Our Week: D.C., Experiment Failure, and a Hockey Party

Another busy week here. We started the week in Washington, D.C. We went to the National Zoo on Sunday.

 

We spent Monday walking around visiting the museums and seeing the monuments. We rode the Metro for the first time and Molly said that was her favorite part.
Some of the things we saw: Capitol, Air and Space Museum, Museum of National History, Museum of American History, National Gallery of Art, Washington Monument, Old Post Office clock tower, and the Lincoln Memorial. My pedometer said we walked over 8 miles that day.

 

We got home really late that night so we took the next day off from school to run errands and get caught up.

In Chemistry, we read about energy molecules. Our experiment to find out which foods are starches didn't work out. None of the foods changed colors. When I looked at pictures online, I noticed that the tincture of iodine was a dark color. Ours was clear so I guess it has to be colored for it to work.

In Story of the World, we read about the Ottomans trying to expand to the west. We also read 3 chapters about Virginia in A History of US.


On Wednesday, I took Colin to roller hockey practice and he had biology class on Thursday.

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day on Friday. I'll try to post those pictures tomorrow.

Today was the end of the season party for Colin's ice hockey team. They had laser tag and the kids all really liked that.

 

I made a cake with the team logo for the party.

 

Smurf Birthday Party

A Smurf movie came out last summer right around the time we visited NYC. After we got home from our trip, we took the kids to see the movie. They all loved it, especially since all the NYC parts were fresh in their minds. Luckily, they still had a very small section of Smurf party supplies at Party City when I took Caleigh to decide what she wanted.



For the goody bags, I just cut the shapes for the door and roof from construction paper and taped them onto white bags.




I used blue candy melts to dip the pretzel rods and marshmallows and then put some sprinkles on them. Everyone loved these and they all disappeared quickly.

The Cake

Some of the snacks. We also had blue punch, made with blue Hawaiian Punch, 7-Up, and pineapple sherbet.

I found this fruit salsa and cinnamon chips on Pinterest. So good!

To make the cake:
I just covered the cake board with green frosting since we didn't need that much more cake. Then I drew in the walkway. I used tips to put grass and flowers in different places. I used cake pops for the smurfberry bushes. I used a giant cupcake pan that makes the cupcake in two pieces for the house. I turned the bottom piece upside down. Once I had it all decorated, I placed the roof piece on top.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ball Cake

I made this cake for my husband's birthday. Peanut butter balls are one of his favorites so it seemed like a good idea to make a cake including them. I've been asked for the recipe so I thought it would be easiest to just make a post for it. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the process. I would have taken some if I'd known anyone would have been interested.

 

I started by making a 2 layer chocolate cake. You could use a box mix, but this is the recipe I used. I think it was originally on the side of Hershey's cocoa powder.

Chocolate cake

2 C white sugar
1 3/4 C all-purpose flour
3/4 C unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 C milk
1/2 C vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 C boiling water

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl, stir together all dry ingredients. Add all other ingredients except for the water and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water last. Pour into pans and bake.


To make peanut butter balls, mix:

1/2 C margarine
1 1/2 C creamy peanut butter
1 lb. powdered sugar

Form into balls and refrigerate for an hour or so. Melt chocolate chips and some chopped paraffin wax in a double boiler. Using toothpicks, dip the peanut butter balls into the chocolate. Place on waxed paper and refrigerate.


For the peanut butter filling, I just pulled some of the peanut butter/margarine/powdered sugar mixture out while it was still spreadable before adding all the sugar.


Chocolate buttercream icing

1/2 C solid white vegetable shortening
1/2 C butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp milk
1 Tbsp Meringue powder
1 lb. powdered sugar
pinch of salt
3/8 C unsweetened cocoa powder

Cream shortening, butter, vanilla, water, and milk. Add Meringue powder. Slowly add powdered sugar while mixing. Add salt. Add cocoa powder and mix. Add small amount of water if it's too thick.


Putting it all together:
Spread the peanut butter filling on top of one of the cake layers. Then place the other cake layer on top. Cover the whole cake with the chocolate icing. Place peanut butter balls around the bottom of the cake and on the top. Drizzle melted chocolate over the top.

The Polar Express

We had a fun evening with The Polar Express. Everyone got into their pajamas and we read the book. Then we watched the movie and had hot chocolate with marshmallows, popcorn, and cupcakes.






North Pole cupcakes

Snowmen marshmallows

Faces drawn with edible markers

Kids in pajamas ready to watch the movie:





The Nutcracker

This year I decided to try to do a theme day for Christmas books. Some may end up taking more than one day and others may be combined.
Last week we did The Nutcracker. We read a few different versions of the story. We also watched a Care Bear movie about it. We listened to the CD, Tchaikovsky Discovers America, which includes some of the music.

 

I found these cute Nutcracker cupcakes in Hello, Cupcake. The recipe called for a lot of different candies and things we didn't have. Instead of buying the stuff, I just pulled out our leftover Halloween candy and let the kids be creative. Each nutcracker took 6 cupcakes.

Colin's

Molly's

Caleigh's

Showing off their creations:

 

 

 

I had to do one too. I didn't notice until I was looking at the picture that I forgot shoes.

Lastly, we went to a school showing of The Nutcracker. It was really good and we all enjoyed it.

 

Molly's Monster Birthday Party

When we started discussing party ideas in October, Molly wanted a spooky party. I wasn't sure she'd actually still want that once Halloween was over so I started looking for ideas. Caleigh and I were at Target and saw some adorable monster plates and napkins. I snapped a picture with my phone and brought it home to show Molly. She liked it and I found lots of cute ideas to go with it. I was also able to find some stuff to go along with the theme on clearance after Halloween.
All the kids seemed to have fun and Molly was happy to have so many of her friends over to play.



The cake was pretty easy once I got started. I used a grass tip for the orange to make it look like fur. I made fondant to shape the mouth and then just piped the teeth on. It was my first time making cake balls and I was a little worried they wouldn't turn out, but they worked well.

Monster Cake

Monster cupcakes

Birthday Girl

 

 

Fruit monster

Pin the eye on the monster

 

Molly

Caleigh

Cute monster shirts I found at Target went perfectly with the party stuff

Hitting eyeball pinata