The Meanest Momma

Art

Kendra — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:43:27 +0000

Wendy has been doing some doodling this summer. It’s really fun to see how her drawings have evolved from just a year or so ago. Here is some of her recent work:

Taking a Trip to Trashy Town

Kendra — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 15:12:31 +0000

On Wednesday, a friend and I decided to take the kids to “Trashy Town” aka the Montgomery County Recycling Center. Earlier in the summer, I read that you can take tours of the recycling center and I thought this would be a great way for the kids to see what happens to our trash, or more accurately, Mont Co’s recycling.

We arrived and check out the exhibit room, which had a giant diagram, explaining what happens in the processing floor. It also had some other exhibits, showing how different materials are broken down.

The kids were not too interested in learning – the room was a big space to runaround in, as far as they were concerned. So, we moved on to the processing area. You go upstairs and then have a view of the facility from a catwalk that over looks everything. The kids were interested for about 5 minutes, but we moms were fascinated. My memory of everything is a little fuzzy, but here’s my best attempt to explain what we saw.

Materials arrive via truck and are dumped on the “Tipping Floor”. Then front loaders scoop the materials and place them on a conveyor belt that carries them into the processing area.

The trash comes in and is then sorted by 6 workers.

The immediately pick out non-recyclable materials and also separate into categories like plastic, or milk jugs, etc.

From there, the trash goes up.

It gets shaken, which drops out some of the broken glass and then fed up into another convey belt. You can see below that some of the material that was sorted by the workers gets dropped to a lower conveyor belt to be processed differently. I forget what material that was.

It was definitely noisy when the machines were running (they were off when we first walked in). Ear plugs were provided, but my kids didn’t want to wear them.

More sorting happens here by hand.

I thought this “Eddy Current Magnet” area was fascinating. Material came along the belt from the left and dropped below. On the right side of where things dropped was a magnet which made all the metal material (like soda cans) fly of the belt and drop to the right side, thus separating the metal onto a different belt below.

You can see on the right, glass items are being moved up the conveyor belt where still more workers separated the glass, by color, I believe.

Along the back wall, you can see material that has been separated, compacted and is waiting for transport to be made into something else.

While I don’t know how much education we imparted to the kids, they did have fun seeing everything moving. Of course, they also enjoyed running around like wild children.

If you ask them what was most memorable about the trip, they will tell you, “It was stinky!”

If you are homeschooling, or just have kids who are fascinated by the garbage man, I think this would make a fun field trip. After our visit, we headed to a nearby park to eat lunch and burn off more of the crazies.

If you want to plan your trip, here’s what you need to know:

Montgomery County Recycling Center
16105 Frederick Rd
Derwood, MD 20855 County Website

The recycling center is open and available for drop in visit Mon – Thurs between 7:30am – 5:00pm. Guided tours are can be scheduled for groups Tues – Thurs between 9:00am – 2:00pm.

Worth noting: there’s no public restroom available — I’m sure there’s one in their administrative offices if you get desperate – but they ask that you “go” before you come. There’s also no space for eating lunch – which you probably wouldn’t want to do anyway, since you’re basically at a big refuse facility.

Having Fun at Rehoboth Beach

Kendra — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:38:57 +0000

We got back from an extended weekend at Rehoboth Beach. We stayed Friday through Monday — just the right amount of beach time for me and a good way to avoid beach traffic.

Crossing the Bay Bridge was a breeze – I highly recommend doing it before 2pm on a Friday.

We attempted to make this a somewhat frugal va-cay. We stayed in cheap lodgings that had a kitchen.

This enabled us to eat in two nights and have spend money on treats like ice cream.

The kids favorite place to be, when not on the beach was Funland. It had a bunch of different rides that cost tickets. The tickets were pretty reasonable – $12 for 48. Many rides were 3 tickets, a few were 4, and a handful of “major” rides were 5. There were also a bunch of 1 and 2 ticket rides for little ones.

We rode this Frog Hopper type ride. Asher thought he’d love it but was dead wrong. He cried almost the whole ride, all 60 seconds of it.

When we headed to the beach, I filled our Easy Lunchboxes with yummy snacks and treats. We were able to fit 5 sandwiches and plenty of snacks for our party of five in the 3 containers.

On Saturday, we went to Cape Henlopen State Park. It costs non-residents $8 to get in and when we got there around 9:30, we had the place to ourselves. It did get a little more crowded later, but not terrible.

I bought this First Up sun shade from Walmart before our trip to use at the beach and camping. It worked great!

The kids had fun jumping the waves with Daddy.

Adam wasn’t as keen on the water, but he enjoyed snacking.

All that beach time made for a good afternoon nap.

We decided to visit a park I found in the afternoon for some low-key down time. It’s called Grove Park and it was great! In addition to a really nice tot lot area, it had a great exercise area and nice paved path good for bike riding.

Saturday night, we had fajitas on the back porch. I made the marinade and stuck the chicken in it before we left, so all I had to do was chop the veggies and cook them in the skillet.

On Sunday, we decided to check out Rehoboth beach.

It was decidedly more crowded. It was also overcast. We left around lunch, just before the showers hit.

We lunched at Nicola Pizza while it rained. After lunch, we decided we needed to burn some calories so we rented a family buggy from Bob’s Bikes.

Sunday night, we dined out. We had a delicious dinner at Fins – a very nice seafood restaurant/raw oyster bar. After dinner, I took the older kids back to Funland. We managed to burn through another 96 tickets before heading home.

Monday was our last day. Instead of squeezing in more beach time, we decided to check out Lewes, DE. We showed up just as the ferry was coming in.

It was fun to watch the ship dock and see the cars unload.

The grounds of the ferry area are very nice. There is a cute little playground and a minigolf course.

We didn’t play golf at the ferry terminal, but drove back towards Rehoboth and played at the Midway Fire Mountain course. Mini-golf with 3 kids 6 and under was a bit like teaching cats to wear pantyhose. Mike & I found it extremely frustrating, until we threw away the score card, got the 2 year old a snack and just let things be. Then it was fun.

After mini-golf, we did bumper boats. It was a “CAUTION: You WILL get wet on this ride” kind of attraction.

Bumper boats was a fun, wet way to end our stay. I tried to get one last group shot. Only 3/5ths of the fam were willing participants.

We had a great mini-vacay and are glad to be home. I didn’t mind our rustic accommodations but I was sooo glad to sleep in my own bed again.

If you’re not already overloaded, here’s the rest of the pics. Click the thumbnail to enlarge and scroll through using the arrows.

A Note From the Teacher

Kendra — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:32:59 +0000

Last week, Sam got a note from the teacher, and school hasn’t even started!

He was not in trouble, it was actually a note from his preschool teacher. This is what it said:

Dear Sam,

Hi there! I hope you are having a terrific summer. Have you been swimming and playing outside? I have been to a lot of baseball games.

It’s almost time for kindergarten to start. You will love it … learn lots, have fun and make new friends.

Your teachers will be lucky to have such a wonderful student.

Love,

Mrs. M.

ps – Hi to Adam too!

Isn’t that the sweetest thing ever? How kind and thoughtful of her to send a note encouraging her kindergarten-bound kids to help them get excited about their transition.

We will miss you Mrs. M!

You Capture: In The Kitchen

Kendra — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:00:19 +0000

We’ve been enjoying some unstructured time this week, after a summer full of scheduled activities.

Wendy decided to take the play food and set up shop. You can see her meal prep behind the counter. Her customer, Purple Bear, is sitting on a stool and she is serving him pizza by the slice.

I thought her imaginative play was so cute but the best part was when she showed me her compost pile:

Love that girl and her creative mind!

Although my pictures are subpar in quality, I love the content. You can find more Kitchen Captures at I Should Be Folding Laundry.

How To Tie Your Shoes

Kendra — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:33:04 +0000

Who says learning only occurs during the school year? We decided to tackle the life skill of tying one’s shoes this summer. After a few lessons, Wendy picked it up pretty quick.

How To Tie Your Shoes

A photo tutorial by Wendy (age 6)

1. Put on Shoe.

2. Tie laces left over right*. Take left lace, cross it over the right lace and then pull it under.

*I was teaching W. to do it right over left, but was informed by hubby that’s the wrong way and creates a looser Granny knot. Apparently I’ve been doing it the wrong way for 30+ years…. Please try and overlook the fact that these pictures show the wrong lace on top.

3. Pull laces tight.

4. Make a loop (bunny ear) with the lace on the right. Pinch the loop close to your knot with the thumb and two fingers.

5. Run the left lace around the bunny ear and pinch it with the two fingers holding the loop.

6. Use the two fingers in the right hand to pull the new loop, towards the right. Use your left hand to grab the first loop and pull it to the left.

6. Pull the loops to tighten the knot.

7. If your knot is loose or sloppy, you can tighten it by pulling the tails and then pulling the loops again to tighten it down.

8. Voila! You tied your shoe!

If you’re looking for additional ways to tie your shoes, check out this neat knot site:

Ian’s Shoelace Site — How to Tie Your Shoes

Learning to tie our shoes, works for us – find more tips at Works For Me Wednesday, hosted by We Are That Family.

Homestead Farm is Peachy Keen

Kendra — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:55:55 +0000

Homestead Farm
15604 Sugarland Rd.
Poolesville, MD 20837
Recorded Message: 301-977-3761
http://www.homestead-farm.net/
HomesteadFarmEmail@gmail.com

Saturday morning, we made another visit to Homestead Farm to pick some peaches. I love that Homestead is 20 miles outside the Beltway and only takes us about 35-40 minutes to get there.

First we had to get some obligatory pictures…

Blackberries were also in season, but alas, none of our crew will eat them. We got a late start and didn’t arrive until around 11am. Our late arrival time had me worried the selection would be limited and/or picked over.

We had the option to ride or walk to the peach orchard. We opted to walk as it wasn’t far from the entrance. As we walked down the long row, passing tree after barren tree, I worried that my fears were valid. But after a short ways, we struck gold.

There were plenty of beautiful yellow peaches everywhere.

Everyone was happy with their haul and filled their buckets rather quickly.

Photo tip: If you want a photo of happy smiling children – Command them to NOT SMILE or look at the camera.

After picking, we decided to hitch a ride on the tractor wagon back to the store.

We paid for our produce and then spent some time visiting the animals.

While Homestead doesn’t have nearly the features to be found at Great Country Farms, it’s nice that you don’t have to pay to be on the property and the small petting farm is enough for our kids.

Here’s some more pics of the farm, for your viewing pleasure.

When we came home that night, we had peach cobbler, topped with ice cream and whipped cream for dessert.

The kids declared it delicious, until they got to the cobbler. Oh well. The ice cream was good.

Easy Lunchbox Winner!

Kendra — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:10:55 +0000

Thanks to all who participated in my giveaway! The winner, randomly selected by Random.org is

#37 – Venomous Kate!

If you didn’t win, but are interested in buying an Easy Lunchbox, you can use the discount code GREENIT to save 10% through Labor Day.

Also, don’t forget, orders over $50 ship free, so find a friend and combine an order to get a great deal on a great lunchbox system!

Menu Plan Monday 8/16

Kendra — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:32:12 +0000

I spent some time this week compiling a list of my frequently used recipes. You can view the list by clicking on “Recipes” which is in the navigation at the top of my page. I’ll be adding to it as I go.

Here’s this weeks’ menu, in no particular order:

DIY Chicken Stir Fry (w/a taste of PW’s Sesame Noodles thrown in)
Ahi Tuna + wasabi sauce + broccoli + fish sticks (for picky kids)
Texas Two-Step Chicken Picante + corn on the cob
Grilled Tilapia w/Mango Salsa
lasagna + Salad
Crockpot Chicken BBQ + Baked Beans

Get more meal planning inspiration at Org Junkie.

Last call for a free lunch (box)!

Kendra — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 17:54:12 +0000

Just a reminder, my giveaway for a free bento-style lunchbox set, courtesy of Easy Lunchboxes ends tonight at midnight. Don’t miss out!

Click to the enter the Easy Lunchbox Giveaway.