*Twinkle Toes*

A few weeks ago a lady in our ward started teaching a ballet class for the children in our area. We were so excited! Living is such a rural area it is hard to find extra activities for children to participate in, unless you want to drive 40+ minutes. Little Bear really wanted to participate, so we got her all set up with an outfit and away she went.

The following video is mostly for Pap Bear who is away from us during the week, going to school. We started a project, Little Bear & I, to document everything we did with videos to put here and pictures to put on facebook so Dad could see what we are up to. This video was taken today, the 3^rd class Little Bear has been to. I think she is doing really well.

New Idea

We are trying something new here at the Bear House. First, the background why – Little Bear goes to a school that is peanut aware, there is a little boy in her class that is allergic to many things. Little Bear & Papa Bear LOVE peanut butter sandwiches, so, being unable to take a PB & J sandwiches for lunch is a big deal here. We tried nutella, but Little Bear didn’t like it on the whole grain bread I bought. We tried cheese whiz, but she tired of that very quickly. So after a few weeks of un-eaten lunches, and a hungry Little Bear, I came up with a solution.

Muffins.

Yep, muffins. I have a great cookbook with a really easy basic muffin recipe. I came up with the idea of seeing how many different varieties of muffins we could come up with and make a different one each week. The idea being that the muffins would replace sandwiches in both Little Bear & Papa Bears lunches. Plus it is a great family activity for a Sunday afternoon. Now each week I will be sharing our Muffin of the week, with our new Mondays Muffin post. (I know it is Tuesday) This week our Monday Muffin is: Oatmeal Cranberry

I used the muffin recipe and modified it for oatmeal muffins, then added 1 cup of dried cranberries. Simple as that. After a taste test we decided that they needed something more, so next time I am going to add some finely grated Orange or Lemon peel. Over all Mondays Muffin was a big hit with the adult crowd, not so much with the elementary aged one, Little Bear brought home her protest.

Stay tuned for next weeks Muffin!

Happy Valentine Party

I volunteered at the beginning of the school year to be the room parent, I wasn't too sure what that really meant at the time. I found out later it was my job to plan parties! How fun! On the 12th of this month, it was the Valentines party. We played musical chairs and a valentine version of duck-duck-goose. We had some snacks, I made 2 kinds of muffins and brought carrots. How boring, I know, BUT! Other Mothers came through with cookies. This year I also wanted to stay away from the character cards, the ones I looked at where so corny, I couldn't bring myself to buy them. So Little Bear and I came up with a better idea.

A little something to put in the Valentine pouches

And a little something to take home

Mini Olympics

Every year Little Bears school has a mini Olympics. It includes the whole school, grades K-9 in various events. Little Bear was on Team Jamaica. Russia, Japan and Canada were also represented. Little Bear got to participate in 2 events, "Swimming" and the "Chariot Race". It was such a fun morning, I spent it at the school cheering on our little athlete.

Here she is ready to go swimming

Here is the set up for the chariot race

Christmas Part 2

The second half of our Christmas was spent with my family. It was a really low key event, since half the family couldn't be there. We had a good time though, watching a comedian, and just hanging out.