Days 178, 179, 180

Friday:

We were at Jo-Anns on Friday and Iris found the "free craft ideas" sheets at the front of the store.  She picked out two things that she really liked, 1 being Popsicle stick butterflies wrapped in yarn.  Well, if there are 2 things we have PLENTY of in our house, it is popsicle sticks and yarn!  What an easy craft too.  I glued the popsicle sticks into X shapes, then gave the girls the choice of yarn colors they wanted.  Once i started the center, they were easily able to wrap the yarn to the outside.  I glued the ends with hot glue and then we picked out antenna colors.  Iris was even able to wrap her antennas around a pencil to get them to be curly.  Penny needed help with it.  Here are the instructions and our finished products.

Saturday:

I have wanted to do this for a long time, but have always found a reason not to.  But finally, i bit the bullet, bought a canvas and a box of crayons and we sat down to make the melted crayon art.  It was definitely closer to an Iris aged project than a Penny aged project.  Iris helped me sort all the crayons into color families, then we worked together to put them in order lightest to darkest.  Iris really picked up on it quickly, and I feel that she learned quite a bit too.  Then, I hot glued the crayons to the canvas and Iris and I used my hair dryer to melt the crayons.  We worked until Iris told me it was "enough" and this is what we ended up with:

Sunday:

Today, we did "caterpillars" or, according to the craft sheet, they are actually bookworms.  I modified the craft slightly and instead of using all buttons, I used mainly beads and gave the girls a few buttons to spread out throughout.  I started ours by hot gluing a bead to the "tail" to keep all the rest of the beads in place, then the girls strung their beads and buttons on as they saw fit.  It was a great project for Penny and I think it really helped her hand-eye coordination.  We finished by hot gluing a big button with googly eyes to the "head" and here they are.  (Note: the blue one is mine... Penny has lost hers somewhere in the house, of course!):

On a side note, i've been giving myself a little break from blogging on the weekends, it is kind of nice to have mini vacations from this.

Day 177: Rainbow Cake

Alright, where to begin:  First and foremost- this craft was WAYYY too ambitious!  I started this at about 12:30 today and we finally got to eat it at 6 tonight.

First, I found a picture of a rainbow cake that I REALLY wanted to make, so I figured out how to make it... everything says "2 boxes of vanilla cake mix" but i didn't have vanilla cake mix, so I had to make a cake from scratch.. thankfully, i always have cake flour on hand... I found this recipe for the vanilla cake, and I will absolutely use it again: http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/food/recipes/buddy-valastros-vanilla-cake/  The only thing I will say is that to make a rainbow cake, you need to actually make THREE 9 inch round cakes, and the recipe only made 2... so I made 1.5x the recipe.  If i can multiply it and make it come out right, i am sure you can :)  After the first step, the cake mix looked like crumbles.  I was adding the 4th egg before it suddenly started looking like a cake mix.  So, don't get discouraged!  The kids love pouring everything in and helping with the mixer- love my Kitchen Aid mixer!!!

Then, i had to split the batter into 6 even amounts... i'll do the hard part for you, it is approximately 1.5 cups plus 1.5T per bowl... well, at least it worked.

Then we had to dye it.. i used gel food coloring.. the only color i wasn't happy with was the red.  Any bakers out there that can give me a suggestion on how to make the red brighter???  The girls were fascinated with the process, they fought over who would hand me the tooth picks to mix the food coloring in and Iris wanted to help blend it in.

Then the long part:  I baked 2 "cakes" at a time for approximately 13-14 minutes each at 350*.  Then, I had to let them cool for a little bit, turn them out, clean the pans, re butter and flour the pan and start all over again.

It took TWO cans of whipped icing to cover the cake, and that was a JUST BARELY covered.  But, we threw some rainbow sprinkles on the top and enjoyed.  It did turn out very pretty.

Day 176: DOMA/Prop 8 Celebration

Well, in order to celebrate the over turning of DOMA and Prop 8, the girls made rainbow hearts.  I didn't have a lot of bright rainbow colored beads, or paper, so, we made them with some of our previously dyed noodles.  I love the way they turned out.  Mike made hearts with 2 pipe cleaners and hot glued them to the paper and then they filled the heart with glue and covered the glue with noodles.

Day 175: Banana Peanut Butter Chocolate Sandwiches

Ok, this was a recipe just BEGGING for a 3 and 4 year old to tackle!  It was absolutely perfect for them.   One of my friends posted this "recipe" on FB today, and I decided, then and there, that we HAD to try them IMMEDIATELY.  This could have also been an ad for Pampered Chef too haha!

We opened 3 bananas, grabbed a cookie sheet, some parchment paper, my favorite PC nylon knife and my big PC cutting board.  We started by lining a cookie sheet with parchment paper, then Iris cut the bananas into about 1/2 inch slices- give or take- with the nylon knife... and as an added bonus, no worry of her cutting a finger off!

Once the bananas were sliced, I smeared a small amount of Chocolate PB (I bought crunchy pb by accident and the only smooth we had was dark chocolate- but really, am i going to complain??? haha) and Iris topped them with the another banana slice.  Once all the sandwiches were made, then Penny helped us put a tooth pick in the center of each sandwich so that once they were frozen for an hour, we could easily dip them in melted chocolate.

A note on melting chocolate:
Something has changed with Toll House recently.  I have used Toll House my ENTIRE life, i love the way it tastes, and that is what I was raised on.  Store Brand pieces just don't cut it here (i am really really picky about what chocolate I like anyway).  I mention this only because I have used Toll House for making buckeyes for YEARS.  I have NEVER had a problem with it turning into a brick as soon as it melts, however, the last two times i have melted chocolate (2 separate bags too) I have had a problem with it turning into a brick, sort of like this:

Today, as I was annoyed and getting ready to throw it out, I saw on the bag that it says "add 1T shortening for each C of chips" well, i figured, it was shot anyway, what harm could it do at that point?  I added the shortening and it melted PERFECTLY!  it was smooth and covered well.  About 2/3 of the way through the process, i had to add about 1t shortening more, it started clumping up on me.  I don't know if Toll House has always recommended this, but I have never had to do this before and I have never had a problem with it turning into a clumped up brick of semi-melted chocolate before the last 2 bags of chocolate chips.

After we got them dipped in the chocolate, we put them back in the freezer again for about an hour.  I am just storing them in a Glad container in the freezer.  I don't think they are going to last TOO long.  Next time, i'm going to make them with dark chocolate chips, i think they would be better that way!

Well, here is the finished product... and I can tell you from experience, DELICIOUS!!!!

(the toothpicks didn't want to come out of a few of them)

Day 174: Finger Painting

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've done it before.  But come on, i am almost half way through the year and I am FINALLY running out of ideas.  But, this time, Coraline got in on the action!  I don't know what got more finger paint, the paper, or her face lol.  So, here are the girls pictures: in order, Coraline, Penny, Iris, enjoy!

BTW, i uploaded the scimtar (i think?) plane that the girls made with Mike yesterday.

Day 171, 172, 173

Sorry, we had a very busy weekend, so I haven't really had a lot of time to blog, so here it is:

Friday, we decided to go to the Summer in the City parade in Middleburg Heights, I thought that it would be a great time to let Iris play with my camera a little.  We have never allowed her to play with it before, because it was our only camera, and while it is still our only dedicated camera, this one is 6 years old, it has been dropped countless times, the sensor is a little wonky, and now we use our phones almost exclusively for picture taking.  I figured that if it took a drop or two while Iris was holding it, it really wouldn't hurt it much, if any, more.  So, here is a parade, through the eyes of a four year old.  (btw, she was really interested in taking pictures, how to hold it, how to actually take pictures, and how to turn on and off the camera.. i was really impressed)

(First car of the parade)

County Executive 

Cool stilt walkers 

Of course she had to get a picture of the tractor :-p 

So after looking at these, i'm really impressed, I think she can focus a camera better than i can! 

Saturday:  We went to Buckin' Ohio which ended up eating up most of our day (and night) thankfully, the girls sat down at the table early in the day with a bunch of foam stickers and made amazing "bug" murals (if you can call them that?) with a bunch of old bug foamies that I was getting ready to throw away.  I think they found every single one in the bucket that actually stuck to use on their papers.  It was super cute, they were both very proud of them, however, sorry, I didn't get pictures :(

Sunday:  Today, Iris came up with the idea of making a "Sword Plane" I told her, "Sorry kid, I don't think that is going to happen" but her daddy, the amazing man that he is, happens to be an RC plane enthusiast, found a plane that looks somewhat like a "sword".  So, they sat at the table and diligently drew, cut out, and colored the entire plane.  The girls absolutely loved it.  They thought it was really cool, though I think they like doing crafts with him because it is something different- and they absolutely adore him.  Once Mike e-mails me the pictures of it, i'll add them to here.

Day 170: Birthday Card

Well, tis that time again!  Nana has a birthday coming up on Monday, so today, the girls made construction paper, foam sticker, and crayon birthday cards for her.  We even had to find out her favorite color for iris.  Unfortunately, she is a reader of this blog, so no pictures can be given :-p  However, there was a lot of work and thought that went into them.  Now, if i can just remember to put them in the an envelope and mail them tomorrow!!