Chocolate-Seed Flowers

My lil Mason will do anything for a chocolate chip.

I was in the middle of eating raw pumpkin seeds when he asked me for a treat. I said, "I'll give you some  chocolate chips if you eat it with these seeds."
To my surprise he agreed. To entice him a bit more I made little flowers on the table: 4 seeds to one chocolate chip. This way I could keep track at the number of seeds and chocolate chips he was consuming.

This is one of those things where, yes, the chocolate chip isn't the best thing for him but I'm willing to be flexible on it because the nutrients in those seeds are still going to do good once inside his body. If I can get this combo going and down the road add a dried fruit to make a trail mix, I would be thrilled.

Shamrock Cupcake

I was experimenting with recipes for my blog and made these cupcakes for the boys.

Just a little green dye for the batter, cream cheese frosting, a clover (made from melted white chocolate) and some green sugar sprinkles and everyone was happy (for a whole 5 minutes before someone was fighting over a superhero toy).

This is the "BEFORE" picture:

AFTER:

And this is where it sat for the next few hours. I thought for sure someone was going to finish it but nope. Just two big bites and off Jaxon went.

How we are beating cabin fever PART 4

We turned Jaxon's closet into an "Elevator."

My buttons are lame because I'm totally out of craft supplies (would be cool to make them out of colorful construction paper) but the boys still had fun with it.
They were making beeping noises when pressing the buttons. One time Brant came out of the elevator and pretended he was giving a tour of "his firehouse" to his brothers. He gave his guests a snack and everything.

At bedtime, I told Jaxon to pick out some books to read and he came back with the elevator buttons. He wanted to count them, talk about all of the circles, etc. It was cute.

Painted Frame project

When I first moved into our house I went to Joann's and bought a bunch of wooden frames. I painted them all with colors that would accent our living room.

Well it's 5 years later and I still don't have those frames hung. In fact, I could only find one that had all of the backing and glass.
So the boys and I glued them together.
I'm not sure which way I will hang this but at least something is done with these darn frames!

How we are beating cabin fever PART 3

A friend of mine posted this on my FB wall - could not have come at a better time!

What you need:

• shallow bowl/plate
• milk 
• 2-3 different colors of food coloring (liquid not gel)
• dish soap

It's cool. We just took a shallow bowl but you can use a plate and poured a little milk in it. I had each boy add a few drops of food coloring, pretty close together in the center of the bowl. Then you add a few drops of dish soap on top of the food coloring and all these cool reactions start happening in the milk.
The boys were very happy and wanted to do it again and again and again....

http://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/17886032604

How we are beating cabin fever PART 2

The sure way to get my 2 yr old engaged in the kitchen and away from the TV is if he is "cooking."

I gave him a bowl, a spoon, a measuring cup, and odd pantry items that would be easy to vacuum. I found old lentils, old coffee grounds, and stale oyster crackers.
He had a blast! And so did my soon-to-be 4 yr old. Mason and Jaxon played for quite a bit with these "ingredients."

I thought this was going to be hard for me because the floor was going to be so messy but I actually loved it. Kids get so creative when they have stuff like this in front of them. M&J were talking to each other, talking to themselves about what they were doing, it was adorable. You could just tell the juices were flowing - Mason was especially fired up. And how much longer can you do this kind of stuff with your kids? Not long - Brant is 5 and had nothing to do with it (he and I were coloring Batman in the next room).

The best part was when I said it was time to clean up Mason insisted on vacuuming. woohoo! I will be sure to remind him when he is 13 that he used to volunteer to do chores.

How we are beating cabin fever PART 1

This house has been full of sick people for about 5 weeks now and it's driving me nuts. They are not too sick to be lying in bed all day but too sick for school and playdates - so everyone is crabby.
I noticed that the boys have been watching a heck of a lot of TV so I thought, today we are doing activities all day. End of story.

Last night I had them finger-paint before bath time. This morning everything was dry so I just had them embellish their picture with whatever I had on hand: pom-poms and sticky foam hearts.
They must be VERY bored and missing pre-k badly because this kept them busy for a good 20 minutes - even Jaxon.