Busy, busy day!

Camp Laffalotta's theme this week is cooking and baking.  Last night I got out our children's cook books and had the girls each choose two recipes they want to make this week, then write me a shopping list for her recipes.  I got some writing in that way--sneaky, huh?

Since the cleaning ladies come on Thursdays I always try to have that be a field trip day of some sort for the girls.  Everyone feels more relaxed when the girls are out of the house during cleaning day.  We started at the library where the girls signed up for the summer reading program and each checked out two books.

Next we stopped by to return Season 2 of Downton Abby to our friend.

Then we went to Hobby Lobby to return the three unused t-shirts from Sophia's birthday party.  I didn't know how many girls were coming and figured I'd better buy more and return them than buy too few and regret it.

Last, we had a shopping list from the girls' recipes and headed to the new Neighborhood Market about 3 miles from home, but relatively on the way home from Hobby Lobby.

It's amazing how fast the bill adds up when you're not shopping the sales or using coupons.  I'm not accustomed to buying pricey specialty ingredients, but since it was for the girls for Camp Laffalotta I just did it.

Here is the first recipe which happened to be the only dinner recipe chosen.  It's Steak and French Fries Salad.  Really.  And it was really good.

Elizabeth's sewing project

Elizabeth is the first one to finish her Camp Laffalotta sewing project.

His name is Troy, although I was thinking "Justin" with those long bangs. :-)

The face was sewn by hand and the construction of the pillow was sewn by machine.

Camp Laffalotta 2013

I'm tentatively dipping my toe in again this summer.  The girls are out of school and I want to give a little structure to the summer.  It works best for us to have our week go Thursday to Wednesday, so for this half week, we are doing some sewing.

Only Elizabeth has done any sewing, so they are making little pillows with funny faces on them.  I had some quilted material from the edges of my most recent quilt.  It was the extra fabric that extended past the edges of the top when it was machine quilted.  So the girls are using a lightly printed muslin with batting quilted to it--very nice, actually.

They got the basics of the faces hand-sewn on today.  Tomorrow they'll add the decorations such as fringe, "hair," bows, and so forth, then I'll show them how to use the sewing machine to sew on the backs.  A little stuffing from Elizabeth's Christmas sewing project and they'll each have a cute little pillow.

Camp Laffalotta--Cooking Week!

Thursday:  Bread

Friday:  No-Bake Peanut Butter Bars

Monday:  Cream puffs

Tuesday:  Easy "Baked" Apples

Wednesday:  Chocolate chocolate chip mug cake

Camp Laffalotta Week 1 Princesses

My girls practically begged to have Camp Laffalotta again this year. I thought maybe they'd rather just float through the summer, but I must have made it fun enough for them last year that they remembered the activities. I was surprised they remembered the different themes we did as well.

So this week's theme is princesses. We read a traditional story about a Mayan princess and a nonfiction story about Princess Diana. One of their activities was to create a play, make costumes, and perform it for dh, my mom, and me. Here they are--what play is it?

If you guessed The Little Mermaid, you would be correct. S on the left is Ursula, wearing dark colors, then C as Ariel, then E as Prince Eric.

This shot is Ariel sitting on a rock in chains waiting for Prince Eric:


The adults were given chairs just outside the patio door and for some unknown reason, the girls insisted this chair be placed right in front of us. We kept trying to move it so we could see the dramatic action happening but they told us it was important. They never touched it at all!! I took this picture to show our actual view. Funny, huh?

Dh said he felt stressed by taking time to watch the play because he was in the middle of a project to repair our cooling system. However, he's such a good father than he just told himself to sit, relax, cool off, and enjoy the show. I didn't even detect any angst, although he told me about it later.

Here is the final bow:

Camp Laffalotta part 2

Okay, I'm behind. We're actually on week 4, but I forgot to post this from week 2. Because I wanted to visit a Mexican bakery I'd heard about here in town, I decided week 2 would be Mexico! We made tortillas and they were really good!

The recipe said it's best to mix the dough, then refrigerate it overnight, so that's what I did. I wanted it as easy to work with as possible. The next day we took out the dough and cut it into 10 pieces, then C and I rolled each one out as thinly as possible. They were still thicker than most store-bought tortillas, but not by much. We heated a dry frying pan and cooked each side for about 20 seconds. They blistered and when we took them off the heat they looked just like fresh, homemade flour tortillas, i.e. delicious and perfect!

Week 3 was dinosaurs and our current week is outer space and the planets. We also borrowed movies from the library on the moon and lots of books about the planets. I need to get to the craft store to get supplies to make glow-in-the-dark space shirts. Well, what we stamp on them will be g-i-t-d.

I'd better get those things tomorrow because Tuesday I have to work almost all day from 4:50 am to 4:40 pm. Okay, I do have two breaks of 2 hours, then 1.5 hours in there, but it's going to be a rush-rush day.

Camp Laffalotta part 1

A week ago the girls started attending Camp Laffalotta. In fact, they started the day after school let out. Any guess as to the name of the camp director? Yours truly, of course.




The first week's theme has been Oceans of Fun. We checked out a pile of ocean books from the library, we've played fish games, we've made sandy beach cookies, we've read and read and read, we've eated tuna salad sandwiches, taken a field trip to the pet store to look at fish, and made fish-related art. In addition we do a couple of worksheets each day to keep skills sharp.



One of today's activities was to draw pictures of dolphins, then color them using a melting crayon technique (that needs a lot more refinement in coming weeks!). I put a piece of aluminum foil on a griddle, then put the paper on it. Then, using the butt end of the crayons, the kids slowly drew on the paper. The crayons melted and it was really fun! I think we'll use it for larger pictures in the future. These particular pictures were made to decorate thank you cards for Aunt Sandra and Uncle Bob as well as Grandma Jane and Grandpa Bob for birthday presents. Writing activity coming up next!