Normally Thursdays are our library days. I make sure we finish with school before lunch and then we head out as soon as we get lunch cleaned up. That way I can get the books I need for #3's school for the next week and everyone trades out their books from the week before. I would say on average we check out between 50 and 75 books every week. Thank goodness the oldest three have their own library cards or we wouldn't be able to check all the books out that we want!
This week was a little different. Our suburban broke down last weekend and threw off our plans to go to the library so we had to wait until Tuesday to go. We were very excited because we got to go to the brand new library that is only about a mile from our house. We've been looking forward to it for a while, but I was really disappointed. Everything is new and it is certainly beautiful, but their selection of books is so small. And their children's section is probably 1/3 the size of the one at the library we've been going to. The girls didn't seem to have a problem finding anything though. And fortunately all the libraries here are connected so I can look for the books I need for #3 online and have them send them to the new library. I feel a little bad about requesting 20 books (some were for #1), but since they didn't have a single one I needed I have no choice! Hopefully it won't take too long for the selection of books to expand.
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| This is how we check out a new library |
So since we had just gone to the library on Tuesday we didn't need to go again on Thursday which left me with an entire afternoon where I didn't have anything planned. So I decided to try a couple of new recipes I had bought ingredients for.
First up was homemade fruit snacks. I've been wanting to make these for a while because 3 of the girls love them. I would probably spend $30 a month just on fruit snacks if I bought them as many as they wanted. Since they have zero nutritional value and don't fill them up at all I rarely buy them. But when I saw the recipe that only involved jello, gelatin and water I decided to try it out. I couldn't find any molds to use so I ended up just putting them in a pan and cutting them into small squares. I thought they turned out pretty good and the girls all approved. It was actually very easy to make. I'll be making them again, although I might try sugar free jello next time.
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| I pulled that thing out of the pan in one piece! |
I also attempted to make banana chips. We had a couple of bananas that were starting to turn. Not one person in this house likes bananas if they have any spots on them so instead of just tossing them I decided to try drying out the bananas in the oven. The recipe I found said to just dip them in lemon juice and put them in the oven for four hours on 200 degrees. I think I might have sliced the bananas too thin. Whatever I did, they turned out awful! The good thing was that I hadn't bought anything extra so I didn't feel too bad about the fail. Other than the pan being a pain to clean!
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| Going in the oven |
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| Fail! Makes me laugh just looking at it! |
Lastly I made some energy/granola bars. These turned out awesome! The only problem was that I only had old fashioned oats instead of instant oats so the bars aren't staying together very well. I'm glad these turned out well. We spend more of our grocery budget on snacks than I would like to. Which is why I tried these in the first place--trying to make something the girls would like that would replace some of their snacks they eat in the afternoons. They were a hit with everyone so I'll be making them again.
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| Yummy! |
So 2 out of 3 tries isn't too bad. I won't mention how two of the new dinners I tried this past week were major flops. They weren't complete disasters because the girls liked them, but I didn't, so they go down as a flop in my book. Considering how many new recipes I've tried since we've moved I guess I'm lucky I haven't had more failures. As long as I have more successes than failures I'll consider myself to be ahead!
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