Homemade Pizza

When I got home from teaching my second kids Zumba class of a very rainy Friday, took a hot shower and changed into my pajamas, I suggested to the boys that we make homemade pizza for dinner.  They were SO excited to help.  It was getting late so I was not able to whip up a homemade crust.  Luckily we had a can of refrigerated dough at the ready.

The boys rolled out the crust (after washing their hands, of course) while I collected some spices, vegetables and sauce.  I love to add a sprinkling of Italian seasoning and garlic powder to the crust before the sauce and toppings go on.  It makes the crust so flavorful.  If I have a block of Parmesan cheese (which I did not this time) I will grate that on the naked crust as well.  Yum!

The boys loved swirling the sauce onto the crust with spoons.  It took them a while to achieve what they deemed perfection so I set to work on the vegetables.  J’s  favorite pizza in college had mushrooms and onions on it.  This week’s co-op selection happened to have some lovely mushrooms and purple onions in it.  Woo hoo!

Wildman insisted on making half of the pizza just cheese since he is not a big fan of onions.  Both boys like mushrooms and chose to eat a few raw slices while making the pizza but chose not to add them to their half.  Who am I to interfere with culinary genius?

After the cheese was added our pizza it was ready for the oven.  I took these photos at night in our dim kitchen.  They’re certainly not the best quality and I had to alternate between flash and no flash to get some of them.  Oh, well.  You get the idea 🙂

When our hot, bubbly pizza came out of the oven 12 minutes later we were ready to dig in.

I let the boys eat their salads and pizza first since J was tied up at work.  They exclaimed that this was the best pizza they had ever eaten.  I managed to resist the pizza goodness until he got home but it was really hard.  As soon as he got home we devoured our share.  It was awesome!  A perfect meal for a dreary day.

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Rainy Day Activities

Ahhh, right now Cutie Pie is in bed.  He fell asleep at the dinner table.  At 6 PM!  That’s what no nap and 5 hours of swimming with the cousins will do to a 2 1/2 year old.  Wildman in quietly playing blocks in his room with J.  It’s so peaceful here.  It’s been a good day.  Luckily, we had a wonderful afternoon of sunshine again.  Steph and I made the most of it by letting the kids go wild in the pool all afternoon.  By the end of the afternoon all four boys were completely naked and diving into the pool.  So, so fun!  The rains came back as soon as we got home.  But that’s okay.  At least we got to enjoy some quality outdoor time for a while.

In my previous post I mentioned the week-long monsoon that we experienced last week.  It was difficult being stuck indoors for that long.  The kids were bored.  I was crazy trying to keep them happy and entertained.  We were all crawling the walls in a daze of cabin fever.

One of the fun activities I let the kids partake in to get their minds off of the fact that they were stuck inside was painting with squeeze paint.  They loooooved it.  Both of them love to squeeze stuff.  Glue, paint, toothpaste…  You name it, they love it.  I had a roll of craft paper from IKEA stashed away so I tore off a big piece for each of them.  We went outside to the back porch because I don’t have a tiled craft area big enough for two preschoolers and their paint supplies.  Paint and carpet do not mix, after all.  I let them squeeze and squeeze the paints until the tubes were empty.  It was awesome.

The other fun thing we tackled last week was baking brownies.  Peanut butter cup brownies with chocolate fudge icing and sprinkles!!!  Calories, schmalories…

My little goofballs were so excited to cook with mom!

Here is a photo essay of the creation of brownies…

My boys were so helpful.  Especially when it came time to clean the batter bowl.

I’ve got to come up with more fun cooking projects for them this summer!

Tookies!

That’s how Cutie Pie says “cookies” these days- “tookies”.  It’s so cute.

Wildman insisted on making cookies yesterday evening before I baked the casserole that I prepared for dinner.  Obligingly, I opened up the box of fundraiser cookies that I recently purchased from a friend’s daughter.  They were super easy to make: just place and bake.  That’s my kind of baking!  And the it satisfied the boys need to cook.

Waiting is the hardest part…

Finally done after 12 minutes!

Cutie Pie learned that I’m serious when I say “hot!”

After the cookies were baked I proceeded to make dinner.  I told the boys that they had to eat a good dinner then I’d take them to the beach to eat their cookies for dessert.  Dinner never went down so easy!  They could not wait to get in the car and go.

I was hoping that J would be at the beach we went to but he wasn’t.  The wind was better at another location.  He’s a kiteboarder…  He goes wherever the wind takes him…

Yum!