Kindergarten

Yesterday was Ezren's first day of Kindergarten.

Yep, you heard me right.  Kindergarten.

My very last baby is now going to the big school with Olivia and Isaac.

Our school district does what's called Staggered Entry for Kindergarteners.

Only a few kids from each K class go in each day of the first week.

This allows the teachers time to evaluate and puts less stress on the kids.

Ez was so excited!

He was the first one awake and kept asking when we were leaving.

He had no troubles when I left, and when I picked him up he said he had a great time.

He still has today and tomorrow off but will go every day starting Friday.

What a big boy!

First Day of School

Friday was the first day of school for Olivia and Isaac.
They both dressed quickly after breakfast and loaded up their backpacks with all the supplies we bought.
I love how the box of tissues never seems to fit in backpacks -- except Olivia's because her backpack is gigantic!

It was pretty much mass chaos at school Friday.
All of the parents wanted to walk their kids to the classroom.
I can only imagine how difficult it is for teachers to get directions to the kids as they walk in the door with all the crazy parents milling about with cameras, you know.
Isaac had a little trouble finding his cubby -- it was on the other wall at the bottom.

Can you believe she's in 4th grade?!

She was a little embarrassed that I walked her to her classroom.
And even more so when I kissed her goodbye.
It's going to be a fun year!

Supplies

We went school supply shopping yesterday.
I would have put it off longer, but Olivia and Isaac had their first day today.
I absolutely despise school supply shopping.
The teachers ask for a bit much -- and not in terms of too many things but rather too many specific items.
I mean, really, why does Olivia need a red plastic two pocket no prong folder?
Why can't it just be red?
And what happened to the days when the list said "6 folders"?
I also really dislike how they ask for six composition notebooks (not spiral, they must be composition) and then when I get them back at the end of the year, the kids have used maybe 10 pages out of them.
As a parent it's frustrating.
I'm not bashing on teachers, I know there is a reason for why they ask for certain items.
And I'm sure they get frustrated with their kids' supply lists too.

It also doesn't help that we go year round.
In fact, two out of the three elementary schools in our town are year round.
You would think that Wal Mart would keep a pretty good stock of stuff.
Nope.
There wasn't anything at all until last week, and by the time I got there -- gone.
So we had to drive all the way to Target in the next town over.
Target had everything we needed and more, so there's the bright side.

The rest of my day is going to be spent cleaning and getting ready for Olivia's birthday party tomorrow.
It's a slumber party. 
Five girls plus Miss O.
The boys will be going elsewhere for the night (thank goodness!).
I don't know if I'm ready for this!

Charlotte

Isn't she lovely?
For the past few weeks, every evening Charlotte comes out and makes a web right next to the back door. 
I like to turn on the light to help her catch bugs.
Though it is a little creepy when the wind blows and her web sways back and forth as I open the door to let Zelda out.
She's always gone by morning and so is her web. 
What a hard worker -- I wish I were that industrious!

The Best Chocolate Pudding Ever

So when I made the cake pops for Father's Day, I had some leftover egg yolks.
Google said that homemade pudding needs eggs yolks.
Easy decision -- I like pudding.

It was difficult to find a recipe that called for five egg yolks (because that's what I had leftover).
This one needed four.
That's close to five, right?
Thank goodness I'm good at fractions.
I changed all of the ingredients (for myself, not here for you) to use five egg yolks.
It's not easy to measure 5/12 of a cup.

But I did, and after making it, I will only make homemade pudding from now on.
This is so creamy, so rich, so amazing.
Seriously.
You have to make this.
Your family will thank you.
So will your tastebuds.

The Best Chocolate Pudding Ever
from Joy of Baking

Ingredients
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 Tbsp cornstarch
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/8 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups havy whipping cream
4 large egg yolks
4 oz. semisweet chocolate finely chopped (I used chocolate chips)
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temp.

Directions
•In a large stainless steel (heatproof) bowl whisk together the sugar, cornstarch, cocoa powder, and salt. •Then whisk in 1/2 cup (120 ml) of the milk until you have a thick paste.
•Add the egg yolks, one at a time, whisking to blend into the cocoa paste mixture.
•Set aside while you heat the milk and cream. Have a fine medium-sized strainer and bowl ready near the stove as you will need to strain the pudding after it is cooked.
•Rinse a medium-sized heavy saucepan with cold water and then shake out the excess water. Doing this step prevents the milk from scorching.
•Then pour in the remaining 2 cups milk with the cream.
•Bring this mixture just to a boil and then remove from heat. (The milk will foam up to the top of pan when done, so watch carefully.)
•Gradually pour the milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly, until the mixture is smooth.
•Transfer the pudding mixture to a clean large, heavy bottomed saucepan and place over medium-low heat. •Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens to the consistency of mayonnaise (about 3 - 5 minutes). •Remove from heat and pour through the strainer to remove any lumps that may have formed during cooking.
•Add the finely chopped chocolate, vanilla extract, and butter, stirring gently with a rubber spatula until the mixture is smooth.
•Pour into 6 to 8 bowls or wine glasses.
•Can serve warm or if chilling, press plastic wrap onto the surface of the warm puddings to prevent a skin from forming. If you are a person who likes the skin on their pudding, simply leave the pudding uncovered until cooled and then cover with plastic wrap.
•Can be made a day or two ahead of serving.

The Real Reason to Have Kids

Our back yard is full of rocks, mostly granite.
Big ones, small ones.
Either way, it makes digging and growing things pretty difficult.

So, I told Olivia that if she would collect rocks (which we can in turn use to put under the deck when it's {eventually} built), I would give her $.25 per pound.
And she did.

She spent about 30 minutes walking around the backyard picking up rocks and filling a bucket.

In the end she collected a little over 10 pounds of rock.
That's $2.50!
I told her next time it would only be $.10 a pound.
She hasn't gone out again -- yet.

School's Out . . .

. . . and where do we head? The beach of course!

Every time we arrive at the beach, the kids act like wild beasts -- like we never let them out of their cages.
See that chair?  This is the first time we've brought a chair for me to sit in.
We will always have this chair from now on.

Eventually, they settle down and have fun.

Olivia was really into the boogie board this year.
She spent a good chunk of our hours going back and forth, fighting the waves, trying to catch the "big one".

Crab carcasses everywhere . . .

Olivia scooped up a big bucket worth of wet sand and dumped it out.
Inside the pile of sand, we found at least 10 little horseshoe crabs no bigger than my thumb!
So, we filled up another bucket with water and plopped them in to watch them swim.
They're fast little boogers!
A little creepy too.  And really camouflaged.
And if you stood where the water would just get your ankles wet, you could see the horseshoe crabs (and some little fish) come out and swim around your feet.

This was a great day to go to the beach.
It was a little cloudy, not too hot.
Not surprisingly, only Olivia and I ended up with sunburns.
Hers is on her back and thighs, mine is on my feet.
Really, the tops of my feet got a little charred.
But I'll take it if it means hanging out at the beach all day!

Three Nanny Goats Gruff

Isaac's class has been preparing for months to perform the play, The Three Nanny Goats Gruff.
He was very excited since he had a speaking part.
{See him in the front row, red shirt, waving?}

"He's big, he's mean, and he's hungry as a bear."

"After a while, Big Bertha Lee and Billy Goat began to cross the bridge."

After the play, we all went back to the classroom for an presentation and awards ceremony.
Let me just say, it was crowded!
First was a presentation that the kids put together using PowerPoint.
I volunteered a few times in the computer lab and the kids really do know how to use it.
The school purchased a more kid friendly version, but it basically has all the same things as real Power Point.

It says, "My favorite thing about 1st grade is that I love Ms. Echols and that we got to do The Three Nanny Goats Gruff!  I will love the play!"

The teacher and teacher's aids also created special awards that highlighted each child's special talent or gift.
Isaac was the Marvelous Mathematician.
{Yes, I had a really big smile when I heard that!}
His teacher said such nice things -- how he thinks about math in fun, new ways and is always excited to do math.

Isaac is now a Second Grader!

Tempermental

About two years ago, we removed our fireplace.
{What, you removed a fireplace?  Why in the world would you do that?}
Yes, we did.  It was ugly.  It was gas.  It took up a lot of space.
So, anyhow, we had a leftover piece of tempered glass from that project.
And now we had a new project that needed some glass and thought we might be able to use that.

Did you know that you can't cut tempered glass?
Well, that's not entirely true. 
We did read that you could heat it to 900*F and then cut it, but aside from setting it on fire on the driveway, I don't think we could make that happen.
In the end, and after reading online for an hour, we decided why not give it a go the traditional way.

Scoring it . . .

Tapping it to try to get it to break . . .

Not working, huh?

Let's try something a little more drastic . . .

Well, so much for that idea . . .

For You, Pops

Have you seen Cake Pops?
Everything is more fun on a stick, but seriously, what could be better than cake on a stick?!

I decided that Father's Day would be an ideal time to try these out.
And I learned a few things.

#1
Don't add too much frosting.  Otherwise it ends up tasting more like cookie dough (which is not necessarily a bad thing, just different) than cake.

#2
The entire cake ball needs to be covered in the candy coating.  If it's not, the cake pops must stay frozen because the balls will fall of the sticks.

#3
It takes quite a white to roll and coat 70 cake pops.  Even with little hands trying to help by eating it all.

Even though there were a few issues, these are still fun (especially for kids!) and they do taste really yummy!