Grace's Ice Cream Creation

Last Thursday, it was announced that Grace was the first place winner of the ice cream sundae design competition!  For each one the store sells, they are donating money to the PTO at her school. = )

I'd originally told her that we would collect her prize after they were out of school, and before the big kids got out, because we would be looking for things to do.  After sleeping on it, I reconsidered, because when are you the most excited to give out prizes? Right after you award them, right?

So, Friday evening, after a pizza dinner, we drove over, as this is not our local ice cream shop, but rather the one in Holt, and Grace got to see her creation brought to life!

They have a lovely chair available for photographs, so we had group and individual shots!

Even I was able to squeeze onto the giant chair with my little ones. = )

Ironically, they didn't yet have the prizes available, but we will be back to cheer on our Grace and support the school!

later days

Creating: Cooking and Crafting

The past few weeks have been busy, but not much in the way of crafting or picture worthy cooking!  I made a meal from the Kroger recipe section, but ended up with these awful noodles that made messes every time I used them: cooking, storing, reheating!  

The noodles came in odd amounts for what I needed, so I ended up with a poor noodle to sauce ratio, which was a shame, because I feel like this meal could have been great, and it was mediocre at best. = (  Everyone did enjoy the shrimp though!

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As a fundraiser, the robotics team asked for donations for a bake sale.  Emily and William had to help me make the treats, but I found these cute little (off season) square bottomed papers, unopened, at a rummage sale!  They turned out to be an ideal size for the goodies we made.

First up are Emily's contribution: monster cookies.  They were on sale, after Easter, egg shaped cookies. I still see the egg shape, but everyone else's first comment was 'monster' so I think they must have been okay.

William's treat was two pans worth of brownies!  I was able to fit everything in two extra large bags and one small bag*!  

One final craft was a picture Grace drew of one of the Lansing Lugnuts.  They are having a competition where they want kids under 13 to send in a picture of their 'favorite' Lugnut.  Grace didn't have a preference, so we picked the Tech alum!  I felt like she did a great job.  And, they had an option where you could mail it in instead of signing up for an account online, so we did that.  = )  Winners will be chosen after May 18th.

Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of it until after it was already out in the mailbox, so she had to run out to grab it, so that I could snap my picture!  I'm really glad that I have a picture of it though**. 

This post is making me feel like we haven't been very creative this month, but I think it's misleading, and we've just had bigger projects that are getting their very own posts. = )

later days

*I told William that three bags is essentially my entire allotment for the year!  Sadly, I had no appropriate boxes to put them in, and I had to make them two days before we sent them in because Monday was too busy, so the bags also kept the baked goods from drying out.

**When I go to print out the blog maybe I'll remember to include the picture I saved from the website that she used as a reference, but that's a good half year away, so probably not.  I don't want to put it in now, lest they send me some sort of cease-and-desist order and make me delete my blog.  I'd be super sad.  

Crafts and Projects

The past few weeks have been full of projects and crafts and creativity.  Here are some of the highlights!

Alice is entering into an Easter contest with her drawing of some of her favorite dragons.  Her art has come such a long way and I'm super proud of how good her end product looks!  

One of the twins made a tiny envelope out of a fruit by the foot that was leftover from Emily's birthday party goody bags.

Billy designed a birdhouse that was a seven-day print!  Once he finished both pieces, Emily, Grace and Juliet spent some time decorating it.  I don't think any birds have moved in yet, but maybe the next time it warms up?

On our way to pick Avia up from the airport, we saw signs for an estate sale.  Since Emily's party was not until evening, we had time to use up.  I took Emily, Grace, and Juliet with me.  Their prices were awesome!  

We bought an entire box of assorted, hand-picked goodies for $1 and I found a rack for my basement door for $5!!  I'd been keeping an eye on a $26 one on Amazon, but the racks were not nearly so deep as this one.  Billy helped me install it, and in no time I'd moved over my baggies and rolls, found a new home for my flour mill and had one opening for a hand mixer!

I feel like we use very few new baggies, and do a decent job of reusing bags.  This was validated by the fact that we still have two boxes of bags that are from HEB.  We moved here 7 winters ago!!! = )

The very next week, I scored a hand mixer for $2!!!  It even came in this lovely case, with a change of attachments.  = )  Upon inspecting it at home, I found that the handle was very sticky, but it was no problem for some goo b gone!

Moving all of the bags and rolls over, as well as my 'random' bags and Billy's cups left so much room in the cabinet, I now have a place to store my dehydrator!!!  It's also much easier to grab the item that I need, since they are no longer in cases or stacked on top of each other. = )

A few weeks ago, I spied some squishmallow grab bags on Aldi's "Aldi Finds" aisle.  They were $10 each, and the squishmallows inside were tiny.  Obviously, I loved the idea, so I raided the squishmallows, that I've already bought, in Sarah's basement.  I found 5 that were of comparable size/area of interest.

My next step was to cut apart an Aldi grocery bag, turn it inside out, tape on the label, then tape it back together.

I printed off the picture of the 'Crocker Easter Collection' so that they could have the full blind bag experience. 

Next up was squishing the stuffie into place!

And, finally I rolled up the top and bottom, securing them with a stapler.

Each bag has a mark to indicate which child gets which one, but it might be small enough to avoid detection. = )

Grace taped some eyes on her squishy ball.

The wind made a unique pattern on the bacon grease I set outside to cool.

Emily came home with a massive tear in her jeans, but this time I had my washable marker to make the pattern look more uniform.  I think it came out really cute! I did ask that next time she bring it to me when the hole is a little smaller. = 0

Juliet's playdoh creation.

Grace wanted a 'special' cup in which to make her chocolate milk.  So, she and Juliet spent time crafting some character cups using polystyrene that they found in the recycling bin. = )

Looking at the April calendar, I'm not quite sure when we'll find the time to craft, but I'm sure we'll squeeze it in somewhere!

later days