Sweet Apples

It was Apple Week at our hour this last week. We did a lot of fun different apple activities. Here are a few of them.

My favorite thing we did all week was an apple tree collage. I cut out the apples and the leaves and my daughter cut up the bark. It was great cutting practice and very relaxing for both of us.

I took a piece of poster board with an outline of a tree and taped it to the window. My plan was to cover in with contact paper, but I was fresh out, so I just used a whole bunch of strips of packing tape layered up against each other. It made the perfect sticky surface and was only slightly more work than contact paper.  

My son was very excited about the apples (I used all sorts of paper, glitter paper, holographic paper, and other craft paper), but that's about where his interest ended. My daughter continued on sticking on leaves and bark, but lost interest when she got to this point:

I thought it looked pretty the way it was, but I decided to leave out the materials for several more days. I'm glad I did because after a week, this is what it looked like. I did end up helping with the trunk because my daughter asked me to, but the rest was mostly her doing, with a little help from her brother. She made me laugh because she was bothered by the apples and bark my son put on the side of the tree. She ripped them off and put them in a more 'appropriate' place.

 

For an outing we took a trip to the grocery store to pick out several different kinds of apples. My daughter washed them.

My son sorted them.

We all tasted them (and appreciated the stars in the middle). Unfortunately the one we liked the best had already lost its sticker, so I'm not sure what kind it was, but it was delicious!

Painting an apple tree was much more appealing to my son than the collage. That boy sure loves to paint!

 

I also found a bunch of apple printables on Pinterest. There are all sorts of wonderful packets if you search long enough. 

Have Yourself A Lolly Little Christmas

This weekend the kids and I made Christmas gifts for their friends. My daughter saw me looking at Pinterest, saw these lollipops, and insisted that we make some. We got all the supplies and sat down to make them. That's when I realized I don't have a candy thermometer. I wasn't sure what to do next, so I turned to my good friend the internet. Did you know you can make hard candy in the microwave?? I know. I blew my mind as well. That solved our problem because you don't need a candy thermometer in the microwave. This is how the first batch turned out:

             The kids were in charge of sprinkles and sticks. They did a pretty good job, huh?
           
After we made the first batch, we tired using some white peppermint chocolate instead. The first    batch was prettier, but the second batch tasted better (in my opinion). 

 

The kids of course had to sample both kinds. 

It was hard convincing them  to only eat one of each kind. There was some grumping involved (especially from the youngest one). Then I had an idea: Bananas on sticks dipped in sprinkles! They like the banana lollipops just as much as the chocolate!

Flag Toast

This was our Patriotic breakfast:

And this was the result :

 

I put chocolate peanut butter on the toast to make the fruit stick a little better. That's what is all over this boy's face.

The Perfect Cupcake for Those Kids Who Eat Entirely Too Much Batter

My little girl looks forward to everyone's birthday in the hopes that cupcakes will be involved. This little girl absolutely adores cupcakes! She especially loved helping to make them and snitching more than just a little batter. I always worry about the raw eggs. My husband had salmonella many years ago while he was in England. He said it was the most miserable he has ever been. I would like to say that the paranoia of that happening to my children keeps them from eating cookie dough and cake batter, but that's just not the case. However, I found this recipe the other day that makes me feel much better. The recipe is very simple. It goes as follows:

Combine 1 cake mix and one can of diet soda. Mix and bake according to the directions on the back of the box.

Yup, I told you. It's pretty simple.
The best part about this recipe is that when you add the diet soda to the mix, it makes lots and lots of bubbles, which my girl loved. It turned into a science experiment and a snack.

As for frosting, we went the healthy route and plopped some non-fat 'whipped topping' on the top.

Spaghetti Monsters

My husband is home late four nights a week because of school. Some days it's hard to get inspired to cook dinner for me and two kids. However, the advantage is that we can cook meals like this: spaghetti noodles threaded through hot dogs and then cooked according to the spaghetti instructions. It definitely wasn't my favorite meal, but there is a good chance that it was my daughter's favorite.

Ediable House

Crackers+Peanut Butter=One edible house. Yum...and fun.

Orange Ice Cream

Yesterday we made ice cream in a bag. Here's the recipe:

To make ice cream in a zipper bag you will need:

• 1 quart zipper freezer bag
• 1 gallon zipper freezer bag
• 1/2 cup half and half, or whole milk
• 1Tbsp. sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• Enough ice to fill the gallon bag about 1/2 full
• 6 Tbsp. salt --Table salt works fine for this.

1. In the small zipper bag pour in the milk, sugar and vanilla. Seal tightly and set aside.


2. In the large bag pour in the ice and the salt. Carefully put the smaller bag with the milk mixture inside the larger bag with the ice.


3. Shake the whole thing for about 5 minutes then remove the smaller bag and enjoy your ice cream!

We added some food coloring to make it orange so it could go with our theme for the week. I'd say it was a success.

Milkshake

We got the CD 'Songs for Wiggleworms' from the library recently and it is one of our favorites. My daughter's favorite song is called Milkshake Song. It describes making milkshake and then the chorus says, "Milkshake milkshake, shake it up, shake it up, milkshake, milkshake, shake it all up." Finally today, we put the song into action.


A little milk, a little ice cream, and she sure shook it up!She was very pleased with the results.

Can't Elope

At Trader Joe's there were two word bubble signs attached to some melons. On the Honeydew it said, "Honey, do you want to get married?" and on the cantaloupe it said, "Yes, but we can't elope!" I liked the signs just about as much as my daughter liked scooping the seeds out of the cantaloupe with a giant spoon and then, even before it was cut, taking a giant bite out of this delicious fruit.