Sunday 29 April 2012

meringues-DAy home

 blake-who doesn't wear sun glasses while cooking. i used to buy the icing bags from micheals then discovered ziplocks are cheaper and work just as good! i always tie off at the top of the icing (or meringue goo) so it doesn't come squishing out the top and the children have an easier time using them. normally i would use the smaller ziplock bags but only had large freezer size at home on this day.
 the meringue creations!
 the cook book.
another cooking book i am enjoying, this one with my kids. i never thought to make meringues with the kids but it was actually really fun. i prepared the meringues (i have 3 little cooks and there just wasn't enough for all of them to help with, if it had have just been blake i would have let him help with the prep.)  Then i put the merginue goo in ziplock bags, twisted and tied at the end of the filling then gave the boys trays with parchement paper and each of them their own merginue bag.  the boys squeezed out little designs and letters then we cooked them! the thing i did not know about merginues is not only do they take an hour to cook, they also need to dry over night. so i got to discover the timer on my oven since we had to go out, and the boys were ok with not eatting them right away. anyway, it was a successful baking expertiment and another recipe i would do again! i've also made the cinnamon buns (without kids) and the vanilla crunch scones with blake. only 3 recipes so far but all 3 recipes were very good and i would definately make again!! i did find this cook book is more for older children then my day home age, but the recipes are sooo tastey!

Just a regular saturday night.

so my sister bought me this cook book a couple years ago, it's a british author so not only does she use funny names for her sugar, she weighs everything. because i didn't have a scale i shelfed the cook book and forgot about it. however, i recently purchased a scale so rediscovered the cook book.
the first recipe i made was the mini molten lava cakes for a dinner party. not only was this recipe easy, it tasted AMAZING! there was not a bite of cake scraped into the garabage afterwards. so since it was so tastey and so easy i decided to explore the cook book a little more. next i made a very yummy bread, which was also easy but a bit time consuming because of rising the dough (also i discovered my dough hook on my mixer, why have i never used this tool before!!). so with this tasty bread in the oven i decided to make us a feast. she suggested having the bread with fried eggs and fried tomatoes. so i did hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, and bacon!

bacon story- i am very new to cooking bacon, this is actually only my third successful attempt.  the first year nic and i were married i decided to make blt's. well, basically i burnt the bacon so bad that our entire kitchen was left with a filmy layer of grease on it and our whole upstairs smelt like burnt bacon for at least a week! so nic was assigned to the job of cooking all bacon.

here are the pictures-
 before cooking, i also made one with just cheese for my kids. there is parsley, olive oil and garlic on the bread.
 the tomatoes! not a fan of tomatoes by themselves but i thought they looked tasty.
 our feast!
 the finished product!
  the molten cakes. this is not my actual cakes, mine didn't come out of the pan quite as nicely but they tasted sooo good!
and of course the cook book!

eric carle! day home

for some reason i saved this one instead of posting it...
we did an eric carle week in february, most of my pictures have day home kids in them so i can't post them but here is a few.

 the books! blake loved the one about the click beetle, and of course brown bear is a favorite of kayla's!  the book from head to toe is a great action book that i read with the kids. we also made pancakes to go along with that book. most of these are from the library.
 we made turtles to go with this book.

this was a shape/color matcher game. i had these 3 pairs of jeans that had holes but for some reason i could not bring myself to throwing them out, finally i cut of the pockets and threw out the jeans. after having a stack of jean pockets in my bed side table for many many months i came up with this. i hung this on the wall and placed a basket of misc toys and random pieces around, the kids also went on searches looking for things to put in the pockets. not the most exciting game ever but it kept them entertained for a little while!

Kayla LOVED these! i just color copied pictures from brown bear and a couple other books and laminated them. the kids could match up the animals or make new ones. brown bear is one of kayla's favorite books so she definately got the most enjoyment out of these cards.

another activity which was a success but i only have pictures with day home kids is bubble wrap painting. eric carle is all about colors and shapes and textures, i gave the children some squares of bubble wrap, they could then paint them and make prints on their paper. the older children really enjoyed this!
this has nothing to do with eric carle, but i bought this little carpet from costco because i miss having carpets. only 1 room in our house has carpet and it's the guest room which is rarely used. anyway, the first 2 weeks after a bought it blake was constantly on it, bring toys there, laying on it and reading, just enjoying it! it's a nice cozy little book/movie corner which is getting lots of love. i don't think that little carpet is going to last long! the kids are going to wear it down to nothing in no time!

Tuesday 10 April 2012

easter! day home

We spent the week leading up to easter with an easter theme in the day home.  of course we hid and hunted for eggs, we had easter grass, eggs, egg holders and baskets in the granular play, easter crafts and easter baking! here is some of the easter egg collages...
 granular play, they actually were not nearly as interested in the easter grass as last time i put it out.  the boys did discover the they could shot eggs across the room using the egg holders.
 art time!
 kayla loves to use glue!

 we made nests with eggs in them. 


 the finished product. not sure why my photos don't appear in order....
 blake taste testing the nests, there was alot of that happening, the boys had to make sure the eggs tasted ok so they could go in the nests!

 bunny masks!
 another picture of the easter grass.
the end! this week is bunnies, we will be spending alot of time outside! and a few field trips since there is no school pick ups and only 1 in the day home this week (plus my 2 of course).

Thursday 5 April 2012

monsters! day home

Monsters!!! i found some awesome ( and not scary) books at the library about monsters.
 here is our monster cooking project, the made haystack cookies then added monster eyes, ears, arms, legs.
 blake!
 Kayla even participated! there was definately a LOT  of taste testing going on.
 look at all our monsters!!
 monster masks
 this is the monster mess! wax paper, shaving cream and a little bit of paint. i even got my hands right in there too, it was fun!
 blake loved it!
 our mess
 monster hands
this is our purple people eaters. we also danced to some monster music.

dinosaurs! Day home

of course with my son we have to have a dinosaur theme!

here are some of the dino activities we did, i have not been very good with my blogging so the dino theme was almost a month ago now!

 i have new day home kids since i last did a dino theme so the crafts are the same. stand up tricaratops -i can't spell the names, but blake knows alot of them!
 these are finger puppets
 the flying teradoktyls (not even close i know...) these made for VERY loud play afterwards.
 the dino feet i made! a hit yet again!

we also read all kinds of dino books, played dinos, had dinos in the water table, did dino footprint paintings....and i'm sure there were more...