3 Year old Pictures and a Museum

Ok DAD, here are your pictures!!!! Silly Grandpa...he started asking me for pictures while I was in the car driving right after we had them taken!

I took the boys to Durham today to get their pictures taken, meet up with my good friend Jessica, eat lunch at a really neat place called Parker and Otis, then hit the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science for the dinosaur exhibit. We had a great day with the exception of Connor and another little boy running into each other HEAD ON! They are both ok, but hit foreheads really hard. I love these North Carolina days when it's sunny and 65 in the middle of February...beautiful day!

Snow Time

Friday night, the snow started falling just before the boys went to bed! Throughout the night, 4 whole inches of snow fell! It was the perfect snow man making snow. We took them outside when it started falling, and then again in the morning to actually play in it. We had to improvise since there's no reason to have snow suits and other snow gear in NC! Lunch baggies, socks, and triple layering worked out well! I don't even have gloves for these guys...I need to order some for next winter...just in case. They had fun playing in it, but were ready to come back in after about an hour. The snow was all gone by mid afternoon, however there were MANY closings around town. These crazy NC people do not know how to handle snow. They just freak out! Crazy southerners.

Are you FORTUNE-ate enough to have a Valentine?

I saw a really cute idea on www.highlowaha.com to make Fortune Cookie Valentines! Check out their posting from February 8th for the detailed "HOW TO"

The only modification I made was to only glitter one side of the circle. These are going home to a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds. I don't think their mommies will be very happy if I send home a glitter covered valentine!

Keepin' Up with 3 year olds....shew!

Things have been status quo around here for the most part. I'm getting over a pretty nasty cold or virus or whatever it was. Brandon had 2 "nurse maid elbow" incidents this week. One sent us to the ER due to about 12 hours of continuous crying and pain. We aren't sure what's causing his tendons to pop out of place in his wrists and elbows, but hope to get some answers at their 3 year old check up next week.

We are moving right along on Operation Alphabet. I've been putting a big letter out of masking tape on the playroom floor, and I leave it there until they KNOW IT! We have been at it for a week and the both know A, B, C, D, O, T and Connor knows those plus M, W, and sometimes S. They are starting to point out letters on signs, trucks, and in their books.

The boys need constant stimulation! I've been racking my brain to come up with activities for them to do or to help me with. Here are a few!

Tonight was PIZZA MAKING PARTY. I've always wanted to try to make pizza dough from scratch. Fortunately, it's an easy thing to have the boys help me with. I measured out the water, yeast, olive oil, flour, and salt and they poured it all in. Then we let it rise for an hour while we played a game of Cariboo. They LOVED poking at the dough and then punching it down!




Next, I gave them each a little bit of flour on their place mats and threw down a clump of dough. I told them to press it out into whatever shape they wanted. Next, I threw them in the oven for 10 minutes.

I decided to put their pizzas on a piece of parchment paper so they could load up their toppings without burning themselves on the pizza stone...smart idea if I do say so myself!

First up...sauce...



Next up..CHEESE AND CHEESE AND MORE CHEESE




...itty bitty pepperonis...or as Brandon called them...PACKERONIS. I think he got the pepperonis confused with macaronis!




Brandon added some mushrooms to his...Connor is not "one" with the fungus!

Here's the final product...Connor looks a little stoned!!!!!




Then we popped them in the oven for 10 more minutes and VOILA

The pizza I made for Eric and me!

We studied the letter "M" a little bit the other day and made "M"ardi Gras "M"asks!

Can you tell who is who?

SUPER BOWL of the Super Bowl Snack Throw Down

FANTASY FRITO CANDY

It's been many weeks, many recipes, many late night postings, many attempts at finding good lighting in my itty bitty house for pictures, and many trips to drop off my culinary creations to my most devoted supporters. Now, at the final game of this contest, I'm up against Frito-RAY.
Be sure to head on over to HIGHLOWAHA to see what Frito-RAY comes up with and to get in on the smack talk action! I do have to say that he laid down some serious smack talk when he announced our ingredient.

The ingredient was Fritos of course. When I saw it was Fritos, I immediately thought of chili with Fritos. I decided to take the idea of "chili" and go in a different direction. There are a lot of different recipes for chocolate and Fritos. I decided to pick and choose from a few different recipes to come up with my final recipe for today.


INGREDIENTS

1. 1 11.5 ounce bag of semi sweet chocolate chips
2. 1 stick of butter
3. 1/2 cup brown sugar
4. 2 Tbsp peanut putter (Omit if allergic!)
   
5. 1 tsp cinnamon
6. 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
7. 2 cups Fritos, lightly crushed plus more for garnish
   
8. 2 cups rice cereal, lightly crushed (Iused 1 cup rice chex and 1 cup corn chex)
9. 1/2 cup chopped peanuts (Omit if allergic)

DIRECTIONS

1. Cover a cookie sheet or bar pan with parchment or wax paper.
   
2. Put the first 6 ingredients in a crock pot and cook on low for about an hour or until it is all melted and combine. I used a 1.5 qt crock pot. The larger the crock pot, the shorter the amount of time it will take to melt.
   
3. Dump the Fritos, cereal and peanuts into the melted chocolate mixture and stir until combined
4. Using your oven mitts, pour the candy mixture onto the prepared cookie sheet and smooth to about 1/2 inch thickness. I sprinkled the top with some more Fritos
   
5. Put in the refrigerator for about an hour.
6. Cut into 2 or 3 inch squares and ENJOY!

This candy has the pepper and corn taste of the Fritos, richness of the chocolate, and the kick of the cinnamon and cayenne. You can omit the cayenne if you want, but trust me...it's delicious! You can use pretzels instead of cereal, or try rice krispies, or add marshmallows if you want to. This is a very versatile recipe that can adapt easily to your favorite chips and sweets.

Operation Alphabet

I am bound and determined to teach the boys their alphabet by this summer. Since they aren't going to preschool this fall, it's my responsibility to teach them the basics. They know their colors, shapes, numbers 1-4 and a few letters. I have tried a bunch of different methods, but my sister gave me an even better idea! Make 1 letter per box about 3 at a time. I scraped up all of my leap frog letters, some flash cards, felt letter stickers, and other craft things that all have letters A B and C on them. I dumped them out on the floor and had each boy pick a letter and then grab everything that has that letter on it. Connor sailed through it, but Brandon is still struggling. It will all come in time! I just need to go to the nearest store and purchase a BIG lot of PATIENCE!!!!