November 15: Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Don't you love his new smile?

Growing up, this was my FAVORITE coffee cake to eat!  When I found some sour cream in the fridge that was on the brink of expiring I knew this is what we could make this week...even though I had planned for something else (stay tuned...). 

It worked out well because when I asked Ty if he wanted to help me bake something, he went to the cupboard and pulled out the cinnamon and said, "Use this!"  Good thing the recipe calls for cinnamon! :)

For your tasting pleasure...

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups flour
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla

Cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each.  Add dry ingredients, alternating with sour cream.  Mix.  Add vanilla.  Mix. 

Filling

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Pour 1/2 of the batter in greased 9x13 pan.  Cover with 1/2 of the filling.  Repeat.  Bake 40 minutes at 325 degrees.

November 11: Deanna's Playhouse

With my parents living in Holland, MI, I've driven past Deanna's Playhouse numerous times, but never really noticed it.  I wasn't aware of what it was until I discovered the link on grkids.com (one of the best sites!).  Deanna's Playhouse is a FANTASTIC place!  Grandma Smits met us there to explore the 15,000 square feet of toys, music, crafts, snacks, and so much more.  I was so impressed with the different areas of play and so were the boys.  They even had an area for infants/young toddlers with age-appropriate toys.  Of course, my boys immediately found the trains, but shortly after we arrived they had a story time.  The book, Mouse Paint (I think that was the title) was about three mischievous mice mixing paints to create different colors.  Koen and Brielle were the lone listeners (Ty was playing trains), and Koen received his own book to create at home (which he did soon after we arrived home).  

We were one of two groups there that morning which was so nice.  The kids could run and play wherever they wanted and I could easily keep tabs on them.  Of course, the staff said the weekends and winter days tend to be much, much busier. 

The neat thing about Deanna's Playhouse is its connection with the non-profit group Life Services.  They have a huge number of resources (brochures and check-out materials) to help parents and families...everything from encouraging reading to safe car seats. 

November 10: A few new things...

Brielle enjoying the sunshine...and showing off her shirt just for Aunt Elise who gave it to her!

 

Ty's rice box!

It was a gorgeous day outside, and Ty was restless.  I sent him outside, but all the outdoor toys, etc. had been put away for the coming winter so when I went to check on him, I found him digging in the mulch/dirt with his fingers.  Trying to protect our landscaping, I suggested Ty try a rice box, and idea I'd read about in a few different places.  We still don't have a sand box (on the must-have list for spring 2011) so I dumped a bunch of rice in a shoe box and told Ty to dig in that instead of the dirt.  We even pulled out some cars to bury and drive in the rice.  He had a blast playing with it out on the deck!!!  Unfortunately, while I was vacuuming the living room, he decided he wanted to play with the rice box inside the house, so he carried it in all by himself.  Tysen actually did a fairly good job of getting it in without much of a mess, but while he was playing with it indoors, rice began flying.  Fortunately, I had the vacuum out and was able to clean up the mess without too much fuss, but the rice box is an outdoor play idea, or if it is indoors it needs to be used in an area where the "flying rice" can be easily cleaned up.  (Just an FYI -- I had packed the rice away but needed to pull it out again when Ty asked to play with the rice box the following two days...he really enjoyed it!)



Blowing bubbles

After spending at least 30 minutes digging in the rice box Ty went out to blow bubbles.  This activity usually takes Ty less than three minutes simply because he dumps out the bubble solution.  Today was different!  He blew bubbles for at least five minutes before he dumped out the bubble solution.  He's been getting better at blowing bubbles as he gets older and it's fun to see his excitement and joy at being able to create beautiful bubbles! 

I decided to start another observation activity, too.  I'd used an avocado to make soup and kept the seed because one of my idea books, 365 Days of Creative Play by Sheila Ellison and Judith Gray, included an idea of growing an avocado tree.  All you need are:

• Avocado seed
• Sharp nail
• 3 toothpicks
• Small water tumbler



Ty places the toothpicks in the holes.

Make three holes in the avocado seed with a sharp nail.  Insert a toothpick in each hole and make sure they are secure.  Fill glass tumbler with water and balance the avocado seed on top using the toothpicks,  The tip of the seed should be in the water.  Place on a window ledge.  Soon a root and a shoot will appear.  As soon as the shoot has leaves, snip off the top.  This will let the avocado tree branch out.  Pot the little tree when roots are thick.  Continue to snip off the top growth to make a thicker bush.

In our experience, it's been 4 days and there's no growth yet.  We'll see...



Our avocado seed in water.



November 9: Thomas and Friends Magazine

THANK YOU to the person/people who purchased the subscription of the Thomas and Friends magazine for Koen and Ty!!!  They ADORE it, as you can see by the smiles on their faces.  The activities are wonderful for them and they've looked it over probably 50 times in the last day and will continue to look over it 50x50 times until the next one comes.  Though I tried to make some phone calls to figure out who might be behind this, I didn't find out anything...I hope I didn't ruin a surprise for someone by giving it to them, but we had no idea where/who it came from. 

November 8: Pudding Bread (again)

The recipe chosen for baking day was once again Pudding Bread.  This first made an appearance back in July and went over very well.  I keep wanting to try new recipes, and I do have some lined up, but for practical reasons -- like needing a snack for lunches this week -- we went with the tried and true Pudding Bread.  Stay tuned for new recipes in the future...

November 5-6: Overnight at Grandpa and Grandma Smits

The boys always love spending time with grandparents, and this overnight was a perfect fun-thing for them and a perfect babysitting-help for us!  Seth was running the Christian Eduction bowling fundraiser for our church on Saturday while I had a Premier Designs training all day in Allegan.  Grandma was kind enough to pick them up from the bowling alley and take them for an overnight.

This arrangement also allowed us to have a date night (with Brielle, of course) so we ventured out to Barnes and Noble for a supper of soup and sandwich and and evening of browsing.  Seth also picked up the newest Lee Child book (one of our favorite authors!) with a gift certificate he'd received as a thank you gift.    

November 5: Games Galore!

Friday isn't usually game day, but it had been awhile since Ty and I had played a game together, so I told him I was going to finish working in the office for five minutes and then we would play a game together.  I suggested he go find the game he wanted to play, he cheerfully said, "OK!" and ventured into the den on his own. 

When I left the computer room a few minutes later and met Ty in the den, this is what I walked in on.  I'm not sure if he couldn't decide what to play or if we was hoping we'd play all of them!  After cleaning up the mess, he selected Memory as our game to play (not even in the original mess).  Of course, his idea of playing Memory is to dump out all the cards on the floor and try to find  matches (just FYI- there are way too many cards in this game for a kid to play.  I usually try to pick out 8-10 pairs).  I tried to line up all the cards (face up) nicely so we could play some similar version of the original game, but by the time I finished doing that, Ty was finished with the game.  After all, he'd found three matches!