Chalk is a No-Go!

If you are a parent of young children, oh say, between the ages of one and half and three and a half, you know that there are certain things that you just do not let them have to run around your home with. For example, a crayon. Worse, a marker, and heaven forbid they get their cute but mischievous chubby mits on a sharpie. It's all over then. I am wise enough to only relegate those items to supervised drawing time when the kids are required to stay at the table and put every drawing utensil away before running off. 

However, we do have in the kids play room an entire wall that has been painted with chalk board paint. How fun! As a result, I keep chalk out for the kids to occupy themselves with. Plus, I figure at least with the chalk if they draw on something they aren't supposed to... Well, it's chalk! It should rub right off. Right? WRONG! I have blue chalk that has been rubbed into my white carpet that I simply cannot get out. No matter how hard I scrub! My last option, which will hopefully work, is to make up a batch of some home made oxi-clean. That stuff seems to get even the toughest stains out.

Let that be a lesson to the rest of you!

See the full gallery on Posterous

Freecycle Finds of the Week

I got a dollhouse for the kids yesterday and a couple of play vacuum
cleaners. Hunter loves making Matchbox cars go down the staircase in
his new house. Each kid had a vacuum cleaner as I was vacuuming the
living & dining rooms tonight. It was very cute.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Strawberries and Beets French Toast

A couple of months ago I mentioned on Twitter that I made French toast with beets and a bunch of people asked me for the recipe. I'm finally getting around to writing it down. So far all of you curious as to how I go about making it, here you go!

I need to start by saying that I never really measure anything, except for the beets. I also usually make this the day after I make a loaf of french bread. I use up the rest of whatever I have left of french bread and finish up with the batter with regular whole wheat bread. See my french bread post here.

8 eggs

Somewhere between a 1/2 and 1 full cup of plain or vanilla yogurt

1/4 cup of cinnamon 

splash of Grand Marnier

1/2 cup of beet puree

1/2 pound of cut up strawberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, make sure they have been thawed)

Loaf of whole wheat bread

Put the eggs, yogurt, cinnamon, GM, puree and strawberries in a bowl. Use a blender stick to combine. If you don't have a blender stick, use a blender or electric mixer. I like a LOT of cinnamon in my french toast, and if you want it properly incorporated into the batter you're going to need more than just a whisk. 

Heat up your skillet and prepare the french toast as you normally would from here on it out! Dunking the bread in the batter, putting it on the oiled hot skillet, etc. Be sure the skillet isn't too hot so you don't burn them! Serve with butter and syrup and enjoy!

I make the entire loaf of bread, even though we don't eat it all. That way I have a quick breakfast for another morning. One I know the kids will eat.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Wordless Wednesday

That Neighbor

Our neighbor's cat is that neighbor that you see coming and need to get away from before he/she starts talking to you. Or else you'll never get away.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Fun at BWI

After dropping off my Mom and Sister at BWI, I decided to finally find the observation deck at the airport. I had heard of it from other people, but had never found it. Despite having been to BWI many many times. When we got there, the kids had so much fun and we watched their Grandma's plane take off.

See the full gallery on Posterous

The Dump

Every time I go to the dump, I feel like I should be bringing an unbearably burdensome ring with me to throw into a mountain of fire. 

That Neighbor

Our neighbor's cat is that neighbor that you see coming and need to get away from before he/she starts talking to you. Or else you'll never get away.

Giga Pudding!

Ok, it says "King Pudding" but this was the closest that my sister could get. It was a total surprise when I got it in the mail, I thought it was from someone else! It came all the way from Japan and the company sent a little card that has the Tokyo Metro map printed on it. Cute!

I actually got the pudding a little while ago, but I wanted to make sure that I had some more people to eat it with. I waited until my Mom and youngest sister got here before we made it.

Hunter loved it, Trent was not so keen on it. I'm still not sure what I think of Giga Pudding, but Hunter couldn't get enough of it. I still have a lot of it sitting in the fridge waiting for the kids belly.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Making Mummies

Back in May, Trent got very interested in ancient Egypt when I watched a show on the subject. I went to the library and got a bunch of books on the subject and tried brainstorming a fun project. This is what I came up with! 

This is the second time we have made them and I got a little more creative this time by incorporating all aspects of the dinner. We used pillsbury thin crust pizza dough and cut it into slices to wrap around the hot dogs. Then I baked them in a 325 oven until the dough started to look the slightest bit golden and turned the temp up to 400. We also made brussel sprouts that were the "mummy brains," mac 'n cheese were the "mummy guts," and ketchup was the "mummy blood." 

See the full gallery on Posterous

Cardinal

Ok, so it's not the best picture, but the cardinals are coming to my bird feeder! Yay! Need to go out and get some more bird food now.