Muffin Tin Monday

For today's Muffin Tin fun I decided to put together a dessert tin. They had a lot of fun with it and Kaden worked on his motor skills trying to spread things on the crackers. :)

graham crackers, nutella and peanut butter for spreading, pumpkin muffin

popcorn, mini marshmallows, sliced banana's

If you want to see what others came up with this week check it out!

Tot School 1/11-1/15

Kaden is 33 months.

I did much better at getting pictures this week :)

He wanted to wear this hat all week. I guess he likes hats. This one is a little too small I think but he likes it. It's his "ho ho" hat.

Playing catch with Daddy.

Some of his activities this week.

-Sorting these beads by color. I count with him too. Sometimes he gets some and sometimes he doesn't Depends on his mood. :)

-Sorting shapes and colors activity bag.

-Lacing beads onto pipecleaners activity bag.

-Sorting colored pompoms into cups activity bag.

-puzzles

-reading (looking at books and being read to)

-playing with flashcards

-coloring (he colored a P this week since we were talking about popcorn, I talk about the p and he says "popcorn!")

Be sure to check out what others are doing here!

Weekly Recap 1/11-1/15

This week we added in practicing word problems in math. She does very well with those so far. She kept up with her timed practice for addition, subtraction and the lower multiplication tables.
She finished reading Jigsaw Jones Mystery, The Case of the Great Sled Race. She will be picking out a new one for this coming week.
She finished another spelling lesson and wrote every day in her Handwriting Without Tears lesson book.
We read another chapter in Farmer Boy. We learned how they would cut and save ice in the winter to use in the summer. (History)
We also learned what causes popcorn to pop and how there are different varieties of corn, only one of which pops. (Science) Of course we had some popcorn as a snack.
Sprinkled in there were lots of games, playing with siblings and helping me cook.

Here she is working on her handwriting lesson.

And here are her and Kaden reading. :)

Baby Food and other recipes

Last week I decided to start making some baby food for Ellie. I have given her a few things that I make for us that she can have but I wanted to make some things just for her. So first I baked some sweet potatoes. She loves sweet potatoes! After they were baked I peeled them and pureed them. I froze them in ice cube trays to save for later.
I then used my food processor to grind up some oats for cereal. I think though that it is still a little chunky for her and I plan to cook it and then puree it. I have mixed it with applesauce and mashed banana for her.

I decided to finally roast my pumpkins that we grew. So I cut them in half and placed them upside down in a pan with water in it. Of course after getting all the guts out!

Then I scraped it out of the rind and pureed it.

Ellie doesn't like pumpkin as much as sweet potatoes so we made pumpkin bread with it instead.

It is very yummy. Here is the recipe in case you want to try it.

Pumpkin bread (or muffins)

2/3 cup butter

2 2/3 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 lb canned pumpkin

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. cloves

1/2 tsp. vanilla

3 1/3 cups flour

2 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

2/3 cup nuts, choc. chips or other

Mix butter, sugar, eggs, pumpkin and spices. Add dry ingredients and mix. Add nuts or choc. chips. Bake in greased pans at 350 degrees for about an hour (for bread) or until toothpick comes out clean. Makes 2 loaves.

Nate asked me all of a sudden for coffee cake. :) I don't know why. So I went in search of a coffee cake to make. I searched The Pioneer Woman's Blog because I love her recipes. She blogged about this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. I didn't have any rhubarb or other fruit to use so I made it without the filling. It is very good! I had a bite of Nate's and he loves it.

Tuesday Tea

This semester I decided to start having a "tea" with the kids. For our first one we had hot chocolate and pirouette cookies, (well they had it, I didn't). They really enjoyed a little time for a fun snack. While they snacked I read poetry from Poems for the Very Young. They had a great time and I love exposing them to poetry.

Muffin Tin Monday

This weeks theme for Muffin Tin Monday is "back to school/learning".

They had gold fish pretzel (school of fish?), with those are the oreo's, (car wheels for all the driving we do for school), yogurt with sprinkles, (not with theme just copied from last week), chocolate milk box, (because I always chose choc. milk in school), grilled cheese and turkey sandwich, Alphabits cereal and sliced banana's.

Meghan squealed when she saw it. She really likes to do this. Kaden enjoys it a lot too even if he doesn't eat it all.

Tot School 1/4-1/8

                                                   

This week we started Tot School. It's not really anything that we don't already do but it makes me focus a little bit on him and make plans for things to bring out as apposed to waiting for it to happen. I didn't get any pictures of anything he did this week. I don't know why but I will be better next week!

We did do a lot though. He always asks me to read books to him a lot so we of course read lots of books. He also listens in when I read Farmer Boy. We worked with several of his activity bags, (which I plan to post more about soon). We played with puzzles and his Leapfrog refrigerator magnets. He played with his shape sorter toy and of course lots of others. He also helped me make bisquit mix. This boy loves to help me cook! Nathan put his train track together for him and he played with that a long time. He also started trying to get the tracks together on his own. He had a good week other than those pesky naps I keep making him take. ;)

OH and he liked hanging out like this!

He is showing me his shirt, if you couldn't tell. I don't know why. haha

If you want to see more about Tot School head over and check it out!