Cookie project

While they didn't have to do the science fair this year, Eva still had to do a project for class if she wanted to try for an "A" in the science section for her class. Eva chose a cooking project since we had all the supplies. (The shortening and margarine were from pie making during the holidays.) (The apple butter was bought for a recipe and we've been slowly consuming it on sandwiches and toast. We prefer the traditional spreads like raspberry and strawberry jam so the apple butter has lasted for some time.)Ingredients: brown sugar, white sugar, flour, salt, egg, baking soda, vanilla, fat & chocolate chips
(recipe courtesy of Small-Batch Baking by Debbie Maugans Nakos)

Fats used: Butter (B), Margarine (M), Apple Butter (AB), Shortening (S) and Oil (O)

We didn't sign up to do taste testing [that required a separate form (government bureaucracy-even at the elementary level)]. I'm sure there's many legal and logical reasons behind the extra form but we chose to just go by appearance for this test.

The oil cookies looked the prettiest but smelled and tasted the worst. The apple butter came out soft and chewy but really sweet and the apple tones were....unusual. The margarine actually tasted the best in this particular recipe but normally we use a combination of butter for taste and shortening for texture and softness.

Since the tri-fold boards were only a dollar, we went ahead and bought one from the school. The final score came in around a B+ to A- so that was pretty good. If Eva had to do it again she'd add taste and overall appeal-not just appearance.

Adding another puzzle maker

Love this Peanuts puzzle of reading. All the puzzles in this post are 63 piece puzzles that were each completed in less than an hour (usually a lot less.) Eva has now joined us in completing puzzles. She did the reading puzzle and the baseball puzzle on her own.


Sarah completed the camp puzzle and the Snoopy "Joe Cool" puzzles below but the 63 piece puzzles were just too easy so she let Eva do two puzzles above. My parents had these in storage and we were looking for some easy puzzles to complete after the 750 piece lighthouse. These fit the bill well. Cute, easy and full of confidence building all in the short time frame of an afternoon.


It seems strange somehow that puzzles are really logical art. One takes the pieces and puts together a beautiful picture from what was just a concept in the artist's mind in the beginning. Making puzzles helps me to feel creative and I hope the girls sometimes feel that way also.

I'm going to read, read, read!

Reading aloud to your child (or children) -no matter the age-will help them to develop vocabulary, gain more of an understanding of their world through the medium of books both by visual language (pictures) and the written word, plus the final benefit: (and this is the best one!) they will want to continue reading!