Y Week- Yogurt Cake

I found this delicious yogurt cake recipe just in time for Y week. It's very simple to make, and tastes even better a day or two after it's made- if it lasts that long, that is. I had a ladies' lunch to attend a few days after we made this cake, so I made a double batch, and put a cooled cake in a Ziplock bag. It was still super moist and delicious when I opened and served it three days after I had baked it.

Trip loves to crack eggs, so I let him help me, which is always an adventure.

His idea of cracking eggs is putting the egg, shell and all, into the bowl. He sure thinks it's fun, though, so I don't mind obliging from time to time.

French Yogurt Cake from the May 2012 issue of Bon Appetit magazine

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
3/4 cup whole-milk Greek yogurt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350*. Coat a standard (8 1/2 x 4 1/4") loaf pan with nonstick vegetable oil spray (I used butter). Dust with flour; tap out excess. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Using your fingers, rub sugar with lemon zest in a large bowl until sugar is moist. Add yogurt, oil, eggs, and vanilla; whisk to blend. Fold in dry ingredients just to blend. Pour batter into prepared pan; smooth top. Bake until top of cake is golden brown and a tester inserted into center comes out clean, 50-55 minutes. Let cake cool in pan on wire rack for 15 minutes. Invert on a wire rack; let cool completely. Can be made up to three days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.

Enjoy!

Y Week- Y Lunches

I've been meaning to do a muffin tin meal for quite some time. Trip's yellow lunch included pear, yellow bell pepper, a hard-boiled egg (which he did not even want to try), corn, yogurt, and cheese. To make the Y on the yogurt, I put a cookie cutter on it, then sprinkled some yellow sprinkles inside.

This yo-yo lunch was super simple as well.

Y Week

I'm finally back! It took us several weeks to do our letter Y activities, but we have finally finished all of our letters.

Trip enjoyed a yellow lunch.

He loves yogurt, so he got to choose some special ones on a couple of different occasions when we were at the store. I usually only buy big containers of the plain stuff and add jam, so he had lots of fun choosing something new and exciting. He also helped me make a delicious lemon yogurt cake.

He thought this yo-yo lunch was pretty cool, especially since it included olives and pickles, two of his favorites.

The only y-related art project that we did was to make designs with yarn soaked in glue.

Chicks!

As you have probably gathered, life around here had been extra busy lately and I have chosen to let blogging be one of the first things to go. I substitute teach and this spring has brought a lot of work. I'm very thankful for the consistent work lately and for the opportunity to make some extra money to help us out during the summer when I don't work and therefore don't get paid either. We are blessed to have a great babysitter and Trip loves going to her house to play with his friends. We've been working on our last letter, the letter Y, little by little so I will share our activities in the future.

Something exciting that has happened in the last few weeks is that Daddy bought us five chicks. I have been wanting to have chickens for a long time so that we can have fresh eggs. Daddy hasn't been so thrilled about the idea, but wanted to make it happen for me. One day, he came home with a small box of cute little black chicks to surprise Trip and me. Trip has been loving them since day one. He likes to help take care of them and wants to pet and try to hold them.

He has loved pouring food into their tray, filling their water bottle, and putting clean wood shavings into their box.

It's been fun to watch the chicks change and grow over the last few weeks. They are getting more feathers quickly and have grown quite a bit. A friend of ours graciously offered us a small chicken coop that he isn't using, so once they are fully feathered, our little chickens will have a nice home in the backyard.

S Week- Sports

We played several sports during S week, but the highlight for Trip was an envelope of sports pictures that he got in the mail from Noni. My mom had been cutting pictures out of the sports section of the newspaper for a while. Once she had a nice collection, she sent them to Trip. He had loved going through these pictures and is very serious when looking at each one. He identifies each sport and gets excited about them all.

S Week- Spaceship Lunch

Trip loves the "Space Adventures" Goldfish because they have special shapes. The stars, moon, and spaceships came in very handy for this lunch and he was excited to see them on his plate. The spaceship is just bread, hot dog, carrot, and olive. I used mini chocolate chips to make the S.

S Week- Spring Stained Glass

 This was a fun simple spring project. I cut up some tissue paper

and taped some contact paper to the table, sticky side up.

 Then, it was Trip's turn to stick tissue paper pieces to the contact paper.

It took a little work to get him to lay them flat instead of crumpling them up, but he got the idea.

He stuck on quite a few colorful pieces, then I filled in the rest and sandwiched our work with another layer of contact paper.

Next, it was time to trace some flowers.

Once I cut out the flowers, Trip had a great time taping them to the sliding glass door. He was very proud of his work and we are now enjoying some bright spring colors.