I have active kids –as newborns neither of them ever sat placidly in their bucket seats while my husband and I enjoyed a quiet dinner in a restaurant. Or while we sat anywhere in public, actually.  I’ve gotten used to their activeness and my kids have grown into lovely, lively small folk, but I have realized that sugar in any format is a surefire way to turn them into dizzying, whirling dervishes. Processed sugar in pre-made snacks and treats is the absolute worst for them, so we tend to avoid candy altogether.

But now that they are both of school age, I realized that it’s fairly unavoidable to control all of their sugar intake myself, and depriving them of sugar and candy could potentially lead them to have issues with sweets. Instead I’ve worked on teaching them how to spot brightly-coloured toxic culprits disguised as goodness, and how to make decisions on their own intake of sugar. But, I’ve also made more allowances…

Like today –Slurpee Day! Once a year, the convenience store 7-11 has a “celebration” which corresponds with the date of July 11^th – and slurpees are free for all day. I remember walking to 7-11 as a child and putting a mish-mash of flavours like root beer and cream soda into those paper cups, and I decided that this is a good enough reason to let my kids have some slushy memories too! Every July 11th, in the height of summer, we harken the doorway of 7-11 to have our one free slurpee. Then we go to the biggest, most cumbersome playground I can find so my whirling dervishes can go nuts.

It’s July! Summer is here, and I am throwing down a challenge to myself –come join me!

I have a very good mommy friend who inspires me every time I see her and hear accounts of her family life and spend time in her lovely home. Recently, she and I embarked on a wee journey together that inspired both of us to look at our current lives and think about reinventing our futures with an immediate timeline: SUMMER!

We had very loosely planned an overnight trip away from home, and this quick but meaningful departure from our everyday “mom” lives ended up truly invigorating us. We had left our respective homes with only our bikes and a backpack and big, gummy grins on our faces! Neither of us had ever ridden away from home before –no suitcase, no car, not much of anything really; and for me, doing something completely new and out of my comfort zone made me realize I COULD and SHOULD do more stuff that I’ve never done before.

So upon reaching our charming bed & breakfast at the end of a winding, hilly road, we rested our weary legs and opened a bottle of wine and made some declarations. My insightful friend mentioned that more than anything, she wanted to instill in her young children a sense of wonder and adventure in doing incredible things and experiencing the natural world now, while they’re young, so they’ll never grow up without it.  Uh, yeah, ME TOO!  (Now, I’ve always known one of my roles as a mother is to “make it happen” –“it” being whatever was in the best interest of my kids- and not just let life fly by while we hang on for the ride. But lately I’d forgotten about injecting simple, nature-inspired, wonder-filled experiences into our busy school days). So together she and I made a pact to come up with as many experiences we could for our kids to ignite their passion for the natural world this summer.

I haven’t completely finished making my summer bucket list, but I will post it once I have. And until then, I’m hoping you will think of some bucket list items for your summer.

Ready? Let’s jump in!

We ticked this one off today:

• Go Jump in a Lake

Here’s a free download of a cute Summer Bucket List template to help you get started.

Go on, jump in already!

I was born in Jamaica in the 70’s, which can mean a lot of things to a kid -beautiful weather and tropical fruit trees growing in my backyard- oh yes- which allowed a lot of fresh mangoes and bananas to snack on. But being a kid in a third world country also meant regular water and food shortages, which also affected our snacks. My grandma was an enthusiastic baker and I can still taste the incredible chocolate cakes she would sometimes make for our birthdays, but not EVERY birthday; cake was very, very rare, because despite Jamaica being the top exporter of sugar in the world, there were severe shortages of sugar there in the 1970’s and sugar was heavily rationed (sadly, sugar shortages for Jamaican citizens are still happening these days). This kept my grandma from baking cakes a lot of the time. Her dessert alternative was often jello, which only required adding boiling water to the flavoured crystals, and that’s the dessert I remember her making most at special gatherings.

Jello was special; after we left Jamaica to move to Canada I remember taking the ferry to Vancouver island and buying the parfait cups of cubed jello in the cafeteria on board the ship. Almost as good as grandma’s

Of course, there aren’t any shortages here in Canada and I love to bake cakes, but I still have a lot of fun with Jello. As a mom I make jello for the kids’ preschool parties and birthdays, and it always vanishes off the plates faster than even the fancy, swirly cupcakes or cookies. The biggest bonus is jello is way faster and easier to make; I started teaching my kids around age 3 to measure the water and stir the crystals. Then once it’s set we love to play and use cookie cutters to make shapes -the extra bits left over are perfect samples so we don’t have to wait until the party. These are the jello ghosts and witches we made this past Halloween:

Last month was my son’s teacher’s birthday and we decided to bring in some jello to share with the class just like we did for my son’s birthday -why shouldn’t teachers get to celebrate, too? We got the alphabet cookie cutters out since his teacher has a really tricky last name and all the kids call him “Mr. C”.

Easy and fun! Here’s the recipe I use all the time to make cut-able jello jigglers with real whipping cream which creates a creamy layer that separates all by itself as it sets in the fridge, and makes 2 shades of colour, too. You can omit the whipping cream for a non-dairy version.

Creamy Jello Jigglers

4 small boxes of same flavour jello

4 cups boiling water

3 sachets of gelatin (I use Knox brand)

1 small carton of whipping cream (250ml)

Pour the jello and gelatine crystals into a large heat-proof bowl. Slowly add the boiling water and mix well. Slowly add whipping cream into bowl and stir until blended. It may look a little globby as it blends, but it always sets evenly. Pour mixture into a 9×12 lasagna dish or deep cookie sheet and cover with plastic wrap. The jello and cream layers will form naturally as it sets. Let set 4 hours, then cut with cookie cutters. Keep chilled until served. There’s so many things you can do with jello, like these layered parfait cups: