Random Thoughts Over Coffee

My babycakes turned seven months yesterday. This morning as I was scurrying around doing my Mommy thing, I went to take a sip of my coffee and it was cold...again. Then it hit me. I realized I haven't been able to finish a cup of coffee in seven months!! At first I was kinda like "humph", but then I took a minute to really think about WHY I had not finished a cup of coffee in seven whole months. It's because I'm busy. Busy taking care of my family. Busy waking up with my little guys. Busy packing notes in lunch boxes and getting my oldest off to school. Busy saying good morning to and chatting with my husband as he heads out the door for work. Busy seeing my baby's gummy grin smiling at me from his crib every morning. Busy sitting down on the floor to play with 'C' for some undivided attention every morning after his big brother gets on the bus. In realizing just how busy my mornings are, I am realizing how truly blessed I am to actually not be able to finish a cup of coffee. Life might be dull if I could.

Colored Rice Three Ways

One batch of rice and two three different projects for two very different ages AND everyone is a happy camper! (including Mom) I had so much fun with this! It was so pretty and colorful I couldn't resist scooping up handfuls of it myself.

If you read my post on Colored Water Bottles for Baby you probably saw that the munchkin man had a lot of fun playing with his brightly colored bottles of water. More than I ever expected. That was encouraging, and I wanted to see if I could come up with another idea that he would go for. Enter the colored rice. I'd been looking for an excuse to make it anyway. I had a few empty baby food jars hanging around and decided to make baby shakers for him. I thought about using plastic Easter eggs because he already likes to play with those but I really wanted him to get the visual of seeing the colored rice.  I tried to fill each jar with a slightly different amount of rice so they would each sound and feel a little different and I also used different sized jars to hopefully enhance the experience. I hot glued the lids to the jars this time just to be safe :)

Project #1 

'C' had fun with this one. He spied them on the kitchen counter before I even intended to put them in front of him and he reached for them right away. The colors definitely caught his eye. (Good choice going with the clear jars with lots of color Mom...very visually enticing). He's cutting a tooth so he spent much more time trying to chew on them than anything else, but he did enjoy rolling them around quite a bit. He did a lot of picking them up and putting them down, constantly switching which one he had in his hands. Piling them up in his lap was a favorite. He seem to love just holding them up and inspecting them.

Project #2

We used this same batch of colored rice to "paint" Easter eggs cut out of card stock which you can read about in this post.

Lastly... (I'm dubbing this one the accidental project). I was planning on being done after we did the Easter Eggs. 'A' was not.

Project #3

With those two projects complete there was rice left over and 'A' just couldn't resist playing with it. He asked me if he could mix it in a plastic bag. Sure! He started to layer it up.

Then decide to just shake it all up and mix. He dubbed that "tie died rice". He played with that for awhile. He described it as "a stress ball in a bag". cute perception.

Then he decided to hide things in it to try and find.  (kind of like his "Find It" game).  That reminded me of a pin I have from Pink and Green Mama. You can see her project for I Spy Bottles here.  I had pinned it in hopes of doing them with the kids one day. I still fully intend to turn that into rice in a bottle project one day. Those bottles she made are too cute!  Anyhow, 'A' had a great time searching for items around the house to hide in his find it bag. It ended up being a great activity.  I must remember if I do this again to let the kids scour their rooms for things to put in the bag. He came up with things like, a pencil cap, piece of gold, various coins, mini erasers, etc.

He was having too much fun! He wanted to make more colored rice, so we did. We experimented to see if we mixed two different colors of food coloring in with the rice would it blend well? Could we make purple rice?  We did... and so the "find it" bag grew. 'A' even wrote out a list of things to keep with the bag so people could check things off as they found them (all his idea btw). I love his 7 year old mind. This actually became quite the activity even though I hadn't planned anything beyond decorating Easter Eggs lol. Just goes to show you what you can unlock in a child's mind by giving them a few simple materials to work with. He has already come up and idea for another colored rice project (but I'm out of rice at the moment!).

So there you have it. One batch of rice, three different projects and a lot of fun for all age groups. Not to mention and empty bag of rice. Time to buy more and get on with fun!

If you like this post be sure to Follow us on Facebook for more fun play ideas!

The Easter Egg, a Virtual Book Club

Somehow I was lucky enough to stumble across this link up from Toddler Approved. A virtual book club... I was immediately in love with the idea!! The task was to read the book, do some kind of activity that relates to the book with your children, and then post about it (today).

This month's book was The Easter Egg by Jan Brett

Here's what we did....

'A' read the book to his little brother. How cute is the munchkin man paying attention to the story?? Such a sweet and fantastic story by the way :) 'A' really enjoyed it. From the beginning he was pretty sure Hoppi would win the honor of "best Egg" somehow. The little guy just really liked the pictures! We deemed this a must have for the Easter collection.

Then on with our activity.... I had colored rice earlier in the day for a project with 'C'.  Hmmm, What could I do with colored rice for a baby? (Come back later for that post).  I used some nice springy colored pastel food coloring that I recently picked up. I'm fairly new to coloring rice and I wasn't sure how pastel food coloring would translate, but it was perfect for this Easter themed project. The colors actually came out beautiful and vibrant.







For our project, we made colored rice Easter egg art! We were to design an egg just like the rabbits in the story had to decorate their eggs.

I cut eggs out of white card stock and we used paint brushes and clear glue to paint our design on the eggs.

Next we sprinkled on the rice.









Our finished product looked a little something like this..

(Oh, and don't be alarmed by the bandage. 'A' recently had a run in with a tree). Boys!

This was such a great idea! Much thanks to Toddler Approved for coming up with and hosting this virtual book club. We had a great time!  I hope we get to do this again soon :)

Take a minute and check out the blog hop here for other fantastic ideas.

Going Bananas

We've had an over abundance of bananas in the house lately. Hubby went to the store, bought bananas. I went to the store, bought bananas. See... an overabundance of bananas. We just couldn't keep up. So what was left to do with them but find different ways to cook 'em up. Here's what we made.

Grilled Bananas over Vanilla Ice Cream

I have to give hubby the credit for this one. I don't know where he found the recipe. All he did was cut the bananas in half lengthwise. Plan on one full banana per person/serving. After you cut them, drizzle with honey and sprinkle with cinnamon. Grill for a couple of minutes on each side. Scoop them out of their skins and put them on top of vanilla ice cream. This was heavenly....definately try this! I am very sorry the pictures don't do this dish justice. This was s-o-o-o yummy. It was extremely dark out and I was trying to hurry before the ice cream melted. Maybe I will request he make them again...you know.... for purposes of this blog ;)

Banana Bars
~ recipe from here ~

My new go-to recipe in place of banana bread. Hubby loves banana bread, but he loves these more. (again, sorry for the funky pics. a lot of my baking tends to occur at night these days) These are so moist. I could eat half the pan in one sitting. That is cinnamon cream cheese frosting on top btw ;)

and who can go wrong with
Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins 
(my personal favorite) ~ 'nuf said

I originally got this recipe from here, but have posted my take on it below for your convenience :)

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffin Recipe

1 1/2 c flour

2/3 c sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 large ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 cup)

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 c melted butter

1/4 c milk

3/4 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

(feel free to be generous with the chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl and set aside. Mix mashed bananas, egg, vanilla, melted butter and milk in a separate bowl. Stir banana mixture into the dry mixture just until moist/blended. It's important not to over mix (we don't want tough dry muffins...yuck). Lastly fold in chocolate chips. Recipe calls for 3/4 of a cup but I often stretch it to a full cup :) Can you really have too much chocolate in your muffins? Divide batter into muffin cups (either lined or greased). Bake about 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Tops should be golden brown and spring back when lightly touched.

Closet Makeover

I don't know about you, but spring cleaning in our house inevitably leads to crossing some major projects off our to-do list. This weekend we tackled a monster one...our  master bedroom closet. It's pretty much been in need of help since we moved in three years ago. The last straw finally happened when I walked into the closet and an entire pile of clothes fell down before I even reached for anything. I think it was about time....

I didn't realize until later that I should have use the wide angle lens to capture the horror show that was our closet. Probably just as well, but here's a hint at what we were looking at.... The top shelf is such a mess because (what you can't see in the picture is that) the floor is covered with bags and who-knows-what else. It had gotten to the point where I literally had one little spot to stand in the closet and I had to throw things up on the top shelf!

First step was to unload the closet. Is that really what a tub is used for??? Hope nobody wants to take a bath this weekend! This is only what was on the floor and on the top shelves. About now I'm thinking Ugh...what did we take on :(

I'm starting to think hubby does these projects just to get new power tools. We make a second trip back to Lowes for this... Boys & their toys! I say good for you hubby! Now that you have this we can do more closets :)

Cabinets going in. They weren't really hard to install, just a bit time consuming to build.

And Now.... TaDa!

Nothing stellar or creative. Just a couple of closet kits from Lowes, a few baskets, and a little hard work. I'm still recovering (and cleaning up) from our little closet makeover remodel. It was well worth the effort!  I think I might even leave the closet door open for awhile :)

....and no, I didn't go shopping for art to hang in the closet. It was already being stored in there. I wasn't sure about hanging pictures in the closet, but I'm hoping it will serve as zen reminder to keep the closet looking this way. Plus if it's hanging it's one less thing I have to find a home for, and besides, it covers a couple of holes in the wall ;)

Colored Water Bottles

Today I decided to try something a little different with the munckin man. I wandered around Babies R Us this morning looking for a new toy, but nothing quite fit the bill so when we got home I decided I would try to concoct a new experience for the little guy myself. There was a water bottle sitting on my kitchen counter and that seemed to have potential, then I remembered all the green food coloring left over from St. Patrick's Day. But why stop with green? So, I ended up coloring three bottles....red.... yellow (because I think that's his favorite color).... and green.  (I know...it was not lost on me that this has some sort of 'stop light' game potential with an older child. I'm filing that thought away for later). I put different amounts of water in each bottle because I'm hoping he'll pick up on the fact some are easier or harder to lift, roll around etc.. Very simple. I set us up outside on the deck just in case we sprung a leak or had a spill. (Bonus points for taking the activity outside).

I set the three bottles up in front of him and let him go to town.  I was curious to see which one he would go for first. Maybe yellow?  He did!  Score 1pt for Mom knowing her kid ;)  Then of course, yellow went in the mouth, as does everything these days. He tried that for a little while while I became nervous about the cap hazard and then decided he green looked good. Green went in the mouth too. uuuhh.frazzled Mom nerves kicking in.  I wondered if he wondered if green would taste different?  He played with green and yellow for a little bit and then eventually went for the red. (btw...once he "tasted" the first couple bottles he never put them in his mouth again). I would obviously supervise this activity because of the caps - or find a way to glue them to the bottle).

Red made a good drum.

Doesn't he seem to be saying... "Hmmm, which one should I choose?"

It was a thrill watching C explore. I don't actually know who had more fun, he, or I.  He was all smiles and I thoroughly enjoyed watching him. You could just see his mind working to figure out what these were, what he could do with them etc. He was LOVING this! He was oblivious to the fact that I was taking pictures because he was enjoying himself so much.  Who needs store - bought toys :)

If you like this post be sure to Follow us on Facebook for more fun play ideas!

Moments

Most of my time over the last couple of days has been spent trying to give the site a makeover. While I was at it I was playing with a few pictures. One of the reasons I wanted to start a blog was to have a place to collectively record and share funny things the kids say and do or just things about them that I want to remember. A way to freeze those moments in time if you will. My mom has been really good about journaling some of the more humorous things Addison has done and said as he has been growing, but I haven't been so good at it.  There are so many stories that I always thought I would remember that I'm afraid I just don't. So, my plan is to use this little blog as a place to capture some of those moments and stories.  I'm hoping it will be a neat thing to look back on over the years. Check out my little destroyer below. There seems to be a pattern emerging...the more mobile he gets the more trouble he seems to be getting into lol!

I'm starting to see a pattern here.

This was Carter recently with his playmat

.....and this is what happened when I was trying out our first photo shoot with my new backdrop...

Not to worry, I rescued him after the last frame! I think I'm going to have my hands full with his one.

Cornstarch & Water Experiment

Here's a fun activity that never gets old. Cornstarch & water. Have you ever tried it? I don't actually know what the concoction is officially called, and I have to credit hubby with introducing me to the concept, but whatever it is, it's pretty cool. 'A' never gets tired of playing and experimenting with this one. We made it for the first time when he was about four and at seven he stills asks to make it. In fact, he asked me just the other day, so I thought I would share our activity.

We usually mix it up in a bowl. Sometimes we play with it that way. Other times we'll pour it onto a cookie sheet or into larger size food storage container (use your imagination). This particular time we played with it straight out of the bowl and 'A' had the idea to hide marbles in the mixture to see how hard it would be to find and uncover them.  To make the "goo" just mix corn starch and water. You want it to look liquidy but not too runny. It should be difficult to stir if you get it right.  Poke it with your finger, it should feel solid and not give. Now...slowly press your finger into it. Your finger should sink like it's quicksand. If you sink your whole hand into it like 'A' did and then try to pull it out real fast you will likely end up picking up the entire bowl. It's a funny thing...we like funny things :)

It looks super messy and it is fun to get it all over the place. Drops on the table look like spilt milk, but you can actually push them around like they are solid crumbs. It all cleans up fairly easily by just overpowering the mix with more water. It'll wash right off!

Random Thoughts

Holy cow! Today it hit me. After six months I think I finally have a routine back. Apparently I had totally forgotten what it was like to have a baby in the house!  Meal time used to be a fairly peaceful time at our house. I in the kitchen cooking. Mr A doing homework at the table. Chit Chat. Hubby comes home, glass of wine etc. Enter the babycakes. Mass chaos between the hours of 5pm and 7pm. I didn't know what hit me. I feel like I have spent the last 5-6 months of my life just trying to get the little guy to fall into a routine - well I guess I have.. sort of. Dare I say I think we finally have success. As the munchkin man was napping this afternoon and I was dipping strawberries in chocolate for dessert tonight, it hit me! I had time to dip strawberries in chocolate for dessert. whoopee! Looking back I think it's actually been this way for the last month. My how time flies. Deep breath...hopefully I'm not jinxing myself by putting this down on paper, but it's nice to feel, even just a little bit, like life is getting back into a groove in this household. I'm sure some of you can relate.

Signs of Spring

I think this has to be close to my favorite time of year. I love it when the temperature starts to creep back up after dipping down all winter. When you can ditch the coats and smell the dirt. I don't know what it's like in your neck of the woods, but where we are, today was just absolutely gorgeous! Unseasonably warm weather for March 18th, but I'll take it! All this sunshine and fresh air has me itching to get into my flower beds. Sadly it's still really too early to be planting much of anything here in New England :( So....what else could I do but start my gardening Pinterest board??  Kidding! Although I did start a gardening board on there this weekend, the real highlight was being able to go outside in flip flops, open the windows, pull weeds and just generally play outside! Even the babe got in on the action while I got in some practice on the camera skills.

We had a little scavenger hunt looking for signs of spring. We found some trees and shrubs budding and some plants starting to poke through.

And while I can't actually plant anything in the garden yet, this little guy did manage to find his new home  in there. He's kinda cute don'tcha think?

The neighbor kids came over for lunch, basketball was played, St. Patrick's Day decor was taken down and Easter decor was put up. We even got to eat outside! Your fairly run of the mill, very average day, but something about sunshine and 70+ degrees at a time of year when it's just really not suppose to be quite that nice, makes it anything but plain vanilla!

Now....if I can just find the will power to get back to the spring cleaning ;)

Leprechaun Cakes & Leprechaun Traps

Well we are closing in on St. Patrick's Day so I'm going to hurry up and cram the rest of our St. Patrick's Day activities into one post. Pardon the length, but stick with me, I promise it's worth it. If you are looking for a couple of last minute ideas here you go!

Today was green velvet cupcake day. I have been looking forward to this for weeks!! Ever since I saw Love From The Oven's post about her Green Velvet Cupcakes I knew I HAD to make them!! Something about the bright green and the white frosting with green and white sprinkles was just so....pretty. (there it is again. darn cute cupcakes getting the best of me).

In the end I just doctored up a cake mix as opposed to going completely from scratch. So I guess these are more or less green cupcakes as opposed to green velvet, so we've officially dubbed them leprechaun cakes. I've seen quite a few versions of these floating around this season so just pick your favorite recipe or, if you are really pressed for time,  just use a straight box mix and give it a good dose of green food coloring.  I used a whole bottle (yes, an entire bottle) of green food coloring as the original recipe called for. It was, without a doubt, green. Kinda pretty. I can't say I've seen anything quite like it before :) Very cheerful looking little cupcakes.

I used my favorite vanilla frosting recipe. I first found it over at www.kevinandamanda.com. Ever since I found this recipe I am in love, as much as one can be in love with frosting anyway. It's hubby's favorite too.  You must try it! Here it is.

Vanilla Frosting
2 sticks of butter (room temp)
3+ cups of powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 c whipping cream

Just throw everything in the bowl and mix it up until its nice and fluffy. You may want to tweak the amount of powdered sugar or cream depending on the consistency.  I'm sometimes add a little more of both. It should be kind of a cross between whip cream and frosting. I can't stress how good this frosting is! Even if you don't ever plan on making green cupcakes, find something to frost with this frosting!

In case you are wondering....Yes, I did try the cupcakes, and yes, they do turn your tongue green.

There you have it, one project down...one more to go. Now for Leprechaun traps!

My oldest has been leprechaun crazy since about Tuesday. He's convinced they are staking the place out so he's already got his traps out. 

The real star of our leprechaun traps this year is the gold. Seeing as Mom, yes guilty as charged,  ate all the left over rolos from our pots of gold project I had to find something in the house we could use as gold bait. Well, we had leftover gold paint from the canvases we did last week so I decided to make a project out of it. I sent him out to look for rocks that we could paint to look like gold nuggets. Perfect! They came out fantastic (and as a bonus it occupied him for quite awhile painting all those rocks). 

See :)

It looks great in his traps!

oops, I just realized that I took this picture of the last trap while the gold was drying lol! O-well, the gold works in this trap too :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day! (almost anyway)

Banana Cupcakes

With the nice weather kicking in I have started in with the spring cleaning. I am more than happy to say I can finally see the floors in the kids' rooms! All this hard work has left me with a serious carb craving.  While I was trying to hold out until it was time to make our green velvet cupcakes, I caved today when the bananas on my kitchen counter started begging for me to use them or loose them. Happy to oblige, I turned them into banana cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting.

Here's how it happened...

Lucky Little Pots of Gold

This was a project I found a while ago. I think it was in a Disney Family Fun magazine at the time. We first did it when 'A' was in kindergarten. I decided to revisit it this year because we had so much fun with it the first time. They are super cute, and we use them as a nice little way to say thank you to our teachers when they least expect it. This time around, being a couple of years older, 'A' was able to take over the spray painting job himself (with a little guidance), and what little boy doesn't want to wield a can of spray paint :)  This is how we made our pots of gold.

Get a few smallish terra cotta pots and spray paint them black. One can of paint did five small pots.

Once they are dry fill them with easter grass and a rainbow made of pipe cleaners.

You want them to look at little something like this when you are done...

Lastly, fill them with "gold". We used rolos, but any gold wrapped candy would work. We also included a shamrock with a note that said "I'm so lucky to have you for a teacher".  

There you have it! Little pots of Gold :) Phew! I think all of our St. Patrick's Day crafting for this year is finally done..... Now for that Easter list...oh and those green velvet cupcakes that I promised I would make for 'A' to take to school on Friday! Happy Monday all...