Cinnamon Ornaments!

This was always one of my favorite crafts as a kid-and they smell delicious! Much to many of our kid's dismay they are not edible!

Photo Dump!

The happy goat girls have been busy goat girls....here are a bunch of pictures from this fall!

This October we had a petting zoo come to our school! It was pretty fun! There were sheep, goats, chickens, bunnies, ducks, a calf, a llama, a pony and a dog!

Some of our fall crafts: Super Hounds, Seagulls, Deer Silhouettes, Tube Owls, Houses, a Tree Bulletin board, whales, circle trees, foxes, turkeys and squirrels!

Our Christmas Crafts so far: tree garland, ice skating ornaments, an awesome cardboard deer bust, circle ornaments, thumbprint reindeer and paper rosette ornaments!

Crafts crafts and more crafts!

Here's the crafts we've been up to in the last week! Owls, pears and more!

Scrapbook Owls!

Glitter Leaf mobile with our favorite Martha Stewart glitter!

We had kids make birds and poppies for this big picture

Felt Flower Bobby Pins

Happy Pears!

Our banner we hung going through the hallway of all our kid's names in the program!

Our "I Spy" bottles.  These tubes are what a 2 liter pop bottle looks like before it is expanded to full size. We added bird seed and small beads and toys. The kids can shake them and look for the hidden items.

Happy Harvest Banner

We used our Cricut cutter and our Martha Stewart folding board to make this banner with our kids yesterday.....

We're Back!

We've been busy crafting now that the kids are back in school.  Here's what we've been up to!

We made a "monster mural" with our spiky ball....we put paint on the ball and let the kids throw the ball at a piece of paper on the wall!  Pretty messy-but pretty fun too!

We made patterned sunflowers with scrapbook paper....glittered acorns with Martha Stewart glitter...little apples with buttons...pom poms with our new pom pom maker...and bookmarks with ribbons and buttons!

We did some recycled book art by cutting out shapes from old books and painting them with watercolors!

...and here are our sunflowers!  They are getting big!

Jello Playdough!

Yesterday we made some Jello Playdough....it was a little sticky for a bit but we figured it out!

Here's the recipe we sort of used.....we added more salt, and flour so it wasn't so sticky!

Jello Playdough Recipe

After we mixed all the ingredients we took it out of the pot....

...added a bunch of flour...

...and kneaded it in !

...then we rolled it out and cut it into pieces for the kids.  We used strawberry jello and it smelled delicious!

Granola!

We made granola today!  We forgot to take pictures of the whole process but here is the final result...it was delicious!

Here's the recipe for The Happy Goat Girls Granola!  

*Note this made a LOT of granola....cut it in half to make a smaller batch!

Ingredients

 6 cups of old fashioned oats

1 -6 oz bags of sliced almonds

1 -6 oz bag of chopped pecans

1 -5 oz bag of dried cherries

1 -11 oz bag of white chocolate chips

1 ½ cups of shredded coconut

1 cup of brown sugar

1 cup of pure maple syrup

1 stick of salted butter

1 tbsp of vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl mix together: oats, almonds, pecans, cherries, white chocolate and coconut.  In a saucepan over medium heat stir maple syrup, brown sugar, vanilla and butter together.  Stir until butter is completely melted.  Pour the saucepan mixture over the dry ingredients and toss until coated.  Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.  Press granola evenly across baking sheet (about an inch thick).  If needed use two baking sheets.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, until granola is evenly toasted.  Toss granola often to make sure it cooks evenly.    Break apart pieces and store in an airtight container.

Creature Encounters!

Today "Creature Encounters" came to school to show us some different animals....

There was a hedgehog named Tulip.....

A desert fox....

A skink named Jimmy....

A Big Scary snake...

Ashley held the hedgehog.....

and there was a Chinchilla named Jeff!

Garden Update

Our sunflowers are getting ready to bloom....this one has cool purple veins!

A zinnia came up from our wildflower seeds....

...and some bachelor buttons too!

The cucumbers are starting to sprout.....

We even have some late summer strawberries!

Mini Fruit Pizzas!

This week for our cooking projects we made some easy mini fruit pizzas!

We bought some sugar cookies, raspberries and cream cheese.....

...and then the kids smeared the cream cheese on, added some berries and ate their yummy treats!

Maggie!!

Our friend Stephanie gave birth to Maggie Ann Cihlar last night!  We got to meet her today and she is so cute and sweet!

Here are some pictures from Steph's Baby Shower last month!

Wedding Cake Sneak Peek!

Only a few more weeks until Ashley and Jimmy's Wedding!  I've been practicing making their wedding cake....

It's a chocolate chip cake with white chocolate ganache frosting-and it's soooo yummy!  I used the cake toppers from our wedding to see what it would look like finished...just pretend it's Ashley, Jimmy and June instead of Dan, Fisk and I!

 

We're going to the Zoo!

Even though sometimes it seems like already work in a zoo we went on a field trip to the Como Zoo yesterday!

We saw some grizzly bears.....

...they were visiting from Minot since the zoo there is flooded.

We saw the polar bears...

...but they were camera shy!

The seals were getting trained...

and the trainers were running around...

Then we walked over to the vegetable garden...

There was chard...

and lemon marigolds....

and carrots!

Then we headed into the conservatory...

The end!