Hamburger Cookies

I made these last week to go with a Family Home Evening about Summer Safety. I got the recipe from Taste of Home's site, but I can't remember the name of the author, so I apologize. Here is how we made them:

1/4 c. whipped white frosting each with red and yellow food coloring added
40 vanilla wafers
20 Peppermint Patties
Corn syrup
Sesame Seeds

Spread the red frosting on one cookie and yellow frosting on another. Sandwich the Peppermint Patties between the two. Using your finger, spread a small amount of corn syrup on the top cookie and sprinkle sesame seeds on top. Warning: these are very, very sweet, so you might only limit yourself to two or so.

The lesson we used to go with these involved summer safety tips. Things we covered were establishing a "password" that should be given to them before leaving with an unknown person. Also we discussed what to do should someone try to abduct them. The scary thing about that is we had Curtis try to "take" them by picking them up and running with them. It was hopefully an eye opener for them to see how easy it is for a grown man to snatch them up. We live near a canal and so we covered water safety and established a time, temperature and place that can play in the sprinklers around our house. We went over learning our phone number and address and to call us when they were going to be late or go somewhere else. Bike safety was addressed as well. At the end since we were having Hamburger Cookies, we talked about food and grill safety. While we don't expect our kids to parent our younger children, we established partners for the older kids paired with a younger kids so that when we are out in public and I don't have 12 eyeballs, they know to hold hands and help keep track of the younger kids in stores, parks, or get togethers.

Enjoy your cookies! You kids will definitely love them!

Red Robin

I took these pictures this week from our back door on our patio. We have our dining room table under the window so we see a lot of birds perching on the railings. The robins seem to have taken over however. I noticed a mocking bird swoop in one day and a flock of robins chased him off. I think they have staked claims on the dogfood bowl that sits right under the window. So far we have had blue jays, blue birds, wrens, mocking birds and robins visit. If I could figure out how to hang a bird feeder out there that the dogs or kids wouldn't get into, I would.

On a side note, Simeon's favorite restaurant is a burger place called Red Robin. Of course, their mascot is a robin wearing a t-shirt. Every time Simeon spots a robin, he asks it where its shirt is. LOL!

Insanity: Shopping with your Kids?

There is never a dull moment when shopping with your kids. Never. Over the years I've shared stories of my kids on the blog in our insane shopping adventures. The classic story that I still share is Madi at two years old going to up grown men bending over and slapping them on the butt. They jump two feet in the air and I have to apologize and explain that it wasn't ME- it was my two year old. Then there was the time I was looking at a shelf and see something fly by my head. I turned to look and asked my 3 year old Makenzie what it was. She lifts her dress and shows me it was her diaper that she took off and threw down the isle.

Today was another adventure even though many of our children are older. My five year old was not sitting properly in the cart so I sternly asked her to sit down. She then screams at the top of her lungs, "I can't because I didn't finish wiping my butt and I'm uncomfortable!"

One of my kids had some TERRIBLE gas. We're talking the stuff that can clear a room for an hour and make you fall over from the stench. On the ride to the store we had to keep the windows down and hang our heads out to keep from barfing. While we were in the store I forgot about it until she started again. People were looking at us and even I was feeling nauseated. Thank goodness we were almost done and I have an older daughter who can clear the store of the gas bomber. She took the younger ones to the car. The problem was- she didn't vent the truck and when the bagger and I opened the trunk we were blown away with the stench. He had to hold his nose while he quickly put the groceries in the trunk...poor guy. On the way home, we hung our heads out of the window again.

Home sweet home- plenty of space to breathe and time to comfortably use the restroom.