Reversible puzzle

I saw a tutorial on how to make the cutest Halloween puzzles on one of my favorite blogs, Made. This is the picture from that blog on how they turned out.

All you do is spray paint both sides of popsicle sticks and draw your design on them with permanent marker once they are dry.

I think this are ADORABLE. I would have made my own version except whenever my kids get popsicle sticks they shove them in the vents of our gas fireplace. Both my kids do that. They leave no popsicle stick behind- they make sure they are all in there.

Maybe in a few years we'll do our own version of these reversible puzzles.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween thoughts

Halloween is coming!

I think we are all aware of this. There are a few concerns about this holiday I have as a parent.

1) Too much candy

2) Safety during trick or treating. We will only be trick or treating to a few friend's houses and to church this year. And probably for as many years as we can get away with.

3) Suggestive costumes. Luckily my kids are a bit young to be concerned about this one just yet.

That leaves concern #1, too much candy.

I used to work for a lady who had a "Halloween fairy" for her daughter. After trick or treating, her daughter had to leave all her candy on the fireplace the night of Halloween and that night the Halloween fairy would come and take the candy in exchange for a doll or toy. The next day she brought all the candy to work for everyone to eat in the break room.

There are places that will also buy Halloween candy from kids. If you are in Salt Lake, this place buys Halloween candy from kids and sends it to the troops overseas. Check in your area to see if there is a place that will buy Halloween candy from your kids.

There's always the idea that happens at our house where the adults eat most of the candy. Although this is not preferred.

We will see what the tradition ends up being at our house in the next few years.


Does anyone have any good Halloween traditions to avoid candy overload?

Owl and the star

A few people have asked where the name for this blog came from.

Well... it's from my two year old's favorite youtube video.

It's made by a school in Japan that teaches English called Super Simple Learning. They have some other great videos that my two year old loves as well including 5 Little Monkeys, Hickory Dickory Dock, Row Row Row Your Boat, BINGO, The Alphabet Song, and several more.

Another great thing is that they have some really good free resources for teaching kids on their blog and website. They also sell some really great educational DVDs for teaching and they also sell tons of songs on CDs. My kids would love their CDs but since they ship out of Japan, they are expensive! You can download the CD for a little bit less so maybe someday we will do that (still expensive).

I would love to start a preschool someday (I probably won't get around to it until my kids are way past preschool age) but if/when I do, I would use their materials. They do a really great job with them.

So there you go. There's my endorsement of my children's favorite learning English company.

My new toy

I'm so excited. For my birthday, I got this:

(This picture is from the Silhouette Cameo website). 

It's pretty much a fancy paper cutter. I did a lot of research on it and it helps you make some really cool stuff. I got it on Saturday but today was my first chance to play with it. Here's what I made today:

This machine's software helped me design the picture and then the machine cut out a stencil for me. It took some trial and error but my friend Harmony watched my two year old for me today so I could get going. At the end of the day she was gifted the shirt because she won't let me pay her for babysitting.

Thanks Mom & Dad for this birthday gift. I'm having lots of fun with it already!

Butternut Squash Soup

I'm not a huge fan of fall recipes. That mostly comes down to the fact that I don't like pumpkin. So when all fall foods are pumpkin spice this and pumpkin squash blah blah yuck! I just don't like the taste of pumpkin.

Well I saw this recipe and thought I would give it a try. To be honest I have NEVER cooked with butternut squash before. In fact, before making this, I didn't even know what butternut squash tasted like. It was very unfortunate for me to learn that it in fact tastes like pumpkin.

I did have hope for this recipe though, because they make it at The Chef's Table. Where I went to college, if you dated someone with money, they took you to The Chef's Table. I never dated anyone with money so I've never been there. But for the sake of the monetarily elite, I thought I'd make this and pretend I have eaten at The Chef's Table.

2 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil <- I used canola oil
2 Medium Onions, Small Dice
1 Butternut Squash, Peeled
2 Parsnips, Peeled
¼ Cup Maple Syrup- I used fake maple syrup with spenda in order not to send my husband's blood sugar through the roof (he has juvenile diabetes)
1 Cup Chicken Stock or Vegetable Stock
½ Cup Heavy Whipping Cream- I substituted this with a mixture of milk and butter. I found online somewhere someone had said it works as a good substitute. I probably should have used the real stuff.
Salt and Pepper, to taste
Nutmeg to taste
fresh ground Mace, to taste <- I couldn't find Mace at my grocery store (I didn't look that hard but I did look for a good 5 or so minutes) so I didn't add any to my soup

Heat oven to 350 degrees
Mix Butternut Squash & Parsnips with 2 Tablespoons of Vegetable Oil and Maple Syrup Place on Baking Sheet
Roast until soft, About 30 Minutes
Remove from heat and set aside

Heat 3 Tablespoons oil in a large soup pot
Add Onions and Cook until translucent
Add Cooked squash and parsnips to onions
Add Chicken Stock
Bring to a Simmer and Allow to Simmer for 15 Minutes
Add Whipping Cream, season to taste
Blend to Desired Consistency in a Blender (I used a food processor). The Smoother the Better for this Soup
Adjust Seasoning with Salt and Pepper, Nutmeg and Mace

Ok, the first challenge was peeling that butternut squash. So it's easier than I had prepared myself for but it took some time. It's like peeling a huge, tough potato.  Then taking the seeds out of the middle reminded me of gutting a pumpkin.

Other than peeling the butternut squash, this recipe was not too complicated. It did take some time, though. And when my husband walked in from work he asked what we were having for dinner, I said "Butternut squash soup." He made this disgusted face and started looking through the mail. We had a few words after that, as both kids were at that time and had been for the last hour or two, standing at my ankles screaming.

The results. Well... it looked like orange mashed potatoes. In fact, I tried to get a good picture of it for this blog and I couldn't get it to look very appetizing. As far as the taste... well... if I liked pumpkins I'm sure this would have been a really good soup. Both my husband and I judged it as a "ehhhhh...." meal. Which means for all the effort it took to peel that butternut squash, I probably won't cook anything with a butternut squash again.

My kids' favorite books

I found my ten month old playing with these books this morning and thought I would write a little bit about them. They are by far both my kids' favorite. I'm guessing the series is called Funny Faces but I could be wrong about that. The ones from the series that we have are Chirpy Chick, Alien Al, and Rusty Robot.

There are several books in this series but we just have a few of them. We got them at TJ Maxx or Ross, I can't remember exactly which one. Either way, we didn't pay full price for them.

I think the first thing they like is that the books are board books and that they are big. Each book also has the big eyes that move (see picture) and different textures. In the picture above, the diaper on the baby robot is a soft fabric. On the Chirpy Chick book, the fur is soft. Below, the spots on the aliens are textured.

The part of these books that my two year old loves the most is the very last page. When you turn the page to get to that last page, it lights up and makes a noise that relates to the story on that page.

On this page when you open it, the lights on the tractor light up and it makes a tractor noise.

On this page, the disco lights light up and disco music plays.

These books will be a favorite at our house for years to come.

Kids are great

I had to share this story from church last week. Hopefully there will be no repeats this upcoming Sunday.

My two year old is not potty training. I wish she was. We try... but I have a feeling she will be in diapers for the next 10 years of her life at the rate we are going.

Well last Sunday my two year old was happily sitting on her chair and she hopped off it and babbled something I didn't quite understand. Then she grabbed a wipe and started wiping down her chair. I nudged my husband and pointed out how cute it was that she was cleaning her chair.

Pretty soon we hear the word pee mixed up in a bunch of babble we didn't understand.

My husband leaned over and said, "I think she just peed on the chair."

I looked over and there was a huge puddle on the floor! Any pee she hadn't wiped up had rolled off the chair and was sitting in a nice puddle by her feet.

I don't know how she did it, but she had peed out the side of her diaper and (luckily) missed her dress entirely.

I'm just SO GLAD we didn't sit in the padded seats that week. What a mess that would have been.

Treasure bowl

This activity was made for my ten month old but works for older toddlers too.

I gathered a bunch of random things from around my house with different colors and textures and put them in a bowl. I tried to put some new things in the bowl that she hadn't seen before. However, my kids are into everything in our house so they've seen most of these things before. There were a few objects that were new, such as the duck and the shaped ice cube tray.

This is supposed to give the child time to learn about different things. According to my How To Raise An Amazing Child book, they may stay interested for up to a half an hour.

Well... I think if I would have put all new things in the bowl it would have worked for longer. But both my kids ended up liking this to some extent. The only downside was that the contents of the bowl ended up all over my living room floor in just a short period of time.

Next time I do this I will get all new things to go in the bowl. Although I'm not sure I have enough kid-safe things in my house that my kids haven't been into.

Bowls and a bell

I just got this new book from Amazon. It's called How To Raise An Amazing Child The Montessori Way by Tim Seldin. It got really high reviews so I thought I'd give it a try.

Well I can see why people liked it. It has a ton of ideas of things to do with your kids that are easy and that will help them learn. So... if you don't want to go get the book, my next several posts will be activities I found in the book. One thing I like is that it has activities for very young babies which is good for me because I struggle to find games and activity things for my ten month old.

Anyway, here was one idea for my two year old. The book suggests filling a bowl with kidney beans and giving them a spoon. We didn't have kidney beans so I used dice. I also gave her two cups to move the dice into.

This activity kept her busy and interested for quite awhile. She had so much fun moving the dice around between the bowl and the cups and listening to the noise the dice made against the bowl.

As an activity for my ten month old, the book suggests giving the child at that age a bell and letting them play with it. Well... that activity was less successful.

It lasted about 30 seconds, and the last 20 of those 30 seconds the bell spent in her mouth.

After she put it down, my two year old came over and had the thing in pieces. I didn't even know the bell came apart. Apparently it does.

Coloring on new surfaces

I saw this on another blog, I think it was here. Anyway, it was a success with my two year old.

This was to introduce new textures and coloring possibilities for her. I covered a box with foil and let her color on the foil. It's actually pretty interesting.

I thought it was fun, but I guess it wasn't really for me, was it...

Activity boards

I have been on the lookout for materials to make an activity board for my kids. I've seen some fun ones at my kids' pediatrician's office and a few other places. They seem to enjoy toys and things on the wall they can play with.

Well... here's what I found. These were at a clearance center because they were slightly bent in the corner. You can't tell that much and I'm sure they will get more damage from us. But they are originally from Pottery Barn. They are supposed to be for lockers.

The top board has spots for pens and pencils and some other pockets.

The bottom one is a dry erase board, but it's also magnetic. I decided not to show my girls about the dry erase function, for the sake of my walls.

We hung these up right next to the magnet board. That way the magnets can be stored in the pockets (currently, they are all over my kids' floor.) My two year old likes to put pipe cleaners and other stick shaped things in the pen and pencil holders.

The bottom board right now just acts as another magnet board.

My two year old really likes to have these. When I first brought them home she sat and put things in all the pockets and organized everything.

I found these boards for $5 each. If you see sales or clearance of any back to school things for lockers, they do make fun things for your little ones to play with.

As an update from my previous post, I made the mozzarella sticks last night. My picture of them turned out not so good, so just trust me that I did try them out. I actually didn't like them! But my husband thought they were the greatest thing and gobbled them all up. When we got married, he was eating greasy nasty food from Arby's at least once a week. I quickly put an end to that little habit. I think these mozzarella sticks were just a little reminder of those once a week at Arby's trips.

A few recipes

Ugh... I haven't been as good at posting lately. I had a reaction to my allergy medicine and it knocked me out for a few days. Fun times!

I found this blog this morning. It has cute recipes for moms that are really easy. I may be trying this one tonight for home made "healthy" mozarella sticks:

http://meals4moms-alynn.blogspot.com/2011/07/create-your-own-mozzarella-sticks.html

I'll post about the finished product. We also may be trying this one for caramel apple bites:

http://meals4moms-alynn.blogspot.com/2010/11/caramel-apple-bites.html

Goin' fishin'

When I was younger, my mom had a fishing pole. It was not a real fishing pole but it was so much fun. It only came out on special occasions and there was always a fun lesson that went with it.

As I was lying in bed one night, I decided my daughters needed one too!

So here's the materials:

Paper
Wire hanger
Some sort of thread
Paper clips
Scissors
Magnet (not in picture)

Unbend the hanger so it's straight.

Cut the thread to desired length and tie it around one end of the straightened hanger.

Tie a magnet around the loose end of the thread.

I would suggest a stronger magnet than the one in this picture. We ended up having to replace it with a stronger one to get the "fishing" to work.

Cut out fish shapes (or whatever shapes you want!) from the paper and attach a paper clip to each. For durability I would suggest laminating the paper.

Now have your child go fishing!

Notice there is a different magnet attached to the pole here.

To make this a learning activity:

Talk about the color of the fish once they get one.

Cut out shapes instead of fish and have the child tell you which shape they have just caught.

With paper clips, it's really easy to slide a piece of paper between the fish and the paper clip. You can write numbers on paper and slide them in and then talk about the number they have just fished. You can write just about anything and modify this activity for what you are trying to teach.

You can hide the fish behind a curtain to make it harder to catch the fish.

This is also a great group activity. It teaches younger kids to take turns and they all love to line up to get a chance to fish.



Have fun catching your fish!

Kale chips

I've seen kale chips everywhere. So many chefs on TV have raved about kale chips and I've read a ton of reviews from people who love kale chips more than regular potato chips. Well... if they are that good, I should give them a try!

I've actually been looking for a good way to eat kale. When I was pregnant and couldn't keep my multivitamins down, my midwife wanted me to be eating a protein and fruit smoothie every day.... and add kale to it because kale is so high in vitamins. Now, I don't know about you, but at the height of my nausea, I have no desire to eat a smoothie with anything green floating around in it. Much less risk something like that coming back up.

Anyway, kale is good for you and I needed a good recipe. So on to kale chips.

Ingredients:
Kale
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp vinegar (I used balsamic)
Salt to taste

I'm posting a picture of what kale looks like because I'm not sure I would have known what it looked like earlier in my life. And when I told my husband I was making this recipe, he didn't know what it was.

Moving along, I rinsed the kale and dried it (paper towel or salad spinner works).  I tore kale up into smaller pieces and removed the ribs.

I put them in a plastic bag. Here's my kale in a plastic bag:

I added the oil and vinegar to the bag and mixed everything around. I wanted to make sure all the leaves were coated in oil and vinegar.

I put them on a baking sheet and baked them in the oven for about 15 minutes at 300 degrees. I have read different times and temperatures for making these. I think the trick is to just watch it and make sure they are not undercooked and not overcooked. When I checked on them, I poked at them with a fork. If they were limp I kept cooking. I took them out when I poked at them and they were stiff and crunchy. Then I added the salt.

The review: Well... they tasted about as appetizing as they look... so not that great. I don't know who thinks these are better than potato chips but they must be eating some pretty bad potato chips. Now, to be fair, they weren't terrible. And the more I ate them the more I liked them. But it took some getting used to.

Next time I will tear the leaves into bigger pieces. I didn't realize how much they would shrink in the oven. I also might try them without the vinegar to see if I like them more.

I will probably make them for my husband just to see what he thinks. I don't think I could get either of my kids to eat them. And to be honest, I don't know how often I could get myself to eat them.

Has anyone made kale chips and liked them? Any good recipes to share?

Sorting colors

This toy requires two things: an empty egg carton and some fuzzy pom pom balls.

My two year old figured out how to sort them by color. She started with green. Then we moved on to purple.

I didn't get any pictures of her throwing the fuzzy pom poms all around the room, but that definitely happened. 

At the end she put all the pom poms back in the original package and closed the egg carton. 

When she is better with numbers, we'll work on counting the pom poms and adding and subtracting them. And throwing them all over the room, of course.

Pick up sticks

This little activity happened by accident.

My two year old has enjoyed playing with popsicle sticks I had around from another activity. I wanted a place to contain them so I found an empty container from some Gerber puffs. I took the label off and put the sticks inside.

I had intended on putting the container and sticks away but my daughter grabbed it from me and dumped the sticks out. Then she picked them back up and put them all in the container. Then dumped them out again.

Eventually we'll work on counting the sticks and making shapes with them. Until then, picking the sticks up, putting them in the container, and dumping them back out again seems to do the trick!

Sometimes it seems to be the simple toys that keep kids the most entertained.

Window markers

My two year old loves to color everywhere. I have had crayon marks behind curtains, across walls, over toys, and pretty much everywhere you can imagine.

Today she has been in one of her snappy two year old moods with lots of tantrums. This activity got her out of her little mood she was in. It was perfect.

I know Crayola has some window markers and crayons, but I'm against paying lots of money for things that you don't really need. Plus I heard reviews that it's a little tough to get them off windows. I started to think about different kinds of markers that could draw on windows that could be easy to wash off. Since my husband just graduated from school a few months ago, we have a ton of highlighters around.

It worked great. It washes right off the window with a damp cloth. My two year old loved that I could just wipe the window clean and she could keep coloring.

And yes our windows are dirty. We've had a few rainstorms lately and haven't bothered to clean the outside of our windows yet. We'll get there sometime.

Counting sticks

This is a counting game.

Here are the materials I used:

Glue
Pen
Sticks
6 Envelopes
Paper
Scissors

I cut the flap off the envelopes and glued them to the paper. Then I wrote one number from one to six on each of the envelopes with the corresponding number of dots next to the number.

I counted out 21 sticks- enough so that the corresponding number of sticks could go in each envelope.

We are hoping this helps our two year old get her numbers down a bit better.

As far as how this went over, she loves playing with the sticks. The envelopes weren't very durable on combo with the wooden sticks. Maybe for long term use, make paper strips instead of using popsicle sticks.

My sister made this project for her classroom and folded her own envelopes and laminated them. It turned out so cute! Here is a picture of what she made:

She also described some activities she does with her students. Here's what she says:

For some of my advanced students, I put popsicle sticks in and they have to tell me if I put the correct amount in the pocket. If I didn’t  put the correct amount in, then we talk about how many more would we need to put in, or how many we would need to take out. This is a great way to teach pre addition and subtraction for the student. Sometimes we put the pockets in order and they can visually see that 6 is greater than 3.

Happy counting!

Drawing bags

This idea came from my sister who uses this in her classroom.

I called them drawing bags but my two year old didn't really draw with them.

I started by making some pudding. My sister used cheap hair gel in her bags so they would be see through. I didn't have any so I used pudding.

I put about 4 or 5 spoonfuls of pudding into a plastic sandwich bag. The edges can be sealed with packing tape.

My sister puts letters written on paper underneath the bags and lets her students trace the letters through the bag.

My daughter wasn't really interested in doing any tracing so I let her play with the bag.

Then I brought her another bag.

Then she asked for another one.

When she's older we'll work on the tracing thing.

Granola bars

I'm always on the look out for good recipes I can make for my kids. I saw this recipe from Cafe Janae and thought it would be worth a try.

If you are not familiar with Cafe Janae, it's VERY health conscious food. Probably much more health conscious than I will ever be. They promote a lot of raw, vegetarian, gluten free, organic and whatever else healthy there is. While I think those kinds of things are a good idea, realistically I'm not going to become vegetarian or eat raw foods and I'm not going to force that on my kids.

So here's the recipe. If you do the recipe in its true form, make sure to get everything organic and gluten free. When I made this recipe, I definitely didn't do that and it turned out great.

Here's what you need.

1 cup honey
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups rolled oats
1/2 c shredded coconut
1 cup chopped nuts (I omitted this since I used chunky peanut butter)

Begin with heating the honey in a saucepan on low and add the peanut butter. Stir. Then add the vanilla, oats, coconut and nuts. Keep stirring the ingredients in the saucepan until they are warmed and mixed.

Line a baking dish with wax or parchment paper. Spread the granola evenly over the paper and let cool at room temperature. Store in the fridge.

The reviews:

My husband loved it and he's probably my pickiest eater in the house.

For me, I really liked it as well. I was surprised I liked it so much because I am not a huge fan of plain granola, especially without chocolate chips. I will say that it is really sweet so I could only handle a little bit at a time.

My two year old liked it as well. One problem we had with it was that it doesn't really harden because of all the honey. My two year old got frustrated with eating it, but she figured it out eventually with the help of a spoon.

I will be making this again. I thought it was a great tasting recipe and healthier than most granola bars from the store. It was also really quick to make (took maybe 5-10 minutes with cool down time). You can add chocolate chips to this and I'm sure it would taste great. I think it is sweet enough already so it doesn't need chocolate chips but feel free to add them. Chocolate is always a good thing.

Felt board

I grew up loving my mom's felt board. It was such a treat when she would bring it out. It was big and light blue and had so many fun characters and stories that we learned about with it.

Because I loved my mom's felt board, I wanted to make one for my daughters. But I wanted to make one that they could play with all the time and would hang up in their room.

I saw instructions on how to make one by Martha Stewart. She is the queen of crafts so I thought I'd give it a try.

I went to our local thrift store to see if I could find a big frame or mirror I could use. Unfortunately they didn't have anything I thought would work. So I went to a clearance center a little further from my house. I love this place. I have gotten TONS of Pottery Barn stuff there- it's stuff that's either damaged or unsellable at a regular Pottery Barn.

I found this Pottery Barn kids frame for $3.

The mat is a little dirty but the frame is still in really good shape.

I pulled the mat and cardboard out of the frame.

I decided to cover the brown cardboard part so there wasn't a big indent in the middle of the felt board where the picture would go on the mat.

I chose pink felt because I have two girls and well... we like pink at our house. I bought a yard of it for $2.99 at Joann Fabrics. I definitely didn't need a yard, but I always make mistakes so I bought extra. I cut a piece that was bigger than the cardboard and cut the corners off.

From here, I used hot glue to attach the felt to the cardboard. Packing tape (as Martha suggested) would have been much easier. So I suggest using packing tape to attach the felt.

I covered the cardboard with another piece of felt because I didn't want the cardboard to show through.

Then I put the felt-cardboard back in the picture frame. This is what it looks like from the back.

At this point, I couldn't get the back of the frame on because the felt was so thick. Here's my husband doing it for me.

And that's it! Here's my felt board.

To make felt pieces for the board, all you need is more felt. Felt sticks to felt so that makes it really easy. I got some fabric I liked and hot glued it to felt.

You could make letters, shapes, people, etc. for your felt board. The possibilities are endless.