'Rona-Cation: Dessert Challenge

Presenting our most recent challenge: dessert a la kiddos. Their challenge was to decide on a dessert and work together from beginning to end to present something we could all share. Henry wanted chocolate cake with vanilla filling and chocolate frosting, but Audrey didn't want to make a cake from scratch (and all we had was vanilla and funfetti mixes), so funfetti with chocolate icing it was!

They worked pretty well together, and the cake turned out pretty tasty if I do say so myself, even if the icing had a pinch too much salt. Audrey declared it to be the ugliest cake she'd ever seen in her life while they were frosting it, but afterward she said it really wasn't actually that bad and it even looked like they intended it to turn out kinda "rustic."

"It looks like a rock!" she said. "A rock that tastes really good!"

And once you made it past the 1" of chocolate buttercream, you had to admit- she was right!

Chalk at Mimmy's

We made a quick trip down to Mimmy and Pappy's house right before our 'shelter in place' order went into effect to bring them supplies and spend some QT together. It was a beautiful day and their neighbor's long horn cow had just given birth to the sweetest little calf, so it seemed unavoidable that we'd need to basically spend the entire visit on the porch soaking up sun and peeking at the newborn.

Enter good ol' sidewalk chalk.

But did we target the sidewalk? Nope, not really... we had our sights set on something much more prominent...

Of course we did draw a little bit on the concrete...

It's been so long since we've pulled out our favorite fair-weather standby... and it really was fun working over that outdoor fireplace with my Littles, listening to the cows and birds, avoiding slobbery Tommy love, and just hanging out. It'll hold us over for a while... or at least juuuuuust long enough for things to go back to 'normal.'

'Rona-Cation: Photo Scavenger Hunt (UPDATED)

To take advantage of a break in the end-of-the-world-caliber daily rain, we had the kids take the old point-and-shoot digital cameras they inherited this past summer and do a photo scavenger hunt. This one was Daddy's idea, and half of the list came from him.

I was a little surprised how quickly they breezed through this list, I should have put a few things on there that would be harder to find. It's probably for the best that they found everything pretty easily, though, because not thirty minutes after they came back inside it was raining again.

Audrey's photos:

Henry's Photos:

They were super proud of their photos and had a story for many of their shots. It was also kinda fun seeing the other photos already on their cameras as we went through the challenge pictures.

Oh, and the prize? Twelve inches of bubble gum!

See our previous challenges here and here.

'Rona-Cation: Special Drink Challenge

This was a silly one y'all, but reportedly one of their favorites... I challenged the kids to make a most excellent special drink out of the ingredients provided, and to my surprise they took over 30 minutes mixing and tasting and tweaking their concoctions to perfection!

The prize? A cherry! Well, and getting to drink the drink, of course.

Challenge ingredients: unsweetened lemon juice, unsweetened dark cherry juice, sparkling apple juice, frozen limeade concentrate, ginger brew, frozen blueberries, and sliced oranges, Meyer lemons and limes.

Henry's (winning) drink: 1 part dark cherry juice, 1 part lemon juice, probably 6 parts sparkling apple juice, and a splash of ginger brew.

Audrey's drink: equal parts ginger brew and sparkling apple juice with squeezed lime and orange wedges and floating blueberries for garnish. 

See our previous challenge activity here.

'Rona-Cation: Lego Challenge

Much like probably everyone else in our area right now, we are spending a lot more time at home because of the Coronavirus scare. Our school district has already extended the school closure from spring break all the way through April 6th, and there are some fairly educated opinions that we'll go even longer before setting foot in a classroom again.

For us, that means Mama working from home and a little kid re-learning of how to occupy your time without parking in front of a screen for 8 hours a day.

We've recently started watching Lego Masters, and from that show came the inspiration to have daily Lego challenges as part of that un-device-ing process. Two things have come from these challenges- first, Henry has overcome the reluctance he's always had to reusing Legos from previous creations, and many a build has been deconstructed to become something else in the past few days (which I love). Second, both kiddos have become so inspired that they're now building things outside of the little challenges I come up with (which I also love).

I'll do a 'qualifying' challenge after lunch, something they can work on together, and if it goes well and there's no fighting, they qualify to skip "nap" time and move on to the second, more complicated challenge. That one I'll usually think up so each person works on a piece of it independently, but it's a cohesive idea that is presented together when they're done. If they pull it off without fighting again, they win an hour on their devices (to be used when I start making dinner).

We're on day 3 of this rhythm and they're still enthusiastic about it, so I'm feeling a lot of winning over here right now. Here's what we've done so far:

Qualifying round: a St. Paddy's Day scene. They chose a rainbow coming out of a cloud and going into a pot of gold.

Round 2: a Dreamer and a Dream. Henry did the dreamer in a bedroom, Audrey did the dream.

The dreamer

The dream- Audrey walking on clouds with a neighborhood below

Yesterday's qualifying round: Animals Around Our House. Audrey's bee (Hen opted out)

Animals Around Our House: Rory

This morning's mini-challenge: Amazing Vehicle. Audrey's flying......... thing

Henry's re-worked flying thing on a pre-built trailer

Today, after lunch, I had them work on a video game scene where one person made the computer (Hen) and the other person made a snapshot of a video game (Audrey):

Clearly they qualified, and they are now diligently working on a good guy vs. bad guy scene. It's been kinda fun thinking these challenges up, if I'm being honest. I'm super glad they're still in to it all.

Stay tuned for other challenges we've been doing to fill these home-bound days!