Cool Moms Make Ice Cream

I follow a few kids' crafting blogs, and I saw a tutorial a little while ago about making ice cream in Ziploc baggies that I really wanted to try.  I never seemed to have all of the right ingredients in the house at the same time (quite common in my life), until this morning.  The kids were antsy, the baby was sleeping so we couldn't go outside, so I said "Let's make ice cream!".  Of course, Lilah was immediately excited and jumping up and down with anticipation, and Grady just does whatever Lilah does, so he was jumping up and down as best he could too.  Woo hoo, score big points for Momma today!

And then, I realized.  I don't have pint-sized Ziploc baggies.  I don't have gallon-sized Ziploc baggies.  What do I have?  Sandwich baggies.  Crap.  But I'm the queen of improvisation when it comes to motherhood (and life in general), so I searched my cabinets and found...Ziploc storage containers.  Perfect!  I decided to divide the recipe in half and put it into two sandwich baggies instead of one pint-sized baggie, then put those into the storage containers for the kids to shake.  What kid doesn't like to shake a box that just happens to be filled with ice?

Apparently, my kids:

"I shook it three times, Momma, is it ready yet?"

Grady just wanted to eat it right away, container and all.

So I did what any mother would do in my situation.  I shook.  I made up a shaking dance and a shaking song ("Shake, shake, shake.  Shake, shake, shake.  Shake the ice cream."  Creative, I know.)  and I made a fool of myself in front of my children.  But that's okay, you're supposed to make a fool of yourself in front of your children.  Right now they think it's funny.  I can't wait until they're teenagers.

When I couldn't shake it anymore, I took the baggies out, rinsed them off, and put the slightly melty concoction into a bowl and a coffee mug for the kids to devour.  Here's the results:



Yes, I realize my son is sitting in a pink booster seat.
It's okay, he's comfortable with his masculinity.



She was quite thrilled with the "banilla" flavor.

And although it melted and got soupy pretty quickly, I dug up some bendy straws and told them it was milkshakes.  All in all, it was a pretty successful morning activity.  Here's a link to U Create With Kids where I found the idea, and a link to 2 Little Hooligans where the original tutorial is.