California Adventure Day

Belle

Sitting down to wait for the brudders to ride the Grizzly River Rapids ride.

Buzz, Books, and Bob after a yummy sour dough sandwich lunch.

Buzz playing hide and seek. He's hiding in the picture.

The kids were so excited they put Mickey on the Ferris Wheel!

Bob's Birthday

Friday was Bob's 8th birthday. We made rainbow cupcakes with double-decker frosting and fondant dinosaurs. The kids enjoyed helping make the dinosaurs. The fondant is kind of like Play-doh, only edible. We bought ours at a cake supply this time, but I'm going to try making it soon. Here are what the cupcakes looked like:

Fun to make, but if I had it to do over again I'd put the dinosaurs on after we got them to school because it was a warm day so the frosting started to melt and they started to slip. The kids didn't care, but it was kind of embarrassing to bring them to school that way. They still looked okay and got eaten. It made Bob happy because he loves sweets and was happy to have helped make them, and I think he enjoys showing off his younger siblings, too. The rainbow cupcake mix came out really great. You divide the batter into six parts and color each part a color of the rainbow, and then drop into the cups by spoonfuls.

Before we brought the cupcakes to school, we filled the familyroom with balloons and a few punching balls to surprise Bob when he got home. Later on we gave him his birthday present, a Nintendo DS with a Lego Indiana Jones game (which he has been begging for for a while now...) It really is amazing. If you blow on the screen, Indiana Jones blows out torches and blows up rafts. They are excited to get more games and I'm thinking it's time to reinforce video game time limits.

For dinner we went to Red Robin, where we saw Books's wonderful 2nd grade teacher, and had a nice dinner. We were pretty tired after that, and decided to save the birthday cake for the next morning so we could all crash when we got home! Really busy day, but I think one Bob will remember as being fun and a special one for him.

Chicken Nuggets

Here is an inexpensive way to make homemade chicken nuggets that are pretty close to the kind you get at fast food restaurants using chicken breasts.

Chicken Nuggets

6 boneless skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and cubed
2 1/4 cups self-rising flour
2 T olive oil
2 T cornstarch
1/2 t salt
1/4 t pepper
1 egg
2 cups water
1 quart vegetable oil for frying

Heat 1 quart of oil in pot or large skillet for frying. Using a candy thermometer clipped to the side of the pot or other thermometer, bring temperature to 360 degrees F. Combine flour, oil, cornstarch, salt, pepper, egg, and water. Mix well. Add chicken cubes to flour mixture and stir until all the chicken is coated. Using a pair of large tongs, drop each chicken piece into the pot separately and cook about 15 minutes or until golden brown. Makes about 50 chicken nuggets.

St. Patty's Day, Traditions

We are big time St. Patty's Day fans in our house because first of all, it's our wedding anniversary and second of all, we come from a strong Irish background on Grandma B's side. So we had the traditional Corned Beef dinner with a sweet Irish BBQ Sauce and Pistachio Salad and Irish Soda Bread and Blarney Stones for dessert. Blarney Stones are a homemade white cake cut into squares and frozen and then frosted with a thick gingerbread cookie-type icing and rolled in salted peanuts and refrozen. I was afraid to make the Irish Soda Bread because baking bread scares me. Yeast just does not like me. But I've been thinking the problem is that I have not been kneading my bread enough and this is why it does not rise all pretty and fluffy like I want it to. So this time I left it stuck in the Kitchen Aid with a bread hook until it had a "gluten window", which means when you tear a piece off and stretch it the bread does not break right away, but forms a thin "window" in the middle that is almost transparent. It seemed to work, and by the time it was done rising and baking it was quite fluffy and beautiful.

The one on the right has a Gluten Window

For something fun this year we decided to make Leprechaun traps, using the examples in this month's Family Fun Magazine. Here's the link: http://familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts/season/feature/ff0309-to-catch-a-leprechaun/ff0309-to-catch-a-leprechaun3.html. They have several really cute Leprechaun trap ideas. Bob painted the rocks and pots and glued them together, and then he and Buzz made some rainbows for the backdrops. We left them on the table overnight and in the morning, the Leprechaun had run through them and rearranged them and left Leprechaun tracks! He also managed to turn our milk green... Sneaky little bugger!

Leprechaun traps before bedtime on March 16th

Leprechaun traps before breakfast on the morning of March 17th... Sneakers!! :)

The boys decided to take their Leprechaun traps to school and got to show their friends and in Buzz's class, a Leprechaun even ran through his trap and swiped his pot of gold!! It was fun and the kids' friends had fun too as one of the teachers gave them golden painted beans to take home as a remembrance.