Watermelon treats!

OK so I have a confession..... I LOVE watermelon! It is my all time favorite summertime treat. One of my favorite memories as a kid is play stick ball with the neighborhood kids. (note: stick is a game we created. Basically baseball using a kickball and a broom stick instead of a ball and bat). Then sitting on the back steps of our house eating watermelon and spitting the seeds out into the yard. Of course we would try and see who could spit the farthest and being the youngest I always lost.

 

So in honor of my favorite summertime treat I will give you 3 ways to enjoy it!

First the old fashioned way cut it up and eat it. LOL

I cut ours into watermelons sticks. The kids like it better this way because it is easier to eat and hold.

 Here are some pictures to show you how I cut it.

 

Ok on to number 2...

I simply took the left over watermelon sticks and laid them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Then I wrapped them good and tight with plastic wrap.

 I popped them into the freezer and the next day we has watermelon popsicles. The kids loved them. I will note that next time I am going to cut off the green parts and insert a popsicle stick. Holding frozen watermelon was very cold on the fingers. Oh hey I just thought of something I have the sticks to the make your own popsicles tray thing. I could give them a try. Hmmm wonder if it'll work?.....

 My son enjoying his treat. :) He isn't naked honestly. He has on swimming shorts. This was a perfect treat for them after they were done playing in the water in the backyard.

 The last way is watermelon suzies (smoothies said by a 3 y/o). I took the other half of the watermelon that I did not cut into sticks and I cut it into cubes. I put the cubes into a Ziploc bag and put them in the freezer. There are endless ways to make watermelon smoothies. I chose to go the simple and basic route.

I took the watermelon out of the freezer about 15 minutes before I actually started making the suzies. Surprisingly the cubes came apart very easily. I took a few handfuls of cubes and dumped them into the mixer. Then I hit the go button. I was having trouble getting it to blend right so I added a little bit(like 2 or 3 ounces) of milk.

That's it.

And you have watermelon suzies! These were a huge hit. I will be making these again real soon. I have still watermelon in the freezer. I think I have enough to make 2 more batches.

 Some of the kids chose to eat theirs with a spoon in a bowl. The others chose a cup and straw.

You can add yogurt or ice cream to your suzies. You can also add additional fruits like banana, strawberry, or kiwi. I would like to try adding kiwi. The possibilities are endless....

I LOVE WATERMELON!!!!!

 

HAPPY SUMMER TO Y'ALL!!



Travel toothbrush holder

Recently we traveled to visit family and we were gone about 2 weeks. So I came across the problem of not wanting to keep our toothbrushes in their cases the whole 2 weeks. I like to leave them out to dry but I don't like to just let them lay on the counter top either. So this is what I came up with.

 

All you need is 2 toothbrush cases and a rubber band type thing. I used my daughter hair thing because that's what I had.

  Open all the cases and put all four pieces on the counter top close together with the open ends up. Put the hair thing around the cases and ......tada....... toothbrush holder. You can't really see it well in this picture (my photography skills are quite lacking sorry) but the clear ones are behind the purple ones. You have 4 spots to put toothbrushes.

 Then I put the rubber band around the case for use next time we go on vacation. :)

Stromboli recipe

Stromboli

Ingredients:

1 (16oz) loaf of frozen bread dough

(thawed but don't let rise)

2 eggs separated

1 tbls Parmesan Cheese

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp fresh oregno

2 tbls olive oil

anything you want inside

(don't use sauce inside)

I use pepperoni

mozzarella cheese

ham

mushrooms

and black olives

preheat oven to 350* press dough evenly out onto saran wrap (this is the method I choose but whatever works for you) Then combine the eggs (yolks only), garlic powder, oregno and oil in a small bowl. Spread over your dough staying away from outer edges so it'll seal. Layer on your ingredients. Don't over fill it. Roll dough jelly roll style. Place seam side down on a baking sheet. Lightly beat egg whites and brush outside of dough. Bake until nice and brown about 35-40 minutes. Slice and serve with heated sauce for dipping.

Shopping Adventures

Our youngest daughter is 4 and growing up fast. She is growing so much that we needed to move her out of her small bed into a bigger one. We bought her a 'grow with me' crib. She had been sleeping in it in the daybed form. So basically her crib just with out the one side on it. Anyway it was time to move her up. My husband ordered a new mattress online from Sears. It was supposed to come with a free box spring. Well when it got here all they had was the box spring. We called them and the customer service people said all we ordered was the box spring and if we wanted a mattress we had to order. Ugh........ we had company coming and had planned on putting them on the bigger bed so we really needed that mattress. So my big brave hero of a husband went out shopping for a mattress and box spring. As it turns out most places don't keep that kind of stuff in stock they need to have it delivered. Well that wasn't going to work we needed it now. He ended up finding a mattress AND box spring at Big Lots. Yay!!! Now our baby girl has a big bed and we a place to put our guests. :)

 

 

We went to Walmart the other day to pick up a few things. While we were in there it rained pretty hard. I think we parked in the lowest point of the parking lot. We had to wade through  water that was about 7 or 8 inches deep to get to our car.

 It is hard to tell how deep the water is but at least you can see the water was up past my ankle.

 

We were completely soaked by the time we got to our car. There wasn't this much water anywhere else. It kind of just looked like our car was weighing down the park lot and it was all running to where we parked.

 

Lesson learned..... avoid Walmart during rain storms unless you have a boat.



Award Ceremony Disappointment

Today I am going to share a little piece of what has been bothering me. As you may know I have a 9 y/o (10 in a few days) autistic son. He is high functioning so he doesn't get to much help from school. He does about average in school. He excels at some subjects like social studies/history and science (parts of it not all). He struggles with other things like math and spelling. Getting through school days is hard for him as it is for many kids. He struggles with knowing what is expected of him academically and socially. However he has done amazingly well this year in school. His teacher this year understands what it means to have Asperger's syndrome. She understands that he listens better when he's not looking at her. She just gets it and because of that he has had good grades this year. Good grades for him means he hasn't had any D's or F's on his report card and only a few on tests. We accepted a long time ago that he'll never have all A's and B's. I could go on and on about why our expectations are reasonable and such but that's not what this post is about. I will maybe some time post about that topic. LOL

Anyway back to the topic of the day. Yesterday was award ceremony at school. He was excited to go because his teacher told him he was getting an award. He was absolutely thrilled. He could not wait to get there. I tried to tell him that he probably wasn't getting a medal or trophy. He told me that 'you never know mom. My teacher said I was getting something'. I tried to prepare him but he was just to excited. I could not make the ceremony because my husband volunteered to help with field day at my youngest son's school before we knew when the ceremony was. So I didn't see him until he got off the bus. He walked in the door and started crying. It was in that moment I knew he didn't get the medal he so dearly wanted and it broke my heart. I asked him what was wrong and he said exactly what I thought he would. "The other kids got medals and trophies but I didn't." He did get a good citizenship award. It was a certificate. We had a long (hey 2 minutes is a long time for him lol) talk about why it was a honor to get that and how proud of him I was and all that mom motivational talk stuff.

I see him struggle all year long. I see him come home happy, frustrated, crying and feeling hopeless. I see him work harder than most of the other kids on his assignments and projects. I see him struggle with deadlines. I see him get confused and upset because kids call him names or make fun. He has worked harder and had more struggles than most of the kids in his class but he gets 1 certificate. It isn't fair to him at all. It breaks my heart that the school doesn't recognize the kids with special needs and aren't able to attend school each day because of doctor visits and the ones that can't get straight A's because of a learning disability. I do understand that it is the reality of life but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

 It is at times like this that all my thoughts and feelings turn towards my struggle of accepting and understanding why God has given this 'disability' to Albert. It is a daily struggle. I have cried and yelled then get on my knees and prayed.  I don't understand what God is doing in our lives but I trust Him. I know that if we continue to faith and keep trusting that everything will work out according to his will and plan. I do want for Albert to be like that other kids and get medals and trophies but the reality is he won't. So instead of dwelling on the negatives we will choose to concentrate on the positive. Nope he didn't get a medal but he got a 100% and a great big smiley on his social studies project that he worked on all year long. He may not have gotten a trophy this year but he made a new friend and friends are more important than a trophy. He will never get an all A report card but not many kids can build a helicopter or car from Legos like he can or be able tell you about George Washington like he can. Play a game of match with him and you'll be blown away.

No he isn't like other kids but he is super special and totally awesome. He does understand he's different and he struggles with it sometimes like at the award ceremony. However he deals with it most of the time better than I do.



Again....

For some reason I am having a bit of trouble getting 'into' blogging' lately. I am planning on making a true effort though. I am not sure why. We've done plenty and I have had many thoughts that I could blog about just haven't. However starting today I want to try to post something everyday or at least 4 or 5 times a week. So here goes...... again........ LOL ;)

 

 

Banana 'ice cream'

One of the things that I have recently started to do is try to eliminate some preservatives, artificial colors and flavors, and dyes from our diet. Why you ask? Well because some parents of kids with ADHD and autism have said that eliminating certain things from their diets have helped with attention, behavior etc. So I thought well why not give it a try. Plus eating healthier is a good idea for everyone anyway. This is one of the things we've tried and loved.

So I have to be honest here I did not come up with idea all on my own. I saw this and thought immediately that this is something my kids would love. Plus one thing I try to limit in my son's diet is milk products and this is milk free.

 

This is super simple and easy!! I left some bananas sit until they started to brown. I cut about 4 bananas up into chunks. Put them in a Ziploc bag and tossed them into the freezer for a few hours. Then I simply took the frozen banana chunks and put them in the food processer. Then like magic you have a yummy frozen treat. It really is like eating banana ice cream.

 Here you can see just how much it does look like ice cream.

Yummy!!

I'd like to try this with adding some strawberries or something to it. I wonder how that would turn? Hmmm.........

Starting anew!

So here goes another shot and trying to keep up with blog page. :)

I had the idea to start this page a few years ago to put our activities and projects onto. Well I ended up running out of ideas quickly and gave this page up. I am going to now give it another go. I am still going to post our activities and projects and such but I am adding a few other things in. I want to also start posting recipes and some things about our adventures through life. I figure with a teenager, an autistic son, and 2 preschoolers that I should have plenty of adventures both good and bad to share. Maybe just maybe our adventures will help someone else along the way.