Snack-O-Rama Central

Many of you know I abhor the kitchen and all things related to cooking, baking, meal prep, etc. I don't know why. My mom is a great cook and always had a well planned meal sitting on the table at 6pm sharp every night.

Here lately, I've had to research some fun snack ideas for treats to send with the kids for school parties/theme days.

Last Monday was Bird Day at Tate's preschool. And he happened to be in charge of the snack for the class. I immediately knew I'd be sending little nests but needed some ideas for how to make them. They are a peanut free school so peanut butter was out of the question. Found this easy recipe on line using shredded wheat and melted chocolate chips. They turned out kinda cute.

 

At the beginning of the school year, there is a sign up sheet for all the class parties. Since I was signing up for both the girls' parties this year, I just signed up for the same item for each of them. For the Halloween party, I brought drinks for both. Why did I think it would be just as easy to sign up for treats for their Winter parties?!? I was in the kitchen all the live long day decorating these puppies, er, snowmen & Rudolphs.

 

 

And last, but not least. Native American Day at preschool. These tepees I found on line have a cupcake baked into them. The instructions always look so easy in print. First I baked them right side up with the pointed in stuck in an upside down tin foil pie plate. They kept tipping over and sloshing batter all over my stove. I practically singed my eyebrows off holding the oven door open and sticking my hand in there to hold them upright. The next batch I baked upside down in a muffin pan. The expanding batter did inch up the cone but also ballooned out the bottom. So I had to shave them off once they cooled. It also took a careful hand to cut off the pointed end of the cone to stick the pretzels in. And at 10 o'clock at night, my patience had long gone to bed and all I wanted to do was hurl the little things out the window.

 

In the end, the kids liked them, which is all that really matters. And the kitchen and I are becoming rather close.

Old Timer

The kids have been enjoying Tate's new Legos. As with anything they play together, they make up all kinds of rules on the spot. Yes, even with Legos.

I promised Tate one morning that he and I would play Legos after we dropped the girls off at school. Reese immediately started trying to explain to me some of the rules, like, when your Lego ship breaks, you have to stop and say "Repair" then you can fix it.

"What is with all these rules?", I teased. "When I was a little girl we just built things then pulled them apart and built new things."

Reese snickered and said, "You didn't have Legos when you were little!".

"Yes I did," I assured her.

"How?", she asked, wide eyed.

"What do you mean 'how'? They had Legos back then," I answered.

Very interested now, she asked, "Were they colorful?".

"Are you kidding me? Did you think they were just black & white?! Yes, I had colorful Legos when I was a kid!", I said, now laughing myself. "What did you think I played with?", I asked curiously.

She shrugged her shoulders and said, "Blocks...and wooden stuff."

Mystery Solved

The other day I told Tate we had to make a quick run to Target.

"Can I spend one of my dollars?" was the first question out of his mouth.

"Sure", I said.

So off he ran to grab his little black wallet with some Christmas money inside. He couldn't find it anywhere, and we were in a bit of time crunch to make it back in time to pick up Drue, so I told him I would loan him one of my dollars and when he found his wallet he could pay me back.

We were off.

Not long after we returned home, he found his wallet. I was in the shower and he burst in to tell me the good news.

"That's great honey. Remember you have to give me one of your dollars," I hollered through the shower door.

"Ok. Are you going to give it back to me?" he asked.

I reminded him of our earlier agreement. I looked on my dresser when I got out of the shower to see if he had left one for me. I knew I had left a $20 bill on it. I found neither my $20 or $1.

Later that day we were building lego ships in his room and I saw his wallet lying on the floor. Curious how much of his $25 worth of Christmas money was left, I opened it up. Inside were two $20 bills.

Huh?

"Tate, did you take one of these from my dresser?" I asked casually.

"No", he said, shaking his head. Looking at his face I could instantly tell he was being truthful. This puzzled me.

I let a little time go by then asked the same question. He gave the same answer, again appearing totally and completely truthful.

Either he's gotten very good at deceiving me or I've lost my touch, I thought.

I gave it one more try. I said, "When you left me my $1 on my dresser..." (which again, I hadn't seen yet either) "...did you see one of these..." held up $20 bill..."and put it in your wallet?".

He immediately went into my bathroom and retrieved his $1 off my counter and handed it to me. "I didn't put this on your dresser," he said.

Of course. He had come in while I was in the shower and left my money on the bathroom counter instead.

I was beginning to think I must have just misplaced my $20.

That afternoon the kids and I were talking about money and I said I thought it was odd that Tate had two $20 bills in his wallet.

Turns out I'm not losing my touch, because Drue's face immediately read G-U-I-L-T-Y.

"Oh, the other day when Lily was over I paid Tate $20 to let us swing him by his arms and legs", she confessed.

What in the world?

And I knew before I even asked the question, "Drue, where did you get $20?".

"Your dresser."

Batteries not Included

Two families we're friends with have a girl (our girls' age) and a boy (Tate's age). Which comes in handy for playdates because we just switch kids. Girls play at one house, the boys another.

When the girls return home from a playdate, they are usually full of stories of their various adventures. Tate, however, isn't as quick to offer up information. I have a sneaking suspicion this is because he doesn't always want us to know everything that happened. Such as the time we found out that he and his little friend stole a whole stack of airheads from his friends' sister and ate them in the closet.

One family goes to our church. So this past Sunday, we took their daughter home with us and they took Tate home with them. Then we switched back that evening at church.

After we returned home, we started pumping Tate with questions about his afternoon. Not just general type questions such as, "So, what did you guys do"? But fairly specific questions like, "Did you guys take any candy and eat it in the closet?".

He opened up more and more about his time there and then said excitedly, "And they have a real zhu zhu in their basement!".

Come again?

Having no idea what he was talking about and figuring I hadn't heard him correctly, I offered, "They had a zhu zhu pet in their basement?".

"Yep!", he said. "A real one!".

I still wasn't getting it. And didn't understand why he kept emphasizing the word "real". He knows zhu zhus run on batteries because we have to change ours quite often.

Then it dawned on me. He was talking about their live pet guinea pig...Jack. A real zhu zhu pet indeed!

 

 

I've opened up a whole new door to photo editing...and I may just never stop.

S-N-O-W DAY!

 

This was the kids' 3rd snow day this month. And the FIRST one where I didn't have to work. After I shoveled our God-forsaken-never-gets-any-sun-so-the-snow-never-melts driveway, the kids and I took off sledding.

 

It was a swarm of other kids/parents enjoying a day off in the new fallen cover of powder. But everyone was pretty good about taking turns and not plowing over anyone, for the most part.

Drue was admiring/eating a handful of snow at the bottom of the hill when another little girl crashed right into her. Then another group of little girls crashed into them. All us Mothers at the top of the hill held our breath until we saw them, one by one, begin to move all their appendages and start to emerge from the aftermath.

 

I am getting a kick out of Tate this year. He just seems like such a big boy. He's able to do everything by himself now. He pulls up his own little sled, positions himself just so and gives himself a scooting start. I saw his familiar little hat- covered head fly past me about a million times.

I rode down with Drue a couple times on her saucer. One time we had just reached the bottom of the hill and were trying to get out of the sled. Reese came barreling toward us in her saucer. My first instinct (which I feel guilty about) was to hurl myself from our sled out of her way. Thankfully, before doing so, I remembered that Drue was still sitting there trying to stand up. Which meant I couldn't abandon ship at that point. So I kind of put out a hand to try and slow Reese and put my other arm in front of Drue to soften the blow. And, whoooooosh...there went Tate flying past us. Oblivious to the close call that almost took out all the ladies in his family.

 

I'm letting my rear end thaw out as I type this. Snow days ROCK!