Father's Day

If you haven't made a Father's Day card yet, Brooke at Inchmark has a lovely idea and template for dad. Help kids draw a picture and write some of their thoughts about dad.

CSA and Greens

This is our first year to participate in a CSA with Rose Creek Village. I love buying local, and even more I love buying food from a family who grew food with their own hands. It's been a really exciting experience so far. They send us an email each week, telling us what we'll be getting and with some recipe ideas, and keeping us up to date on how the crops are doing.

My biggest worry was whether we'd be able to eat all the produce each week - especially with all the greens. We like salad, but John and I both tend to be wary of cooked greens. I have to admit, despite all the kale love floating around in recent years, I still hadn't tried it. I eat spinach - isn't that enough? Nevertheless, we found some recipes, and I'm totally digging both kale and swiss chard.

Swiss Chard with Garbanzo beans and fresh tomatoes

I'm loving comparing tomatoes and trying new things. In our third week, we've already tried about 6 new recipes. It would be a safe guess that I'll have lots of veggie recipes this summer. 

Non-photographers, such as myself, should really avoid taking pictures of certain types of foods - it's not doing anyone any good. So use your imagination for this one: this White Bean Soup with Kale (and bratwurst from our CSA) has been my favorite new recipe thus far.

Celebrating Five

I love my kids' birthdays.  I try really hard to make it a whole day of celebration. I don't want the day to be lost in the presents you got, the ones you didn't get, or the struggle to share new toys. I don't want birthdays to be about the stuff they're going to get, but to be a celebration of who they are, what they mean to our family. As a parent, it is an opportunity to find deeper ways of showing them how loved they are. Here are some ways we emphasize celebration over gifts:

Decorations! We hang streamers or bunting, pick flowers, and use table cloths and set up games, so when the girls first wake up, they know today is special. I don't necessarily buy decorations, we mostly use our special occasion linens and buntings, but we do like to pick up a few fun party favors. I usually lay out special clothes for the kids, too, because they still love dress up.

Memories. We talk a bit in the morning about growing up and all of our old memories. This year I was glad to be able to pull out our family albums and show them pictures from each of their past birthdays, and we talked about the ways they have changed - getting taller, longer hair, learning new words, writing, etc.

Food! Of course there's the birthday cake, made in a silly shape. But, I also try to make a whole meal (or two meals) of special foods the girls like, or things we don't have often. This year, Lou requested sausage balls like we have at Christmas.

A meal. We had a little tea party this year, so the entire meal felt like a special event. We ate finger foods, and had chocolate milk in our teapot and tea cups. John and I drank our coffee in little child size tea cups, too - which added another layer of fun. We also used our best (silliest) polite voices and everyone helped everyone get their food (rather than me fixing their plates). We eat together most days, so it is important to make this meal feel different than our usual family dinner.

Games! Kids love to play games, but more importantly, they love to play with us! So we spent the day playing together. I made a hopscotch game on the floor using painter's tape. John and I had to google the rules, and we had an awesome time learning and teaching it to the kids. This has become one of my favorite parts of birthdays - a whole day that I give them my attention and play with them without being distracted by all of the other things I need to do.

Presents. Of course, there still are a few presents. Not very many, but we spent much of the day playing with the presents with the kids. The joy wasn't so much about the thrill of opening too many packages but enjoying learning new games, playing pretend, and reading new books together. (Here the girls and I played with eeboo's awesome Tell Me a Story card game.)

L's one birthday present request was that mommy make her another dog.

Family. Our family lives far away, so its special to get to speak to so many of them on birthdays, to know that this is a day when people remember you and love you.

How do you celebrate little birthdays? How do you de-emphasize stuff and emphasize love?

Zoo Passport

The girls are always taking my purse or John's wallet, rummaging through and dumping out the contents. So, I thought it would be fun to have their grown up accessories.  I made them each a little purse, with a wallet full of play money. Inside was also a zoo passport to get them ready for our summer trip to the zoo. Plus, I printed a map of the Memphis zoo on legal paper then folded it accordion style.

They've been carrying their purses everywhere, even to bed. J doesn't seem to understand she can put whatever she wants in it, and L wants hers to have exactly the same contents as mine. We've had plenty of play shopping and exchange of money - which is quiet hilarious.

I've seen the zoo passport around. The San Diego zoo has a printable passport - that might work for other zoos, as well. I couldn't resist drawing my own though. I tried to make it generic, so it might work for any zoo, but I did especially include animals at the Memphis zoo.

I always love having an opening page for kids to write their name and age. It makes it a keepsake, and I just love seeing their handwriting.  I also left a space for them to write their favorite animals.

Each page has a simple color drawing of several animals, with a blank star next to each animal. You can put those shiny star stickers or color them in as you see the animals (or later - I don't think I want to mess with it while we're actually looking).

I left blanks on several pages where kids can draw animals they see that might not be included.

You can download my Zoo Passport. You'll need to print it front and back on letter paper, then cut each page in half, assemble and staple in the middle. Libraries are so great for stuff like this. I rounded the corners of the books to make them more passport-y, too.  I'll let you know how our zoo trip goes in a couple of weeks. Any tips for little ones and the zoo?

Shutterfly Photo Albums

My computer has been running slow lately, and I fear its because of the billions of image files I have on my computer. Okay, that's a stretch, but having all your digital photographs, plus all sorts of digital graphics takes a toll on an old computer. I've been meaning to back them up on an external hard drive so I can remove the old photos from my computer.

But there's something just a little scary about that. What if they get lost?

So, I decided to print some photo books, so that I won't have to worry so much about losing all my digital files. I've used Apple's photos books before, but this time I wanted something that would be fast and easy - because really I don't need to be working on this right now.

Shutterfly ended up being a good, quick fit. Fortunately, I keep my files organized by month and year, so I just scrolled through, picked the best and uploaded some for every month of the last five years. I tried to lay out events or trips or seasons on one page so it had a nice story-like feel. I printed them in three books, although you could easily do it all in one book. I still probably spent 6-8 hours cleaning up photos, uploading and arranging them and figuring out how to customize the layouts, but that wasn't too bad. Plus, they had some Mother's Day discounts that I'm way too late in telling you about.  My bad.

our NY museum trip pre-children, barely

vintage L

welcome J! 

7 years

I love seeing our life laid out like a timeline. Even the blurry, low quality photos ring true. And the desperate speed of it all has me a hyper-aware of the passage of time. J couldn't comprehend who that little baby was, and I almost couldn't either.

Until next time Grandma and Papa!

Braided Brioche and Doughnuts

One thing I love about the Bread in Five book is that I get to try a bunch of new recipes at once.  I made the brioche dough finally, and made several recipes from it.  I'm going to have to add a whole tag just for the book, I think...

The first recipe I made was a plain brioche, braided. I thought I should keep the first loaf simple, although I couldn't resist an attempt at braiding. It was much easier than I expected. I forgot to take a picture of the final loaf, but isn't it pretty anyway?

And also, doughnuts - which I've successfully made before with the regular dough, but its much yummier with the brioche. I have to admit I was a little hesitant about deep frying, but it was so worth it. It's basically the same as the beignets recipe, but who can resist the donut shape? I rolled my dough and then cut my circles with a biscuit cutter. I needed a very small circle for the hole, so I used the top of a glass bottle to cut out the centers, which I thought worked quite well.

These are long gone, of course, and I think it maybe time to try another batch...

Felt Play Dolls and Tutorial Round Up

I've been in need of quiet toys for the kids, and so I decided to make some felt dolls. I was really excited to see that they were really into them. That's not always a given, some toys are hit and miss. But these have been such a big hit, I kind of wish I'd saved them for birthdays. I can see this being a great tool for homeschooling because you can easily add new parts as you're learning about new things.

As usual, there is a wealth of tutorials and ideas around that I really enjoyed perusing. The whole project can be no-sew if you want - which makes such a satisfying quick project. If you want to make a set of dolls, or a felt board, have a look at what I did and some of the great links below.

I made each of the girls a small felt board with a pocket on the back (the link for this tutorial is below!). I can store them face to face, and stuff all their accessories in the pockets. I put all the parts in baggies and drew pictures of some of the parts that are inside - I don't really expect this to last long, but it makes me happy now. :) I think these are great for traveling, but a really big board would be fun, too.

I cut everything from cheap craft felt with sharp scissors. Craft felt can be thin at times, which is really okay for this project, but I did put fusible interfacing on the back of the doll bodies to make them a little sturdier. I used fabric glue for attaching permanent things like hair and bows on dresses.

My template (scroll down) includes a child and an adult size - I've only made the child so far.  I cut out the bodies first, and then used my body template as a guide for the clothing instead of drawing out each garment first. I also threw in some random shapes that I thought I might use as guides, but mostly I just free hand cut everything else.

I made a playground.

The girls love the tea party. They can push the boards together when the dolls want to have a party.

Felt board tutorials:
 - Jennifer Dawn has a great felt board tutorial which is what I used, and I totally recommend. I haven't used a glue gun since college, but making this board reminded me why people love them so much: they're awesome.
 - I also loved this chalk board and felt board pair for a playroom
 - Find more fun ideas like this postman set, at Artful Parent

Doll tutorials:
 - Here is a simple felt doll template by Jennifer Dawn who made the board above.
 - About  has some paper doll templates and lots of clothes that would work nicely.
 - If you use die cutters, this is a really nice set.
 - I loved this doll and her clothes. I thought she was a bit too mature looking for my toddlers, but I love the details on the clothing. I meant to do more of that, and maybe I still will.
 - Another cute felt doll set with some fun details
 - You can use printed fabric for dolls, like Mayamade (with a nice travel board tutorial also).
 - And if you'd rather have a full blown pattern, there are some tidy simple sets for sale  on etsy by Lucky Penny.

Paying Attention

I struggle with knowing how to teach good behavior when the kids are in a public place or somewhere that requires them to be still and quiet for very long. It's far too easy to focus on the behavior with rewards or punishments, which doesn't really seem very effective. Being still and quiet is good for them [some times], but like most things, they need to be taught how.

Lately, I've been reading some Montessori style books and thinking about training the girls in a different way. Recently we had a tea party where we were all on our very best behavior. It was a little over the top (Would you like some tea, miss? Why yes, thank you, madam.), but it gave them the opportunity to practice self-control. To speak slowly and deliberately, and to take turns. I was surprised by how well-behaved they were!

We also finished our tea party by listening to a Sparkle Story. These well crafted stories are so engaging - please do check them out! There is a significant difference in effort in listening to a story compared to watching a movie. The girls had to be quiet enough to hear the words, and you can just see their little minds at work picturing the story.

We also have been experiment with the silence game, and learning to pay attention, like Poppleton in Spring. We've only begun these experiments, but I can see that they are already responding. I'll be sure to keep you updated on any developments. :)

Composter

John built us a compost tumbler this year. It sits near the back door by our kitchen and has been so handy. We've been wanting one for awhile, but they can be pretty expensive. So, naturally, John decided to build one himself using one of these big barrels.

We've had other composting attempts in the past, but they never seemed to work out.  We had compost piles that were far from the house  - which mean we'd fill a bucket for awhile in the kitchen that got too gross, plus it would be inconvenient to carry it to the pile, so we'd often forget. I've learned that for composting to work for our family it needs to be convenient and avoid the yuck factor.

John's barrel by the door is pretty convenient. I don't keep a compost bucket inside, I just put scraps in a dish while I'm cooking, so I have to take it out after every meal.  This helps avoid yuckiness inside. Of course, the composter is still a bit yucky when you open the lid, but we try to throw in grass whenever it gets too buggy, and keep it rotated.

He built it so that he could roll a wheel barrow underneath it to empty the compost, and I think the height also makes it convenient for throwing things in. I don't have a step by step on his process or anything, but I think there are plenty of ways you could easily make something like this.

Yay for dirt!

School Resources

I've been saving up these links, but I'm so behind in school I haven't gotten around to using most of them.  I thought I'd go ahead and post these great pre-school school ideas here, so you (and I) can find these links. Sometimes I get bogged down thinking I could make all this stuff myself.  And maybe I could, but that's not really the point - I don't have too!

One page printable Itty Bitty books to help kids learn colors. I keep forgetting that my little one has to start at the beginning too...

Great lapbook activities based on Eric Carle's Brown Bear. (We actually put this together!)
More Tot books by the same blogger. 

Mini Mural Sets and Masterpiece coloring books, that I love love. I can't resist introducing kids to famous painters.

Sequence cards for math readiness.  There are tons of these - which is great.  It may seem like the same exercise over and over, but the kids still love doing it.


Birds nest helpers - such a cute springtime activity.  Gotta get my act together to do this...