Leader Day

At Thomas' preschool each day of the week (Mon, Wed, Friday) each child in the class has their chance to be the "leader" of the day. When your child is the leader as a parent you come with them for that day and help out in the classroom. As the leader they get to help out with circle time, be first in line, and bring in a show in tell to share with the class.

 Thomas was so excited to be the leader last week. When he came home with the leader bag on Monday he filled it with his three items..a T-Rex, a green hulk car that makes noise, and his little toy Optimus Prime. For the rest of the day and all to Tuesday, and all Wednesday morning this is all I heard about. It was fun to be with him and see how he is learning.

It is his turn about every 4 to 5 weeks so it works out nice. Because he was the leader he got to wear the leader vest, which is what he has on in the pic above. They were working on the letter Dd for the week and focusing on Dinosaurs on Wednesday so this was right up our ally! His T-Rex fit right into the dinosaur theme so during show and tell (above) he is telling the class all about it. It is amazing how much he can tell you about the famous T-Rex.

When they are the leader as well it is your turn to bring in the snack for the day as well. They like it to be a healthy snack and if possible go along with the theme.This was a pretty easy one for me. I have a dinosaur cupcake pan so Thomas and I made apple cinnamon dinosaur muffins. They came out really nice, and the kids thought they were pretty cool..some ate them others thought they were more fun to play with. Thomas was so proud of himself and he helped me wipe the tables, set out the napkins, and the mini apple juice boxes. It was a fun day for both of us :)

Ready to race

After we toured the shop part (no pictures were allowed) there is a visitor center in front. They had a lot of really fun displays and some history facts about the company in general as well as the history of the Indiana plant.

 They had a hands on display of these little racing cars that the kids could climb in and out of and pretend to race. We had to wait in line for a few minutes which was like pure torture to these boys, but they finally had their turn.

Luckily for them there was no one waiting to get in after they got their turn so they were able to take their time in them. Even though they were facing each other they still had fun "racing" each other (they were stationary cars as well). But they have very good imaginations so it still fun for them :)

Open house at Toyota

Last weekend Toyota plant they had a family fun day/open house. They had a lot fun things for the kids to do and see. They also had the plant open so we could go inside and see the plant and what Daddy does. The boys were pretty excited to see Daddy's work.

 Even though we had breakfast right before we left it seems these days my boys are always hungry. So when we first got there and they saw the popcorn they were hungry and "needed some popcorn!" So I stood in line for popcorn for the boys and cotton candy for Daddy.

 It seems that these bouncy house things are a pretty popular these day at events like these. They had four different blow up things that the kids could play in. But for my boys this bouncy house was the most popular. They have seen these before and have never been interested in them so I was really surprised when they wanted to try them out. They really had a fun time and the people did a good job not letting too many kids in and making sure the little ones were okay.

 They also had some emergency helicopters, fire trucks, and police cars that they had opened up so the kids could look inside and even go inside and check it out. This was a very cool stop for the boys. They loved going inside and seeing all the different things they had and sitting on the seats and pretending to be part of the rescue.

The fire trucks by far were the favorite for both Sup and Thomas. They had two on display plus some of the firefighters to show them around the truck. This was boys heaven for these two, lets just say it took quite a bit to get them out of the trucks and it was not an easy task.

The letter C

Each week at Thomas' preschool they have a letter of the week. Last week they learned the letter Cc. Each day they focus on some kind of animal/object/food, etc for that day to help learn the letter.

 Eric and I work it out that I am responsible for taking Thomas to school and he picks him up. It works out really nice. When Thomas came home from school he and Sup were sooo excited to show me what Thomas did. They came running up to me with this clear cup, and Sup saying "Mama Look!! Really cool!! Really cool!!" It was pretty cute.

 They made little cricket cages and the teachers put in a little cricket inside. Thomas was quick to inform me that the teachers said that he had to let it go in two days. So it was a quick pet and we let it go and it was fun to see how excited they were :)

Cracking the walnuts

After we let the black walnuts dry out for a few weeks we were pretty anxious to see how they turned out. If anyone has cracked open or has tried to open up black walnuts it is not an easy task.  

We had done some research to see what the best way was to open them without totally crushing the nut. We found the vice to be the best tool. This way we would control it better and get a cleaner break. It worked pretty well.

Once we had them cracked in half the harder more time consuming part came. We had read that it you use just a regular wire cutter you could cut around. This would help getting more of the nut out as a whole versus a bunch of small parts. At first it was pretty challenging and we were not very good at getting bigger pieces. But as we continued it actually got a lot easier and we got a better feel on where we needed to cut. Most know that Eric and I can be pretty competitive with each other so we were trying to see who could get out the biggest piece (there may or may not have been a bet involved ;).

This is just the beginning of the jar (the silver picks that are on the side helped pry some of the remaining nut pieces out of the shell). It is one of the small marshmallow cream jars. After about 60 nuts we had the whole thing filled! This jar we put in the freezer to preserve the nuts (they will last up to 2 yrs in the freezer!). The rest we plan on using our food saver that way we can just store them on the shelf with the rest of our food storage. This way they will also last the two years without taking up space in our freezer :)

Apple season

Fall has always been my favorite season for many reasons. One of them is the aroma of fresh crisp apples. You can do so many yummy things with apple and make your home smell very yummy. There are so many apples around now and some apples are better of certain things then others.

 Some apples are really meant for just eating. Unfortunately we do not have and apple tree at are house (although that will probably change in the spring :) there is nothing like apples right from the tree. Fortunately my gramma does have a pretty mature apple tree. When my  family came down to visit at the beginning of the month my dad brought a nice big bag of apples from Gramma.  

According to Gramma this apples are just for eating and not really good for baking. The nice thing about apples if you keep them in a cool dark place they can keep for a long time. We had them spread out on a table in the basement and the boys found them pretty quick. They are not usually too big on apple but these ones from Gramma they LOVE. Which is great! They will go down pick out there apple and eat it to the core. At the rate they are going I think we will be able to keep the doctor away! Except for Papa ;)

Pretzel bread

A while back a new grocery store opened up around here and it is more of a speciality grocery store. Although it can be a fun store and has a lot of fresh stuff and hard to find things it can also be a bit out of our price range. I have heard of pretzel bread before but I have never seen it at a store. One day a long while back we went on a special trip to the store and we could each pick one thing fun to try. Eric picked out pretzel bread. I have been experimenting with baking bread for a while now so we usually don't buy bread but Eric thought this was safe because I didn't even have a recipe for it. We all tried it and loved it, although I just got a bite and the rest of the loaf was history.

Needless to say Eric has been wanting me to try and make it for a long time now but I haven't had a chance to really sit and look for a good recipe. Last week I was finally able to find a recipe and try it out. I have made a lot of different and most of them have turned out pretty good. But this was turned out so well I thought I would brag a little.

I know that it doesn't look all that from this sad little picture but it really did taste good. We thought it was actually better then the one we bought. So now we can have the bread any time and only a fraction of the cost!

Umm fondue!

Sunday night we thought we would have a fun treat, what can be more fun then chocolate fondue! We always have chocolate around so it was an easy treat to whip up.

 Eric and Thomas took a little walk while Sup and I got the chocolate ready and the "dippers" :) Sup is getting to where he really likes to help with desserts. Although I think his help has an alternative motive..."taste testing".  

 After Eric and Thomas got home it didn't take them long to dig in. We had strawberries, marshmallows, bananas, and pretzels. Eric and I were lucky to get a few strawberries as Thomas and Sup always gobble them up first.

Sup was more interested in eating just the melted chocolate...surprise I know ;) He would take the marshmallow or banana cover them in chocolate, lick the chocolate then offer Eric or myself the rest.

What an imagination

Thomas has an amazing imagination, he can really take anything and make it into a game or story of any type. With Sup pretty much always right there he does anything Thomas does so he is a pretty good playmate..most of the time.

 A few weeks ago Thomas discovered a pile remains of the bead guys (previous post) and a collection of small rocks that we picked up from Nauvoo. Some how he came up with his own Dino-opoly version with these objects.

I must say I was pretty impressed. From what I understood the rocks were the dice and you had to roll them so you knew how many "spaces" to move. Some how the board was the floor and I am not sure how the spaces were counted or labeled. But Thomas did and he would say what dinosaur space he or Sup landed on. The game pieces where the bead guy remains. It was amazing to see how much he remembered from the actual game he would give out money and buy the spaces and took turns going around the board.

Lets ride

Eric has been working on a lot of little projects these past few weeks down in his workshop. A few days ago he was working on a little mobile cart.

 Once the wheels were on there was only one thing the boys wanted to do...take a ride :) Sup climbed in the bottom and demanded Daddy to start pushing him around.

 Even though it was a short ride and really only back and forth he was a pretty happy kid.

It didn't take long until Thomas wanted a ride too, but they couldn't both fit on the bottom shelf. Thomas isn't really one for heights so he had no problem letting Sup get first dibs on the top. 

Cleaning up the walnuts

After about a week of drying Eric wanted to try out his new project for the nuts. When you get the initial husk off the walnut there is still a lot of the stuff that is stuck in its cracks.

 Eric saw this "cleaner" I guess I'll call it on youtube and thought that he would try to make it to try to get the rest of the nuts clean.

The boys thought it was a new toy and therefore really excited to help. The boys would each get a bag of the walnuts and put them in the small hole in the side.

After a couple of bags were in the tumbler they were ready to spin. In the video the guy hooked the the tumbler to a drill and made it spin by electricity. But who needs a drill to spin it if you have two little boys with a lot of energy ?? ;)

Proud of Daddy

Yesterday when we got to church and settled into our pew, Eric was asked to help pass the sacrament. Our Bishop wanted to give the young men a break so asked the Elders to help out with the sacrament. Eric and I couldn't really remember the last time that he passed but it has been years, maybe even before we were married.

It didn't take the boys long to notice that Daddy was no longer sitting with us and very demanding on where he went. They couldn't really see him from where we were sitting but I told them that he was going to help pass the bread and water. They seemed to be a little confused because the "boys" (young men) usually pass. As sacrament started the boys got so excited to see Daddy passing and they would turn and watch him with such pride in their eyes. Then about every few minutes they would turn to each other and/or me and say, "there's my daddy!" "Do you see my Daddy!" It was really cute seeing them so proud of their Daddy :)

Prime and Bumblebee

Our boys have always been fans of Transformers. With the new movie coming out this summer and it just being released they play Transformers everyday. Every day Thomas is Prime and Sup is Bumblebee, and usually Daddy is Megatron (the bad guy).

 With the movie release there is all the merchandising for the movie. Hostess has all the different Transformers on their treats. On their website they have a link where you can get theses free print-offs of both Prime and Bumblebee. So the other morning I printed them off and cut them out for them.  

 Thomas was sooo excited and had it on for most of the morning. He would even show me he looked just like his little Prime toy (that's what is in his hand).

Sup's attention span for it was not very long. He had it on for a few minutes while he and "Prime" ran around getting all the bad guys, but then took it off. It was fun to watch and can't really beat the price!

Goin' nuts

Since we had so much fun with our black walnuts we thought we would go and collects some more to harvest, and have a fun family activity.

 Eric and I have become pretty good at recognizing what black walnut trees look like so we headed over to a park not too far from our home. The trees only drop nuts every other year so not every tree we spotted had the walnuts. We were able to find about three different trees and the boys were ready and happy to help collect.

 It is amazing how fast we filled up our bags. We probably collected around two hundred more nuts to harvest.

After our collection we thought we would let the boys have some fun on the play gym at the park. We had a fun and productive day :)

Ah nuts...

This year Eric and I decided to try out a new project for our food storage. My sister has a black walnut tree in her back yard that produces quite a few nuts. Since they are dropping at this time of the year we though we would try to harvest some.

 She brought down just a few that she collected..3 paper bags full and 2 boxes. After some research on what we needed to do we got to work. If you have seen black walnuts they have a green husk that turns black after it falls. This husk is what is probably the most work and definitely the messiest. Even though we wore gloves our hands still got stained. It took us a few days to get all the nuts de-husked.

 After we got a batch with the husks off we put them in water and the ones that float to the top are the bad nuts so they got tossed. The boys had fun with this part, rising the nuts and making sure we got all the bad ones. We then dumped the water and put the nuts on the lids to dry out a bit. We still had to come up with a better way to dry them out so this was a short term solution.

 We had beautiful weather so we had them sitting out in the sun to help dry them out. We didn't have to worry about the squirrels too much, but Sup on the other hand we had to watch a little closer.

We seen that a onion bag or potato bag works well for drying them out. We didn't have any and didn't really know where I could get an empty ones. So Sara actually came up with a really good solution that was probably cheap as well. At Joann's they have this material that we used and made small little bags and hung them up to dry. I can't remember the exact count but it was 700 and something nuts that we have. Now we just have to wait a few weeks before we can crack them. We now know why these black walnuts are so pricey ;)

A bit blue

It was pretty warm in the afternoon so we decided to treat ourselves to a snow cone. We went with blue raspberry for our flavor choice...sounded good but the color probably wasn't the best choice.

 Sup was a little uneasy about trying it. Daddy was able to finally get him to try a bite.

 I think the coldness took him a bite or two to get use to but he seemed to like it.

 After a few bites he decided the spoon was no longer needed. He could get a lot more with just the cup :)

Lets just say it didn't take long for our little boy to get blue ;) But he displayed it pretty proudly.

Last day of Fall Festival

Saturday is the last day and probably the busiest day of the festival. They have two parades on Saturday one in the morning and a bigger one on the evening. After the first year we decided that the smaller morning one is less crowded and a lot easier to leave in the afternoon rather then the evening.

 The morning parade started at 10 am and is known as the pet parade. It is fun to see all the pets and people dressed up in costumes. The boys had fun seeing all different animals and seeing them all dressed up.

 There were mostly dogs but there were also some cats, birds, horses, and even a little girl walking a llama (reminding us of some our family back in Michigan ;)

 After the parade we did our circle around the booths for lunch before we headed back home. There is a place that sells chocolate covered grapes, we were a little unsure but apparently they were "award winning". We have seen them in the years past but never had tried them before. So we thought we would give them a thy this year. I must admit they were pretty good and Thomas loved them. He sat and ate most of the bag. Sup on the other had ate all the chocolate around the grape and handed me the grape...this would be typical Sup ;)

 It seems that my boys are corn dog/pronto pup junkies. There is no shortage of these around, although there are some better places to get them. They are not that picky if it has a stick with a battered hot dog they are happy little campers. (It seems this year the stick was a big deal to Thomas as after he finished it became a "pokey stick" for those who took a nap :)

 It seems that you give 'em some chocolate milk and a corn dog and they are all smiles :)

I heard there were 34 new items in the booths this year. As mentioned before one was the deep fried Kool-aid. There was another one we decided to try, a deep fried smore. Now I am not sure how they kept the smore all together but it was a whole smore battered and deep fried, then dusted with powered sugar. It was okay probably not something that I would get again. Personally it needed more chocolate and the graham cracker itself I think was a too soft, probably from the batter. It was a fun time with lots of fun and crazy food. You have to be willing to open your mind to truly experience Fall Fest :)

Breakfast bistro

We have been experiencing some very nice weather this past week. In the mid 80's during the day and sunny. Friday morning I thought I would make everyone some homemade cinnamon rolls.

 Even though I woke up earlier to make them we still had a later breakfast, but I think it was worth the wait :) The boys decided they wanted to eat outside on the front porch. So they took their warm cinnamon roll and sat out on our patio set and enjoyed the beautiful weather with Papa Jim.

As you can see they were pretty excited to have their breakfast outdoors. 

T-Rex meat

 On the way to the festival on Tuesday we asked Thomas what he wanted to and/or try.....His request, T-Rex meat. Now the festival really has anything but T-Rex meat is not in any of the booths.

 We told Thomas we could see what we could do. This is a child that doesn't forget so the rest of the ride and as soon as we arrived he was asking for his "T-Rex meat". We had to be a little creative..our solution the beef tenderloin sandwich. Although there are quite a few places but there is only one that always has a line for them, this is where we stop.  

This tenderloin is a huge sandwich the meat itself is bigger then the bun. This was the perfect "T-Rex meat" for Thomas, and past the test! He amazingly ate a lot of the meat while Sup ate most of the bun (The bites off the top were from Sup).