In which I start a new Christmas tradition

I am in the process of decking our halls... as much as I wish this was the blog you were visiting to get awesome decorating ideas or holiday eye candy, I'm afraid it will again turn out to be the blog that you read to make yourself feel better. Last night we decorated the Christmas tree, which prompted me to quickly attempt to finish putting up the "real" every day decorations I've been hemming and hawing about. Several accidental holes in the wall later, I had a nice collection of framed pictures hanging up (I'll show you later), a trip to Home Depot for touch-up paint planned, things were properly dusted, and we were ready for our traditional "Christmas party." This is a tradition I've carried over from my own family - we all hang our ornaments together then sit on the couch eating home made sugar cookies (tons of sprinkles are a must here) and drinking hot apple cider. So. Christmas party: check. Next it was time to bust out my first awesome kids Christmas project.



If you've read my blog before perhaps you remember last year's failed kids Christmas project. Well, maybe that will be a new tradition around here. Every year mom sets up a dangerous activity for the kids to do in the name of Christmas and spends the rest of the day cleaning up the disaster that ensues. This project is pretty self-explanatory by the pictures. I bought a 6-pack of empty glass globes at the craft store, and we put buttons in them. Very cute - I saw it on Pinterest, in case you were wondering. As with last year's project, this was partially inspired by economics: I have a ton of buttons lying around and saw an opportunity for putting some of them to good use.



As cute as all these pictures are, however, they are still photos of young children gripping fragile glass orbs in their soft little hands. Nobody got cut, thank goodness, but as soon as we finished filling up our balls, Titus promptly dropped his on the kitchen floor, smashing invisible shards of glass everywhere. My dad was here, so he whisked the kids to safety while I sorted out buttons from pieces of glass, swept, vacuumed, swept again, and quickly filled up one of our spare empty globes with the buttons. Well, that's what I tried to do, but for some reason this new globe had a smaller opening in the top and wouldn't allow all of Titus' buttons inside. So, halfway through filling it up I decided to switch to the last empty globe, in the hope that its opening was big enough to fit all Titus' buttons. This meant that I needed to remove the almost-too-big buttons from the first replacement bulb (are you following this?), which proved to be a difficult task. Even the buttons I had managed to fit into the globe were now too large to fit back out of it. Of course my dad jumped at what he perceived as a heaven-sent chance to use the swiss army knife that has been collecting dust in his pocket, so he started to pry the buttons one by one out of the too-small globe with his handy portable tweezers. Halfway through this endeavor his gigantic hands squeezed the stupid ornament too hard, showering him and the kids in more invisible shards of glass. This clean up procedure was slightly more involved, but of course there was more vacuuming and sweeping. In the end we had 4 very nice looking button-filled ornaments, no injuries (how did that happen???) and another project on the not-really-for-kids list. Oh well. It's early in the month; maybe I can come up with something else. :)

Happy Summer (vacation)!

This picture is from our trip to San Diego a few weeks ago, which of course I didn't blog about because it's taken me this long to get the pictures off my camera. Anyhow, the weather down south was fabulous, but until yesterday things around here have been rainy and cold. Yesterday was our last day of school and the sun finally came out - how exciting! My garden is already stretching out and looking happier. So are the kids - they want to do nothing but play outside, which is fine with me. However, this is the first summer of my life that I find myself worrying about how I'm going to fill up the summer without losing my mind. I guess my kids have finally gotten to "that age" or something. Even the farm gets boring when you live on it every day, so I'm trying to find lots of fun things to do that are free. Today we went to a local outdoor mall with picnic lunches and played in all the fountains. All it cost was the fifteen cents that the kids threw into the fountains. Score! What are your summer plans?

Color-In Books

Remember my post about the painting my sister-in-law made with Moses? Now your kids can paint with Cindy too! Well, not with her, but they can color or paint some of her super cute illustrations: she's come out with a "Color In Book!" Every picture in this book is super cute and my favorite part about it is that the pages are made of thick sturdy paper that stands up perfectly to water colors or other paint. I get so frustrated when Moses and I color in his dollar-store coloring books and the ink bleeds through the page (or next several pages), making the pictures on the other side invisible and unusable. These pages are meant to be removed and displayed after they've been colored. Wouldn't one of these make a great gift? Cindy is so talented and has such a fun kid-friendly style. I'm planning on getting several of these for my boys. Hop on over to her shop to check it out (along with all her other beautiful work!).

Handmade Kids Valentines

This year I have enough experience to make Moses' class valentines a few weeks ahead of time. Making him sign his name on 15-plus cards the night before he has to take them to class seems more like punishment than a fun activity. So this year he's going to do a few each day and hopefully it won't feel like a chore.

I made little heart-shaped lacing cards which he's going to lace up and sign. Very simple. It occurred to me that we could include a piece of yarn with each one and let the recipients lace the card themselves, but Moses is excited about the "sewing part," so I'm going to let him do it.
While I was cutting these out and he was deciding which little hearts to glue on which big hearts, I realized that I only have a few more years before making pretty Valentine's will seem pretty uncool to him. How sad! I have to take advantage of these innocent years while I can and he's sitll not afraid to admit that the purple paper is his favorite.

Here are a few more handmade Valentine ideas that can be done with kids - even young ones:

Flower Lollipops
Thumb print Valentines
Popsicle Stick Heart Puppets
Fabric & Yarn Cards
... and more!

Are you making Valentine's Day cards this year? I certainly haven't done it every year - years when I've been either pregnant or had a new baby I've LOVED the simplicity of picking up a box of cards at the drug store. :) But I think Moses likes giving handmade ones more - they are more special to him.

Popcorn, and a failed kid's project

We have had popcorn on the brain around here lately, because my dad just harvested his popcorn. Isn't it beautiful? Popcorn is a very low-stress crop because you basically grow it until it dies, then you let it sit and dry out in the field for a while, then hack down the stalks and bring it in. He grew about 8 different varieties, each one a different shape and color. There is black popcorn, pink popcorn, deep red, brown, silvery grey, and light yellow. I love it and so do my boys.SO, yesterday I decided to do a Christmas project I've been wanting to do for a long time: make popcorn garlands. Very old-timey and economical, given how much popcorn we have laying around. I figured Moses is old enough now to wield a needle on his own, and my friend Jen gave me some lovely red and white twine, so I popped us up some popcorn (after burning the first batch, of course), and we set to work.

It is very hard to make a popcorn garland. I think one out of every ten piece went onto the string without exploding into a million tiny pieces of white fluff. Moses jabbed himself in the hand more times than I care to remember, and the whole project turned into a huge frustrating mess. After telling him I would finish the garland on my own, I managed to save the moment with a little butter and cinnamon sugar:

I think popcorn is much better eaten than strung on something and my boys seemed to agree - I think they each ate their weight in it. In summary: do not make a popcorn garland, either on your own or with your children. Now I know. :) (Thanks for the twine Jen!)

Treasure Hunt

Trapped inside by the rain this morning, my oldest son, with a wistful twinkle in his eye, said, "Mom, I just want to have an inside adventure with you." How could I say no? I threw together a hasty treasure map (of the bedroom), stuffed it into a bottle (old artichoke jar), and we found it in the sea (kitchen floor). Off we went into the jungle (bedroom again), where we overcame numerous obstacles (mainly unfolded clean laundry) to discover the buried treasure (bags of marbles). It was pretty fun - mostly great to see a smile on his previously bored face. If a mommy isn't careful, these rainy days can make a fellow miss his best friend.

Kid Painting

A long time ago I bought a large canvas and some paints, with plans to have Moses paint a picture to decorate his room. He decided that he wanted to paint a picture of a truck, and I set about non-artistically drawing a (terrible) picture of a truck on the canvas and helping him "paint inside the lines"... You can see where this is going. It was not fun for either of us, and the end result was boring and ugly. Fortunately, in this area I can admit my type-A limitations, so I called in an expert: Aunt Cindy.

Cindy is a real artist - some day when I have wall space I want to buy everything she has ever painted. She is also great at hanging out with kids, so when she showed up with her bag of paint brushes, the entire truck painting experience was transformed.

Moses had a blast painting the sky, splattering rain drops, mixing colors, even playing tic-tac-toe while waiting for parts of the painting to dry. Cindy did a great job of guiding Moses without stifling his creative spirit. She explained to him that when painting it is really easy to paint over the best parts, so she encouraged him to take his time and stop painting when things looked good.

It was so much fun to watch the two of them create something so beautiful. I love how Cindy's painting and Moses' painting blend together seamlessly. It is definitely a truck, but definitely a truck that a kid painted. It is hanging in the boys' room which is still in transition. When I get things finished I'll show you pictures of how the painting looks on the wall (don't hold your breath, though. I'm a very slow decorator!) Thanks Aunt Cindy - we LOVE our painting!

Flower Picking

Yesterday I had a bout of guilt over not "doing anything" yet with the boys for summer. We haven't taken any special trips or done anything away from home beyond playing at the park. Of course, at this point it was too late in the day to schedule anything, so I decided we would spend the afternoon picking flowers. Moses loved it - I knew he would. Titus HATED it - that wasn't a big surprise either. But he had fun stepping on snails and trying to drink bubble juice while Moses and I gathered and arranged flowers.

It was so sweet to see Moses surrounded by flowers he had picked from the farm, getting his bouquet just right, then coming inside and choosing the perfect spot to put it. It is on his book shelf, up very high so baby brother doesn't try to drink the water out of the vase. We admired it for a bit, took some pictures of it ... then played dinosaurs, during which there was much eating of other animals and other such bloody violence. We are such a well-rounded family. :)

Make your own stickers

Did you know that you can buy "sticker paper"? It is sold at any office supply store, somewhere near the printer paper, and is exactly what it sounds like: 8x11 sheets of white sticker paper. We spent a long time making our own stickers the other day and both Moses and I had SO much fun! Now we have a huge supply of home made stickers, many of which have been stuck to either Titus or the toilet while I wasn't looking.

Kids' "Love" project

Here's a fun February activity to do with your kids. Cut out a bunch of pictures from magazines and have your kids choose which things they "love," then make the pictures into a collage. Very simple and lots of fun to see what they choose and talk about why. We did this last year and it was a big hit. I think this year we're going to do a "things I love about Daddy" collage using the same idea.

Birthday Party

Last Saturday we had Moses' 4 year old birthday party and it was a big success. The night before Brett and I made 24 "gingerbread houses" (graham crackers, really) after the kids went to bed. I had been dreading it, but it turned into a really fun silly activity, especially since we hadn't bought enough crackers and were trying to build structures while conserving every last broken shred of building material. Mine almost looked like houses, while all of Brett's looked like bunkers. (Don't mind the mess in the background, my shoddy attempt at Christmas decorating, or the pants hanging on the chair to dry...)

Moses came up with the idea to use the candy from the piñata to decorate the houses. I have to admit that I pictured a huge disaster of sugar-crazed children, candy wrappers, and frosting exploding all over the dining room, and tried to refuse, but Brett came to Moses' rescue and the two of them convinced me to let it happen. I'm glad I did - the children LOVED it and they all spent a long time decorating, even the younger ones.

The houses looked so cute and festive! It was a fun, simple party, and a great way to begin the last week before Christmas.

Calzones for Dinner

I am SO TIRED of making chicken for dinner!!!! I guess it is my own fault - I'm not one of those people who can look in the cupboard and just whip up a creative dinner. But, the other night while watching "Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives" with my husband, I saw this basic recipe and created it at home really easily- much to the appreciation of the men in the household (who are also tired of having chicken for dinner!).
INGREDIENTS:

1 Package Bridgeford frozen bread dough
cornmeal
3 tomatoes
1 small red onion
2 cloves garlic
deli ham, sliced into small pieces
grated cheese
balsamic salad dressing
pesto (I used the pre-made type)

1.) The morning you are planning on making the calzones, get one loaf of dough out of the freezer and set out on the counter covered with a towel to defrost. (1 loaf made about 6 smallish calzones - enough to feed myself, my husband and our 3 year old. Use more dough if you need more calzones!)

2.) Cut up tomatoes, onion, and garlic, stir together and let set in the fridge.

3.) Spread a bit of cornmeal on a flat surface and roll out a bit of the defrosted dough on it (Aim for a circle about 5-6 inches in diameter). The cornmeal will get pushed into the dough and result in a nice crispy crust on your calzone.

4.) On one half of your circle of dough, spread a bit of pesto and place a dollop of the tomato mixture, some ham and cheese, and sprinkle lightly with balsamic dressing. Fold the other half of the dough over the "guts", making a half-circle shape.

5.) Place your calzones on a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake in a 375 degree oven for about 8 minutes - until crust is very lightly browned. Check regularly because it will be easy to overcook the thin crust!)

These are super yummy and really kid-friendly. Moses loved making these with me - it would also be a fun lunch. Enjoy!

A very very good day

A few Sunday mornings ago Brett and I were awakened by our three year old announcing "I need a snack!" We simultaneously looked at the clock and realized we had no chance of making it to church on time, thanks to having turned off the alarm clock in despair somewhere in the middle of a night full of nursing, holding, and changing baby. Brett's eyes were practically swollen shut due to allergies, and we were all feeling a little tired of being cooped up with each other. This is when I had an uncharacteristic burst of spontaneity: "Let's go to the beach!" I shouted, and my poor drippy-nosed husband instantly jumped into action. By the time I had myself and the boys dressed and ready to go, he had packed the car full of towels, umbrella, sand toys, changes of clothes, and a picnic lunch. The poor man probably would have walked to the beach carrying us all on his back if it meant an escape from pollen and fussy kids.

Well, it was a wonderful day. Absolutely perfect. We built sand castles, buried each other, dug for shells, and while Brett and Moses chased waves, this happened:

And there I was, on the beach, in the sun, with NOTHING to do. Nothing to clean, nothing to sew, nothing to even read. I believe my mouth literally dropped open once I realized the enormity of it. I experienced a brief flashback to my childhood, hearing my mom reply to my complaint of "I have nothing to do" by saying passionately "I WISH I had nothing to do!" Ah, yes, I am now in that phase of life. I get it now Mom.

So, I did nothing for about 37 minutes and it was grand. We packed ourselves back into the car, each feeling refreshed and ready to go home. (The best indication of the rejuvenating power of this trip was my husband's reaction to the parking ticket we received - something about that being the best $45 picnic lunch he's ever had.) :)

Spring, is that you?

Moses has been begging to go to Ed Levin County Park, (known affectionately as "Evalina") which is right by our house, for weeks, but it has been too wet and rainy to go. Today was beautiful, though, and we all went to enjoy the outdoors - what a gorgeous day!
If you live in the area, you should definitely take a family trip to this park. It is in the Milpitas foothills and there is a really fun playground, a lake with ducks and fishing, lots of hills to run up and roll down... We had a blast!
Hope you had a great weekend!

REALLY Easy Christmas Cooking

Everyone likes chocolate covered pretzels, right? Well this super easy "recipe" is a fun Christmas-style twist on that idea. We received a jar of these from my brother's girlfriend a few years ago as a Christmas gift, and this year I remembered to make them. It's a really easy, fast project, and kids love to participate because it involves opening candy!

1.) Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
2.) Place a bunch of mini pretzels on a baking sheet. Unwrap Hershey's Kisses and place one in the middle of each pretzel. Place baking sheet in oven for about 4 minutes - you want the chocolate to be squishy but not melted.
3.) Remove baking sheet from oven and squish one M&M onto each Kiss, squishing the chocolate down. I used the red and green M&M's - you could use any color you like, customizing the candy to the time of year/holiday.
4.) Let the pretzels sit at room temp (or speed up the process in the fridge) until the chocolate hardens up again.
We're giving big jars of these as Christmas gifts this year. Just fill a large Mason jar and tie on a cute Christmas-colored ribbon, and you have a great hostess or teacher's gift. Have fun!

Finally a use for all those lentils.

Yesterday the baby took a real nap, leaving Moses and I some time to play. I'd been meaning to make bean bags for some time and here was our chance! It turned out to be a really kid-friendly activity and Moses had a blast. I let him pick out the fabrics, help trace the squares, and even help pin the fabric together in preparation for sewing.
His favorite part was filling the bean bags (he was very excited about helping me make a funnel out of paper). I had TONS of left-over lentils from one of my many failed we're-going-to-eat-more-fiber campaigns, and those made great bean-bag guts. We also used rice in one of the bags, and that worked well too.
A quick last zip of the sewing machine, and the three new toys were stitched up and ready to go. We played with them all day yesterday - turns out bean bags are one of the best toys on earth.
I highly recommend doing this even if you have very rudimentary sewing skills - the entire process is super fun and easy, and the end result is new toys!

Happy Monday!

It was a lovely weekend here, starting with a berry-picking expedition with Moses' friend Matteo. We walked up the road to the wild blackberries, which are finally starting to ripen in the heat. This is one of Moses' all-time favorite summer time activities, and it was fun to have friends to share it with.
Then on Sunday we went to the Contra Costa County Fair (say that three times fast...) to check out the animals. This poor guy is on his way to the auction block, but we didn't tell Moses that.
We love the fair and had fun doing all that once-yearly stuff like eating too much cotton candy, paying $5 to throw a baseball into a hole it obviously won't fit in, and riding the carousel until the cotton candy is threatening to make a reappearance. Fun, fun, fun. I hope you all had a great weekend and are off to a wonderful week!