Thanksgiving, Part 2 -- fun with leaves!

What I love most about the holidays is having our family over, and doing fun things together. Like . . . jumping in leaves! :-)





We also made our traditional leaf headbands on Thanksgiving day, after a (very) brief nature walk. The kids really liked making them this year, and I think they both came out super cute!

Thanksgiving, Part 1 -- Making Chocolate Marshmallow Pilgrim Hats

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving! I hope you all had a good one. We sure did!

Oliver, my mom, and I made these cute pilgrim hat treats from the Family Fun website. They're so easy to make that Oliver had no trouble helping (and sampling)!

First, set fudge-striped shortbread cookies on a wax paper lined cookie sheet, with the stripe side down.


Next, melt a 12 oz package of chocolate chips in the microwave (or on the stove). Stick a marshmallow with a toothpick and roll it around in the chocolate until it's covered.




Gently push the chocolate covered marshmallows down on the top of the fudge-striped cookies, then place the tray in the fridge and leave them until the chocolate is set.




So cute, and tasty, too!! I think we'll have to make these again next year. :-)

Blueberry Ripple Sour Cream Coffee Cake

I can't recall where I found this recipe, but it is goooooooood. I made it for our Sunday school class on Saturday, and I wish I had made another one just for us!

It's a little more involved than most of the recipes I try, but well worth the time and effort.

Streusel:
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup regular oats
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 tbsp pecan pieces
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp frozen OJ concentrate, thawed
1 tbsp canola oil

Cake:
1/4 cup canola oil
2 tbsp butter, melted
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup fat free sour cream
2 cups fresh blueberries, halved

1. To prepare streusel, combine whole wheat flour, oats, brown sugar, pecans, and cinnamon. Add OJ concentrate and oil, stir until crumbly.

2. Preheat oven to 350.

3. To prepare cake, spray a tube pan with cooking spray. Combine oil and melted butter in a medium bowl. Add sugar, vanilla, and eggs; beat with a mixer until smooth.

4. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add flour mixture and sour cream to the egg mixture. Stir in blueberries.

5. Sprinkle half of streusel into the tube pan; spoon half of the batter on top. Sprinkle on the remaining streusel, then top with the remaining batter. Bake at 350 for 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack, run a knife around the outside edge. Cool completely in pan.

G is for gum

We haven't been doing any letter lessons lately, but every couple of days Oliver gets out his dry-erase letter writing tablet and works on writing his letters. One day he even sat down and copied out all of the letters!

Last week, he was working on the letter G. He'd had some difficulty with it, because he would automatically draw a circle instead of stopping the marker to write a G properly. Well, it's hard to blame him since his first name starts with an O and that's his favorite letter to write!

On this particular day, he sat down and concentrated so hard that the marker was shaking, lol! He traced several Gs properly, and then he tried a few freehand. We were thinking of G words, and I said that gum (one of his favorite things!) starts with G. He wrote a G, then he sounded out the following 2 letters and wrote them by himself! This was only the second time that he's sounded out, spelled, and written a word by himself (not including his name!).


Can you tell that he was just a teensy bit proud of himself? :-) Good job, buddy!!

Playing with my new camera

My hubby and I decided to treat ourselves to Christmas gifts early this year (hey, we're not going to turn down a big sale!). He got a 40" flat screen TV, and I got a nice digital camera. I haven't quite figured out all of the features yet, but I've been having fun experimenting!

This morning the kids and I went on a nature walk and I took these first two pictures:


I love the fall colors!



During the kids' naptime, I played with the Smart Portrait mode, which is really cool. The camera detects a smile on the subject's face, and will automatically take a picture by itself!

So here's me (yes, I'm wearing makeup, I was bored).


And here's my cutie pie. I think we kind of look alike. Maybe just a little. ;-)
P.S. I totally wish I had her thick, fine, stick-straight hair.


Look at that sweet baby girl!! I love her!!!!

A cute robot craft

This craft is more for the parents to work on, since there's not a whole for young kids to do other than cutting on a line (if they have the patience for it), gluing with a glue stick, and decorating with markers or crayons. But it's fun anyway, and really cute!



What you need:
-- 2 large squares of construction paper (one for the head and one for the body of the robot)
-- different-sized rectangles of construction paper (for the legs and arms)
-- construction paper scraps for eyes, antennae, gauges, and any other robot features you like

The latest

I've been posting lots of pictures but haven't given a real update in a while! Here's what the kids have been up to.

Buttercup is 2, although it seems like she's been 2 for a long time already, ha ha. Anna commented once that Oliver never really went through the Terrible Twos, but that Buttercup is definitely making up for it! She's just a feisty, spirited little girl, and she is so much fun.

It took her about a month to adjust to Oliver going to preschool twice a week (she used to scream and cry off and on for an hour after we dropped him off), but fortunately now we are finally getting to have some good quality time together while he's in "school." I'm very thankful for that, too, because I get to see her personality develop. She's extremely verbal and so funny!! She loves to make up jokes and tell stories. And, of course, she's still really into baby dolls (and real babies). Grammy and Granddaddy bought her a doll diaper changing/feeding station for her birthday, and she plays with it for at least an hour every day.

Oliver is 4 now. (Sorry, Bud, I didn't do a birthday post for you -- happy birthday!!) He is still into construction stuff BIG time, so for his birthday party, he requested a construction party. With the help of some other blogs, I came up with construction tasks for him and his friends to do (an obstacle course, sand bag toss, painting a cardboard house) and intended to give out construction gear to each of the workers when the tasks were complete. The only hitch was that it was so chaotic that I totally forgot about handing out goggles and dust masks. Oops! Everyone seemed to have a great time though, and that's all that really matters anyway. :-)

Being 4 years old has changed Oliver a little bit already. For one thing, we've seen more of a mature, easy-going, willing-to-please attitude. He's been playing very nicely with his friends and sister, and I don't have to remind him to pick up his toys, wash his hands, or do other chores! Another new change is that he can be a tad more dramatic (okay, maybe that's an understatement) at times, and we're also starting to see more disobedience and rude behavior . . . but, as everything else, it will pass.

My favorite change though, is that Oliver has suddenly decided that Buttercup is his best friend. He wants to do everything with her, he asks her every morning to play in his workshop with him, he helps her when she asks him for help, he pushes her in the swing (without trying to make her fly out), etc. Another thing is that after 18 months of trying to get away from her at the dining table, he's decided that he wants to sit right next to her at all meals. He moved their chairs so close together that their arms touch, and their placemats are overlapping! And they sit there, eating together, talking, and just enjoying each other. I don't know how long this will last, but I am eating it up!!!!

I love my babies! :-)