I’m always trying to find little games to play with the kids when we’re waiting somewhere. It helps hold their attention on me and keep them from going stir crazy. They like it when I pick a number between 1-10 and we see who can get closest. We play rock paper scissors. They try to guess which hand is holing the… small object that I dug out of my purse. We do thumb wrestling tournaments. One of their favorites is playing “I Spy”. Lately the baby has wanted to get in on the fun of this game and will say, “My turn! I smell something… purple!”
Filed under: Bubba
Bubba received an Easy Bake Oven a couple of years ago for her birthday. It’s only been used minimally because it’s really just a lot easier to make something in the real oven. She has been asking for a few days if we can cook something in it, so today we decided on the Oreo cake. We started by mixing the batter.
Mmmmmmm!
Then we filled the miniature pan.
The we slid it into the oven with the plastic placing spatula. It smelled like melting plastic for a while, then we started to smell the chocolate goodness that was baking inside. Here is the cookie cake that emerged.
(sorry for the blurriness, I think the plastic fumes were getting to me.)
Then we got to repeat this process again, because we have one cake pan and this is a two layer cake. For reference, it takes 15 minutes to warm up the oven, 12 minutes to cook each cake, and then they tell you to wait another 15 minutes for the cake to cool before taking it out. I took the cakes out of the pan after two minutes and they were quite cool enough. I mean, they’re only a 1/4 of an inch thick. I will say that using non stick spray allowed the little cake discs to pop right out of the pan without any sticking.
While the second cake was cooking, we mixed up the marshmallow frosting. Tell me how appetizing this looks…
Again, Mmmmmmmm!
After the last cake came out, I assembled the masterpiece and poured the packet of Oreo crumbs over it. (What they lacked in cake substance, they made up for tenfold with excessive cookie crumbs.)
To compare, here is the packaging.
The entire two layer cake is the same size as a deck of cards. We had fun, though, and the girls scarfed it down in no time. (I licked some of the cake off of my fingers and thought it was kind of gross, but eating something you make yourself often makes it taste better.)
Oh, and look at what my tree is doing in the backyard…
Bubba reminded me that we now have our camera back, so I can post some photos of her first sewing creation, the reversible purse.
This is the side she prefers to wear out.
It’s a great size on her and she has been wearing it everywhere. The first thing that she asked our friend when they completed this together was, “What’s our next project going to be?”
Filed under: family
Today we rushed through our schooling so we can get to the hospital to meet the girls’ newest cousin. She is a sweet little baby and was awake the entire time we were there and very content to be passed between all of our arms. We didn’t stay for very long because, as a group, we are a tad overwhelming. But we are thrilled to have finally met the newest member of the family.
We have a family friend that offered up a sewing project for Bubba and a friend. Today they finished it and it was an adorable reversible purse. I loved watching Bubba sew, she took it really slowly and has a great attention to detail. She loved being allowed to use the iron all by herself. Unfortunately, we left the camera at Grandma’s house yesterday, so I can’t throw a pic of it up here. She has carried it everywhere with her today.
All of our pepper and tomato starts were blown away. All I found was a single toothpick flag lying on the ground. Then, today, Baby decided to pick up two of the herb pots and throw them on the concrete patio. Yes, she destroyed them completely. So, all of the plantings we did last week are now gone. I’m going to have to figure out a wind and baby-proof method of starting seeds. At least it wasn’t anything that I did directly that caused these things not to grow.
Well, Spring Break has slowly been creeping into two weeks instead of one. Oh well, we’ve been doing lots and lots of yard work and house work and playing with friends and visiting with family. We’ll get back on school seriously next week, but for today… here are pics of our starts.
Here are Mimi’s already growing blades of grass. (Thanks, Ms. K – she has been so delighted at how quickly it has grown.)
Our local bookstore offers a children’s activity on the second Saturday of every month (save for when they were remodeling). This week, a local artist shared a bunch of clay with the kids and allowed them to create whatever they wanted. She spoke a little about where the clay came from and its properties. She gave them a couple of pointers on different ways to manipulate the clay. Other than that, though, the kids’ imaginations took over.
Here’s Bubba shaping a gift for a sick friend.
Baby had a harder time smooshing the clay, so she opted for pounding and squashing it. She also hoarded many many pieces.
Mimi’s favorite creation was the snake.
The two oldest working together.
Baby’s favorite part was the washing bucket. In fact, after she found it, she didn’t want to go back to the clay. I had to drag her away from it at the end.
I’m just so happy to be able to go outside again. Autumn is my favorite season, but I don’t think I welcome in any season as gratefully as Spring.
Climbing the tree face sculpture that they named Echo.
Playing some soccer.
Wondering what kind of animal lived in there.
Seeing how hight they can climb before Mom makes them come down (because she’s not interested in scaling it to fireman carry down a petrified child that climbed higher than she realized – I’m so mean).
Some geese that almost came and sat in our laps thinking we were going to feed them. They were very vocal and put on quite a show fighting off another goose couple that was also looking for a handout.
An interesting find at the base of one of the trees that had the girls intrigued.
In case you’re curious, I won. Marge did it with the necklace in the Android’s Dungeon. 
As of tomorrow afternoon, we will be on Spring Break! It doesn’t coincide with public school’s break, but since our schooling only takes a couple of hours per day, it doesn’t matter – Bubba will still have lots of time to play with all of her friends when they’re out. It does, however, coincide with the week that her Dad is taking off of work, so our whole family will be home for the whole week. We are very excited about this. We will be attacking the basement and purging out everything that is unnecessary so that we can sell it at our garage sale and/or donate it to one of the local organizations that takes second hand goods. We will also be cleaning up the back yard, filling the garden bed, and setting up the secret garden area. It’s still too early to plant anything outside, but we’ll be starting our peppers inside on Monday. Bubba’s art project for tomorrow is to make toothpick flags for all of the different starts so we can tell them apart. We’re doing a bunch of other little home improvement things, like touching up paint, over the week. We’ll also be doing a big Spring Clean, getting the baseboards and vents and ceiling fans and windows and all of the other areas that don’t get weekly attention. The week will culminate with a big St. Patrick’s Day party with friends and family coming from out of town. Dad is pushing for a day trip somewhere, too, but we haven’t been able to figure out a good place to go at this time of year, so that may or may not happen. I have big hopes for this coming week, which likely means we will accomplish about half of what we’ve planned and end the week a little let down, but the intentions are there.
