Steffanie's Favorite Valentine Cookies

These combine peanut butter and chocolate, two things that like good couples are okay separate, but just SHOULD be together. I love these cookies, and by my standards, they are healthy too. (I haven't bought into fat being bad, and I think sugar in moderated quantities just makes life sweet.) So here you go! We'll call the recipe my valentine to YOU!

CREAM TOGETHER:

2 packages dark chocolate Dove hearts (apx 32 hearts)

(you've seen this recipe before with kisses, but Dove is better chocolate, is heart shaped,

AND dark chocolate has all the anti-oxidant properties for a great excuse to down a few more!)

1/2 c. butter

3/4 c. pure peanut butter 

(again, no preservatives or added anything but a great punch of protein)

1/3 c. sugar

1/3 c. brown sugar

1 egg (go Omega 3 eggs for more reasons to love these cookies)

2 tbsp milk (local milk, anyone?)

1 tsp. vanilla

MIX:

1 1/2 c. flour (whole wheat works but will make the cookies drier and more crumbly)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

Add dry to wet ingredients. Form dough into small balls (the smaller the better balance of chocolate to PB) and roll in sugar. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet 8-10 minutes. Put chocolate heart on center of ball and press down slightly immediately when cookies come out of oven. 

Let cool and chocolate melt through and reset. Then ENJOY!

Personality and Learning

I've written elsewhere on this blog about my second child, oldest daughter. Our experience today with cursive - a subject she wanted to work on to have fancy writing - reminded me of her little 10 month old self.

She was a determined mover who developed her own system of getting around - she crawled backwards. It wasn't efficient, and she struggled to get where she wanted. Worse, she would often wedge herself under chairs, side tables, and a couch of ours. Adorable, but understandingly frustrating to her.

So the three big people in her life - her dad, me, and her older brother - did what we could to show her the "correct way." We modeled, we cheered, we inscentivized, and we even moved her body for her. Despite our best efforts, she hardly made any progress. I still remember the first time she did crawl forward on her own. She cried as if it was torture, as if each leg and arm movement caused pain and represented an unwilling surrender.

Interestingly, she hardly used her new-found skill of forward crawling. A few days later she mastered walking. She walked BEFORE she turned one, which beat the record of her older brother who had no problems crawling, but didn't walk 'til around 13 months.

I can't help but smile at her current frustration with cursive, and her insistence that she can just lift her pencil, move it to the spot she needs to finish the letter, and call it good. SHE IS BEING TORTURED, she is sure. Maybe next month she'll write a book. :)

Blessed Bedtime

I love homeschooling because being with family gets to be the natural state of our lives.

I've heard many moms remark that they can't wait for the winter school break to be over so their kids can get back to school. I remember feeling excited to GET back to school as a kid because I was sick of being at home!

So do we homeschoolers ever get sick of our families and being with them ALL THE TIME? Despite the impression a few glowing blog posts may convey, the answer is YES!!! That is why I LOVE bedtime! Many of the homeschoolers I know have comparatively early bedtimes for their kids. I've often felt this is possible because we get all day to do all the things we WANT to do - family time, lessons, playing outside. Whatever it is, we get it done and can then BE done!

But I also think early bedtimes (at least for ME) mean mom is ready to be "off the clock," doing whatever it is she WANTS to do which is NOT meeting a thousand real and perceived needs generated by her handful(s) of children.

I've been asked before, and wondered before homeschooling myself, "don't you ever need a break?" I can honestly now answer YES, and I get it when my kids go to bed. It's yet another GREAT time of day to be a homeschooler! :)