Archive | February, 2012

Happy “Leap” Year!

28 Feb


Ah Leap Year, Welcome Back… We figured we better celebrate your return with cupcakes…  LEAPING cupcakes, get it?  Frog’s Leap, Leap Year?  OK maybe it’s a stretch, but the boys liked it!  Any excuse to make cupcakes, right?  Happy Leap Year everyone!

I used white chocolate discs and M&M’s for the eyes, but marshmallows or any sort of white candy would work too…  Licorice for the mouth, but again anything red would do.  I thought fruit roll ups would be cute for tongues, but we don’t keep those around the house…

OH and we didn’t have any green food coloring so I had to mix two of Wilton’s finest…  yellow and blue make green, another great lesson for the little ones!

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Thing 1 and Thing 2

27 Feb

Dr. Seuss’s Birthday is this Friday, March 2nd… My boys LOVE Dr. Seuss…  LOVE LOVE LOVE…  Today we made Thing 1 and Thing 2 and they had a great time…. Of course they also had to get all their Dr. Seuss books out and look for the “thing brothers” in them!  I tried to ask them which thing they would be if they were one of the things, of course both picking #2… I’m not sure why, is he more cool?  Any ways, this project was super easy!  I just painted their fingers blue and their palms white and “pushed” them down onto red paper.  I quickly drew some shirts, let them paint the white circles and draw the faces!  Viola… Two things!  Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

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Homemade Dog Biscuits

22 Feb

Our very special dog, Wrigley, is spending the day at the pet hospital today having a mass removed.  We are very hopeful that we caught this early and if it is Cancer they get it all today!  We thought that we better make her a special treat so that when she gets home she “gets well soon”…  I found this recipe online and happened to have all of the ingredients at home…

1 1/8 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/8 cup  unbleached white flour
1/2 cup peanut butter or other nut butter
1 cup water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Blend wheat flour and white flour in a bowl. Set aside.  Combine  vegetable oil, peanut butter, and  water.  Add flour, one cup at a time, forming a dough. You will need to blend the final flour by hand, kneading until a nice firm ball of dough is formed. I used my dough hook on my kitchen aid and that seemed to work pretty well…  I also added a tiny bit more flour for high altitude!  Let ball of dough stand for about 10 minutes to allow the gluten to relax. This makes it easier rolling.

Roll dough to about 1/4 inch thickness on a sheet of waxed paper or silicone liner. Cut with desired cutter ( hearts, circles, dog bones, houses, etc..). Re-roll scraps to make more biscuits.  Score the tops of the cookies with a fork or write your puppy’s name with toothpicks, so the steam that builds up inside the cookies will release.

Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for about 25-35 minutes, turning the pan a couple of times during baking. Cookies should be hard to the touch before removing from the oven. You may need to increase baking time. Do this in five minute increments.

Cool, then store in a zip-lock baggie on the shelf. No refrigeration necessary.  Feed them to your doggie fast!

I found a second recipe on Martha Stewart’s website but didn’t have the wheat germ so wasn’t able to make them… I’d like to try them soon, however!

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Mardi Gras Mambo

21 Feb

Happy Mardi Gras everyone!  I hope this day finds you in the spirit!  We are not huge into celebrating Mardi Gras at our house, but music and dancing are always a huge hit with our boys.  This morning I downloaded two songs, “Mardi Gras Mambo” by Buckwheat Zydeco and “Oh! When the Saints” by Irakli Jazz Band.  We are going to celebrate Mardi Gras with a bit of a dance party/band sort of a gig.  I gathered up all of our instruments and even made some out of pots, pans, and spoons.  We are cranking the music and playing and dancing along.  I’ll try to post a video of the big show (OK I can’t get the video to load, sorry, I’ll post it on our FB account)!   Just a fun way to get moving on a special day!  Happy Fat Tuesday!

 

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Honest Abe… Presidents’ Day Activity

20 Feb

 

We made these this morning before breakfast and it led to a bit of a discussion on Abraham Lincoln during our meal… With the age of our boys, we just touched on the “highlights” of Abe’s life.  I’m pretty sure the log cabin was their favorite!  I think they might enjoy making cabin’s out of pretzels so we might try that later!  We talked about him being honest and I tried to touch a little bit on slavery, but they are still pretty young so I didn’t go into it much. I think that if you have older children they might be interested in learning more about Abraham Lincoln and his efforts as our 16th president.  I found a lot of interesting information on the web about why he was called “Honest Abe” and when I explained how honest he was to my boys, Sutton wondered if all the presidents were honest.  It was a great opportunity to talk about how everyone should try to be honest and honesty builds trust!

I used to make these Abe’s in my classroom and I would always have the students write a few facts that they learned about Abraham Lincoln down and attach them to the project.  You could also cut out a few extra face shapes and have them write one fact on each face shape and make a little Abraham Lincoln book.  Either way I think it will help them learn and remember a little bit about our 16th president!

Enjoy your Presidents’ Day with your family!

 

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Mini S’mores

17 Feb

These were an accident :)…

Well kind of an accident…

You see, I was making some chocolate dipped strawberries for our small group from church.  Upon completion of said strawberries I realized I had an abundance of chocolate left, melted, with no where to go…  I could not waste chocolate-that would be awful!  I literally went to my pantry and searched for something I could dip in chocolate.  We didn’t have tons of options, but we did have these “Honey Graham Sticks” and marshmallows so I thought – Mini S’Mores!  I ended up cutting the marshmallows in half because I thought they were too big on the graham stick whole.  I just dipped the graham and stuck on the marshmallow-so easy, but SO YUMMY!   They were a hit!

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Chicken Wild Rice Soup: Crock or Not :)

15 Feb
This is one of our favorite meals…  I have another recipe that a friend gave me that takes FOR EVER, has to sit overnight, etc..  and I do love it, but this one is much quicker and much easier!  I hope your family enjoys it as much as we do!  YUM!
  • 6 tablespoons butter
  • 1 tablespoon minced onion
  • ½ cup flour
  • 3 cups chicken broth
  • 2 cups cooked wild rice
  • 1⁄3 cup cooked chicken (I used 2 chicken breasts)
  • ½ cup carrot, finely shredded
  • 3 tablespoons slivered almonds (optional)
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup half and half
  • 2 tablespoons dry sherry
  • snipped parsley or chives for garnish

Directions:

  1. Melt the butter in a soup pot.
  2. Saute the onion until it is softened.
  3. Blend in the flour and then gradually stir in the chicken broth. Stir constantly until it comes to a boil, keep stirring for one more minute.
  4. Add wild rice, chicken, carrots, almonds, salt and simmer about 5 minutes.
  5. Add half-and-half and sherry, heat until just heated through.
  6. Garnish with chopped fresh parsley or chives.

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Happy Heart Day

14 Feb

Teacher Valentines

13 Feb

These are just some last minute valentines we made for all of the boys teachers…  Super easy, cute and a little treat for them.  I used swedish fish as the “treat” and construction paper for the fish bowls. The boys used crayons to decorate their fish and the water… I typed out the message we wanted and then cut it in the shape of a fish.  Like I said this was really easy!  You could use these for classroom valentines as well and say something like “I’m glad we swim in the same school” or “You’re the only fish in the sea for me”…  I’m sure you’ll think of something creative!

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Tiger Valentines

13 Feb

 

Shaeffer wanted tigers, what can I say, they don’t make it easy on me!  This is what I came up with for a tiger face with a few hearts to make it a little more valentine-ish!  I’m guessing you can just copy these based on the picture….  We used heart stickers for the nose and he drew the stripes and face with marker…  The rest we just cut out of construction paper!    I thought we’d write “YOU’RE TIGER-RIFIC” on the back…  Cheesy, I know, but Valentine’s Day does have a certain amount of cheese factored in, right???

 

Watch Out… These two have escaped their cage (that is my hubby’s joke for the day)!  HAHAHA

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