Spring break 2012

 

What to do, what to do with kids for spring break? My day yesterday went a little something like this.

•  Get up, feed kids.
•  Pull all the pictures off the wall and start moving things from wall to wall until it feels right.
• Change one thing, nothing else feels right.
• Put everything else back on the wall so that hubby doesn't notice when he comes home.
• Take pics of the one thing that you are happy with (see below).

• Feed kids lunch.
• Go outside and burn some energy (see below).

• Pack the kids back up in the car to get those icy cold toes into a nice warm shower.
• Put kids to bed to rest for another fun day tomorrow.

BE MY*printable*VALENTINE

There are so many amazing talented people online these days offering their artwork to lazy people such as myself, for free!!

I especially love scanning the net when it comes to seasonal celebrations such as valentines day.

Here are a few of my favorites flying around the Internet...freeeeee...just need a printer and LOTS of colored ink. (Notice I didn't say it would save you money???)

You are the cheese to my macaroni.........*tear* how frigging adorable?

via craftgossip 

Traditional.

via simple as that

So many options......just pic one!

via the long thread

WHOOO doesn't have a soft spot for owls? I'm such a dork!

via living locurto

cute,cute,cute.

via Mr Printables

Cute and simple.

via Mr Printables

Like I said before, colored ink is a given for major impact!

via secret agent josephine

Ahhh the season of love. 

I still have yards and yards of colored butchers twine to put to use so I'm trying to think of some fun valentines crafts to share with you all this week. 

Anyone have any super romantic plans for V-day this year? The hubby's birthday is on the 15th so he gets the annual double whammy, two day love-arama celebration....lucky man!!

Lord help me!

My little monkeys.

Wow, it's been a whole week since I last posted any juicy stuff, time flies when you're on spring break.
I forgot how busy the kids can keep me when they are home, I'm hearing a lot of "I'm Bored" and "There's NOTHING to do". Anyone one else out there have children that are impossibly bored with nothing to do?

Here's my week in pictures, because thinking back I'm almost positive we didn't do NOTHING!!!

I saw this fantastic idea on MADE and decided it was a fabulous boredom fighter. After picking a space and giving the walls a quick wipe, I let the girls decorate the space with a little SPRING flower fever. Any time I heard..." But there's nothing to do" my response would be..." Go make some flower's".

They have a long way to go, but then again Spring break is only halfway over. There's not much color outside but there sure will be inside when the girls are done!!

Zoe is my little chef in the making so we have had a few stuffed ravioli dinners this week with the use of my new toy. I am yet to freeze any of it as so far it's all been so darn good and it ends up in our tummies.
Roasted butternut squash was our last filling of choice, a little rich, maybe next time we can mix it with some ricotta cheese.

I meant to take a picture before they were all gobbled up, please excuse the poor food styling!!!!

Zoe's speciality is crepes, that girl has the recipe memorised and can whip out a patch of yummies at the drop of a hat.
I made a pavlova on the weekend for a surprise birthday party and was left with lots of egg yolks. What do you do with 6 large farm fresh egg yolks?
LEMON CURD!!!! To go with the crepes of course.

 

 A little spring clean and organising. Look how organised my cutlery is.....(cough...freak...Cough).

And last but not least....spring is just itching to put on a show, but we're not quite there yet.

I think I can, I think I can...I think I can!!!

Go little tulips GROW dammit.

Can you see the excitement on Zoe's face!!! NOT!

Made more of these.........yum.

And this needs to be raked and snipped and pruned and weeded. Feels good to be outside in the fresh air and getting my hands very, very dirty again. Although my rule this year is to wear garndening gloves whenever I'm in that dirt, I'm starting to get old lady hands and that's just not cool.

Cookie pops and book worms.

Last night I helped run a bake sale at the elementary school for the annual "Battle of the books". Zoe has entered this fun event for the last two years, anything to get her reading more books is a bonus as far as I am concerned. She loves reading but having someone else pick the books is fantastic, it's like a tween version of my adult book club.

Her team didn't win but they had a fantastic time which makes all the effort worthwhile.

So I baked my butt off yesterday, green jelly slice for Saint Patrick's day, lemon cupcakes with mango frosting and chocolate mint cookie pops.

I love bake sales, seeing all of the fun and fantastic things other people create, some healthy and some not so healthy (mine). A big thank you again to all the wonderful ladies who contributed to the sale.

Isabelle's yummy beer buns were a hit with the ladies. I must have this recipe Isabelle!!!!

And her chocolate cookies, a few ended up coming home to my house.

Get a load of these meringue nests with cadbury mini eggs, these things disappeared very quickly. What a cute Easter idea, way to go Natalie.

My treats were the one's all full of food coloring to get the kids all razzed up. Nothing like a hit of green and red food dye to get the kids going!!!

Cookie pops are my new thang!!!

Here's the recipe.

Chewy chocolate sandwich cookies (womansday.com)

Recipe Ingredients

2 bars (4 oz each) bittersweet chocolate, broken into 1-in. pieces
2/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 Tbsp butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp each baking powder and salt
1/2 cup mini–semisweet chocolate chips


Mint or Coffee Buttercream Frosting


Recipe Preparation


1. Heat oven to 350ºF. Line baking sheets with nonstick foil or parchment paper. Put chocolate in large glass bowl. Microwave on high 1 minute, stirring every 20 seconds, until chocolate is melted and smooth.


2. Stir in sugar, eggs, butter and vanilla; mix well. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt until blended. Stir in mini-chips.


3. Drop level tablespoons 11/2 in. apart onto prepared baking sheets. Bake 10 minutes until cookies are puffed and set. Cool on baking sheet 2 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool completely.


4. For each sandwich, spread 1 Tbsp buttercream frosting onto bottom of cookie; add a popsicle stick, coffestir stick or lollipop stick,press another cookie on top. Refrigerate in an airtight container with wax paper between layers.




Buttercream Frosting.

 3 oz cream cheese, softened
2 Tbsp butter, softened
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 Tbsp milk
1⁄4 tsp vanilla extract


Recipe Preparation


Mint Use 1⁄4 tsp peppermint extract instead of vanilla; add a few drops of green food color.
Coffee Dissolve 1 Tbsp instant coffee in 1 Tbsp hot water; add instead of milk.
Apple Instead of milk, add 1 to 2 Tbsp apple juice until spreadable.

Kiddo cakes

Every year our little elementary school here in Lavington is host to a "Fun Fair" complete with face painting, games, balloons, popcorn and our favourite THE CAKE WALK.
It's a little something to shake off the winter blah's and let the kids go wild and have some fun.
The kids get to enter a cake into the decorating competition and later on in the day the cakes become prizes in the cake walk. There's usually a pretty good chance that one of your kids will come home with a fantastic one of a kind, kiddo decorated cake. Granted, with Marley being in kindergarten this year mommy had a little control situation with letting her do the whole cake on her own....and by little I mean major melt down....I tried to not help but it's IMPOSSIBLE.
I'm one of THOSE mommies who just can't keep her hands to herself when it comes to creating..I may need to seek help at some point but for now my kids haven't noticed how much of a freak mommy is. So, we'll just leave it at that for now.

Here's what we came up with.

Zoe's garden of earthly delights.

Complete with wild life.

And My Marley's cute owl. I love him.

I was super impressed with the powdered food coloring I picked up at the Oriental Supermarket in Kelowna, love how bright the red turned out, that for sure is going to stain something!!!

Hope to see all you Lavington folks out and about at the fair to support our wee little school.