Cooking Lessons - Graham Cracker Cookies

I found this recipe online several months ago, and modified it to fit Nathan's food allergies. The cookies come out looking like this:Evan helped me with these cookies. He wanted to make sure we had all our holidays covered. Candy canes are especially festive for the end of February! No? Nathan LOVES these cookies. I like that they are whole wheat based. The recipe makes about 70 cut cookies.

Start with two cups of whole wheat flour.
Add one cup white flour.
Add a pinch of salt.
Add 1/4 tspn cinnamon, 1/2 tspn baking soda. Mix together.
In a seperate bowl, add 1/2 cup softened "butter". I have been buying Fleischmann's unsalted spread because they sell it in the same grocery store I shop weekly. Which means no extra trip to another grocery store.
Add 1/2 cup brown sugar.
Cream the butter and the sugar in a bowl. Then add 1/3 cup honey and 2 tspns vanilla and 1/2 cup rice milk. Mix.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Mix just until blended. Put the dough into plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least a few hours.
Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface. Cut with cookie cutters. Bake at 350F for 12-15 minutes.
You probably wont have as cute an assistant as this guy, but, you will make it work :)

Vacation Week and Randomness

This week is school vacation week! We tried not to over plan our week. I want the opportunity to do some projects with the older boys while Nathan naps each day. We have a couple playdates with some friends we dont get to see often, because of school. But, for the most part we are going to chill around the house. Justin has two belt loops he would like to finish this week for Cub Scouts!

Ive been working with Evan on rhyming words and word families. I have these great tiles for him to work with. Justin and Nathan playing together. Elefun is an oldy but goody game that Nathan has discovered and Justin has rediscovered. They had a blast playing together the other day.
Nathan loves stickers on his hands.
Evan in his karate uniform with his new orange belt!

Unseasonable Weather

I actually don't really know what "seasonable weather" is supposed to be this winter since we have had everything from snow in October to this week, 57 degrees. But, its been warm, and delightful because I hate winter and could not care less about the lack of snow and ice.

So, it was 57 degrees outside and I felt justified in forcing all the boys out the door to play. We made driveway art. Evan traced me:

And I traced him. I particularly like the fake ax lying next to him. Because its such a boy thing to have lying around. At least it was not real.
Nathan took over playing street hockey after the big boys abandoned their game.
I caught Evan flinging his arms wide open and shouting SPRING as he rode Nathan's fire truck down the driveway. If only we could be sure it was actually Spring here to stay.
Nathan declared this scooter, "Mine scooter" and grabbed the boy's bike helmet off the ground, put it on backwards himself and then took off on the scooter, like he had been doing it his whole life. Mad gross motor skills this little boy has.
Justin and Evan collected pine cones from around the yard. Picking little tiny ones off the trees and oohhing and aaahing over this large one they found left over from the Fall in prefect condition.
Then we all played a game of Frisbee. Justin can throw the Frisbee better than I can now. Which, isnt saying much I know, but, leaves me wondering how long they will be interested in playing sports with their uncoordinated mom. Hopefully they pick up an interest in something like track, which requires less coordination and more determination. We had so much fun playing outside together though. Even Nathan got a chance to throw the frisbee around and was smiling ear to ear the whole time.

Speaking of sports, I started the Couch to 5K with a girlfriend of mine. We are only on day 2 of week 1 but so far, its going okay! Back in the day before I got pregnant with Nathan I was working with a personal trainer and had gotten myself up to 3 mile runs. So, Im hopefully that I can get back there again!!! Its a great stress reliever at the very least. Nathan enjoyed his "ride in the go-go" as he called the stroller ride I gave him while I ran. I taught him to cheer "go mommy, go" for next time :)

Art Belt Loop

This past weekend I worked with the boys exploring art towards Justin's Art Belt Loop for Cub Scouts. We learned about primary colors, worked to mix and create secondary colors with watercolor paints. They the boys learned about other materials that artists used to create art compositions. We explored pastels and oil pastels, charcoals, pencils, and water color pencils. The boys loved the pastels the best, and got really good at blending and shadowing with them. I was really proud of them for their interest and openness in learning something new.


We completed the art belt loop and we are working on the art academic pin. This coming weekend Im taking the boys to a museum to explore!

Cub Scouts

Justin's Cub Scouts Pack had their Blue and Gold ceremony this weekend. A huge thanks to my mom and dad who watched Nathan for us so we could all go together. Nathan is still too young for 2 hour banquets :) The celebration was tons of fun.

There was pizza.
Jousting.

And of course the awards. Justin got his Wolf Badge!!! He was quite proud.

Snowball Fight

Today Evan wrote his sight words on pieces of white paper, crumpled up the paper and then had a snowball fight with his brothers. If he got hit with a "snowball" he had to open the paper and read the word on it. You can imagine that this was quite the fun activity for the boys. Even Nathan got really into it. Squealing and throwing the paper balls around.

Look at that sheer delight:
The action in the living room:
Evan got hit alot.

It was a great learning game, and energy release after a day of school.

Happy Valentines Day and Report Cards

I hope that everyone had a very happy Valentine's Day. I had such a wonderful day, filled with so much love from my three little boys and one big boy. Im so blessed to have so much love in my life. I appreciate it on Valentines Day as well as every day of the year.

Thank you all (Aunt Mary, Aunt Phyllis, Grandma and Grandpa, Nana and Pa) so much for your cards for the boys. They enjoyed opening each and every one of them. The were very excited to add the dollars to their wallets! Nathan, of course, doesnt understand the concept of money, but, he put his in his little Cars wallet he owns, along with some Monopoly money also stuffed in there. Truth be told, he likes the Monopoly money more because it has characters on it from Disney Monopoly.

Here is a couple cute pictures of Nathan in his Spud Muffin (grin) shirt on valentine's day. I tried to teach him to make a heart with his arms and hands. This is the best we got:

Nathan loves wearing backpacks around the house. He says, "I go to school on the school bus, bye" and then runs off into another room. Then he comes back and says, "I back". Its so sweet.
Justin has been working hard on his arrow point achievements in Cub scouts to get his Gold Arrow. This weekend is the Blue and Gold ceremony where he will earn his Wolf badge and qualify him for the arrows he is working on. Tonight we completed an achievement where he had to learn how to make a cover for a book. This brought me back to my middle school days of make book covers out of paper bags at the start of a school year. Justin really enjoyed decorating his covers. Cub Scouts is such a neat program that encourages the boys to do so many fun things that ordinarily I wouldnt think to do/teach Justin.
Nathan got his first ever tattoo today. And he didnt have an allergic reaction which I was worried about. He was thrilled! He kept staring at it saying, "No a sticker, no go off. This a tattoo." And the way he says tattoo, awww, it just melts my heart. I have to try and get it on video.
The tattoo was of Lightning McQueen, only Nathan's favorite character, which made the experience all the more exciting for him. I have to go out and find a bunch more, because after his bath, it already had started getting worn off a bit.
The boys received their report cards last week. And this week we had parent teacher conferences with both their teachers. At the risk of bragging, I have to tell you how wonderful both boys are doing in school this year.

Evan has astounded us. Despite his disability, he is doing fabulous work in all his gross and fine motor areas. His writing is simply beautiful. He writes exclusively with lower case letters now, and they are all beautifully formed. He is writing sentences and learning lots of sight words. He reads at a "C" level already. (Justin started first grade on a "D" level.) He loves Mo Willems books and can read many of them on his own now. The Piggy and Elephant ones are his absolute favorite series and we have been borrowing them repeatedly from the library. For as well as Evan is doing in language arts, Math is Evan's real talent. Evan has already completed all the learning goals for kindergarten this year, (and many of the first grade goals as well). He has a real gift for math. We have always know that Evan was "good" at math but now that he can write his numbers well, it is astounding to see what he can do on paper. His teacher told us that his enthusiasm for learning is absolutely contagious, he motivates the kids around him and is a great peer model. His teacher told us what a joy he is to have in class, and this, was the best news. Evan loves school and learning and that is the most important thing we want him to take away from kindergarten.

Justin is continuing to do very well in school. He is a good friend, a hard worker and a great student. Justin has a really fabulous teacher this year. She is tough but fair, and pushes Justin to do more and work harder. I have the opportunity to go into the classroom and help with activities throughout the year because I am the classroom mom. I cannot say enough good things about his teacher. Her teaching style and Justin's learning style work perfectly together. Justin is participating in an advanced math program this year. He and one other student work together on enrichment math work independent of the second grade curriculum. The program introduces some new concepts but mostly offers Justin the opportunity to explore the math concepts that encourage higher problem solving and creative thinking. We are really happy that Justin has an outlet for his advanced math skills this year. Last year we hesitated to explore Justin's math gift because he was working so hard with his reading and written language skills. We felt that one challenge was enough. This year, Justin is reading at an "O" reading level, which the beginning of third grade level. And doing so well in reading that we felt more comfortable providing him with challenging opportunities. Im hoping to find some opportunities to better explore Justin's math aptitude this summer.

This weekend is Justin's Blue and Gold ceremony for Cub Scouts, Ill post pictures of the special event as soon as I can!!! Have a fabulous weekend!!!!

Around the House

This is what happens when DADDY dresses you in the mornings. Quite stylish, no?I have this thing about jello, gelatin more specifically. I hate it. It has to do with a very graphic plant tour I took of a gelatin factory my senior year while studying chemical engineering. Words can't even describe the smells and sights I encountered on that day. Its much worse than you can imagine. Much. Worse. But, our local health store sells "gels" which are vegetarian and although *I* wont eat them, they are allowable in my home. Nathan tried one today and LOVES them. A great treat for him.
Over the weekend I made about 85 pancakes, egg, milk, nut, corn free, for Nathan and froze them to microwave for future breakfasts. I made blueberry, raspberry and flax seed chocolate chip.
Nathan tried them out today and gobbled them up. He is using a giant fork in this picture. His little two year old mind insisted using "mommy's fork" for eating today and would not take no for an answer.
Evan and I practiced making money sums over the weekend with coins. He is studying them in school right now. We came up with different ways to make 10 cents, 25 cents and 50 cents. It was alot of fun. My little math whiz, he came up with 8 ways to come up with 50 cents!
Nathan spent a majority of our morning today looking like this: All on his own doing.

More From Our Lives

The other day we went to a friend's house for a pancakes and pjs playdate. Evan and Nathan both had a ton of fun! All the kids looked so comfy in their pjs.

I had asked Nathan when he woke up in the morning to pick a new pair of pjs for our playdate. He immediately ran to his pj drawer and asked for his "Cars 2" pjs. That little kid is so smart and opinionated these days!

We have been doing alot of work with Evan on his sight words. On this day he used playdough to make the letters of each of his words. This was alot of fun.
And good fine motor work too!