Places to Visit Near Buffalo & Niagara Falls, NY This Summer!

Every year, every season, I set out to make these "to do" lists of things that would make a well-rounded family experience (like THIS, and THIS). Sometimes we do a good job at checking things off, and other times we totally blow it.

I'm okay with not checking off every little thing on every single list, but taking the time to create such detailed lists and then ignoring them in exchange for lying on my patio swing for hours while the boys work buckets of sand into their shoes (and in Jake's case, his diaper), seems like a waste.

I've gotten better at streamlining my lists down to the realistic things. Last year I focused on outdoor activities. This year, I'm focusing more on outings.

We live in the Buffalo, NY area, and we just don't take advantage of all there is to do these days. In the past five years alone, our community has created so many things to see and do! There's a saying around town that goes, "If you haven't seen Buffalo lately, you haven't seen Buffalo."

So just in case you are local to Western New York, or you're thinking of crossing "See Niagara Falls" off your bucket list this Summer and you want to know what else to check out while you're here, I'm sharing my list of what we'll be up to around Buffalo this Summer!



1. Transit Drive-In
2. Letchworth State Park
3. Fantasy Island
4. Beaver Island Beach
5. Putt-Putt (anywhere!)
6. The Buffalo Zoo
7. Camping (lots of choices, we like the KOAs around here)
8. Old Man River/Mississippi Mudds (get the sweet potato fries!)
9. Greg's U-Pick (Strawberries in June, Blueberries in July, Blackberries in August)
10. Buffalo Botanical Gardens
11. Glen Falls
12. Sweet Jenny's
13. Buffalo Naval Park & Canalside
14. Tifft Nature Preserve 
15. Arcade & Attica Railroad
16. Harbor Center
17. Olcott Beach
18. Wehrle Golf Dome
19. Transit Lanes
20. Buffalo Science Museum
21. Hidden Valley Animal Adventure
22. Fort Niagara Park & Old Fort Niagara
23. Darien Lake
24. Niagara Falls Aquarium
25. Canal Fest

We will, of course, visit many playgrounds, our three fav ice cream stops (probably way too many times), and watch 4th of July fireworks nearby. Oh - and don't forget to get your Beef on Weck, Wings, and Watsons sponge candy while you're in town!

If you're local - where are you headed this summer? Anywhere I should add to my list?

-

Jenn is a mom of 3 boys living near Buffalo, NY, and blogs about her life and hobbies on her blog, Rych In Love. 

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Snow Day Fun With Kids!

Here in the Northeast, Winter can be pretty brutal!

I just happen to be from one of the most notorious snow cities in the country (thanks, Blizzard of '77 for your endless reputation). My family and I live just north of Buffalo, NY, and we certainly get a full and long winter season!

This year, we had a "Snovember" storm just before Thanksgiving that shut down schools for a week and caused some towns to declare a state of emergency. We found ourselves with a mini-vacation thanks to all of the snow days, which was awesome (yoga pants every day, thankyou!), but the kids got a little restless. We had to come up with some fun things to do together, which can be really fun - nothing like finally tackling a few Pinterest boards!


The rest of our winter has been pretty lame so far (we've got at least 3 months to go, though...so anything can happen, still.) There was a day in very early 2014 that we were snowed in (see left) and made a day of it, and today I'm sharing what we did so you can create some spontaneous fun with your kids on their next snow day!

The first thing we did was make a list of all the things we wanted to do that day:



As you can probably tell by the tablecloth and the name of the list, this storm hit us at the very end of our Winter season. Around the Buffalo area, we're usually all rolling our eyes at the snow in the March forecast and huffing and puffing as we bundle up just to get the mail, but we embraced the snowfall one last time before it stopped falling for most of the year.

Before we got into all of this fun stuff, we put a yard stick by the back door with a pen and paper, and every hour we measured the snowfall. The goal was to make a bar graph out of our collected data, which is a really great activity for a school-age child, but my little guys were a bit too young to appreciate that part. If you want to inspire your elementary-aged kids to do a little math on their spontaneous day off, that's a fun way to do it!


Our early morning activities included putting Frozen on and doing our more arts and crafts activities. I found a homemade playdoh recipe on Pinterest and added some silver glitter to it to make it look more like snow. I put it on cookie sheets with some cookie cutters and other kitchen tools for the kids to play with.

I also set out some yummy left over holiday treats like marshmallows, chocolate, shredded coconut, and candy canes for the kids to build snow people and a snow village with toothpicks. They loved this stuff! (Also, not entirely sure why that snow person had a stick through his head.)


Next up? Turning my son into a snowman! I cut out an orange nose and some black "coal" buttons out of construction paper, and the rest of the costume was made out of toilet paper and a fuzzy blue hat. He giggled while my middle son and I wrapped him up like a mummy, taped the paper pieces onto him, and told him to hold still so we could take a picture. He thought it was hilarious that he looked like Olaf!


My husband telecommutes, and on snow days or whenever there's iffy weather, he will stay here and work from home. On this day, he used his lunch break to take them outside and play hockey while it was still snowing. It's always a good idea to find a way to be active when the kids are all cooped up, and what better way than to take advantage of the playground the snow naturally creates? I'm so glad he was home to do that with them since I was confined to the house, keeping our 5 month old warm!

When they came back in the house, we checked more items off our list by drinking hot chocolate with mini marshmallows and playing a board game together.


Then I made dinner, which we were calling "Snowsgiving". I'm guessing that we knew the storm was coming and I probably grocery shopped for something warm and comforting for dinner the day before. I don't always have the supplies for a Thanksgiving style dinner on hand. We did things slightly differently than we usually do for the holiday, but it was perfect!

I don't remember if we ever got around to painting a snowy picture, but I remember that my plan was to sketch houses on dark blue construction paper and have the kids cover everything with white "snow" paint.

Telling you about this day makes me miss it! We had so much fun, and my oldest son, who lives for celebrating everything, was so full of excitement - jumping up and down as we completed each piece of the list. It was such a great way to make a family holiday out of an annoying March snowfall!

Try something like this next time the kids have a snow day, or any other winter day!

Have a great winter! xx


Jenn is a mom of 3 boys living near Buffalo, NY, and blogs about her life and hobbies on her blog, Rych In Love. 


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Merry Christmahkkah, Yo.

Our little family is one of mixed religions. My husband, Pete, is a Catholic who follows Lent to about 85% accuracy and goes to church when one of our nieces or nephews makes a Sacrament, and I am Jewish and only lit the Hanukkah candles on night one this year. After that, my son, PJ, was down for the count with strep throat and that was the end of the nightly fire and prayers.

Our apathetic religious feelings aside, it has always been important for us to share the magic and tradition of both holidays with our son. It's truly unfortunate that strep struck this year, because I was looking forward to teaching PJ the Hanukkah prayers and lighting the candles with him. The story of Hanukkah is such a sweet one- the miracle of a tiny drop of oil lasting for eight nights, enough time to rebuild a temple. We missed our chance this year to sit as a family and watch the flames flicker, but next year, PJ will be six by the time Hanukkah rolls around, old enough to hold the candles <i>with no help</i>, a privilege I was so excited to get when I was his age. I'll teach him how to play the Dreidel (a skill I never mastered as a kid) and we'll eat gelt to our hearts content.

As for Christmas, I would love for PJ to know more about the story of the birth of Jesus versus the birth of Santa's chubby butt down a chimney. The whole <i>magical getting presents</i> deal is so much fun, especially since I became a mother. But my Jewish, teenage self was in choir and absorbed the powerful music of the holiday, all of the real <i>take me to church</i> music. I hope we can take him to midnight mass one year. PJ is already immersed in the traditions Pete grew up with, and I would love to not only expand his scope of Christmas in the religious sense, but to begin our own traditions within our little family.

As for this year, there's two nights left of Hanukkah and PJ is healthy, so we will light the candles tomorrow after the sun goes down and pray over the little flames. Tonight, when I was getting PJ ready for bed, I threatened to call Santa and cancel his presents when he balked at taking his amoxicillan (it totally worked! Score!). We do the best we can to merge the two worlds we brought together when Pete and I married and had PJ, and hopefully, the love of the season will cover up any mistakes we make along the way!

Brie Latini is a thirty-something mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, and fan of guilty-pleasure television. She currently lives in Collingswood, NJ with her husband Pete and son PJ. A work-a-holic turned stay-at-home-mom, Brie is enjoying her emerging second career as a writer as it now gives her a better excuse to pass on housework (“You load the dishwasher; I have to write!”). Brie’s work has been featured at Jersey Moms Blog, Mamalode, and MetroKids Magazine Online. You can read more about Brie’s journey through life as the mother of a special-needs child at her personal blog, {...a breezy life}.

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D.I.Y. Christmas Countdown

Hi everyone! It's Karen again with another holiday themed D.I.Y. Obviously we are in the throes of the holiday season. Shopping, card writing, parties, eating and more shopping. Since I have a little one, I try and do little holiday projects with her to try and teach about whatever we are celebrating. So today I'm sharing a D.I.Y, Christmas Countdown.

This is a pretty simple craft and of course it was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest. (Isn't that where most inspiration comes from?) And this is something that was simple enough to do with my daughter. Sold!

Here's what I used for our Christmas Countdown:

- Green felt that I bought a large square of at a craft store for about $2.00
- Tiny stockings that I bought at a party store for about $1.50 per bag. Each bag had 12 stockings.
- Glitter glue that I bought at the Target dollar aisle...my favorite spot.
- Pom poms
- Hot glue and scissors

Here's what I did:

I drew the tree pattern onto the felt freehand. Don't worry if it's not perfect, especially if you are doing this with your kid! Then I cut out the tree with my sharp craft scissors. Next we spread our little stockings out on the table and, with the glitter glue, numbered our stockings from 1 to 23.
(Why 23? Because I'm from an "off-the-boat" Italian family and our celebration takes place on Christmas Eve. So we have always ended our countdown with the 23rd. Obviously you can number yours differently.)
My daughter is only three so we did our glitter numbers together. Sometimes they came out a little splotchy but we didn't mind. After that, I used hot glue to attach each little numbered stocking to our tree. She pointed to where each one should go and I glued. We didn't even wait till our glitter numbers were completely dry and we still didn't smudge any! Then we added our little pom pom decorations, which she mostly did. I helped her with the hot glue and she put them wherever she wanted. When everything was dry, I hung up our Christmas Countdown on a door in our kitchen so we would see it first thing every morning and countdown the days. For a marker, I just used a pop stick with some more glitter sprinkled on. The more glitter, the better in our house (at least for my daughter and I). The marker slips into each little stocking.

And that's pretty much it! An easy D.I.Y. Christmas Countdown that really has been a big hit this year. My daughter gets excited to move the marker everyday because she knows it's one day closer to Christmas!


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The Friday Five Hop and Five Ways to Be Grateful This Month

 Welcome to the Friday Five, our weekly link up for all those Friday Five, Five on a Friday, High Five for Friday types of posts!  Check out our Friday Five post and then link up below!  Today's post is written by state rep Valerie!

It’s crazy that as soon as Halloween is over, out come all the Christmas decorations, commercials, music, you name it! Some people fully embrace it, while others turn into the Grinch. Now, I’m all about Christmas (it is after all one of my favorite holidays) but it upsets me that we seem to totally forget/skip over a very important holiday- Thanksgiving! Instead of rushing around and freaking out about Christmas gifts and holiday plans, we should really be taking this month to focus on what we are thankful for. What we are grateful for as the year comes to an end. That’s what Thanksgiving is really all about (plus, food, of course). So before you get yourself all up in a frenzy over the upcoming holiday season, take a moment today to reflect on your life and what you are truly grateful for. Sure, we may not have it all, but we all certainly have things to be thankful for. Learn to appreciate the little things (and the big things!) and try to spend the next couple of weeks in this mindset. Here’s a short list of some things you can do to help you get started.

1. Send out snail mail to loved ones - How often do you still send out letters or greeting cards “just for fun”? Just to let someone know you miss them or how much they mean to you? This is a perfect way to put a smile on someone’s face and I guarantee it will make you feel better, too. 

2. Make a list of five things you are grateful happened to you this year - This one can be super easy or if you really want to dig into it, super hard. Instead of thinking of the ordinary “happy” moments that happened to you, think of the hard moments. The heart wrenching ones. Then think about how they changed you and what you got out of it. Even in our darkest moments, there is always some light to be shed. There is always a lesson to learn. Try and come up with a list and when you’re done maybe you’ll realize that those difficult moments held something positive in them. 

3. Go on a nature walk alone - Usually our most profound moments of thinking happen when we’re by ourselves. Even better, when you’re surrounded by the beauty and stillness of nature, it’s even easier to remind yourself of all that is good. Nature has a way of bringing out these thoughts. 

4. Go through old photo albums - While yes, this has the potential of making you sad, at least you have a reason to be sad. That means in your lifetime you made memories that were worth remembering, worth missing and worth reminiscing. They can also make you smile or laugh as you remember those moments. They can make you appreciate so much. They will also make you stop and realize that life moves pretty fast if you don’t stop and look around every once in awhile and hopefully this holiday season you will slow down and take the time to make new memories with family and friends.

5. Call someone you haven’t in awhile - It can be a long lost friend, your grandma you never speak to anymore (shame on you!), someone whose been super busy and so have you so you guys haven’t had the chance to talk, etc. Just call someone to catch up with them, see how they are doing, talk about life, anything really. It’s so easy to disconnect from people nowadays. We all get busy, but you need to remember that life is short. Don’t lose touch with your loved ones. A quick phone call can become the highlight of someone’s day, maybe even yours. 

What else have you done to help you realize all you have to be grateful for?

And now it's your turn!  Link up your Friday Five post below and be sure to hop around and visit a few others on the link up!

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