Girls Day Out

Sophia had the day off from school yesterday. It was Kindergarten Round Up. All of the little 4 and 5 year old boys and girls were checking out the classrooms and meeting the teachers. This displaced the current Kindergarteners for the day – including Sophia. She didn’t mind though. We have been planning our “girls day out” for more than a month. Lucky for me, it’s not difficult to impress a 5 year old. We had a number of things on our list that we wanted to do. By the end of our day, we had completed them all.

Here’s a peek at our list – sleep in, color card for friend’s birthday party, take long bath, play with ponies, get hair cut, enjoy treat at McDonald’s, take vehicle to car wash (this was on my personal list but Sophia didn’t mind), walk Daphne, paint nails, watch “girl” movie, bake cookies or bars, take pictures and read books. We covered it all…and then some.

Here are some highlights from the day.

After a bath, pony play time and lunch, we headed to McDonald’s for a treat. Sophia opted for a hot fudge sundae. She was generous enough to share it with me. After a few bites of her portion, she was all done. When I suggested that we head home to complete some of our other plans for the day, she told me that she wanted to stay a bit longer. “Look at the view, Mom. You can see the whole lake from here.” She was so cute – enjoying the Lake Superior view from the McDonald’s on London Road. We stayed a bit longer to take in the view.

Here’s what we did when we got back home.

We set up the tripod to take photos. Sophia loved pressing the shutter button and running over to pose for the pictures. She did it about 20 times. These are my favorites.

After walking Daphne and watching part of a movie, we headed down to the school to pick up Sebastian. Then we took some more photos.

Sebastian offered Sophia a piggy-back ride…for $1. She took him up on the offer.

After all the fun and games, we made some yummy bars – Chocolate Crumb Bars. Everyone in the family gave them two thumbs up. The recipe is below. I found it on the Nestle website.

Chocolate Crumb Bars

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped walnuts, optional

Directions

PREHEAT oven to 350° F. Grease a 13 x 9-inch baking pan.

BEAT butter in a large mixing bowl until creamy. Beat in flour, sugar and salt until crumbly. With floured fingers, press 2 cups crumb mixture onto bottom of prepared baking pan; reserve remaining mixture. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown.

COMBINE 1 cup morsels and sweetened condensed milk in a small, heavy-duty saucepan. Warm over low heat, stirring until smooth. Stir in vanilla extract. Spread over hot crust.

STIR nuts and remaining morsels into reserved crumb mixture; sprinkle over chocolate filling. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until center is set. Cool in pan on wire rack.