Father's Day PIN success

  These are the tutorials/printables/ ideas that we are using for Father's day.

Dessert
Salted Pretzel caramel brownies
 We decided to wait to make these because I made so many yummy Wookie cookies(just the chocolate chip cookie recipe from the Chocolate chip bag). I'm excited to make these though so I'll leave the link here. :)

Dinner
I will be using this chicken recipe to fill enchiladas per his request. I use2 TBS of a ranch recipe I found on pinterest instead of the packets you can buy at the store. It's nice to eliminate MSG when possible.
Cafe Rio Chicken
Here's an example of a Ranch Recipe that would work. There are many more and any of them should be fine for this recipe.
Homemade Ranch


Gifts

I made a Monogrammed (MW) car kit to hold his sunglasses/glasses/contact solution. Matt's job travels around a bit so it will be nice for him to have these things easily handy. Hopefully he will find it thoughtful as it is useful. It's definitely not perfect but it is still functional. :)  If I had been less lazy and used the same color thread instead of black it would look better.  He appreciated the thought/usefulness of it and the Sunglasses the most.
Car kit


I also bought him a DVD and some new sunglasses(his have gone missing) I think he will like.

We decided to go with a Star Wars theme.  Instead of a medal we are giving Dada a freezer stencil Bounty Hunter shirt.  My boys helped me pick out the design and fill in the stencil with paint.  I used my silhouette and Dafont's Galaxy Far Far Way(Boba Fett) to cut it out but you can use an exacto knife or scissors I will update with photos. I found the bounty hunter symbol through a google search and traced it. We are using the Star Wars printables linked below. The boys helped me glue on the labels and helped me make cookies on Sunday morning for the Wookie Cookies.we left out some of the labels i.e. Hans Rolos and Leia's buns just cause I wasn't sure if Matt would like those treats as much. I switched the chocolate dipped pretzels for glow sticks for the Lightsabers.

Father's Day Star Wars printables
Freezer Paper Stencil Tutorial

Sentimental
I saw an idea on Dating Divas for making notes and hiding them around the house for Father's day.  They used fancy paper.  I just used my silhouette to cut out simple note cards and had the boys put down what they love most about Dada.  My 7 year old wrote his own and I wrote/translated for the 5 and 2 year old.  I made four notecards for each of us.  We hid them on Sunday morning while Dada slept in.
Here's where I got the idea that I simplified...
Why I Love You

I had the kids fill out this questionnaire and  draw a picture at the bottom.
Time to Celebrate Fathers

 I hope he feels appreciated and loved as we go through the day. :)

Local Exploration and Summer Reading Programs

On Saturday we went to our Library's Summer Reading Kick Off.  We registered the kids and I and got our sheets to sign.  I expected them to have more going on but we missed the story time and were too early for Invention club.  They let us get out the legos and we borrowed a few more books too.  I think I have about 30 checked out currently. :) We'll stop by every Saturday to check off the books we've read and get prizes for the kids.  I can get a prize too for every ten hours I read and reading to my kids counts in my hours.  We've also downloaded the papers to do the Barnes and Noble summer reading program.  After the kids read 8 books they can pick a free one from the list provided.
Barnes and Noble Summer Reading program
 I found that link through this pin- Free Homeshool Deals
The boys had a great time putting together legos at the library and I think they all read about 3-4 books after we got home again. :)

Their fun lego creations- top two photos by Kaden, Middle two by Asher and the bottom photo is of Silas' creation.

Yesterday Matt felt like taking a drive to see something in the mountains.  We were hoping for it to be a little cooler and nice and scenic.  We decided to drive up the Turqouise Trail and go to the Old Coaltown Museum in Madrid.  The museum was a little over-priced but still worth it overall. We just wish they took care of it better since there was mouse poop on a lot of the displays.  We enjoyed learning about Madrid.  Madrid was a mining town that liked to throw a good party(lights and festival at Christmas time) and baseball game (one of the first lighted Ball fields in the U.S. thanks to Thomas Edison and the power plant he built there) until the late 1950s when the mine closed down.  With the closure of the mine the town turned into a ghost town. It was a ghost town until 1975 when the owner sold individual crumbling housing lots for 2-4k.  Local Artists jumped at the chance to renovate and now there are 300 residents and 40 business in the little town.  We had fun looking at the leftovers of the power plant that Edison built and at the remnants of the Christmas display(which helped inspire Disney to build Disneyland).  The boys' favorite part was climbing on the Steam Engine that used to export coal from the mine and bring potable water into the town.

After the museum we went to Jezebel Soda Fountain and Art Gallery.  Kaden and Silas chose chocolate ice cream, Asher chose an orange soda, and Matt and I shared a root beer float.  Yum!

 Silas loved this sculpture but was a little afraid to stand next to him.

 Getting his already dirty face covered in chocolate too.

 Kaden wouldn't look at me. He did not like being in the sun at all.  That may put a damper on our summer adventures...

 Silas chilling on the way home.
I love exploring local places and going to tiny museums.  It was fun supporting a local economy a little bit and learning more about the history of our area.