CHRISTEPHI

My kids are extremely picky eaters!  Well, Miss M is anyway.  Little Guy isn’t nearly as picky as she is, though he thinks it’s “cool” to be like her and say he doesn’t like things that he’ll typically eat. I rarely buy chicken nuggets to eat at home.  I’m too cheap.  But I rarely take the time to make something elaborate for lunch either. Today, however, the kids were antsy and I thought an engaging activity was in order!  What better than an activity that also provides lunch? What you need: 3-4 chicken tenders, thawed and cut into small pieces about 1/2 cup flour seasonings of choice 1 egg, beaten about 1/2 cup Ritz cracker crumbs Miss M decided on our seasonings: salt, pepper, and garlic powder; I used about 1 t. each.  I would have used a combo of cracker crumbs and crushed corn flakes if I’d had any!  Next time I might add some corn meal in with the crackers, yum!  (Incidentally, store brand “Ritz” crackers are *...

He actually did very well getting the paint on the paper.  There was also quite a bit on himself, but very little on the floor and none on the walls!  And it kept him quiet for a good 30 minutes!

Next week we start our 2010-11 school year.  Of course, Miss M is only in preschool, so it's a very easy school year.  I expect we'll do about an hour a day of "schoolwork" and the rest of the time will be spent learning through play as kids ought to do. Today Miss M wanted to do a craft, so I gave her some pieces of cardboard to decorate and we assemled them into a wagon.  (Yes, the wheels are from Laughing Cow cheese boxes...it's dangerous to have in the house as I tend to eat it all day long till it's gone!) It's perfect to carry her sidewalk chalk! Little Guy likes to ride his big sister's tricycle. It's follow-the-leader on wheels! In sewing news, I finally started sewing my Fall SWAP.  Yesterday I made two pairs of knit pants and today I nearly finished a bodysuit (like a long-sleeved t-shirt that snaps between the legs...it'll be great for wearing under pinafores and skirts!)  Once the top is finished, I'll get so...

Miss M asked to use her rubber stamp set the other day.  While I was tending to Little Guy, she sat peaceably at the table making this piece of art. Lolo  means grandpa in Tagalog.  I drew the face of the far right cat (I'm no artist!) and she gained the confidence to draw some of her own. She even finished mine off for me! I love their striped tails!

After "marrying her husband" this morning, Miss M thought it would be nice to "have a tea party with him." Using the tea set she received for Christmas last year... And a pink tupperware of freshly baked shortbread  cookies*... And real tea with real sugar and cream... I think she made the little man quite pleased!  And hopefully these "special occasions" will be fondly remembered when she grows up. *I usually add 1 tsp. vanilla and 1 tsp. almond extract to the recipe.  If you don't like shortbread cookies from a tin, try these ! They are infinitely better!

Yesterday Miss M had a lesson on The Gingerbread Man.  We've read the story before, so she retold it to me and we made our own gingerbread man. Before I let her eat him, I asked her to tell me the story one more time.  She forgot a few parts in her haste to finish, but it's mighty cute nonetheless! I used the same recipe as I did when I made dog bone shaped cookies , except again I used real butter, doubled the cinnamon, and halved the cloves.

My educational history is...interesting.  I am a kindergarten drop-out.  (We moved across the country mid-year).  I went to public school for 5th grade and half of 3rd grade.  I was homeschooled the rest...including two years of 6th grade since we kind of didn't do anything one year.  I went to private school 7th-12th and to college for 5 years, but still don't have a degree*.  The one year of homeschooling when we ended up not doing much was largely due to my mom trying out a new curriculum...or lack of curriculum.  It was the put-it-together-yourself type.  The rest of my homeschooled years were done with Calvert  which I loved! (Though I do remember hating Composition and crying over Arithmetic!)  I always got in trouble for reading ahead in my history and storybooks...I didn't mean to. I just forgot to stop at the ends of chapters, ya know? I've got a 3 year old and a 3 month old.  I have trouble keeping up wit...

Two of my cousins have boys, only boys, ages ranging from 5 months up to 9 years.  When Christmas comes around, it can be expensive getting (or even making) gifts for all of them.  What I prefer is to think up something that works well for a wide range of ages and make just two, one for each family of boys. Last year I made two of these canopies .  I printed up little fliers of what the gift was so they wouldn't have to actually open it amidst all the holiday hoopla and then transferred the packages directly from car trunk to car trunk, a foresight that was much appreciated by the mothers. With the exception of the newest babies, all the boys will be able to use the canopies for imaginative play -- indoors or out!  (And as we all know, babies grow quickly, so they'll be able to join the fun in practically no time at all!) Yes, it's only February, but I'm already thinking of Christmas 2010.  I think it would be fun to make some I Spy books for the ...

I gave Miss M my old point-and-shoot camera.  She entertained herself for more than an hour taking pictures around the house.  It was interesting to look at the pictures and see our home through her eyes (and at her eye level!)   (a messy bookshelf, me at the computer, me doing dishes, and a door) She also drew a family portrait on her Doodle Pad.  It's a good thing I asked her to tell me who everyone was, 'cause what I assumed was the four of us and our pet bird she succinctly told me were actually "Daddy, Mama, me, and two toys for me." We got another  6 inches of snow today, so no more going out of doors for a while.*  Maybe I'll get some actual sewing done this week!  With the end of February fast approaching, I need to get started on the dresses for my sister's wedding ! *Hubby and Miss M went sledding in the backyard after the three of us went for a winter-wonderland-walk-in-the-woods.  We opted not to take th...

Yesterday hubby came home from work saying he needed to bring "something" to work for Food Day (today!) and the theme is Italian.  My first thought was that everybody'll bring pasta (turns out nobody did, go figure), so then my thoughts turned to these  Easy Peasy Bread Sticks .  I also remembered a biscotti recipe I used once that was quite easy and turned out well. Usually when your 3-year-old "helps" in the kitchen, it's more of a hindrance than an actual help, right?  Well, to my utter delight, I actually found myself being helped by Miss M! She did much better rolling out the breadsticks than I had anticipated and ended up doing almost all of them herself! I did the messy work...dipping in butter and Parmesan. Don't you just love seeing little chubby hands hard at work?  She was so pleased with herself.  My in-laws came over this evening and she proudly proclaimed, "I made them!  Mama and I made them.  I did a great job!"  (She...

At long last the indoor hopscotch is finished! Or at least, as finished as I'm planning to make it for now.  Eventually I'd like to back it with denim, either yardage or thrifted jeans legs.  I figure that way it'll make a nice picnic blanket and hopscotch-on-the-grass. It didn't come off completely pucker-free, but the ones that snuck in aren't too noticeable...especially if you're actually hopping on it!  It'll be a great way for Miss M to burn off some energy while the weather's still cold.  We're eagerly waiting for Spring!  There have been more and more birds in the area and the skunks and raccoons are coming out of hibernation.  Still, nothing is green and it remains below freezing most days. I'm so glad to have this done.  Although it was basically easy, delays (including a stint in the hospital!) made it feel like an unending project.  I started to feel very resentful toward it which, of course, made me not want to sit down a...

Miss M loves letters and words!  She's constantly reading letters wherever she finds them.  She really wants to write letters too, but she doesn't quite have the hand coordination or muscle strength to do it well yet.  Mind you, she's only 3 years old.  I wouldn't even be thinking about it, except that she herself is so eager.  (Is that what they mean by child-directed learning?)  Anyway, I picked up My First Book of Tracing at the bookstore tonight.  The simple exercises are meant to help her learn to manipulate a pencil effectively.  It has 40 double-sided worksheets...Miss M has already zipped through 10 of them!  She didn't have any trouble at all with the straight lines, but the curvy ones are giving her a bit more of a challenge.  Once I suggested she slow down and take it easy, she was able to stay on the "path" successfully...and with great pleasure at her accomplishment! Seven dollars for a workbook.  Forty lesso...

Miss M wanted to make a "rower" with a paper towel tube and an empty granola bar box.  A few snips and two strips of packing tape later, she had a new oar for her bilibo boat and I had a few minutes extra time to work on the indoor hopscotch. I got all the numbers cut out and sewn on.  Hopefully I can get it finished up in the next few days (a couple solid hours and I'd have it finished, but I never get good chunks of time like that!)

Many thanks to Lu Bird Baby for her lovely felt Valentines and tutorial on making felt mail .  As I mentioned yesterday, I picked up an unfinished wooden mailbox at JoAnn and some sheets of felt in red, white, pink, and grey.  Miss M would have been perfectly happy to play with the mailbox just as it was, but I thought it needed a bit of sprucing up. I was a bit short on white acrylic paint, so it could use a second coat, but as long as you don't look too closely, it is nice. Miss M was also perfectly happy pilfering used envelopes as I paid the bills, but I wanted to try my hand at felt mail.  I'm so glad I did.  They turned out so cute and Miss M was delighted to have "my own, my very own mail, Mama!"  She has been delivering and checking the mail all day long. For anyone who's thinking about making mail for their own kids, I find Miss M doesn't have much trouble at all putting the "letters" in the envelopes, but she is exceptionall...

If you have young children, you may be forced to endure  have watched Blue's Clues   over and over without ceasing on occasion.  Miss M watches it on Netflix which she is getting quite adept at navigating (frankly, she can use a computer better than her grandfather...and she can't even read!).  She's loves the part when Blue and Steve get mail and laughs and laughs at the part in the song that says, "It makes me want to wag my tail." Her fascination with mail and mailboxes brought to mind this post over on Lu Bird Baby.  So while out today on a spending spree (thanks to Uncle Sam and the fat tax return we got this year) I picked up a few sheets of felt and a wooden mailbox.

Have you seen a bilibo yet?  It's an open-ended toy developed in Switzerland.  Miss M's arrived today and it was an instant hit!  I let her help me open the package.  When he pulled out the bilibo, she said, "What is it, Mama?"  "It's a bilibo.  Why don't you sit in it?"  That's all it took for her to get started.  She quickly figured out several uses for her new toy. "Rocking-dumper" Turtle shell Helmet She also used it as a basin to swirl around a ping pong ball (a lot noisier than you'd think!), a slide, a potty ("only pretend!"), and a boat.  It's about the best $25 I've spent in a long, long time! Little E isn't quite big enough for such active play, but he was content to stare at his little friend with eyes full of deep and expressive things to say, occasionally bursting out with "ah-goo" to emphasize the silent understanding passing between the two of them. And that...

The other day Miss M was tossing bouncy balls into a shoebox and it occurred to me that she "needs" a beanbag toss game.  I used the Google blog search feature and came across this tutorial .  I scrounged around in the garage for the box and used poster paint (bad idea...it falls right off wherever there is still packing tape on the box...next time I'll do like the instructions say and get some latex interior paint). I used hot glue to secure the flaps to the inside before painting, and I hot glued a couple of popsicle sticks to the backside of the triangle "ears" to give them a bit of support. Miss M was napping when I started and when she came out, she was fascinated.  She decided where to put the eyes and as soon as they were on she said, "Now it can see us!" and promptly sat down to chat with her "monster box."  This morning I drew around the mouth and eyes with a black Sharpie.  She saw the eyelashes and said, "Is it a ...

When you're three, there's only one reason to help in the kitchen. Hubby needed more snacks for work and chocolate chip cookies always go over well with him.  But rather than spend the time to make individual cookies, I'm baking them as bars.  I haven't tried this particular recipe before, so we'll see how it turns out (they're still in the oven as I type). Oh, incidentally, one of those nasty medical bills (for upwards of $2,000) was in error and I only ended up owing $300-some-odd for that one!  Whew!

I've never been to the zoo in the snow before.  Today was forecasted to be all the way up to 40 degrees.  (It's just plain wrong to think that 40 is warm, but there you have it.)  To take advantage of the balmy weather, we took a trip to the Kansas City Zoo . We started off riding the hand-carved wooden carousel.  Miss M's face was absolutely glowing! Next Miss M got swallowed up by a giant green snake!  She saw this picture and said, "I look a bit worried." Then we visited the Tropics where we saw the two-month old baby Blue Monkey.  It was so cute to see his mom holding him and carrying him around, just like a person!  I've seen baby monkeys before, but they just held on to their mom's back and weren't carried like that.  (I stole this picture from the zoo website 'cause none of mine turned out). We trekked through the snow, slush, and mud to the tigers....meeting a gagged Buddha on the way. Then it was time for ...

As Miss M played in her doghouse , she kept asking for dog things -- dog food, water in a bowl, a leash.  So I took it into my head to make bone-shaped "dog biscuits" from gingerbread. I used  Eileen's Spicy Gingerbread Men  recipe.  The only changes I made were to use real butter instead of margarine, double the cinnamon, and halve the cloves. They were a big hit with Miss M, probably more because of the shape than the flavor.  They were a big hit with me because of the awesome gingerbready goodness!  Mmmm!  Hubby tasted one, but he likes my applesauce gingerbread better.  I'll have to make some of that soon, it's good too!