Browsing Category Creative

Grahams U Pick Peaches

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From sunflowers to peach picking, to amazing jams and specialty food items, Grahams U Pick Peaches has something for everyone.

Fun For The Entire Family!

It is a great time for the entire family, especially if you attend the events. Grahams U Pick Peaches has a lovely scenic view of the peach fields, which is just perfect for Instagram photos. They also have an amazing pavilion to eat at or to host an event. I would definitely recommend this farm for Brides, a must-see for Engagement Photo Shoots. Moms can also enjoy a photo shoot on Mother’s Day weekend in the Sunflower field. It is absolutely lovely!

Planning A Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

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Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

Easter was always a favorite Holiday around my house, when I was growing up. My friends and I got to play outside and have neighborhood egg hunts. We would find eggs filled with candy, coins, and small little toys. This holiday was a perfect time to spend time with my friends and family.

When we moved out of State, I felt bad that the boys would not have their family Easter Egg Hunts with our family anymore, so some moms and I in the Neighborhood decided to plan a Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. 

Lets Plan Your Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

Find The Place For The Egg Hunt – We had quite a few neighbors that offered their yards for the hunt, so that made it easy. In hindsight I think it is best if you keep it in the yards on the same side of street. We had the street blocked off from cars with cones, but some of the kids did not go to the other yards to collect eggs.

Send Out The Neighborhood Invite – We used an Easter Image to create a Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt Invite Poster .pdf that we shared with the neighbors. The parents went and passed out the .pdf posters invites.

Lets Prepare For Your Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

Lets Talk About The Easter Eggs…

We did not have a specific amount of eggs per each child. If you have everyone pitch in plastic eggs and they are pre-stuffed, then the amount should not matter because there will be enough eggs for all of the children and then some. If you have a different variety of eggs’ colors, shapes, designs, and sizes the kids love that even more because it makes “The Easter Bunny,” look more authentic. 😉

If you really need a number, then we had about 200 eggs. We provided snacks and juice boxes for all of the kids. Each parent brought a dish and that worked out great!

Easter Eggs 48 Count From Target

Printed Easter Eggs From Amazon 72 Pack 

Plan Your Games:

We had, “Guess How Many Jelly Beans Are In The Jar?” Here is a link to a lot of fun Easter Games that you could play at your Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt.

The Moms also planned cookie decorating, which the kids really enjoyed as well. I know a lot of parents do not like Sugary Treats, but I let my boys join in on these treats for the Holidays.

Set up The Day Of – Meet with the other neighbors, family members, and or friends the night before and finish stuffing the eggs. Sending out a text, or email reminder about having your stuffed eggs ready for the the morning is a great way to remind people. On the day of the hunt, meet early to hide the eggs, set up the Decorations, Snacks, Drinks and Games for the Egg Hunt. We live in Florida so we made our Easter Egg Hunt earlier in the day, to beat the heat.

https://www.pinterest.com/suereea/easter/

Let The Fun Begin

• Everyone Arrives. Greet Everyone, introduce your friends, family and neighbors. This is how you build a community that you want to be a part of.

• Lets the kids have the snack and drinks. Set up the games so the kids can get started.

• Have the children get their Easter Egg Baskets Ready. We did tell all of the kids to be nice while hunting for eggs before the Easter Egg Hunt.

Friendly Reminder: Sometimes the older kids want to get all of the eggs and become competitive, which can make it not fun for the younger children. A friendly out loud reminder to the Teenagers to keep it cool, should work. My thoughts on Teenagers participating in Holiday Events is, “Let Them!” You only get to be a kid once, so enjoy it. For those teenagers it may be the last Easter Egg Hunt they get to participate in, as they venture into becoming an adult. 🙁

The parents had the kids gather in a group and then we yelled “On your mark, get set, go!” That is how we started our hunt, but you can start yours off any way that you can. The adults helped the smaller kids get in on the action of finding eggs. You can also set up a specific area for the littler kids to have a hunt as well.

• After the Easter Egg Hunt, we gave out prizes for the guessing how many Jelly Beans were in two different jars. It was nice to have two because it gave the kids a second chance to win again.

• Clean up and head home! We had such a great time!

Most Important: Also the most important thing to remember is to have fun! This could be the start of regular Holiday Neighborhood Events for where you live.

The Butterfly Project

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Photo Courtesy Of: http://www.createwebquest.com/eileenslattery/butterfly-life-cycle

Photo Courtesy Of: http://www.createwebquest.com/eileenslattery/butterfly-life-cycle

We went to this very cute Locals Farmer Market and found a Butterfly Tent. Inside the tent you could hang out with butterflies. Our family decided to get some Monarch Caterpillars and to hatch them. This is a great science project and it taught my boys to handle fragile, delicate life with care, the circle of life, as well as death.

The Mathews Caterpillar

Here you can see one of our monarch caterpillars getting ready to make a cocoon.

After the caterpillar ate until its heart content, it then prepared by attaching itself to the top of the plastic cup. It seemed like an uncomfortable process, but it managed quite well. My boys thought it was absolutely amazing.

Here is a great resource of the Butterfly Cycle if you ever want to try this project at home.

http://www.kidsbutterfly.org/life-cycle

Here is the monarch caterpillar in its crysalith.

Here is the monarch caterpillar in its crysalith.


You can see that it had this beautiful like thread that it used to close up its pupa. Adorning around the edges was this beautiful gold lining and gold dots. It was so beautiful.  At this point we had to wait about a week until the caterpillar hatched from his pupa. I had to keep the caterpillars in our room because my six year old at the time wanted to touch the cup and the soon to be butterfly would jiggle around. You have to be careful with them in this stage of the cycle.

The Monarch is about to hatch.

The Monarch is about to hatch.

The trickiest part of this whole experiment is the timing of it. We were so lucky to be able to watch this part of the cycle together. During this part it is helpful to spray a little warm water with a light spray. This will help your butterfly get out the sticky shell it is in. You don’t want to spray the butterfly though when it is getting ready to come out.

Our delicate little Monarch Butterfly was drying off its wings.

At this point our entire family felt pretty accomplished. We were all very excited with each flapping of its wing. We could not wait until its wings dried. What an exciting moment. Out of 4 caterpillars, only 2 hatched. The other two butterflies never made it out of the pupa stage. Their pupas became black. It helped our boys to understand that not everyone makes it. They felt very bad for the ones that did not and we buried them under some dirt.

Watching the Monarch Butterflies take their first flight was an amazing site to see.

Watching the Monarch Butterflies take their first flight was an amazing sight to see.