Thursday, January 2, 2014

Kiwi Crate and A Bun In the Oven

One of the activities we continue to LOVE month after month is our Kiwi Crate subscription.  Kiwi Crate is a kid's craft club.  Each month a box comes to our door with two (minimum) projects for us to do together.  I'll admit I was skeptical about this at first.  I mean, I love crafts more than anyone.  Our homeschool room has an entire cabinet dedicated to art supplies and I'm forever scouring Pinterest for fun kindergarten art projects.  Why would I need Kiwi Crate?

Because it's different.

1.  Every single item we need to complete the projects is included in the box, and the supplies are super high quality.
2.  Emma genuinely loves the activities.  Every once in a while I think one is going to be a dud, but almost without fail, she is sincerely interested and has a blast.
3.  The projects are specifically designed for kids to be as independent as possible.  Emma is super proud of doing it herself with very little help from me.
4.  When our box comes, it motivates us to have a "date" and spend some quality time together.
5.  The boxes are educational too, and we always learn something new!

So our December box came weeks ago and I tucked it aside amidst the bustle and hustle.  That is super uncharacteristic.  Usually we dive in the minute it arrives on our doorstep.  Emma and I had a quiet night at home a few nights ago, so we busted a big Kiwi move.  The theme was "winter" and one of the projects was this polar bear game of catch.  It also has a little velcro ball that sticks to the paws.

We've played LOTS of games of catch over the past few days.


She even thought this one up all by herself.  :-)


Talk about the greatest dog E-V-E-R.
You've surely known dogs who could play fetch, but have you known many that play catch??  Haha.

Speaking of the greatest dog ever....
She is such a part of every minute of life around here.  There is always somebody loving on her.  Emma crashed and watched an entire episode of a show curled up like this right after Christmas.  Perfect down time.  Penny is always up for snuggling!


In other news.....

I was under the gun for a quick and simple dinner last night and had almost nothing on hand to work with.  We were still trying to get Christmas put away and Hannah was headed out the door with friends.  I had a pound of sausage in the fridge, so I decided to make sausage gravy, but I didn't have any refrigerator biscuits, so I looked up a recipe to make some.

I've never done baking powder biscuits before because I'm too lazy to roll and cut.
Sad, but true.
This recipe excited me because you just DROP the dough....you don't even have to grease the baking sheets!  Easy peasy!  And so much cheaper than Grand's!

These are quick, simple, and REALLY tasty.  I'll definitely be making them again!
I doubled the recipe for our crowd, and it made 24 nice sized biscuits.  Perfect with a slathering of sausage gravy and a side of scrambled eggs.  ;-)

Baking Powder Drop Biscuits

2 cups flour
2 T sugar
4 t baking powder
1/2 t cream of tartar
1/2 t salt
1/2 cup shortening (I had some on hand, but many people in the reviews said they used butter and it turned out just fine.)
1 egg
2/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 450.
Sift dry ingredients into a bowl.
Use a pastry cutter to cut in shortening until it resembles course crumbs.
Whisk egg and milk together and add gradually to flour mixture, stirring as you pour.
Stir until dough is moistened and well mixed.
Drop by spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes until golden.

Good for hungry kids.
Or hungry polar bears.  :-)



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