Christmas Pancakes

I love doing Christmas activities each day. Today's activity was to eat Christmas pancakes for dinner. Here's how I did it and some hints I've learned along the way. Most importantly, the recipe, http://allrecipes.com/recipe/fluffy-pancakes-2/detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Title&e11=fluffy%20pancakes&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page. The best fluffy pancakes ever! I make these all the time for the kids (and for Ben and myself). Hint... double the recipe. Whatever you don't use you can freeze and pull out for a quick breakfast another day.

Next, the shapes. I used cookie cutters that I bought from Target last year. 12 Christmas shapes for $10, money well spent! Hint: Spray the cutters with Pam right before putting them on the griddle and filling them with the batter. This makes the pancake slip right out of the cutter with ease. Double Hint: Put the cutter in a bowl and then spray, I didn't do that last year and it was a mess. Just trust me on this one.

Now, to get them just right.... right as the pancakes are starting to set use tongs to pull the cutter off then flip the pancake. If you leave the cutter on you'll have trouble getting the other side of the pancake cooked. The cutter should come off easily if you sprayed it enough.

Once done, you'll have some awesome looking Christmas pancakes and some hungry kids! Enjoy!!

Leaves

I opened my door this morning to let my dog out and I saw the greatest thing, leaves on my back porch, yes leaves. I have been a home owner for just over 10 years and this is my third house in those 10 years and I finally have leaves to clean up. I know, in a couple of weeks I will be cursing those leaves, but today I am celebrating them. I'm celebrating because that means I have a tree. In my past two homes I had to plant trees in the bare backyard and they never grew large enough to be considered an actual tree. To me they looked like twigs supported by ropes and steaks in the ground. But now, I have a tree, a big, climbable, leaf falling tree. I have leaves to clean up.

After thinking about cleaning those leaves I thought about all the messes the kids make throughout the day that I dread cleaning up when really I should be celebrating the messes. It's exhausting to follow the kids around all day cleaning up after all the little things they do. To be completely honest, I often avoid doing activities because I know there's going to be a mess to clean up after they're done, such as painting. My kids LOVE to paint, but there's always a mess. I need to change my outlook and celebrate the fact that I have budding artists who LOVE to paint and make messes. Now granted, their finished products are far from Monets, but it's about the process not the product. I think today is the day Hannah learns the joys of finger painting and an art smock.

Storytime

Earlier I saw Heidi reading a Nursery Rhyme book out loud so I told Hannah to go sit with her sister and she walked right over and plopped down next to her. Heidi kept reading and I thought it was super adorable. Not only are they dressed alike but big sister is reading to her baby sister, fun moments!

Rainbows Rainbows

It's no secret my daughter is obsessed with rainbows right now. Anytime she draws or paints there's a rainbow in the picture. I sometimes feel like that episode of How I Met Your Mother where one of Lily's student shows her rainbow after rainbow after rainbow... that's my daughter, she's going to make her kindergarten teacher explode one day. So today's activity was to make a rainbow. I drew a rainbow on each of their sheets of paper then tore apart all the colors of construction paper and they got to glue the pieces of paper on to the rainbow. What is it about kids love of glue? Thank goodness for glue sticks or I'm sure we'd have globs of glue all over the table and bodies and probably even hair. Thank you to the inventor of glue sticks. Heidi was super excited to do the activity and so was Noah, at first. Then his excitement faded after the color red and all he wanted to do was put glue all over the paper. Oh well, at least he did the red. On a side note, I am now completely out of construction paper, again. So please feel free to donate a package of construction paper to the Menchaca Munchkins before they decide to draw on the walls.

Cookies

Baking cookies is always a fun summer activity... both in the process of making the cookies and then getting to eat them! On Saturday I let the kids make oatmeal raisin cookies as their activity. You should have seen their faces light up at the word cookie. I happened to have all the ingredients on hand so it was very easy to do. I let them mix the ingredients and then plop the dough onto the cookie sheet. They didn't really enjoy touching the dough because it was kinda sticky so eventually I used my cookie dough scoop so nobody's hands would get "icky". After they baked came the best part, eating cookies! Heidi asked me, "is this your way of sneaking oatmeal into my body." My response, "yep, you got me!" I love my kids!

Banana Smores

Today we made banana smores as our summer activity. First I cut open the bananas for the kids and then let them pile mini marshmallows and chocolate chips all over the banana. After that I covered them in foil and popped them in the oven. It would be fun to do it on the grill, but it's just way too hot to do that outside. After they were warmed and melted a little I sprinkled some graham cracker type cereal on top for the crunch.
When it came time to eat them Heidi ate every single bit of her's and Noah ate all the marshmallows and chocolate. Funny thing is, he loves bananas and Heidi doesn't really care for bananas. Silly kids. Once again Hannah missed out because she was still napping. Oh well, maybe next time!

Target Shooting

Today's summer activity was nothing but FUN! Ok, it was a lot of work too, but the kids had so much fun doing the activity it was well worth it. Today we had a little target shooting with water balloons. I filled water balloons (about 30 - 40), drew a target on our fence with sidewalk chalk, and let the kids go to town throwing the balloons at the fence. The kids were already in their swimsuits because we went to swim lessons this morning so we just went straight to the backyard after lessons and began our target practice. The blog I read this from drew a target on their driveway, but because Hannah was awake we needed to be in the back yard where she could walk around and not risk her walking into the street.

And of course at the end Hannah wanted "more".

Color Popcorn

Today's summer activity: colorful popcorn. This was really a trial for Heidi's upcoming Aloha Rainbow Birthday Party. I am planning on making rainbow color popcorn as part of the party favors so this was a chance to try out a recipe. I chose a sugar crunch popcorn recipe and boy was it easy and super yummy! Here's the blog I found it from: http://jamiecooksitup.blogspot.com/2011/07/sugar-crunch-popcorn.html. I popped the popcorn and placed the popped popcorn in Tupperware, then made the sugar coating while the kids watched me stir it. The coating took only a couple of minutes to make on the stove. Then I poured it on top of the popcorn, put the lid on, and let the kids go to town shaking their containers. Heidi wanted blue popcorn and Noah wanted green. It was quick, easy, and super yummy. This is the recipe we'll be using for her upcoming birthday party!

Fire Station

Friday's Summer Activity: Take a Tour of the Fire Station.
This was a big hit with all the kids. We went with a small group of friends and their kids to tour the Georgetown Fire Department. The fire fighters there were incredibly sweet to all the kids and really spent a lot of time allowing the kids to climb all around their fire trucks, honk horns, turn on lights, pretty much whatever they wanted. Then one fire fighter came out with red fire hats for all the kids to wear, big hit with all the kids! This was such a big hit that I think we'll be doing it again, soon!

Melted Crayons

Today's summer activity was to take broken pieces of crayons and melt them into new colors. Here is the blog from pinterest where I found the idea: http://www.oneperfectdayblog.net/2012/06/05/molded-crayon-party-favors/. Recently we were given a box of 48 crayons, and they were super cheap. These crayons broke the second you picked them up, so they were perfect for this activity. Crayola crayons are by far the best crayons to color with, but their papers do not come off easily so stick to the cheap crayons for this one! Heidi, Noah, and I unwrapped the crayons, broke them into smaller pieces, and placed them in different spots of the muffin tin. I used my mini muffin tin so we can have lots of new crayons. The kids thought it was "totally cool" when they saw how the colors were melting together in the oven. After removing them from the oven I thought it was going to take a long time for them to cool and harden, but it really happened pretty quickly. After the crayons cooled we packed them up and went out to dinner. The kids had a great time coloring with their new crayons at the restaurant. If I were to do this again I would look for tins that are a shape other than circles. They were a little tough to color with since they were round. All in all... another fun summer activity!

Star Cookies

In honor of 4th of July we made Star Cookies with white icing and red and blue sprinkles. It was a huge mess (not because of the kids, because of me...), but so much fun for the kids. Now before you think I'm supermom know that it was store bought cookie dough. We rolled out the cookie dough and used a star cookie cutter. I like letting the kids do each task even though it doubles the amount of time it takes to make them, but I like letting the kids learn how to do things for themselves. They each got a chance to roll the cookie dough and took turns with the cookie cutters. While they were baking we made some simple royal icing. When the cookies were cooled enough I put the icing on and the kids sprinkled the cookies. They are the most beautiful cookies I've ever seen! Now I have to spend the next hour cleaning the kitchen, but it was well worth it!

Lava Lamps

We are back to doing summer activities today (took a few days off last week due to my Lasik surgery). Today we made homemade Lava Lamps. The kids thought this was pretty cool. We found this craft from pinterest (of course), but here is the link to the original blog: http://www.jugglingwithkids.com/2011/09/lava-lamps.html. I let the kids pour the oil, food coloring, and water into their water bottles then I broke the Alka Seltzer into small pieces for them to dump into their new lamps. Then we watched as the bubbles started moving up and down. My only suggestion is to use a darker food coloring. Heidi picked pink and it didn't show up as well as the blue in Noah's. After making Lava Lamps we practiced writing the letter L.

Tuesday

Tuesday's summer activity was to make homemade strawberry lemonade (yes, another recipe from pinterest): http://laylita.com/recipes/2012/06/08/strawberry-lemonade/ It was a fun and easy recipe to follow. I cut all the fruits and the kids put them in the magic bullet (thanks again mom!). Heidi wanted to blend the fruits this time, she's getting more brave and less scared of the loud noise. The kids enjoy helping me in the kitchen, so it was fun to do. In the end, Heidi loved the lemonade, Noah did not.

More Summer

And we're back! Heidi had Princess Prep School last week so summer activities were on hold for a week. She had a blast at camp and is now home reciting scriptures about serving others... love it! Anyway... this week we are back to doing our summer activities. Monday's activity was to make homemade finger paints and paint pictures. It was really a very easy recipe and things I had on hand. Here's a link to where I found the recipe: http://d30opm7hsgivgh.cloudfront.net/upload/83641390_g4h4MdyA_c.jpg. The kids watched as I mixed the mixture on the stove, then we put a small amount in ice cube trays, added the food coloring (which was fun mixing colors for the kids to see how to mix colors to make new colors), and finally the fun of finger painting began.



And of course, if you're outside with finger paints it eventually turns into outside water play.

Since Hannah is usually asleep during our summer activities, I took a picture of her cute little nose crinkle. Enjoy!

More Ice Cream

Friday's Summer Activity was to make ice cream with our friends. We invited our playgroup over to do the "Make Your Own Ice Cream" and we had about 15 kids in our house, it was pretty much complete madness, but yet we had a blast. I forgot to take pictures because there was so much going on, so you'll just have to imagine my house with 15 kids in it. When the kids came over we let them play, eat lunch, then make ice cream, and finally the kids went to run around in the sprinklers outside while a few of us moms cleaned the kitchen from all the ice cream. My favorite part of making the ice cream is when people said, "this really does taste like ice cream." Yep... I promised ice cream and that's what they got. There are only 3 ingredients for the ice cream, which surprised everyone, and it tasted just like ice cream. All the moms brought toppings to go along with the ice cream, so my kids had ice cream with chocolate syrup, caramel syrup, mini m&m's, marshmallows, bananas, and sprinkles. Hence the need for running around in the backyard after eating all that! Thanks to everyone who came and made a fun afternoon for everyone.

Mail Time

Wednesday and Thursday's Summer Activities were to make a package for someone and then mail it to them. Wednesday the kids ran around the house and found things to put in the package which included two boxes of flower seeds, pictures they colored, princess tattoos, and who knows what else they might have put in there while I wasn't looking. After the package was filled they decorated the outside with stickers. They had a blast thinking of all the things they could send to the person who would receive their package. On Thursday we took the package to the mail center and mailed it to the recipient. This summer activity will be repeated later in the summer so more people can receive packages from the Menchaca Munchkins. Look out Uncle Robby, the kids are very excited about all the things they can send you this summer!

Picnic and Popsicles

Monday's summer activity was to have an outdoor picnic. Monday morning we went to the gym at 8:30, then I had a doctor's appointment at 10:30, and finally the kids and I went to the Arboretum after the appointment to have our picnic. When we got there I noticed Thunder Cloud Subs closed down so our only option for food was Five Guys Burgers. I would have much rather made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before going, but since they would have been in the hot car since 8:30 that morning, I decided to buy food at the Arboretum. The kids love cheeseburgers, so it was just fine. We don't get to go to the Arboretum very often since it's across town and the kids were very excited to run around and climb on the cow statues. The weather was absolutely perfect, a beautifully overcast day, absolutely perfect for an outdoor picnic. The kids played on the cows for a while, ate their lunch, and then played for about another 30 minutes. When it was time to go the kids wanted to stay and play for longer, but it was getting close to nap time so we had to hit the road.


Tuesday we decided to make homemade Popsicles. We went to the grocery store that morning and bought strawberries and watermelon. At home I showed the kids how we puree fruits in our magic bullet and then poured the juice into our popsicle holders. (Thanks Mom for the magic bullet! Best thing ever!!!) After nap time the popsicles were ready to eat! The kids ate their homemade popsicles with a smile.