Archive for the ‘kids do’ Category

This week has been our Spring Break and we had planned a wonderful camping trip to Goblin Valley in Southern Utah.

The weather had other plans.  A large storm, spanning the whole state showed up in the weather forecast on the day we were supposed to leave and showed rain/snow through the weekend.

Being in the middle of slot canyon desert country in a freezing rain isn’t exactly our idea of fun- and can be downright dangerous thanks to flash floods, so we decided to make the best of it and have a “Staycation” instead.

We’ve been to the Zoo, the Aquarium, the movies, and dinner at the kid’s favorite Cafe Rio.  We’ve rented Redbox movies, made cinnamon rolls, played games and even worked in the yard a bit.  Yesterday my girls went for a sleepover at their Nan and Pops, which has given Ben some time to hang out with his mom and dad.

Since it was stormy during the day, we watched Sherlock Holmes together and Ben made his dad’s favorite cookies.

The only trouble is, Oatmeal Scotchies aren’t exactly Ben’s favorite cookie.  He loves chocolate chips.  So he pulled out some of the dough and added chocolate chips for himself.  The rest were for his Dad… butterscotch all the way.  (These are one of my favorite cookies made with Craisins… but I wasn’t about to ask Ben to make a third variety.)

It was so nice just to sit back and take pictures and watch my kiddo make cookies.  He’s really going to be a really good cook someday… he already can make awesome cookies.

Start by adding a cup of both brown and granulated sugar.

Cream together with 1 cup of room temperature butter.

Add in 2 eggs.  Ben is still learning to crack eggs and hates when he breaks the yolks.  I’ve cracked hundreds… heck… probably thousands of eggs and I still break a yolk on occasion.  No big deal especially when it’s going in to cookies.  I’ve taught my kids to crack eggs into a small glass bowl, instead of directly into the cookies.  That way if they have any stray shell in the egg, it’s easy to see and pick out.  It adds a bowl for washing, but it really beats shell in your cookies.

Add two tablespoons warm water.  I love, love, love my shot glass measuring cup for small amounts of liquids.  It measures up to 3 tablespoons at a time.

Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla.  One way I know Ben will be a good cook is he is already willing to experiment a bit.  He said as he was baking that he wanted to see what happened if he added a bit more vanilla, since he loves the flavor.  Ben’s cookies had 1 -1/2 teaspoons of vanilla.  Yum.  Mix it well.

Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda and 1 teaspoon of salt.

Ben added 2 cups of flour.

And three cups of rolled cooking oats.

Here’s what happens when Ben makes cookies.  Wow.  He pulled out about half the dough for his chocolate chip and the rest he added butterscotch chips.  And yes he did clean it all up in the end.

Scoop them out onto a greased cookie sheet.  A cookie scoop really helps kids get more even cookies.  Ben scooped every tray with both types of cookies.

Here’s Ben’s favorite way to eat cookies.  Dough, baby, dough.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes, until golden brown.

And Ben’s second favorite way to eat cookies- warm out of the oven.

Enjoy.

Oatmeal Scotchies

Makes 3 1/2 dozen

• 1 cup room temperature butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 Tbs. water
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/2-2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. soda
• 3 cups cooking oats
• 1 1/2-2 cups butterscotch chips
  

Cream butter and both sugars together.  Add eggs, water and vanilla and mix well.  Combine dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture.  Add butterscotch chips (or your choice of chocolate chips, craisins or raisins) and bake at 350° for about 12 minutes, until golden brown.

Click over to my Tasty Kitchen recipe box for the printable recipe.  The recipe says for Craisin Oatmeal, but just replace the craisins for your favorite chip.

A few months back I went out to lunch with a friend and she brought a lovely pillow to share that she had just finished putting together.

Sometime after the lunch I was talking on the phone with my mom and mentioned Amy’s wonderful pillow and that it made me want to start sewing hexagons right that very moment.

Well you’ve got to be careful what you mention to my mom about anything related to quilting.

No sooner had we hung up the phone, that she called her good friend Joyce to borrow her Accuquilt.  And within a few days, she had cut bunches and bunches of hexagons.

Since a quilting project doesn’t hang around long at her house with getting started… She even began putting them together.

After I picking them up from her, I happily sat down one evening to stitched hexagons.

I hadn’t gotten far when my Emma came in too see what I was stitching.

What are you stitchin’ Mama?  What’s it going to be?  Ooooh, I LOVE it.  That is exactly what I want Ruthie’s quilt to look like.

Ruthie is Emma’s 1930’s American Girl doll, so she was spot on, since many of the hexagons are 30’s or 30’s inspired fabrics.

“Mom, do you think I could stitch hexagons?”

“Let’s give it a try.” I said.

So in no time at all Emma was happily stitching together hexagons.  And my new pillow will be a new quilt for Ruthie instead.

She still is learning how to stitch her hexagons around the paper pieces, but she can sew them together using a very neat little blanket type stitch.

If you’ve never stitched hexagons and you’d like to… you certainly don’t need an Accuquilt… you can buy different sized paper pieces at many quilt shops, and cut the fabric out by hand (a rotary cutter works best).   And you don’t use a sewing machine, so they’re a nice on the go project.

The very talented Lori Holt has a great series of tutorials on hexagons found here and here.