Patriotic Pinewood Derby Car

On Saturday, Wesley competed in his first pinewood derby.  He won his first heat but his car wasn't the fastest in his den.

Here are the other cars from his den.

The day before the derby, the pack sent out a detailed email describing the event.  That's when we found out that there was an actual category for Most Patriotic.  Chris and Wesley had already started on a patriotic car.  Wesley won a trophy for third place Most Patriotic 

Chris' advise: Don't wait until the week before the derby to start on the car.  Wesley liked working on it: Lydia loved working on the car.  Next year, we plan to let her participate in the derby.  Chris didn't realize until the day before (when the detailed email was sent out) that siblings could compete in the derby.  I only knew that because of facebook (my big source of news and most information it seems).

It was a great first derby experience for Wesley.  I bet he is even more excited about it next year.

Medieval Times

A couple of Saturdays ago, Chris took Wesley and Lydia to Medieval Times for the first time.

They didn't get any special packages or upgrades, but one child's admission was only $9.95.  For this month, for every adult admission ($56.95) one child is $9.95.  Regular admission for a child is $35.95.  I think they offer some sort of special every month.

Chris said Lydia was really excited and very much enjoyed cheering for their knight.

Here is a picture of one of the many horses in the performance.

A view of most of the participants.

Wesley enjoyed not being asked to use utensils.  That's actually why we even thought of taking the kids there.  Every meal we are constantly reminding Wesley, "Use your spoon" or "Use your fork."  One night Chris said, "Maybe we will just take you to a place where they don't have silverware and they expect you to eat with your hands."

Wesley and Lydia both enjoyed the dinner and the show.  Chris liked it also.  He was pleasantly surprised by the food; it was better than he expected.  I enjoyed the leftovers.  Maybe next time the whole family will go.

This concluded three days of fun for Lydia.  On Valentine's Day, one of our neighbor's took her to Disney on Ice.  On Friday, I took the kids to the National Children's Museum.  Then on Saturday, Chris took Wesley and Lydia to Medieval Times.  

National Children's Museum

Our kids didn't have school on Friday and we visited the  National Children's Museum.  It was not crowded since most area schools were in session.

It is $10 per person to get in.  We got in free because of a membership to another museum.  I am not sure the new children's museum is worth $10 a person to get in.  It would have cost us $40 and we did everything in two hours.  I think I would rather go to one of the indoor bounce places where we only pay for the kids.

 Overall, I was very disappointed in the National Children's Museum.  It is small!  It seems even smaller than the one in Richmond and it pales in comparison to the children's museums in  Baltimore, Philadelphia, Raleigh, and Columbia, SC.  I know they are going to open an outdoor space that is supposed to be as large as the indoor space but still I'm surprised by how little is offered inside.

I was disappointed but my children, the target consumers, had a great time!  The museum is targeted for kids 8 and under.  At 7 1/2, Wesley is near the top of the age range.  I think his love of imaginary play helped him to really enjoy the museum.  We spent a lot of time in the kitchen area.

Josiah had a great time and I think the museum was very good for two year olds, but not compared to other children's museums.

All three kids built something with Tinker Toys.

Wesley used magnets to make a robot.

In the theater area were these large foam blocks that could be used for building things.

After swinging the pipes around some, Josiah used them the intended way - he put balls through them.

There is a pretend firetruck that the kids enjoyed, but again it doesn't compare to the one in Columbia at Edventure.

Wesley dressed up and had fun pushing the "emergency" button.

Josiah climbed to the top of the bunk bed and then climbed down and took a break on the lower bunk.  It was around 4:00 and he hadn't taken a nap even though he was in his crib for over an hour earlier in the day.

In the three and under area, there is a climbing structure that he enjoyed.

Wesley and Lydia did art projects while Josiah played in the three and under area.  I like the art area better at the Richmond children's museum.

Josiah drove the food truck.

His favorite thing was putting the "money" in the "mailbox."  I'm not sure what this was but he kept calling it a mailbox.  He loved playing with the pretend money.

On our way out at 4:30, we saw people already lined up to get in at 5:00 for free.

I sort of feel bad saying that I think the National Children's Museum is too small and that I wish they had made it bigger and grander.  I am usually thrilled with the places we take the kids and I rarely have complaints.  I am sure we will go back since it is so close to our house but I'd rather drive to Baltimore .

Cookbook for Kids

Lydia is our picky eater.  It drives me crazy.  Usually she will at least eat a few bites of her dinner even if she says she hates it.  I won't give her anything else so she eats what I cook but I hate the complaining.  I have found that if she is involved in making a meal, she is more likely to eat it.  Especially, if it comes out of her cookbook, Pretend Soup.

There is a recipe in the book for Hide and Seek muffins.  We had them once before and used frozen blueberries since I didn't have strawberries.  This week we made them with strawberries and Lydia said she actually liked them better with blueberries which is surprising since she will not eat raw blueberries.

 Lydia added and mixed up all of the ingredients with my supervision and sometimes assistance.  She put 1/4 cup of batter in each muffin cup.  Then she dipped the strawberries in sugar.

 The cookbook has regular written instructions and pictures with short instructions. You "hide" one strawberry inside each muffin.

 I have found that muffins are one of the easiest things for the kids to eat on school mornings.  I don't have to cook anything since the muffins are made the night before or several nights before and the older kids can serve themselves.

When I told Lydia she could make the pizza from her cookbook, she said, "But it is vegetable pizza. I've already read that recipe and I know it is for vegetable pizza. Wesley and I don't like vegetable pizza." All the recipes in Pretend Soup are vegetarian because it is written by Molly Katzen.

I let Lydia knead the dough for the pizza.  I doctored up the can of tomato sauce by adding a little sugar and some Italian seasoning.

Josiah and I ate a lot of raw zucchini slices.  He kept saying it was cucumber but his older siblings weren't falling for it.  I told them they had to put a couple of slices of zucchini and mushroom on their pizzas.

I let the kids load them up with cheese.  One big mistake I made and didn't realize it until the dough had been rising for an hour is that I failed to read that recipe should be doubled to make eight small pizzas.  We only had three small pizzas so Chris and I ate leftovers.

Lydia ate her pizza with the vegetables on it!  Wesley took his vegetables off and Josiah ate his pizza and veggies. I did have a bite or two of Josiah's pizza and I really liked it.  I love homemade pizza!

In September, while our kitchen was being remodeled, Wesley brought home a cookbook from school and wanted to make Italian meatballs.  We couldn't make them at the time so I photocopied the recipe.  We have made the meatballs a few times since our kitchen was finished.  This week I let Lydia help me make them.

She ate the meatballs for dinner with pasta and a little sauce (my best homemade sauce yet; I combined several favorite recipes)  and she and Wesley took the leftovers to school the next two days.  The next time we have roasted vegetable meatloaf, I will have her help me and hopefully she will eat it.  When I made it two weeks ago, she first refused to eat it until she realized we wouldn't give her anything else.  She eventually ate five bites but it took her forever (over 15 minutes) to decide to eat it.

Do you have any kids cookbooks that you would recommend?  I'm looking for kids cookbooks with real food that I will also enjoy eating.

Homemade Valentine's

For the first time, we did homemade Valentine's.  I found the directions on Family Fun.

The kids were really into it.

Wesley made super hero lollipops.  I cut out the masks for him but he did almost all of the rest.

Here is one of the finished masked and caped pops.

Josiah used glue dots to put hearts on his capes, but Lydia and I did the rest.   Wesley didn't want to put hearts on his capes.

Lydia made heart flowers for her lollipops.  She did her Valentine's all by herself.

I had a hard time getting a picture of Josiah and one of his super heros.

He just wanted to play with it.

The finished product.

War with the Teacher

Last night was our school's annual chili cook-off. I didn't enter a chili; actually, I didn't take anything. I feel guilty but there was plenty of food.  The kids had so much fun playing together.  Lydia led a conga line.

Josiah had three desserts that I let him have - two mini-cupcakes and a banana square.   Later, I saw him with this cookie and I assumed Chris gave it to him but he didn't.  Another dad had left it setting on his table when he took one of his kids to the bathroom.  He said as he walked back to the table he saw Josiah heading for the cookie and he knew Josiah was going to get there first.  So, Josiah just helped himself to someone else's cookie.

These weren't my chili cups but they could have been.  There were around 20 different crockpots of chili and I tried about 1/2 them.  I especially loved the spicy ones.  A bison chili was the big winner of the night.  In addition to winning at least three awards, it was also the first empty pot.  I think Chris and I had the last bite of it.

The following picture brought tears to my eyes.  Wesley asked his teacher to play War with him and she sat down on the floor and played with him.

We all had a fun night.  I feel really blessed to be at our school.  I love the teachers and other families.

Bread Bowls

Wesley loves chicken noodles soup in a bread bowl from Panera.  Thankfully, he also loves my homemade chicken noodle soup.  This week, I found a recipe for homemade Italian bread bowls and I thought I would try it.  The bread bowl recipe was linked to a potato soup recipe that I also tried.

The bread bowls weren't hard to make.

When Wesley got home from swimming, he wanted to help put the final egg white glaze on the bread.

 I cut off the top of the bread and hollowed it out.

Time to add the soup.

Josiah ate one of the tops.   Dinner is so late on Sunday nights, that he usually has multiple snacks before dinner.

 This was a rare night indeed with the tv on during dinner.  We turned off the tv right after this picture, because Wesley kept turning around watching it.  I'm glad we didn't let the kids watch a lot of the Super Bowl or the commercials.  I am especially glad we didn't let them watch the half-time show.

I don't think the potato soup was the best soup to put in a bread bowl.  Tonight, we had the remaining bread bowls with Brunswick Stew which I liked a lot better.  After reading the reviews, I left out the brown sugar and the stew was sweet enough.  I accidently left out the potatoes this morning but we didn't miss them.  Chris thought the Brunswick Stew added a nice a flavor to the otherwise plain tasting bread bowl.   I think I will try the bowls again, maybe with tomato soup.