Grandma Ideas

I just found out that today, January 19, is National Popcorn Day.  Huzzah!  What a great activity to celebrate with grandchildren.

Did you know that Americans consume 16 billion quarts a year?  That equals about 51 quarts per person.  (I know that I eat my fair share. It’s a rough job but somebody’s got to do it . . . )

When our daughter was in grade school, she did a science project about which popped better — popcorn kept in the fridge or popcorn at room temperature.  In her highly scientific research, she found that popcorn kept in the fridge popped best.  Since, then, we have kept our popcorn in the fridge.

I have since learned that popcorn needs about 14% moisture to pop.  Maybe condensation in the fridge gave it more moisture than just sitting on the pantry shelf.

Popcorn.org has some terrific popcorn recipes:

• English Toffee Popcorn Bars
• Nutty Chocolate Caramel Corn Clusters
• Poppy Chow
• Popcorn S’mores
• Peanut Butter Popcorn Squares
• Caramel Almond Popcorn Clusters
• Caramel Nut Popcorn Crunch
• Sweet and Smokey Almond Popcorn

In fact, they have a 142-page recipe book stuffed with wonderful recipes.  You might want to download it.

So, grab a grandchild. Make some yummy popcorn. And watch a movie — even if it is a school night!

Quick, quick, quick. Grab a pen and mark your calendar!

January 23 is National Pie Day. Whoop, whoop!

I want to give you a wee bit of background before I get to my post for today. My family prefers pies over cakes.  (I’m not sure if they don’t like the recipe or they don’t like the way I made the cake . . .)

For years, I’ve told my husband that making a pumpkin pie for him is a sign of true love.  I think pumpkin pies are pukey pies so I never eat any.  I don’t even lick the bowl when I make them.  So, I get absolutely nothing out of making pumpkin pies.  It’s all for him.

Now. For today’s post.

When I found out that January 23 was National Pie Day, I knew that I had to share some ideas of activities that you can do with your grandchildren to celebrate this wonderful national day. Here they are.

Make a pie. First and foremost, spend time making pies with your grandchildren.  This is a good opportunity to teach them how.  You might want to start with a simple pie like my Cream Cheese Pie or the variation on the Cream Cheese Pie that I’ve shared before with you. Both are simple to make and yummy to eat.  Grandchildren will feel like a successful pie maker when you make these pies with them.

Here are some other easy pies that you might want to try with your grandchildren:

• No Bake Peanut Butter Pie
• Fluffy Orange Pie
• Oreo Pie
• S’more Pie
• Chocolate Crunch Mud Pie
• Frosty Freezer Pie
• Mississippi Mud Pie

Here’s a really easy ice cream pie recipe.  Soften ½ gallon of vanilla ice cream and mix in ¼ cup of your favorite frozen drink concentrate like orange juice, limeade, or pink lemonade. Pour into a graham cracker crust and freeze for a couple of hours.

Share a pie. Make a pie with your grandchildren and then share it with another family.

Have a pie night. If you have several grandchildren that live nearby, have them each make a pie. Then, on January 23, they take their pie to your house and share it.  You could even have a ‘taste off’ and vote which one tastes the best.

Have a pie eating contest. With your grandchildren, make mini cream pies. Then have a contest and see who can eat one the fastest.  Give a prize to the winner.

If your grandchildren live far away, mail them the ingredients for a pie (or send them the money to get the ingredients). Have them make the pie. Then, get on Skype so you can see how successful their pie turned out.

Whatever you do, just be sure that you do SOMETHING.  This is too good of a national day to miss celebrating with your grandchildren.

This is the last in the series of photography games.  (At least for now because I can’t come up with any more ideas . . .)

The object of this game is that grandma and the grandchildren take a picture of something and then they share it on a blog or e-mail it to the others.  The other people have to guess what object it is or where the picture was taken.

The idea is that it should be rather difficult to identify the object or the place – but not impossible to figure out.  Just difficult enough to be challenging.  As in the other games, grandma should encourage her grandchildren to be clever and creative.

Here’s an example. Let’s say that grandma and the grandchildren live in the same city.  They could take a picture of an interesting angle of the mall, the library, or a local historical monument or statue.  The picture would be of a very familiar place that everybody knows but because of the angle of the picture it is challenging to figure out where the picture was taken.

Or your grandchildren may decide to take a clever picture of an object.  For example, your grandchild could get their father’s wedding ring, stand it on its side on a table and take a macro picture of part of the side of the ring.

If you have a Flickr group or a blog, have everybody post their pictures.  The one who guesses the most pictures correctly gets a prize.

Have fun taking pictures.

(By the way, because of the topics of the last few posts can you guess what Santa brought Grandpa and I for Christmas?)

Have you seen the latest Mission Impossible movie where Tom Cruise crawls out of a window in a super, super, super high hotel and climbs up several stories to another room? And he does it with gloves that have special ‘sticking’ power?

I knew it was just a movie.  I knew that Tom Cruise wouldn’t fall and plunge to the ground because he was the main character and he couldn’t die so early in the movie.  But still, those scenes so high above the ground made my stomach queasy.

This next photography game that you can play with your grandchildren is called Mission 24 – based on the Mission Impossible movies.  You won’t have to climb a building hundreds and hundreds of feet above the ground.

(Thank goodness – or else I wouldn’t play this game.)

Here’s how it works.

Grandma chooses a word and tells her grandchildren.  They have 24 hours to take a picture of something that illustrates the word.  Encourage your grandchildren to be creative and clever.

For example, let’s say that you choose the word ‘five.’ Your grandchildren could take a picture of five buttons, five trees, or five baby kitties.

To be more creative, your grandchild could take a picture of only five stripes on a flag, or five bricks in a brick building, or five stores in a strip mall.  To be clever, they could take a picture of five bare feet or tiles from Scrabble whose points add up to five.

If you have a blog where you and your grandchildren share pictures or a Flickr group, have your grandchildren upload their picture.  If you don’t have one, have them e-mail you their picture.

I just had a thought.  If you play these photography games, you could collect the best pictures and make a photo book through an online site such as Shutterfly.  You could print up copies of the book for everybody who played and give the books as birthday or Christmas gifts.

Have fun taking pictures!