Unplug Your Kids-Fruit

This weeks theme for Unplug Your Kids was Fruit. After last weeks failed attempt I was bound and determined to be successful. So, we did two projects.

The first one was a matching game with fresh fruit and dried fruit. I used muffin tins and put the fresh fruit on one side and the dried fruit on the other side. I explained to the boys that when you take the water out of the fresh fruit you dry it and it ends up like the dried fruit. So then I had them match up the dried fruit to what it used to be. They did really well. I only had to help them once (with the raisens). We had grapes/raisens, bananas, strawberries, apples, and pineapples. After the game they enjoyed the food for a snack.







Our second project was butterfly feeders (thanks Unplugged Mom for this inspiration). I let the boys get busy cutting strawberries (butterflies are supposed to be attracted to red) and they were really excited about using knives. I never let them use knives and I think my sweet husband was utterly appauled when he found out. We also put out some old plums and oranges. From what I read several internet sites the more rotted and nasty the fruit the better, so that's what we went with: nasty old plums, strawberries and oranges.

We hung the strawberries from a latern over a bush that I see a lot over butterflies hovering around.
I placed the plate of plums and oranges in the small bush.
We watched and watched and only saw one small yellow butterfly on the orange. I was surprised because we see butterflies in the backyard ALL the time. HMMMM....oh well, the boys had a lot of fun with the project anyway.

Muffin Tin Monday-Shapes

The challenge for this week's Muffin Tin Monday was Shapes. Since Wyatt is always asking what shape any given letter is I decided that I would make that our challenge. I made the boys' names our "shapes".

Wyatt's Muffin Tin had:

W Shaped PB&J Sandwich, Y shaped String Cheese, A shaped Raisens, and 2 T shaped Z Bars

Juice, Pineapple chunks, Animal Crackers, Spoon

Tortilla Chips, Hummus, Cottage Cheese, Strawberries

Seth's Muffin Tin had:

S Shaped PB&J Sandwich, E Shaped String Cheese, T Shaped Z Bar, H Shaped Raisens

Juice, Pineapple Chunks, Spoon, Animal Crackers,

Tomatoes, Tortilla Chips, Cottage Cheese, Strawberries

Can you tell how excited they were about their names in their food?

A few tips: The letter sandwiches work much better if you use a rolling pin to roll out the bread nice and thin and then put the two slices together and cut out the letter shape. All the other shapes are held together with toothpicks.

Veggie Tales LIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!

We took the boys to see the Veggie Tales in Concert today. We didn't tell them we were going so it was a total surprise when we got there. They were so excited. We had so much fun. It was a great concert.

The Boys Waiting for the Start of the Show

They opened with The Boyz in the Sink
Reece, Mr. Boogie, had the best time. He danced almost the whole time.

Bob and Larry

The boys enjoying the concert
Waiting for Daddy's surprise after the concert
Two Larry Boys and a Bob
One very happy little man

Aunt Tamara's Birthday

Last night we celebrated Aunt Tamara's 25th birthday at my parent's house. We had a great time playing outside and enjoyed some yummy fajitas and cake. Since my parents have moved the boys have alot more room to roam around and play chase with Piper. We're blessed to have them so close.

Wyatt, Piper and Daddy

Seth coming in from checking on the horses, Bella Bella and Benny
Reece wanted to wear the Birthday hat
Aunt T and Seth making mandatory funny faces
Happy Birthday Aunt T


Ryan (Aunt T's Boyfriend), Aunt T and Seth
Reece enjoyed his piece of cake
Enjoying Cake

First Coffee

Jerad and I drink coffee every morning. Well, I should say I drink coffee every morning and Jerad drinks some concoction of coffee, lots of sugar, and cream. The boys are ALWAYS asking for some of ours so I finally gave in and made them their very own. Before you say, "How in the world could she give a 3 and 4 year old coffee?!" let me tell you what it was. I gave them about a 1/4 cup coffee, a 1/2 package of Splenda and about 1/2 cup of milk. They thought it was the greatest thing in the world. It's not something we'll be repeating on a regular basis, but it made them feel grown up for the morning and it was fun.

Yummy Yummy Dinner

Kristena over at Thimbly Things posted the other day about a wonderful Black Bean Soup she had made for dinner. After reading the recipe I knew I had to give it a try. My goodness, she was right!! It was fantastic. Not only that, but it was sooooo easy. Seriously, it took all of ten minutes to put together. I didn't have the beef broth that it called for so I used chicken and it was great. Even my boys (well, Wyatt and Seth) loved it. I let Seth help me make it and he was super happy about that. I added extra salsa, green onions, lite sour cream, and low fat mozzarella to ours. I also served it with chips. Some of you know I watch what I eat (65 pounds lost so far, 30 pounds left to go) and I figured out that one bowl had 341 calories even with all the extras. That's not bad at all when you consider that was my meal (well, with a few chips thrown in) and black beans are really good for you too. So, I highly encourage all you soup lovers to give this a try.

Silly Glasses

We needed a silly project after our failed attempt at dino fossils. So, we took the plastic rings that hold the two juice jugs that we get from Costco together and and decorated them with stickers and then used pipe cleaners and beads to make ear pieces. The boys really liked it (despite what Wyatt looks like in his picture).

Unplug Your Kids-Hard

The theme for the Unplug Your Kids Project was Hard and for us it should have been Unplug Your Kids Gone Wrong. I had been wanting to do project from this book for a while where you make your own dino bone fossil. I knew the boys would love it and bones are hard so I thought it would go with the theme. First we went to our local dino dig park so the boys could dig up a dino fossil and get the idea of what we were going to be making on a larger scale. I decided to do the project at the park, so I hauled everything we needed in our wagon down to the dino pit (foil pans, potting soil, tons of different shapes macaroni, and glue). Once we got to the dino pit the boys played for about 15 minutes and Wyatt announced that he was done. He wanted to go for a walk to the water. How could he be DONE?? What boy doesn't like digging in the dirt? I asked him to play for a little while longer while his brothers played and he did, but he kept coming up and asking to leave. Finally we went for a quick walk and then headed to the picnic tables to do our project. The directions said to mix one cup of potting soil with enough glue to make the make the potting soil stick together in a ball and then mash it down in the bottom of the foil pan. Then you were supposed to press the macaroni shapes into the sticky potting soil and make it look like a dinosaur fossil. You let it sit out and dry out for a few days and it would harden and you could keep it. Well, it didn't matter how much glue I put in the potting soil. It never stuck together. The dirty glue just stuck to my hands making a huge nasty mess. The only good thing was that I hadn't let the boys touch it. They were disappointed, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. Hopefully we will have better luck with next weeks theme: FRUIT (I've already got some ideas for that)!!

Seth liked walking up and down the dino spine

Muffin Tin Monday

Yeah! Another wonderful Muffin Tin Monday!
We had the following in our muffin tins:

Cars Cookies, Grape and Stawberry Kabobs (specifically requested by Wyatt to be sprinkled), Water, More Fruit Kabobs

Blueberry Stoneyfield Yogurt, PB&J, Grapes (no sprinkles this time), Swiss Cheese

PB&J, Raisens, Ranch, Tomatos

Reece always loves his mini-muffin tin (he did not have the fruit kabobs, tomatos, or ranch)

Seth didn't really care for the Swiss cheese, but ate everything else

Wyatt was checking to make sure he got at least one Lightening McQueen cookie

Fun with Pancakes

We eat pancakes about once a week because it's cheap, easy and the boys love it (did I mention it's cheap). Well, I decide to do something a little extra on pancake night and make them a little "fancy". So, everyone got their initial in a pancake (I didn't take into consideration the fact that I needed to reverse the R, J and S, so they're backwards) and we had polk-dots, hearts, stars and smiley-faces. To do this you spoon the design on the hot gridle first (I used our tsp measure to just get a small amount), let it set, and then pour the pancake mix over it and let it set again before you flip it. The boys thought it was great and it turned ordinary pancake night into something a little special.

Austin Children's Museum

This past Sunday was Free Day at the Austin Children's Museum. We hadn't planned on going because it would have been right in the middle of the boys' nap time if we went after church. However, we accidentally slept in and missed the morning service at church. So, we went to the museum and then went to the night service at church. The museum was PACKED!! It was great that it was free, but I don't know that we'll do it again. It was hard to enjoy everything because it was so crowded. I really think the boys enjoyed the Austin City Limits room the most (ofcourse they like music the best : ). I think Seth could have stayed in there all day.

The little girl in blue tried to take Reece's guitar and he hit her. I don't advocate hitting, but her parents weren't paying any attention to her and she was trying to take something from a baby.