Spring!

First Day of Spring!
We celebrated the day with my Mom's birthday. Happy Birtday Maw. Of course the frog cake was the kids idea. Because Maw LOVES frogs (inside joke).

Maw wanted mealworms for her birthday to attrack blue birds to her new blue bird house.
Maggie and Maw thought they would have a taste. YUM!

The rest of the day was bubble fun!

Science fun

StL. Science Center

While my brother Nick was in town we went to the Science Center. I think every parent in St Louis had the same idea. It was Presidents day and cold. So what do you do with your kids when you can't send them outside to play. ;)

Nick and the kids with the friendly Dino.

"I hope it doesn't eat me"

Diggin for some fossils

Checkin' out the fossils.

Here is a little science to do with your kids.

Make your own Marshmallows

What You Need:

• 2 envelopes of plain, unflavored gelatin
• ½ cup cold water
• 1 cup light corn syrup
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup cornstarch
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• 1/3 cup confectioner’s sugar

What to Do:

1. In a small bowl, combine the cornstarch and confectioner’s sugar. Grease the sides of a 9” square baking pan, and place a sheet of parchment paper or wax paper, cut to size, along the bottom and then grease that, too. Use a bit of the cornstarch mixture to dust the bottom and sides of the greased pan.
2. Now place the contents of the two packets of gelatin into a small saucepan, and mix in the ½ cup of cold water. Let it stand for one minute, and then cook and stir over low heat until the gelatin is fully dissolved. (What’s happening? The water has spread out the special protein fibers that make up the gelatin, and the heat has dissolved their original bonds. That’s why the gelatin seems to “dissolve” into the water.)
3. Now pull out a mixing bowl, and blend the granulated sugar, corn syrup, and vanilla. Add the gelatin mixture, and beat the whole mixture thoroughly—for up to 12-15 minutes—with an electric mixer. Watch the mix become thick and creamy. Pour it into the greased baking pan, and let it stand at room temperature for at least 4 hours. (What happens: the protein bonds will begin to re-form as the gelatin cools…but now it’s mixed with other ingredients, so it will hold them together, too, in classic “marshmallow” texture.
4. After four hours, or overnight, place the white sheet on a cutting board which has been sprinkled with the remaining cornstarch-sugar mixture. Cut into cubes with a knife (hint: it’s helpful to dip the knife into hot water first, to keep marshmallow goo from sticking!)
5. Roll the cut-up marshmallows in the cornstarch mixture to keep them dry to the touch…and then devour!

Not so Baby Girl!!

Happy Birthday Maggie!!

Today my baby girl turned 5. :( She is growing to fast. Well here in the midwest we got hit pretty good with the winter storm. So we started our day playing in the snow since school was called off.

I had two great helpers make Maggie's birthday cake. The beaters and spatula are VERY clean.

After going out for Maggie's favorite dinner pizza. We came back for cake and presents with Maggie's grandparents.

Maggie got her American Girl doll from Maw and Pauk! (Grandma/Grandpa) A very happy and excited girl. I think someone is spoiled. ;) The cradle in the back is from Mommy and Daddy.

Happy Birthday Princess!!

92 Young

Happy Birthday Grandpa!!

Today my Grandfather turned 92!! He still lives in his home for the past 60yrs. Still drives around town(daylight only). Enjoys his baseball games and visits my Grandmother in the nursing home everyday.

Today I sat with my Grandpa and talked about the things that have changed in his lifetime.

He lived through 2 World Wars, 5 conflicts, 2 wars, Pearl Harbor and 9/11. I may be wrong on the number of conflicts the US was involved in. He told me today that when they dropped the atomic bomb he was on his way to the pacific. If that happened I probably wouldn't be here today.

Just think of technology in his life time. With not every home having a phone to almost everyone having a cell phone.

No computers to computers taking up entire rooms to what I have sitting on my lap right now.

Kids played outside with a ball and a bat. Now kids play with a simulated ball and bat on a Television.

Wow what about Television. When he was born there was no such thing. Now look at what we have now.

Cars were a rare thing in his small town of Crystal City. Now we have cars running off of electricity. Grandpa remembers his families first car. It was a 1917 Dodge.

In his life time we entered space and walked on the moon.

Grandpa with the great grandkids. My three and my cousins daughter.

Blowing out candles. No we didn't do 92 candles. We didn't want the fire department called. ;)

Christmas

Christmas & New Year's

What a great way to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Unfortunately my Moms severe allergies to our guinea pigs caused her to miss Christmas morning with us. :(

Kids with their Santa presents.

Riley got his terrarium for his soon to be bearded dragon. Maggie got her PeePee on the Potty doll. Xavier with his Reindeer Webkinz and geotrax airport.

Riley at my Dad's opening presents

Xavier in his Race Car helmet and wheel. ZOOOOOM!
Ms. Princess in her tiara from Uncle Paul. (Which this picture was taken by him. Can you tell who is MUCH better with a camera. ;) )
Maggie looks almost angelic here. ;)


Well to my awful blogging neglect I forgot my camera on New Year's Eve.

What a wonderful time. A friend asked us to join her for her annual bowling alley New Year's Eve Party. A local bowling alley closes to parties on New Year's eve. The kids took a late nap so they could enjoy the night. We had a successful non-whining good time. Maggie practice Wii bowling for a week before we went. ;) Well bowling is much harder with a ball. LOL! The kids stayed up until 1:30am and we all slept until about 9am.

December

December in Retrospect

December came and went faster than ever this year. It feels like Thanksgiving was just last week not Christmas. Since my busy schedule kept me from blogging I thought I would show a little of our December activities.

I unfortunatley didn't take as many pictures as I should have to document everything.

One of our first events of December was watching Riley sing at Our Lady of the Snow. It is a shrine that has beautiful Christmas lights every year.

One of my favorite events every year is the preschool Christmas program. This was Maggie's second year and next year will be Xavier's first. It is such a delight seeing the children sing there song and preform a little play for us.

Notice the microphone?? During the song Maggie kept leaning over to sing in it. ;)

A tradition at Riley's school is K-3 gets to make gingerbread houses. The parents get together to assemble the "gingerbread houses" a few days before the event. Then everyone sends candy in for the kids to decorate thier house. The kids really enjoy this activity. This was Riley's last year. :(

As room parent I get the priveledge to doing the kids class parties. This year we painted Christmas ornaments for the parents. Then we ended it with some yummy pizza. Since I am SOOO GOOD. We were done 1/2hr early so we played a rousing game of charads.
Finally we went to see Santa Riley's last day of school before the holidays. What a great day we had with the kids. After seeing Santa we went to see BOLT (what a great movie) and went to dinner. I think this will have to be a new family tradition.

Thanksgiving

Oops!

I forgot Thanksgiving.

Since I didn't get to my project today that I was going to post about. A crazy busy week kept me from posting last week. I thought I would back track and post about Thanksgiving.

After our big meal we had to take our walk with Grandpa. It helps digest the turkey.(So you have room for MORE!)

We had such beautiful weather we had to take a tractor ride. LOOK I caught Riley smiling!

Holiday

Cookie Weekend!

Every year my Mom and I have a "cookie weekend". It has become such a traditon that everyone that recieves our creations start asking the 1st of Dec. "Have you had cookie weekend yet?" Well actually our husbands co-workers. ;) 

This year I brought Maggie and Xavier to join in on our fun. They love helping in the kitchen so we all had our matching aprons and headed to Grandma's house. This is a 3 day event. Starting Friday afternoon and ending in a fog of flour dust on Sunday evening. 

Friday night we started by making the cut out cookies. 

On Saturday Mom and I made most of the cookies. 

Here is a list:

coffee spice cookie

snickerdoodlesx2

peanut butter kissx2

sugar cookies

milk choc chip

hello dollies

white choc cranberry x2

Mrs Fields mud bars x2(my favs)

eagle brand fudge

white fudge

saltine candy

dipped choc pretzels

On Sunday we finished up with

Cranberry bread

poppyseed bread

perpermint bark

Kifli cookies

Once Riley came down on Sunday we decorated our cut out cookies.
Our beautiful decorated cookies!

After an exhausting weekend this is the table of our hard work. Most of my family thinks we are crazy but love the treats they get at the end. ;)