Maple Cinnamon Cream Cheese Spread

A few months ago we participated in the Tour the World by Flower blog hop with our Red Clover Painting Exploration. This time again be participating in A Tour the World blog series, this time focusing on food!

Bloggers from around the world are sharing recipes and project ideas which focus on a key food from their state or country in this Tour the World by Food blog series.

For our post we focused not only on an ingredient our state is commonly known for, but also an all time favorite in our house: maple syrup.

I grew up in a family that made maple syrup, and used it often in almost everything and anything, (moving way beyond pancakes of course!): coffee, fruit salad, oatmeal, cookies, etc. 

Vehicle Week (Simple Summer Theme Week #3)

We're still really enjoying our Simple Summer Theme weeks even though summer is quickly passing us by. It's no secret we love playing with cars and trucks, so Vehicle Week was a lot of fun for the boys!

Week Three: Vehicle Week

One of my favorite things about this week was that we already own so many of the materials we needed. It also encouraged us to get out some of the transportation toys we already owned and hadn't used in a while. 

Roll, Count, Color to 100

We've been enjoying the Cool Math Series which has been going on this month. Earlier this month we shared 4 ways to Explore Symmetry at Home. Today we're sharing a new, homemade math game: Roll, Count, Color to 100.

For a while now, Big Brother has been interested in counting to 100, and he can pretty much do it as long as the gets a little help with the "tens." I wanted him to get a sense of what the tens actually meant, so I put together this math game. 

TRUCK inspired Sticky Collage

This month the Virtual Book Club for Kids author is Donald Crews. We read several of his books last year as we explored our Vehicle Week as they perfectly fit our Simple Summer Theme.

The book the boys enjoyed the most was TRUCK. The book follows one tractor trailer truck as it makes its way across the delivery route. The brief text and bold, colorful illustrations make it appealing to even the littlest reader. 

Build-A-Road Playdough Play

Toy cars abound at our house, so it's always fun to find new ways to play with them. One thing the boys really enjoyed this past week was this new playdough invitation, with a slightly new twist on our playdough recipe.

This invitation was one that was definitely high interest for all the boys, even though they are at slightly different ages. 

One Bowl Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

As we've shared before, the boys love muffins. Banana muffins are usually our go-to recipe as we almost always wind up with overripe bananas in the house. I'm always looking for ways to make them a little quicker and easier, which is why I've come up with this one bowl banana chocolate chip muffin recipe. Fast to make and easy to clean up.

When I make these, I always make them in our KitchenAid mixer, which makes the mixing fast and smooth. It had actually been a while since I made some, but we were pretty excited to enjoy a fresh batch this week.