Penguin Cakes

Penguins have been on my mind for while, perhaps because we saw those lovable Antarctic birds at the zoo earlier in January.  This week my daughter's kindergarten class did a penguin craft as well as some penguin-themed coloring pages.  Seeing them in her classroom spurred me to continue that theme at home and finally produce something I have been contemplating for a couple of weeks: Penguin cakes! 

To make these penguins, I could have used almost any chocolate cake or brownie mix.  Unfortunately, were out of eggs, so I was pleased to find a vegan recipe with great reviews---chocolate Zucchini Brownies from the Allrecipes website.    If you've never gone eggless before, it's wonderful to try baking this way.  You can eat the batter free from any worries about food poisoning.  And this batter was GOOD!

Don't have an oval-shaped cake pan?  Grab some cupcake liners and make cupcake-sized birds in that case.  Just pop cupcake liners into a loaf pan and arrange them to form ovals of batter.  The foil lined liners would be ideal, but a double layer of paper cups also works, as you can see.

Mini muffin liners in a mini loaf pan (with batter)

Standard cupcake liners in a standard loaf pan (baked)

Waxed paper cutouts protect
the wings & head.

Remove the waxed paper
to see the contrast.

Supplies and Ingredients Used:

• Baking pans (loaf and/or egg-shaped)
• Baking liners (miniature or cupcake size)
• Chocolate brownie or cake batter
• Chocolate (or white) frosting
• Unsweetened coconut flakes, optional
• Walnuts and/or pecans (for eyes and feet)
• Carrot slices (for beaks)

Note: We had whipped chocolate frosting on hand and used that, but a darker chocolate frosting would have been better for color contrast.  Next time I might use white frosting instead of or in addition to the flaked coconut.

 Additional Resources: 
I also found the perfect penguin worksheet to accompany today's delightful treat --Penguin Pie at What the Teacher Wants.  I get excited when teachers make learning such a pleasure; I want to show my kids that learning is fun!

Penguin cakes and party dresses go well together, don't they?

Linking to AP Tuesdays @ New Nostalgia

Snowflake Crepes, Sweet and Savory

Snowflake Crepes with Maple Cream Cheese Filling

My children and I love to eat crepes (also known as Swedish pancakes).  To go along with our winter theme, I decided to make snowflake cutouts in our crepes, using kitchen shears.

I folded the crepe into sixths and cut triangles out.

Of course, first I had to make a batch of crepes, which I did using my beloved Swedish pancake recipe here.  Next, I added either a sweet or savory filling.  Spinach and cream cheese was the first savory combination I tried.

For Savory Cheese and Spinach Filled Crepes:

1. Spread a very thin layer of cream cheese (or pesto sauce) on the bottom crepe.
2. Place a layer of baby spinach leaves (stems removed) onto the layer of cream cheese.
3. Carefully spread another layer of cream cheese (or ricotta) over the leaves.  Consider adding grated cheese, bits of ham, or chopped artichokes to enhance the flavor.
4. Top with snowflake cutout crepe.

For Sweet Maple Cream Cheese Filled Crepes:

1. Blend together softened cream cheese with maple syrup to taste.
2. Spread sweetened cream cheese onto bottom crepe.
3. If desired, add a layer of jam or fruit spread.
4. Top with snowflake cutout crepe.



My Favorite Snowflakes: Crepes with Cream Cheese & Fruit Spread

          *  Optional: Dust with confectioner's sugar.

Linking to Saturday Nite Special 

and AP Tuesdays.

Menu and Activity Plan {1/24 - 1/30}

Last week, in an attempt to add more raw vegetables to our diet, I tried a new recipe, Napa Cabbage, Orange, and Almond Salad.  Next time I want to add some red cabbage for extra color, but it tasted good nevertheless.  Following the recipe (more or less) gave these results:

Getting away to Kansas City this past weekend was both refreshing and exhausting.  It was good to be offline for a couple of days.  We enjoyed some time with my husband's parents.  Our kids enjoyed "swimming" at the community center there.  My husband and I finally got to see The End of the Spear on DVD.  The next day we met and had a conversation with Frank Drown, who was part of that moving true story of loss and transformation.

After church, we piled back into our cold minivan to return to Nebraska, vowing no more winter travel in this vehicle.  The heater broke last month, bringing more meaning to the words "it stings the toes and bites the nose"!  Thus, while I remain eager to plan our activities and meals for the week, fresh memories of frozen toes have quelled my interest in a winter picnic for a while.  Several of last week's activities are being carried over into this week, since we didn't get to them all--yet.

-Monday-

SNOWFLAKE CREPES

ICE SUNCATCHERS

* Rice Cooker Macaroni and Cheese

* Cabbage Soup

_________________________

-Tuesday-

INDOOR HOPSCOTCH

* Chicken Pot Pie

* Tossed Salad

_________________________

-Wednesday-

INDOOR SKATING

BUBBLE WRAP APPRECIATION DAY

* Venison Burgers

* Pea Salad

* Fruit Kabobs

_______________________

 -Thursday-

VISIT LIBRARY

MAKE POPCORN 

* Japanese Eggplant Itame

* Rice

* Asian Salad

_________________________

 -Friday-

ICE SKATE LACERS

*  Broccoli Shrimp Alfredo

* Tossed Salad

_________________________

 -Saturday-

 SPA DAY AT HOME

WALK  IN THE WOODS

* Fish (Sauteed Swai)

* Rice

* Okra

*Tossed Salad

_________________________

-Sunday-

* Pizza (usually the frozen variety)

* Vegetable Platter
__________________________

See many more menu plans at Menu Plan Monday, hosted by Laura.

Menu and Activity Plan {1/17 - 1/22}

After all of the snow days and days off, we need to establish a sustainable rhythm for the weeks ahead.   This week I am combining a 10-minute activity to each day along with our meal plan for the week.  We had so much fun with all of our winter activities that I want to intentionally incorporate them into our regular schedule.  Here we go!

-Monday-

INDOOR HOPSCOTCH
MAKE GINGERBREAD COOKIES

* Fish
* Israeli Couscous with Quinoa
* Pea Salad
* Cabbage Soup
_________________________

-Tuesday-

SNOWFLAKE DISK TOSSING

* Ham and Broccoli Ring
* Tossed Salad

_________________________

-Wednesday-

INDOOR SKATING

* Lamb Bratwurst
* Napa Cabbage, Orange, and Almond Salad
_______________________

 -Thursday-

INDOOR HOPSCOTCH
MAKE POPCORN 

* Ginger Lemon Chicken
* Rice
* Brussel Sprouts
*Tossed Salad
_________________________

 -Friday-

ICE SKATE LACERS

*  Dinner with Parents-in-law
_________________________

 -Saturday-

SWIMMING 

* Dinner with Parents-in-law
_________________________


See many more menu plans at Menu Plan Monday, hosted by Laura.

Winter Activity Week: Festival of Wintry Fun

It's been quite a busy week here, and I hope you have found some inspiration to take you through the remaining months of cold weather.  If you haven't yet, take a look at all of this week's winter activities and then peruse the links below. 

All week long I've been collecting more wintry fun ideas to share with you today.  Enjoy!

•   Homemade Hockey Table @ Frugal Family Fun Blog

•   DIY  Snow Paint @ Mom Endeavors

•   A Collection of Snowflake-Themed Projects @ Make and Takes

•   Ice Ornaments @ Red Ted Art

    (which inspired us to make our own, as seen in the video clip)

•   Ice Skate Lacer @ Melody's Adventures

•   Pine Cone Bird Feeders @ Praying for Parker

•   Cotton-Tipped Snowflakes @ Asian Treasures

•   Winter Wonderland Activities @ Two Little Seeds

•   31 Ideas to Beat Cabin Fever and the Winter Blues @ MomLife Today

Hopefully some of the ideas will inspire you and your family to try them out!

Which ones do you think you will do soon?

Linking to Saturday Stumbles at Simply Staci

Winter Activity Week: Plastic Stuffed Snowmen

Until this week, we had not gotten much snow this winter.  So we made some snowmen that require neither snow nor bundling up the family.  Our snowmen were filled with plastic grocery bags instead of actual snow.  Unlike their frosty cousins, these snowmen and snow-women do not melt (at room temperature anyway).

For a miniature version, we used plastic bags, yarn as ties, a little felt scarf, and a permanent marker.  This gal is about 8 inches tall.

 

And here's the larger snowgirl we created:

Supplies used:

• hat
• scarf
• plastic bags (as stuffing)
• yarn or plastic strips (as ties)
• white sheet
• orange paper (for nose)
• clothespin (to attach nose)
• blue plastic caps
• tape (to attach eyes)

Our unsuspected snow-girl was pounced upon by rambunctious children a few times.  We had fun reassembling and switching out her accessories.  Her tiara is not pictured.

Winter Activity Week: Carpet Gliding Skates

Today I am unveiling our favorite indoor winter activity of all--carpet gliding!  Now when we get the urge to ice skate, we can simply slide on the carpet and stay toasty warm.  I was very excited when I found the idea.  I knew right away that my girls would love skating inside, and they did.  But as thrilling and slippery as the wax paper skates were, the paper didn't last long.  We needed a more durable material.  

Thanks to a tip from my friend, I switched our foot gear to plastic cereal bags (the ones that come inside the boxes).  As you will see in the video, the cereal bag skates slid very well!

How to Make Plastic Carpet Gliding Skates:

1.  Collect empty plastic cereal bags.  Shake them out and wipe them clean from any chaff.

2.  Open the long seam, but leave the bottom seam sealed.

3.  Place a sock-covered foot in the open bag.  Be sure to keep the bottom seam of the bag up, so that it won't touch the floor.

4. Wrap the bag around the foot and secure with a rubber band (or elastic band).

5. Take a second bag to cover the other foot, repeating steps 2-4.  Now you are ready to start skating on carpet!

Carpet skating is a great way to be active indoors.   It kept my three children busy burning off their excess energy for a big chunk of the afternoon.  I had fun gliding around too.  Here are my daughters in action:

Have you tried any of the activities from this week yet?  Here's a quick list of ideas (with links) that I have shared earlier in the week:

• Ice Lockets
• Crystal Snowflake
• Snowflake Clings
• Snowflake Flying Disks
• Champion Ice Medals

Please join me again here tomorrow for more ideas to wrap up 
Winter Activity Week.
                        

Sharing ideas can help us

  banish winter boredom once and for all!

I'm linking up with the Company Girls today.

Winter Activity Week: Champion Ice Medals

The prospect of getting a gleaming medal for their efforts is another strong motivation for kids to get outside and have some winter fun.  Begin creating these medals indoors and then freeze them outside if it's cold enough.

Supplies Used:

• Muffin tins (or mini-muffin pans)
• Water
• Foil
• Scissors
• Assorted ribbons
• Yellow plastic bag (optional)
• Shiny coins (optional)

  

  Our muffin tins went under the picnic table to shield them from falling snow.

What to do:

1. Fill  muffin tins with water.  Cut foil or other metallic materials to fit inside the cups.  Cut ribbons lengths that are larger than people's heads.
2. Optional: To make silver aluminum foil look gold, you can layer a circle of a yellow plastic grocery bag over the silver and crimp the edges to hold the yellow plastic in place.
3. Optional: Ask kids which materials they think will float in the water.  Which will sink?  Drop in coins and foil circles to find out.
4. Position circles or coins and ribbon ends in water.  Allow water to freeze for several hours or overnight.
5. Remove frozen medals and award to deserving future Olympians.   

Potential Events: disk tossing (see yesterday's post), snowball launching, snow mountain building, downhill sledding, timed show shoveling, or timed vacuuming, trash hauling, bed making, puzzle completing, etc.

Linking to Try New Adventures Thursday.

Winter Activity Week: Snowflake Flying Disks

Making snowflakes and lacing them into plastic disks caught the interest of all three of my children (who are from 3 to 7 years old).  I had to help the younger ones with the cutting, and all three asked for help with lacing them onto the rim.  They liked the colorful results.  Furthermore, they had fun flying these versatile disks inside and outside of the house! We even decided to award some gold and silver ice medals to champion tossers.

Supplies Used:

• white plastic bag
• sharp scissors
• medium plastic lid (about 4-inches in diameter)
• yarn, floss, thin ribbon or string (bright colors are best)

How to Make Them:

1. Cut out snowflakes from plastic bags as shown in Tuesday's snowflakes.  They should be about the same diameter as the lid (about 4 inches across in our case).
2. Cut out a large circle from the lid and set aside.  Use the scissors to cut one notch into the outer rim, being careful not to cut all the way through the rim.  The notch is used to secure the string.
3. Lace the string through the outer holes in the snowflake in a whipstitch fashion to attach the snowflake to the rim.  Tie the ends of the string together and trim excess.  
4. Adjust the yarn and snowflake to make sure it is centered and balanced.
5. Enjoy tossing your snowflake flying disks! 

Linking to Penny Pinching Party Wednesday,

Kids Get Crafty, and Craft Schooling Sunday.

Winter Activity Week: Plastic Snowflake Clings

These upcycled snowflakes were super simple to make, requiring only two supplies!  All you need are white plastic grocery bags and sharp scissors. 

 

• Directions: Cut out circles of plastic, fold into sixths or twelfths, and snip away!

• To stick them on the window, apply a few drops of water or washable glue and smooth them out.  (I have also had some success just using static from the plastic to put up smaller plastic snowflakes.)

• When done with the decorations, they can be stored for reuse or recycled inside other plastic bags.

*For another snowflake craft, check out the crystals we made from borax.*

  Come back tomorrow to see our next winter activity idea!  

Winter Activity Week: Making a Crystal Snowflake and More

My children are captivated by crystals of all kinds--diamonds, quartz, rock salt and ice.  I knew that creating our own sparkling crystals would be a hit with my 7-year-old and 5-year-old girls.  All we needed to do was find out how.  To get started, we consulted this article at About.com which had simple directions for making borax snowflakes with chenille stems.  

Supplies we used:

• Borax
• Boiling water
• Mason jars (wide mouth would be best)
• Spoons
• Thread
• Chenille stems
• Scissors

What we did:

1. First we cut and shaped our chenille stems.  I made a snowflake, while my daughter experimented and finally settled on ball shapes.  We tied thread on our shapes so that they could be suspended in the jars.
2. Next, filled jar about 2/3 full with boiling water.  Then we added several tablespoons of borax, stirring to dissolve it.  We kept adding more borax until the water seemed saturated.  The water took on a yellowish tint.
3. We tied the thread onto spoons and positioned the chenille snowflake and balls so that they were not touching the sides of the jar or anything else.  They were totally surrounded by the hot borax and water solution.
4. We left them to crystallize overnight (about 12 hours).  Crystals had already formed about 3 hours into the process, but by morning, they were quite thick and beautiful.  If fact, I had trouble removing my snowflake from the jar because there were bigger crystals than I anticipated.  We bought a cheap crystal growing kit once before, but doing it ourselves this time was much better!

Want more ideas?

  Come back tomorrow to see our next winter activity idea!  

Teaching Note:  As I gazed at the beautiful crystals we made and then later saw real snowflakes up close, it reminded me of how their design, order, and beauty relate to a theology of creation.  After reading some articles from various faith perspectives, I plan to discern and share those thoughts that reflect a biblical perspective with my children.

I found two articles that articulated thoughts on design akin to my own:

• The Design of Snowflakes @ Design of the Universe
• The Wonder of the Snowflake @ The Fountain

Linking to Anti-Procrastination Tuesday at New Nostalgia

Winter Activity Week: Ice Locket Craft

 Finished Ice lockets Designed by my Daughters and Son

Ice Lockets are amazingly simple to create.  All you need to make them are:

• candy molds (or jello or play dough molds)
• beads
• yarn or string 
• water 

After placing beads and yarn into the water , we froze them.

We found this lovely Russian-inspired tale at the library.

The fact that they are frozen when finished is great motivation to go outside and wear them! Creating some of these lockets could also complement watching or reading a wintry fairy tale like The Nutcracker or  The Snow Princess. 

Locket Fit for an Ice Princess

  Come back tomorrow to see our next winter activity idea!  

Linking this to Motivate Me Monday and Show and Tell.

Introducing Winter Activity Week 2011

The Bleak Midwinter is upon us here in Nebraska.  And I want to learn to like it.  Because normally I dread its onset all year long.  Those single digit temperatures repress my desire to revel in the outdoors.   Add three kids who must be bundled up, and it's the perfect recipe for cabin fever.

{Our family took a trip to the zoo this week.

Peacocks apparently don't mind the cold.}

Starting on Monday, January 10th, I plan to post at least one new winter activity per day (some indoor, some outdoor, all kid-friendly).  On Saturday, I will gather a list of links to additional fun winter-inspired activities we've discovered and enjoyed from other sites.  If you have a link to share, leave it in a comment. I will try as many of your suggestions out with my kids as we can.  Then on Saturday I will choose our favorite ones to include in a list of links to wrap up the week.

Feel free to join in the fun by trying the activities
(or sharing something fun you've enjoyed recently or long ago).

Would you like to join us next week?  
Leave a comment and say so.

The more the merrier!



 

10 Honest Critiques to Consider

 

 

1.  "Mom, can I sit in your big fat lap?"  

                --asked by my son this morning

2.  "You always make such delicate sculptures in the fridge." 

                --daughter #1

3.  "Why do you like to sit at your computer 
       so much?" 

                --daughter #1

4. "Can I snuggle with you?" 

                --both daughters


5. "I couldn't find any socks." 

                --both daughters and husband


6.   "What are you doing?"

       me: "I'm fixing my hair." daughter #2: "Is it broken?"


7.  "Let's make our house as clean as Mrs.  

       ____well's today!" 

                --daughter #2


8.  "I hate riding in the car!  Why can't we walk home 
         every day?" 

                --daughter #1


9. "Can you erase the chore chart so I can check off 
     my chores?  

                --daughter #1


10. "Can I take a bath tonight?" 

                --daughter #1

Do you have any quotes from children

that have prompted laughter and/or dismay?

 

Menu Plan for the First Week of 2011

Happy New Year!  My girls were marveling with me today that it is now 2011.  We kicked off the New Year with Aunt Sarah's heavenly cinnamon rolls.  During her visit we also sampled all kinds of fancy homemade cookies, as well as a chocolate Panettone for the first time, which she brought to us (along with her family) from Chicago. 

After doubling the number of plates at the table this past weekend, I will now resume cooking for my growing family of five.  And, yes, I've done some growing too--in my middle section over the last week.  All the amazing sweet treats that have crossed our lips were worth it though!

-Monday-

* Taquitos
* Rice
* Rotisserie Chicken
* Vegetable Soup

-Tuesday-

* Slow Roasted Venison
* Mixed Vegetables

-Wednesday-

*Turkey Sausage and Egg Casserole
* Fruit Salad

-Thursday-

* Ground Lamb and Potato Casserole
(similar to Meatball Casserole)
*Tossed Salad

-Friday-

* Enchilada Stack
* Fresh fruit

-Saturday-

* Roasted Chicken
* Sweet Potatoes


See many more menu plans at Menu Plan Monday, hosted by Laura.