Old Fashion Summer Fun {Family Connections Summer 2012}
Welcome to our first week of Family Connections {Summer 2012}!
For the next 10 weeks I’ll be joining Aurie, Amy, Lisa, and Connie to host a link party about ideas for connecting with your family and friends this summer.
This week I’m sharing about one of our all time favorite summer traditions–popsicles!
Barefeet and sticky faces...
We’re huge popsicle fans in the summer. Especially since now they have tons of healthier options out there. (Those Whole Fruit bars are yum!)
But this year, since the kids are home for the summer, I picked up a little popsicle mold for them to make their own with the babysitter. It was only $3.99 at Bed Bath and Beyond. Don’t over think it (they had everything ranging from our super-simple one to this slushie machine thing that cost $45!) but I recommend getting one with the sticks already attached to the lids so you don’t have to buy them separate! (If shopping online I’d recommend the Lickety Sip Ice Pop Maker or the Flute Pop Ice Pop Maker–both simple and inexpensive to start with, and dishwasher safe! I had the Lickety Sip in my cart for most of my shopping trip too because I couldn’t decide..)
Who knew a few small pieces of plastic could bring so much re-usable fun?!
They’ve already done lemonade bars and we have some blueberry smoothie bars hardening up right now. For the lemonade bars, they just made a pitcher of Country Time pink lemonade and poured it in and froze it. Normally I only use 1/2 the recommended powder, but this time they did the full amount and then thinned the left over for drinking with extra water afterwards.
For the blueberry bars, we mixed 1 cup of milk, 1 cup of french vanilla yogurt, 1 cup of fresh blueberries, and about 1 cup of ice cubes in the blender until smooth, then poured it in the mold. And drink the rest as a yummy smoothie!
Ahh, summertime!
Looking for some more great popsicle recipes? I found a list of 100+ homemade popsicle recipes at Tipnut, a bunch of kid-friendly popsicle recipes at Kids Cooking (we are going to try the applesauce pops next!), and a conglomerate of nearly 200 more popsicle recipes (including some fancy ones!) at Laura’s Best Recipes.
What summer fun have you been up to lately? Link up a new or old post about your great summer family activities. Please keep it family friendly and link to you post, not your homepage.
And be sure to come back next week and join us. The theme will be Nature Connections and I’ll be sharing about making nature notebooks and scavenger hunts!
Oh, how our children love popsicles! Would you believe we have never tried making them?! Your post makes it seem so easy, and inspires me to actually try. With four children, and all the neighborhood kids we dole out pops to…this could be cost effective, but more importantly, very tasty…I’m thinking of all the flavors we could try 🙂
I love that you can try just about anything for flavor, but they can be very healthy too! Freezer space is an issue though–I wish we had more than 4, but I don’t know where I would put them to freeze unless I used our garage freezer…
Hmmmm, now I am wondering where I saw those popsickle molds. I know I saw some somewhere. The smoothie popsicles sound so good!
Amy
I love that you can make them as healthy as you want too but they’re still a treat.
Our children know that summer = popsicles. I’m sure mine could think up some interesting varieties. 😉 I’ve been on the lookout for good molds, will have to look up the ones you mentioned.
There’s some fancy, really nice looking ones on amazon, but we got very inexpensive ones to try. Next time I would definitely get more than 4 though! 🙂 The only problem is having room in the freezer for them. Thankfully we have a big chest freezer in the garage if we need it!
We made fudgesicles last week and those were a huge hit! My girls love popsicles as much as your children apparently do. I’m going to have to try what you do to make blueberry ones. My eldest would love that as those are some of her favorite fruits!
I think we’re going to try pudding pops soon too. I have two that love blueberries, but one that complains about “chunks” so I have to be sure to blend it up well.
YUM!! I need to do this – we go through Popsicles like crazy!!
We love Popsicles and I keep telling myself to pick up some molds to make them ourselves. How fun!
This is so fun for summer! I am having a Summer Fun Party on my blog and would love for you to link this up to my Summer Fun Linky Carnival.
http://www.blissfulanddomestic.com/2012/06/summer-fun-party-16-blogs-1-awesome.html
Danielle @ Blissful and Domestic
http://www.blissfulanddomestic.com
We have a set up popsicle molds and my kids love making them! An easy popsicle that we do is to buy yogurt in different flavors, then pour the yogurt into the molds. Plus the kids can each have a different flavor! We have made kool-aid and poured into the molds as well. Of course it isn’t as healthy as yogurt or smoothie recipes!
Sounds like the applesauce ones we’re going to try this weekend. Just pour in applesauce and freeze. I didn’t think about them each having their own flavor though…yum.
Oh wow, those look DELISH! We have ton of blueberries, we’ll have to try some fruit bars out!
What a fun treat to make with the kiddos!! I have not made homemade popsicles since I was a little kid. I need to make them with my kids. Such a great idea! Thanks so much for sharing at the Summer Fun Party! I am featuring your fun idea on my blog today! Come check it out.
http://twoyellowbirdsdecor.blogspot.com/2012/07/summer-fun-party-features.html
Jill
Wow–thanks for featuring me! We love our cool treats!