Smoothies, shakes and cookies you bake

My oldest daughter is an A type personality there really is no doubt. I hate how she waivers from kind to ruthless from time to time but well we all have things we need to work on. Yet when she gets in a mode she follows it through until she has figured it completely out. This time it is in the area of chef. This year alone she has made me breakfast in bed, lunch and dinner on more than one occasion. Most of the time none of these were personally cooked, more like put together. But this month all that has changed. First she got an urge to make smoothies. Like her mother she did not seek a recipe but well "winged" it. I profess no education in my guessing. I usually am educated as in I take the time to look up a legitimate recipe but well then I replace, adjust or extract. Not her, she took a stab in the dark and mostly bombed but got a few good smoothie concoctions out of it all. Then she followed a magazine idea that I have in my foods to make binder. Here you see vanilla yogurt with cereal, raisin, chocolate chips, and skittles. It was not the best on bite number one but after that it was good enough for me to finish. I after all never finish something I do not like so that is an honest compliment.

Today came the need to make milkshakes. She really loves ice cream even though she dislikes milk. Again she did not want to explore the actual plans others used in making one. Nope she simply insisted she knew, needed me to buy a specific kind of ice cream. This time little bro got involved taking orders and serving taste tests asking for more customers. When everyone had their fill and the duo requested still more people to order I asked for the steak cooked and marinating in the oven. Yay for me cause dinner it bed it was!









Lastly, the up and coming chef dreamed with me options for her next attempt. Scanning Pinterest at that time this is what I walked her through. click here to see
I have to give her kudos for knowing how to set up and operate the beater. Unrolling the crescent rolls and rolling them back up required my
assistance but overall pretty excellent job!

Flashback to the past entertainment style

Hard to believe this was 4 months away from 2 years ago! My how the kids have grown, and well then again stayed the same. For example the girls, well they still have the most fun dancing together except not so little littlest gets her turn in the routines now.
The two additional kiddos belong to my dear friend Lisa. Funny how life gets so busy you don't see people as much as you would like. Enjoy the adorable, I know it made me crack up!! None of them are long so check them out.


Fashion show fanatics

Dance off

Show me your moooves

Christmas break 2011 was so much fun don't ya think?

Olympic inspiration

While I am on a video posting mode let me show what spending zillions of hours viewing and streaming the Olympics did for the kids...

click here

There of course was plenty of racing, and shot put style throwing, long jumping and more but none of those were captured on camera. Its such a bummer it will be 2 more years before the kids can get pumped to move like this again! But Winter Olympics is a bit tougher to copy too...

How about you?

Summertime horse lessons

Last year the kids ALL took horse lessons with G-MA on a regular schedule. This year though besides it being 100 to 110 for weeks Foxy (the oldest horse) is now 28 and needs more rest than before. Yet through all that 2 kids out of the 6 were motivated enough to monitor the weather and take advantage of any available time. Here you see K riding. Take note that this video was taken after she had actually fallen off of Foxy when she got startled. It was great to see her get right back up again and trust that G-ma nor I would ask her to do so if she wasn't safe. Look for me to add a video of littlest doing this herself soon. She is really the only one who asks to ride daily throughout the year.

cousin K riding video

Calming crafts

Although I already made these for my preschool kiddos the bigger ones at home made their own request to have their turn. All you need is clear tacky glue, Walmart is the cheapest at 1.97 each with Michaels being a whole dollar more each, next water bottle. I recommend collecting or using a soda bottle instead simply because they use thicker plastic than many earth friendly water bottles. Lastly, you need glitter. The original post I got this idea from (pinterest of course) said ultra fine glitter. I didn't look too hard for mine and used what I had at home so not too sure it is actually ultra fine.

First, you turn the water on to hot then fill the bottle about 3/4th full. Next you add 3/4 of a bottle of glue to the 20oz bottle though you are welcome to play around with the amount of glue. I believe the more glue the longer it takes for the glitter to settle. I didn't spend too much time trying to add more glue and glitter to adjust.
Last after you have added the glue and swirled away from the very top of the bottle then add your glitter. We used about a 1/2 small tube, though a bit more seemed better as the kids adjusted or mixed colors too. Really the most important part is hot water with the glue.
To complete shake it all up so the glitter attaches to the glue and surprise you have one of the most fun finished products!
(Funny that the children who were in the pictures are niece and nephew as we did this during electronic time).





The other craft that was completely spur of the moment was balloon shapes. I am not quite sure where I acquired an air pump for making these balloons but K started the creativity. As you can see she made flowers, then there were Olympic colored rings next along with several random things other kids made. Well, that was before the "boys" primarily my two decided popping destroying the creations was the best fun of all.  Sigh, that pretty much ended the calming factor in this weeks fun.

Cooking with boys

Ah yes... I realize that one cannot stereotype boys but at the same time if you know my oldest son you TOTALLY get the assumptions. While he is consumed with the intimate details of anything he is passionate about (Star Wars, Tornado's, Weather really, Titantic, the color purple), he is the farthest thing from detailed otherwise. Structure and order absolutely but details not so much. I can't say as I blame him because in the cooking department I am the same. My niece even has learned that leaving something out, modifying or measuring as approx is my style. We say "Cooking with Aunt Elizabeth" and smile.
Lunch is an excellent time for the kids to expand their horizons in the learning to cook department because it is flexible on time. Therefore today when oldest son wanted the white cheddar pasta I informed him he was perfectly capable to do it himself. Clenched fist later he retrieved the box set it down and promptly asked me what to do next. Sigh... clearly this is gonna take a bit. Once he read the box I had to explain what boiling meant, the temperature necessary and reading the following sentence for details needed on the current step.

That done, he managed to break off the handle. Holy cow kid! Deep sigh, cheesy grin and smile from him I figured out how to turn it off and still use it since the handle wouldn't snap back on. This of course ensured that I would have to participate from close up and not afar. More reading of directions then dictionary use to understand what the word frequently means (yep I am that evil to make them all look up since no one but me understood) he finally was at a point he could wait for it to cook.  HA! The seasoning packet looks like it exploded with powder on the floor and counter.A quick lesson in stirring so not to splash and making sure no sticking occurs he attempts to leave the kitchen.  This was our only box so I knew better than let him learn the life lesson of burning food for fear that tragedy and bad attitude the entire do would consume. Again discussion about focus and detail we are nearing the end of the journey. 

Sadly, I didn't take a picture of him with his final product. Hindsight is 20/20 of course. I will say all his siblings begged to get a taste and rated it a 10 out of 10. Maybe next time I will show him how to make it from scratch..... nah!

A new game at bedtime

Obviously not at bedtime
but a cute pic of the 4 and no more

Bedtime is the true ONLY time a day when we come together as a family for one cause. No matter what happens in the day there are at least 4 to 6 nights a week we read devotions together and pray together. It is also the near only time that I spend a few minutes completely alone with each child. My youngest sweet firecracker has a laughing game we play. It is random when it happens or she requests it but I love that it is like a medicine to the soul. How do you play it you ask? Well... we laugh. But not just a ha ha ha tight lipped laugh. Oh no, we will call "CHEATING" loudly on whomever does it. You simply must laugh open mouthed and from deep in your abdomen. This is the kind that once you start it infects the whole room, sometimes even house and you can't stop at all. But in the game we make as serious a face as possible, well her serious faces are so darn funny that I break the rules and laugh too soon. Yet we pause mid laughter to take in the silence... to wait for the other person to surprise you and start laughing. Sometimes it tis I, other times baby girl but it always ends in me forgetting whatever it was that frustrated me throughout the day.
I LOVE this game!

With #3 it seems he needs to whisper and be in on a secret of sorts. I suppose the middle child syndrome of feeling left out makes this game most fun. It only happens when Daddy is not home though because otherwise I have to contend with his vegetable like game of pretending to be asleep in his bed. But on these rare nights we whisper (with littlest nearby trying her best to get in on the fun since she shacks up with little big bro) we enjoy the trickery. Most of the time the "secret" is merely what we will do the next day, or what we will have for breakfast/dinner. But tonight it was a true bonifide secret... a planned family camp-out in the living room ALL 6 of us, heck maybe 8 since K and C are staying Friday night. Can you hear the song "Memories" playing right now?
Tonight, though... after all that tonight I added a new game to the mix. If you consider the 5 love languages
click here to see what yours are then you know that kids people need varied ways of love expressed to them. While I KNOW for a fact my oldest daughter is strongly on physical touch I also KNOW that my youngest son and daughter probably have words of affirmation in their needs. Truly what female possibly male doesn't need a compliment or two that is genuine from time to time. I digress sorry, a bright idea popped in to my head to play the word game. I begun with youngest (certain that younger big bro was now paying attention and included just like Bubba, his nickname, several times) "You are _______". She in turn was to return the compliment of her own for me. We went back and forth till she struggled with ideas which wasn't too terribly long after all she is only 4. But it was sweet to hear her words choices such as nice, beautiful and huggy. Intending to do this with oldest daughter I make my way to her room next.

Dearest daughter was awaiting my entrance. She, like her sister, looks forward to it most and gets very grizzly bear mom on anyone who even considers knocking at her door when it is her turn. I snuggled up next to her just like she prefers and I intro the game. She says ok and gets a bit serious possibly because this requires thought and we all know she hates to lose. I do NOT know where she gets THAT from??? :)
Anyway, we go back and forth lasting a good 5 minutes. I begin to pause myself on word choice. She said You are tall for me LOL seriously, but I am also faithful, pretty, loving, kind. She asked what dedicated and devoted meant, her vocabulary has to have grown this summer with the daily (truly every single day) questions on meanings of words. I do believe this game will pop up often just so when others in the world tell her words less than admirable she will hear my voice repeating the real truth.

 Oldest son well had already hit a nerve by being frozen in my room with the silly Battle Pirates game he and his dad play together. Tonight we will not partake in this game. Something tells me he will struggle with it a bit more than the girls.. course he NEVER proves to be someone you can fit into a standard sized box so we shall see. To be continued there...