Wordless Wednesday: Snuggling with Daddy

For more Wordless Wednesday, check out 5 Minutes for Mom, Go Graham Go! and Healthy Moms.

Homemade Indoor Obstacle Course

A couple weeks ago Morgan and I were working in her Preschool Playroom magazine when we came across the project pages and it showed us how to make an Obstacle Course. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do all that it different little projects to make it at the time, but then I realized that Morgan could help me out with most of putting it together....

She cut out the flags for the cones...

....painted the number plates and both her and Blake scrunched up the aluminum foil balls....

....colored the stepping stones that we made from the pieces I had cut out from the paper plates...

...and the last thing we had to do was set it up and tape a string to the floor for the wiggly walk.

Then it was time for the race!

We made a few changes to the obstacle course:

• The cones were all suppose to be made of paper towel tubes, but I made them taller by using a wrapping paper tube and vacuum attachments. They were also suppose to sit on empty plastic water bottles, but that wasn't going to work with the vacuum attachments, so I put them in glass jars from our recycling box. (The tubes were also suppose to be colored/painted.)
• The stepping stones were suppose to be newspaper that the kids were suppose to walk around by moving the stones/newspaper, but I just made it so they jumped from one to the other. And, as you can see, the stones weren't made of newpaper, but it was a good use of the pieces cut from the paper plates!
• The kids were suppose to try to get a certain number of points with the paper plates, but the ball kept bouncing out, so we made it so they only had to get the ball into one of them.

I can't tell you how many times the kids ran the obstacle course. It was definitely worth putting it together! :-)

Hershey's Better Basket Blog Hop

Wendy at Money Saving Mama in Michigan was super sweet to pass this wonderful Easter basket on to me. Wendy is a fellow Michigander who blogs about deals on the web and in Michigan as well as hosts some awesome giveaways! She also has another blog where she blogs about her family and life at A Day in our Life. Try to stop by and visit either (or both) of her blogs if you have a second! :-)

**I also received this from Alesha at The Jacobsen Family a little later in the week and wanted to say a big THANK YOU! Alesha was on a bit of a blogging break, but is back now (YAY!), so if you have a chance please stop by and say hi! :-)

Here is some information on the Hershey's Better Basket Blog Hop:

This Easter season Hershey is all about helping you to create Better Easter Baskets with their special limited edition Easter candies found at Walmart.

More importantly, Hershey wants to promote the idea of going good in our own communities. The Hershey Company is committed to making a difference in the communities where we live in, and has a heritage of giving back to the community."

Thanks to Hershey's and 20 different bloggers looking to blog for a good cause, baskets like the one above were created and given to charities of each bloggers choice to spread Hershey's ongoing message around: We are ALL working together to do good in and out of our own communities!

I chose the following bloggers to receive this great basket:

Alexia at The Mommy Rambles

Marissa at Mama Sparkles

Michelle at Michelle's Goofy Life
Caroline at The Croley Gang

If you would like to take part in the blog hop, here are the rules:

Copy and paste these rules to your blog post.

Create a blog post giving a virtual Easter Basket to another blogger – you can give as many Virtual Baskets as you want.

Link back to the person who gave you an Easter Basket.

Let each person you are giving a Virtual Easter Basket to know you have given them a Basket.

Leave your link at BetterBasket.info/BlogHop comment section. You can also find the official rules of this #betterbasket blog hop, and more information about Better Basket with Hershey’s there.

Hershey’s is donating $10 per each blog participating to the Better Basket Blog Hop to Children’s Miracle Network (up to total of $5,000 by blog posts written by April 4th, 2010).

Please note that only one blog post by each blog url will count towards the donation.

Make Something Monday: Baked Oatmeal

Alexia, at The Mommy Rambles, posted this recipe a few weeks ago and it sounded so interesting that I had to give it a try! We made it for breakfast one morning and we all loved it! Though Morgan did say it would have been better without raisins-the little stinker! LOL!

Baked Oatmeal

• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup dried cranberries (both Alexia and I used raisins)

1. Mix oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder and salt.

2. Beat in milk, eggs, butter and vanilla.

3. Stir in cranberries.

4. Spread in 9x13 baking pan and bake for 40 minutes at 350 degrees.

Odds & Ends

Just a little over a week left of lent and I'm still pop (soda) free! I've noticed the hardest times to avoid it are at restaurants, because I'd still like to order my diet Coke/Pepsi and at my parents' place! They have cans of pop easily available at any time, so that's tough...not as bad as it would have been at the beginning though! I hope that giving pop up for lent will kick-start healthier drinking and hopefully healthier eating! :-)

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So did anyone else notice that I tend to spell 'refrigerator' wrong? I didn't even realize it until after posting the St. Patrick's Day activities with the kids....and I couldn't even change it, because it was spelled wrong in the picture too! Needless to say, I was quite embarrassed! I now know that 'refrigerator' does NOT have a 'D' in it....and I'm pretty sure I'll never forget-LOL!

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I went for my first run this year last night! The kids went to bed early because they hadn't had a nap and Rich was home and suggested I run for my workout. It felt SO good to run again! I've been trying for the last couple years to get back into it, but my knees tend to start hurting and I have to stop for a while, then I don't start up again. Hopefully I can make it to a doctor soon and figure out what's up with my knees...I never had problems with them before having kids! Anyway, I made it 2 whole miles non-stop! I'm so excited! A little sore, but my knees are okay...so far. :-)

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So Rich gathered our chickens' eggs last night and brought them in to me saying he had 2-1/2 eggs for me. I could not figure out what he was talking about, until I saw this....

*The bigger of the eggs is actually a normal size egg*

We don't have little chickens to lay little eggs, yet somehow we ended up with a little egg! (Isn't it cute?) We haven't had chickens long enough to know all the little oddities about them and the eggs, so maybe this is common? Anyway, I thought it was neat and wanted to share! :-)

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With Easter coming up, I wanted to show you a couple things that Morgan has done.

She entered her first coloring contest through a local newspaper!

She painted this a while ago. I don't think she was trying to make anything in particular, but I like how it resembles an Easter bunny...sort of ;-)

Both Morgan and Blake saw the Easter bunny at the mall yesterday too. They were so excited to go see him, but when they got to him, all they would do is stand a good distance away and wave-LOL! They were still given bunny ear hats for visiting the Easter bunny and they loved wearing those bunny ears! :-)