White, the Color of the Week

This week has really felt like fall, weather wise! We finally have been in the 60's instead of the 80's, and I have finally turned off my air conditioning. You might find it weird that I would have the ac on in 80 degree weather, but our townhome that we live in has a flat roof so it is hard to keep cool. Luckily though it keeps heat in really well, and even though the weather can be in the 40's outside my house will be a pleasant 69 degrees without having to turn the heat on. This is great because gas can be so expensive! All this wonderful cool weather called for some fun activities, and some comfort food. Our color of the week was white, and this is what we did for it:

Sunday: We went apple picking at Steffan's Orchard in Conway with my brother-in-law Darren, his boyfriend Matty, and Matty's kids, Celest and Ru. We went later in the year than we did last year, we found out that most of the trees had been picked clean. We got our share of wonderfully delicious crisp apples though!

 

My kids love apples, especially Ares, who ate around 3 of them throughout the time we were there.

After apple picking we all went for a delicious dinner at Gambino's, and it was so much to eat and catch up with family. We were there for quite awhile just enjoying each others company!

Monday: Kyle and I spent the afternoon cleaning and airing out the house. We then made one of our favorite soups, copycat Panera broccoli and cheese soup, along with some homemade bread. YUM! Here is the recipe from when I made it last year. It is delicious! While the soup was cooking, Ares and I started work on the apple pie from the apples we picked on Sunday. I decided to make Caramel Apple Crunch Pie. We sliced the apples, added the ingredients to the apples, mixed it up, and put it into the pie. I then made double the crumble to put on top, then added the pie crust. It made our whole house smell divine! My friend Nick was over at the house helping Kyle and I with some financial budget, and I gave him and his boss our first slices, and they gave their stamp approval. Shortly after the kids and Kyle gave their approval as well! This pie was much better than the one I made last year.

Tuesday: For our science project for this week I had the girls make their own butter. This went better than what I had done so far for the color white this week (ask you can obviously see from above). 

What you'll need:
Heavy Whipping Cream
Baby food jar with lid

1.) You fill the jar half full of  heavy whipping cream. (We made a little bit of a mess with ours!)

 

2.) Then shake it for about 10 minutes, or until the cream is thick and sticking together.

 

3.) Pour out the remaining milk (this is buttermilk), and then put the butter in your hands and run it under cold water to get off any buttermilk. Add a little bit of salt and roll it into the butter if you want too. We didn't because I think it tastes better without. Then you put it back in the jar and you have butter. If you notice, homemade butter is a lot more white than store butter.

 

The rest of our day was very quaint. I helped Ares with his homework after school, like I always do, and then surprised him with a new book for him to read. This book was very special to me because the books I had found the day before are old (published in the 40's- early 60's), and they belonged to my Dad, and possibly one of my grandparents too. The book I had him read was "Fun with Dick and Jane", and he loved it! He said he liked it better than some of his other books.

 

Wednesday: This day was just so blissful! After school I took the kids to Riverside Park because I knew there would be geese there. I was hoping to see snow geese, but all we could find while driving around the river were the Canadian Geese. The kids tried to get close to the geese, but they had other ideas.

 

We also found a squirrel hole in a tree, and all the kids wanted their turn to see what was up in it. Sadly, Ares said there wasn't anything in it.

 

When we got home the house smelled wonderfully of dinner that was cooking in the crockpot. For dinner I had made white chicken chili, and it was absolutely delicious!

 

For dessert I made Pumpkin Spice White Hot Chocolate, and it was heavenly! Everyone loved it!

 

After we finished our yummy dessert, Ares wanted to play a game with Kyle called Small World. I just learned how to play this game just a few days prior, and was in no position to be helpful to Ares play the game so I just watched. Brigid tried to help play too.

 

Thursday: After taking Ares to school it was cleaning day, again. It was a nice and quiet afternoon.

 

Friday: I got to watch little Miss Emma again!  The girls had so much fun playing together!

 

For our art project of the week I had the kids make ghost foot print plates. I just painted their little footsies....

 

Then stamped those little footsies onto black paper plates...

 

and this was the final product! Aren't they adorable!?!

 



Brown, the Color of the Week

You may think brown is not that fun of a color, but there are a ton of things to do with the color brown! Since Ares was going to be gone on vacation on Thursday I tried to fit in what I could in three days.

Monday: For our water activity I made a brown bath. I did not take a picture of this because in all honesty, brown water is actually rather gross looking. I had mixed the color tablets we had and it turned out brown. Then we added toys that we had that were brown.

Tuesday: I had the pleasure of watching little Miss Emma on Tuesday so after Kyle and I took Ares to school we took all three girls to the park.

While we were at the park I had the girls help me pick up acorns. Only Brigid tried to eat them, and Ceri and Emma were more interested at looking at them.

After I picked up Ares from school that afternoon he did his homework, we all ate dinner, and then headed to the Mary and Bill's miniature horse farm. When we got there, Mary had some chores for Ares to do first. He first had to shovel out a stall. You would think a 6 year old wouldn't like having to do this, but he thought it was so much fun! (In fact he was asking to go back all last week!)

Then Mary took all the kids on quick wheel barrow rides. She went to fast for us to get a picture of Ares though!

Afterwards we went to go get the horse that belonged in the shed that Ares shoveled out, and Ares put him away. I can't remember the horse's name, I want to say Spice, but I don't think that's right. He did a very good job leading the horse to his stall. Mary tried to get the girls to pet the horse, but they were a little scared. Ares then fed him.

Ares helped Mary put all the other horses in their sheds for the night, and then led their dwarf pony in for the night as well.

Before we left to take Ares to karate, Mary pushed the girls on the swing. Ares then found a HUGE caterpillar! We took it home with us to put in a jar, and give to his teacher. We had such a fun time out there! Thank you so much Mary for letting us come out, and having Ares help you, he loved it!

Wednesday: After tutoring and dinner I had the kids do this week's art project. I painted the kids' forearms brown (Ares did his own), and had them press it onto the paper to make the trunk of our trees.

Then I painted the kids' hands red, pressed that to the paper, and did the same thing with orange and yellow. This made our leaves.

We then glued on the acorns that we had collected on Tuesday. Here's how they turned out!

After our art projects were done, it was time for taste testing brown foods. I had them eat wheat bread, accept Ares. Bread is always a hit.

Peanut butter was next on the list. Luckily none of my kids got my peanut allergy.

Then the finale was chocolate chips! My personal favorite brown food.

Thursday: That morning I dropped Ares off with his dad for them to go on vacation at World's of Fun. I then took the girls over to Kyle Ann's for a play date. I had forgotten to bring my camera that day so I didn't take any pictures unfortunately. Jude and the girls haven't played together for a couple weeks, and you could tell they had missed each other!

Friday: I got the house and the girls ready for Kyle and I's first date night in a couple months! It really was an awesome week! :)