National Ice Cream Day = Easy Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream

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Did you know that July 15 is National Ice Cream Day? I read it in Parents Magazine. (Apparently it is also Cow Appreciation Day and Tapioca Pudding Day, but I won't be celebrating those. Source) National Ice Cream Day apparently came about thanks to President Ronald Reagan who also named July National Ice Cream Month and picked the third Sunday of the month to be National Ice Cream Day. Many of the ice cream retailers will have specials including some free ice cream. Check yours locally.

To celebrate we made an easy homemade strawberry ice cream. I know I saw this somewhere and cannot find where it was. So if it was your blog, please let me know so I can link to it. Since I could not find my original source I went and googled it and found it at All Recipes. 

You take a package of frozen strawberries, 1/2 cup of sugar and 2/3 cup of heavy cream. 

Put them in your food processor and process. That is it. Then enjoy!!

We certainly did!

We also enjoyed a few books about ice cream.

The Full Scoop by Gail Gibbons is a great book that explains how ice cream is made and some history of it. It is the only one I found that actually was not just about factory made ice cream.

And of course, Curious George and the Ice Cream Surprise is always a favorite! 












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Sharing Saturday #28

Wow, we had some amazing posts shared last week. If you haven't seen all of them, please go visit and leave some comment love. 

Since there was a five-way tie for most clicked, I'm just going to feature a few of my favorites!

A Few of My Favorites:

From PlayDrMom: Promoting Positive Behavior

From Play Through the Day: Raising a Reading Superstar

From Little Wonders' Days: Bouncing Bubbles

From Familyicious: Different Playdates (I am featuring 3 of her posts since I thought they all went together!)

 Water & Ice                             Mud                                       Kid Wash

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From Your Host:

Fireflies Part 1

  Now for This Week's Party  
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All right everyone...This is a PARTY!! Have Fun!!

Fireflies Part 1

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Summertime always reminds me of fireflies. I have fond memories of catching fireflies in jars and using them as a nightlight in our pop-up camper at sleepover parties. Of course when I woke up early the next morning I was very afraid of the ugly bug in the jar. We use to have sleepovers in our camper in our backyard in the summer. 

 I wanted to share this with Hazel.  Since she does not stay up when it is dark we read some books and did some crafts.

We took some books out of the library. First is Fireflies! by Julie Brinckloe. This is a great story of a child going out with the neighborhood kids to catch fireflies and realizing as the light changes color that the firefly needs to be free.

Next is Living Lights: Fireflies in Your Backyard by Nancy Loewen. This book gives interesting facts about fireflies and their general life cycle including what they eat, how they are born, etc.

The third book is Go, Critter, Go! Flash, Firefly, Flash! by Dana Meachen Rau. This is another  book about fireflies and is written for the very young. 

Another great book is The Little Squeegy Bug by Bill Martin, Jr. We did not take this book out this time, but have in the past. We love this book. It is a story of how the firefly got its light.





Next we went and got some glow in the dark fluorescent yellow paint. We started by painting dots on black paper. Or should I say I did. Hazel had other ideas.
 

My painting

Hazel's painting

Next we tried to paint fireflies on the black paper using the yellow for just the tail.

My Painting

Hazel's Painting

 Stay tune to see more firefly projects!


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Pumpkin Blueberry Pancakes

As I have mentioned before, Hazel loves pancakes. Well she has been asking to make pumpkin ones again. I finally remembered to buy a can of cooked pumpkin so we could. Then when she asked to make them I was able to answer yes. 

We pulled out the ingredients. We adapted the recipe in our Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Cookbook that I have had since I was six. I love this book! We used one cup of whole wheat flour, two teaspoons baking powder, a half of a cup of almond meal, a half cup of oatmeal and a teaspoon of cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg. Hazel measured and mixed our dry ingredients! 

Next we beat an egg--Hazel cracked it by herself and beat it! Then added one cup non-fat milk, one tablespoon olive oil and a can of cooked organic pumpkin. Again she mixed it for me. At this point I started heating the pan and sprayed it with a cooking spray.

Then we combined the two together and added one cup of frozen blueberries. We had fresh ones but I didn't see a reason to waste fresh ones by cooking them.

Next Hazel pulled her stool over to the stove and helped me scoop it into the pan. She didn't totally understand why we had to do it over the stove, but she did help with the first two batches.

Hazel claims these are her favorite pancakes. When I flip them over I press down on with the spatula to make sure the batter gets around the blueberries. I usually flip them twice and do this both times.


Enjoy!!


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Imagination--Readathon Week 4

Sharing Saturday is still open through Wednesday!! Please stop by to share your child-oriented crafts and activities and to check out all the inspiration others have shared!

Also Happy Family Times is open! Please stop by and share your fun family activities this week! Help us to inspire each other to have more quality family time!


As you know, we are participating in several book clubs, readathons, etc. this summer. The Memetales Readathon 2012 has imagination for its theme this week! I love this theme!! For the people signed up, there are three free electronic books to read with this theme. (Plus for every child who signs up a meal is donated to FoodforEducation.org!)

The first is Night Boy by Anne Laurel Carter. I love this story. Night is the younger brother and Day is the older sister. Night cannot wait to play hide-and-seek with his sister, but he has to wait until it is dark. He pulls out his blanket to make it dark and she goes and hides (to the west of course), but he jumps in his spaceship and heads in the wrong direction and gets distracted creating constellations and the night sky. Day calls him back and it is his bed time, so she tucks him in for the daytime. The perfect activity is to study the night sky of course. Although Hazel's bedtime is well before the sun sets during the summer here, we did some exploring of constellations. We talked about how people saw images in the stars and named the constellations using their imaginations. Then we created some of the constellations using flashlights and black paper or tin foil as suggested in the links below.