Mimi Camp 2018

Another Mimi Camp has come and gone. It was a success! Did we do all that I had planned? No. Did they like all the activities? No. Did everything go smoothly? Mostly.  But they both said, "We want Mimi Camp to last forever!" (For the record, Daddy-O and I couldn't last "forever" doing all we did last week.)

If you are planning a Mimi Camp—or Nana Camp, or Auntie Camp—know that there are as many ways to do a "camp" as there are Mimis. You plan it to suit you and your littles. But here is a peek at what we did with ours for five days.

Every morning starts with "the box." There is something in the box that is related to the day's activity. One day our box had yarn for loom knitting and a jar of applesauce for baking muffins. I'll be honest there was a day we never did the activity from the box. My own motto for camp is "go with the flow."

Making bag puppets and putting on an elaborate puppet show was a hit with the girls. I'm so glad I didn't throw out the giant cardboard box a few weeks ago in my big cleaning out.

It was Baby Girl's first time coming to "camp" and we had worried about her spending the night here without her mommy. Plus, we worried that she would not go to sleep well here. She is famous for not going to sleep easily. Those worries were all wasted energy. They were so tired at night that everyone was ready for bed. (She did fall out of bed once, but crawled right back in.)

They both love to bake and they requested that we make applesauce muffins. Then we prepared a snack tray for a visitor that came to the farm that afternoon.

We took them to the town park with the splash pad and then came back to the backyard sprinklers. We lucked out with incredible weather all week which made outdoor time fun. They loved the wading pool in the yard and juice popsicles and lots of splashing.

There were pre-breakfast games of "gold fish." By the end of the week, Baby Girl knew it was called Go Fish. We visited a cousin who taught them to play Chinese Checkers. And Daddy-O played Candy Land with them. There were some serious lessons in fairness and good sportsmanship that happened during the games.

Paints. Markers. Crayons. All the things that are messy were fun were good camp activities. But neither girl wanted to finger paint. "Too messy!" Now, that surprised me.

And in a few days,  I'll share the how-to for making bracelets that was the craft they loved best. Easy enough for a four year old to do, and interesting enough to keep the almost-eight year old engaged.

We live in the country, on a farm, where there is lots of space for running and racing and all things with wheels. For the suburban dwelling children it was paradise. Bikes, scooters, wagons, cars, coasters. They did them all. No wonder they were tired at night. And we were tired at night.

Last year Little Sister fixed some party foods to surprise Daddy-O and it was so much fun that she talked about it all year. Now she says, "It's a tradition." So we did it again. Don't tell her, but it's a great way to clean out the refrigerator on the last night.

We used the last of the vegetables that we snacked on during the week to make a vegetable tray and finished up the chicken salad and pimento cheese to make little sandwiches. Little Sister set the table (see the Christmas napkins?) and they both cut flowers for the centerpiece. It's not the food that so important for a party...it's all in the presentation. Fancy trays. Tiered servers. Paper doilies. And voilà, it's a party!

I let them do all the work. It was going well until I realized that Baby Girl was sucking the juice off all the pineapple chunks before she put them on the toothpicks! We made a tray especially for her, and her sister finished the rest for us.

At the final night party, we officially declared that camp had ended. And the next morning, it was time to drive them back to their home. They live in another state, a few hours away. They won't be back here at the farm until Thanksgiving. But we have lots of fun memories to last us until then.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BONUS GRANDMOTHER TIP: 

You surely have noticed that there are no ads on this blog. There are no places to click so that I'm making money from the blog. (Hats off to those who can do this, though.)  So this is purely a recommendation from my experience...

These paint sets from Crayola are by far the easiest and least messy to use of any I'm seen. I get them at Michael's. These are pricier than other Crayola sets, but you can use a Michael's coupon to get them cheaper. There are always coupons.

Even the four year old can open and close the little paint pots by herself. The palette holding the paints keeps them from spilling. And the brush is actually a decent one. I also use small jars with a couple of inches of water for brush cleaning. Plastic cups tip over too easily.