Alma Mater's New Layout By: Siobhan

Alma Mater's New Look

I've been wanting to update our blog's layout for a long time now, but I finally got around to it a few weeks ago, and we really enjoy it. It displays the pictures much better and also is a bit more personalized to our family and our school.

I did NOT take any elements away from the blog; I simply rearranged them. I wanted to do a quick post for you on how to navigate your way around our new layout...

Note: Sorry these pictures are so blurry! I had to take screenshots on our desktop.

At the top of the blog I added a blog banner. The pictures are from the beginning of last year's school year, but I'm going to update them when we take our back to school pictures. 

 I shifted our pictures/slideshows from the left of the blog to the right.

 The right sidebar has a LABELS widget, which has links to the different pages of our blog which have specific types of posts, like our baking posts, our fieldtrip posts, etc.
Also, if you see any text that is red like this then it means it is a link. It will bring you to another page on the blog or a website we are referencing.

 I also moved the blog archive up nearer to the top, so you can see all of the blog posts organized by year and month.

 A VERY important button is the Older Posts button. Blogger will not let me display more than a few posts on the main page, so you can click this button to see the posts that don't fit on the main screen.

As I mentioned before, we still have all of our old pictures. This is the very first picture we uploaded!

I hope you enjoy the new layout. Stay tuned for some more updates when I take our back to school pictures...

Blueberry Pancakes By: Siobhan

~Blueberry Pancakes~

Yesterday we went to Newfound Lake and picked four cups of blueberries. We decided to make half of them into these delicious pancakes.

This recipe is one we adapted from The Pioneer Woman blog. 

Ingredients

• 3 cups Cake Flour
• 2 Tablespoons (additional) Cake Flour
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 2 Tablespoons (generous) Baking Powder
• 3 Tablespoons Sugar
• 3 cups Milk 
• 2 whole Lemons (or 1/2 cup lemon juice)
• 2  Eggs
• 3 teaspoon Vanilla
• 4 Tablespoons Butter, Melted
• 2 cups Blueberries
•  Extra Butter
•  Maple Syrup

Mix together the cake flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar. Set aside.

Mix together the milk and lemon juice. Let sit for 5 minutes.

Add in eggs, vanilla, and butter. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix together.

Gently stir in the blueberries.

Pour batter 1/4 cup at a time onto the griddle.

Serve with maple syrup and whipped cream!

Enjoy!

Cute Stuff

Wow, I'm looking back at these quotes I've collected over the past few months, and I genuinely don't remember some of them.  So glad that I write these things down...  :)

Shaila (age 4) - "It was SOOOO cold in my room that it went right through my jammies and into my heart."

"Dad, I can't tell you about the crude humor in my dream because I don't even know what crude humor is!"

"If we sin, Jesus will just trade His sweet heart for our bad hearts, and He'll take our bad hearts and NEVER sin!"

And now for some mixed up theology...

"Satan didn't want to be an angel because he was a boy, so he gave Adam and Eve that sinful thing to bite."


"Abraham Lincoln and Sarah had Jesus."

When urged to hurry up and eat her breakfast, Shaila said, "Okay, before my oatmeal gets soggy and RISKY, I'll get dressed really quickly!"

With 8 people sharing a single bathroom, we have more potty accidents than I'm willing to admit to.  A while ago, I reminded Shaila that she needed to change her underwear, and her expert reply was, "Ummm...pee dries."

This summer Shaila came up to me with her sweetest dimpled smile and eyes sparkling with enthusiasm and  asked, "Mom, do you want to see the most disgusting thing in the WHOLE WORLD?"
I replied, "Sure, sweetie!" and was promptly handed a wadded Kleenex used to wrap up  her latest treasure - a chipmunk's tail.  : /

Sometimes preparing and serving gourmet dinners can feel a bit like casting my pearls before swine.   Then the kids come out with gushing compliments and make my culinary efforts feel worthwhile again

Connor (age 7) - "I LOVE caramelized soup!"  And the other day, I walked in the door to find that Connor and Siobhan had whipped up some restaurant-quality Pots de Creme.  :)

Connor - "I hope that Great Grandma lives to be 100 because she's fast like Siobhan and INCREDIBLE!"

For this year's family "staycation," we wrote a list of all of the special plans that have been crammed out of our busy schedules.  We let each of the kids come up with a couple of ideas - ranging from making homemade ice cream and watching family movies to visiting the Boston Aquarium with Dad's discounted tickets from work.  We're perfecting the art of summer vacationing with a large family and are thrilled that our kids are content with the most ordinary treats.  The other day I brought the 3 middle kids to the dollar theater, followed by free ice cream (compliments of the library's summer reading program).  After thanking me several times, Aidan said, "We need to remember to thank Dad for working so hard to fund this!" 

Pots de Creme By: Connor and Siobhan

 ~Pots de Creme~

Tert gets most of the credit for us making this recipe. He found it in our Pioneer Woman cookbook and wanted to surprise Mom and Dad with it. We had all the ingredients on hand, so he and I decided to try it out. It was both delicious and easy.

Tert took most of the following pictures. He LOVES taking pictures and is turning into quite the little photographer!

 

Ingredients

(Yields 8 small dessert bowls)

• 12 ounces Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
• 4 whole Eggs, Room Temperature
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
• 1 pinch Salt
• 8 ounces, strong, very hot Coffee

 First dump the bag of chocolate chips into your blender.

 Add your room temperature eggs.

 Add in the eggs, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. Pulse about 10 times, then immediately start pouring in the very hot coffee. This will mostly melt the chocolate chips.

Continue mixing until the mixture is smooth, then pour into little dessert bowls. Place on a tray and refrigerate for 2-3 hours or until fully set up and chilled.

Top with a sprig of fresh mint or whipped cream and enjoy!

Summer Activities 2015 Part 2 By: Siobhan

Summer Activities II

We are back with some more summer activities. We had a lot of fun choosing some crafts and making them. Today we made some Glue Suncatchers and Ice Chalk. 

Click here to view our first summer activities post. 

Click here to see my Kids' DIY and Crafts Board on Pinterest.

---Glue Suncatchers---

All you need for these suncatchers is some glue (we used Elmer's) some food coloring, a lid, a hole punch, a pencil or toothpick, and some string.

Pour the glue into the lid and add some drops of coloring. A little goes a LONG way with this project.

 After doing this project, I would suggest using two colors, a lighter color and a darker color. Rus used red and blue and it became a little too dark when it dried. 

Tert used green and a light yellow and it worked really well.

Let the suncatchers dry completely (about 24 hours) and then pop them out of the lids, punch a hole in them and hang them

 -Ice Chalk-

For the ice chalk, you'll need some ice trays (we used regular ice trays, but you can buy shaped ice trays here.)

The recipe is very simple. Use equal parts of cornstarch and water. Mix immediately, as the cornstarch will harden. 

Add a little baking soda and some gel food coloring. Mix together until runny.

What a mess!

 Pour the chalk into your molds.

We tried some mixing of the colors and some that were solid colors.

Once the chalk is frozen, bring it outside and color! 

The reason we put baking soda in the chalk was so that we could have fun playing with the chemical reaction between it and vinegar. Rus and Tert poured vinegar over some of the chalk...