Let the Family Fun Nights Commence!

Ever since we have moved to CA, my husband and I have revamped how we want our week nights to go. One thing we added was a Family Game Night. We figured the middle of the week seemed to be a good time to do this and saw it as a way to look forward to the rest of the week.

We decided that we wanted to spend more time with the kiddos after dinner and came up with family Game Nights during our Wednesday nights. We talk with Princess Pea on Sundays, during our family meetings, to see what she would like to have for dinner on Wednesday. We also let her pick out a board game to play after everything from dinner is put away (and if Cuddle Bug and Jelly Bean let us!).

The first week went well. We had a variety of foods to eat since we were doing a trial run of how the night went, and if need be, change up some things. We decided to have one main course and add two to three sides to the course, along with a special dessert. Last week we had pizza, hot dogs, and corn dogs. It was a bit much, dinner wise, but we thought Princess Pea would like to pick and choose what she wanted to eat from the choices we had to offer.

This week, we asked what Princess Pea what she would like to eat. She told us she wanted hamburgers with ketchup, miracle whip, mustard, cheese, pickles, lettuce, and tomatoes (a first time to hear this request for tomatoes). We also wanted some fruit with the fruit dip I made in the past for birthday parties. The hubby wanted cucumber salad and homemade potato chips. I opted to get one potato and one sweet potato just to change it up and I thought of a fun dessert.

The hubby picked up some magazines at our local commissary to see if there were any coupons in them. I flipped through it one day and found some to use, but they also had recipes for desserts and casseroles. One of the recipes caught my eye so I decided to take a closer look to see what it was all about. The recipe was called Double Chocolate Chip Cookie Marshmallow Treats. Mmm.... marshmallows..... Being the good, pregnant mother I am, I made these, along with some "homemade" caramel brownies, for dessert. They turned out to be a hit with the kiddos that I wanted to share the recipe with you!

What you need:

Betty Crocker Double Chocolate Chip Cookie mix*
11 regular marshmallows, cut in half to make 22, but only use 21
Smucker's hot fudge topping*
sprinkles

*The recipe calls for double chocolate chip cookie mix from Betty Crocker, but since our commissary didn't have it available, I went with the regular chocolate chip cookie mix. I also grabbed a big dark chocolate bar since our family are fans of the dark chocolate.*

Directions:

1.) Mix and bake the cookies according to package directions. The package claims it makes 2 dozen regular six cookies (teaspoon size cookies vs. tablespoon size cookies). I managed to get 21 cookies out of the mix so I guess it depends on how "rounded" you get your cookies, lol.

2.) While the cookies are baking, cut the marshmallows in half and set aside.

3.) Once cookies are finished baking, take them out of the oven and immediately put the marshmallow on top, pushing down on the cookie. Let it cool for a minute on the cookie sheet before moving to a cooling rack to cool completely. (The cookie directions, at least on mine, says to let them it for a minute before moving to the cooling rack).

adding marshmallow to cookies

4.) Since I did not buy the Smucker's hot fudge topping, I did a double broiler and melted the chocolate bar with a couple tablespoons of unsalted butter. I added maybe a tablespoon of corn syrup once the chocolate was all melted and smooth to kind of get it to "set up" the chocolate once it would start to cool. Anyway, make sure the cookies are cooled completely before adding the chocolate, hot fudge or otherwise. I didn't want my marshmallow to melt completely especially since the chocolate would be hot. BE SURE NOT TO MISS THIS STEP!! I just spooned enough melted chocolate on the marshmallow to let it run off the side of it a little. 

Melting chocolate on the double broiler

Chocolate added to marshmallows.

 

5.) Lastly, add the sprinkles on top and you're finished! I let the chocolate cool completely before I dug in. Of course I got these knocked out while everybody took a nap, so they were nice and cooled off by the time dinner was ready.

Don't mind the color of the sprinkles. They were the only ones I had on hand, lol!

Finished product!!

I hope you get to enjoy these as much as my family did! I think these will make another appearance not too distant in the future! ;-) :-P 

Until then, happy cooking and many blessings to you and your family!

Why are you homeschooling?

Why am I homeschooling? I wanted to think on this question for a very long time. This is actually a 5 year old question that I struggled with when my husband first brought up how we wanted to educate our first born child. It wasn't until a year ago, when we found out that we were moving to the East Coast, that I finally decided to start investing my time in answer this question.

My husband and I do not want our kids to be educated in a public school just because we don't feel that our children will not receive the education we want them to have. We have nothing against those who have their children in public schools; that's their choice, as it is our choice on what we feel is good for our children. I wanted our children to be in private school as did my husband, but then he brought up the idea of homeschooling.

I'm thinking "homeschooling? No way I want to do that! I want my freedom away from my children; to have some me time."

Sounds selfish, doesn't it? 

Let me move forward 5 years later for a bit....

Today (August 22) I read an article from The Blaze News that was talking about a book on the recommended reading list for the Common Core Curriculum that our education system is trying to implement into our society. The book is called "The Bluest Eye." You can read the article about it here.  *I do have to warn you, there are passages from the book in this article, and they are very graphic.* To summarize the article, the book basically is written in the view point of a rapist. It goes into detail about pedophilia, incest, etc. It is said that it's supposed to be a teaching tool to help students to reject that sort of mentality and abuse. 

Um, really? Do you really think reading a book like that will deter your child away from that kind of mentality? When did it become the government's job to teach my child about this kind of thing and in a school setting no less?

I got into a discussion over this through a famous networking website. The person had the gaul to say that I am naive if I think I can keep my children away from being exposed to those sort of things. Also claimed that I would be making my children socially dysfunctional by homeschooling them. Well, if that's the case, then my kids will have the best education I give them, even if they become hermits, ha! (More on this topic in a few...) 

Anyways, as a parent, it is my responsibility to decide when my child is ready to be exposed to this, and it is my duty and responsibility, as a good parent, to be able to sit my children down and have a conversation about it. I don't want my child to be exposed to this through some sort of book from a reading list at a school. My children will respect their sexual life. This is one of many reasons I decided I want to homeschool.

Ok, now going back 5 years...

I must confess that I used to have the same mentality as the person I had a conversation with today about homeschooling. I used to think that my children would not become social like they would if they were in a school setting. I fought long and hard against homeschooling our oldest and kept pushing private school. I didn't want to budge from that decision at all. I wanted that space away from my oldest, especially if I had younger ones roaming around my legs, wanting my attention all the time. Thinking about it now, it was very selfish of me to even think this way. This is my own observation of my life, not anyone else's. I'm not saying that every person, who puts their children in public schools, are selfish either. Some people have the opportunity to homeschool their children, and some people don't. It's all about where the parents are in their life.

My mentality changed, or I should say, “I woke up” about a year ago, when we found out we would be moving and the closets private school was about 35 miles from our home. On top of that, all the school’s ratings (public and private) were below 4. I kept doing research around the surrounding areas to try and figure something out that would work for our children. During my research time, I talked with a few people that lived in the same state as we were going to move to and they all suggested to either homeschool or put them in private school. Again, private school wasn’t a viable option for us and so we looked into the Memoria Press curriculum (as I mentioned in a previous post).

I really started to get excited about everything that came with the curriculum. Princess Pea would be learning about classical music, getting art history lessons about some inspiring artist, and reading poetry from all the classic authors. And to think that I get to teach her all of this and watch her grow as she learns! It will be the most rewarding experience of my life.

As my excitement grew, so did my curiosity on what I could so Princess Pea could have the social experience. I found a homeschooling support group that planned holiday parties, P.E. days, field trips, and any extra curricular activities the people in the group could come up with. I even talked with Princess Pea’s preschool teacher before we left and she also suggested putting her in some kind of sport. Luckily Princess Pea was already in tumbling and we want to keep her in it since she really enjoys it. We were also thinking of putting Cuddle Bug in tumbling as well since she is a little more reserved then Princess Pea, but we haven’t hit that milestone quit yet. J

So why am I homeschooling?

I get to teach my children what morals actually are, what responsibility is. They get to learn the classics from music, art, and poetry. It’s rewarding to see how well my child is doing and get to cater to her needs.

In the end, we (my husband and I) made the right choice for our children when it comes to education, and I am glad that we decided to homeschool.

Jelly Bean's 1st Birthday!

I know it seems like I am jumping up in the months, but just trying to catch up on the crafts and baking I have done!

Jelly Bean turned one in May and the theme I chose to do was a bumble bee theme. I wanted to have everything to do with bumble bees, or at least the color of bees. I made the invitations out of the scrapbooking stuff again. I thought I had a picture of the invite, but I guess I don't. Will have to find the one I saved and add it later!

For the decorations, I used a yellow plastic cover and the black wrapping paper for the food table, black and yellow streamer and balloons. Who would have guessed that you could do so much with these simple decorations! I had the thought of drawing a bee on the balloon before I inflated it, but the marker barely showed up once I started blowing air into. So the balloons were just hung up around the house, and again I did a number one on the garage door, actually took a picture of it, but it never uploaded to my computer! How frustrating!

The food was mainly finger foods with fruits, vegetables, a cracker, cheese, and meat platter, and "ants on a log," also known as celery with peanut butter and raisins on it. For the fruit, I got a fresh pineapple and sliced it up and grapes. Those were really the only black and yellow fruit I could think of without going over our budget and everybody likes grapes and pineapple! I laid them out in a yellow and black pattern to represent the body of a bee. For the vegetables, we got baby carrots, celery, and cucumbers. I thought about black olives, but I think Princess Pea and I are the only ones in the family that will eat them, so I opted out. The cracker, cheese, and meat platter was already put together and was on sale. For a drink, I just bought grape juice.

For the "cake" portion, again, I made cupcakes. I wanted to find a recipe that had something with honey in it. I searched high and low until I found one that I really wanted to try. Finally, I found this Lemon-Honey cupcake and frosting. I used the biggest round tip I had on hand to try to pipe a bee hive on the top of the cupcake. I thought about piping up some little bees, but decided otherwise. To be honest, I was lazy and had just gotten back from a trip of house hunting in CA. They. Were. Delicious. The frosting really brought out the honey in the cupcake and it was exactly what I was looking for!

For the goodie bags, I wanted to keep with the bumble bee/black and yellow theme. I kept with the edible goodie bags like I did with Cuddle Bug's goodie bags, but I added a little extra since it was the middle of May. I bought a box of Honeycomb cereal and mixed it with raisinets (chocolate covered raisins), and attached a little vial of bubbles. I used little tiny goodie bags instead of the normal size ones. I made a little sticker tag that read "Thanks for buzzing by!" Of course that picture is lost with my number one made of balloons. :(  After I put the cereal and raisinets in the little bag, I folded the top and  placed the sticker tag over the flap to keep it in place. I used a single hole punch towards the corner of the bag and tied a strand of black and yellow ribbon (the smallest size you can get) around the bubbles, then treaded the ribbon through the hole, and tied a bow.

I took the same concept of the tutu I did for Cuddle Bug and made one for Jelly Bean's birthday outfit. I also crocheted something. I was debating on whether or not I wanted to crochet some sort of summer hat or some kind of headband. I finally decided to do the headband with a yellow flower and little amigurumi bumble bee that I attached to the headband. I was astounded to find that I had an outfit with little tiny bees on it that went perfectly with the tutu and headband! The headband didn't last long as you can see she is trying to take it off her head! It was a little bog on her so hopefully she will be able to wear it when she gets a little older as well.

It was such a beautiful day for her party that I got some cans of silly string and found a couple of bumble bee bubble wands all at the Dollar Tree! So we let the kids run around outside, chasing each other with the silly string. It was a mess to clean up, but the kids had so much fun! The bubble wands were a big hit too and I was so glad to have found them the day of the party. 

Cuddle Bug's 2nd birthday

My second child's birthday is in February. I really didn't want to do anything with Valentines Day in it since her birthday is very close to it. Instead I opted to do a Ladybug theme since she was really into all sorts of insects, more so then Princess Pea is at the moment.

I didn't take as much time to plan for this as I wasn't going to do a huge cake like I did for Princess Pea's birthday. Instead I made cupcakes, which is really my Achilles' Heal, but shh! don't tell anyone I said that! ;) The cupcakes were a lot easier to make, and easier for a two year old to chow down on.

I made a Red Devil's Food cupcake recipe that I found, where else, Pinterest! I used the whipped icing that was colored green, red, and black to decorate the cupcake with. I didn't compromise on the icing with the husband this tim, but he enjoyed it all the same. I do have to say, trying to make a black frosting without the Wilton's icing color was stinking hard! But I managed to get it a black looking color. I also made the invitations to the party with the scrapbooking supplies I had on hand (Thank you mommy!).

At the time, daddy was doing some classes out of state for a few months, but he was able to come home for the weekend of Cuddle Bug's birthday which we were all happy he was able to come!

As for her party outfit, I crocheted her some red and black leg warmers, a ladybug hat, and made a tutu with a bow and flower glued to it. Of course, Princess Pea wanted a set of leg warmers and a hat as well, but I only managed to get the hat done for her, just slightly different from Cuddle Bug's. She was happy with the hat non the less.

For the decorations, I used a red plastic table cover and got a roll of black wrapping paper from the dollar tree to use where the food was set up. I used black and red balloons and streamers. I made ladybugs out of the balloons and placed them around the areas we were most likely to be in the most. I did have a number two on our garage door out front that I did with the left over balloons I didn't use in the house, but they got torn off when we accidentally opened the garage door to run a quick errand, and I didn't get a picture of it! :(

Keeping with the red and black theme, I went for foods of the same color. For the fruits, I did strawberries, black grapes, raspberries, and blackberries. I made a strawberry fruit dip using cream cheese and marshmallow creme. You could let the cream cheese come to room temperature then stir in the marshmallow, but I really like the texture and consistency of having the cream cheese whipped before stirring in the marshmallow cream. For the vegetables, I did grape tomatoes, black olives, and baby carrots. I would have done a red bell pepper sliced up, but I don't think too many of the kids that were invited would like it. I made a ranch dip using 16 oz of sour cream and the ranch dip powder package mixed together. The dip taste better after it has sit for a while in the fridge. I try to do it the day before, but if you are in a hurry, at least a few hours before the party starts. Lastly I made a cheese ball using 8 oz of cream cheese, at room temperature, and another package of the ranch dip powder. The best way to incorporate the ranch into the cheese is by hand. I bought some wheat thins to eat with it, but you can also do triscuits, especially the new flavored ones they sell these days. For the drink, I made a strawberry-watermelon lemonade, otherwise known as "Ladybug Juice." The recipe calls for 1 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice, 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of pureed watermelon, 1/2 cup of pureed strawberries, and 6 cups of water. Instead of squeezing a bazillion lemons just to get 1 cup, I used the yellow bottle of frozen lemon juice (thawed of course) that you find in the freezer section of your grocery store where all the other frozen juices are. I like the taste of this, better then the stuff you get in the green bottle, but if you like the green bottle, by all means use it. :)

For the goodie bags, I dipped pretzels in chocolate and candy melts to make them look like ladybugs! You guessed it, another Pinterest idea. (Don't you just love Pinterest??) I dipped the whole pretzel in the red candy melts, shook the excess off, and let them dry completely. Then I just dipped the rounded edge in the chocolate. Once they were all dipped, I pipped on the remaining melted chocolate for the spots. They turned out super cute and one of my favorite projects to make for a birthday party! Some times it's hard to find toys and little things to put in a goodie bag until I stumbled upon the idea to make these pretzels. I think having something edible for a goodie bag is so much better and less costly then little toys that your kids will only play with once!

All in all, everybody enjoyed themselves and it was nice to have some family around to help us celebrate Cuddle Bug's second birthday!

Princess Pea's 5th Birthday Party

For Princess Pea's 5th birthday, I wanted to do a themed party. Kind of like a step from a toddler to becomig a big girl. I asked Princess Pea what she wanted to do and she told me that she wants a Rapunzel themed birthday. Actually, she wanted a My Little Pony, then a Hello Kitty one first until she settled for Rapunzel. Her birthday is in December and I started planning out the cake design in August! Yes that's right, back in August!

The cake is a combination of four different variations you can do. I took little samples from each and made it my own. It was a two layer circle cake with Rapunzel's tower, her hair, and the colors to match the tower scenery.

The top cake layer looked a lot like this cake, minus the bridge, trees, and rocks. I did want to add the rocks, but I couldn't find the chocolate rocks that this person used. The bottom layer I took the design of  the My First Disney Princess Toddler doll Rapunzel dress. I found a way to make the tower from this cake. It was very simple, just use a cake dole and two regular ice cream cones. Of course you have to have the tower roof so I used this idea. Again, another simple trick. Use a sugar cone dipped in purple candy melts. Worked out great, especially to get the shingle effect for the roof. Lastly, I really wanted Rapunzel's hair to stand out from the rest of the cake. After looking around, I stumbled upon this cake. I really liked how the hair wrapped around the entire cake instead of just a short piece hanging out of the tower. I managed to get the hair to start out of the tower like the first cake and wrap around the two layers. I made some homemade marshmallow fondant for most of the cake decorations. Princess Pea had fun making it with me and really enjoyed the white goo turn into colorful fondant.

I asked Princess Pea what type of cake she wanted and immediately she said strawberry! Who'd of thought ;) So I got two cake boxes of strawberry cake and made them "semi-homemade" to taste like it came from the bakery. I found the tip on how to do this on pinterest of course. All you need to do is to add one more egg, or two if you want it rich, use melted butter instead of oil and double the amount. So if the box says to use 1/3 cup of oil, use 2/3 cup of melted butter instead. Lastly, use milk instead of water. Mix it well and bake according to the directions and there you have it! A way to make your cake taste like it came from the bakery without having to spend 20-40 bucks for one! It actually turned out very moist and did taste like I got it from the bakery at Walmart. As for the icing...that's a whole other story.

You see, in my household, my husband likes the buttercream and I like the whipped. So to compromise, I iced the cake with the whipped and I used the buttercream to hold the layers together and to use for any piping I needed. Princess Pea could care less, she just likes cake!

Procedure wise, I baked the cake a few days before the party, put the layers together, and made all my fondant pieces, covered everything, and stuck it in the fridge. The night before, I iced the entire cake and decorated, that way if anything happened over night, I would have the next day to fix it up instead of dealing with the decorating the day of the party.

The cake turned out to be a success! Everybody loved it and Princess Pea was so surprised!

I'm still here!!

Sorry it has taken me almost a year to write a new post. It has been a whirl wind of tasks and adventures for me and the family.

I do believe the last post I written was from the book I was reading for the mom's group I was involved with at my Catholic Church in MO. Since then, I have moved to from MO to CA over the summer, but I would still like to continue doing post on the chapters I read. The new parish does not have a mom's group, unfortunately, but I do believe I will be busy in other areas of my life starting in a few weeks!

I will mention it in this post and will go into more details later. My husband and I decided that we are going to start homeschooling our five year old...we'll call her Princess Pea in future posts (she really likes the cartoon Princess Pea from the PBS kids show Super Why!). Anyway, the area we moved to in CA has horrible ratings for both public and private schools in the surrounding areas. I was really against homeschooling for the past 3 years. Both Princess Pea and I are stubborn, head strong individuals and I wanted my time away from her just to relax and have some peace. She is very energetic and inquisitive to say the least! I also received some good advice from others who have lived in CA and they all told me that you either want to homeschool or put your children in private schools if you want them to have a great education.

We both wanted Princess Pea to be taught in the classical sense, as in the trivium. Meaning she would learn grammar, logic, and rhetoric, in stages. She would also learn latin and possibly greek by the time she starts the fifth grade. When my husband first brought up homeschooling (3 years ago mind you), we were in our local Catholic bookstore when we lived in OH. The store owner knew us very well as we frequented the little shop. She recommended Memoria Press to us. It has the curriculum written out for you and it comes with all the material you need for the grade you are teaching. They also offer an online academy for the older grades, which was new to us when we started really doing our research about a year ago.

Before I ramble on and on about homeschooling, I think I will stop there and wait for another post to continue on. :)

Hopefully in the next few weeks I will be able to catch up on the things I have been doing so look for a lot of posts coming your way!