T Rex Family

T Rex Family

Monday, September 26, 2011

Snow, Snow, Snow...Snow...

Snow
It won't be long before we'll all be there with snow
Snow
I want to wash my hands, my face and hair with snow

Snow

I long to clear a path and lift a spade of snow
Snow
Oh, to see a great big man entirely made of snow

Ah, yes, soon, we will be living Mr. Bing Crosby's words. Just not quite yet. 

Last weekend I had 40lbs of organic pears that needed to be canned. The usual helpers were not available so it was up to me. T Rex Dad took charge of toddler wrangling while I worked for 5 hours straight. 

My mother-in-law recently shared with me a few ideas that she used to keep young T Rex Dad occupied while she was working in the kitchen. We tried one of these out during canning time. 

We put a couple of cups of flour into my left over canning boxes. Then the kids brought over their cars and drove them in the "snow". 






It was sort of like having a mini sandbox of flour in the kitchen. It sounds kind of messy. Not too bad. Flour does clean up pretty easy. And we have a lot of it. Best of all, though, the kids were occupied for over 2 hours. When we were done, we dumped the left over flour into a plastic container and labeled it "play flour" and have since used it again and again. It's a big hit with the kids - especially easy clean up when used outside.

A big thank you to my mother-in-law for this idea. We owe you some pears!

P.S. 40lbs of pears yielded a full 3 loads of 1 qt jars - that's 21 jars. Thank goodness my good neighbor loaned me her super awesome peeler. I've added a couple of those to my wish list.

6 comments:

Rey said...

That is a cool idea! This year has been nice for me, because my oldest is twelve, and she loves being in the kitchen with me. It's the first year canning hasn't taken me all day!
We did tomatoes last weekend, peaches two weeks before that, & my 40lbs of apples are waiting to be made into applesauce this week...
It's so much work, but it always feels worth it!

Julie Kieras said...

SUCH a cool idea!! I am so stealing this one! :) You'll probably see me blog about it soon! LOL - I have actually heard of it before but totally forgot until you wrote about it so thank you!!!

Jenners said...

The one photo of T-Rex just cracked me up. He looked like he got caught in the act.

And your amazing tasks like canning an insane amount of pears always amazes me.

This is a fun idea … and 2 hours of occupied children is worth any mess!

septembermom said...

First of all, I applaud you for getting all that canning done. You're amazing!

I love that playing in the snow idea. I have to try it with Jillian. The kids look so adorable in the pictures. You're an awesome mom!

Kim said...

I love this idea!!! I am totally going to steal this idea, the boys would go crazy if I created a little snow to run their cars through.

Caitlin said...

oooh! What a great idea! I would love to try it! But I wonder if Isaac might throw it everywhere?

Might be worth a shot!

Wont the kids be fun to play with in the (real) snow this year?!