How to Save Money on High School Graduation

With ten children each, I have no idea how my grandmas financed all those high school graduations, but I can promise you that they did it very economically.  People get very excited about the whole graduation thing and end up spending tons of money, but if you don’t have tons of money to spend, remember to just do your best and at the end of it all, they will be just as graduated!

How to Make Bug Snacks for a Bug Picnic

My mom's post about summertime menus reminded me of my favorite go-to picnic lunch for little kids. I came up with this for a birthday surprise for Thomas when he was about five or six. He loved it, and so have all the other kids I've made it for since. They forget that they're eating a boring old healthy lunch! (If my instructions are weird or confusing, let me know).

It's called "A Bug Picnic"

Summer Activities for Kids

Whether she sat us in front of paper mache’ or a memory game to match family photos, Grandma Maxine knew how to keep kids busy.  Here are some ideas of my own to hopefully reduce your kid’s screen time and keep them busy this summer.

Fun Summer Time Ideas for Younger and Older Kids (Including Teenagers)

Here is are my brainstormed lists for fun inexpensive things to do in the summertime that don't take too much help from mom (although they are always more fun if Mom is doing it, too!).

Easy Summer Meals for Kids

One of my very favorite meals that Grandma Maxine ever made me, she simply called ‘hominy.’  I’m not talking grits, like they make in the South, but hominy made Grandma’s way which is unlike anyone else’s way, as far as I know.  She would mix a drained can of whole hominy with tomato sauce, cook it up till the hominy was tender, and serve it sprinkled with cheddar cheese.  I still love to eat hominy, but I use a can of tomato soup instead of tomato sauce.  If you are adventurous enough to try it, you can add ‘hominy’ to this list of easy summer meals.  

Here are my easyish, healthyish breakfast and lunch ideas for the summer.  

How to Make Flavored Popcorn

This first recipe, “Peanut Butter and Honey Popcorn” comes straight from Grandma Maxine.  At my bridal shower (25 years ago), everyone was asked to bring a recipe to give me to start my recipe collection.  This is the recipe Grandma brought, hand written on a light blue index card.  Peanut Butter and Honey Popcorn is still a family favorite and one of our most popular after school snacks.

How to Make a Folded Flower Card

Someone gave me a folded flower card years ago and I saved it, tracing over it when I wanted to make folded flower cards to give away.  Eventually the card disappeared and I spent many dark years having no pattern and making no folded flower cards.  Thankfully, my life is bright and happy again thanks to the person who posted these templates on the internet. 

Write a message on a big flower and then fold it into this cute flower card!  Click here for a template and here for a tutorial.

How to Play the Drawing Game--Head Shoulders Knees and Toes

My Grandma Patricia, loves to play this type of game,  In fact, if I recall correctly, I learned how to play it at her and Grandpa Richard’s house with all my teen-aged aunties and uncles.  I loved this game as a kid because I loved to draw.  I don’t know what Grandma Patricia called it, but I call it “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.”

This fun game for all ages requires paper and a pencil for each person.

Online Volunteering

Grandma Maxine and Grandpa Devar were wonderful examples of service.  Grandpa Devar would always have a quilt set up outside under his carport and up to a year before he died at age 92, he would go out most days and tie quilts.  Grandma would bind Grandpa’s quilts, and they’d send them off to the Humanitarian Center to be given to needy people all over the world.  Service kept them young and kept them going.  About a year before he died, the humanitarian center no longer needed donated quilts and Grandpa stopped quilting.  If he had been able to continue to serve by making quilts, who knows how much longer he would have lived!  The following volunteer opportunity takes up less space and is more convenient than quilting, but service is service and it blesses our lives as much as the lives of those we serve.

Here is a great way to volunteer your time to some wonderful causes for the LDS church!  vineyard.lds.org