Covered Wagons

Inspired by reading the Little House series we decided to make model covered wagons from popsicle sticks, cardboard and brown paper bags. 

This is one of those projects that makes me feel like a "real" homeschooling mom. 

It's really crazy to think of how much effort goes into doing a relatively simple project like this!

First, I searched for Little House projects - I found this one for a covered wagon on Pinterest. Then, I needed to make sure we had the materials - so one day when I was out I went to Michael's and got the popsicle sticks. Turns out that you need 2 different kids of popsicle sticks so I had to go back on another day. Then, we needed a day when the morning routine went smoothly enough, we did not have anything else to do in the afternoon - and everyone was in a good enough mood to do the project. So, something that could seem like a relatively easy project, takes on a feeling of being somewhat miraculous. 

Gavriel taught a class at our house last night and I found myself, like a little kid, showing off the wagons. They really are cute. The girls are also making all sorts of stuff, from Sculpey, to put inside the wagons. (Look out for the next post about the Sculpey obsession in our home.) 

Cake Boss

My kids have been watching a reality T.V. show called Cake Boss. It's basically about this Italian bakery owner who makes incredibly fancy cakes with the help of his extended family. They also fight with each other a lot.

Needless to say, my kids have been inspired (to make cakes; no inspiration is needed to fight).

One of the main ingredients on cake boss is fondant - it's a smooth malleable icing that is used for decorating cakes, cupcakes and candies.

We decided to make an "easy" version of fondant this past week made out of marshmallow creme and powdered sugar. (I put the recipe below) The thing that's not so easy about this is that it's sticky and makes a huge mess.  Gavriel started the project with the kids on Wednesday night and I had to finish it with them on Thursday. So, if you choose to do this, do it at a time when you have a lot of patience and nothing else to do.

I'm not sure if I've ever had real fondant, but I've heard from a few people that it's not that tasty.  Our fondant was yummy in that sickly sweet kind of way. I couldn't bring myself to go all the way and add food coloring to it - we try to avoid putting toxic things into our food as much as possible.  I am on the lookout for kosher and natural food coloring and would be happy for any info on that.

The cake was a chocolate cake made from the recipe on the back of the Hershey's cocoa box, substituting Pamela's Artisan Flour Blend (gluten free, dairy free) for the wheat flour. The frosting was made from earth balance, powdered sugar and instant coffee.

In any case, the end product came out looking like a kid who went to disney world, ate too much sugar, went on too many rides and then died on top of Mickey Mouse (the picture is below - judge for yourself).  Oh, and it was crazy good and devoured by our Shabbat guests.

Here's the cake:


Aderet and Avigayil - the cake decorators:



Adin decided to make his own cake: It was a coffee flavored cake with glaze, fondant and crushed chocolate chips.  (Yes, those are tater tots in the background. No, they did not go on the cake.)

Marshmallow Creme Fondant (from thefarmgirlrecipes.blogspot.com) 

1 16oz container marshmallow fluff

6-8 c. powdered sugar

2 t. flavoring (I usually use vanilla)

Colors (paste colors from Wilton work the best)

1.  Put marshmallow fluff in large bowl and stir in flavorings.  Add 2 c. powdered sugar and mix well.  Place mixture on greased countertop and knead in powdered sugar until fondant is pliable and not sticky.  This part takes me about 20-25 minutes. (I found that it helped to add a little oil to the mixture as well as to your hands and all surfaces coming into contact with the mixture.)

2.  If you need other colors separate out the amount you will need.  Add a small amount of color to each portion and knead until color is uniform throughout.  Roll out on greased area and layer on cake or cut out in desired shapes.  To store, cover in plastic wrap and then in Ziploc bag and keep in the fridge.  It will keep for several weeks refrigerated.  Enjoy!

He Works Hard for the Money #2

For the last few months Adin (age 11) has taken over as the Thursday night challah maker (Gavriel was the challah maker before that - I gave up making the challah about 5 years ago after going gluten free - it just wasn't much fun to make bread that I wasn't going to eat.)

It isn't exactly the traditional challah - it's a sour dough spelt/rye bread - made from a starter given to us a few years ago by a friend. Being gluten free, I've never actually tasted the bread -but it often gets rave reviews from our guests.

This week Adin was asked by a friend of ours if he could buy 2 loaves from him.
He was very excited and came up with a price of $7 a loaf. The overhead is a little over $2 - so he will pay us back for the raw ingredients and keep the $10 profit. In past weeks, we usually did most of the clean up for him - but since he is going to keep all the profit I let him know that he needed to do all of his own dishes.

I'm excited for him to get the business experience, make a lot more money then he gets in allowance, (we only give the kids half their age each week - so presently he gets $5.50 a week - when we remember to give it him) and again, feel proud and capable.

I only have this one sub-par picture of him - with the scale and loaves of bread. Yeah, Adin!

He Works Hard for the Money

I'm a proud mama tonight. Adin (age 11- soon to be 12) was hired by a friend of mine to put together her newly bought Ikea table. Those years of Lego assembly have not gone to waste!  It took him about 2 hours and he got paid $10 and felt really good about himself.

Here are some pictures of Adin in action. I also have pictures of the end result but I'm continuing to have some troubles with my iPhoto and it won't let me upload those.

Playing with Fire Day

Inspired by Chanukah, the kids were itching to set all kinds of things on fire. The solution: Playing with Fire Day!  They got to light matches, melt candles, burn twigs and set whiskey on fire till their heart's content. 

Besides just generally having a good experience from being given some freedom they learned a few things. Avigayil learned that when you blow on a large fire it fuels the flames - and if you want to put it out it's best to smother it. 

After multiple frustrating and failed attempts to set whiskey on fire outside, Adin and I learned that whiskey has to be warm to catch on fire. Which makes sense because you aren't actually catching a liquid on fire, rather the whiskey vapor. 

Here's a cute photo of the kids all working together:

And some videos:

Maple Syrup Snow Candy

Here's a super easy and fun candy making project inspired by the Little House series. Seems like there's a variety of ways to do this but we did it a quick and easy way. The girls filled a bowl with some fresh, clean snow. I put some maple syrup in a pan to simmer until it was reduced by half, then slowly poured the thick mixture onto the snow where it quickly hardened into maple candy. It was so simple, exciting for the girls and I got to feel like a homesteader, which I like. 

Melted Crayon Art

Inspired by the blog paintcutpaste.com we tried out this fun melted crayon art. 

Avigayil went for the relaxing, playing, abstract technique. 

Aderet used oil pastels to create the classic rainbows and flowers.