Gluten-Free Creme Brulee Chocolate Gingerbread French Toast

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day last week!  I thought I would share a delicious part of our special day with you - breakfast!

This was an experiment with two recipes:
Gluten-free Chocolate Gingerbread and Creme Brulee French Toast.

I just substituted the leftover Chocolate Gingerbread for the bread part in the Creme Brulee recipe to make a gluten-free treat that my mother-in-law could enjoy (she cannot have gluten) and...oh...my!!!

This was soooooooooo rich and soooooooooo good!  For those of you looking for an amazing gluten-free recipe to knock the socks off of your gluten loving friends - this may be just THE one!

I hope to post some of our homeschooling activities we did for Valentine's Day this weekend or early next week.  After the fact?  Yes!  It's never too early to bookmark or pin it for next year!  :)

100th Day of School - Homeschool, That Is! ;)

Woo hoo!  Yesterday was the 100th day of our school year!  I must say I was a bit worried that we had missed it with all that has been going on at our home lately, but as I caught up on attendance/homeschool day records, I realized (JOY!) we hadn't passed that mark yet after all.   I even had a few days to quickly come up with some ideas...double JOY!

So being the Pinterest lover that I am, I headed that way for some inspiration.  Thank you once again Pinterest for helping to save the day (someone seriously needs to come up with a button saying "Pinterest to the rescue!"  Actually, they probably already have...and pinned it.  But I digress...).

Here's how the day went...

Miss A burst through a "100" sign when she got up in the morning (it was taped over the doorway).

A "100th Day" balloons and bear sign graced the table (a freebie that I colored).  I also added a little pizzazz to some breakfast muffins by sticking crazy candles on top.

We decorated more freebies - these ones for wearing: 100th Day of School hats and glasses.

Crown link here.  Glasses link here.

One of our first activities involved a Smarties hunt to go along with the "Congratulations - you are 100 days smarter!" note.  I had the kids use spoons (although at the end they switched to hands) to dig through the mix of cereal in a pan and then place the Smarties on a hundreds number chart.  

Once all the goodies had been recovered, it was time to practice some subtraction...in other words:  time to indulge those watering, patient little mouths.  You must admit, it is kind of amazing that all the Smarties actually made it onto the chart!

Then it was time for a weighing activity.  Notice that I posted this even though I was the only thing listed as weighing more than 100 pounds.  I'm not sweating it, but I DID have Daddy add his name to the list when he arrived home.

Snack time was an extra special affair - a make-your-own 100th day snack mix with some little surprise treats included (like M&M's).  I gave Miss A a paper on which to record the groups of ten items each as she counted them out from the ten paper plates to reach the big 1-0-0.  

Yummmm - definitely a hit!  :)

And knowing what the snack was going to be, I chose to do this activity afterwards to use up that sugar.  "How wise of you, Michelle" you might be tempted to think - but hold that thought...  

I suddenly realized that I was going to be roped into doing most, if not all, the exercises as well - why I didn't plan for this when I was coming up with exercises is beyond me.  BUT, I made it through our little workout - thinking more than once how this part or that part of my body would probably be sore later on...

This was another activity we found time for during the day, AND it was another freebie (find it here).  :)  I LOVE Miss A's responses - definitely going in the memory box!   Some of you may already know how to read Childrenish, but for those who have yet to discover the pleasure, here's a key for some of my favorite words/phrases:

"bracking throo a sin" = breaking through a sign

casols = castles

hawis = houses

noospaprs = newspapers

pickchurs = pictures

yun = young

I also like how her "this is what I look like today" and "this is how I think I will look in 100 years" pictures look the same except for the size.  Obviously, she would be more grown up in 100 years.  ;)

After that activity, we spent a very brief amount of time discussing aging and the elderly.  So this was how she made herself look in this picture showing her as a 100 year old woman.  

Another fun phrase completion:  "When I am 100 years old,  I will be too old to put up wreaths."  Cracks me up.  Definitely not what I would have written or thought of, but that is the beauty (and cuteness) of such open-ended possibility questions.

Well off to bed and then on to Valentine's Day activities...

Linking up here:

http://www.theeducatorsspinonit.blogspot.com/

www.homeschoolcreations.blogspot.net

www.tatertotsandjello.com

Lesson Theme: Winter and Snowmen!

I had planned to post this a while ago, but we had a critical family emergency almost two weeks ago and it is still an ongoing situation.  Some family members flew in and are staying with us - at this point, we just have to wait and pray.  

Needless to say, my attention has been focused elsewhere a majority of the time, but today I have a few moments to spare and thought I would hop on here and post this.  Keep in mind a good chunk of this was written much earlier in the month...

We've spent quite a few days on our winter activities in school.  Hope you are "snow" (cheesy, but I couldn't resist) excited to see what we've been up to...

With winter things on the mind, a visit to the Snow Fairy Shop was in order.  Miss A could pretend to be a snow fairy buying snowflakes to scatter across a winter scene.  Great practice for money and double digit number addition!  

The snowflakes she purchased, she later added to a winter coloring page we found online and printed (she could pretend to be a snow fairy causing it to snow on her picture).

Another great winter activity - building snow forts!  The forts will hopefully grow as we come up with more word snow bricks to add to the appropriate forts.  

I saw this here and thought it was such a cute idea that I decided to make one for Mr. J to play with after reading the story "Katy and the Big Snow".   (The buildings are just empty boxes - cereal, crackers, etc. - with a piece of paper on the front.  Very cheap to make, and your city can grow all week long depending on what you have finished up for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.)

And what is winter without the occasional snowball fight?  For practicing our number facts, Miss A would choose a number sentence paper, figure out the answer, crumple it up and then throw it at the appropriate face (the answers below each head match the number sentence snowballs).  

To make this, I slipped each of the faces into a sheet protector and put a bunch of double stick tape on the front in hopes that the snowballs would stick when they hit the faces.  Sadly, they didn't, so we went to Plan B...

Plan B:  If Miss A hit the appropriate face, she could then pick up the paper and press it onto the face.  Doing this often worked out better for having the snowballs stick to the faces at least for a few minutes.  If we do this activity again next year, I think we should try using tissue paper snowballs instead which I think would stick a lot better to the tape.  Anyways, it was fun just to toss the snowballs at the correct faces.

Snowflake fact matching was another way of practicing our math facts.  Just connect the number sentences to the correct answer to make a snowflake.

We also practiced a bit of symmetry using snowflakes.  I would give Miss A half of a snowflake and some q-tips and she would have to finish it by creating the other half on the other side.

I gave Miss A a few seconds to hunt for words in the "snow" and gather as many as she could.  She then used the words she collected to write a story in her journal.  She did such a good job using them all!

Catching snowflakes on your tongue is overrated - why not catch them with your mitts instead?  I wrote words on some foam snowflakes we had, and we first sorted the snowflakes by NOUNS, VERBS, and ADJECTIVES.   We then gathered them together, and I threw them in the air a couple of times.  The ones which Miss A caught, she used to come up with some sentences and write them into her journal.  

I saw this cute snow globe activity, and just knew I wanted to try to make our own!  After Miss A finished her snow globe scene, we pretended she lived in a snow globe and had to answer the questions about her life inside.  It was cute to see what she came up with...

Using small plastic cups, we tried to see how high we could stack them (no glue) to make a snowman - we then used my son's new measuring tape to practice measuring the height.  I believe the record to beat was 27.5 inches.  :)

We are supposed to be practicing fact families on a daily or almost daily basis.  Because of our winter theme, I decided to sneak a snowman into the process.  I made him with scrap paper and slipped him inside a clear plastic sleeve - that way I can continue to write the facts on the snowman and erase the whole thing after Miss A is done writing her math sentences for the day.  The next day, I can just write a new fact family on the snowman (I try to write the smallest number on the top and go in descending order with the biggest number on the biggest snowball at the bottom).  

Side note:  I can see using this to practice making three letter words as well!

We also came up with a simple dessert to go along with our chilly theme - see more about our Snow Bars here.

Linking up here:

http://www.theeducatorsspinonit.blogspot.com/

www.homeschoolcreations.blogspot.net

www.tatertotsandjello.com

Father-in-law...

Hey everyone,
I know I said I would try to post soon but my wonderful father-in-law had a massive heart attack while in flight to another state so this week and last week have been very tense and full of ups and downs as one moment we are told he probably won't make it and the next that he has a chance.  He had to be medi-flighted (not sure what the correct term is) to a special cardiac hospital so it has also meant a lot of travel for family members, and I've been working on this end to keep our church and family and friends updated on a daily basis so they know how to pray.

We have been SOOO blessed by the outpouring of love and prayer and offers of help from our church here, our homeschool group, and the church from where we moved.  Amazing to be part of such a family of believers that surround us with love and care and we are truly grateful for them!

We've seen God answering a LOT of prayer and working in amazing ways - showering us with so much comfort and reminders of love via his children here on earth in the difficult times as well as the joyous.  We are blessed to know that whatever the next few days hold, my father-in-law is a born again believer and if the Lord chooses to take him home to heaven, that we will see him again one day when we arrive there as well.

He is in critical care right now but they are preparing to place an LVAD pump in his heart tomorrow - apparently a very long surgery so I am sure it will be a long day in so many ways.  A huge thank you to those who have been praying - we appreciate it SOOOO much!  :)  I will try to update tomorrow on this post.

UPDATE:  he has had an immune response to something so the surgery has been postponed.
UPDATE:  My FIL had the surgery yesterday and will be stitched up tomorrow barring any further complications - yes that means his chest has been open since yesterday - it is complicated but there were some bleeding issues that had to be resolved first.  Now we are waiting for the moment they wake him up early next week to see if he has suffered any brain damage from all of this.
UPDATE:  My FIL is responding well now.  He is slowly improving - for which we are thankful, but is still in critical condition.

P.S.  I do have a blog post about some of the winter stuff we had been doing but it is in mid writing and editing stage and probably won't have as many activities as I had planned since I have cut some of our school stuff back to mainly core items at this time.  Just too much going on and we have family now here since they medi-flighted him to that special hospital closer to our home.

Le Chef Petite: Snow Bars!

Our theme in school this week has been WINTER!  This was a cool dessert we made to go along with that theme.  Hope to post more about our thematic good times next week!  :)

SNOW BARS

Ingredients:

1 package of chocolate cookies (any kind you like - we used chocolate graham crackers)

1 container of vanilla, mint or other white ice cream or frozen yogurt

1 container of Cool Whip or whipped topping

OPTIONAL (see optional steps in directions):  winter sprinkles;  sour patch kids, gummy bears, or gummy worms.

Directions:

1. Set the milk and the Cool Whip on the counter about half an hour before you start so that they are very soft and easy to scoop and spread - you may need to wait even longer than a half hour.
   
   
2. Place chocolate cookies in a single layer on the bottom of the pan you use (we used a 13x9) to be the ground/"dirt".
   
   
   
   
   
3. Drop softened or melted ice cream  ("snow") onto the layer of cookies and gently spread out to cover the cookies.
   
   
   OPTIONAL STEP:  Hide/insert Sour Patch Kids (playing in snow), gummy bears (hibernating), and/or gummy worms (waiting for the spring season to arrive) in the "snow" layer.  REMEMBER to warn your kids that these will be hard once frozen so be careful when biting down - if you have very small children, it would be wise to skip the candy for now as it could pose a choking hazard.
   
   
   
   
   
4. Spread the Cool Whip on top of the ice cream layer making sure to cover any candy so all the kids and/or animals are completely hidden by the snow (part of the fun is finding what is hidden in the snow you are eating later on - see the tiny Sour Patch Kid nestled in the middle of the cut bar above?). 
   
   
    OPTIONAL STEP : Add decorative sprinkles to the top of your snow!
   
   
5. Cover the entire dessert with a freezer safe lid or plastic wrap and foil and place it back in the freezer for at least two hours or more until firm.
   
   
6. Cut and enjoy!    
   
   
   I don't have a link to the exact sprinkles I used (Betty Crocker Snowflake Mix and Cupcake Gems Perfect Pearls), but I was able to find some snowflake sprinkles on Amazon in case you cannot find the ones I used:
   

Lesson Theme: Christmas!

Merry (belated) Christmas!  :)  Hope your holidays were filled with fun and loved ones!  :)  Here are a few things we did during school before taking a Christmas break...

In our home, we tell our children about the St. Nicholas of old and have chosen to let them know that Santa Claus is pretend like fairies, elves, etc.  Kids love to pretend so we have lots of fun with this!

This year I found a pattern online for making a pair of paper clogs - I adjusted my pattern so it would be more the size of my kids' feet (click here for an article on how to make these and the pattern at the bottom of the article).  The kids decorated their shoes and laid them out on the eve of St. Nicholas Day along with a letter (what a great time to teach letter writing skills!) Miss A had written to jolly old St. Nick and a platter of festive cookies.

(Speaking of baking, Miss A had lots and lots of time to practice measurement because of all the cookies she helped make this year!  Christmas and Valentine's are great times for measurement practice in the kitchen.)

The next morning the children were rewarded with little presents and sweets inside their clogs (or behind) and a letter from "St. Nick".  ;)

I found a cute little Santa Claus activity here, and I added in some math addition practice using a few dice.  Miss A would roll the dice, add the numbers together and put that many cotton balls on Santa's beard or hat.

Where would Santa be without his reindeer, right?  We had fun making these silly symmetrical characters by placing globs of brown paint on one side of a folded paper, closing it, rubbing the paint around, and opening it once more to reveal the finished product!  

After the reindeer faces had dried we did the same thing with antlers for each one.  Finally, we added google eyes, noses and Miss A decided what to name each according to "Twas the Night Before Christmas".  (As many of us know, Rudolph was not a part of that story but a pretty important reindeer all on his own, so he deserved a place among our pictures as well).

Have you ever wondered what the reindeer do the rest of the year to stay in shape?  One might imagine they have races across the world!  If you are learning about the seven continents - this easy game might just be for you!

I printed out a map of the seven continents (found online or just use a world map of your own) and used some snowflakes (blue and white) for markers.  I also purchased two wooden reindeer pieces (I think they were only like $0.30 a piece (?) at Michael's or another craft store) - which my kiddos happily colored.

I placed a blue and a white snowflake marker on each continent (each player was one color).  Each player would roll the dice and add the numbers together for a total (yep, more addition in our play).  The player would then check our list to see what continent corresponded to that number and remove their snowflake from it signaling that their reindeer had successfully made it to that continent.  The first reindeer to collect all their snowflakes (having touched down on each continent) was the winner!

(Side note:  if a player rolls a total they have already collected - it is tough cookies - and the reindeer has to wait it out until the next turn before having another chance to leap to a new continent.)

We also spent some time practicing spelling words related to the season.  This was one activity where I glued some sentence strips together in the shape of a Christmas tree.  Miss A would write out her spelling words (we divided them up over more than one day as it could become tedious for young children otherwise) and add "lights" with her markers so the spelling words became strands of lights on the tree.  

And what is a Christmas tree without a star on top, right?  So we saved that special spelling word for the tip top of the tree, complete with lots of gold glitter!  :)

And on that note - here's to a beautiful new year full of the sparkle of learning.... 

2013 - here we come!!!  :) 

(As always - if you blog about one of my ideas or activities, please be kind and include a link back here!  Thanks so much!)

Nutcracker Pancake Breakfast!

I have been MIA lately (you noticed, didn't you).  The short story (because most of you are probably really wanting to only know about the pancakes) is:

We closed on our new house beginning of November.  :)

We got sick around the same time with a horrible (and I mean horrible in that it was the worst virus to hit our family in a long time - maybe ever.  Suffice to say that one family member went to the ER for dehydration concerns and it looked like a couple more might end up there as well,  but we pulled through it finally). It kind of made the rounds so when one person was better, another came down with it, and so forth.  Thus we played musical virus for a couple of weeks.

We (well, actually my husband) were FINALLY healthy enough to move some stuff after Thanksgiving so we did.

Then we ended up traveling unexpectedly after only being in the house two or three nights.

We returned several days later AND that brings us to the pancakes (finally, you say).

The evening of our return, we attended the ballet - more specifically The Nutcracker.  It was beautiful, it was festive, and it was a great start to the Christmas season!

Perhaps it was because of the ballet.  Perhaps there was a need to stretch my creative wings.  Perhaps I just wanted to see the delighted smile on my kids' faces.  Or maybe it was a combination of all of the above.  Whatever it was,  the next morning, I went from just making pancakes to making a nutcracker themed breakfast!  :)



I used a pancake mix and swirled in some red and green food color (although the red color looked more pink which was fine because it still fit a nutcracker theme).  I let the pancakes cook extra long on one side, and then I flipped them quickly and let them sit there lightly toasting on the other side briefly (think seconds) so as not to obscure the festive color swirls.  I added whipped cream and sprinkles and candy cane bits for a stack of pancakes that would make the gingerbread man himself stop in his tracks if he happened by.  :)

And what's a nutcracker themed breakfast without nuts and mice, right?  Soooo, I added a few almond mice, toasted nuts, and Nutella wording!  :)

Voila!  The Nutcracker Breakfast!