The Hall of Crazed Animals

My youngest daughter has just entered the age when she is now able to attend the local story hour that involves making a craft. Week after week we will attend until the amount of painted and glued projects she has creatively designed rival that of the most prolific artist and, of course, her siblings.
Even without her new additions, I have accumulated more pieces than the Smithsonian and the Louvre combined with two older children who are story hour and preschool graduates. And each piece of art is something special, something unique, and something truly and honestly kid produced. With their own tiny hands, they have concocted some of the world’s most disturbed art and not wanting to throw anything away, I have turned to slathering the walls of my basement stairs with their projects.
We’ve got pumpkins with more glitter than pumpkin. There’s a cutout of one of the kids (not sure which one) that has one giant eye and one tiny one, like it’s winking at me each time I go downstairs. There are owls and flowers that strangely look identical, and a few that look like owls and flowers and are definitely not.
My most favorite piece of art, however, is one that my two older children worked on together, as a team. They were given shapes of construction paper and glue sticks and I gave them basic instructions on how to assemble a beaver. Chubby cheeks, buck teeth, and cartoonish eyes, the beaver should have been adorable.
Should have.
It’s amazing how placing pieces off-center can really change the look of an animal, losing the all important laws of symmetry. This poor beaver had eyes at two different levels and eyeballs pointing in very unnatural directions. Its mouth was way too high and its teeth way too long. From any angle you looked at the critter, you swore it was going to come to life, chew off your nose, and give you rabies.
And it was beautiful. Because they made them themselves.
I have since come to call it the Crazy Beaver Rule when attending any kind of art class with my children. Because guaranteed, there’s at least one overzealous parent who wants to make sure their kids’ art is better than the rabid one my kid is making. I watch out of the corner of my crazy beaver eye at the mom who squeezes the child’s hand as she writes his name. She readjusts the pieces he glues and go as far as to add doodles and embellishments of her own. Then the coup de grace, she’ll hold it up and say “Daddy is going to love this! You did a great job!”
And I tuck my buck teeth back into my lip because yeah, if I made a piece of art designed for the ability of a two-year-old, it’d be pretty awesome, too.
Instead, I stand back and proudly let my children scribble their names backwards if at all, and have their way with their art.
My daughter’s first art project at the library is a fish. The tail is glued together completely wrong and is positioned more like a dorsal fin. The fish itself, fashioned from a small paper plate, looks like it swam through a body of water recovering from an oil spill. Blue paint is involved, but not in any way that it really was intended, and what was once an eye has now been replaced by a big blob of dried glitter.
And it is beautiful.
It goes without saying that our blind, oily, propellerless fish now hangs proudly in the hall of crazed animals, front and center, just as it should be. Only this one doesn’t wink at me when I go downstairs, and I’m quite thankful that fish can’t have rabies.

The Hall of Crazed Animals

Shoveling snow, oatmeal bread, and the white chili of the day

There are few things better than waking up to 17" of snow like we did on Saturday. In fact, the only better thing would have been waking up to 17" of snow on a weekday, and wondering if the snow day dance really did work.

But when you are snowed in, you naturally turn to homey warm things. I know this because it seems all of my facebook friends were making soup, taking naps, cuddling in with a good book, or for the unfortunate few, shoveling out their driveways.

I figured if we were going to be in all day, the house better smell good, and at the first chance I had I whipped out one of my favorite recipes, Oatmeal Bread. (recipe follows.)

The house was smelling sweet, we all ate enough warm bread and butter to overbloat our stomachs, and I thought chili would be the perfect end to a long play session out in the snow. And there was no way we could not go in the snow-- it was a picture perfect afternoon.

When the forts were all built, the sledding hill completely tuckered us out, and the sun took its last look at the winter wonderland for the day, we all came inside. The children at something boxed and gross, but the rest of us dined on a concoction that I totally threw together with ingredients on hand (normally the best recipes!) because there was no way in the world anyone was going to brave going to the store.

Did I mention a city plow/salt truck got stuck in front of our house?

And with the drying clanging dry the coats, pants, hats, gloves, and socks, we ate chicken chili...

In a dutch oven, heat a little oil and cook together:

1.5 pounds diced chicken breasts

1 big ol' onion

a few jalepeno rings

Add:

2 cans cannelini beans, drained and rinsed

1/2- 1 cup salsa

2-3 gloves garlic, chopped

2 cups chicken broth

cumin, to taste

chili powder, to taste.

Put the lid on, turn it on low, and head out in the snow. Serve with a dollop of sour cream and a box of tissues because depending on how many jalapenos you put it, this stuff will clean out your nose!

A rather fiery way to end a cold day with the warmth of a homey house.

Oatmeal Bread

1 cup rolled oats

1 tablespoon oil

1 tablespoon salt

1/4 cup molasses

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 cups boiling water

5 cups Bread Flour

1 tablespoon instant yeast

In a large mixing bowl, or in the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the oats, butter, salt, molasses, brown sugar and boiling water, and let the mixture sit for 20 minutes. Mix in 2 cups of the flour and the yeast, and beat for 2 minutes, by electric mixer. Gradually add the remaining 3 cups of flour, mixing all the while, till a cohesive dough forms.Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured or lightly greased work surface, and knead to form a smooth, elastic dough, adding flour only as necessary to prevent unbearable sticking. Place the dough in lightly greased bowl, cover with damp towel, and let it rise till doubled in bulk, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Punch down the dough, divide it in half, and shape each half into a log. Place the logs in two lightly greased 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pans, cover the pans, and let rise till doubled in bulk, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Bake the bread in a preheated 350°F oven for 30 to 35 minutes.

Shoveling snow, oatmeal bread, and the white chili of the day

The Bob Evans Rap

I can't tell you exactly why, but the kids and I love to eat at Bob Evans. My husband does not. So any chance we have to dine out when he's not around, it's where we go.
Tonight was one such occasion and we all had a little case of the sillies. The result is below. Note that the "K" stands for me, the "T" for my son (6), and the "E" for my daughter (8).

And Mr. Evans, if you're out there and want us to rap this for your commercial, we'd be happy to.


The Bob Evans Rap
by Karrie and Co.

K: I was feeling kind of hungry with my family,
So we made a beeline for the B-O-B.

T: The what?
E: The what?
K: The B-O-B. 'Cause we like to eat at the B-O-B.
T: The Bob
E: The Bob
K: At the Bob Evans

K: We pulled into the lot and to tell the truth,
They seated us right at our favorite booth.
Lemonade with curly straws is their favorite thing,
And Bob's hot fresh coffee makes my heart sing!

T: It's time
E: It's time
K: It's time to place our order

K: Chicken strips and french fries are the same old ballad,
E: I'll take the turkey lurkey and a SIDE OF SALAD!!
K: Breakfast, lunch, or dinner, any time of day,
It's the best restaurant in the U.S.A!

T: The what?
E: The what?
K: The B-O-B
T: The Bob
E: The Bob
K: Bob Evans!

T: [closes out beat boxing, "ba-ba-ba-ba Bob Evans..."]


Alright, Bob, do we have a deal? :)

The Bob Evans Rap

Last-minute Groundhog Day treat

Yep, it's as easy as a craft stick, some clipart, and a doughnut.
The good part is that my kid has kindergarten snack on Groundhog Day, and I'm sending in enough giant doughnuts (and groundhogs) for everyone.
The even better part is that they are going to have a sub. Haha! Nothing better than subbing a class full of sugar-high kindergartners!

C'mon, shadow!

Last-minute Groundhog Day treat

Killing the family with kindness

Thanks to all of my readers who have sent me their favorite oatmeal recipes! If you've got a good one to share, post it in the comments for all to read!

“Dear, I love you and everything, but this is the worst dinner you have ever cooked in all of our ten years of marriage.”
All of that from one meal that Wilford Brimley told me was “the right thing to do.” But I guess it wasn’t “the tasty way to do it.”
I have this odd relationship with oatmeal. Always have, always will. I think it stems from the fact that I figured out, at a young age, that if I taught myself to like things that other people didn’t want, I would have more. The revelation hit at Girl Scout camp when I watched so many mistakenly burnt marshmallows go into the fire. With the limit set at two per girl, I quickly upped my intake by offering not to waste the burnt ones.
It naturally follows then that I also learned to like black jelly beans, mushrooms, and prunes.
Added to the list is oatmeal which was never really a competition food, but something I truly enjoyed as a kid. Rushing to open that new variety pack and get the brown sugar and maple before anyone else was a challenge, and after winning that battle I’d work my way down through the apples and cinnamon, the cinnamon spice, and I honestly to this day don’t know whatever happened to the oodles of unflavored oatmeal that no one ever ate.
But back to torturous wife and mother I have become.
A dear friend shared one of her family’s favorite recipes after learning of my love for oatmeal. “Baked Oatmeal,” she said, was such a hit that her husband said he could eat it multiple times per week for dinner.
Inexpensive, easy, and healthy, I was so excited to serve the dish to my own family. The simple ingredients went together with ease, and it smelled so delicious in the oven! I sniffed and imagined all of the money and time I would save by happily feeding my family this nutritious and hearty meal. I set the table and put little bowls of brown sugar and raisins out and gave everyone an oversized bowl in which to scoop what was quickly becoming the world’s best meal.
But then we sat down to eat. And the comments came.
Besides that humdinger from my husband, I also got a request for leftovers from one child and the other charmed us with a made-up knock-knock whose punchline was “scoopy-poopy oatmeal.”
I admit the recipe might have needed some tweaking for my liking, but still, it was oatmeal. It was good, and good for you, and really I was just trying to do the right thing for my family. But I can admit failure and while I finished my own bowl, the rest was scraped away and I sadly boiled up some last minute pasta for the rest of the gang.
Time passes and a completely different friend shares a new and exciting slow cooker oatmeal recipe with me. The thought of waking up to the nutty sweetness made me sleep soundly and I confess with more than normal drool. I even woke up early without the aid of an alarm clock and served myself the largest bowl that I could, which, as we oatmeal-eaters know, isn’t very big because as wonderful as it is, the stuff sits like a boulder in your belly.
Sweet and drippy, I finally thought I had found a way to share oatmeal with even the pickiest eaters of my family and get them to eat this naturally delightful food that I was convinced would keep them all healthy for life. One by one, they came down the stairs, only to crinkle their noses and ask for cereal. Even my husband who kindly ate half of a small bowl eventually turned to something else.
And then, right then, I realized why the single serving packages are so popular. But I’ll never know what to do with the unflavored packs.

Killing the family with kindness