Say Cheese! (And Granola, Penguins and Imagination)

We took a lot of pictures today while going to Imagination Station with Shell and Dudley and Grant has promised to go through them here shortly and post them in a bit.  I wanted to get a post up about our day and all our celebrations, though, while I had a few minutes.

First, it's National Cheese Lover's Day.  Kristina, wish you were here to whip us up something tasty!  In lieu of that, we celebrated with some cheesecake blueberry muffins for breakfast, chili and cheese for dinner and some apple cinnamon cream cheese graham crackers.  Lots of different kinds of cheese to love at the Gatchel house.

It is also National Granola Bar day.  I'll admit that we actually had two different versions of granola bars around here.  (Both homemade, couldn't just give in and go to the store and buy some.  Nope, never the easy way for me ;-)) The first ones I made yesterday were called "chewy granola bars" and in my opinion they were not granola bars, they were cookie bars.  Lots of batter, little granola. On the upside, even though I left them in the oven 10 minutes too long (oops...) they were a huge hit.  My second version (of which there will probably be a picture if Grant posts it) came out much more like a traditional granola bar, though didn't hold up quite so well.  We did find it was wonderful heated up with some ice cream for dessert, though :)

If that's not enough, it is Penguin Awareness Day.  I'm not exactly sure how you celebrate Penguin Awareness day (other than being aware that there are penguins?) but the kiddos and I did have a discussion about penguins and I plan to read "My Personal Penguin" (love it Sandra Boyton - check it out!  There's a song by the late Davy Jones that goes with it, too!) at bedtime tonight, so I guess we've covered that celebration.

Imagination Station was great.  We were glad to see Shell and Dudley for a few hours and there was tons for the kids to do.  I will definitely be taking them back again soon.  I would gladly let them hang out and play in the 'little kids' area (wait 'til you see the pictures of my firefighters!) until they dropped.  They also had some really fun water stations and we all enjoyed the Sesame Street body exhibit.  (The kids met Elmo!)

We made it back here in time for dinner (the aforementioned chili and cheese) and the kiddos are currently wrapping up their bath and then we're breaking out the play doh!  Phew, has that been enough today?

Big plans for our school free day tomorrow.  Until then...