Talking Pizza

It's one of the best times when everyone is helping to prepare dinner together (plus, it makes less work for you).  It's also one of the best times to talk with your kids.

When your preparing a meal together with your kids, they naturally start communicating with you about the task at hand (what step comes next, what else needs to be done, etc.) or asking questions.  It feels good as parent to have your children, no matter what age, look to you for help and guidance or to simply open up and communicate!  That's why I'm excited to post about "talking" pizza.

Pizza is definitely one of our family favs.  Whenever my kids ask what we're having for dinner and I say, "pizza," I always get a big smile.  (Kinda makes you feel like mom of the year, sweet!)  Although it's quick and easy to pick up a pizza on your way home from work, it's more fun to have homemade pizza.  Homemade pizza is yummy, affordable, and you can add as toppings as you want!

*Pizza also is a great party food.  So, if you want to create a fun "party" atmosphere for your family or even just you and your husband, pizza is perfect!  Pizza is fun to have at the dinner table or while watching a family movie together.

Here is the pizza dough recipe that we used (from Boche):

Pizza Dough

3 cups hot tap water

1 TBS. Saf yeast

 2 TBS. honey

1 TBS salt

6-8 cups flour

1 TBS dough enhancer

Put water, honey, and 3 cups of flour in a mixing bowl.  Mix until paste consistency.  Add yeast and salt.    Add flour 1 cup at a time until the dough pulls away from sides of the bowl.  We used whole wheat flour and kneaded it for 10 min.  If you are using white flour knead for 5 min. (depending on mixer it may vary).  Add the dough enhancer the last 2 minutes of kneading.  Preheat oven to 500 degrees.  Roll crust, add toppings, and bake for 7 minutes (or until crust is light brown and cheese is melted). In my oven, it took me approx. 12 minutes to cook a large pizza.

*Note: This recipe makes A LOT of dough, so you might want to half the recipe.  Or you can save half in the fridge for bread sticks or rolls to go with tomorrow's dinner. 

We opted to use the Hunt's tomato sauce  and mozzarella cheese.  Then we added lots of veggies and pepperoni to top off our pizza.

Our favorite drink to have with pizza is root beer, and homemade is the BEST! Here is the root beer recipe that we use:

Root Beer

 6 cups white sugar

3 1/3 gallons of cold water
1 (2 ounce) bottle of root beer extract
4 pds. Dry ice

Enjoy your own family "talking" pizza. Bon appetite!

{Tuesday's Tip} Fun in the Yard

To along with our earth week theme, I wanted to share another great way to bond as a family: gardening! 

Working out in the yard together can be both work and play.  For instance, try planting a garden together.  It's so fun to watch something you planted grow and then reap the benefits too!  Plus, we all know that home grown is always so much tastier than store bought.

 
You don't even need to have a big yard or a lot of space to plant a garden, you can use pots or other raised garden beds.  Also, not far from where we live there are community garden plots that you can rent for spring and summer, and they are pretty inexpensive considering how much produce you can harvest later in the season!  It's worth checking out to see if your community has a garden or garden plots too.

Here's how you can get the whole family involved in your garden.  First, get everyone involved from the beginning.  When your planning your garden, let each person pick something they would like to grow.  Pumpkins, zucchini, and large sun flowers are a few fun plants our family likes to grow.  Other plants that are really fun to harvest are cherry tomatoes, carrots, peas, strawberries, etc.  because you can simply pick the fruit or veggie, rinse, and eat!  No prep!

*This could also be a cool science project for kids to plant a small seed and watch it grow.  They can also simultaneously learn responsibility as they take care of their plants to water, and weed them.

The most exciting part of gardening when the plants start producing!

*Or, instead of a vegetable garden, you could plan a flower garden.  It's also fun to see the beautiful flowers altogether or experiment with new varieties like those that attract butterflies or humming birds.  It makes for a very relaxing atmosphere to have a little bit of nature in your very own yard.

Of course there are lots of our things for kids to discover and learn about as they are helping out in the yard.  For instance, if you can convince your kids to help you weed, they could discover all kinds of cool little bugs hiding near the plants.  What kid can't resist looking at snails, rolly pollies, or worms!  It is fun to learn about insects.  In the past when we've found caterpillars, we'll look it up on the internet to find out what it will look like when it turns into a butterfly.  It can be a great learning opportunity for both you and your kids.  You can easily look up some quick info about praying mantis, ants, butterflies, spiders or any other bugs your child finds or really likes.

Working in the yard and discovering bugs is also a good time to teach children respect for nature and other living things.  As adults, it's good advice to not over react when we find less than pleasant creepy crawlys outside like, try not to scream, act scared, hurt or squish the bugs.  They are there for a reason and, for the most part, are more good than bad.  For instance, many people don't like spiders (my sister included).  But spiders help eat other bad insects from killing our plants, so they are actually great for our gardens. 

There is so much fun you can have outside in the garden. Enjoy it together!

Dirt Cup Dessert

We are still celebrating earth week here at our house.  To help us celebrate I planned a special dessert for our dinner tonight. 

We don't have dessert very often at our house. So when we do, its a BIG deal!

To set the mood for dinner, I had the kids help me decorate the table.  A few simple decorations can really make a HUGE difference in the atmosphere in your home or at dinner time.  Pretty soon everyone is happy and excited because things are different and therefore more "special."  All I did to set the mood was display a couple packs of flowers I bought for our garden and then added some gummy worms (that's where the helpers came in handy). The gummy worms were not just for decoration, however, they were part of our dessert later.

For dessert we made dirt cups with worms (sounds yummy, right!).  There are lots of variations on this dessert out there, but here is how I did it.  I used chocolate ice cream for the bottom layer then crushed cookies and sprinkled them on top to look like dirt on the ground. We used Oreo cookies but you can choose any kind of cookie, really.  Then we added a few more gummy worms to look like they were digging in the "dirt." 

To make it more fun for everyone, I had some help crushing the cookies.  Before dinner started, I gave everyone a small baggie with cookies.  I recommend using ziplock bags, but sandwich bags would work too if you're not too messy.  I gave everyone about 3 cookies.  Then while we waited for everyone to gather around the dinner table, we crushed our own bag of cookies.  We just set our crushed cookies aside until dinner was finished.

When we finished our meal, I scooped the ice cream and everyone added their cookies on top and grabbed some gummy worms. (The gummy worms were already cleverly placed on the table, remember?)  Then our dessert was ready to eat. Yum! I must say, that was some of the best dirt I've ever had! :)

Afterwards we had time to go out in the garden and plant the flowers I bought.  I love marigolds, they look so perky in my yard!

Celebrate Earth Day

Tomorrow is Earth Day!

During the next week we are dedicating our posts to help celebrate Earth Day.  It will help provide fun times for the family!

We have been blessed with beautiful nature all around us and we need to take good care of it and add to the beauty.  The first place to start is in your very own home.

Tomorrow I am going to leave a flower in each family members bedroom (including my husband).

I'm going to include this cute note that says:

I have the power

with this flower

to shower 
you with love!

{click here to print your flower power love note}

Later in the day we will go outside and plant them together.

 How do you plan to celebrate Earth Day?

Wet & Rainy Wednesday

We woke up yesterday morning and it was RAINING!

After I sent my kids off to school I thought it would be fun to have a "Rain Day" planned for them when they got home.

My "Rain Day" activity was super simple. I had the song "Singing in the Rain" playing as the kids came in the door.  I also had our boots and umbrellas laid out with this Umbrella Time poem.  

Yes, I wrote the poem myself. And, no. I'm not a professional poet. :)

Then we simply put on rain our gear and went out to PLAY!  

We sang, danced, and jumped, jumped, jumped! 

 When we were good and wet (and a little chilly) we came in for some hot chocolate and grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup for dinner.

It was so fun to interact with my kids and enjoy the beauty of Spring!

{Tuesday's Tip} Working Together

Children learn by doing. Letting them help you in the kitchen is a great way to teach responsibility, independence, and nutrition. Start by giving every child a job to help out with dinner time preparation. I've listed a few ideas below of how to get your kids more involved in the kitchen. Hopefully these ideas will start you thinking about how your family can work together in the kitchen:

• Give your child a wash rag and let him/her clean the table or counter
• Allow your child to set the table. If possible, put plastic dinnerware (cups, plates, bowls, etc.) on lower shelves so the dishes are easily accessible for your child to set the table
• Let your child help wash and put away the dishes after dinner is over
• Have everyone be responsible to rinse their own dishes and put in the sink or dishwasher
• Have your child help with simple food items that can be mixed, stirred, poured, etc.
• Let your child choose the fruit or vegetable sides for dinner

Working in the kitchen together is a great time to talk and listen, plus it prepares everyone for family dinner.

What a wonderful time to be together!!

Just Keep Swimming

When was the last time you went swimming??

During the winter months it is hard to bundle up and go out sometimes.  But, now that Spring is here why not celebrate by swimming!!

First, check out the pool scheduled near you and any possible discounts.  Our local indoor swimming pool has a discount family night once a week.  Also, make sure to check the pool schedule at your local high school, gyms, or rec center that also have a pool.  They may have specific hours when the pool is open to the public like nights or weekends.

{As your finding more summertime activities, print out this cute Summer 2012 Calendar over at Brown Paper Packages. What a time saver -- thanks Kierste!}

So I planned a day for our family swimming activity and the morning of I posted this note on the inside of our front door.

It says, "Why don't you grab your fins and We'll go swimming Tonight!!!"

Everyone saw the note as they were leaving in the morning for work or school so they knew we had something fun to look forward to later.

*You could also use this swimming activity as a family incentive or reward for being obedient, being helpful, being kind, etc.

Print your own "Grab Your Fins" swim sign:

{click here to print 5 x 7" sign}

{click here to print 8.5 x 11" sign}

For my family, I purchased a couple of small toys to take along with us to the pool.  I found a little beach ball and some diving rings, just a little something to make it different!  This made it fun and easy to include everyone while swimming in the pool.  The diving rings worked well in the shallower end.  We had fun having diving races, pretending to be dolphins, and playing hot potato.