Pokemon

So this post is to show dad what we have been up to while he has been in Ohio.  We have been chasing all over town for those elusive pokemons.  Well not really we just made one trip to Toys R Us today after school to get an egg for each of the boys to hatch.  Unfortunately I got a little eraser happy and accidentally erased the picture from my camara.  Yes I did make the boys pose at the Toys R Us next to the poster explaining the rules.  Of course it was a PERFECT picture.  Everyone smiled their most charming smile and looked at the camara there was no blinking.  It was a wonderful picture one any mother would be proud of and then oops I erased it.  So this one will have to do instead.  Taken in our living room while they are frantically working to hatch their pokemons they don't seem as interested in giving me a natural smile in this one I am afraid.  Oh well.  We miss you dad and can't wait for you to get home.

We actually had to celebrate easter yesterday morning since Craig had to go out of town this week. He left right after we finished but then the kids are always ok with getting stuff early but they were also sad to see him go. We miss you.  We had an easter egg hunt later at papa's house.  I am posting all of the pictures since I didn't take that many and Sam had forgotten her camara.  I will have Craig throw them on a disk when he gets home.  But I don't have those skills sorry.

Hope everyone has a happy easter.

Jacob has been sick he has strep throat.  He has never had it before and it has knocked him on his butt.  Taking Zach to and from school though he tries to get as comfortable as he can in the car and he always wants a pillow.  So I had these round scraps left over (from the arm holes for their car snuggies that I made for christmas) I thought PILLOWS.  They aren't real big but perfect size just to tuck under a head to protect it from the  armrest on the seat.  Now I just have to remember to take them to the car next time.  Of course by monday he should be back on his feet and won't need them.  Maybe I should have had this idea a couple of days sooner.

Mini old fashioned buttermilk donuts

These look like muffins a little but they are actually mini donuts.  Unfortunately the dough was sticky and I was having trouble filling those little tiny donut spots.  So my patience when cooking is very limited I finally just did the best I could and this is how they turned out in the pan.

Once out of the pan and turned over they look more like donuts.  They have an almond glaze on them and turned out pretty good.  I didn't have the patience for more though so the rest of the dough I just put into my muffin top pans and they look like a muffin top.  In the muffin top they actually look more like a round scone they are of the same texture as a baked scone also.  I think that in the future if I want to use the donut pan I will have to pipe the dough into it.

Recipe

Donuts:

3 cups all-purpose flour                    1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (optional)

1 cup white sugar                                         1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons baking powder                                                1 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon baking soda                                                                       3 eggs

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg                                      1/2 cup butter, melted

Directions:  Preheat oven to 325.  Lightly grease the donut baking pan.  Mix all dry ingredients flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon.  Mix buttermilk, eggs and melted butter in a seperate medium bowl, and stir into dry ingredients.  Fill each donut cup approximately 3/4 full.  Bake 10 -12 minutes in the preheated oven, until donuts spring back when touched.  Allow to cool slightly before removing from pan.

Simple Glaze Recipe

1 cup cinfectioner's sugar

2 tablespoons HOT water

1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional)

Directions:Blend confectioner's sugar, hot waterand almond extract in a small bowl.  Dip donuts in the glaze before serving.

For a chocolate glaze:  simply stir 1/2 cup melted chocolate chips into the glaze mix.

xylophone

Ok I found this on youtube one of the boys favorite things (youtube I mean) but they like the xylophone also.

You have to pause my music bar on the side of the blog to hear this.

Disneyworld here we come....

Yesterday we booked our trip to Florida.  We are so excited.  Well maybe not so much Craig.  Since he is so wonderful though he is paying for me and the boys to go to Florida in July while he is out of town.  A friend of mine will also be going along with us for her first trip to Disneyworld. 

Of course Zach is most excited to go back on his very favorite ride there in Animal kingdom.  We will try and get Jacob on expidition everest with us this time.  He should be big enough.

And of course no trip will be complete without seeing Mickey and Minnie although this picture is probably from disneyland. 

We will be taking a trip to disneyland as a family in May and we are also excited about that but thanks so much Craig for letting us go this summer we love you.

Basketball

 

Roasted Garlic

Ok so Craig always talks about roasted garlic on steaks from the steakhouse in Treasure Island in Vegas.  So I finally bought a garlic roaster.  And we all love it we should have tried this years ago.  Here is the roaster it is even cute.

You bake it at 350 for an hour.  That is the one problem remembering to start it before you start the rest of dinner.

I guess this picture should have gone before the last one.  This is the garlic before it was roasted.

I meant to get a picture of it being squeezed out of the skins but everyone was on it so quick this was all that was left for me to take the picture of.  It is about the consistency of cream cheese just spread it on and enjoy. 

The other side of spring

We decided to take a sunday afternoon drive and see the snow.  This was small hail you can't tell from the picture though.  No not big enough to damage the car Craig;)  

We were gone for maybe 5-10 minutes and this is the car when we got home.  As you can see since we watched church on tv today the boys still haven't gotten out of their pajamas.  I think they might be in a little denial since they have to go back to school tomorrow. 

Can you see the robin in this picture.  He is kind of hard to see but kept running off when I started trying to take his picture so I just snapped this one.  He is right at the edge of the driveway curb.  I hope he has somewhere warm to sleep.

My poor blazer having been moved to the side of the house shows the snow that has fallen since last night.  Doesn't it look sad and lonely.

Spring Treat

In the april issue of family fun magazine we found these cute spring garden boxes.  So since the kids were on spring break and they looked fairly easy we decided to give them a try.

First we studied the recipe.

Then we destroyed some cookies.  I do believe that this was the best part.

Here are our garden boxes. 

Next we added the dirt the cookies mixed with chocolate frosting.

The carrots are made out of orange Mike and Ikes and green rips licorice.  We only bought one box of Mike and Ikes and we were one orange short for all of our carrots so we had one special red one.  Everyone has seen a red carrot before right?

They turned out cute and these looked more like the magazine picture then most of our food adventures have.  This was a really easy project and the kids had a lot of fun.

Happy spring break.