Growing Up?

A hobby of mine is decorating kids cakes.  My kids get to put in their requests and then I go to work designing how best to put what they have envisioned into a reality.

I love seeing the finished results of something I have created.

Okay, here's two more. They all are so fun and have such memories. I just couldn't decide what ones to show. I recently realized that I have done over 35 cakes throughout the years so I had a lot to choose from.

 In our family we start with our first birthday in November. We then have at least one, sometimes two for every month with the final birthday in March. With the holidays as well during this time it can be quite busy. We have come to call it our birthday marathon. While I love doing cakes, when the last one rolls around I am very grateful to have a break. So...... when my oldest wanted to try decorating her own cake a couple of years ago I was more than willing

(I can't believe she did this well for her first cake. 

Truly her artist skills are coming through.)

This year when discussing her birthday cake she said, "Cake really isn't my favorite, could we do something else?" 

I respond with, "Sure, it's your birthday, you can have whatever you want" 

I was really thinking, "What?  my little girl doesn't want a cute, decorated,  themed birthday cake. When did she grow up?"

Her request this year was a family favorite dessert

CROCK POT CAKE
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
6 tablespoons butter
2 ounces semisweet chocolate (or 1/3 cup chocolate chips)
2/3 cup brown sugar
3 Tablespoons plus 1/3 cup Cocoa
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup milk
1 egg yolk
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups hot water
whipped cream or ice cream

Coat the inside of a 2 1/2-to-5 quart slow cooker with cooking spry. (Note the cake's cooking time and final appearance will very depending on your crock's size.) Whisk together the flour and baking powder in a medium bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave or over a pan of simmering water and mix well. Whisk in the 2/3 cup brown sugar, 3 tablespoons of cocoa, vanilla extract, salt, milk, and egg yolk. Add the flour mixture and stir until thoroughly mixed. Pour the batter into the slow cooker and spread it evenly. In a medium bowl, whisk together the remaining sugar, cocoa, and hot water until the sugar is dissolved. Pour the mixture over the batter in the slow cooker. Cover and cook on high for 1 1/4 to 2 1/4 hours, depending on the size of the crock pot. Even when done, the cake will be very moist and floating on a layer of molten chocolate, but you'll know it's ready when nearly all of the cake is set and the edges begin to pull away from the side of the pot. As you check, try not to let the condensed steam from the lid drip onto the cake.) When it's done, turn off the power and remove the lid. Let it cool for 25 minutes (if you can wait.) Then serve it in bowls topped with whipped cream or ice cream. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

I have always wanted to compile pictures of  the cakes I have decorated over the years into one place. This has been what I have been working on the last few days. One day, when working on this, Karebear came in and saw this cake.

"ELMOOOOOO! I love that cake. 
That is what I want for my cake next year."

I guess maybe she isn't quite ready to grow up. Thank goodness!

Two for One-Part Two

Since we already had the house set up for a party, we figured we would give it double duty for Karebear's birthday. We used the same color scheme as our etiquette party (In reality, I need to give most of the credit to her for coming up with the decorating ideas).  Karebear has been learning how to fold napkins with her Grandmother. She whipped up these to decorate with.

I must say at this age parties are a BREEZE. Other than serving food, I didn't have to do much. They mostly just wanted to sit around and talk. They all surprisingly enjoyed breaking open a pinata that Karebear had made in Young Women's

It truly was a fun filled evening.  We loved having two parties full of squealy, giggly, girls

Two for One---Part One

I wasn't going to do a blog about this, but I have had a lot of parents share how much their girl loved and needed this activity.

For activity days we recently had an etiquette party. One of the Faith in God goals is to learn about and practice manners. I had seen a lot of ideas to do a tea party. This may be up my mother-in-law's alley but it definitely wasn't mine. I have thrown a few parties, though, so we decided to go this route. We wanted it to be a buffet style as well. Buffets are very common at church parties, so we figured the girls could use some manners in regards to getting food at a buffet.

We first started out by having the girls bring a favorite stuffed animal. We then practiced introducing someone by them introducing their animal.

I found this place setting idea. I wanted something, though, that was more of a reminder of how to set the table. This may seem pretty basic but just the other day I asked my eleven year old to set the table. She responded with, "I don't know which side the fork goes on" To her defense it has been a long time since she set the table as this is often her younger siblings job.

Anyway, I cut, pasted, scanned, and printed out this:

(feel free to download this version and print yourself, if you so desire)

I then had it laminated. The girls used this as their place mat. After going over how to set a table the girls then set a place for them at our table.

Before eating  we had a discussion on general rules in regard to manners. We specifically discussed getting food at a buffet. 

We also played a Conversation Game:

 A conversation is like playing a game of catch. When you ask a question it is like throwing the ball. If you just answer the question it is the same as just catching the ball and then holding it. The game then stops. To continue the game you have to throw the ball back. You throw the ball back in a conversation by asking a question. The girls then tossed a ball back and forth while asking and answering questions.

Obviously, the favorite part was eating.
They were encouraged to practice their manners
and try to have proper conversations.
Just in case you were wondering here's what we choose to serve:

fruit kabobs
cupcakes
cheese and crackers
cream puffs
bowl of mixed candy
fruit smoothies

Hungry Yet?

As a party favor I made these. 

Inside was word strips with
true and false questions in regards to proper manners.
We told the girls they could use this as a
family home evening lesson to see
how much their family remembers their manners.

Now, for fun, here's a few questions to test your knowledge of manners:

 True or False

You should blow on your soup to cool it off.

True or False

If you need remove something from your mouth you should spit it into a napkin.

Is It in the Air?

I don't know about your house, but the last few days have been very big on the whining, wailing, and general bickering. It is a commonly heard cliche in the Mormon culture that we can find an answer to any problem in the scriptures. I don't know about an answer but I have had brought to my mind lately when it mentions in the scriptures about gnashing of teeth. Maybe not literally, but it sure feels that way as I have tried not to yell and say the angry thoughts I have had lately. Sometimes my gnashing of teeth has held this back and not so well other times.

Thank goodness it is more often than not better than the last few days have been.

My dad recently sent me this article.

Talk about good timing. It was so good to read over this and be reminded of things I grew up with.

I loved the description of nattering and could see how sometimes I am guilty of this. It was a great reminder to: ask once, making sure it is clear what they are do to and then enforce the consequence if they don't obey.

I also loved the step by step of helping solve a conflict.

Lastly, but not least, the reminder to Praise, Praise, Praise, good behavior.

Happy St. Patricks Day!

It may not be one of the major holidays you celebrate but this day has always been a pretty big deal at our house.

Or at least ever since we became parents on that day.

With your first, every little step, stage, age is a looked forward to and is a momentous occasion. The first day of school was not one thing I looked forward to but it came and went before I knew it.

Now she is a teenager who barely has time for breakfast before she rushes out to catch the school bus.

This morning we made one of her favorite green foods to start the day out right.

Moist Zucchini Muffins

3/4 cup flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 large egg

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup canola oil

1 cup grated zucchini

mini chocolate chips

Stir together the flour, baking powder, soda, salt and nutmeg. Beat together the egg, sugar and oil until blended; add the flour mixture and zucchini.. Stir only until dry ingredients are moistened. Fill greased muffin pans (or we use cup cake liners) two thirds full. Sprinkle on a few mini chocolate chips. Bake @ 350 for 25 minutes. Make 8


Just in case you were wondering if she is sick of green yet?

 It's an emphatic NO! She flaunts it

Happy Birthday!

Money, Money, Money.....

It seems like lately, without looking very hard, you can find a news story or a magazine article with advice on how to buckle down in these tighter economic times. I used to listen intently but I always found myself thinking, "Great, but what about those of us who already do all those things?" I cut coupons, watch sales and have price matching down to a science. We eat more often then not at home. I have a programmable thermostat. I do my own nails, have family activities at home, my husband fixes our car.

For what it's worth here's something we have done for awhile now. It involves this:

Wait! before you stop reading just remember this post. None the less, though, we still have a lot of powdered milk in our food supply. Just sitting there, getting old.  How do we rotate this?

I have attempted to rotate this by keeping some mixed up in my fridge for cooking but we don't go through it very fast. We tried adding chocolate to it and drinking it but I don't like chocolate milk either.

One day, while shopping, I was once again regretting that I had to buy whole milk for my son (it is recommended that children for the first year after they turn one have whole milk to help brain development) in the half gallon size. He LOVES milk but we still can't go through a gallon fast enough before it went bad. The gallon was so much cheaper though. Then it dawned on me. A way to solve two problems.

 First you take a 2 quart container.

 Fill it halfway (1 quart) with water. 

Add 2 cups (we do two 3/4 cups to be exact) powdered milk.

Then find this trusted kitchen utensil

We have a plunger style pitcher but things always 

tended to clump up in the plunger. 

My husband, who does the dishes, got tired of cleaning this. 

He experimented around and found the whisk works beautifully.

Whisk until smooth. 

Then fill the pitcher to the top (ie. add 1 more quart of water). 

We then plunge a little, but a spoon works just as well.

(See no clumps!)

 Pour into a clean gallon jug 

and add a half of gallon of whole milk.

I don't notice a taste difference. Especially if I alternate the mixed powdered milk and whole milk as I pour it in. Instead of buying 4 gallons of milk a week  I buy 2. At an average price of $1.75 a gallon (depending on sales and where you shop). I figure we have saved  about $180 a year.

Activity Days-Our Recent Experiences

As I have spent some time going through the many sites devoted to activity days I have been amazed at the wealth of information. It seems that about any activity idea I have had can be found somewhere with additional advice and tips. I don't want to just re-do what has already been posted in regards to activity days. Sometimes going through all the ideas out there can be overwhelming and oftentimes it is hard to know if a particular activity really is going to work well. I thought I would share a couple of our recent activities and what worked well and what didn't.

• We had a discussion on what makes a good friend and then made friendship bracelets. I was amazed how difficult this was for the girls. I work with girls 8 and 9. Most of the girls had a really hard time. The girls enjoyed this but were easily frustrated. Most of the girls bracelets didn't look how they were supposed to. My recommendation would be to do this with older girls unless you know the girls have quite a bit experience doing crafty things.

• The next week we played this friendship game .This was a big hit and the girls loved it. I would just make sure you use BIG balloons so they don't fall through the holes as easily, especially the last time through. As part of making the yarn web we also had the girls share ideas to give to a secret sister. After the game each girl was given a secret sister. We did this activity around Valentines Day so we then made a valentine card for them to give to their secret sister. They were to give the card and do something else before our next activity. This was a great success and the girls loved doing secret sister we just had to make sure we reminded them to do something.

• We read this article titled  A Banner of Faithfulness (from the February 2010  Friend). Instead of making the banner as suggested we made this  sampler:

.

On graph paper, we marked in a head of time with pencil
the words, "Holiness to the Lord". 

The girls then used markers to trace over the X's
and add in their own additional details and a border. 

After they finished we glued an additional piece of graph paper
to the back so the markers didn't show. 

We had previously typed up the section
after the story labeled, A Motto

The girls glued this to the back.

This was a quick, easy activity that the girls really enjoyed. It was the perfect combination of fun and spiritual. Our only regret with this activity was that we had previously gone to our local temple grounds and took pictures. If we had found this article first it would have been neat to make a point of finding these words on the temple.

Unexpected Memory

Last night I was helping Minnie fill out some of the scrapbook papers we have on her baptism. One of the sections she was to fill out said, What I remember most about this day.

She said, "My dad got two moles cut off!"

For as long a I have known my husband he has had a fairly significant mole on the left side of his face. Now go see if you can find it (it's on the right  when looking at him; you can click on the picture to see it larger).

This mole has often been noticed by most of the children in the ward. Especially the young men he has worked with. He has endured some good teasing and as been affectionately called Mole Man by some of those boys. This mole is not something my husband is self conscious about but we have discussed occasionally over the years getting it removed for it is a pain to shave around.  It is just pretty low on the totem pole of things to get done.

My brother is a physician assistant and had to work the morning of Minnie's baptism. We were all enjoying lunch at our home after wards when he called to let his wife know he was done and would come over to join us. She then handed the phone to me and my brother asked me if my husband wanted him to bring the supplies to cut the mole of his face.  If he was offering, we were willing ,so that afternoon my husband lost two of his identifying trade marks. Or at least he always jokes, If  I ever had to identify his body, I would by the mole on his face and back.

It may not be what one would expect to remember about the day they were baptized but I guess we made it a memorable day in some way.

In the Blink of an Eye

I love seeing those I love all dressed in white. Of course seeing Minnie in white has not been a rare occurrence. Ever since she was little she has loved to pretend about getting married. Whether it's herself or with a doll or Barbies. 

Minnie has always loved the temple. When she was two there was a period of time where we heard often, " I  get mareed in tempo!".    She would repeat it and often get upset. It was as if it was something she wanted to do right then!  We would finally satisfy her by going to our local temple grounds so she could "go to tempo".  We made the mistake one day of going when the temple was actually open. As Minnie watched the people go in I saw her eyes light up with excitement to only be soon filled with tears as we got her hand and explained she couldn't go inside. We explained some day she could but it was hard for a two year old to understand.

This weekend as I took the opportunity to go to the temple with my husband and then saw my daughter again dressed in white, excited for her baptism, I was reminded of this experience. 

I realized that some day will be here sooner then I know.

Kids just grow way up to fast.

Snow? Sun? Hot? Cold?

I love that the weather can't seem to make up it's mind in the Spring. It's the best of both worlds, plus when else can you sport sun glasses and a winter hat and no body questions it.

Tater was just excited to finally be able to make a snow man with the wet snow we got this weekend. Thank goodness for older sisters, who had the time when mom couldn't, to fulfill this year's wish.