I'm going to start off by admitting that this is NOT an original idea by me. Actually I've seen it in a couple of places here and there in the last year. The first time I saw it was actually
HERE on the fabulous Hope Studio's blog. You see, the reason I filed this project/activity into my brain was because of four things:
1. The smiles on the photographed kid's faces made ME smile. I mean, if her kids were having that much fun, I'm positive mine would too.
2. Last summer we trashed 3 or 4 actual slip-n-slides ~ come on people, what ever happened to quality?!!!
3. It is STINKIN' HOT out!
4. Jennifer promised I would be the "
COOLEST mom on the block". Nuff said!
Oh, you want to know what we made?
We made a:
Super, Spectacular, Stimulating, Simple, Slip-N-Slide
I made it very similarly to
Jennifer's ~ with a few minor differences (such as fewer landscape stakes [I'll tell you why in a bit] and no baby soap (because I forgot about that part AND... they were going fast enough!)
Here's what you need:
Some plastic sheeting. I purchased ours at Home Depot ~ it came in a roll 3'x50'
Landscape stakes (u-shaped fabric and garden staples actually) ~ We had a bunch on hand, I only ended up using 7
and
A lawn sprinkler
Roll out your sheeting and cut to size. ~ I doubled over the sheeting at the top so we would be able to have a little extra reinforcement.
Stake your plastic down. To start, I put about 5 stakes in the top (which was doubled over, remember). Then I placed a stake about every 3 feet or so on the way down on both sides as well as two on the bottom corners. HOWEVER, I ended up pulling out all of the ones that ran down the sides once the kids started sliding down. You see, once the kids started sliding down, the stakes started popping up. I was concerned that someone would get poked ~ those babies are sharp! I think they popped up because our soil is SUPER sandy. No joke. Actually when we dug holes to plant a couple of trees, my hubby used the "dirt" to fill up the kids sand box. You'd never be able to tell it wasn't sand that was purchased from a store!
ANYWAY.....
Once the plastic is secure, set up the sprinkler and get that baby wet.
Once it's wet, send those kids running and sliding.
Then.....
Watch the tentative grins turn into huge smiles and
bouts of laughter!
Sit back and take it all in because today you ARE the "coolest mom on the block" and those smiles and all that laughter will go straight to your heart and create memories that will last forever!
