Da Projects

Ok, now that my big dig is somewhat accomplished (as in excavating the storage unit and basement and closets and taking everything to the ward recycling event including all my baby gear (bittersweet, almost as much bitter as sweet) (that was soooo hard, but I have known it was coming for a few years now)) I have a little time to catch up the blog.

I wanted to document a couple of projects Miranda and I had done over the past couple of months. The first one was a school project, the Pizza book report.

We started with a salt dough crust and tomato paste.

Then we rolled salt dough cheese shreds.

Then we made the peperoni and dotted it with brown marker.

Here is the finished project. She laid the writing slices on top for the report portion. I dried it in a warm oven (sans the report). It was the most fun of the projects she has come home with.

The second one was cupcake pops from the Bakerella blog. These were time consuming but a lot of fun. I wanted a project Miranda and I could do together. When she bakes with me she likes to break the eggs and then wander off, coming back when yummy smells start coming from the oven. She loves art so I thought this would combine two of our favorites and inspire her creative side. Other than some gravity issues with too large pops and wet icing we both had a good time. I am realizing that the last few precious dregs of childhood are slipping quickly out of the cup and I want to make fun memories for her while she still enjoys spending time with mom. That door is already closing.

You start by baking a cake. We enhanced a cake mix with the cake mix doctor cookbook.

Once it is baked, you crumble the whole thing into a large bowl.

I added a cream cheese frosting. You can used the canned stuff but I made fresh. Tastes a whole lot better. Start by adding some and then some more till you get a play dough consistency. (loose play dough).

Then roll them out into balls. You can also shape them in little hors'dvors cutters but we went simple. The Bakerella website has a lot of great examples of what you can do.

Don't make them too big or they fall off the stick.

I melted two colors of candy melts. You dip the bottom half then add the stick dipped in a little of the melt. When that is dry you dip the top half. It doesn't take long for the "chocolate" to set up

Next decorate to your little heart out. We used colored sugars and sprinkles as well as squeezie frosting tubes. We zig zagged and polka dotted, sprinkled and swirled.

We set them in some floral foam which I have since spray painted purple. (Purple, of course purple, you wondered????)

It was a really fun project that I recommend as a great way to spend an afternoon with your kids. Even little ones.

Some other recent family fun, other than a movie, was a trip up to Wilkes Barre, about an hour and a half, to a Hockey Game. We all had fun, but I didn't realize that the score horn would be quite so loud. Miranda is sensitive to loud noises anyway and the first one caught us off guard and upset her. I think one of Miranda's very first unpleasant experiences in life was a loud noise. A few weeks before delivery they were doing fetal stress tests and she was sleeping peacefully. But they decided they wanted to see more variance on her heart rate so they woke her up with a loud buzz. It was the strangest sensation I experienced the whole pregnancy with 4 little limbs flying in 4 directions as she startled. As a baby she always used to cry if I blew my nose.

But I digress. The hockey game was fun and the home team won. Like most kids, she liked the zamboni and it was dollar hot dog night. We want to hit one more and then we will head for some Iron Pigs games, our local ball team, in the new ball park, opened last year. Pigs and corn, a great night. The Aw Shucks booth (zippy spiced corn on the cob) is our favorite booth, and the games are cheap. We like baseball.

This is one of Miranda with her new scooter. It is a zippy little thing. She crashed it once before realizing that using one foot as a brake can throw off your balance.

And this is a sleepy Rusty stretched out between my shoes. And my apologies to Joni, but in my defense, there were lots more pictures of my child. ;)

And if I have the dog I have to have the cat. This is Gadget. Aint she cute?

Spring is blowing a nice warm breeze today, 68 degrees. Miranda's skorts and scooter are coming out. We love spring. And now that we are going to North Carolina, I hereby bequeath my snow shovel(s) to the northern most (or highest elevation) of my relatives. So let me know who you are. Neener neener.