A snippet of the kind of day I'm having:
Decide to make angel food cupcakes for dessert tonight for our small group.
Mix up half the ingredients and realize I have no Cream of Tartar.
(how can I not have cream of tartar?!?)
Neighbors are not home, reeeeeally don't want to run to the store, so I spend a few minutes online trying to find a suitable substitution.
There isn't one. The whole point of cream of tartar in an angel food recipe is to keep the eggs, therefore the cake, nice and airy and fluffy. Considering I'm making this for guests, I decide I might as well do it right.
Find shorts for Sawyer (does that kid ever keep pants on?) and flip-flops for all three of us and pile into the car.
Realize as we're leaving our subdivision that I forgot my wallet.
Turn the car around.
Take two; get to the store (which really, is only a mile away, no big deal) and for some reason, in the baking aisle the floor is all slippery... like covered with flour or something, so the kids are skating around getting all wound up while I can't find the cream of tartar.
(can anyone else read the words 'cream of tartar' and NOT say it as an exaggerated TAR TAR in their head?)
Finally find it, also grab extra cupcake liners and rolls for dinner.
Self-check out. Sure self-checkout is fast, but waiting for the machine still takes an absurd amount of time to scan and pay for three measly things. And when it keeps telling me to put something in the bag that I already put in the bag and it won't go on until I put it in the bag?... Grrr. Meanwhile, the kids are still being crazy and "ice-skating" around everywhere, bumping into things.
Go to leave and find someone has parked so close to my car that I can't even get in my door.
Sawyer and I have to get in the other side and climb over.
Get home, send the kids up to naptime and resume baking.
Realize I forgot to set out the eggs before I left. (room temp eggs whip better)
Oh well, take eggs out of fridge and observe there are only five left. I need four for the angel food but I was also going to make banana bread while the oven was on- I have bananas on my counter that are really, really not even going to make it another day. My banana bread recipe takes two eggs. That doesn't really add up nicely for me.
Anyone want to run to the store for me?
Maybe someone's trying to tell me I shouldn't be baking today.
I feel like my whole day has been like that, just one thing after another, almost laughable 'are-you-joking-me?' type things. Only they're not so laughable when you're in the middle of the onslaught. This by the way, is just a taste, the tip of the iceburg, the most recent of the stories I could tell from the morning we've had.
And darn it, aside from venting on the ol' blog, I was looking forward to some soothing in the form of devouring about half a loaf of fresh out of the oven banana bread this afternoon...
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
sparkly
It's been while since I've participated with any I ♥ Faces pics lately... this week's theme is Wedding Bells. This picture immediately came to mind; how fitting is the sparkler send-off with this week being the 4th of July?!
Aren't the 'send-off' pictures the best? I just love how happy those pictures always are...
Aren't the 'send-off' pictures the best? I just love how happy those pictures always are...For amazing wedding pictures or to join in the fun, visit I ♥ Faces.
Monday, June 29, 2009
monday
The Swinigan girls spent most of the day with us today, resulting in
Muffin Tin Monday x4:
part of the fun was eating in the playroom instead of the kitchen!
And we can't forget Daphne...
Her eyes in this pic just mesmerize me... this is straight out of the camera!
I'm sorry... when I get a camera in my hands with a sweet baby in the room, I go a little snap happy.
It's a little tricky trying to simultaneously hold a baby, make her smile/laugh and take a picture with only two hands.
But we had fun :)
And the kids actually finished their lunch too!
It was a good day!
Muffin Tin Monday x4:
part of the fun was eating in the playroom instead of the kitchen!
And we can't forget Daphne...
Her eyes in this pic just mesmerize me... this is straight out of the camera!
I'm sorry... when I get a camera in my hands with a sweet baby in the room, I go a little snap happy.
It's a little tricky trying to simultaneously hold a baby, make her smile/laugh and take a picture with only two hands.
But we had fun :)
And the kids actually finished their lunch too!
It was a good day!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
get out
If you're looking for something to do this weekend, why not pull out the tent and camp in your backyard? The Great American Backyard Campout is tonight, June 27th! What a fun way to get some family time in outdoors! For more details or to join in and "register" your backyard, check it out here.
We'd be joining in, but someone decided it'd be a fun joke to play on Mother Nature and tell her it's July or August, not merely June, so she'd amp up the heat around here. It's just way too hot. (99° today... with a low of 79° tonight. Yuck.)
I'm thinking of setting up our mini-tent though, inside somewhere, or making a big tent or fort with quilts and blankets in one of the kids' rooms and letting them sleep in there with flashlights tonight. We'll see.
Anyone else camping out tonight?
We'd be joining in, but someone decided it'd be a fun joke to play on Mother Nature and tell her it's July or August, not merely June, so she'd amp up the heat around here. It's just way too hot. (99° today... with a low of 79° tonight. Yuck.)
I'm thinking of setting up our mini-tent though, inside somewhere, or making a big tent or fort with quilts and blankets in one of the kids' rooms and letting them sleep in there with flashlights tonight. We'll see.
Anyone else camping out tonight?
Friday, June 26, 2009
waterlogged
There's nothing better than a whole afternoon at the pool to wear a kid out.
This was yesterday...
I had found a Flintstones cartoon on tv (the kids have never seen it and were excited to watch their "vitamin cartoon"!!) for them to watch before I got them into bed. They could hardly hold their heads up.
Today we spent a total of over seven hours down at the pool. The kids and I went down this morning for a couple hours, came back home for lunch and a quick rest time, Ryan came home and as soon as Sawyer woke up we headed back down there, hung out with a few neighbors all afternoon and into the evening and had pizza delivered down there for dinner. We finally dragged the kids home at almost 8 o'clock.
I'm beginning to realize these kids will never tire of the water.
Savannah's working on perfecting underwater handstands and trying to master summersaults. She's having a blast down at the pool because she can touch everywhere in the shallow end, can swim well enough to get around and keep up with her friends, and she knows so many kids down there now from school. It's so fun that she recognizes and knows so many; even kids that weren't in her class... she knows a lot from the bus or just recognizes them from recess or whatever. It's so cool that she's comfortable enough to greet them or join in water play with them. It's funny how many Hi Savannah's we hear while we're down there... a kid pops up out of the water or swims by and I feel like Ryan and I are constantly asking, "who was that friend? who was that one? how do you know that one?" :)
Sawyer is swimming like a fish. Seriously. This kid can swim. It's too bad he won't be able to be on our pool's swim team for two more years (you have to be going into kindergarten the next fall) because I think he's a natural. People are amazed when they ask how old he is and I admit he's only three-and-a-half. As soon as he gets the breathing thing down a little better (he likes to just hold his breath forever... and ever and ever and ever... and then breathe in the water rather than come up for air) he will be able to swim the length of the pool. He can get three-quarters of the way across now (only because that's all the longer he can get his breath to last!!)(and yes, he can hold his breath a crazy long time!). If he had a snorkle mask, he'd have it made.
He's too short to touch anywhere but the stairs, but he's all over the pool. I really don't even have to be in there with him anymore. He knows his boundaries... he'll swim out from the stairs or the wall, but he knows how far is too far for him to swim back. He jumps in with all the big kids and swims back to the wall. He does flips and summersaults and almost has his backstroke down. He's crazy to watch.
He honestly spends 90% of his time in the pool under the water. If he's not swimming (underwater) he's hanging out on the wall or on the stairs and watching things underwater. Sometimes he cracks me up because he's always watching people under the water. Even when he's swimming by, I see his head turn to follow people in the water. If he weren't three years old, he'd almost be the creepy goggle guy... the way he swims in and out around all the moms hanging around the pool stairs, staring at them under the water as he goes by.
He just loves that underwater world. I guess all the warped sights and sounds underwater would be pretty cool to a three year old boy!
This was yesterday...
I had found a Flintstones cartoon on tv (the kids have never seen it and were excited to watch their "vitamin cartoon"!!) for them to watch before I got them into bed. They could hardly hold their heads up.
Today we spent a total of over seven hours down at the pool. The kids and I went down this morning for a couple hours, came back home for lunch and a quick rest time, Ryan came home and as soon as Sawyer woke up we headed back down there, hung out with a few neighbors all afternoon and into the evening and had pizza delivered down there for dinner. We finally dragged the kids home at almost 8 o'clock.
I'm beginning to realize these kids will never tire of the water.
Savannah's working on perfecting underwater handstands and trying to master summersaults. She's having a blast down at the pool because she can touch everywhere in the shallow end, can swim well enough to get around and keep up with her friends, and she knows so many kids down there now from school. It's so fun that she recognizes and knows so many; even kids that weren't in her class... she knows a lot from the bus or just recognizes them from recess or whatever. It's so cool that she's comfortable enough to greet them or join in water play with them. It's funny how many Hi Savannah's we hear while we're down there... a kid pops up out of the water or swims by and I feel like Ryan and I are constantly asking, "who was that friend? who was that one? how do you know that one?" :)
Sawyer is swimming like a fish. Seriously. This kid can swim. It's too bad he won't be able to be on our pool's swim team for two more years (you have to be going into kindergarten the next fall) because I think he's a natural. People are amazed when they ask how old he is and I admit he's only three-and-a-half. As soon as he gets the breathing thing down a little better (he likes to just hold his breath forever... and ever and ever and ever... and then breathe in the water rather than come up for air) he will be able to swim the length of the pool. He can get three-quarters of the way across now (only because that's all the longer he can get his breath to last!!)(and yes, he can hold his breath a crazy long time!). If he had a snorkle mask, he'd have it made.
He's too short to touch anywhere but the stairs, but he's all over the pool. I really don't even have to be in there with him anymore. He knows his boundaries... he'll swim out from the stairs or the wall, but he knows how far is too far for him to swim back. He jumps in with all the big kids and swims back to the wall. He does flips and summersaults and almost has his backstroke down. He's crazy to watch.
He honestly spends 90% of his time in the pool under the water. If he's not swimming (underwater) he's hanging out on the wall or on the stairs and watching things underwater. Sometimes he cracks me up because he's always watching people under the water. Even when he's swimming by, I see his head turn to follow people in the water. If he weren't three years old, he'd almost be the creepy goggle guy... the way he swims in and out around all the moms hanging around the pool stairs, staring at them under the water as he goes by.
He just loves that underwater world. I guess all the warped sights and sounds underwater would be pretty cool to a three year old boy!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
speaking of produce...
(*sorry that video in the post below automatically starts playing if you're on my home page... I may remove that so it's not so annoying...)
We got our two week ration yesterday and just for fun I decided to once and for all figure out exactly how much (if any) money I was saving on produce with this arrangement.
So I jotted down everything that was in our basket this week:
Here are the prices at our closest grocery store:
...which, according to my weights and measures and tallies, for the amount of produce we have in our kitchen right now would total approximately $53.50
And we paid just $22 for ours, which in our experience has been fresher and tastier than what we used to bring home from the grocery store and which includes taxes and delivery.
Now granted, I wouldn't normally have eggplant or coleslaw in my cart or pay $2.50 a pound for plums and nectarines... but still.
The price difference here??
Crazy.
That makes me not feel so bad about letting a zucchini go to waste here and there...
Anyone interested in joining or starting up a co-op??? :)
We got our two week ration yesterday and just for fun I decided to once and for all figure out exactly how much (if any) money I was saving on produce with this arrangement.
So I jotted down everything that was in our basket this week:
- 5 red delicious apples
- 8 plums
- 8 nectarines
- 1 bag green grapes (about 2.5lbs)
- 1 pint blueberries
- 1 lb strawberries
- 1 small cantaloupe
- 1 bunch bananas (about 2.5lbs)
- 4 big carrots
- 1 head romaine lettuce
- 1 bag prepared coleslaw
- 14 red potatoes
- 5 ears of corn
- 1 zucchini
- 1 eggplant
- 1 brown bag full of snap peas
- 1 brown bag full (heaping) of green beans
Here are the prices at our closest grocery store:
- red delicious apples $1.49/lb
- plums 4/$2.50
- nectarines $1.99/lb
- green grapes $1.99/lb
- pint blueberries 4/$10
- 1 lb strawberries $2.99
- cantaloupe $2 each
- bananas .65/lb
- carrots $2.99/bag
- romaine lettuce $1.99/lb
- bagged prepared coleslaw $1.89
- 5# red potatoes $2.99
- corn 2/$1
- zucchini .99/lb
- eggplant .99/lb
- snap peas 2.99/bag
- green beans $1.49/lb
...which, according to my weights and measures and tallies, for the amount of produce we have in our kitchen right now would total approximately $53.50
And we paid just $22 for ours, which in our experience has been fresher and tastier than what we used to bring home from the grocery store and which includes taxes and delivery.
Now granted, I wouldn't normally have eggplant or coleslaw in my cart or pay $2.50 a pound for plums and nectarines... but still.
The price difference here??
Crazy.
That makes me not feel so bad about letting a zucchini go to waste here and there...
Anyone interested in joining or starting up a co-op??? :)
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
don't blink
For all you non-locals (or at least my mother), here's the clip of my fifteen seconds of fame on the local news special last week...
(I can't find a direct link to it... it seems my only option is embedding it. And sorry, it automatically starts. I'll try and figure out something else so that's not the case.)
If you are local and you want more info on the produce co-ops in the area, be sure and check out the groups and forums on stlouis.momslikeme.com; you'll see some of the info in the clip.
(I can't find a direct link to it... it seems my only option is embedding it. And sorry, it automatically starts. I'll try and figure out something else so that's not the case.)
If you are local and you want more info on the produce co-ops in the area, be sure and check out the groups and forums on stlouis.momslikeme.com; you'll see some of the info in the clip.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
don't mind us...
We've changed our address to THE POOL.
We've basically moved in down there. It's about the only thing to do when the heat index is consistently 110° all week. So I'll be back when the heat wave breaks.
'Till then, I posted some no-cook, keep-the-kitchen-cool-because-your-AC-is-already-running-24/7 recipes over here...
Mmm, Mmm Good!
Sunday, June 21, 2009
it's still father's day
So I meant to post all weekend...
We had a ton of stuff going on. And I do mean a ton. I actually feel like I haven't stopped running since Wednesday or so. Don't you love how your calendar always seems to get all jammed up at once so often?! Lot's going on.
However, I have a raging headache and I'm seriously heading to bed the second I hit publish on this post, and I was ready be there oh about an hour ago, so this is going to be short and sweet.
I really wanted to do a special somethin' kind of post for Father's Day. I had grandiose ideas of doing some cute little interviews with the kids about their daddy, or doing some heartfelt "why I'd never want to parent without you" ode to my husband, or at the very least fit in a little mini "photo shoot" of Ryan and the two chillin's. None of that happened. Nada.
We had a great day though. At least I hope Ryan did. It started off with Krispy Kreme for breakfast and Ryan hadn't been up for more than five minutes when the kids gave away his surprise gift. We got him a new bike. I don't think he was expecting any gifts because of the whole camping weekend last weekend, but last minute I just had to do it. He and I have been talking about getting them for each other for oh... about eight years! We took the training wheels off the kids' bikes this past week (Savannah's may be returning, but Sawyer has pretty much got it)(there should be pics and video to come later this week)(if we make it outside at all without melting this week- not so looking forward to the heat advisory for the next four days!) so I thought it's as good as time as any to bite the bullet and get at least one of us some wheels to ride around with the kids on. And hopefully one for me won't be far behind ;)
Anyway, he liked the bike, we skipped church and spent some time outside this morning (at 8:30am- and we were already drenched with sweat) trying out the new ride and with the kids practicing their new moves.
We eventually made our way to the theater after lunch and saw Up all together. Great movie.
Ryan was hoping to get a nap in today (that was probably actually his only real request) but it was kind of late for naps after the movie so we headed up to the pool instead to waste away the rest of the day. Perfect day at the pool... the water was awesome!
Now we are seriously going to bed early.
So Hi and Happy Father's Day to my dad; sounds like you had a fun day full of surprises of your own!
And to Ryan... I really can't say any more than I've said a million times before. Thanks for giving me the cutest kids in the world, thanks for being the best dad for them, thanks for all you do for our family and I hope you know how much we appreciate you every day.
I hope you're as happy being a father as we are having you in that role. Love you.
We had a ton of stuff going on. And I do mean a ton. I actually feel like I haven't stopped running since Wednesday or so. Don't you love how your calendar always seems to get all jammed up at once so often?! Lot's going on.
However, I have a raging headache and I'm seriously heading to bed the second I hit publish on this post, and I was ready be there oh about an hour ago, so this is going to be short and sweet.
I really wanted to do a special somethin' kind of post for Father's Day. I had grandiose ideas of doing some cute little interviews with the kids about their daddy, or doing some heartfelt "why I'd never want to parent without you" ode to my husband, or at the very least fit in a little mini "photo shoot" of Ryan and the two chillin's. None of that happened. Nada.
We had a great day though. At least I hope Ryan did. It started off with Krispy Kreme for breakfast and Ryan hadn't been up for more than five minutes when the kids gave away his surprise gift. We got him a new bike. I don't think he was expecting any gifts because of the whole camping weekend last weekend, but last minute I just had to do it. He and I have been talking about getting them for each other for oh... about eight years! We took the training wheels off the kids' bikes this past week (Savannah's may be returning, but Sawyer has pretty much got it)(there should be pics and video to come later this week)(if we make it outside at all without melting this week- not so looking forward to the heat advisory for the next four days!) so I thought it's as good as time as any to bite the bullet and get at least one of us some wheels to ride around with the kids on. And hopefully one for me won't be far behind ;)
Anyway, he liked the bike, we skipped church and spent some time outside this morning (at 8:30am- and we were already drenched with sweat) trying out the new ride and with the kids practicing their new moves.
We eventually made our way to the theater after lunch and saw Up all together. Great movie.
Ryan was hoping to get a nap in today (that was probably actually his only real request) but it was kind of late for naps after the movie so we headed up to the pool instead to waste away the rest of the day. Perfect day at the pool... the water was awesome!
Now we are seriously going to bed early.
So Hi and Happy Father's Day to my dad; sounds like you had a fun day full of surprises of your own!
And to Ryan... I really can't say any more than I've said a million times before. Thanks for giving me the cutest kids in the world, thanks for being the best dad for them, thanks for all you do for our family and I hope you know how much we appreciate you every day.
I hope you're as happy being a father as we are having you in that role. Love you.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
hot as an oven
So yeah, we baked cookies today.
In the car.
We decided to take advantage of the heat, so I parked out in the driveway with the dashboard in full sun and turned my vehicle into a bakery...
Ryan didn't think it would work.
I was sure it would get to close to 200° inside a parked car on a day like today; 95+° with a heat index of 107°.
200° is warm enough to bake cookies, right?
(It is scary to think about though... pets or children who are trapped in a car in this heat. It's like literally putting them in an oven. Our little project today eerily drove home that point.)
So after we got home from bible study at noon, I parked the car in the driveway and let it soak in the sun for about an hour before we got the cookies out. I took some chocolate chip cookie dough out of the freezer, sliced it up and put it on parchment paper on my cookie sheets.
I used this recipe from Baking Bites by the way, which may be the simplest, best chocolate chip cookie dough I've had. Yet.
Yum.
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, soft
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
2/3 cup mini chocolate chips
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars. Beat in egg, followed by flour mixture and chocolate chips.
!!!I actually just made this cookie dough last night, and while I was making it I kept thinking it seemed a little soft... almost on the runny side. That's why I decided to freeze it. Still, when the cookies "baked" they were spreading super thin and looked more like puddles than fluffy cookies. I was thinking it was just something to do with the non-oven baking. Now that I copied the recipe on here I realized that for some reason (it was late, I was tired and distracted) I'm thinking I only put in 1/2 cup of flour instead of the One And 1/2 cups. Yeah, that could make a difference!!!
Anyway, other than me messing up the recipe, the cookies turned out perfectly! I cut the dough very thin and quite small, thinking that would help keep the cookie "baking" time on the shorter side. They were Yum. Eee. If you've ever had those little thin and tiny vanilla-ish mini chocolate chip cookies from Trader Joes?.... just like those.
The kids were super excited about our experiment. Savannah's been bugging me about doing experiments (side note: the first week of summer vacation we made up a "chart" of sorts for activities -I'm sure I'll do a post on at some point- and one of my brilliant brainstorms under one of the headings was 'do an experiment' and Savannah's been stuck on that ever since) so this was quite timely.
As we left the church this morning I set the stage and we talked about how hot the inside of the car was on such a hot day and I led them into talking about "do you think it's as hot as an oven?", etc, etc, etc. So when we got home we set it all up to try out the experiment.
I set up the cookies (two trays) on the dashboard and used one of Ryan's old scientific thermometers to gauge the temp inside the car just because I was curious. When I took the thermometer out of the garage it read 92. When I put it in the car, on the pan of cookies, it climbed up to 114 in less than a minute. Wow.
According to our local temp reporting, I never saw anything above 93° right here in our area. I don't know how hot it really got or what the heat index got to be. The highest reading I saw on my thermometer inside the car on my random checks was 191.8°. When I would open the door, the temp would drop down to 160-140 pretty quickly. One pan I used was an older, dark cookie sheet; the other was a light colored airbake pan. When I put the thermometer on the dark pan it would read 190. When I transferred the thermometer over to the light pan for awhile, it would go down to 170. That was interesting.
Through my windshield.
Mmm... bugs with your cookies??
I put towels under my cookie sheets to make sure we weren't burning the dashboard with the hot metal.
The cookies on the dark pan were done in about 2, maybe 2 1/2 hours. The lighter pan took almost 3 1/2 hrs. I left them alone for almost two hours and then checked every 30 minutes or so. I figured they weren't really going to burn... :)
Again, these would actually look like normal cookies if I had actually been awake enough to follow the recipe!
So the kids were anxious to eat them:
I have to say, they were pretty yummy. It's been a little while since I've baked plain ol' fresh chocolate chip cookies in my oven, but I'm tempted to say these might be better than the last time I did. That's probably silly, because they're the same cookie, but they seemed extra good.
Thumbs up from Savannah!
We gobbled up a lot of them (it's a good thing they were little!).
Savannah asked "Mom, can we make those car cookies every day that it's hot?"
And I overheard her later on with Sawyer, "Sawyer, those car cookies were really good weren't they?!"
I think we just might do them again if we have a few days of really hot weather this summer. It sure is easy and kinda fun and doesn't cost a penny in electricity or heat up my kitchen.
Plus, it's a great air freshener for the car!! :)
In the car.
We decided to take advantage of the heat, so I parked out in the driveway with the dashboard in full sun and turned my vehicle into a bakery...
Ryan didn't think it would work.
I was sure it would get to close to 200° inside a parked car on a day like today; 95+° with a heat index of 107°.
200° is warm enough to bake cookies, right?
(It is scary to think about though... pets or children who are trapped in a car in this heat. It's like literally putting them in an oven. Our little project today eerily drove home that point.)
So after we got home from bible study at noon, I parked the car in the driveway and let it soak in the sun for about an hour before we got the cookies out. I took some chocolate chip cookie dough out of the freezer, sliced it up and put it on parchment paper on my cookie sheets.
I used this recipe from Baking Bites by the way, which may be the simplest, best chocolate chip cookie dough I've had. Yet.
Yum.
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, soft
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
2/3 cup mini chocolate chips
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars. Beat in egg, followed by flour mixture and chocolate chips.
!!!I actually just made this cookie dough last night, and while I was making it I kept thinking it seemed a little soft... almost on the runny side. That's why I decided to freeze it. Still, when the cookies "baked" they were spreading super thin and looked more like puddles than fluffy cookies. I was thinking it was just something to do with the non-oven baking. Now that I copied the recipe on here I realized that for some reason (it was late, I was tired and distracted) I'm thinking I only put in 1/2 cup of flour instead of the One And 1/2 cups. Yeah, that could make a difference!!!
Anyway, other than me messing up the recipe, the cookies turned out perfectly! I cut the dough very thin and quite small, thinking that would help keep the cookie "baking" time on the shorter side. They were Yum. Eee. If you've ever had those little thin and tiny vanilla-ish mini chocolate chip cookies from Trader Joes?.... just like those.
The kids were super excited about our experiment. Savannah's been bugging me about doing experiments (side note: the first week of summer vacation we made up a "chart" of sorts for activities -I'm sure I'll do a post on at some point- and one of my brilliant brainstorms under one of the headings was 'do an experiment' and Savannah's been stuck on that ever since) so this was quite timely.
As we left the church this morning I set the stage and we talked about how hot the inside of the car was on such a hot day and I led them into talking about "do you think it's as hot as an oven?", etc, etc, etc. So when we got home we set it all up to try out the experiment.
I set up the cookies (two trays) on the dashboard and used one of Ryan's old scientific thermometers to gauge the temp inside the car just because I was curious. When I took the thermometer out of the garage it read 92. When I put it in the car, on the pan of cookies, it climbed up to 114 in less than a minute. Wow.
According to our local temp reporting, I never saw anything above 93° right here in our area. I don't know how hot it really got or what the heat index got to be. The highest reading I saw on my thermometer inside the car on my random checks was 191.8°. When I would open the door, the temp would drop down to 160-140 pretty quickly. One pan I used was an older, dark cookie sheet; the other was a light colored airbake pan. When I put the thermometer on the dark pan it would read 190. When I transferred the thermometer over to the light pan for awhile, it would go down to 170. That was interesting.
Through my windshield.
Mmm... bugs with your cookies??
I put towels under my cookie sheets to make sure we weren't burning the dashboard with the hot metal.
The cookies on the dark pan were done in about 2, maybe 2 1/2 hours. The lighter pan took almost 3 1/2 hrs. I left them alone for almost two hours and then checked every 30 minutes or so. I figured they weren't really going to burn... :)
Again, these would actually look like normal cookies if I had actually been awake enough to follow the recipe!
So the kids were anxious to eat them:
I have to say, they were pretty yummy. It's been a little while since I've baked plain ol' fresh chocolate chip cookies in my oven, but I'm tempted to say these might be better than the last time I did. That's probably silly, because they're the same cookie, but they seemed extra good.
Thumbs up from Savannah!
We gobbled up a lot of them (it's a good thing they were little!).
Savannah asked "Mom, can we make those car cookies every day that it's hot?"
And I overheard her later on with Sawyer, "Sawyer, those car cookies were really good weren't they?!"
I think we just might do them again if we have a few days of really hot weather this summer. It sure is easy and kinda fun and doesn't cost a penny in electricity or heat up my kitchen.
Plus, it's a great air freshener for the car!! :)
three clues
1.
2.
3.
we're having fun with a little experiment today...
any guesses as to what it is we're doing??
better
Steps to take to avoid a fourth rotten day in a row...
1. let the boy wear his first pair of superhero underwear (I've always just bought the practical and comfier non-character draws from TCP)(he is awfully psyched about Spidey undies!)
2. wear sundress... dressing up a little always makes you look a little better than you feel (and keeping cool goes a long way in your patience level)
3. go ahead and let the boy eat a whole package of graham crackers
4. get in a water fight while everyone waters the flowers and plants together
5. spend the morning getting to know new friends
6. have chocolate chip cookie dough on hand
1. let the boy wear his first pair of superhero underwear (I've always just bought the practical and comfier non-character draws from TCP)(he is awfully psyched about Spidey undies!)
2. wear sundress... dressing up a little always makes you look a little better than you feel (and keeping cool goes a long way in your patience level)
3. go ahead and let the boy eat a whole package of graham crackers
4. get in a water fight while everyone waters the flowers and plants together
5. spend the morning getting to know new friends
6. have chocolate chip cookie dough on hand
yikes
We have had a rough week around here... I've yelled way too much, the kids have spent way to much time fighting, way too much time in trouble in their rooms, my ears have heard way too much whining.
Just a few highlights that come to mind....
Savannah painted Sawyer's nose with nail polish.
Sawyer dumped a whole box of Kix out and spread it around the basement.
There's permanant Sharpie marker drawings on the concrete floor downstairs.
I'm sunburned.
Savannah (who is extremely and severely allergic to bugbites) has four mosquito bites she's constantly complaining about. (And if you know Savannah, you know I mean constantly.)
I'm a little apprehensive of the day ahead.
It was already 82° at 6:15 this morning.
Heat index today expected to be 107°.
Sawyer was up before 6am.
We're out of bananas. Big cause of panic for my kids.
So far this morning, I've not been successful in convincing the kids we don't want a repeat of the last three days around here.
Ryan's going to a Cardinal game after work so there's no relief to look forward to at the end of the day except bedtime.
I feel drained from the week and we only have a chock-full weekend ahead.
Good busy (girls' night/book club, friends over, bbq's, etc), but crazy busy none the less.
I think I'll go to bed the same time the kids do tonight...
{End whining.}
Just a few highlights that come to mind....
Savannah painted Sawyer's nose with nail polish.
Sawyer dumped a whole box of Kix out and spread it around the basement.
There's permanant Sharpie marker drawings on the concrete floor downstairs.
I'm sunburned.
Savannah (who is extremely and severely allergic to bugbites) has four mosquito bites she's constantly complaining about. (And if you know Savannah, you know I mean constantly.)
I'm a little apprehensive of the day ahead.
It was already 82° at 6:15 this morning.
Heat index today expected to be 107°.
Sawyer was up before 6am.
We're out of bananas. Big cause of panic for my kids.
So far this morning, I've not been successful in convincing the kids we don't want a repeat of the last three days around here.
Ryan's going to a Cardinal game after work so there's no relief to look forward to at the end of the day except bedtime.
I feel drained from the week and we only have a chock-full weekend ahead.
Good busy (girls' night/book club, friends over, bbq's, etc), but crazy busy none the less.
I think I'll go to bed the same time the kids do tonight...
{End whining.}
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
what's newsy?
Last Wednesday was one of our usual produce co-op days.
Only last Wednesday wasn't completely usual, as Tracy had let us know the delivery/sorting/pick-up time needed to be moved earlier... because a channel 5 news reporter was coming to do a story on our local co-op!
I normally go over and help sort produce when I look out my window and see Tracy with a shortage of hands. Most of the ladies (and men sometimes) take turns helping unload and sort out the produce each week, sometimes I look out and there are as many as 10 people over there running around the driveway and what seems like a million kids running around in the backyard. More often than not, it is a great group effort and it all goes really fast.
With the early afternoon sorting time, and a chance for your very own fifteen seconds
of fame with the news crew there this week, I thought there would be plenty of helping hands and I really didn't expect she'd need me over there.
But when I looked out across the street after the truck pulled away from the delivery I realized there were was no one helping her... only Tracy's mom and her sister. Who aren't even in our co-op! They were supposed to be there to help keep the kids out of the way so Tracy could talk to the reporter!!
I so didn't want to be on camera, but what could I do... it was so hot and humid, there was a storm on it's way in, and there was what seemed like a million tons of produce to divy up between 56 baskets (yes our group of 12 has morphed into 56) all while Tracy was supposed to be talking to the news people and she only had her family there to help. So I put Sawyer in his room for a nap, checked myself in the mirror super quick, just to make sure I wasn't too scary (thankfully I had just got my haircut the night before, otherwise you can bet I would have been hiding behind the curtains all afternoon), and ran across the street to help.
Us four ladies ran around like crazy trying to get the produce all sorted and baskets filled and moved over to the shade under a tree before it all succumbed to the heat and humidity (and prayed that everyone would come pick up the baskets before the storm let loose). It was so sticky hot. And of course, the news guy is filming us the whole time... getting nice artistic shots of the baskets steadily filling up with the awesome summer variety of fruits and vegetables, but also I'm sure plenty of not so flattering shots of sweaty girls running around lugging armfuls of apples and squash and heaving watermelons around. So after most of all the work is done, they take Tracy inside to sit down and interview. Now why they didn't do that before she was all glistening with sweat, I'll never know. Poor girl (who is NOT the make-up type) did her face up and straightened her naturally curly hair just for her close-up... and by the time they sat her down to talk with her about how she started up this little neighborhood co-op that has turned city wide... well we all know what happens to hair like that out in the humidity. I could tell she felt like she'd done all the prettying up for nothing. I mean, she still looked adorable, but I know how she felt... like one hot mess.
The rest of us ladies stayed outside, still moving baskets and boxes around trying to keep them as cool and shaded as possible and helping people out to their cars with them as they were being picked up.
And then the news reporter comes out to get... me. She had asked if someone else would be willing to talk to them, another participant in the group. Well, since the other two helpers weren't technically in the group... everyone's eyes fell on me. Great.
Oh well, I thought, at least I can go inside and sit in the air-conditioning, have a chance to at least wipe the sweat off my face...
But no. "Here, right here in front of all the baskets is good!" Right in the hot sun so I can virtually glisten with sweat on camera. And let me tell ya, that is one big camera. And they stick it right in your face! Fun.
I wasn't all that bothered by it... I know if they use anything at all of me it'll most likely be all of four seconds spliced together to say what they want me to say. I remember some news crew coming to my jr high school for some story (I haven't a clue what it was) and I was so excited because they had talked to my best friend and I couldn't wait to see her on the news that night. Well I sat and watched the whole newscast, made my parents stay glued to the tv, and then she on the screen for all of two seconds at the very end. Ha!
So over here they filmed me and asked me questions for a good ten minutes, but I know (or am hoping?) most of that -if not all of it- will be whittled away.
I'm anxious to see the story though. For any of you locals around here, it'll be on channel 5 this Thursday evening during their primetime "Moms Like Me" segment at 7pm. If you catch it, you can get a peek into my neighborhood, how we're liking our co-op, the brains behind it, and maybe even a shot of my house in the background :)
Only last Wednesday wasn't completely usual, as Tracy had let us know the delivery/sorting/pick-up time needed to be moved earlier... because a channel 5 news reporter was coming to do a story on our local co-op!
I normally go over and help sort produce when I look out my window and see Tracy with a shortage of hands. Most of the ladies (and men sometimes) take turns helping unload and sort out the produce each week, sometimes I look out and there are as many as 10 people over there running around the driveway and what seems like a million kids running around in the backyard. More often than not, it is a great group effort and it all goes really fast.
With the early afternoon sorting time, and a chance for your very own fifteen seconds
of fame with the news crew there this week, I thought there would be plenty of helping hands and I really didn't expect she'd need me over there.
But when I looked out across the street after the truck pulled away from the delivery I realized there were was no one helping her... only Tracy's mom and her sister. Who aren't even in our co-op! They were supposed to be there to help keep the kids out of the way so Tracy could talk to the reporter!!
I so didn't want to be on camera, but what could I do... it was so hot and humid, there was a storm on it's way in, and there was what seemed like a million tons of produce to divy up between 56 baskets (yes our group of 12 has morphed into 56) all while Tracy was supposed to be talking to the news people and she only had her family there to help. So I put Sawyer in his room for a nap, checked myself in the mirror super quick, just to make sure I wasn't too scary (thankfully I had just got my haircut the night before, otherwise you can bet I would have been hiding behind the curtains all afternoon), and ran across the street to help.
Us four ladies ran around like crazy trying to get the produce all sorted and baskets filled and moved over to the shade under a tree before it all succumbed to the heat and humidity (and prayed that everyone would come pick up the baskets before the storm let loose). It was so sticky hot. And of course, the news guy is filming us the whole time... getting nice artistic shots of the baskets steadily filling up with the awesome summer variety of fruits and vegetables, but also I'm sure plenty of not so flattering shots of sweaty girls running around lugging armfuls of apples and squash and heaving watermelons around. So after most of all the work is done, they take Tracy inside to sit down and interview. Now why they didn't do that before she was all glistening with sweat, I'll never know. Poor girl (who is NOT the make-up type) did her face up and straightened her naturally curly hair just for her close-up... and by the time they sat her down to talk with her about how she started up this little neighborhood co-op that has turned city wide... well we all know what happens to hair like that out in the humidity. I could tell she felt like she'd done all the prettying up for nothing. I mean, she still looked adorable, but I know how she felt... like one hot mess.
The rest of us ladies stayed outside, still moving baskets and boxes around trying to keep them as cool and shaded as possible and helping people out to their cars with them as they were being picked up.
And then the news reporter comes out to get... me. She had asked if someone else would be willing to talk to them, another participant in the group. Well, since the other two helpers weren't technically in the group... everyone's eyes fell on me. Great.
Oh well, I thought, at least I can go inside and sit in the air-conditioning, have a chance to at least wipe the sweat off my face...
But no. "Here, right here in front of all the baskets is good!" Right in the hot sun so I can virtually glisten with sweat on camera. And let me tell ya, that is one big camera. And they stick it right in your face! Fun.
I wasn't all that bothered by it... I know if they use anything at all of me it'll most likely be all of four seconds spliced together to say what they want me to say. I remember some news crew coming to my jr high school for some story (I haven't a clue what it was) and I was so excited because they had talked to my best friend and I couldn't wait to see her on the news that night. Well I sat and watched the whole newscast, made my parents stay glued to the tv, and then she on the screen for all of two seconds at the very end. Ha!
So over here they filmed me and asked me questions for a good ten minutes, but I know (or am hoping?) most of that -if not all of it- will be whittled away.
I'm anxious to see the story though. For any of you locals around here, it'll be on channel 5 this Thursday evening during their primetime "Moms Like Me" segment at 7pm. If you catch it, you can get a peek into my neighborhood, how we're liking our co-op, the brains behind it, and maybe even a shot of my house in the background :)
father's day camping
I can't believe it's Wednesday already and I've yet to jot down details of our camping last weekend. Boy, for as fast as these first two and a half weeks (is that all?!?) of summer have flown by, I fear for how soon the summer will be gone. I'm already mourning it...
Anyway. The camping.
Well, as I said before, Heather and I got it in our heads to plan a surprise camping trip for the guys as a Father's Day gift. Heather was especially excited about it as she is not the biggest fan of camping and especially with a baby this summer, she knew Kevin would be shocked to be gifted with not only an agreement to go camping, but enthusiastic initiative and pre-arranged planning of such a trip. So we picked our weekend and picked our place and made reservations and quietly made all the arrangements for our weekend away. We comically came across many stumbles along the way, including both of us being completely absentminded on more than one occasion with our planning sessions, mixing up dates or spacing on other obligations. I was beginning to seriously worry about my mind. Add to that the fact that every time I turned around, Ryan was making plans for that weekend (that he luckily told me about) that I would have to go around behind him and cancel/change up. It's a wonder we pulled this off.
Part of the surprise was having Savannah and Norah make up these books to give to their dads...
We had them each make up a five/six-year-old's version of an informational book about camping; complete with their own packing lists, food necessities and views on camping. The last page of the book announced "The moral of the story is... We're going camping TOMORROW for an early Happy Father's Day! Surprise!!"
(sorry, I had to take pics because I don't think our scanner is working... you can click on them if you want to see them bigger)
It was kind of nervewracking to have kids in on the secret... and they almost gave it away once or twice, but thankfully it was passed over without any suspicion.
We all got together for dinner the night before (which actually got moved to two nights before because Ryan was unknowingly trying to sabatoge our plans at every turn and had a million and one things for work going on outside of work this week of all weeks) and the girls presented the dads with their books. They were plenty surprised! It was a sweet, fun way to clue them in (and all Heather's idea!).
So we left Friday (after a morning of VBS and then our trip to the circus) for Hawn State Park. It's just a short drive south, not much more than an hour out of St Louis, so we were there in time to join the Swinigans at camp for dinner. We set up our tent and such and enjoyed a great evening complete with s'mores and an easy bedtime for the kids with us grown ups enjoying some campfire time late into the night.
The campground was great; all grassy with lots of tall shady trees and a loop around that the kids would do laps with their scooters. Just behind the campsites across from us was the creek; directly across from us was a deep section perfect for standing on the bank and throwing rocks. If we walked down a few hundred yards it opened up into a gorgeous rocky creekbed next to a cliff of sandstone, where the kids could wade and catch crawdads and watch fish and even dip in a little sandy swimming hole. We walked down there early in the morning and explored a little and that's when I snapped these pics:
It was a very cool little find and the kids were not happy when we dragged them out of there for lunch.
The dads and the kids (minus Savannah, she wanted to stay at camp with us moms and the napping baby for some reason) went back later after lunch in their swimsuits and had a lot of fun. I can't believe how brave Sawyer and Lucy and Norah were with the crawdads!!
In typical me fashion, I didn't take many pictures. I only got the creek pictures because Ryan remembered to bring the camera down with us, and while I should have picked it up often around camp, I only snapped these few right before bed Saturday night when Savannah and Norah and I were playing spelling games with scrabble letters.
(I didn't even get a picture of Daphne on her first camping trip!! Or, hello- what about the dads together... on their 'Happy Father's Day camping trip'?!?!!)
It was hot that day... it wore the kids out nicely. Tons of kids in the campground and we found lots of new friends joining our campsite sporadically throughout the afternoon. We had an early dinner (of jambalaya... YUM!) and showered the kids and tucked them into bed early. After somemajor minor drama in the Swinigan's tent (three tired girls'll do that to ya) all the little ones were finally asleep and we played some games and had more s'mores and enjoyed the fire (even tho it was still too warm to really enjoy it) before turning in on the early side ourselves.
In the morning we had a great big breakfast and took our time packing up and getting out of there. We left camp about noon and we were going to go on another hike, but it was getting so warm and I was getting grumpy so we just decided to stay in our air-conditioned car and drive home.
I thought it was a great weekend though. I thought it went especially smoothly considering us two girls planned the majority of it and the packing on our own without the input of the "experts", and the fact that we had a four month old with us! Daphne did great.
I wish we would have explored the whole park more... many people we mentioned to where we were going commented on how beautiful that area was and that was their favorite place for camping and hiking. Well, from what we saw we liked!
Except for the ticks. Ew. Where we're from we've never had to deal with ticks as a fact of life of the outdoors. I've never seen one in my life before this weekend. And from what I hear, we were actually pretty lucky. Ryan found six on him while we were there and it seemed he was the decoy for the rest of us. Upon arriving home though, Kevin also found two on his leg and belly, I found one on my side before I showered that night, and Heather found one on Lucy's arm Tuesday morning! Ugh, those are sick little buggars! Ticks just freak me out.
Anyway. The camping.
Well, as I said before, Heather and I got it in our heads to plan a surprise camping trip for the guys as a Father's Day gift. Heather was especially excited about it as she is not the biggest fan of camping and especially with a baby this summer, she knew Kevin would be shocked to be gifted with not only an agreement to go camping, but enthusiastic initiative and pre-arranged planning of such a trip. So we picked our weekend and picked our place and made reservations and quietly made all the arrangements for our weekend away. We comically came across many stumbles along the way, including both of us being completely absentminded on more than one occasion with our planning sessions, mixing up dates or spacing on other obligations. I was beginning to seriously worry about my mind. Add to that the fact that every time I turned around, Ryan was making plans for that weekend (that he luckily told me about) that I would have to go around behind him and cancel/change up. It's a wonder we pulled this off.
Part of the surprise was having Savannah and Norah make up these books to give to their dads...
We had them each make up a five/six-year-old's version of an informational book about camping; complete with their own packing lists, food necessities and views on camping. The last page of the book announced "The moral of the story is... We're going camping TOMORROW for an early Happy Father's Day! Surprise!!"
(sorry, I had to take pics because I don't think our scanner is working... you can click on them if you want to see them bigger)
It was kind of nervewracking to have kids in on the secret... and they almost gave it away once or twice, but thankfully it was passed over without any suspicion.We all got together for dinner the night before (which actually got moved to two nights before because Ryan was unknowingly trying to sabatoge our plans at every turn and had a million and one things for work going on outside of work this week of all weeks) and the girls presented the dads with their books. They were plenty surprised! It was a sweet, fun way to clue them in (and all Heather's idea!).
So we left Friday (after a morning of VBS and then our trip to the circus) for Hawn State Park. It's just a short drive south, not much more than an hour out of St Louis, so we were there in time to join the Swinigans at camp for dinner. We set up our tent and such and enjoyed a great evening complete with s'mores and an easy bedtime for the kids with us grown ups enjoying some campfire time late into the night.
The campground was great; all grassy with lots of tall shady trees and a loop around that the kids would do laps with their scooters. Just behind the campsites across from us was the creek; directly across from us was a deep section perfect for standing on the bank and throwing rocks. If we walked down a few hundred yards it opened up into a gorgeous rocky creekbed next to a cliff of sandstone, where the kids could wade and catch crawdads and watch fish and even dip in a little sandy swimming hole. We walked down there early in the morning and explored a little and that's when I snapped these pics:
It was a very cool little find and the kids were not happy when we dragged them out of there for lunch.
The dads and the kids (minus Savannah, she wanted to stay at camp with us moms and the napping baby for some reason) went back later after lunch in their swimsuits and had a lot of fun. I can't believe how brave Sawyer and Lucy and Norah were with the crawdads!!
In typical me fashion, I didn't take many pictures. I only got the creek pictures because Ryan remembered to bring the camera down with us, and while I should have picked it up often around camp, I only snapped these few right before bed Saturday night when Savannah and Norah and I were playing spelling games with scrabble letters.
(I didn't even get a picture of Daphne on her first camping trip!! Or, hello- what about the dads together... on their 'Happy Father's Day camping trip'?!?!!)
It was hot that day... it wore the kids out nicely. Tons of kids in the campground and we found lots of new friends joining our campsite sporadically throughout the afternoon. We had an early dinner (of jambalaya... YUM!) and showered the kids and tucked them into bed early. After some
In the morning we had a great big breakfast and took our time packing up and getting out of there. We left camp about noon and we were going to go on another hike, but it was getting so warm and I was getting grumpy so we just decided to stay in our air-conditioned car and drive home.
I thought it was a great weekend though. I thought it went especially smoothly considering us two girls planned the majority of it and the packing on our own without the input of the "experts", and the fact that we had a four month old with us! Daphne did great.
I wish we would have explored the whole park more... many people we mentioned to where we were going commented on how beautiful that area was and that was their favorite place for camping and hiking. Well, from what we saw we liked!
Except for the ticks. Ew. Where we're from we've never had to deal with ticks as a fact of life of the outdoors. I've never seen one in my life before this weekend. And from what I hear, we were actually pretty lucky. Ryan found six on him while we were there and it seemed he was the decoy for the rest of us. Upon arriving home though, Kevin also found two on his leg and belly, I found one on my side before I showered that night, and Heather found one on Lucy's arm Tuesday morning! Ugh, those are sick little buggars! Ticks just freak me out.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
first stop
Before heading out of town Friday on our camping adventure, we had to make a little pit-stop at Circus Flora which is our own local version of Cirque du Soleil. (and no, I didn't mean to plan it that way... we bought tickets months and months ago and I completely spaced it was the same weekend when we {secretively} planned the camping trip. luckily our tickets were for the matinee!)
We loved going to this version of a "circus" so much last year that we've decided it's going to be a family tradition each summer for as long as we're here.
We convinced the Malones to join in the fun and although we didn't technically have seats together, we were conveniently right next door to each other and it was fun to see some friendly faces and visit in and out of the show.
(if you look close you can see Michael -in the green shirt with Yuri on his lap- across the aisle and down the row from us)
We were five rows from the ring (front row of the mezzanine/bleacher seats) just off the center aisle. Best seats if you ask me. Although with the size and layout of the tent, there really are no bad seats.
Ready for the show:
During the intermission and after the show Yuri was obsessed with this antique Caliope organ thingie.
Yuri would not leave it. She didn't really dance, but just stood in front of it soaking in the music. She was mesmerized.
Erin would try and get her to come over and be social with us and Yuri would comply for a moment...
And then next time we looked she'd be right back in front of the Caliope.
Cute stuff!
We loved going to this version of a "circus" so much last year that we've decided it's going to be a family tradition each summer for as long as we're here.
We convinced the Malones to join in the fun and although we didn't technically have seats together, we were conveniently right next door to each other and it was fun to see some friendly faces and visit in and out of the show.
(if you look close you can see Michael -in the green shirt with Yuri on his lap- across the aisle and down the row from us)
We were five rows from the ring (front row of the mezzanine/bleacher seats) just off the center aisle. Best seats if you ask me. Although with the size and layout of the tent, there really are no bad seats.
Ready for the show:
During the intermission and after the show Yuri was obsessed with this antique Caliope organ thingie.
Yuri would not leave it. She didn't really dance, but just stood in front of it soaking in the music. She was mesmerized.
Erin would try and get her to come over and be social with us and Yuri would comply for a moment...
And then next time we looked she'd be right back in front of the Caliope.
Cute stuff!
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