Old Glory Run 5K

 Rain or Shine.  When I sign up for these events and see rain or shine on the form, I never even give it a second thought because, of course, it is going to be shine.  Well, joke was on me this morning, it was rain.  And not just sprinkles. It was heavy rain.  

It didn't stop us though. 

See, we are still smiling at the end!

Tie Dye Easter Eggs - Pinterest Buster

Soak the hard boiled egg for a few minutes in vinegar to ready the shell to take up as much dye as possible. Wrap the egg in a paper towel securing it with a twist tie.

Put a few drops of food coloring randomly on the paper towel.

Spritz with a spray bottle set on mist to make the colors bleed.

Leaving the eggs in the paper towel, set them in front of a fan until the towel is dry.

Open them up and if they aren't completely dry leave them in front of the fan for a few more minutes.

These turned out stunning!

They have a sort of night time, celestial sky look to them.

Dying Easter Eggs with Cool Whip - Pinterest Buster

This was so simple I wish I had known about this when my kids were little.  

Put a container of Cool Whip in a cake pan.  Dot with several different colors of food coloring.  Swirl the color around with a tooth pick, not too much though or it turns laundry lint grey.  We wore gloves for easy clean up.

Roll the hard boiled eggs in the Cool Whip until they are completely covered.  Let sit for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, take the eggs out and gingerly rinse them in a bowl of water so as not to disturb the color.  Allow to dry and they are good to go.

Give the leftover Cool Whip to your chickens.

Easter Bunny Origami - Pinterest Busters

A Tale of Two Bunnies

  The first one had over 20 steps to make this little bunny basket that will hold small trinkets.  Cute on the web site, but didn't work for us.  

Dancer would say this pin is busted.  Maybe if you are skilled in the art of origami, but for the beginner this is not a winner.

Second bunny had only nine folds and we successfully made a whole fluffle of bunnies.  The bunny stands up and you can brighten up your Easter table by using them as name place cards.  We have to say that this pin is winner, winner, bunny dinner.

Cinnamon Roll Easter Bunny - Pinterest Busters

Pinterest - the little corner of the world where everything is beautiful and perfect. One of the things our homeschool co-op likes to do is see if all that perfection is real or a ruse.  This week we tackled a few Easter pins. 

Since our co-op is three boys, we tend to navigate towards food pins and tried the cinnamon roll Easter bunnies.  The boys bravely opened the cans of premade cinnamon rolls.  Those things scare the crap out of me, but they didn't even flinch.

They spread out the rolls for the head and cut one roll apart to have dough for the ears.  The directions stated to leave a space in the middle of the ear to allow for the dough to grow.  Pop them in the oven following the baking directions on the can if you haven't already thrown the can away.

After frosting we added a couple chocolate chips for eyes and a nose.  They turned out pretty cute and delicious.

We would call this pin a success because, even if you make the ears to short, you have cinnamon roll bears.

Celebrating National Days

There is a national day for just about everything under sun. They range from the common, such as, Grandparents Day, that even gets a mention on most calendars, to the uncommon celebration of the rather morbid National Life Insurance Day. Over the last couple of years we have added celebrating these days into our homeschool.  We mostly focus on the days that are food related or one that can be celebrated with food. The first reason for the food focus is our co-op is teenage boys, who are always looking for something to eat, and secondly, teenage boys are not interested in making a craft that goes along with a theme.  There might be one, or maybe even two out there, but I don't know them.

In the last few days we have celebrated National Milkshake Day, I recommend peanut butter

and National Cheeseburger Day.

There are lots of websites out there to tell you what day it is, here is one to get you started National Day Calendar. I can tell you, I have my eye on the up coming National Ice Cream Cone Day (19th) and National Corn Beef Hash Day (27th).  

The Four Pound Hamburger and Three Pounds of Fries

Yep, that right, a 1-2-3-4 pound burger.  The boys in our co-op like to eat...a lot...and often. We thought, "Why not combine one of our favorite shows on the Travel Channel, Man vs. Food, and their seemingly hollow legs?" Our hypothesis was - is it possible to make a burger big enough along with fries to completely fill them up?  I'll tell you at the end.

First, the burger had to be made.  This took about 1 1/2 hours.  Thinking that they wouldn't be able to get down straight burger because it would be too dry, Dad mixed in a couple of eggs and crackers making it sort of like meatloaf.  He patted in a cast iron skillet because it would be too big to flip and it had to be cooked in a pan that could also go in the oven.  Before it hit the oven, he fried it on the stove to get the bottom done and then baked it in the oven.  After baking it was "flippable" so out of the oven came the burger.  Back on the stovetop it was flipped so that both sides were fried.

While that was cooking he sliced the bun.  In this case the only bun we could find big enough without having to make our own was a Kings Hawaiian round bread.

Toasted his bun in another frying pan.

Took it out of the oven when the liquids ran clear and it was cooked completely through.

Next came the layers of cheese. By now this behemoth smelled so good it could have been used as a torture device for getting people to talk.

Slapped on some mayo and a lettuce leaf.

Gingerly laid that bad boy on the bun and deposited a few rings of onion on the top.

Pickles on the side, three pounds of fries and lunch was ready to be served.

Ready to dig in.

We sliced it into wedges and 

they started eating.  

So can our boys eat a gigantic burger and a pound of fries apiece? 

The answer is......

no.  

They put a really good dent in it, but they just couldn't finish it.

As an aside, looking at the picture now it looks like they were throwing back a  beer with it, but that was innocent apple juice. It was a fun lunch and they were quiet the rest of the afternoon. Perhaps they were napping.

Complete Randomness

Nikki incognito

Dad making crochet humor.  I thought my little elephant needed a mom so I am in the process making her one.

Frog in glass by Spark

Mac and cheese doesn't have food coloring anymore!!!  It is has been about 10 years since has been welcome in our house, but it's in now! Seems like a novelty to us.

When Fluffles isn't sleeping he's trying to figure out how to get some Temptations cat treats.

Out to lunch

Dancer, the queen of selfies.

Yeah, that's a goat/llama water bucket.  They think the buckets are either a bathroom or a footbath.

The thank you gift we made for Spark's speech co-op leaders.

Double decker sleeping spot.

Car washing.

The want ads at the feed mill.

Bert after a bath.

Homemade vs. Store Bought OREOs

Our homeschool co-op is all boys and they like to eat so we do a lot of cooking when we get together.  The mom's don't complain either ;)

  

We were talking and realized that you never hear about people making homemade OREOs.  So the boys tried their hand at it.  The recipe they made was from the web site momables.

They cut them out with a shot glass (or a two table spoon sampler as Spark calls it) which was the perfect size.

The verdict?  If you have a hankering for OREOs, then buy the real thing.  The homemade are delicious, but they aren't OREOs, they taste more like the chocolate waffle cookies I made as a kid.