Fun Spaghetti

I received this idea via a forwarded email, so I don't take responsibility for it, but I wanted to share it because it is a fun way to get the kids involved in the meal preparations. (The photos are my own original pics - just to prove that all ideas posted on the Vacation Station have been tried and tested by me and my crew!)

Quite simply, this is a fun way with an old favourite: Spaghetti and viennas.

You'll need:

Twice as many viennas as there are mouths to feed (two each).

Uncooked spaghetti.

Pot of boiling water (add oil and salt as you would when cooking any pasta)

How to do it:

Chop viennas into bite-size pieces.

Get the kids to push the spaghetti sticks through the viennas - about 6 or 7 sticks of spaghetti per piece of vienna.

Place the prepared spaghetti into the boiling water and cook as you would normal pasta.

Drain and serve!

This makes eating spaghetti a lot easier for little hands that usually lose the slippery strands from their forks - by stabbing the vienna onto your fork, you've got your spaghetti quite securely too!

Happy Banner

Ok, so this was a wild grab at something that turned out to be a greatly satisfying activity after all. The resulting effect was so gratifying, in fact, that we repeated this activity for a birthday party held later in the week, and had the same great results with the birthday girl's name. Try it over your kids' bedroom doors for fun.

The girls' dad had been away on business for a few days, and to welcome him home, they made him a happy banner.

They chose the word "DAD" for this banner. Each letter was traced onto an A4 page. The girls coloured and cut out each letter.

They cut strips of gift wrap ribbon and

attached the letters to the ribbon with tape.

A couple of extra strips of ribbon were twirled to add to the banner. (Run the blade of your scissors at an angle along gift wrap ribbon to make it really twirly).

Ribbons and letters were pasted up over the doorway that their daddy would come through.

Popcorn Threading

Ok, so this is an easy one. What's really great about it is that the kids get to polish off a healthy treat once it's done too.

All you need to do is pop up a whopping big bowl of popcorn (which the kids can do if you have an air popper, but you'll need to supervise if it's on the stove). HINT: Make more than you think you'll need - there's a lot of snacking that goes on while the creative juices are flowing!

Thread a nice long cotton onto a sewing needle - it mustn't be too sharp (for pokey little finger pricks) but it mustn't be too thick either (thick needles split the popcorn pieces into bits).

Set the kids to threading the popcorn. When they're through, tie the edges together and you'll have stylish popcorn jewelry - fit for any vacation!

*Including the actual popcorn making, this activity will probably take about an hour*

And what's popcorn without a movie, anyway? When it's all done, set them up in front of a good ol' Disney classic, and let them eat their jewelry!