Make a Didgeridoo..

With our studying of Australia, one thing we had to make was a Didgeridoo.  I was so excited to find this link on how to make one. We gathered up the supplies and started making it.

First step is to get a three foot of pvc pipe.

Then we spray painted them all one color so that it would look like wood.

Then you let 2 very excited boys design up one each, with aboriginal style paints of course. :0)  Once they finish painting DH melted down the beeswax and made mouth pieces for them.

The finished products.  Gabe made the one on the left and Sam made the one on the right.  The boys love having them.  They love to put on little shows with them.  Thank goodness the noise level is realitvly low on them. LOL :0)

A little bit of cooking.......

So a lot of baking has been going around here lately.  The kids are loving getting in the kitchen and trying out new recipes.  They especially love it when a recipe comes from another country.  One of the recipes that we did the other day was Pavlova, it is a popular dessert in Australia.  Since we are studying Australia right now the kids could not wait to try it.  I found the recipe on allrecipes, there was a few different recipes for it but this is the one that I used.  It was very yummy, really sweet though.

Looks so good right.  We used fresh blueberries to top it.  I was going to put strawberries but was all out when I made it.

Doesn't that look so good (trust me it was :0))

I made some minty brownies today.  They were so good, the nice and fudgy texture with a nice taste of mint.  I mentioned them on facebook and I had a friend ask for the recipe so I thought that I would share it here for everyone.  I got the recipe from my Hershey cookbook.  It is called Perfectly Peppermint brownies.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup of Cocoa
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
2/3 cup butter melted and divided
1/2 cup boiling water
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups a/p flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
16 or 17 peppermint patties, chopped ( I used Andees mints from the baking section)

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350'F.  Grease 13x9x2 pan.
2. stir together cocoa and baking soda, stir in 1/3 cup butter.  Add boiling water, stir until thickens.  Stir in sugar eggs and remaining butter until smooth.  Add flour, vanilla, and salt, blend.  Stir in peppermint patties (or mints, LOL).  Pour into pan.
3. Bake 35 to 40 minutes.
4.  Enjoy yummy goodness

So what are you baking in your kitchen?

Marsupial Love

Looky, Looky I made it back for a second day straight. Woo Hoo! Alright I will get to why I am here, I thought that I would try to get everyone caught up on what we have been doing and the boys have been loving of it. To start off with the boys are loving studying Australia, so much so they want to move there. :0)
The thing that they are loving the most are the animals, mostly the marsupials. This picture is actually of a poster that the made recently about the different marsupials. It has the fur pouches to store each animal in. They included on the back of each animal some info about it. Then to top it off the drew what each of the habitats looked like. They are pretty proud of how it turned out, I think that they did a great job.

I shared photos with you yesterday of the platypus that I made for the boys, I thought you might appreciate these. Gabe is having so much fun with his, he made a leash all on his own for it. As you can see he is pretty pleased with himself. The photo below is just to give you a closer look at what he did.

My other one ever so eager to learn, has decided to design his own stuffed animal now. He is making a wombat. Of course he is going to end up making two because his little brother wants one too. I am very proud of the ambition that he has.

On a side not if you look at his shirt that he is wearing it is another sign of how much he is loving Australia. It is a shirt that his dad painted for him of Ayer's rock.

This final picture is not of an animal (well if you ask him he will tell you that he is a monkey, LOL) but of Gabe's sewing project, Australian themed. He is making a boomerang pillow.

I will make sure to share photos of each of their projects when they are done. Until then I hope to be back soon, Have a great one everybody.

Pepto and Perry

Yup we went missing again.. Did you miss us? Goodness life sure does get busy. I have been wanting to get back to blogging so much. I really do miss it. Thought that I would share something I made from the boys yesterday. One of the things that has changed around here is that we are now studying Australia, and the boys are loving it! So I thought that I would make an attempt at designing and making my very own stuffed animals, I made a platypus for each of them.

Meet Perry and Pepto. I think that they came out pretty good if I do say so myself. I do have some changes that I would do making them again. The biggest thing that I would change is the legs. They ended up being a lot more narrow then I would have liked, oh well can not be perfect on the first try.

Gabe and Pepto

Sam and Perry (yeah he is a Phineas and Ferb fan)

They even tried building a platypus den to play in. Lots of fun going on with them already.

Well I would love to say that I am going to be back with a new entry tomorrow, but who knows. I have some ideas on where I can squeeze some time in for it, hopefully that works. So thanks to everyone that has stuck with me on this hiatus. Hope I will be back on a regular basis now. Until next time I hope everyone has a good one.