Ice Cream For Breakfast?

Yesterday it snowed here, and it's already almost all gone today. That's the way I like snow, here today, gone tomorrow. It was a very light snow, but for the south, this was a blizzard. Everyone got out of school, and the boy across the street was shoveling the snow out of his driveway with a real shovel. I awoke to the horrible scraping sound. It was an interesting sight.

My two oldest monkeys woke up bright and shiny (of course) and immediately wanted to go out to play in this white delight (mmm....that sounds like a name for ice-cream, maybe that's what I will name my snow ice-cream!).

I bundled them up Missouri style! To me that means so many layers on that you can't feel your arms and legs anymore, and plastic bags over your hands and feet to make sure the water doesn't seep through your clothes. We don't really invest in heavy gloves or boots, because you only get the chance to use them every 5 years or so.

Poor Baby Gray watched from the window because he has been sick. I felt so bad for him. At one point I hopped outside with the girls and threw snowballs at the window. He thought that was hilarious. One of my favorite things about babies is that anything you do is super funny. I get him laughing so hard that he can barely breathe, and I start feeling like I'm the next Lucille Ball. Then I look over at Stinkerbelle who is giving me one of those looks like" Really Mom, Reallly?" and I realize that I better enjoy my short time of being the funniest woman in the world.

Anyway, after everyone got tired of playing, I headed out and collected some untrampled snow to make snow ice cream. I have some fun memories of going to my grandma's house and having her fix this for me. In my mind, it was the best thing I had ever tasted, so I decided to make my own and it was pretty good too :)

Yes I was using a strainer to scoop it up, don't really know why,
it's just what I grabbed (worked pretty well though)

Homemade White Delight  (Snow Ice-Cream)
Ingredients:
Vanilla
White Granulated Sugar
Milk (you can also use condensed sweetened milk but plain whole milk worked just fine for us)


Directions:

First get a gallon of snow

Add 1 cup of sugar to the snow

I let Stinkerbelle poor the sugar

Pay no attention to Mini-Me's fingerprints in the sugar

Add 1-2 tablespoons of vanilla (I added 2 because I wanted it to be very flavorful)

 

Mix together,

and while mixing this, you add 1 to 2 cups of milk.

You can always tell it's winter when there is a big pile of
coats in the background :)

The snow we had was very dry, so I added 1 and 1/2 cups of milk.


Pretty simple! Spoon it up, and enjoy!

The kiddos were having it for breakfast (healthy huh?) so they thought it would be fun to add some cereal. I was not brave enough to try it, but they really liked it!!

Sister Talk 'N Fruit

Last night Coach was out watching his favorite college team get beat. I would feel sorry for him, except he was cheering for Missouri to beat UT. He got what was coming. I'm not really a fan of either, but Texas always comes first around here. (Sorry to all of my Missouri friends and family)

 I'm pretty sure he was the only one in the UT stadium wearing black and gold. Someone actually bumped into him as he was leaving the bathroom, and they apologized, saw his Mizzou hat, and took back their apology. We take our sports pretty seriously around here.

While Coach was out getting hassled by Texas fans, my sister came over to keep me company and hang out. She lives about 45 miles away, so occasionally we take turns driving to each others town. She and I get along really well now, but we love to remind each other of the horrible things we did to each other as children (she swears I was the only one, but she has no idea how much she taunted me). I couldn't help it that I thought it would be funny to see her eat dog food, and to see if she could escape if I taped her up with duct tape and left her in the basement. Wow, it sounds pretty bad on paper, but believe me, she loved the attention :) 

Our annual pajama match
(Yes, we are nerds)

Anyway, during our intellectual conversation last night about which shoes go better with our outfits, and the new Coach purse that she got a great deal on (which I am way jealous of by the way), I found out that she had never had a pomegranate. Random topic I know, but this is my new favorite fruit, and I had to share it with her. I know it's strange, but that's how sister speak works. One topic to another, and no real reason for the switch.

 I told her how I had just discovered this really cool fruit, and how fun they were to eat. Since she had not ever had one, I figured many of you probably have not had one either, so I had to share my new find and recommend it! I am including my step-by-step process of preparing a pomegranate. It takes a little time to eat, but it is soooo good for you. I've heard there are some awesome health benefits of it, but really I thought it was neat because it was different than the everyday apple, banana or orange. These are the kind of things I get excited about :)

There are always funky looking fruits at the grocery store that kind of scare me, no more Mr. Pomegranate, no more

Cut it in half, because the work is on the inside

There are little seeds on the inside (these are what you eat)

I would not recommend eating the peel!

Time to get dirty. Use your fingers or a spoon to pop the seeds out.

Is it just me or do my hands look extra wrinkly???

The seeds are kind of in little pods

Have a bowl ready to catch the seeds, I say this because I peeled my first pomegranate in the car

BAD IDEA!

Seems like a lot of hard work for one fruit

But you really do get a lot out of one.

According to Coach, each seed is like a drink of juice

I think the seeds are what would happen if a blackberry and a cranberry had babies (weird I know)

You'll See!

Try one and let me know how it goes!!!



Wanna Smile Today?

Today is game night! Go Team! The game is pretty far away tonight, so I will not be attending. I am there in spirit. Sending luck to the hubby. Since game nights are one of the hardest nights (watching the kids, fixing dinner, bathing children who think it is hilarious to splash the mascara off my eyelashes, and attempting to keep the house clean alone), I like to have an activity for my kiddos to do. I have found that:
 Food +Entertainment = A few minutes of peace (I'm not making any promises though!) :)

I first did this craft/snack with my speech therapy groups, and then did it with my monkeys at home!

They love it when I bring home work :)

Apple Smiles!

Ingredients needed:
*Apple/s
*Peanut Butter
*Mini Marshmallows                  

Start out with an everyday apple! The ones pictured are Gala's. I liked these because they were small and easy to create little smiles.

Thank you coach for being my Vanna!

Cut out 2 slices of the apple in an almost wedged shape.  Sorry the pic's are so blurry. My camera was in the early death stages at this time :(      Memories.......




















Add some peanut butter! This always makes any snack a hit with my speech kiddos! Peanut... Peanut Butter.......

  

Spread the peanut butter on one side of the apple slices. The peanut butter side will be the inside of the mouth.




Now add mini marshmallows to one slice of apple on the peanut butter side. Make sure to add the marshmallows close to the rounded outer edge. These will be our beautiful teeth!

Put the apple slice without marshmallows on top of the other one, peanut butter side down!

Tada! This person might need to floss.

This is a very simple craft recipe that only takes a few minutes to create, but is a ton of fun!

Say Cheese! Eat and enjoy!