How To Keep Our Kids Busy During Summer + #PlayWithOREO

Now that it's finally summer, everyone in my house is so happy. No more studying... Hurray! Yes to sleeping in... Yahoo! More time to relax... Yipee! But, having a house full of big kids also mean a LOT of energy going around. I have to look for ways to keep their summer productive, and their minds and bodies occupied.

Ways to Keep Our Kids Busy During Summer:

1. Get in the Water

We can’t talk about summer without mentioning pools, right? Swimming is the best way to cool off the summer heat. Ang init na, di ba? Swimming at the club is what my kids will be doing almost everyday this summer because not only is this a very useful life skill, but it also provides good all-around body workout.

My kids eat a LOT of sweets, and swimming is one way they make sure that they do not carry any excess weight.

2. Get outdoors

Since it's summer, the kids often ask us to bring them outdoors... they love to bike, go on their scooter or just play with each other. As a mom, I would also rather that they have some fun outdoors rather than stay in their room and attend to their gadgets.

3. Get a book

Now is also a good time to motivate our kids to develop their love for reading even more.  One of the first things we did as soon as school was over was to head to the bookstore to buy some new titles that interested each of them. They are encouraged to choose their own books so that they don't feel like reading is a chore.

My daughter, B, loves classics.  Once she starts reading, it's so hard to get her away from her books na.

4. Get In The Kitchen Together

Summer is the time when I use cooking as a fun and simple way to spend time with my kids. Even when they were very young, I already involved them in the kitchen. I am sure our time together in the kitchen is a collection of moments my kids will recall fondly when they are older.

Now that they can manage to be in the kitchen on their own, I have asked the girls to take charge of preparing a meal twice a week this summer, and that also includes making a grocery list for the meal that they are cooking. But what they really look forward to is baking something sweet.

Get the recipe for my OREO Nutella Brownie Cups here 

5. Get Into Art 

Art is a wonderful way to express our feelings and have fun at the same time.When they were much younger, I used to gather all three of them in our dining table and teach them how to draw and paint.  But now that my J is older and her skills are even greater than mine, I got a professional art teacher to help her hone her skills.

She is in the middle of doing her koi painting here using watercolor.  How nice noh?

#PlayWith OREO

As you can see, for my kids, play time is also synonymous with OREO.  OREO is my kids' fave cookie sandwich, and we've had so much fun bonding over OREOs... whether just eating them, getting creative with them or cooking with them.

My girls and I did a bento box using OREOs. You can click on the link just in case you missed that post. And if you look closely, you will see the newest OREO flavor... OREO Strawberry Creme! I am sure all the young girls will get crazy over the pink sandwich frosting like mine did.

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How to DIY Your Halloween Dessert Table + FREE Printables

Halloween has never been big with my family.  I already wrote about it here how our celebrations are usually limited to DIY costumes whenever the kids are invited to go trick or treating with their friends. But this year, OREO made Halloween special for all the SoMoms and the SoKids!

Since Halloween is really all treats and more treats, it's the perfect holiday for a dessert buffet table! When my fellow SoMom, Mish asked me to collaborate with her by designing graphics for our dessert table, the design lover in me couldn't say no. So for this OREO Halloween Trip & Treats event, I teamed up with the talented home-baker/party-planner/tablescape-stylist Mish Aventajado, and with creative paper-decorator/Paper Chic Studio owner, Cai Sio to create a Halloween dessert table filled with everyone's favorite Spookie Cookie, OREOs.

Here's Mish, Cai and Me posing beside the finished dessert table.  Photo courtesy of Mish Aventajado.

I am still having a serious case of design-crush with the centerpiece I designed. I love how it pops out from the black background, and how it creates a different level of visual interest.

Of course the star of the Halloween dessert table were the OREOs!  Look at what Mish did with them:

So creatively done, di ba? I love baking, but I haven't tried baking this large number of sweets - for a single event. When we were still conceptualizing everything, and I saw her list of things to bake, I already knew she took Halloween very, very seriously.

Here are some more of the scrumptious sweets and treats:

Photo courtesy of Michelle Lim

Mish also made sure there were lootbags for all the kids to bring home!

This lootbag topper I got here.

How cute are these mummy milk bottles made by Cai!!! She made sure the color of the paper straws match with the theme, too!

Photo courtesy of Michelle Lim

Custom-made BOO! sign made by Cai entirely out of OREOs.

Photo courtesy of Michelle Lim

Didi of Candishhh Tales also brought Halloweenn-themed sugar cookies from the commissary of her sister-in-law who supplies S&R all the cookies and cakes.

Photo courtesy of Michelle Lim

Here's the SoMoms' resident master party planner, Mish, putting the final touches on the table.

Everyone knows that in a party people always look forward to the dessert table, so here I am sharing with you a few ideas for an easy to do and inexpensive DIY Halloween dessert table:
1. Don’t do it alone. Ask friends and family to help out. This could mean breaking down the tasks like what we did - Mish took care of all the sweets and treats, Cai did the paper buntings and decors, while I designed the graphics used for the dessert table. But let me just stress that "collaborate" is a term I use loosely here because it was really Mish who created the moodboard, designed the table vignette, and baked ALL the sweets! She has the most amazing ideas for the dessert table, and it was really her enthusiasm that rubbed off on everyone else.

2. Set a realistic expectation. DIY is really about finding your boundaries, what you can and cannot do. Be prepared to order your sweets if you are not an expert home-baker. You can order cupcakes from your favorite neighborhood bakery and print out some Halloween-themed cupcake toppers to make it all tie-up together. Lucky for you that I am sharing some FREE printables here! You can find them at the end of this post.
3. Decide on theme & colors. We decided to focus on the Halloween colors of chartreuse, orange, purple and black, so all the graphics I designed just used those four colors. Sticking to a color scheme will help make your design look cohesive. Make a mood board to help you keep your ideas together.
4. Make food tent cards. Dessert labels are not only necessary for your guests to distinguish the sweets, it's also a great way to get creative and personalize your dessert table. You can download the custom-designed printables I made to save costs on printers. Just download and print on board paper.
5. Style Your Table.  When you design your table make sure to get creative and use crates, boxes or cake stands to create different levels and areas of interest. Add any decorative item that matches with your theme, or even some custom signs like the witch centerpiece featured below.

The centerpiece is one of the first things people see on the table, so make sure that the desert centerpiece is standing high on the table to make it visually powerful.

Spooky eats and sweet treats? Yes, of course!

FREE PRINTABLES!

Here are some of the Halloween graphics I designed for the SoMoms' Halloween Dessert Table, and I am sharing these printables right here!

{ Download Witch Buffet Centerpiece 11" x 17" }

{ Download Halloween Table Decor Cards 4" x 6" }

{ Download Halloween Food Tent Cards 4" x 6" }

{ Download Halloween Lootbag Toppers 4" x 3" }

You can still DIY your own Halloween dessert table! Just download the printables in this post to make your table preparation easier. If you are really pressed for time, nothing bad with ordering ready-made sweets, too!

Photo courtesy of Mish Aventajado.

For extra inspiration, head over to Momma 'N Manila as Mish shares more of how she did the sweets and her inspiration for the tablescape.  Then get the how-to for the paper decor from Cai in her blog, Apples & Dumplings.

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OREO & Transformers: Better Together

All my kids love OREO! Even the biggest kid of all, which is my husband.:) So when OREO got me, as well as the other SoMoms, as brand collaborator, I just knew there was going to be line-up of fun activities!

Just 2 Fridays ago, my whole family was invited by OREO for the trade launch and special screening of Transformers: Age of Extinction at the Resorts World Cinema.  Here are some of the early SoMoms enjoying the photo booth with BumbleBee and Optimus Prime.

Me, with Mish, Thammie and Neva