Cutting straws

I needed green straws to make our St. Patrick's Day bracelets so I bought some at Sendiks (my new favorite grocery store!!). Cameron saw me cutting them up and wanted to try too. He sat forever cutting straws apart. Today he asked if he could cut more straws apart! When he was cutting them the other day Chris was having a heart attack. He kept telling Cameron that he had cut enough that he was cutting to many. Of course, I gave Chris the oddest look and said, "A WHOLE PACK OF 100 STRAWS COST .84 . I THINK HE CAN CUT THE WHOLE PACK IF HE WANTS!!!!" I love Chris but he just doesn't get it sometimes. This is such a great skill for Cameron and I'll let him cut as many straws as he wants!!
We also have a gallon size ziplock bag filled with straws too! Hmmmm, now I need to find out what to do with them.

Super Grover!

We've decided to try to motivate Cameron into potty training. It's probably not the best idea but we've got to motivate him somehow! We've been working on a sticker chart where after he earns 10 stickers he gets a special surprise. He REALLY loves these Knex Sesame Street characters. He picked out the Super Grover for his first surprise and has earned it and loves to put it together. He seems really proud of himself that he can get these together by himself! We're now working on getting Abby Cadabby Knex. He's being a stinker because when he decides he'd like it he goes potty and gets a sticker but sometimes he says, "no, I don't feel like getting Abby Cadabby right now! Someone said that we should try setting a tiimer every 45 minutes and trying to go potty when the timer goes off. Hmmm, if only we would stay home for one whole day to try this!

Doesn't he look so proud???

Self-Awareness

We talked about self-awareness today! I would name a body part and Cameron would put a sticker on that part. He seemed to really enjoy himself. In the picture he was putting a sticker on his ear, you can't see it very well!

Chickpea Chocolate Chip Cookies-Yummo!!

Sorry, this is from Wednesday! I never downloaded my pictures until tonight! We talked about kindness today! We decided to make cookies to share with friends today. This was a perfect day to do this because of Ash Wednesday. Cameron is bringing his cookies he made today to church to give to his "friends" at church. Of course, we had to bring a few over to Rich, our neighbor, too!!
Here's our favorite kind of chocolate chip cookies right now! Cameron insisted on making these for his Aunt Stephanie two weeks ago! The recipe is easy and they are really, really simple!

Chocolate Chip Chickpea Cookies
Makes 24-26

1 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
3/4 cup trans fat free soft tub margarine spread or butter
2 large egg whites 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
15 oz can chickpeas drained and rinsed
2 cups (12 ozs) mini semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt (I omitted this)
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the sugar and margarine with a wooden spoon or on medium speed until smooth. Beat in the egg whites or egg and vanilla, then the chickpeas and chocolate chips. Add the flour, oats, baking soda and salt and mix on low speed until a thick dough forms.
3. Drop the dough by the tablespoonful onto the baking sheet, spacing hte cookies about 1 inch apart. Flatten slightly with a fork. Bake for 11-13 minutes, do not overbake. Leave on cookie sheet to cool and then transfer onto wire rack until completely cool. Do try one in the process of cooling as the gooey chocolate is wonderful in the cookie.
4. Store in airtight container for up to 3 days.

Try them and let me know what you think!

We made these regular chocolate chip cookies with 1/2 mint chips and 1/2 chocolate chips too!

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup butter flavored shortening
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips 1 cup mint chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter flavored shortening, brown sugar and white sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition, then stir in the vanilla .Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; gradually stir into the creamed mixture. Finally, fold in the chocolate chips. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until light brown. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely

St. Patrick's Day craft

I'm trying to get together some St. Pat's day crafts for school! Here's the first one. The kids had a blast with the valentine's day bracelets we made. (I wish I had a picture of that one)

I wish I could find a black tray to put this on but right now I'll have to settle on a basket to put all the pieces on.

The Mom Song

This is the greatest!!!!! I made all three of the kids (Logan, Kait and Anthony) watch this today! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESe-AysF9mw
Logan and Kait laughed and Anthony couldn't take it. He's the child that gives me the biggest headache (which really isn't much; he just thinks he knows more than me).
Here's the kids response to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJlZnPIzyLg&feature=related
The kids are so funny: Logan had to call his mom right away and have her listen to it. Kait said that it sounds just like me! I personally take that as a compliment (;

I LOVE BEING A MOM!!!!

Snow Day

All of us in Wisconsin are really enjoying my nephew Logan!! He moved up here from Arizona in January and we are so happy that he is here with us. We normally have him sleep over on Saturdays but this week we had him sleep over on Friday. He's 16 (17 in May) and I love that he can just have a good time!! All of the kids are outside playing in the snow! There is nothing like some snow to make anyone be a kid again! They are helping Cameron build a fort and a snowman and they have been out there for about an hour and a half and are just having some good old fashioned fun!! I LOVE IT!! Kait went over to Grandma Irene's house to snowblow her driveway. Kait loves that Chris lets here use the snowblower now. Kaitlyn ended up doing Grandma Irene's and two neighbors! She is such a cool kid! We are truly blessed to have such wonderful children!!

Science

Cam and I worked on a science experiment today! We made our pennies shiny. First I had him go through our money jar and pick out some pennies. Every penny he would pick, he would say, "is this one?" for EVERY penny he found. We mixed 2 Tbsp. vinegar with 2 tsp. salt and put our "dirty" pennies in and mixed them around. Cameron had a fun time doing this.

He didn't understand the whole concept but thought it was cool how they got "clean".

After we "cleaned" our pennies, he decided that he was gong to hide them and I had to find them. He would tell me "Abra-cadabra" and I would have to guess which container the pennies were under. As you can see by the look on his face, he thought he was pretty tricky!

Tot books

We made some tot books!! We got the idea from:

http://lapbooksbycarisa.homestead.com/TotBooks.html. I'm finally getting around to posting them! They were fun to make and they are really nice to take with us when the kids have a game or I've got a meeting and Cam has to come with. I'd like to make some more but I don't think we need anymore right now until Cameron is done with these!

Here's an ocean one. I let him dip dot on the cover first! He LOVES to dip dot!

We made a Noah's Ark one: We made a Veggie Tales:

We made a Cars:

Eat This, Not That

I LOVE THIS BOOK!! It tells you what foods are best for you. There is one for kids, about restaurants and grocery stores! I am trying to get our famiy to eat the right foods! There is so much crap out there and it's kind of scary when you look at what's in some of the food we eat. I'm trying not to use as much convenient foods and going back to more natural foods!

Last Valentine's Day

We made these for the shut-ins for our church. They are door hangers! We mailed them out and at church on Sunday, I was told that one of the shut-ins was so excited to get it in the mail. We also sent a card with it that we marble painted on but of course, I forgot to take a picture of it before we mailed them out! Here's a bag that we marble painted for our valentine's day cards! This is kind of what they looked like.

For our buddy Rich!

Every holiday we have to make our neighbor, Rich, a treat! For Valentine's Day, we made him cookies. Cameron helped frost them and put sprinkles on them. He also made him a little love bug made out of craft foam. It was fun having him make this himself. He put some of the pieces upside down but he did it himself!

Cameron brought some carnations that we had leftover from the flower sale at the middle school to Rich's wife and daughter. He was so excited to bring them flowers; he had us wrap them with a bow! He made Rich a card too! I wish I would have taken a picture of, he did a great job! He was trying to write him a message and kept saying 68133334573, 68133334573. He's trying to say our phone number instead of writing him a message and I tried to tell him that Rich would love for him to tell him Happy Valentine's day, not our phone number. Cam didn't even get the phone number right, we're now working on our number and address now!