The Daily 5

A while ago I read about The Daily Five on my friend's blog and the kids are obsessed.

I bought Mster, Lster, and myself notebooks.

Everyday I pick a category and they have to write 5 things that are in that category. Points are awarded to the items that are not picked by other players (ala Scattergories).

The kids wake up and beg to play. The trick is that I only let them do one a day so its really special.

Fish Tacos

On my list of blessings I've received since meeting my husband I can now add, knowledge of fish tacos and actual consumption of fish tacos.

Last Monday we had some Tilapia that needed eating and my husband came up with this delicious dinner out of the ingrediants in the fridge. It was so good, we made it again for dinner last night.

Start with putting your corn tortillas on a broiler pan. Add beans and cheese and place another corn tortilla on top. (we only had chedder) Put in the oven until beans are heated up and cheese is melted.

Cook fish in skillet (all my husbands doing). He's the master of opening our spice pantry and making a rub for any meat we are eating.

MY PART! MY PART! I even got to participate in the culinary creation. I was in charge of the salsa.

This one was a corn salsa. Last night we substituted mango for the corn and thought it was even better. Added just the sweetness we needed. Pretty much what you see, is what you get in this salsa.

And you can always squeeze a little lime juice over the whole taco once its prepared. This taco has a little green chile on top.

Pretty Yummy!

Happy Handstands

A Good Day

I'm not sure how this happens but with my oldest the moment a inkling of sound came out of her mouth, I understood. I look at videos of her really really young and she wasn't as clear as I thought she was back then but I really did understand her and we worked great together.

Then my second one came along and we struggled. I couldn't understand him and I was worried and I had a doctor that was way to proactive and it was a hard period of time. Things got better with a new doctor and when he finally decided it was time to talk, he spoke well and clearly.

And now I have my 3rd child who communicates in nothing short of shreeks, yells, grunts and frustration. Its actually frustrating for both of us. He is talking. He just isn't clear at all. And so he stomps his foot and throws stuff and gets generally upset at the whole situation. He has different versions of mama to tell us his thoughts, desires, needs, excitements. I can tell the difference in a couple of intonations. He's got a word for his older sister and a different one for his brother. He says grandma.

BUT...the last 2 days we have made progress. On wednesday he said "hello". It was a game and he thought it was HILARIOUS. If you ask him to say "hello", he won't. But if you play a game with him and hide and then pop out and shout "hello", he will join in and continue the excitement. And yesterday, he said "bubble" and "pop".

And I got them on video!

Mster's First Grade Field Trip at the Park

Plan B - Reality

Plan B of not going camping was in fact this:

Picked up Mster at noon on friday (her actual time off of school on fridays. we are going to miss that next year) and go out for lunch

Headed on over to glow in the dark mini golf (also known as "the dark side of mini golf" according to Lster). But, getting sidetracked by these:

But we did make it in to start putting.

Kster was done after the 1st 18 so I took him across the way to do one of his favorite things ever.

The next adventure was their favorite dessert place yoyo yogurt. Cster and Kster stayed home while I took the older 2 to eat dessert BEFORE dinner. (oops no pictures, which is a shame because I have never seen 2 kids eat so much candy in one sitting)

We came home to pizza and Prince Kster being fed by his daddy.

When it was time for bed the kids were very excited.

So excited that we let them do it again the next night.

Plan B

We were initially planning on spending the weekend camping with friends. But since this is our 1st time camping as a family EVER and the weather is bordering between doable (but not hot) and miserable, Cster and I made an executive decision (because we can do that sort of thing around here) to cancel.

It is, however, very difficult to tell your 6 and 4 year old that have been planning this adventure for months that we will not be going. Since Cster still has the day off, we decided to do really fun stuff locally instead. We came up with a some ideas ourselves but this morning the kids decided to take it upon themselves to write a list of all the fun things they wanted.

In no particular order (I think)...

go to yoyo yogurt
go to a haunted house
go glow in the dark miniture golfing
go to the park
go to the zoo
sleep in the tent in our basement
make s'mores
go to Grandmas
get ice cream

That's all they've come up with so far (Mster was still writing ideas on the way to school) but I'm pretty sure that they will continue to come up with treasures of excitement the rest of the day.

When your daughter asks for a 3-tiered cake for dessert

Sometimes I like to be that cool mom. The cool mom that when my daughter asks for sometime I don't always say 'no'. Sometimes I really want to say 'yes'

So yesterday was my 6 year olds 1st grade concert and since I had invited family for dessert beforehand I thought it would be nice to let her pick her dessert. I even blogged about it.

I thought about it and realized that I could probably incorporate everything into her ideas for a minimal amount of time and effort.

I made a pan of brownies. I got the recipe from allrecipes.com. I only put in 1 1/2 cups of sugar. I doubled the vanilla. I upped the cocoa to 1/2 cup and I split the oil in 1/2 with applesauce. (next time I'm going to try it with full applesauce)

I sprinkled the brownies with powdered sugar.

I cut the brownies in 3 different sizes.

I tiered the brownies.

I put a toothpick on top.

I thought about trying to find images of the characters that the kids wanted and decided that was too much effort and ink so I told Mster when she got home from school that it was her job to draw the characters that would go on top of the dessert. She very eagerly got to work and....tada!!!

Ariel looks gorgeous, don't you think?

The Wii Guy

My 4 yr old loves the Wii. I'm sure there are lots of parents out there who can judge me for letting my 4 year old play wii but to them I would say...he's 4 AND A 1/2. :) And he can read. And he can do 1st grade math and spelling tests. And he has a ton of friends. And he plays outside almost everyday. And he's got the greatest personality ever. So...yes, I let him play wii. We often play together. Its so much fun.

Today he told me about "Wii guy". I was fascinated so I asked him a ton of questions. I'll post his responses in interview format.

Me: So tell me about Wii guy.
Lster: Well, he has a lot of wii games and he gives them to people.
Me: Like Santa (which is a whole nother blog post)
Lster: Yes. He gives the wii games to Santa who gives them to the people.
Me: Cool. Where does he live?
Lster: He lives by Santa at the North Pole so its easy to get them to him and then he drives home.
Me: How does he get home? by car, by bus, by van, by truck, by airplane, by boat, by train?
Lster: None of those. He walks. Cause he lives VERY close to Santa.
Me: What does he wear?
Lster: Sometimes he wears clothes like Santa
Me: Where does he get his wii game?
Lster: He just has them. And he tries out all the games before he gives them out.
Me: What happens when he has no more wii games?
Lster: He goes out and buys more.
Me: At a wii store?
Lster: Yes. There is a wii store VERY close to his house.

Let me know if you have any more questions about wii guy? I'll ask the expert.

Guess what we are having for dinner?

Tonight is Mster's 1st grade concert. The plan is to have dessert before heading over the school and so I asked Mster last night what she would like for dessert.

Mster: Do we have 3 different size pans? A large one. A medium one and a small one?
Me: You want me to make you a 3 tiered cake?
Mster: Yes
Me: (laughing) seriously?
Mster: Yes...or brownies

and then this morning she woke me up eager to tell me all about her dream. She dreamt I had made her a 3 tiered cake and that I put everybody's favorite characters on their individual slice.

So...this morning she went around to everybody and asked what was their favorite character so I could get their dessert ready.

Mster: Ariel
Lster: Mickey (this was proceeded by a lengthy discussion on the placing of Mickey in front of spiderman)
Kster: undecided. they debated between a dog, a bubble guppy and dora.

So guess what we are having for dessert?

Some days are better than others

And right now I feel like covering my head in a shirt and not coming out till tomorrow. Though, I don't think I'd look quite as cute as this guy.

Computers do not make you giggle

Lster is eagerly waiting for me to get off the computer and go read Nancy Drew with Mster so that he can get back to minesweeper.

I said to him: "You just love the computer too much."
Lster: I do love the computer. (giving the monitor a hug and a kiss)
Mster: Computers do not make dinner for you, dance for you and computers do not make you giggle.

Happy Mothers Day!

Dance Party

We used to have dance parties pretty sporadically. But as of late, they have been happening on a daily basis. This is part to a fun new website we've discovered called grooveshark.com.

According to wikipedia, "Grooveshark is an internationally available[2] online music search engine, music streaming service and music recommendation web software application, allowing users to search for, stream, and upload music free of charge that can be played immediately or added to a playlist.[3]"

Its pretty cool. Someone in the family starts humming a tune and we goto the computer and put it on for everybody to enjoy and then before we know it we've got a real dance party going. I took some videos of some awesome dance moves from yesterday's clubbing. Unfortunately I had the camera so no shots of Squishy dancing. It was interesting to see what the kids did with Guns N Roses, Metallica, Buddy Holly, Justin Beiber (who apparently looks and sings like a girl, according the 1st grade girls on the playground), and as you can hear in the videos much more.

Who needs cereal?

I like breakfast. I like to wait a few hours before I eat it in the morning, but I love to eat real breakfast food. I admit I am one of those people that routinely serves breakfast beyond the regular breakfast hours.

With all the yummy choices of breakfast items, my children still love cereal. There HAS to be some healthy alternatives to cereal that can go beyond egg whites, and green shakes. And I'm on a mission to find as many as I can.

A friend of mine gave me this recipe for baked oatmeal. The recipe calls for the baked oats to be eaten warm (from the oven) with warm milk but I've found that I really, really like it cold, with cold milk and strawberries. It really is good. Really. If I don't have fresh strawberries I defrost some frozen ones and add them into the mixture (liquid and all).

Here's the recipe.

 2 1/2 cups combo of quick and old fashioned
 1/2 cup brown sugar
 1 1/2 cup skim milk
 1/4 cup butter, melted
 2 eggs
 2 tsp baking powder
 some salt shakes
 2 tsp vanilla

Combine ingrediants and pour into a greased 9 X 13in pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes at 350F.

Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge.

I love firsts

This was the first time my husband has made green chile. (And for those people that do not know my husband, he is an excellent cook but he is not capable of making food in small portions). This batch of green chile was 2 stock pots full to the top!

Since we really needed to find a way to preserve his massive amounts of food, I asked for a pressure cooker for Christmas.

And so...this weekend was the first time we used my pressure cooker.

It was such a success that we are ready to make more vats of delicious stuff.

14 jars canned (in picture), 10 jars not canned (not in picture)

I heart my wheat grinder

Some people thought it strange that I got a wheat grinder for Christmas. But I LOVE it! I use it at least once a week. I think its the greatest. And yes, I've been mocked for my love affair.

I just think its stinking awesome that I can take this...

And turn it into this...

 

Which in turn makes this...

and this...

and this...

I'm thnking about doing a series of posts on wheat. Please step out of your lurkingness and let me know if you would be interests in more posts about wheat (educational focused ones).