one we posted for Mother’s Day but add a personalized cover like the one I used here.

Don’t miss our upcoming review on our Father’s Day Lego Mini-Build weekend at Wild Horse Pass Resort & Spa! (They will be hosting another Lego weekend in July if you can’t make this one.) Here is my review of last year’s Lego Mini-Build weekend at Wild Horse Pass.

Have a very happy Father’s Day!

You will need:
4-5 ounces of chocolate
Animal crackers (or whatever the dad in question has a taste for)
Sprinkles
A double boiler (or a metal bowl over a pot)
Wax paper
Napkins and baby wipes

Step 1: Lay out wax paper and hold the curly edges down with matchbox cars. Or not… but my kids seemed to feel it was necessary.

Step2: Place crackers or whatever you are dipping, sprinkles and napkins out on your workspace so you will be ready to go when the chocolate is melted.

Step 3: Chop chocolate into smaller pieces and then melt in your double boiler or in the microwave. Remove from heat before chocolate is fully melted and continue stirring until smooth. If you are using the microwave or a make-shift double boiler, be careful not to over-melt the chocolate or it will start to re-solidify real funky-like. (Yeah, I’ve been down that road before.)

Step 4: Allow children to dip crackers into the chocolate,  lay them out on the wax paper and add sprinkles to their little hearts’ content.

Step 5: Let set and then put them in a tin or a jar for Dad to take to work. Happy Father’s Day!

1. Paper plates. Or lunchbags or whatever funky paper products you have lying around. For whatever reason, coloring on an irregular paper surface multiplies the excitement level by at least three.

2. Butcher paper on the wall. I picked up my roll of white butcher paper at Paper Plus in Mesa and I tape it to the table, the wall and any other crazy surface I can think. The kids love coloring on the wall and fill every square inch on the paper.

3. Cardboard Shuttle Imagination from KidsCraft Playhouses. My kids had an absolute blast with this space shuttle! And so did the rest of the neighborhood. They spent days decorating this thing between trips to the moon and I had neighborhood moms calling to ask me what their kids were chattering on about. For girls or boys who are not so interested in space travel, KidsCraft Playhouses carries a Creation Cottage playhouse.

4. Gift wrap. For the most part, we don’t buy wrapping paper. My kids make it. For big gifts we use the same butcher paper I use to tape to the wall. For smaller gifts we use sheets of packing paper, also found at Paper Plus. The kids use crayons, markers, water colors, glitter and whatever else we have handy. If they know their work is going around someone’s present my kids get extra creative and artistic.

5. Sock monsters. My friend the super-midwife, Brittani Hamilton, suggested this one a couple of weeks ago. We cleaned the sock drawer of old and mismatched socks and the kids each picked one to decorate. The holey ones are the most fun because fingers can poke through, acting as horns or claws.

If most of your crayons are busted nubs, be sure to check out how to create your own Recycled “Swirly” Crayons right at home.

Disclaimer: Shuttle Imagination provided by KidsCraft Playhouses for media review.

Christopher’s latest harvest, a whole bunch of root veggies, seemed like the perfect opportunity to get a few vitamins and minerals into his body that he is surely missing. Here’s how we did it:

Ingredients:
Potatoes
Beets
Carrots
Garlic
Butter, salt & pepper

Step 1: Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees and line your cookie sheet with foil, shiny side up.

Step 2: Cube all of the veggies, no smaller than an inch, no bigger than an inch-and-a-half. You decide what ratio of potatoes to beets to carrots you want and cut up enough to fill the cookie sheet. One cookie sheet easily feeds our family of five.

Step 3: Peel and cut six to twelve cloves (according to your taste) of garlic in half and distribute evenly amongst the veggies.

Step 4: Cut a cube of butter lengthwise and then into pats and spread out the same as the garlic. You can use as little as a half a cube or a whole cube if you want them good and crispy. Add salt and pepper to taste — more than you would think you’d need — the potatoes suck it up.

Step 5: Roast on the center rack for 20 to 45 minutes depending on how done you like them. We do two pans for company (as seen above) and it’s important to remember to rotate them to get good browning on the top and bottom pans.

These are great to cook ahead of time if you need to put other things in the oven. Just crank the oven up to 500 degrees about 5 minutes before dinner and throw the veggies in the oven until they’re sizzling.

Disclaimer: If you know us at all, you know my husband gets credit for this recipe. If you don’t, you know now. Thanks Allen!

Those first couple years of her life my friends and I got a kick out of carting her around with us and how people assumed she was my child. I took pictures of everything she did and endured countless hours of Teletubbies, Barney and Mr. Rogers.

But as my kids have grown in number and age and as the geographical distance continues to grow between my sister and I we don’t get to spend anywhere near enough time together. So, imagine my delight when she agreed to spend some time with me this last weekend working on this week’s How To’s Day craft.

The plan: To cute-ify the clipboard that hangs in Allie’s room displaying a few of her treasures. The outcome: Pure awesomeness (displayed above and to the right).

Materials:
Clipboard
Roll of wrapping paper (the thicker/heavier the paper, the better)
Cutting mat
X-Acto knife
Spray adhesive
Mod Podge (or watered down Elmer’s glue)- optional
Small foam paint brush- optional
An extra pair of hands

Step 1: Roll your wrapping paper out across the cutting mat and place your clipboard flat on top. Cut around the clipboard leaving an extra inch or so of paper around the edges to wrap around the back.

Step 2: Lay some newspaper, ads or something to protect your workspace and place the clipboard on top. Place your pretty paper over the clipboard just where you want it and then lift up the paper covering the area below the clip. Spray adhesive on the board and then smooth the paper down.

Step 3: This is where another set of hands is helpful. Have someone hold the clip open while you work around it cutting the paper with the X-Acto knife.

Step 4: Lift the upper section of paper and spray adhesive (this is tricky). Smooth the paper down around the clip.

Step 5: Turn your clipboard over and cut out the corners of your overlapping page as shown to the right above. This will help it fold down uniformly. Paint paste onto the top and bottom strips of your paper and fold it onto the back side of the board. (I would recommend Mod Podge or watered down Elmer’s. We used spray adhesive but at this point it was a gobby, gooey mess. ) Do the same with the long side strips.

Step 6: If you want to, give the whole thing a coat of Mod Podge for durability and shine.

Add your calendar, grocery list, pictures or whatever you fancy and hang your clipboard on the wall!

Materials:
A muffin tin
Cupcake papers
Broken crayons

Step 1: Preheat your oven to about 200-250 degrees and peel all paper off of the crayons.

Step 2: Line muffin tin with papers.

Step 3: Break crayons down into easily meltable sizes.

Step 4: Put the tin full of crayons in the oven and watch it. The crayons will look like they are just starting to melt for quite a while until they are quite suddenly crayon soup. Pull them out before they are over-melted.

Step 5: Let crayons cool. This will take quite a while. I think we left them for at least an hour

Step 6: Bust out your new swirly crayons and create a work of art.

So here it is but not without the help of three people who love me enough to dig me out of the hole I buried myself in this week: my awesome husband and my good friends Lanae Shrope and Stephanie Shumway. (And thanks to Lori Nielsen for the loan of her alphabet stamps!) Lanae is responsible for the chains and cords on the necklaces along with some of the work that went into making them. Stephanie cleaned my house and modeled for us. And my husband wound up doing the majority of the grunt work. You might be asking yourself what exactly I was doing. I’m still trying to figure that out.

And without any further ado, my make-your-own Mother’s Day washer necklace tutorial:

Materials:
Washers (zinc plated)- Found at the hardware store. Buy a few extra for practice!
A heavy hammer- We used a 3 pound sledge
Alphabet metal punches- Found at Harbor Frieght
A cutting mat (optional)
A sharpie
Hairspray
Baby wipes
A magic eraser

Step 1: Place a practice washer on a concrete or tile surface. Use the cutting mat to protect the surface if necessary.

Step 2: Choose a letter and position it on the washer. Lift your hammer about a foot above the stamp and let it fall using only a touch of force. It will take a practice washer or two to get the hang of this. I ended up having my husband help with this.

Step 3: Personalize your washers with your desired message. We used a #2 Phillips screwdriver as a spacer. You can use a nail setter if you would rather a dot than a little star.

Step 4: Color in your letters with black Sharpie and then hairspray it quickly. Wipe off the excess with a baby wipe or a magic eraser. This takes quite a bit of elbow grease!

Step 5: Add the chain, cord or ribbon of your choice. We tried a few different options here.

In a matter of a couple of hours we knocked out six necklaces and a keychain for my dad’s birthday. And we had a blast! We have already come up with a list of different occasions to make these necklaces for. I ended up with one for myself and Stephanie and Lanae both went home with one.

We bought our washers at Home Depot for pennies a piece. The large one is a 5/8″ x 1 1/4″ zinc-plated fender washer and the smaller one is a 1/2″ cut zinc-plated washer. There are many different sizes and thicknesses to choose from and a couple of different finishes. If you want to get a little crazy, this blog post has lots of great ideas for different types of washer necklaces.

Have a very happy Mother’s Day!

Materials:
Paper lunch sacks
Jute (twine) or ribbon
Heavy weight white paper
Crayons
Glue
Pictures of grandma with your kids
Hole punch

Step one: Stack three paper lunch sacks on top of one another head-to-tail so that the thicker bottoms of the bags aren’t together and then fold them in half.

Step two: With the sacks folded, punch a whole at either end of the crease, about 1/4 inch in, so the sacks can be bound like a book.

Step three: Cut several squares of heavy white paper. (Cut more than you need if your kids are helping since they tend to have lots of “mess-ups”.) Then, work with your kids to design a cover for your book including the phrase “Why we love Grandma” or “We love Grandma because…”. We have used popsicle stick frames on the cover before, we’ve layered paper, feathers and craft foam. Get creative!

Step four: On the inside pages, alternate photos of Grandma with your kids and artwork by your children illustrating things they like to do together and special things Grandma has done for them. I usually like to end with “She loves us!” and a coordinating, lovey-huggy photo.

Step five: Bind your book with twine or ribbon. Give to Grandma as a card accompanying a gift or as its own special treasure.

Last week’s Mother’s Day gift idea: Grandma’s brag book