Happy 4th

This cute little salad was my contribution to the big family 4th of July get-together. It was a bit time consuming, but not too bad. And the kids LOVED it! Something about fruit on a stick. I should try this more often.

To make it, just hollow out the inside of a honeydew and water melon with a melon baller. I used a cookie cutter to make the stars and found it works best on the water melon--the seeds in the middle of the cantelop make it tricky.

Then add grapes and strawberries. Mix it all up and fill the "bowls". Add a few kabobs, scatter the remaining fruit around the platter and, voila!!

Happy Easter!

Ok. This was one of the little kits you get at the grocery store with the foil pans, etc. Let's just say that mine looked nothing like the picture. But it tasted good anyway.

Valentine's Day

Andrew, the other ballet teacher at our school, was out of town last week. I was supposed to teach for him--3:45 to 9:00 (ugh!)--on Valentine's Day. However, for once all this crazy snow worked in my favor and the office ended up canceling all classes that day. So I got to spend Valentine's with my4 valentines.

I was not in the mood to cook (shocker), so we had Mac-n-Cheese, what more could you want on Valentine's Day? I did manage to make a cake.

Halloween

My kids were so excited for Halloween this year and it turned into a full 2 day celebration! On Tuesday, we went to our church "Trunk or Treat" party. So fun! The kids had a blast and got WAY too much candy. The boys were excited that there were 6 or 7 other ninjas there--it must be year of the ninjas.

Then on Wednesday, the boys had a party in their Kindergarten class. Rylee and I went in to help celebrate. Rylee was so grumpy for most of it, but once I was put in charge of "Musical Tombstones" she cheered up and played over and over again with the "big kids".

Halloween night, Grandma and Grandpa came over to help us celebrate. We had a SPOOKY dinner that the boys had fun helping with. We had green slime pizza. . .(Add food coloring to the mozarella)


. . .bread stick fingers, complete with painted nails. . .(almond slivers painted with food coloring)

Notice the heaps of Parmesan cheese in the lower right corner of the cookie sheet? Wes got a little carried away.

. . .and bug juice. . .(frozen raspberry lemonade, gingerale, frozen raspberries and gummy worms)

I also attempted to make fun cupcakes.
First, I tried these spiders that I saw on the Martha Stewart website, but Safeway didn't have black licorice and because I didn't want to run all over town with 3 kids, I settled for red legs. Yep. They would have looked better with black.
Next I attempted to make some cyclops aliens. The combination of too much sugar and too little sleep produced these interesting things--more like one-eyed crabs that Rainbow Bright threw up on.
After that unsuccessful attempt, I stuck to the quick and easy method. Much better.

Off to School!

I never imagined it would be this hard!! I know it's part of growing up and I remember how much I loved Elementary School, but I never thought this day would come so soon or that it would be so hard to send them off. I kept second guessing myself--did we make the right choice keeping them in the same class, did we make the right choice putting them in full-day kindergarten, have I told them everything they need to know, like the blue ice thing in your lunch box is to keep the food cold, it's not a popsicle, did I double-knot Weston's shoe laces so they won't come untied, did I write their names on their backpacks, will they remember where their cubbies are. . . .and on and on. I couldn't bear to go home to a quiet house, so Casey, my mom and I went to breakfast and hung out all day. Thanks, you two, for being there! I survived the first day--it's all downhill from here, right? :)

























We tried to make yesterday really special for the boys. We let them choose where we'd go to dinner--Wendy's, a real shocker there--and I made a cake for the special day. Of course, the picture of the cake was better than what I ended up with, but the kids liked it. The cake was complete with candles only because my kids think they belong on every cake regardless of the occasion. And Rylee said we needed to sing, "Happy School to You!" so we did.