Cultivating Childhood

Making styrofoam shrink art was one of those fun childhood memories I have from being a kid.  My mom would clean off the meat or veggie trays from the grocery store, give it to us kids to draw on, then we would watch in awe as our creations shrunk before our very eyes in the oven. I really wanted to do the same thing with my kids so I (silly-me) tried to find a tutorial of the sort on the Internet.  I did this mostly because I didn't know the temperature the oven needed to be or how long it should be in there.  Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't find one!  The closest thing I found was this website , but there were no pictures or anything.  I decided to wing it - it couldn't be that hard, right? And, yes, this craft is super easy.  First, I gave the boys a clean tray and a bunch of markers for them to draw with. I had to convince them to color a lot  since they were only making small markings. We put their creations on an aluminum-covered baking sheet, and put

Meridian Park, not to be confused with Meridian Playground in Wallingford, is one of those "secret" parks.  I say this, because it is one of those places hidden among residential homes with hardly any distinguishing marks from the outside.  We only found it since it was near our home and it was on the City of Shoreline's park list . It is very small (maybe about 2 acres?), but as an open place for the boys to explore and run around in a safe environment, it was perfect! The maintenance hasn't been kept up as could be seen by the state of the picnic tables, but the grass was nicely cut and the paths open. Once you get into the middle of the park, there is a big open space with a nice hill to play on.  We enjoyed playing Buddy's version of "freeze" tag with each other and rolling down the hill.  It would be a lot of fun to go sledding on in the winter! One of our favorite parts of the park was a large mangled tree.  It was perfect for climbin

Heard of Amazon Mom?  It's been around for awhile, but I've been surprised how many people haven't heard of it yet.  Basically, it's a free program provided by Amazon.com for people who have a baby or young children in their lives (moms, dads, grandparents, nannies, etc.).  With your membership, you get the following benefits through Amazon.com: Subscribe and Save Benefits Without Amazon Mom, you get 15% off most subscribe and save items.  With it, you get 30% off subscribe and save items in the baby store.  We get our diapers much cheaper this way. Free Prime Shipping for  three months! Just for signing up, you get three months of free, two-day shipping on any size order from any department on Amazon (not just baby).  I rarely go to Target anymore since I can get whatever I need from Amazon delivered to my doorstep.  And trust me, with kids, this is  amazing. But it gets even better.  If you spend $25 in a single order from the  baby  store, they will extend your