Ghosts and Pumpkins

Here is Mackenzie working on one of her preschool activities. She rolls a dice then adds that number of pom poms to ice cube tray with the tongs.
She is liking her daily "activities" some more than others though. :) Luckily, this one was a winner, she played it twice.

Then we made ghosts (or "boos" as we call them) out of strawberries and white chocolate. I dipped and she decorated. I know some of them are messy but it's hard to be neat while keeping a three year old from eating the decorations.
Since I don't like to waste anything, and there was no way I was putting the unused chocolate chips back in the bag, I let the kids have them as part of their snacks. I gave them graham crackers with peanut butter.
Mackenzie decided they needed "boo" faces as well.

Pancake Mornings

We make blueberry pancakes about once a week. Everyone likes to be involved in the preparations.Mackenzie used to be my number 1 "mixer", but lately she has been training Logan to take over the mixing...
because she has been promoted to "pourer."
Pretty soon they won't even need me on pancake mornings. :(

Muffin Tin Monday: Farm

We had been making the Muffin Tin Meals, just a meal served in a muffin tin. I have been having fun with the themes and making the food fun. The kids eat a lot of their food than normal. This week I decided to do a farm theme. I knew I wanted to add a lot of fruits and vegetables and nothing needed to be done to them to fit the theme. Then I started thinking about adding some farm animals.
Top: baby chicken, sugar snap peas, "cow" pudding
Bottom: nectarine, pig, carrots

The baby chick is made from a hard boiled egg with a carrot beak and olive eyes. I gave the kids the top part also, Mackenzie had fun "hatching" the baby chick but she wanted to know where her mommy was.

Logan is showing off the pig. It is a piece of bread with ham and cheese. There is more ham and cheese hiding under the pig.
I made chocolate and vanilla pudding and attempted to make spots. There are also cow sprinkles added.

Both children go about eating their meals differently. Logan just dives right in and usually eats the treat first. Mackenzie spends time studying all the components and talking about what they are. She skips around and likes to save her treat for the end.

How to bake cookies

How to make cookies by Mackenzie
First you roll out the dough but you aren't allowed to like any.You've got to roll it out very carefully so you can punch out the cookies with the cookie cutter.

Then you get to ice them (Can you find the ones I did?)mmm....they sure are good.

mmm...cherry pie

It started with our cherry tree in our front yard. After picking, seeding, and baking (Robert did the first two, I did the last) we had this.

Then I whipped up some fresh vanilla ice cream (frozen yogurt) and we have fresh cherry pie ala mode!

And how did my precious two year old, who runs out to the cherry tree to grab handfuls of cherries and shoves them in her mouth seed an all even if there not ripe, like the pie? She spit it out with a "ththththth" and politely ask for more ice cream.

homemade ice cream(frozen yogurt)

Mackenzie loves homemade peach ice cream (frozen yogurt)!!!

Beer Can Chicken

Robert and I saw this recipe on the Food Network. We have always wanted to try chicken cooked with a beer. It was delicious. Then I made a gravy out of the drippings. Yum.

Yes, I am apparently taking pictures of food now too.