Fresh Homemade Bread

Yep...I made this yesterday! And so of course, I had to share with you!!

Don't be alarmed, you all know my kitchen capability and this was REALLY REALLY EASY.

Do not be intimidated.

Here's where I got the directions: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/Artisan-Bread-In-Five-Minutes-A-Day.aspx

Apparently you can add herbs and make herb bread or you can make pizza's with the dough or a bunch of other stuff. I'm going to perfect the Master Recipe before moving on first. The best part is you do this once, and the dough keeps up to two weeks.

I hope you love it, it was positively scrumptious and ohh so tasty! If the recipe link above scares you, go to my blog, I wrote a longer post about it there!

Do this with your kiddos - they'll love it!

Activity bags

This past summer on vacation we drove from here to Durango, CO. We drove the 750 miles in two days each way. Now that's a lot of car time for a 1-year-old and 4-year-old, and frankly for mommy and daddy too!

So in preparation of the trip I made up a bunch of activity bags. Activity bags are individual activities with all needed materials portioned into a gallon zip-lock bag. There's actually a great book out there which I haven't read but puts this philosophy to work for home school moms with preschool age children. It provides a self-directed activity with minimal instruction from the parent so they can focus on older children. Its a brilliant idea, and it worked great for our trip. In fact, I liked this idea so much, I've maintained several of the bags and we pull them out a few times a week for general activity or when I need to get something accomplished with fewer interruptions.

We use a medium size metal cookie sheet to contain these activities at home or in the car. If we use up some of the materials I replace them and they go back in the activity bag box (a storage drawer). Each bag is labeled with the activity name.

Below you'll find some of our favorites, and I bet it will be enough to get your juices flowing too.

Cutting: A pair of kids scissors and anytime of cutting material: paper of different weights and colors, fabric, felt, etc. The paper could be junk mail, or old cards or really anything since it goes in the trash afterwards. You could include or make a separate bag with craft punches too. We recently had little bears all over the house because someone got into this bag without asking....

Felt Story Board: This can be super easy or a bit more complicated. I made a mini one, small enough to travel with. But I've also seen them mounted in a picture frame so it looks like a portrait. Then I added felt shapes to be used to create pictures or stories.

Beads: Lots of beads of your choice and some cording or string. You can instruct them to make patterns with the beads or let them do it free form. I also made a second one with fruity cheerios - activity, necklace and snack in one!

Pint-Sized Adventure: Amy's Farm

Remember, we won't be meeting until the 15th of this month, but we are doing a Pint-sized adventure THIS WEEK!! It's a bit early this month because of scheduling, so I hope you are all headed back into the swing of routine, and ready for a pint-sized adventure with the kiddos. Amy's Farm will be giving us the farm tour and we'll be able to see and cuddle some cute little baby chicks.

Watch for an email with more details or contact me at ke_osborn@hotmail.com

Happy New Year Time Capsule

I thought this time capsule can would be fun and I'm going to try it with the kiddo's tomorrow.

Let us know if you liked the idea too, and how it went if you try it or if you do other time capsule activities to mark your new year.

Hope your holidays have been spectacular - looking forward to where God takes us in 2009.