Easter Activities

Well the weekend has only been one day so far, but we've had quite the adventure the last couple of days. AND, I actually have some photos this time :) On Thursday night, we went over to my dads to color easter eggs... Killian really enjoyed water coloring his... and liked to do it on his Aunt's lap :) Afterwards, Killian realized that there is a hot tub at my dad's house, and of course, had to go in it... naked :) He LOVED it, when I dragged him out (past his bedtime), he was quite mad at me. Last night, he was such a big boy and helped me clean up the house :)

Today, we colored Easter eggs:

He was so good about taking the eggs in and out of the cups of color :)
Then.. we made an edigle bird feeder for the birds from a toilet paper roll, peanut butter, sunflower seeds, and raisins. Killian had alot of fun:

I put a string on it and hung it from our porch. We'll have to watch every day to see if it gets eaten.
Killian also liked to watercolor with new watercolor markers that we got today:

Then finally, we played out side. I bought Killian a convertible car for the outside earlier this week.. and Killian will play with it for hours!

Weirdly enough, this isn't a grimace, it's a "cheese" smile.

Killian also colored with sidewalk chalk for the first time!
Finally, we took the dogs for a short walk, here is Killian and Stella running together :)

I'm SO excited for Killian to go for an easter egg hunt tom. morning :) I'll post photos when I can :)

Top O the Morning to ya!- Party for Toddlers

So today a girlfriend and I had a party for our toddlers (mine + the two she nannys for). We had lots of fun!! We "hid" gold coins (chocolate) around the house for them to find

We had the kids helps us make Green Jello and Green bean cassorle:

 While our food was cooking, we did a GREEN shamrock are project:

 We did a few rhymes:
Five Green Shamrocks added 2-15-98 Original Author Unknown
Five green shamrocks growing outdoors
(Child's name) picked one, and that left four.
Four little shamrocks, green as they can be.
(Child's name) picked one and that left three.
Three little shamrocks playing peek-a-boo
(Child's name) picked one and that left two.
Two little shamrocks nodding in the sun,
(Child's name) picked one, and that left one.
One little shamrock for St. Patrick's Day fun.
(Child's name) picked it, and that left none.
Cut 5 flannel board shamrocks and let the children make shamrocks on a
stick and place the numbers on the shamrocks for math count.


And finally, ate our food- the chicken was supposed to be green, since I used broccoli puree, but it didn't work as well I thought it would.. but still good :)** Here's the recipe for chicken nuggets with veggie purees **

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On a SEPARATE note, but to do with Green celebration.... Here's a new recipe to add to my pile of homemade/non-toxic cleaning products. I already posted about my floor cleaner, but here's a recipe for window/glass cleaner:

1 cup rubbing alcohol + 1 cup of water + 1 Tbslp Vinegar + a few drops of essential oil (for the smell of course). And again, add that to a spray bottle that you can buy at the dollar tree/store.. Don't forget to label it!! Use away :) Here's a helpful hint, I love the method brand of cleaning products, which I'm not using up one bottle at a time and slowly switching to all homemade cleaners.. but Method makes a WONDERFUL window rag that has ridges to catch all the runaway cleaner.  I LOVE it.
Hope all of you in the midwest are enjoying this beautiful weather!

Catching up

The last week or so has been a little hectic simply because Killian and I have been sick. :( He caught the worst cold from daycare, and promptly brought it home to me. So every min. possible, he and I have been sleeping- trying to fight this thing off. Our last week and weekend haven't been too exciting. We've simply been doing our usual stuff.. though staying home a little more than usual with both of us taking naps everyday (you should see my house! I didn't realize until this week how much I utilized nap time!) On a happy note, my sister, bro-in-law, and two nephews are coming to WI for a week this friday!! We're very excited. I've been trying to get some big presentations that I'm giving for school done this week, so I can spend more time with them this weekend and next week. :) While they're here, my nephew turns 2! Wow, it feels like he was just born. So.. I just finished up my presents to him- and I'd like to share them with you, because most of them were homemade and extremely economical. The biggest gift is a backpack. I bought it from a local store here, and I'm desperately wanting to buy Kilian one because he's so cute wearing it. I then stuffed the backpack full of stuff for him to do on the plane ride home, and/or out and about with mommy and daddy. So here's what's inside:
1. 3 books (these I bought at half-priced books for a few $ each)
2. A DVD of me reading the books to him, and a movie that I made of a book (I scanned the pages onto my computer, and used imovie to record myself reading it to him- so easy)
3. Felt board story pieces for each of the books that I read/bought him
4. Homemade playdough (I made the recipe I posted - but be warned.. you need to add ALOT of flour, and knead it in. I would only make 1/2 or 1/3 of the recipe.
5. Some playdough tools such as rolling pin, etc. that I bought at good will
6. A file folder game- If you don't know what this is, it is such an easy/cheap learning toy to make: You take a file folder, and some print outs offline (or you can draw your own)- here are the ones I used- you color them in with two matching, so for example, you make two green mittens, two pink mittens, two white mittens, etc. You glue one of each color to the file folder. Contact paper, laminate over top. Contact paper, laminate the other half of the mittens (one of each color), then have your child place the matching mitten onto the file folder. I put pieces of velcro onto the mittens also so they didn't slide around. I also stapled a small ziploc bag to the back of the file folder to keep the loose mittens in. It's so simple, and there are tons of patterns out there for each stage that your child is at.
7. A small tic-tac-toe game that I bought for a dollar at Target (he's a little young for this now, but with in the next 6 months he'll understand how to play)
8. My mom is making him this adorable crayon holder. 

I'm very excited to see my nephew's face when he opens it all up :) I'm hoping to post some food recipes that I've made lately on here later this week, along with a recipe for bubbles! Killian's going through a big bubble stage, and apparently the bubbles from this summer have dried up!? So I'm going to try making some of my own.

Lastly, I wanted to add a recipe on here about homemade/non-toxic cleaning products.  Alot of people try to use green, non-toxic cleaning products, but most cleaning products out there ARE toxic. I read an very interesting article written by a father who stated that he takes such care to lock up his cleaning products from his children, but then he uses them to clean the floors etc, which his children touch, eat off of, etc. It's pretty contradictory. So, I've decided to make my own cleaning products as the ones I own start to be used up. So far, only my floor cleaner has been used up. So here's my recipe for floor cleaner- it works WONDERS!!

First- you need a spray bottle- the dollar tree has them! (make sure you label them!)
Second- Fill the bottle 3/4 of the way up with water. Add a squirt or two of vegetable-oil based dish soap (most "green" dish soaps are vegetable or coconut based), then fill the rest up with vinegar. Now.. you can use as is- but it smells like vinegar- so I added a few drops of essential oil. Tree tea oil would be the best- but any smell will do.
Third- Spray the floor down, and dry mop (I LOVE the imop by Method)- I use one clothe on it, and throw it into the wash.
***If you use swifer right now, PLEASE look into how toxic the spray is. It really is not that much more of a hassle to hold a spray bottle in one hand and the mop in the other. REALLY***

Thoughts

So this post is going to consist of alot of things: recipes, our weekend adventures (or lack of ), and my growing restlessness...

First, let's start off with some recipes:


3 Cheese Bread:

My aunt gave me this recipe, and oh is it delicious. As I type, I'm eating an enormous slice. Now I've never made a yeast bread without a bread machine, so I was a little intimidated, but really- I shouldn't have been:

2 packages active dry yeast
8.5 tsps sugar
2 tsps salt
4 cups of all-purpose flour, sifter
1.5 cups lowfat milk (I used whole though and it was fine)
1 tblsp unsalted butter
.5 cup shredded cheddar
.5 cup shredded swiss
.5 cup grated parmesan

In large bowl, mix yeast, sugar, salf and 2 cups of flour. Heat milk and butter to 125 degrees. Slowly beat this into dry ingredients. Blend well and continue beating for a couple of min. (don't overbeat). Slowly stir in 3 cheese and other 2 cups of flour until batter is stiff. Cover bowl, put in warm place (I placed it in my yogurt maker, but you could place it onto of an electric heating pad or a dryer if you have one running)- allow it to rise until doubled in size (about an hour). Using large spoon, punch down batter and put into well-greased 9-inch loaf pan. Bake at 350 for 45 min. Lay a piece of foil on top (do not seal) and bake another 15 min. Bread is done when it sounds hollow when tapped with knife. Take bread out of pan IMMEDIATELY. Enjoy

After mine was cool, I sliced it, and stuck half in the freezer. (Killian isn't much of a bread-eater, and I can't eat a whole loaf before it goes bad). I like the bread best when it's toasted and smeared with butter. :)

Here's another recipe, but it's for those with a yogurt maker (If you're interested in purchasing one, I bought this one and love it. However, you can probably find one at the local thrift store/good will.
Anyways:

For yogurt (a whole batch for my yogurt maker):

Let 4 cups of milk sit until at room temperature (normally an hour)
Mix in 2 Tblsp of plain (organic) yogurt. ** After you make your first batch, you can use your yogurt for this, but only for about 3-4 times, then the cultures start to get too weak**
Pour into the containers of yogurt maker and let sit for about 8 hrs.

While waiting, or before or after, make a sugar syrup by boiling either 2 parts water and one part sugar, or one part water and one part sugar (depending on how thick you want it). Once it's been brought to a boil, lower your stove to low setting and stir until the sugar is dissolved. That's it, you can store it in an air-tight container in your fridge.

I mix the sugar syrup in  with my yogurt along with vanilla extract and any fruit. It's such a delicious snack, and I know everything that's in it. :)

My final recipe for the day is not a food recipe, but a playdough recipe. :)

Salt Playdough:

Bring 1 cup salt, 1 cup water, and 1/2 cup of flour to a boil on the stove, stirring occasionally. Lower temp. to medium, and allow the mixture the thicken (stirring occasionally). Take off the stove when it's become thick and goopy.

After it's cooled, mix in more flour until it's workable. You can add some spices to make it smell nice. You could add Cinnamon etc, but I added cocoa powder. :) Yummy.

So, now that I'm done with my recipes, let's talk about our weekend. On friday, I took Killian to story time at our local library. He really enjoyed it. He's normally a pretty shy child, but boy was he a social butterfly. The first thing he did there was walk into the middle of the circle and start dancing in front of everyone. :) He is my angel. I'm planning on picking him up between my classes every friday and taking him to story time. I think it'd be good for him to interact with kids in another setting. :) After nap on Friday, Killian went to my mom's while I ran a few errands in Oshkosh (one of which was to pick up a tent/tunnel for killian ). In the evening, Killian stayed at my mom's to help out in the barn (and apparently loved it, even though he was freezing), and my little sister and I went to my dad's for dinner. Then my sister and I went to see Avatar. I really enjoyed it- probably because I have an imagination like the movie, so anyone else who can imagine different worlds like that interest me.

We got home late, and I didn't sleep well, because we were at my mom's house. Sat. morning, Killian and I stayed at my mom's for a few hours while he played and enjoyed his grandma's love. Then.. we basically spent the rest of the weekend at home. I'd like to go somewhere for killian to play this afternoon, but something seems to be holding me back today. I can't believe that school starts tomorrow. UGH! This is the first semester since I came back to school (4th semester now) that I'm not happy to be going back.

I think the main reason is that the longer I embrace my love of being a mother and what some people may call homemaker things like crafts, cooking, cleaning, gardening, etc. the more I want to do these things 24/7- and the harder it is for me to focus my time and attention on school. Don't get me wrong, I want to graduate and become a teacher- it's just that school takes up SOO much of my time that I can't do all the things I want to do.. and this has led me to resent it. I'm really hoping the this is just my winter blues talking.. because I have about 5.5 months of non-stop school ahead of me.

Stay tuned this weekend for some possible life-changing things (hopefully not, but it's out of my control).