I Scream! You Scream! We All Scream for Ice Cream!

So we love ice cream in our house. My dear husband often eats it every night (he use to barely eat it and then after an illness started eating it all the time). The other day at the store Hazel and I saw a small ice cream maker for around $10. We bought it since Hazel wanted to try to make ice cream.

Now as a child, I remember making ice cream with my family. It was a big ordeal and we always made it in the winter so we could use snow instead of ice to cool it. Of course our old ice cream maker made a good amount and it was huge. It was the size of a normal household bucket to clean with and had a huge crank on top. I don't remember how much ice cream it made, but it was enough to feed the five of us. Hazel's ice cream maker makes enough to feed the two of us, but we shared some with Daddy as well. Over the weekend we tried the recipe that came with the maker for vanilla ice cream. (I'll admit I questioned the small amount of sugar and vanilla, but figured the makers should know a good recipe--they didn't.)

Original Recipe Mixing

The recipe was to mix 1/2 cup of milk, 1/2 cup of cream, 1 teaspoon of sugar and a couple of drops of vanilla in a bowl and put it in the refrigerator for an hour. Then prepare the drum of the mixer with 5 ounces of salt, 1/2 cup of cold water and fill the rest with ice. Set up maker and then pour three-quarters of your mixture in and turn and turn and turn. Once it begins to form ice cream pour remaining mixture in. Well we did all of this and it tasted like frozen milk. Not very delicious. Oh, well.

New Recipe Mixing

So I searched the internet for a better recipe. I found several recipes, but this one on All Recipes was closest to our failed one and All Recipes was nice enough to have a button to scale it to the same amount of milk and cream as the original. So we used 1/2 cup of milk (fat free since that is what we have), 1/2 cup heavy cream, 3 tablespoons of sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Then we put it in the refrigerator. We mixed it yesterday and then got too busy to finish it, so we finished it today.

Hazel helped me today prepare the maker. We measured the 5 ounces of salt and then she added the 1/2 cup of cold water. Then we added the ice cubes. She had fun adding these.

Then we closed the drum and put it in the machine and put the top and scaper on the machine. Then we poured 3/4 of the mixture in and Hazel started to turn and turn.

After a little while she got bored turning, so I took over. Then I added the last part of the mixture and then we started to get ice cream! And this time it actually tasted good!

Ok, I know there have been many posts about making ice cream in a plastic bag. I found a link at About.com with the instructions as well as a good explanation of the science behind it. Teachnet.com has a similar post but also includes the history of who founded ice cream. And for a little fun here is an ice cream flavor personality quiz. Science News For Kids offers some books to check out on ice cream. I'm going to check them out from our library. Science News For Kids also has an interesting article talking about the nutritional values of ice cream, etc. and has percentages of favorite flavors and a link to a word find.

So what is your favorite flavor? Mine has always been strawberry.


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Summer, Beach & Mermaids

So my mother-in-law asked me to print her a copy of the picture above in as an 8" by 10". I did, but it got me thinking about beach frames. So while at Michaels the other day I picked up two inexpensive frames on clearance. I knew I would cover them with shells and such so I didn't worry about their colors. I also bought some more shells and sea glass. Then I saw the Mermaid Contest over at Taming the Goblin.

Over the weekend, we made the frames. We decided to start by covering the frames with sand. We had some from last year's fairy garden. So our first step is to spread some glue on the frames. Hazel loved doing this!

Then we did our best to cover them with sand.

At this point we should have let the glue dry, but I had an anxious three-year-old helping me so we went ahead. She could not wait to start gluing on the shells, rocks and sea glass. (Sorry the picture came out a bit blurry.)

Then we let the glue dry for a few days (and it still wasn't completely dry--guess I globbed it on a bit much). By the way we used craft glue. I called my mother who just made one of those shell wreaths to see what she used and she used a hot glue gun, but didn't recommend it with Hazel helping. She thought craft glue would work fine and it did.

Mermaid Taking a Nap Framed

While it was drying I looked for pictures of mermaids. I found several at Graphics Fairy, but they were more vintage and not as kind looking as I hoped for. I did a search and came across Deviant Art. My favorite there is Mermaid Taking a Nap. Of the four I showed to Hazel, her favorite is one I found on Graphics Hunt. There are so many out there and I tried to look for friendly and not too sexy ones.

Hazel's Favorite Framed

Then I hung them in the family room to get some pictures. After that I put Hazel's favorite in her room and I changed the picture in my favorite to the beach picture. After all this is what I bought the frames for.

I do think we are going to use some of the wooden frames I bought ages ago to make some more shell frames for our mermaid pictures and for her beach picture as gifts.

So how do you like our mermaid inspired craft? I'm off to enter it in Taming the Goblin's Contest.




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Happy Family Times--Family Game Time

Did you do something fun with your family this week? Kelly at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I are hosting a link party to share them. Scroll down to share with us!! And make sure you visit Kelly to see what fabulous thing her family is up to this week!

Family Game Time was the motto of our weekend. Hazel has been a bit sick so we needed to take it easy. She wanted to play everyone of her games this weekend (both days). We played seven games many times this weekend! 

Candy Land

 The first game we ever got her was Candy Land (well actually we have a Memory Game but we didn't play it this weekend).  Candy Land is great at practicing colors and teaching them how to take turns and follow the path. (We often have difficulties with which way to go on the board.) She loved playing it when she was younger, but she didn't really get it. Now she gets it a bit better.

 We also bought her Chutes & Ladders around the same time, but I put it away since I knew she wasn't ready for this one. This one involves counting. You could also easily do some addition and subtraction problems while playing since the board is numbered 1-100 for each square.

 This next game I first learned about from I Can Teach My Child. After reading this lovely post, I put several of these games on my wish list and finally bought Hi-Ho-Cherry-O for Hazel. She loves it! We have modified it a bit and play the version where we work together. The goal, in our modified version, is to pick all the fruit before time runs out. The time is based on how you spin. If you get the bird on the spinner you have to pick a piece of puzzle. If the puzzle gets completed before all the fruit is picked you do not win. We work together and do not keep track of which fruit is whose. She loves to play it. The highest you have to count up to is five in this game. (NOTE: I recently saw this game at Ocean State Job Lot so if you want it and have one near you check it out before buying it elsewhere!!)

 The same day Hi-Ho-Cherry-O arrived from Amazon, we had bought Count Your Chickens! at Drumlin Farm. This is another cooperative game. There is only one playing piece--Mother Hen. Your job is to get all the chicks back to the chicken coop before Mother Hen gets there. You get a chick for each square you move and there are some special ones where you get plus one to the number you moved. However on the spinner is a fox. If you get the fox you have to take one chick out of the chicken coop. Again Hazel loves this game! In it you work on counting. The most we have had to count up to I think is twelve. She is definitely better at counting out things. Before she would just say the numbers all together and not count each individual item.

 This game we bought at a discount store. (I think it was Christmas Tree Shops.) It is put out by Cranium and is called Duck, Duck, 1-2-3. The object of this game is for each player to move around the board picking up their matching ducklings which fit (somewhat) into the parent duck's back and then get to the center for the duck party. There is no winner. The game is over when all the ducks are at the party. We got it of course for Hazel's love of ducks! Needless to say she loves it because of the ducks. She is always deciding which color is the mother duck and which is the father duck.

At one of the discount stores (Ocean State Job Lot, I think), we picked up a set of Disney Princess dominoes. They did not have any without characters or I would have gotten them, but these also do not have dots or numbers on them so I think it is a bit easier for the first domino game. She loves it. We have not made a domino train to knock down yet, but will.

We got this one with the dominoes. It is called the Birthday Party Game. Since we celebrate someone's birthday just about every day in my house (often my third but sometimes it is Ducky's), I thought this might be good. You spin a spinner and have to get the invitation first. Then you spin to get all the party supplies: dessert, hat, gift, drink, favor, and noisemaker. The first person to get all of his/her wins. We of course usually play until everyone has all of their supplies since Hazel doesn't like there to be a winner.

 The final game to share is another one I learned about at I Can Teach My Child! I happened to see Zingo at Michaels and was able to use my 40% off coupon to buy it. Hazel loves it. It is a matching game. We play a modified version since she is not quick enough yet to beat us. We help her notice if her board has one. She loves moving the zing piece as well as matching and picking out the card, etc. We all seem to enjoy this one very much.
 

Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

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