The Gummy Worm Fairy

Maybe its not such a good thing that a lot of our traditions revolve around food. Especially when you’re trying to be healthy. Oh well. This tradition is a fun one that had some certain motivation behind it. I guess it could be improvised with something healthy, but it might just not have the same effect.

On our week-long camping trips, we had a special visitor called the “Gummy Worm Fairy” (GWF). The GWF would make a visit to our tents sometime between brunch and the afternoon. If our sleeping bags were “made” and our stuff fairly organized, she would leave gummy worms on our pillows. And if they weren’t, we either didn’t get as many or we would have to wait another day to get some.

In our excitement for her visit, we would even make little baskets or bird nests for the fairy to leave the worms in. As funny as it sounds, it was one of our favorite traditions and I’m sure it kept our parents happy!

{photo from here}

Favorite Camping Meals

We had lots of fun camping trips this summer. Camping is a great time for lots of things, but especially...yummy food. Some of our favorites:

• Navajo Tacos
• Fried sliced potatoes
• Peach cobbler
• Dutch oven pizza or chicken or lasagne
• Tin foil dinners
• Roasted starbursts
• S'mores
• Rice Crispy treats
• Spaghetti and garlic bread
• Roasted hot dogs
• Flank steak and dutch oven bacon potatoes
  

Camping Tradition: Treasure Hunt

Even though summer is winding down and there isn't much time left for camping trips, I'm going to share some of my family's favorite camping traditions over the next week or so. Mainly its my way of documenting our favorite traditions, but who knows, you might love some of these ideas you'll start doing them with your own family. I'm sure my mom and her sister started these as a way to make camping a little more fun. Now I'm not saying camping isn't fun. But with lots of little kids running around, I'm sure it was nice to have a few things planned. Here goes... (and let me tell you that these are tried and true camping traditions. We have done them for years. In fact, we did many of them on our most recent family camping trip and we are all grown up!)

Camping Treasure Hunt

On the last day of our week-long camping trip, we got to go on a treasure hunt. We looked forward to this so much! My mom and my aunt would write the clues...that is until their not-so-creative minds in that department gave room for my ever-so clever cousins to write up magnificent clues. Some years there were even themes like Pirates of the Caribbean, Pioneers, a treasure map, etc. But don't worry. You don't have to do a themed hunt to make it memorable. This year we had simple clues on simple lined paper.

They would hide about 6-7 clues around the campground in well-known places like the outhouse, canoe, campground sign, tent, fire pit, tackle box, etc. Looking back its funny because the clues were always hidden in the same places, but we would still have to figure it out from the clues.



The treasure was a giant box with a $1 gift wrapped up for each person and a little treat bag. So it wasn't anything elaborate, but we sure did love opening our treasures and enjoying them for the remainder of the trip.

Back-2-School cookies

I came across these cute cookies on Whimsy. Again, I really need to throw a back-2-school party so I can use these cute ideas.

{Photos from Poca Cosas}

Edible crayons

I love back-2-school time. Oh how I wish I had an excuse to throw a back-2-school party. Someday, right? If I was throwing a party, I would make these:

EDIBLE CRAYONS



Gourmet Mom-on-the-Go made these simple edible crayons. I think kids would get a big kick out of them and the best part is all you need is pretzel rods, white chocolate, food coloring, and crayon labels.

Check out the directions here.
Aren't those just so fun? I think sure think so!

A BIG THANK YOU!

Just wanted to say thank you to all of you who enjoy reading this blog.

This blog received the Versatile Blogger Award

from Finding Joy in the Journey

In my efforts to simplify my life, I have thought about stopping this blog numerous times. But then when I get comments or hear that YOU enjoy reading about new ways to celebrate holidays, birthdays, and life, that keeps me going. So THANK YOU! I think I'll keep this going afterall.

Back-2-School Fashion Show

I'll be honest. I actually liked when Fall came around. That meant BACK-2-SCHOOL! Even though my family didn't have a ton of money, we always got to pick out new school outfits and shoes. My mom would make sure she had a one-on-one date with each of us to help us find new clothes.

I loved shopping, except when I couldn't find just the right outfits. But when I finally did, I got really excited.

With all 7 of us the weekend before school started, we would put on a

Back-2-School Fashion Show!

{photo from here}

It was very simple. (Although each year I had grand visions of extending it to our neighborhood friends. I was weird sort of a child you could say. I did have fun. I was just all about planning events even at a young age.)

Anyways, the girls would go in one room for a dressing room and the boys in the other. Then one at a time, my patient parents would sit on the couch in the family room and watch us come out modeling our new outfits in every possible combination we could think of. It was a lot of fun and it helped us get very excited for school to start.

Schultute: A Back-2-School Tradition

If you have been a reader since the beginning, you already know that I picked up a few traditions while living in Europe. Today's post is another one of those traditions. It is one I am definitely going to do when I have kids.

So the German tradition is called a Schultute (pronounced shool-toota). The direct translation is school cone. Basically, its a cone filled with school supplies and goodies given to a child on his/her first day of school, however, some people give them to all their children at each start of the new year. The cones can be large or small and you can fill them with anything your children might need. Hey, you're going to have to buy school supplies anyway, so why not make a cute tradition out of it?

I made a simple one and it was...well, simple.

Just get a piece of heavy paper and wrap it into a cone-shape.

Then fill it with school supplies and goodies. I put erasers, pencils, pens, and glue in there.
A small notepad and a treat would be fun too. Just remember, you could make it as big as you wanted.

You can wrap it up with tissue paper and tie off the top. You could leave it on your kids' beds the night before school starts or have it at the breakfast table on their first day.

For some other fun examples, check out these cute and simple ones here and here. It's fun to see others carrying on this tradition. And right now, it seems like many stores are having good deals on school supplies so stock up now!