September 5: A Truck Parade and Almond Poppy Seed Muffins

Our family...waiting for the truck parade to start.

Tysen, Koen, and Henry...still waiting.

The kids got to sit in the firetruck after the parade ended.

Labor Day in Holland means the Truck Parade!  We took Koen to the parade a few years ago, but this year the whole gang ventured out for the experience.  It really is a phenomenal (and LOUD) experience!  After the parade, the trucks all convene at the Civic Center and the spectators can go get a closer look at the trucks and pick up free goodies from the companies represented.  The boys were THRILLED with the morning...big trucks with their loud horns, free stuff like candy, Frisbees, and ice cream, even a visit with Great-Grandma Davies who lives downtown Holland.  Brielle wasn't quite as excited about it...the loud truck horns were not her favorite thing to hear.  We all enjoyed our brisk morning out!




Once we arrived home, we dragged out the ingredients for Almond Poppy Seed Muffins.  I'm on a mission to find muffin recipes Koen likes so he can take them to school for lunch.  The only sandwich he enjoys is something with peanut butter, but peanut butter is not allowed due to other students' allergies.  I know he'll eat pumpkin muffins, but I want him to continue to like pumpkin muffins after the year is over, so I don't want to send on every day.  When I went through my recipes I'd suggested Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins, but in informed me he actually likes almond poppy seed better (thank you, Costco).  Surprisingly, I didn't have a recipe for that on hand, so I ventured online and came up with a few possibilities.  I had all the ingredients in the house for the following, and I'm told they turned out quite well!  After mixing these together, I wondered about just taking the almond bar recipe I have and adding poppy seeds in.  It would be a much denser muffin, but would taste delicious, I think.  I may have to try that in the future!

Almond Poppy Seed Muffins

• 1/2 cup butter 
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp. almond extract
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 1/8 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 2 1/2 Tbs. poppy seeds

1. Cream butter and sugar, beating until light and fluffy.
2. Add eggs, beat well.
3. Add almond extract, beat well.
4. Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
5. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture alternately with the buttermilk.
6. Mix until just combined with each addition.
7. Fold in poppy seeds.
8. Spoon into greased muffin tins or use paper baking liners, filling 2/3 full.
9. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes.
10. Remove from pan to cool on rack.

Yield:  12 muffins
(found on cooks.com)

September 2: Spiral Snakes

The kids are always up for painting, and I wanted something fairly simple to do today.  That resulted in Spiral Snakes from familycrafts.about.com.  Each kid painted a paper plate on both sides...even Brielle got into it!  The tough part with projects like this is waiting for the paint to dry before finishing the project. 

Once the paint was dry (a few hours later), I cut the plate into a spiral, we added some googly eyes and a red tongue, and the spiral snakes were complete!  Brielle thought hers (pictured below) was great!  She loved shaking it and playing with it!  Koen, who doesn't like snakes, decided to make a puppy face instead.  I'm not sure how that's coming, though.  He may just have had fun painting since his plate is still sitting on the counter.

September 1: Pudding Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ty started talking about eating pudding cookies today, and I figured there was some kind of recipe to help us with that.  I'm not sure how he came up with the idea except that I let him have a pudding cup for a snack yesterday.  He even went to grab a pudding cup when we were gathering the ingredients, but this recipe uses the dry mix. 

We usually bake on Mondays, but our plans to spend time with Grandma Smits, Aunt Lori, Henry, and Evelyn fell through with Brielle being sick.  I found the recipe Pudding Chocolate Chip Cookies on food.com.  The only thing we changed was that we used mini-chocolate chips rather than regular because that's all we had.  They smelled delicious even as we mixed them together!  The kids think they're great, but the cookies are chocolate...what's not to love?

Pudding Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1 cup butter
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 pkg. (3 oz.) vanilla or chocolate pudding (we used chocolate) -- comments on food.com suggested using other pudding flavors like butterscotch and even banana!
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1-2 cups of chocolate chips
• 1 cup nuts (optional -- we didn't add them in)

1. Mix the flour and baking soda and set aside.
2. Combine butter, sugars, vanilla, and pudding in a large mixing bowl and beat until smooth and creamy.
3. Beat in eggs.
4. Gradually add the flour mixture.
5.  Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls on an ungreased baking sheet.
6. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes.
7. Enjoy!

August 29: Everyone Helps!

We made our tried-and-true Pumpkin Muffins again this week.  Boring, I know, but the kids LOVE these!!!  They ask to make them just about every week.  I love that Brielle now has an interest in helping, too!  She didn't actually get to help mix anything, but she was a great help when it came to licking a spoon clean! ;)

August 26: Homemade Sidewalk Chalk



Shake it!

I picked up this Crayola Chalk Making kit sometime last summer from a Meijer clearance section.  Koen and Ty we were actually going to make chalk...and in such cool shapes!  It was very simple to do -- just add the right amount of water to each bottle of powder, replace the lid and shake it up, pour it into a mold, and let it set for 20 minutes.  While I did help put the water in the bottles, the boys could really do everything themselves which is a great thing!  

Carefully pouring the mixture. 




After our chalk was completely hardened, we headed outside to see how it worked.  The boys were more interested in playing with the bug shaped chalks than using them!  They really did turn out cute, and I'm keeping the molds for any future projects that need molds:  soaps, candy, etc.



It works!

August 25: Steve Spangler Science Experiment: Ivory Soap Souffle

We haven't done much in the way of science over here, unless you count all the baking we do.  I discovered Steve Spangler's website a while back which has some great ideas!  Most are for older kids, but I thought this one would be fun for the boys to do with me. 

We took a bar of Ivory soap and a bar of Lever 2000 soap to compare and contrast.  First, I had the boys feel each bar of soap to make any observations.  The different colors was an obvious difference, and then Koen thought the Lever 2000 bar was heavier than the Ivory.  So we put them in a bowl with water to see what would happen, and wouldn't you know the heavy one sank and the Ivory floated. 



Ivory soap...after being microwaved.



And then the fun really started!  We first put the Lever 2000 soap in a glass bowl and put it in the microwave for 2 minutes.  We stopped the microwave before the 2 minutes was up as we just wanted to see what would happen.  Any guesses?  It melted!  Next, we put the Ivory soap on a paper plate (Steve Spangler's website showed it broken into 4 pieces, but I forgot to do that, we just put the whole bar in).  I set the timer for 2 minutes and hit "start".  Instead of melting, the Ivory soap puffs up!  It's really cool to watch, and of course, the boys were extremely excited!!!  (It makes the house smell clean, as an added bonus!



The reason for this (in very simple terms) is that Ivory soap is filled with air pockets.  In 1890, a Proctor and Gamble employee forgot to turn of his machine during his lunch break.  This whipped air into the soap and allowed the soap to float.  This mistake was a huge hit with the public population and the floating soap stuck around.  These air pockets also contain water.  When the water heats up it vaporizes and forms bubbles while the soap itself heats up and becomes pliable, so the whole thing expands.  (Thanks to Steve Spangler for explaining this on his website.)  While the kids didn't care so much about why this happened, we did talk that this soap had air bubbles in it and that made the difference for why the soap grew bigger rather than melting.  Incidentally, the soap may look different, but it still works!  Save it for a fun bath time!



Microwaved marshmallows.



Koen's s'more.

Steve Spangler compared the process to what happens when you heat up a marshmallow, so next we put some marshmallows in the microwave for 30 seconds.  Sure enough, they expanded to, and when I asked the boys why they thought that happened, Koen surprised me with, "Well, the marshmallows probably have air bubbles, too!"  I love those moments! :)  After that great connection, how could I deny him when he suggested we make s'mores with the puffy marshmallows!