Fruit roll-ups...

I finally got around to making fruit roll-ups! My family and I are so excited about this it's ridiculous. I mean ridiculous that we are so excited about these fruit leathers. AND it was so easy that I am kicking myself for not jumping in before now. AND they are so good, I'll probably have to make more by the end of the week I am that sure that they won't last.

Here's what I did to make Strawberry-Orange fruit leather/roll-ups...and I did double this recipe for all the Monkeys in this house LOVE fruit leather.
3 cups of Organic Strawberries
2 Tbsp Homegrown Orange juice
2 Tbsp Local Honey
Blend in a blender until smoothie-like and pour onto a prepared cookie sheet. I prepared my sheet using parchment paper. Put in 180ºF oven for 5-6 hours.  When they are dehydrated, take from the oven and cut into strips and roll up.

The house smells divine during those 5-6 hours and it is so hard to stop looking into the oven to see your work. Next time I make these I'm definitely getting creative with fruit flavors. The sky is the limit!

Have fun creating and enjoy!!

Poured our and in the oven!

Dehydrated!

Cut into strips and start rolling!

All rolled out, these will be devoured by the middle of the week!

Chicks...

Friends of ours are diving into chicken keeping and invited us over to see their new little babies. Rebekah is an animal lover so we went over for a bit to see them play with them and hang out with them. They are so cute when they are small. We haven't had baby chicks for a year, they grow so fast that you forget how little they are.

Biztown...

Noah, our 10-year-old, went to Biztown with his class this week and I volunteered as a chaperone. It was such a great experience last year that he wanted to go again this year, and it didn't disappoint! He worked at the San Diego Humane Society where he was an educator for anyone who wanted information about adopting animals. They had rabbits, guinea pigs, cats and dogs for adoption. The kids were given a salary for their work in their businesses. They were given two breaks during their work day, and during those breaks they were able to go shopping, to the bank or go eat at Jack-in-the-Box where they could buy real popcorn to eat!

I was a volunteer at Kaiser Permanente and I helped the kids with the various jobs that they had. There was a receptionist, some nutritionists and some doctors. They had to check patients in and send them to the nutritionist who then sent them to the doctor if they were sick. The business, Kaiser Permanente, needed to pay their employees and pay their bills and pay the loan back. So one of the CEO jobs was to make sure they were on track with their finances. So the kids were able to see most aspects of running a business with this experience. Everyone had a great time and everyone was exhausted afterwards.

More on Biztown here: https://www.jasandiego.org/programs/ja-biztown.html

Rebekah sews...

Rebekah (7yo) decided that she wanted to enter a sewing project into the San Diego county fair. She wanted to make a bag. We did an online search with images and found a cute messenger bag on this website: http://crazylittleprojects.com/2015/06/reversible-messenger-bag.html  We went through my fabric and found two pieces of fabric that would accommodate the pattern that we created. She took charge of the project and knew exactly what she wanted, how big it would be...etc. we made our own pattern with a piece of paper.

Here she is cutting the pattern with fabric pinned on the back.

Pinning the fabric together, getting it ready to sew.

Sewing on the machine. She is so proud of herself!

All finished! Clipping the random strings.

All finished! A miniature messenger bag made just for her.

She entered this bag into the San Diego County Fair, so if if you are at the fair, stop by the Creative Youth area and look for her bag!