Tuesday, March 27, 2012

DQ

DD and I par took (sp?) in our local DQ's "Customer Appreciation Day."  Yep, I better get up early, early and hit the gym before he leaves early for out of town.

Double Fudge Cookie Dough Blizzard and Raspberry Truffle Blizzard taste very good when shared together.  Though we couldn't get Thing 1&2 to try it that way.  Next time, we will get a Raspberry Double Fudge Cookie Dough Blizzard and call it a day.  Splitting one between four isn't ....so bad right?

Friday, March 16, 2012

Map project

Here is a map project I'm doing with Thing one for our map unit.  I've added this to learning his address in the information part of the amazing preschool curriculum I'm following.

I'm using the following to try to explain maps. (that's an abstract thought for a young one)


And I got the following map project from my sister.  My niece made something similar in preschool This is not the finished project.  I'll have to update when this is done.



You draw out outlines of the continents, and with a safety pin, punch out the continents.  This will be a long going project I know.  After they are all punched out, I'll have Thing 1 paint a large piece of paper blue, and we'll attach the continents with rubber cement.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

"More like falling in love"

"God is Agape. We love because He first loved us. When you fall in love with someone, you can't control it. You start talking and acting different, and that's how it is when you get filled with the Holy Spirit" ~ Anonymous response on YouTube

It feels so wonderful to be loved so completely, so unconditionally.  If I, as a completely messed up human, can love my kids as much as I do, imagine how wonderfuly God can love us...love me. :)  It just makes me feel warm inside.  Kind of like falling in love :)  I am totally, head over heels, "swept off my feet" in love... and it's amazing.

"More like falling in love" Jason Gray  (I'm pretty sure he wrote this song about me ;)




Give me rules
I will break them
Give me lines
I will cross them
I need more than a truth to believe
I need a truth that lives, moves, and breathes
To sweep me off my feet
It ought to be

More like falling in love
Than something to believe in
More like losing my heart
Than giving my allegiance
Caught up, called out
Come take a look at me now
It's like I'm falling, oh
It's like I'm falling in love

Give me words
I'll misuse them
Obligations
I'll misplace them
'Cause all religion ever made of me
Was just a sinner with a stone tied to my feet
It never set me free
It's gotta be

CHORUS

...It's like I'm falling in love, love, love
Deeper and deeper
It was love that made
Me a believer
In more than a name, a faith, a creed
Falling in love with Jesus brought the change in me


written by: INGRAM, JASON / GRAY, JASON;

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Summer Bucket List

     So I was inspired by another blogger's awesome idea of making a Summer Bucket List for the kids.

     Today's springy weather got me talking about my Bucket List with my next door neighbor, great friend, "aunt" who often helps wrangle my children so we can go out on adventures.  I will take, want, need all the help I can get.  She's awesome.
 
     Here's my Short List...  This will hopefully grow as I find things to do.  (Still trying to picture how I will make this a fun visual thing for the kids.)
  • Sculpture Park
  • Walk to local Ice Cream store for cones
  • Decorate Bikes/Trikes
  • Picnic at the Park
  • Living Room Sleepover
  • Baseball game?
  • Sno cones
  • Water balloon fight
  • Children's Museum
  • Water park
  • Como
  • Treat Tuesday
  • Craft Thursday
  • Catch fireflies
  • Bonfires (hopefully lots, at least with Thing 1)
  • Write letters
  • Make forts
  • Sonic happy hour
  • Lake Harriet walk around with ice cream after
  • Local city swimming area
Have any other ideas???


Monday, March 12, 2012

Lucy or Martha?

    Today, Thing 1 came to me and said he wanted to make a carrot cake.  After deciding it would be a nice way to warm up the house (it just seemed cold on this drab, rainy day) I said yes.  I informed DD via text.  He gave me the dancing for joy emoticon.  (Carrot cake is his favorite cake.  One of the only cakes he likes actually).    I was going to tort it.  With cream cheese frosting.  I briefly contemplated making orange and green frosting and making little carrots on it (don't worry that wasn't going to happen!).  This was going to be a grand cake indeed.
    So I found a 5 star rated recipe.   I had even found a recipe modification that made the original a little more "healthy."  I grated carrots.  I assembled my "mis en place" of ingredients.  I preheated the oven with my baking stone (because baking geniuses know baking stones are good for even heat when baking.) and prepped the pans.  I got my mixer mixing.  The batter looked beautiful and smelled great.  I poured it in the pans and put it in my well heated oven (double checking my oven thermometer to make sure the temp was correct - as a baking genius would do of course). 

     The timer rang and I grabbed a toothpick to check the doneness.  Tooth pick came out clean so I put them on a cooling rack and set the timer for 10 minutes to flip them out the pans to cool.

     This is where the baking choir starts to sound a bit off key.

     I  expected the cakes to flip out no problem (since I am a baking genius - they should have popped right out, right?).  Yeah, they didn't. 

     I used a plastic knife to go around the edges (even though they looked like they had pulled away).  They didn't come out.  I did a toothpick check again.  Not done.  (The baking genius must have tooth picked the outside of the cake, where it was done - doh!)

     I decided to put the cakes back into the oven (thank goodness the baking genius had a still hot baking stone in it right?).  I pulled them out five minutes later.  I did this several times before I realized the baking genius had forgot to turn the oven back on.

     The baking choir is sounding pretty terrible at this point.  At this point, this is feeling more like an episode of  "I love Lucy" than "Martha Stewart Living."

     I turn the oven back on and put the cakes back in.  After 10 minutes, I pull them out and let them cool.  At this point I'm worried I'm just drying the outside out and possibly burning the bottom.  I put them outside to quick cool.  After flipping them out, part of the bottom ripped off.  They for sure still weren't done inside.
    
     You might be saying, "Give Up".   Bake a new one. To this I say "Never"!  I am too stubborn.  I don't like to be defeated.  I hate wasting food.  I already had the cream cheese frosting made.  DD was expecting carrot cake.  He even made the "dancing for joy" emoticon.  He doesn't get worked up over much.

     At this point I turn to Google.  Here's when I tried to microwave one of them.  Shockingly that didn't work either.

     While I was nuking it one last time, I found a "fix" for cake mistakes.  Turn heavy, underdone cakes into pudding.  I am starting to feel like more of a genius again.  Well at least I'm happy this cake hasn't totally gotten the best of me. 

     I whipped some eggs, milk, and brown sugar (I was out of vanilla at this point), cut the cakes into cubes, threw it all into a greased 9x13, and put it back into my still hot oven for 45 mins at 350 degrees. (thank you baking stone).  And, yes I did turn the oven back on this time.

    I let it cool and frosted it. 

    It's actually pretty good.  (Maybe it's the cream cheese frosting?)

    Moral of the story, if life gives you underdone, dried out carrot cake, make pudding instead!

Nuf said :)
I will try a new cake tomorrow.  Or Wednesday when DD comes back home from working. DD brought more vanilla home.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Whines and Thankfulness


     Today's post is brought to you by the letter C for "cold", as in the cold my lovelies have given me.  I have been battling this cold since Saturday-ish, and thought I was on the uptick till I woke up this morning.  I had even set my alarm to get up and go to the gym this morning. 

     Yeah, that didn't happen.  I woke up feeling like a truck hit me.  Shut off my alarm and went back to sleep (thankfully).  Woke back up an hour later with the kids, made DD his breakfast sandwich, poured some Honey Nut Cheerios for the rest of us, then plopped down on the couch.  (I set up my little nest before I plopped).

     So here's my whine.  I am SO TIRED OF GETTING SICK FROM MY KIDS.  I feel like I have been sick more than I have been healthy this winter.  I thought my secret weapon of drinking Emergen-C every day would help me fend off the germies like it seemed to last year.  Yeah, either it was a happy stroke of luck and coincidence, or they're making it different this year.  Is it possible that I seems to have these lovely colds longer than my children do???  I swear it feels like I do.  Every cold I get seems to sign a long term lease with my sinuses.  I feel better than I did earlier this morning, but if I move around too much, I get that overwhelming I feel like yuck feeling.

    I was supposed to get the house clean today.   I had talked about lunch with a friend.  This cold did not get my memo apparently.

     OK, now my list of Thankfulness.  
  • I am thankful my job allows me to still be in my jammies.
  • I am thankful no one in this house cares they are still in their jammies.
  • I am thankful I save back toys after each Christmas and bdays to pull out on days like today (thanks sis - the block/crayons are a big hit with both of them!).
  • I am thankful my kids play together so well.
  • I am thankful for my humidifier and liquid Vicks (generic of course)
  • I am thankful I have leftovers both for lunch and for dinner tonight.
  • I am thankful it will be nap time soon enough.
  • I am thankful for PBS and Disney Jr.
  • I am thankful for the time to (hopefully) work on my Sunday Evenings at Grace stuff and/or read some.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Cheeseburger Pizza, Not quite there...

     So tonight, Dear Dad (DD) is working late, and I was scrambling my brain as to what to make Thing 1&2 and myself for dinner.  (For those of you Stay At Home Parents I know I am not alone when I say dinner morphs when DD isn't present. It usually goes towards the breakfast for supper or "brupper" as I call it (even though I call it dinner usually), or something really easy, or something that I'm not sure DD will eat).  Tonight, there would be no brupper, as I'm out of eggs (not in the mood to drag two kids to the store), and then I thought of picking up a $5.00 pizza (they have a drive though, and they're not half bad for $5.00), then I thought, "hey, why don't we make a pizza".  Of course Thing 1 wanted pepperoni, and something in me said "cheeseburger pizza." 

    So I threw all the good stuff in my mixer, made some dough, and proceeded to make the pizzas - kiddos first of course.  The pepperoni pizza was pretty straight forward, with the exception that Thing 1 insisted that it be in the shape of a triangle.  For Easter.  (He decided this should be the recognized shape of Easter - triangle Easter chocolates coming your way soon ;).  So a triangle pizza we made.

    While that one was cooking I made up mine.  I had memories of Godfather's Cheeseburger Pizza floating through my head the whole time.  Unfortunately, it didn't quite turn out how my memory expected it to be :(  It was, OK, but not great.  The crust was good and crunchy, and the flavor was OK, but only so.  I was going for mouthwatering, I want to eat the whole thing, great.

Here's what I did:
  • Dough (I added garlic and onion powder to it)
  • Sauce (equal parts Miracle Whip and Ketchup with a good squirt of mustard)
  • Browned Beef/Turkey mix seasoned
  • Mix of Cheddar and Mozzarella cheese
  • Dill Pickle coins
     I made it on parchment paper, on top of my Epicurean  (got it for 40% off at my fave Knife sharpening place) cutting board, for ease of transfer.  (I'm in love with this cutting board - it's heat resistant for one thing - but that's another post).  Baked it on the parchment for 10 minutes on my pizza stone at 400 degrees, then slid the paper out, so the crust could crisp up, and cooked for another 10 minutes.

Here's what I think I'll do next time
  • Pizza Sauce this time? Or leave out one of the three condiment/sauces
  • Either use relish in the condiment sauce so there is more pickly-ness to it, or at least at pickle juice to sauce.  Or add pickles after it's cooked
  • Add sauteed onions to toppings (I was too lazy to unthaw mine from the freezer)
  • Add Crumbled Bacon
  • Plan ahead and have lettuce and tomato to shred to top after it's cooked
     So I'm wondering if anyone has made lately a cheeseburger pizza they really loved?  Or have you dined at Godfather's and had their deliciousness lately (I'm really curious if they use a red sauce or a condiment sauce)?  Any pointers?  Any thoughts on what I could do for next time?

     Maybe I'll try recreating a BLT pizza next time.  Jet's Pizza makes a mean BLT hand tossed....yum...good thing I made the gym this morning ;)

***Editor's Note: I'm feeling better about my creation - DD just got home and had some - he said it was "yummy."  I'm also feeling good about myself that I was able to save $$ by making this at home.  I was looking through today's mail and noticed a Papa Murphy's ad for a Cheeseburger Pizza for $10 - $12 for the family size.  ***