Hemp Seed Bread

So I was folding laundry last week and I caught the end of Dr. Oz's show. He was talking about healthy snacks.  I am always looking for healthy snacks to have available for me and for my kids.  So, they talked a lot about unhealthy choices but then he showed a trail mix he had made in ziploc bags that had granola, nuts, seeds and hemp seeds. I had never head of hemp seeds before. Have you??
I quickly looked them up on Amazon and they had tons.  I thought it was really strange that I had never seen hemp seeds in any of my health food stores before. I do not think I had ever seen a recipe with nemp seeds in it either!!
So thanks to my Amazon Prime membership, I had my hemp seeds in hand 2 days after watching the show. I bought a 3 pack, hoping we would love these seeds, and 3 bags (8 oz each) was only $9.49 on the subscription rate.

I opened up the bag, and boy was I surprised. I thought these would be more seed like. The seeds alone taste fine, nothing amazing, but these are not meant to be eaten alone. We have so far added them to oatmeal, smoothie and rolled some no bake cookies in them. They add a really nice flavor!
The nutrition facts on the back are really great.  It says you only need to eat 3 spoons a day to add a ncie amount of Omega 3s to your diet.
3 Tablespoons are 174 calories and 13 grams of fat, but only 1 gram of staurated fat. Also, 11 grams of protein and lots of great iron, zinc, phosphorous and magnesium levels.
So after making a no bake cookie and rolling them in the seeds with great results I set out to make a hemp seed bread.
The seeds were very hard to take a picture of, this was the best I could get:

Here is my recipe for Hemp Seed Bread
The kids all loved it! I will be trying a lot more recipes, and if you try it please leave me a comment below. I would love to hear how you are using hemp seeds in your cooking!

Hemp Seed Bread
Makes 1 loaf
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white unbleached flour
1/2 cup hemp seeds raw
1.5 tsp salt
2 tsp agave syrup
1 package of rapid rise yeast
1.5 cups warm water

Combine hemp seeds flours and salt in a large bowl.  In a measuring cup combine warm water, yearst and agave. Let proof and stand for at least 5 minutes. If your cup is not nice and frothy at the top, throw it out and start again!
Make a well in the center of the flours bowl. Pour in the yeast mixture and stir until it is starting to turn into a ball of dough. Move the dough to a floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes until dough is smooth(remember the hemp seeds will make the dough look a bit lumpy, this is fine!)  Place dough ball in an oiled bowl and cover with a damp cloth and put in a warm place to rise for 2 hours. Dough should double.  Deflate dough and shape into a loaf and let rise again 1 hour. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes.

Crayola Washable Colored Bubbles Review

I won and was sent 5 bottles of the new Washable Crayola Colored Bubbles to review from www.timetoplaymag.com.  Each color comes in its own spill resistant bottle. I got one of each color pink, purple, blue, orange and green.  We won these bubbles almost 3 weeks ago but it has been freezing or pouring since the day they arrived. Finally today was beautiful and my two youngest kids could not wait to try them out!!
I got an email a few days after the bubbles arrived reminding me that these bubbles are only to be used outside. Since we always do bubbles outside anyway, I did not think twice about this email, but I now know I should have taken this as a warning.
The bubble blowing started out fine.  We had a bit of trouble blowing the first few bubbles. Big brother was a better blower and little sister was happy watching and popping.

The bubble liquid was very brightly colored and very drippy. The no spill bottle had a small opening, but the liquid easily sloshed out every time you tried to pull out the wand!

As you can kind of see in this picture, the bubble solution itself is very drippy. It dripped all over the kids hands, shoes and clothing while they tried to blow.

The bubbles we blew were definitely brightly colored, so the product does what it says it will do

But, the dirty porch and dirty people is not really worth a few pretty bubbles~

And as we were getting ready to go inside, my little girl said, one more bubble mommy and this is what happened next

10 minutes of colored bubble blowing led to 30 minutes of cleanup and one ruined care bears shirt.
I think we will stick to our boring old clear bubbles from now on. Those have always served us just fine.

We also made a short video showing the bubbles in action
bubbles video

A to Z Magnatab Review

My 3 year old daughter is very interested in drawing, coloring, and learning her letters.  This toy is available at http://www.momastore.org/museum/moma/ProductDisplay_A%20to%20Z%20Magnatab_10451_10001_68277
It costs $20 or $18 if you are a MOMA member.
I bought this for my little girl and she loves it. Her 7 year old brother waits patiently for his turn.
While practicing tracing the uppercase letters, little magnets pop up along the way as you "draw" each letter.  This toy would be great to use while waiting for a drs appt, restaurant meal, in the car, the possibilities are endless!
I bought this toy because I am always looking for fun educational toys to use on the days we do not have preschool.  This toy is really different from all other toys and my kids give it 5/5 stars!
Here is a short video so you can see exactly how it works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wAPpzUE-fw
Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think. What educational toys do your kids enjoy using?