It's Official...

Summer break is definitely in full effect! You're probably already being inundated with complaints of boredom and/or constant hunger.
Here's a few  family fun ideas to help keep yourself relatively sane, until school starts back.
Have a backyard scavenger hunt. It's free, easy and will keep the kids entertained for a while. Especially if you put items on the list that are not present in your backyard.
Watch a movie together. Let your favorite child pick out a movie and force the others to watch it. (kidding)
Play a game of Uno. Because of it's simple color/number matching format, Uno is a game most kids can learn fairly easy. It's way easier than trying to explain to a kid why a straight beats 3 of a kind.
Go to the park and feed the ducks. (if your park doesn't have ducks, feed the pigeons or squirrels...improvise)
Most of us are within relatively close proximity to a park that has ducks. This is a cheap way to keep the kids from killing each other, if only for an hour. Check out your local bread store and ask if they offer discounted bags of day old bread. I affectionately refer to this as "duck bread". At my local bread outlet,  $1 will get you a bag filled with enough day old bread to choke a small army of ducks. (not that I reccomend choking ducks, with bread or otherwise)
Contact your local bowling alley. Alot of them offer free bowling for kids on certain days.
Find a friend or a relative or a friend of a relative or a relative of a friend, that has a pool and invite yourself over.
Pitch a tent in the backyard. Light a fire in the grill, roast marshmallows and tell the kids stories of "back in the olden days, when I was your age". You'd be surprised how little things like the story of your first heartbreak, or not getting picked for a team or being picked on for your spikey Bart Simpson hair do (not funny), mean to your kids. It makes you more relatable & almost human to them..  (it also gives them ammo against you in future arguments, so you might wanna be careful what stories you decide to share)
Bake cookies with them. Yes, it'll be way messier than if you just make 'em yourself, but the memories you're making and life skills lessons you're teaching are so worth it. Besides, you can always make them help clean up. Isn't that why we had 'em in the first place?!
Play a board game. Yes, kiddies, there are games that do not require electricity. Board games are great and teach kids lots of great skills. How to take turns, how to count, how to tell colors and most importantly how to be a good sport regardless of whether you win or lose.
Water balloons and water guns can be either a whole lotta fun or a whole lotta drama. If your kids are scared to get wet or assaulted, this is probably not for them.
Summer is a time for your kids to relax and unwind and a time for you to make some great memories. As I've learned the hard way, our kids are only kids for a little while. Before you know it, they're seniors in high school, getting summer jobs, driving cars and all of a sudden,they don't have time for you, so make the extra effort and spend some quality time goofing off with your kids this summer.

Fruit Cobbler

This is by far the simplest, no fail, dessert recipe ever. To switch it up, you can use different flavors of pie filling, even chocolate.
What you need:
1 stick of butter
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1 cup s.r. flour
1 can pie filling (any flavor)
While oven is preheating to 375°, put a stick of butter in the bottom of a glass baking dish and melt it, in the oven.
In a seperate bowl, mix together milk, sugar and flour. Pour into dish containing melted butter.
Pour can of pie filling in the middle. Do not stir! Bake for 45 minutes or 'til golden brown.
Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top!

ZOMBIE!!!

No, not the kind who wander through city streets aimlessly looking for nice tasty brains. The kind you find in your garden.
Yes, things that were once dead, are now alive in your garden.  It sounds too easy to work, but it really does. All you need is some store bought green onions. Use the green tips in your favorite recipe, then simply plant about 2 inches of the leftover white root ends in the ground. Give 'em plenty of sunlight & water and sit back and watch your zombies sprout.
These do great in containers & can even be kept on the counter, under good lighting.
You can also use the same method for growing garlic. Plant one clove of garlic, pointy side up, in a pot, aprox 2 inches deep. Cover loosely with dirt and water.  Viola... Zombie garlic. This one can take a while to mature. I'm not positive on growing times, but you can read more about it here.

Quick Money Saving Tip...

With a house full of boys, there's always lots of dirty messes being made, which inevitably ends in handwashing.  As you can imagine, soap goes really quick around here. So here's what I've found that saves quite a bit of cash. 
Next time you're at the store, look for a foaming soap dispenser. I found this one (pre-filled with soap) at the dollar tree, but you can find them most anywhere. Buy it. Use it.
**Here comes the cool part**  When all the soap is gone from the dispenser, you can refill it with your favorite liquid soap diluted with water.
Add about a Tablespoon or so of liquid soap, then fill it the rest of the way up with water, give it a few pumps to get it started and....VIOLA.... Foaming hand soap.
With this tip, you could possibly save thousands of dollars a year on soap... Ok, I didn't really do the math, but it definitely saves you money nonetheless.
: )

One man's trash...

... Is another man's repurposed baby wipes container.
I hate throwing away perfectly good containers. I have a collection of empty baby wipe boxes, plastic crystal light canisters & sour cream bowls that would embarass most people, but not me! lol I see them and think... "Hmmm, what could I use this for"?  I usually have no idea, but keep them anyways knowing a use will pop up sooner or later.
The Crystal light canisters, come in very handy for storing small amounts of leftovers. Since they're tall & slender, they stand nicely, side-by-side in the fridge, taking up only a small amount of space.
The baby wipes containers are great for storing all kinds of stuff... Manicure supplies, make-up and all those stray pens & pencils. My favorite use tho, is to store plastic bags in them. The top is perfect for one at a time, popup dispensing.
: )

My husband laughed at me...

Until he tried it. This is possibly the coolest thing I've done, in a really long time. (besides creating a human life) 
All you need is an empty produce bag, like the one oranges or onions come in & a piece of string.  Flatten the bag out. Fan fold it, accordian style. Fold it in half & secure it with a string, work with it & fluff it out a bit and... Viola...A handy dandy pot scrubber.

Easy Crock Pot Greek Yogurt

 This is the recipe I followed, her directions are way easier than mine!


Over at Julie's: Easy Crock Pot Greek Yogurt

Houston, we have yogurt...

So I woke up this morning, expecting a gloppy stinky mess, but what I found was smooth, creamy yogurt. IT WORKED!!! I was so excited, I fixed Micah a bowl for breakfast, with blueberries & he grubbed it down real quick.  The texture is still a bit runny, so I'm gonna re-strain it, but other than that... It's perfect.

Let the inoculation begin...

Today's adventure arose out of necessity... Micah has been on a crazy yogurt kick lately, going through almost a whole box of the "tubes" in a single day. After reading the ingredients and adding up the cost, I thought "There has to be a better way" (besides buying stock in the company who makes "the tubes") So as I read lots of D.I.Y. yogurt recipes on google, mostly consisting of warnings of strict temperature requirements and the like, I became discouraged. Thinking I was doomed to forever be a slave to "the tubes", I gave up... Until I found the easiest D.I.Y. yogurt recipe EVER!!! It consists of 3 things... A crockpot, milk & a "starter". In this case, the starter is 1/2 cup of plain greek yogurt. I am 6 hours into my yogurt adventure, and we'll know in the morning if it worked. If it turns out as wonderful as I imagine, I'll post a link to the recipe. *Fingers crossed* :p