Taffy fail turned in to tie score.

It's Make-it-Monday.  So we made some....thing.  Not the original thing I was going for, but went with it.  Sort of.

We're trying to do fun stuff together.  Play, create, learn, and laugh.  We saw this recipe on this pin and wanted to put it together.

Everything started out as planned.  Teamwork while we added the ingredients, mixed it up and watched the thermometer.  We even got a quick science lesson in about thermometers and why they work!

We let the temperature rise to 260.  Then I added root beer extract since we didn't have any flavored oils.  Poured it on to wax paper like another recipe said to do and let it cool for about 5 minutes.

When I came back to check, it seemed to be stuck to the wax paper!  What?!  I managed to peel some off and then started to pull the taffy like the directions said.  Within a few minutes, the "taffy" was so hard, I couldn't pull it anymore.  Now that's saying quite a bit because I spent 10 years pulling an oar down rivers across the eastern United States.  I can pull me some stuff!  Not this "taffy!"  My son and his friend tried to do it also and couldn't get past a couple pulls before it was too hard for them.  I don't know if it was letting it cook to 260 degrees or the extract instead of a flavored oil... but either way, don't do what I did.

By that time, baby girl was so annoyed and hungry, I went to feed her.  By the time I got back, my Root Beer "taffy" had become Root Beer hard candy... that was stuck to wax paper.  I got some of it off that just so happened to be in the middle of a huge chunk, but there's only about a half cup of it.  So unless anyone wants to lick the stuff off the wax paper, this creation is going in the t.r.a.s.h.

Summa Summa Summa Time.

(My life is a constant 80's and 90's soundtrack.  I apologize.)



This whole "Summer" thing is new to me.  I was a 8to5'er +on-call for the past for-EV-ER (Sandlot style).  Due to a certain sweet little baby girl, I get to have my summer back!
We're gonna live it up.... in good ol' OHIO.... not spending any money 'cause Dad got furloughed.  Sweet.

Here are some things we're gonna try:

First: Plan, plan, schedule, and plan.
 This lady is a GENIUS!  She's scheduling out time for the most important things that summer has to have to be SUMMER.  We're going to do it.  Here's the pin.  
After they take care of their normal things (chores, reading, etc...) they focus on something per day.  It all has alliteration that makes it really easy to remember!  Jonah's really excited for the summer especially because of this list.

Second: He's not so excited about this...
The JOB JAR!  Thanks to my good friends example of what they call "Creative Discipline" I'll be changing up our discipline approach.  Not quite sure how it'll work, but I'll put up a post about it whenever we're in the swing of things.  It's a task oriented approach, like, "If I tell you again to ____ you'll have to do a job!" instead of the "if you do ___, you're grounded!"  I love it!   And your house is cleaner!  Wahoo.  These friends are funny about it, too!  For example, they had one child cut (some of) the grass -- WITH SCISSORS.  Hilarious.  I'm definitely down for that.  They came over for dinner and because one child didn't listen to the parents request, she swept my floor!  Amazing.

Third: SCIENCE.... Weird Science.
Jonah loves science.  We'll be trying some of these experiments and we might invite a few friends over to try out our successful ones.

Here's hoping I get to reclaim my summers.