Sticky Situation

 This is going to be a quick one today as I am off here in the next half an hour to head to Canton for tomorrow's Swim Meet!  GO SCOTT GO!

In the meantime, Happy National Sticky Bun Day!  My research taught me that a sticky bun is different from a cinnamon roll because it has a caramel icing/glaze as opposed to the white frosting of a cinnamon roll.  And now you know :p  I tried my hand at making some today, but they'll be for dinner tonight (breakfast for dinner, my kids are thrilled) so the verdict is still out on them.  The process of flipping the pan when it came out of the oven was a little daunting, though :)

And because I won't be here tomorrow to celebrate, you're getting a sneak peek at National Cherry Pie Day!  I made mini handheld cherry pies and am taking half the batch with me to spread the cherry pie love at the swim meet tomorrow.

GO SCOTT GO!

Margarita Madness

 You say Margarita, I think my Mom.  She loves a good Margarita!  So when everything went down the way it did and I found out I'd be seeing her today I was all excited to celebrate!  (Not that Scott's send off wasn't reason enough to celebrate, but you know what I mean!)  Then she broke it to me - she gave up alcohol for lent.  Bummer...

So back to the drawing board.  I remembered that not only would my Mom not be able to enjoy a good margarita but neither would Noah and Mikayla unless I came up with something else.  So for here I went with a personal favorite of mine for dinner tonight - Margarita Grilled Chicken!  I could probably go to Chili's every night of the week and eat only that from their menu and be a happy girl.  I even created some yummy rice with corn, black beans and lime to go along with it.  (and some homemade lime flavored tortilla chips, too)  It was a hit!

But I still hadn't come up with anything to share with Mom.  Last week when I was coming up with my recipes for this week's celebration I had tagged a recipe for "margarita balls"  Taking another look at it I figured I could make it sans alcohol and it would be just as yummy.  I'll have to let Mom weigh in on if they satisfied at least a little bit of the craving for her, but I know that Noah and Mikayla loved them!  Mikayla ate 4 of them and would have probably had more if I would have let her.

So moral of today, it is possible to 'celebrate' Margarita day without actually having a margarita!  Sticky buns tomorrow (and I'll give you a sneak peak at my creation for Friday since I won't be here for its official celebration) before I head off to Canton!  Until then...

Eat your heart out Chili's, this is my version of Margarita Grilled Chicken :)

 If we weren't going to have real margaritas we at least had to use the proper stemware

Hmmm, might have to make these again for St. Patrick's day given how festive they look...

Go Scott Go!

 I'm going to start this post in a rather unusual way - by thanking my husband.  Thank you Grant for being open to leaving Florida and relocating our family.  Because of that we are able to be a part of things that we never could have if we lived in Florida.  Like being there today to send Scott and the rest of the Ross swimmers off to the State Swim Meet!

After dropping Noah off at school this morning Kayla and I headed to Fremont to send the swimmers off in style.  Mikayla was decked out in her Uncle Scott supporting gear and lots of purple.  We got to see them for awhile, attend the school pep rally and then watch them climb aboard their bus and head off.  Fun note - a fire truck (with lights going) led the bus out of town!  Go Scott Go!

Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't send a special thank you out to my friend, Jen and her son Jonathon.  She picked up Noah from school and let the boys play so that I could head to Fremont.

Have I mentioned lately that I'm one proud big sister?

HAPPY DANCE!

Mikayla ready to go (her shirt says: My Godfather swims faster than yours)

 Woo hoo Koz Fan!

 The poster the kiddos made for Uncle Scott

 She was so excited to be there and see him

 And deliver our cookies, of course

 The relay team!

 How awesome are these banners?

 <3

 Grandma and Kayla happy dancing

 The relay team at the Pep Rally

 The seniors saying a few words

Hey Scott - Super Proud :)

Purple Sign Makin', Chocolate Mint Eatin', Snack Makin' Fools!

 Ever have one of those ideas that seems really great in your head but doesn't end up as easy to execute as you had hoped?  Welcome to my nearly disastrous Kid Kitchen for today.

When we found out that Scott qualified for State and Mikayla and I would be attending the send-off at the high school in the morning I wanted to make something with the kiddos that we could bring for Scott.  I knew it had to be purple.  And white (Ross' colors).  And the purple cupcakes I made for his and Mikayla's birthday were a flop (weird recipe) so we should avoid those.  How about purple cookies?  We could do that, right?  So I settled on mixing up a batch of chocolate chips cookies (a new recipe, my first mistake) that we could dye purple and then swap out the chocolate chips for white chocolate chips.

My biggest mistake was not using my tried and true cc cookie recipe.  I wanted to try something new and the batter was just weird.  This coupled with the fact that with all the 'help' I was receiving from my cheflets led to my second mistake - forgetting the baking powder.  I did catch it before I started mixing in the chips, so it wasn't the end of the world.

My second mistake, buying what I thought was really cool food gel in the color of purple instead of tinting my batter with food coloring like I've done every other time.  The dough on this was so weird, I finally had to actually knead in the food gel by hand.  (The kids really wanted to help, but considering my hands are now purple, I decided they could just watch this time)  The bigger bummer was that I didn't really get the shade of purple I wanted, but dang it they are purple!

Mis-steps or not, the kids loved the cookies.  Noah polished off three after lunch and Mikayla had two.  Hopefully Uncle Scott will enjoy them as well.  And as Noah has said, he has to share them with his 'swim-mates'

After their nap I set them off to decorate the sign for tomorrow.  They had a great time coloring away and Mikayla and I can't wait to take it to Scott!

Don't think I've forgotten - today is National Mint Chocolate Day.  I mixed up today's food (some tri-leveled really cool looking mint chocolate fudge) the other day so I could take it with me to deliver with LJ's pierogies yesterday.  Mom, hope there was some left for you to 'celebrate' too :)

And to wrap up the evening, Noah heads back to school tomorrow and is in charge of bringing the snack.  He and I created his snack masterpiece (cinnamon graham crackers with cream cheese and strawberries!) together tonight.  It makes me smile to know how proud he'll be tomorrow telling everyone he made them himself.

Off to Fremont in the morning and then back here to celebrate Margarita Day!  Until then...

My twosome always loves Kid Kitchen, even if it doesn't go swimmingly...

 Mixing it all up

 Okay, I made it purple, now what..

 Ready for the oven

 Taste test time!

 I swear they're purple!

 Making our sign for Uncle Scott

 Happy National Mint Chocolate Day!

 Making snack for school

Stuffed

 Mikayla's favorite Disney princess is Ariel.  She is all about the Little Mermaid (though true to her God Mama's heart Cinderella is close on her heels and is sometimes the favorite if you ask her).  So I was a little apprehensive about trying to explain today's celebratory food to her because of the images in created in my own brain.  Today is National Crab Stuffed Flounder Day.

Honestly, all I could think of is that hilarious scene from the Little Mermaid of the French chef in the kitchen making stuffed crab while Sebastian (the crab) looks on.  Plus, to confuse the situation even further Ariel's favorite fish pal's name is actually Flounder!  I was afraid I was going to scar my tiny princess forever with this food.

Apparently though, it is only my mind that drifted to that (surprise surprise) horrifying place and neither Noah or Mikayla were phased in the least by today's celebratory food.  They (as is evidenced by this project I'm undertaking) are relatively good about trying new things and I've never had a problem getting either of them to eat fish (Noah especially loves tilapia).  But I was amazed at how quickly dinner disappeared tonight.  It might have had a least a little to do with today's other celebration - Drink Wine Day.  No, I didn't allow my three and four year old to taste the fruit of the vine, but I did let them have some grape soda in wine glasses so they could pretend. So I suppose it's no small wonder how quickly dinner vanished after I said "take two bites and then you can have a drink of soda".  Some days you have to decide which battles to pick...

I've got to say that it's been a pretty great day all around.  Since Noah had no school today and Grant was off as well we took the opportunity to head down to Toledo and meet up with my Dad and Shell for lunch at Chick-fil-A.  I haven't seen Shell in quite some time (I think since our trip to Imagination Station) so it was great to catch up with her a bit.  And even better, I'll get to see her again later this week when we all head to Canton for the State Swim Meet!

I'm very excited to say that Grant has been able to swing working from home on Friday so I can head to Canton with my parents and Shell to support Scott.  As I said yesterday, I am one super proud sister!  Kayla and I are even going on Wednesday for the big send off of the swimmers!  Ross (Scott's high school) qualified 10 swimmers overall (6 girls, 4 boys) which is fabulous!  Rumor has it that we might even be creating something just for Uncle Scott in Kid Kitchen tomorrow...  So until then...

Drink wine day!  (Grant and I cracked a bottle of Cabernet while the kiddos sipped a very finely aged Faygo Grape ;-) )

 Crab stuffed Flounder, eat your heart out!

Pretty proud of this one, was a little apprehensive about it :)

To LJ with Love

Just after 9, I looked at the clock, realized what time it was and remembered that I had promised Dad pierogi tomorrow.  Oops...  Never let it be said that I don't love you, Daddy, a baker's dozen just for you tomorrow

And Suzie Q - I haven't forgotten you.  I'm working on making up Tuesday's celebratory food now to bring with me tomorrow, too for you;-)

Grab Bag

 Don't have much time to post tonight, but wanted to get the pictures up. Hopefully I'll have more time to add more tomorrow, but in the meantime...

Happy Cafe Au Lait Day!

 Happy Cabbage Day!  (I made Beef and cabbage soup)

 Happy National Indian Pudding Day