Summer Activities & a Muffin Contest

What if some of us moms kept costs down this summer by offering to teach our girls what we know?  I'm offering to give group painting lessons to McKenzie's friends. All the girls would have to buy are some $2 bottles of paint at Walmart, and a $5 packet of brushes.  I could get some cheap canvas and they could cut it up, make little individual works, and work together on a big mural for each of them.  

I've taken enough dog obedience to pass on some knowledge and fun there too.  We'll just have the lesson at the lake so we don't have all the rest of our dogs running interference.

I hope some of McKenzie's friends want to do it, and maybe their moms can teach a group lesson about something fun too.  I'm also thinking it would be nice for Gram to get together with McKenzie one morning a week to show her how to make some of those good pie recipes.  Especially banana creme.  Hayley could use some help teaching her young horses ground manners.  That's something McKenzie and I could both do with her this summer.  And McKenzie's hoping to teach her friend, Sam, guitar.  Why didn't this idea occur to me before? 

Mmmm, I've just finished my third apple spice muffin.  Hayley told me about a Mimi's contest (link to the side) for a Meaningful Muffin recipe.  The prize is a $1000 worth of Mimi's meals.  Also, you get a coupon for something if you submit an entry.  Soooo, yesterday, McK and I made our own applesauce, miraculously just enough, and whipped up an old recipe I used to make for muffins to bring to Montessori snack time.  Back then, I altered Laura Ingalls Wilder's Applesauce Cake recipe.  Now I'm wondering if it would be good to try it with a bit less cardamon, and the addition of some dark chocolate pomogranates.  But Hayley says it may be too pricey to add those, so maybe chocolate chips.  Mimi's is phasing out their banana chocolate chip muffins for this new type.  I know, maybe dark chocolate chips.  Hmmmm.  Entries are due by May 15th.  I'd better not experiment from now till then.  I'll start looking like a muffin.