Sidetracked Sarah

18 June 2013 ~ 465602013-06-18+06%3A54%3A00admin

4th of July Drinks for Kids & Adults Alike

Today is day 2 of my series:

If you missed yesterday’s post, you’ll want to check out How to Make Coasters: Patriotic Style.

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I love making these 4th of July layered drinks! Not only do they look really nice, they also taste amazing.

In order to maintain your layers, you need to select beverages with varying amounts of sugar content. The higher the sugar content, the more it sinks.

For our layered drink, we bought the following:

Red: Cran-Apple juice, 32 g. sugar
White: V-8 Splash Pina Colada Smoothies, 18 g. sugar
Blue: Blue Gatorade G2, 7 g. sugar

Directions for 4th of July Drinks:

Start by pouring your Cran-Apple juice into the bottom 1/4 of the glass.
Fill the glass to the top with ice.
Pour the Pina Colada juice gently over the ice so that it slowly trickles in.
Do the same with the blue Gatorade.

Our top layer didn’t turn out quite as blue as we would have liked, but I think it was my fault as I didn’t make sure that I bought the darkest blue Gatorade there was. Keep that in mind when you’re shopping for yours!

The Results?

Everyone, including both mom AND dad absolutely loved this drink! It was so refreshing! It really made you feel like you were getting a treat!! My kids say we should sell it. I’m not exactly sure who we’re selling it, too….lol…but, I guess it’s so good they’d pay for it!

A couple of the girls decided to add some strawberries and blueberries to it and mix it up. They enjoyed it greatly!

And don’t forget to go enter into the $80 giveaway and visit the other bloggers who are taking part in this series, by clicking on the picture below. You’ll see topics like:

5 Days of Summer Learning – Monique of Living Life and Learning

5 Days of Summer Organizing - Sherri of From Our Front Porch Lookin’ In…

5 Days of Summer Love for Mom

How to Make Coasters: Patriotic Style + $80 Cash Giveaway!

Today marks the beginning of a new series! 11 other bloggers and I are doing a 5 Days of Summer Series that lasts from June 17th through June 21st. There’s some fun topics being discussed. Things like Summer Salads, Summer Organizing, Summer Reading and more! In my section of the series, I’ll be sharing about Patriotic Crafts, decor and foods, just in time for the 4th of July (aka Independence Day). That’s why I’ve named my series, 5 Days of Red, White & Blue.

How to Make Patriotic Coasters

Supplies:

4″x4″ Tiles
Scrapbook paper or Wallpaper books
Mod Podge
Paint Brush
Sealer Spray
Cork or Felt Pieces

Directions:

Cut your paper so that it will fit on the tile. In our case, we had some oddly shaped paper from a wallpaper book and my 13 year old daughter decided to coordinate the coasters but not make them identical.
Paint Mod Podge onto your coaster.
Place Paper onto Coaster
Paint Mod Podge on top of the paper.
Let Dry
Once dry, hot glue the cork or felt to the bottom corners of the coaster.
Finally, spray the coasters with Clear Acrylic Sealer to protect the paper from being damaged from condensation from the glass.

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway for $80 Paypal or Amazon money. You can enter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And don’t forget to go and visit the other bloggers who are taking part in this series, by clicking on the picture below. You’ll see topics like Summer Adventure for Boys, Summer Travel, and Camping Fun.

3 Last Minute Hand Print Crafts for Father’s Day

Welcome to the last day of my series I’m doing with the iHomeschool Network called 5 Days of Handmade Father’s Day Crafts. If you missed the first several days, here they are again.

I did not end up having as much time as I had hoped this week so that I could share some of our own creations of Father’s Day Crafts with you. However, I’ve rounded up some of my favorites that I’ve found that I may replicate in years to come.

As you all may remember, I’m a sucker for handprint and footprints! That’s why I keep including all of them in our craft projects and inspiration. I really like this card from Chasing Fireflies.

This Handprint Stack from my friend Emmalee of The Hoggatt Homeschool turned out really cute! It wouldn’t be hard to do at all and would be a cute keepsake to keep for years to come. Be sure to check out her site for a few more easy Father’s Day ideas as well!

This is a really cute idea to use handprints as part of the branches of the tree from Clean & Sensible. Be sure to check out her Father’s Day Keepsake book idea, too!!

Be sure to check out the series on Homeschool Survival called 5 Days of Surviving Summer as a Homeschooling Family. The following posts were shared:

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series! Next week, I’m hosting and participating in another 5 day series all about summer time! I’m planning on my theme being 5 Days of Red, White & Blue, in honor of Independence Day on July 4th. We’re also going to have a cash giveaway to one lucky winner!

This post is part of the iHomeschool Network Summer Hopscotch. For more topics, click here:

The NOT So Perfect Father’s Day Photo

I had it all planned out. I had the CUTEST picture idea for Father’s Day. I was going to line them all up. Write on their feet the following words: ”We Love You Dad” and snap a picture of their feet, with all 6 kids somewhat blurry in the background, so you can still see who the feet belong to. The actual feet would be in focus. Great idea, right?

So, this is how it really went……

We’re hurrying to get this done as I had to leave for a trip out of town in an hour. This was our only opportunity to get the photo with all 6 kids together, as they wouldn’t all be together again until Saturday evening.

I made sure all of their feet were clean, except the toddler….oops. Oh well daddy won’t’ mind a bit of dirt on his feet in the picture! After all he is all boy…and gets dirty ALL. THE. TIME. Then, I sat them all down in the grass to take the picture.

The 4 year old starts freaking out. ”I’m too itchy!”, she cries (or whines or wails). Me, being desperate to have this thing go off without a hitch, quickly run into the house to get her a towel to sit on. When I get back, I grab the toddler, trying to get him to sit down.

He freaks out! HE does not want to cooperate. He keeps getting up. He cries if I try to get him to sit down.

OK, maybe we can make him sit there for a quick second, even if we have to make him cry. I get their feet all lined up and I start writing the words on the bottoms of them.

It tickles! Do you know how hard it is to write a letter on a squirmy tickly foot? Yeah….the letters were far from perfect. “I wonder if he’ll know that this letter is really a “D”?”, I thought to myself!

OK, finally, I got all of those letters on their feet. Now its time for everyone to sit still and get the picture.

“WAHHHH”, says the one year old. He does not want to sit still. No way. OK, 13 year old forces him to sit there. Screaming and all.

Hurry, take the picture, I’m thinking as I scurry to find just the perfect distance away.

Got it. ”Oh no, it’s not on the right setting, it didn’t blur out the background. Let me see if I can figure that out.” Maybe we need to move to a different spot.

And then, my 15 year old yells…………..

Daddy’s Home!

He came home for lunch! He rarely comes home for lunch, but he knew I’d be leaving and wanted to see me before I left! Normally, that’s a joyous occasion, but we can’t let him know what we were doing. So we all hop up like we were just standing in the yard with a camera, doing nothing, right before we leave for a trip and then we all mosey back into the house.

I got one whole picture and that picture wasn’t going to work.

Here’s that lone picture. You’ll notice I even managed to cut off the first letter of the sentence. :)

So that is the story of my failed, large family Father’s Day photo gift. Large families are notorious for needing a LONG time for getting the picture just right. What was I thinking? I’m definitely still learning. My camera, the lighting AND how long it will probably take. But that’s OK.

And, just in case you’re interested in the picture I was trying to replicate, just click on over to Freckle Photo for some awesome photo inspiration! She is an amazing photographer. One I think I’m going to have to follow and learn from!

This post is part of the iHomeschool Network Summer Hopscotch. For more topics, click here: