Graham Muffins

These are great muffins for kids to make. It keeps them really busy if you make them crush the graham crackers. 16 graham crackers finely crushed (about 2 1/2 cups) 1/4 cup sugar 2 teaspoon baking powder 1 cup milk 1 egg, slightly beaten 2 tablespoons honey

1. Preheat oven to 400. Mix crumbs, sugar and baking powder in medium bowl.


2. Add milk, egg and honey; stir just until moistened. Spoon batter evenly into 12 greased muffin cups.


3. Bake 15-18 minutes or until lightly browned. Let stand 5 minutes; remove from pan.


4. Optional: We made one batch with some chocolate chunks in it and they were great! I'm always a fan of chocolate though.

Project: Homemade Playdough

What kid doesn't love playdough. This recipe is great. We have been playing with it for over a week and it still has the same elasticity as it did the day we made it. The boys love playing with it.

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 cups warm water
1 cup salt
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 Tablespoon cream of tartar (if you don't have this it will still work - it just improves the elasticity)
food coloring (I used neon food colors and they look great)

1. Mix all of the ingredients together and stir over low heat. The dough will begin to thicken.
2. When the dough pulls away from the sides of the pan and clumps in the center, remove the dough from the heat and allow to cool enough to handle (go to http://www.instructables.com/id/EV84F86KD1EUN32O5B/ if you want to see what the dough should look like).
3. If your playdough is sticky you just need to cook it longer. Keep stirring until the dough is dry and feels like playdough.
4. Turn the dough onto a clean counter and knead vigorously until it becomes silky-smooth. Divide the dough into balls for coloring.
5. Make a divot in the center of each ball and add food coloring. Fold the dough over and knead until the color mixes throughout. (You might want to use gloves - I totally stained my hands on this step)
6. Store in an air-tight container.

Project: Oodles of Noodles

If your kids are ever extremely bored and you happen to have a huge Sam's Club bag full of expired Penne noodles this is the activity for you. In actuality, any type of noodle will do. Penne noodles work well for this age child (2 years old) because the holes are big enough for them to deal with.

Supplies: Noodles, 1 plastic bucket/container per child, fun spoons and other small containers, yarn

Fill a plastic bucket with noodles for each child. Provide each child with various little containers for them to play with. My boys loved pretending they were cooking. They liked to stir the noodles, transfer them from one container to another, and count noodles. We also made necklaces out of noodles. We just took some old yarn and threaded it through the penne noodles. They still play with the necklaces. This is a fun indoor activity. Kids love to play with sand and mud. This lets them play the same kinds of thing inside and isn't too hard to clean up.

Project: Bean Shakers

It was suggested I post some of my project ideas online so that other people can use them if they wish. I will do so, but would like to mention that most of the projects we do aren't extremely excited or anything. My boys just love doing "projects" each afternoon, so I have to come up with something for them to do each day. As long as a I call it a project and they get to sit on the floor or at the table to it they are happy.

One day last week we made music shakers.

Materials needed: dry beans (any kind will do) and empty water bottles

What to do: Give each child one water bottle and a small bowl full of beans. Let the child put the beans into the water bottle. Someone this can entertain them for quite awhile. When they have the bottle at least 1/4 of the way full of beans you can put the lid on the bottle and let them shake it. You can save the shakers and use them as musical instruments later on or you can dump them out and do the project again another day. To mix it up a little, you can make homemade funnels out of paper and let the kids see how a funnel works.

Toy Tips

It seems that my house has been taken over by toys! And its a good thing - toys are what keep the boys busy all day. Emerson and Finlay are too little to go to school, but their toys are great learning tools. Ricky and I don't have a ton of money to spend on the latest and greatest toys, but the boys haven't been deprived. Here are some tips on how to build your toy collection on a budget.

• Raid your kitchen cabinets: Some of the best toys are in your kitchen. Children love to bang on unused pots and bowls. Metal bowls make great drums. You can use plastic serving spoons for drum sticks. Give your children different size plastic or metal bowls to play with. The bowls can be used as musical instruments, places to put other toys, or even hats.

• Evaluate boxes, plastic jars, etc before throwing them away: Some of the best toys come from empty cereal boxes, cracker boxes, empty water bottles, and empty jelly jars. Plastic jars make great bath toys. Kids love to pour water out. Kids also like to carry around old cereal boxes.
• Let your kids have your old phone books: Kids love turning the pages (and sometimes tearing). It gives them practice looking at "big kid" books without ripping the pages of your favorite children's stories.
• Cut fabric pieces from old clothes and blankets before you throw them away: Teach your children about different textures by cutting squares of fabric from clothing and blankets your are discarding. Put the fabric pieces in a box your children can play with. They have fun feeling the different textures and taking the pieces out of the box and putting them back in.
• Make bean bags and/or snakes: Cut squares from old fabric. Sew three sides and part of the fourth side, fill with rice, stitch up the hole, and you have a bean bag. You can cut the arm off an old sweater to make a snake. Just sew on some eyes and a tongue, fill with rice or dried beans, and then stitch the opening closed.
• Join the Toys 'R Us birthday club: Go to the toys 'r us web site and sign your child up for the birthday club and they'll get a $3 gift certificate in the mail before their b-day. Our boys used their money to buy these fun rubber balls and a Dr. Seuss board book.

• Make your own toy "boxes": Homemade toy boxes make clean-up more fun. Just take an old box (we like the boxes Sam's Club wipes come in) and cover it with contact paper. We just used an old roll left over from a project. We have four boxes like this for the boys to keep their toys in.
  
  

• Take advantage of freebies: Kids love cheap toys. They don't expensive gadgets. Finlay got these little toys from a Toys 'r Us Easter egg hunt. Watch the news paper and neighborhood bulletins and bring your children to the fun events in the areas.
  

• When you do buy toys, but ones that have multiple uses and can grow along with the child. For example, if you buy nesting cups they can use them to build towers, hold small toys, nest inside of each other, etc. If you buy toys that are very age specific they will only last a short time. However, if you buy something like a ball or blocks the children can adjust the way they play with the toys as they grow.

Air Travel with Babies

The holidays are a time for traveling. When you book the airline tickets the only thing you think about is how wonderful it will be to spend time with your family. You can just imagine the good times and great memories that will be made. However, when the day to travel arrives you remember that it can be quite a challenge to travel with young babies. Emerson and Finlay have been pretty good travelers so far - let's hope they can pull through for us as we fly this break. Here are some tips that have helped us navigate the airport/flying experience with twins. I'm sure the tips could work equally well for those flying with one baby. The picture below is cute Emerson waiting for his plane to Houston (we went there in September).

• Make sure your diaper bag is loaded with all the essentials: Before you leave home make sure your bag has everything you could possibly need while flying (diapers, wipes, changing pad, food or bottle if applicable, toys, books, burp cloths, extra outfit, baby medicine, etc). Make sure you have items such as diapers and toys in a location they are easy to reach for. The guy next to you might not appreciate being elbowed while you rummage through your bag trying to find a rag to wipe spit-up off the arm rest the two of you are sharing.
• Give yourself plenty of time: Everything will take longer with babies. It will take longer to pack the car, unload at the airport, get your tickets, get through security, get to the gate, etc. If you plan on arriving to the airport early you can eliminate lots of stress.
• Have one person be in charge of the baby(ies) and one in charge of any bags, strollers, car seats, etc when you go through security: It can be a real juggling act trying to get twin boys and all their gear through security. We've found it works best if I hold both boys and go through the metal detectors while Ricky sends all of our stuff through the scanning machines. He dissassembles the stroller, sends the car seat through, takes the video camera out of the bag, and sends our luggage through. We send the least valuable stuff through first because it usually takes us a LONG time to get all of this stuff through. Nobody ever tries to steal your stinky tennis shoes, baby jackets with spit-up on them, and car seats. We send the lap-top, wallets, and cameras through last, so we can for sure get through the metal detector before the valuables. Also, when we send the car seats through first I can put the boys in them and set them on the floor. Then my hands are free to collect all of our stuff.
• Accept help: We have been to a lot of airports with our boys, and people have been very nice wherever you go. If people offer to help you - let them. While I don't think I would hand over my boys to a stranger I have no problem letting someone help me dissasemble the stroller, or get a carseat off the table. Ask the security people to help you. They want to keep things going quickly and smoothly. They usually love smiling and playing with cute babies (or is that just the novelty of twins?).
• Change diapers and feed babies as soon as you get to the gate: These are two tasks done most easily when not on a plane.
• Make sure your seats are okay: Most of you might not have to worry about this, but if you have two infants it can be a problem. You are only allowed to have one lap infant per 3 seats. That means Ricky and I can't sit by each other. It wouldn't be a big deal except for the fact that our babies nurse. So we usually have to make sure we have two aisle seats close to each other so we can pass the babies back and forth. We've found that if we ask if there are any unclaimed seats they will sometimes be able to give us three seats to ourselves. That's nice.
• Make sure the baby has something to suck on during take-off and landing: Feed the baby or have him/her suck on a pacifier.
• Walk up and down the aisle: When our little guys get stir-crazy Ricky picks them up and walks up and down the aisle. No one seems to mind as long as the stewardesses aren't making their rounds with snacks and drinks.
• Make friends with the flight attendants: You are well taken care off if you let the flight attendants play with and dote on your babies. We have never flown on a plane where the flight attendants didn't treat our boys like little celebrities.
• Wait until everyone gets off the plane before you attempt to: It's much easier to get off an empty plane than a full one.
• Enjoy and don't stress: As long as you do everything you can to be good parents don't worry. If your baby won't stop crying there's nothing you can do and most people will understand. If someone doesn't understand, say your sorry but don't worry about. They are probably the kind of people who are looking for something to be grumpy about.
• Have a great trip!!!!