kayla

 Have you ever seen kids riding bikes through a store and thought 'who lets their kids do that, how annoying!' well, i'm that parent!  kayla found this little trike and biked around the store while loading up the back with all kinds of goodies she was planning on buying. but she is just so darn cute!

 don't worry, it wasn't just kayla, blake had a bike too, there he is with uncle allan.

 on our way to good friday service. i wish i had as nice of clothes as kayla!

 Kayla's FAVORITE food, raspberries!  and she does not share them!

Kayla's new bike!she hasn't figured it out yet, but i'm sure she will be ripping around on this thing soon!

 Kayla, her cousin, Blake and I were in the paper, i showed kayla and she grabbed the paper then ran to her seat to sit and read it.

mother's day- DAY HOME

For mother's day the boys made flower college pictures and a fancy lemon cake.

 our college, i showed the boys how to make stand up flowers by using a pencil and wrapping the tissue around the bottom then dipping it in glue, they each tried it a couple times then made the colleges how they liked.

 we used a recipe from the nigela lawson cookbook. the boys grated the lemon peels. my husband was horrified that i let them do this, but i explained to them that the grater is sharp so they needed to keep their fingers away from it and carefully watch what they were doing. i have 3 fairly cautious boys, so with close supervision all fingers survived un-grated!

 the boys mixed the ingredients.

 this cookbook uses weight measurements which was great, each of the boys took turns added scoops until we reached the number we needed, i have 1 boy in kindergarten so he can recognize numbers and this was a good way to introduce the other 2.

 they sqeezed the lemons for our icing.

 using the citrus squeezer.

 unfortunately one of my day home boys left early so he missed the last part, but we frooze one for him to take to his mom on monday. the boys drizzled the icing, they each got to decorate 3, one for them, their mom and their younger sibling who was napping.

 they even cut strawberries!

dont those look tastey! the boys then served us. they were very proud of their creations!

birthday! Day home

one of my day home boys had a birthday the other day so we made cup cakes! the boys decided they should be red and green.

 they mixed the ingredients and scooped the batter into pans!

 and of course we made birthday cards too!

 Blake!

 Instead of icing the cupcakes i gave them each a knife and blob of icing and sprinkles.  Usually i give the children each a zip-lock icing bag and let them decorate a few, but this way they ate less icing!

cinderella!

again, an old event!  3 of my girlfriends and i decided to take our girls (2-2year olds, 3-4year olds) to see the catholic high schools preformance of cinderella.  We also decided to dress up our girls like princesses! i wasn't so sure how this would go over with my very active little girl, kayla likes to ask for shows all the time, i put them on and she watches at most 5 minutes before she gets up to move.
anyway! we took the girls for a fancy lunch date at wendy's first, then off to the play.

kayla sat in the row in front of me with her friend bella beside her. she was so proud of herself sitting there all byt herself! she sat through the entire first half, and most of the second half.  i was so impressed! anyway, mommy and kayla dress up dates are definately going to be something we do again!

this was a different day. kayla went down stairs in her pj's, took one look at the day home boys and came running back up saying 'pretty, pretty!' and insisting on wearing this princess dress, ALL DAY!!

fish dumping! Day home

i'm really not on top of this blog thing, or in order for that matter. i started a new folder on my computer that i put pictures i plan on blogging about and they seem to be sitting there for quite away. so since my day home families are not here yet i looked for a short one to post.
SO! we stopped at nicholas sheran park one afternoon on our way home from school pick ups, and the fish guys just happened to be there getting ready to dump about 150 fish into the lake.  the boys wanted to sit and watch so at first we sat quite a ways away, and watched. i couldn't tell if they were cleaning up to go or getting started and it was taking a long time so i told the kids it was time to go. they did not want to miss the fish action so i told them to go ask the guys if they had dumped the fish yet. WELL! the one guy there was awesome! he told the kids what he was doing, he offered to lift them all up to see the fish in the tank but no one wanted to! so he told the kids where to stand, and when the fish were coming, he let them come REALLY close to where they were working. ANYWAY! so glad we decided to talk to the fish guys because it was an awesome field trip! i think next year i will try and find out when they are planning on doing the dump and plan on being there.

again, since i don't post pictures of my day home children there was only 1 picture i could actually post, but such a fun thing for us to watch!

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!