Crafty Moms Share

Vegetable Baked Ziti

2012-03-11T13:54:00.001-04:00

Since my husband is Catholic, he tries not to eat meat on Fridays during Lent. Since neither of us eat fish, this makes Friday meals a bit hard. Here is a recipe for baked ziti I came up with adding as many vegetables as he will tolerate. If I wasn't making this during Lent I would add a pound of ground turkey breast to the recipe.

Vegetable Baked Ziti

Your Recipe

6 PointsPlus Value (Weight Watchers)

Prep time: 20 min

Cook time: 30 min

Serves: 8

Ingredients

1 pound(s) cooked whole wheat ziti

1 cup(s) uncooked zucchini, chopped

1 clove(s) (medium) garlic clove, minced

1 pound(s) fresh baby spinach

3 tsp olive oil

1 cup(s) Carrots, pureed or grated

29 oz canned diced tomatoes, 2 cans

24 oz canned tomato sauce

2 cup(s) fat-free ricotta cheese

10 oz shredded fat free mozzarella

1 oz parmesan cheese

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp ground basil

Instructions

Cook pasta. While pasta is cooking saute zucchini and garlic in oil. Add spinach and carrots when zucchini is looking basically cooked. Add tomatoes and tomato sauce and herbs and parmesan cheese. Turn to low. After pasta is drained, combine in pan with ricotta. Mix. Then stir in sauce. Pour into 13 by 9 inch pan. Sprinkle mozzarella on top. Bake at 400 for 30 minutes.

Enjoy!!

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Sharing Saturday #10

2012-03-09T18:48:00.001-05:00

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week! We are always amazed at the wonderful ideas you each share with us. If you have not checked them out you should!!

A small request from me!! Please, please, go vote for me at Circles of Mom's Top 25 Creative Mom Blogs. I'm in the 30s and would love to make it up to the top 25. You can vote every 24 hours for each blog. It only takes a minute!

We are still looking for one more knitter (or for one of the two people who left comments to get back in touch with me through e-mail) for our knitted farm swap. Please check it out and email me if you are interested!!

Ok, now onto the features!!

The Most Clicked On:

From Serendipity and Spice: Is your blog legal? (This definitely has some great tips for all of us!)

And a few of my favorites from this past week:

From Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas: United Kingdom: Paddington Bear, Cinnamon Chip Scones & Cucumber Sandwiches (Ok, I'll admit, Paddington is one of my childhood favorites!)

From Beautiful Chaos: A St. Patrick's Day Post (lots of great ideas for celebrating and gifting)

From Kindergarten & Preschool for Teachers and Parents: What has weather got to do with it? (A great post about playing outside in all kinds of weather!!)

If you were featured, please feel free to grab a featured button and display it proudly on your blog! Also please check out my co-host's blog: Mama Mia's Heart2Heart for more features!

Button Code:

This Week From Your Hosts:

From Mama Mia's Heart2Heart: Bag of Gold and Numbers File Folder Game

From Crafty Moms Share: A Felt Leprechaun

Now onto our Sharing Saturday for this week. A few simple rules.

1) Please follow both hosts via GFC (or one of the other ways that work for you).

Hosts are Crafty Moms Share and Mama Mia's Heart2Heart.

2) Link any kid-friendly, child-centered post. Please no etsy shops or giveaways, etc. Remember to link to your actual post.

3) Post the button on your sidebar or somewhere on your blog to help spread the word.

Button Code:

4. Optional: Like us on Facebook and Google+

All right everyone...This is a PARTY!! Have Fun!!

St. Patrick's Day Cards and More Spring Fairies

2012-03-09T09:26:00.002-05:00

Our First Spring Bulb Has a Flower!

Today we decided it was time to make the St. Patrick's Day cards to mail to our family. I am part Irish--Hazel is named after my Irish grandmother and her godmother is Irish, so we will do a small celebration for it. I bought her a shamrock plant at Trader Joe's the other day. We took some of the shamrocks off to paint with them.

The prints did not come out exactly as I had planned, but we tried.

Then we decorated with stickers and we stamped the insides with a Happy St. Patrick's Day stamp.

Hazel wanted to do a rainbow on one, so I gave her some heart stickers for it.

And the insides:

Yesterday at school the teacher had a beautiful bendy doll fairy that was much smaller than what I have made, so I tried some. If you don't know what a bendy doll is there are several tutorials around. They are made of pipe cleaners wrapped with embroidery floss and usually a wooden bead for a head and more embroidery floss or yarn for hair. The tutorial I first used is at The Enchanted Tree. I still need to add some wings to my fairies, but thought I would share them anyway.

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Spring and Muffins

2012-03-08T14:21:00.001-05:00

Yesterday and today feel like spring. It has been close to 60 if not over 60 and we are loving it. However we still have the feeling of brown all around us. Everything still looks brown. We see a few spots of spring bulbs starting to break through the earth, but not enough to change the overall color you see. We found a book at the library about this, And Then It's Spring by Julie Fogliano. This book literally talks about how everything is brown and you plant seeds and wait and wait and then one day suddenly everything is green. It is a great book for this time of year at least around here.

This morning we decided to make muffins before heading to school. I pulled out my Deceptively Delicious cookbook (by Jessica Seinfeld) and amended her applesauce muffin recipe. The recipe can be found here. I used whole wheat flour and used raw carrot puree instead of the butternut squash puree.

Hazel helping puree the carrots

I also used more carrots than called for (either squash or carrot in the book). Hazel has no problems eating most vegetables so she doesn't mind me putting them in. Her father on the other hand doesn't really eat enough vegetables so we do try to hide them in things for him.

Hazel mixing the dry ingredients

Hazel of course did the mixing and pouring of measured ingredients. Her technique has definitely improved.

Cracking an egg

She has gotten better with eggs as well, but still needs to do them in a separate bowl so we can get all the shells out.

We ate them warm for breakfast and then rushed off to school. It was one of the first times we were not the first ones in class there. They are changing the start time next week since everyone always comes late to our class. Oh, well. The muffins were delicious!

Oh, and why did we bake muffins today. So we would have something to link up at

Won't you join us over there!! Thanks, Kelly for hosting a great baking party!

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Bath Time Tea Party and Easter Egg Fun

2012-03-07T08:32:00.002-05:00

We are still looking for a knitter to join us in our knitted farm swap. If you want to join please e-mail me. A few people have left messages wanting to join with a no-reply e-mail, so I cannot get in touch with them.

Bath Time Tea Party and Other Kitchen/Bath Fun

Now I would like to feature a wonderful idea from last week's Sharing Saturday. This idea is from Glittering Muffins and she called it Sensory Bath - Kitchen Fun. (Note: I'm not sharing any of her pictures since her son is in all of them.) Well we have tried it and I have to say Hazel is asking for baths again. She absolutely loved it. I invaded her play kitchen for items to take in and we had a tea party and she made cakes and all sorts of things.

Steve and I always said we would not take pictures that would embarrass Hazel later in life especially bath or naked ones so I am only going to post pictures of what we had in the bath tub. Also Hazel has sensitive skin so on doctor's orders we only use one brand of soap, lotion, suntan lotion, shampoo, etc., so I thought coloring the water was not a great idea. However we have given her a few bath time paints and she used that to color the water when she was mixing. The blue wasn't coming out anymore so I opened it up and put water in it for her and she loved getting blue water in her bowl.

She had so much fun with this bath that we visited the Dollar Tree to replace some of the things we stole from her kitchen like the travel size spray bottle and soap dispenser. We also picked up the slotted spoons and strainer. She loved it!!

Easter Egg Fun

Next we had fun with Easter eggs. I got this idea from The Imagination Tree. We started with a tub full of water and plastic Easter eggs. We tried to sink them. We tried them together and apart. For the most part they floated though the open ones we could get to sink faster. Then we tried adding coins to them. At first we added only a few coins and they still floated. We checked to see if the coins would float on their own. Hazel enjoyed this part because they splashed so she kept dropping them in. Then we filled the eggs with coins and those sunk.

Next we tried filling some with rice. Again they floated until they took on water. Then we pushed them down and got them all to sink by filling them with water. Hazel enjoyed picking them up to empty the water out.

We had a lot of fun experimenting with the eggs in the water. Then we went to decorate them. We will share that for another post. Have a great day!!

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We have a winner!!

2012-03-06T15:26:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that the PrintRunner sticker giveaway is over and the winner is DomesticDiva. Rafflecopter picked her number 36 entry. Congratulations. I will be sending you an email shortly to get your information.

A Snowy Day

2012-03-06T08:15:00.000-05:00

Lenten Share:
Just thought I would give you an update on our Easter egg grass. We were very excited to notice some grass growing this week.

Last week we had a bit of snow. And it was finally a wet snow. Unfortunately for Hazel it was not a lot of snow, but we did get out and play in it on Friday. Taking ideas from The Snowy Day by Erza Jack Keats,

we made tracks in the snow and looked at tracks made in the snow.

Animal Tracks--Cat maybe?

Toes Pointed Out

Toes Pointed In

Bird Tracks

We also made a snowman. A very small snowman, but a snowman none the less. The snow was a bit icy to really do much with it.

We also enjoyed a sled ride around the yard.

And we painted in the snow. (Spray bottles with colored water in them.)

Hazel also tried out her slide in the snow. And made sure both swingsets were cleared off.

Sorry, don't know why the pictures aren't turned.

And of course we made snow angels.

Then we got cold so we went in for some hot chocolate and lunch. Hazel wanted to serve herself her leftovers from dinner out the night before. And of course we used our special snow angel plate and mugs!

What books have you been reading to your children?

Blogger Tag

2012-03-06T07:58:00.000-05:00

I've been tagged by Stephanie over at Toastie Studio Sewing Blog. To play when you are tagged your tagger sends you 11 questions to answer and then you tag 11 blogger friends and send them 11 questions.

RULES
**You must post the rules {?!}
**Answer the 11 questions that the tagger posted for you & then create 11 questions to ask the people you’ve tagged
**Tag 11 people and link them in your post
**Let them know you have tagged them

My questions from Stephanie:

1. How did you get into crafting?
My mother. She always was doing crafts with us as well as always sewing clothes for us and eventually quilting. I am no where near her level of skill, but have fun with it.

One of my completed dollhouses--I saved this one for Hazel!

2. Fabric, felt, card, wood? What is your favourite material?
Depends on my mood and my project. I love sewing and quilting and buying fabric (this is a big storage problem). I love paper/card crafts as well. I have recently starting really working with felt and love the ease of it. And my dollhouses are wood, but I don't really have the correct tools or skills to work with wood much besides the dollhouse kits.

One of my first quilt projects

3. What do you aspire to be?
A wonderful mom.

4. What is the nicest fabric you own/want to own?
My daughter plays with silks I finished for her so I guess that is it.

5. Buttons or ribbon?
Ribbon.

6. On the weekend when you are not sewing etc, what do you like to do?
Time with my family. Getting outside, playing oh, and go to church.

7. Does your boyfriend/husband/partner get your crafting?
Not completely.

8. What is your greatest crafting dream?
To build a dollhouse from scratch.

9. Have you ever received a handmade gift and been disappointed with it?
Well, not really. My mother showed me a purse she was making me for my birthday, but I never received it. She is a perfectionist and it wasn't coming out correctly so she didn't finish it.

10. How many crafty friends do you have?
On-line friends or meet in life friends. On-line many!! Meet in life friends that I hang out with all the time probably 4 or 5.

11. What do you prefer? Working from a pattern, or just doing it as you go?
Depends on what I'm doing. Usually I like working from a pattern, but if I want to feel creative I just go along.

The bloggers I am going to tag:
Toys In The Dryer
One Artsy Mama
Happy Whimsical Hearts
I HEART CRAFTY THINGS
Mama Mia's Heart2Heart
La-La's Home Daycare
April's Homemaking
Mom On Timeout
Sew Happy Geek
Reading Confetti
Tot Treasures

My questions for these bloggers:
1) What got you into blogging?
2) What got you into crafting?
3) What is your favorite media for crafting (fabric, paper, wood, etc.)?
4) What books are you reading?
5) If applicable what children's books are favorites in your house right now?
6) What is your most accomplished craft?
7) What is your greatest craft dream?
8) What do you aspire to be?
9) Do you own or plan to won an e-reader (Kindle, Nook, etc.)?
10) What recent craft trend are you excited to try out?
11) What's the best gift you have ever received?

Spring Fairies and a Leprechaun

2012-03-05T09:12:00.002-05:00

Today is the last day to enter my second giveaway. There are some amazing entries over at Sharing Saturday. Please go check them out and get inspired, and feel free to share your newest creations and ideas while there.

And if you have a minute please pop over to Circle of Moms Top 25 Creative Moms Blogs and vote for me! You can vote for each blog once every 24 hours.

Calling all knitters!! Any interest in joining us in a knitted farm playmat swap. Check it out here.

Put Together

Now for a quick Lent feature. From last week's Sharing Saturday, Sheila over at Explore and Express shared her Lenten Table including a wonderful felt cross puzzle. I made one for our table. Thank you for the idea, Sheila! Sorry for my bad lighting!

Now for some nice spring thoughts...

I used the patterns and instructions in All Year Round. It is a wonderful book for celebrating the different seasons and holidays. I started with snow drop fairies. I thought this was a good starting point since it is the only flowers we have seen among our brown late winter/early spring.

My Snow Drop Fairies

The Snow Drops We saw at Cape Cod!

Then I made a Crocus Fairy. Again, I followed the directions in the book. I didn't have a good purple or yellow wool felt, so I used some EcoFelt that I had.

Then I did the final idea in the book which is a yellow primrose. (Again using the yellow EcoFelt.)

Then I got creative. I made a Daffodil Fairy. She kind of looks like she should be the queen of the fairies.

And I made a leprechaun using a similar pattern and playing with the hat. I used some wool stuffing for his beard. (After all, Hazel is named after my Irish grandmother.)

I made them for Hazel's nature/seasonal table, but she likes them because she thinks they are finger puppets.
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Knitted Farm Swap

2012-03-04T08:30:00.003-05:00

Please note: All of the pictures in this post are from Living Crafts Magazine and are used with their permission. Please do not pin any of them since they are not mine.

Some of the patches closer up (Winter 2008)

With the money my parents gave me for Christmas I purchased all the back issues of Living Crafts Magazine. This is a great magazine for any crafter, but especially for one who likes to use organic and/or all natural materials. I came across this magazine as I looked into the Waldorf School more and more. In fact a few of the crafts I have done at school have come from this magazine (like this one). The handworks teacher at Hazel's school also subscribes and uses crafts from it all the time. The magazine itself is published four times a year (and I honestly wish it was more because it is so amazing). They do offer digital subscriptions now.And they have an amazing blog to go with it. Oh, and I always love to see what great crafts they find and share on Facebook. Talk about inspiration. The posts they share are not always in English but are always of amazing natural crafts.

Finished mat from the original swap (Winter 2008 issue)

At one of the crafting events I heard about a knitted farm swap that was in their premier issue (as well as the pattern to the angel I linked above). The discussion occurred because one of the mother's at the school actually participated in the swap in the article. It of course got me to thinking how fun it would be to do a swap like this. This article is in the premier issue of Living Crafts, Winter 2008. Included in the article are the patterns for all the different squares. In their Winter 2009 magazine they offer five new knitted farm designs. Again these are amazing. They have a pumpkin patch, sheep pasture (including the fence), apple tree with fallen apples, sheep meadow, and a root vegetable patch with removable root vegetables.

Root Vegetable Patch (Winter 2009)

So I am looking for up to 11 other knitters to join me in this adventure. It will entail knitting 12 12-inch squares of some sort of farmland-either using a pattern from Living Crafts or one of your own. (Note the patterns range from 10-inch by 12-inch rectangles and 10-inch to 12-inch squares, so some adjustments may need to be made.) You will then mail 11 of them to me and once I get them all, I will send you 11 different ones back which you will be able to configure and join to make an amazing farm playmat for your child(ren). I am willing to do this swap internationally, so please do not let that be a factor for you--especially since I know I have some international followers. If you are interested in purchasing the magazines, Living Crafts is offering us a deal of $3.49 plus shipping for each issue. You can purchase both issues for less than you can purchase one on their website!

Sheep Meadow (Winter 2009)

If you are interested in participating please send me an e-mail (craftymomsshare@gmail.com) by Friday, March 9th with your name, blog name if you have one, and mailing address and whether you are interested in purchasing the Living Crafts Winter 2008 and Winter 2009 issues at the special rate. I will then put everyone who is interested in the purchase in touch with the magazine for payment, etc. Then you need to knit your 12 squares and mail 11 of them to me (I'll email you my address when I hear from you) by June 1st (to give everyone time to get the magazines and knit). I will then get the squares out to everyone as soon as I can. I will take the first 11 people and then start a waiting list. If we get 14 or more people, I will send an email to see if people mind knitting more squares than 12 and if we get 24 I'll start another swap.

Pumpkin Patch (Winter 2009)

Oh, and if you are joining me, please feel free to grab a button and post it on your blog so we can get more people interested. The more people, the larger your playmat will be!

Button Code:

Quick update: We already have 6 participants, but keep the names coming. I have no problem putting together two swaps if we get enough names. Also Pardis, the editor at Living Crafts posted this on Facebook and told me I could post it here:

All those who want the Winter 08 and Winter 09 issues with Knitted Farm can have both for price of 1 -- Buy Winter 08 and use Offer Code Winter 09 so you get both!

This will be the easiest way for people to buy them and probably the quickest. Thank you to everyone who is already participating and we look forward to having more join us!! So far we have people from four countries, maybe we can add some more.

Sharing Saturday #9

2012-03-02T20:24:00.001-05:00

Wow!! What amazing entries we had in last week's Sharing Saturday. If you haven't had a chance to check them out you really should. There were some really great ones added at the end of it. I know I had a hard time picking features. It seems to get harder and harder the more entries we get.

If you haven't had a chance to check out my second giveaway. Please stop by and enter to win 250 custom printed stickers. Let's face it what Crafty Mom doesn't like stickers or at least what child doesn't. Imagine stickers with his or her picture or artwork on it. How exciting would that be? Or of course you could get them for yourself or your blog or Esty shop. The options are limitless.

Ok, now onto my features.

Well since today is Dr. Seuss' Birthday, how could I not pick one of the many Dr. Seuss crafts entered.

From Madtown Macs: Dr. Seuss City (I love the creativity in this one. When Hazel is older I think we will have to try this.)

From Happy Whimsical Hearts: Baby Marble Painting (I love this creativity of finding away for the younger sister to try it with her big brother.)

From Strong Start: Wet Felted Eggs (We are definitely doing this in the next week or so and I love this technique!)

Please check my co-host, Mama Mia's Heart2Heart for more features including the most clicked on this week.

If you are one of my features, please feel free to grab a featured button and display it proudly on your blog!

Button Code:

From Your Hosts:

From Mama Mia's Heart2Heart: Handprint Rainbow (Isn't this great? I love it.)

From Crafty Moms Share: The Big Wide Mouthed Frog Crafts to go along with the book

Now onto our Sharing Saturday for this week. A few simple rules.

1) Please follow both hosts via GFC (or one of the other ways that work for you).

Hosts are Crafty Moms Share and Mama Mia's Heart2Heart.

2) Link any kid-friendly, child-centered post. Please no etsy shops or giveaways, etc. Remember to link to your actual post.

3) Post the button on your sidebar or somewhere on your blog to help spread the word.

Button Code:

All right everyone...This is a PARTY!! Have Fun!!

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

2012-03-02T09:34:00.001-05:00

Last Saturday when we went to Lakeshore Learning Store for their free craft, we discovered they were celebrating Dr. Seuss' Birthday, which is today! Not only did they have their free craft but they had story times and other crafts. Hazel made this Thing Hair there. They had all sorts of ways to decorate it. It was precut by the employees but it looks like they used a wavy scrapbooking pair of scissors.

Today we made easy Cat in the Hat hats. We used a paper plate, a piece of white or red construction paper and red or white crepe paper (streamers). We glued the streamers on to the construction paper to make the stripes. Then curled the construction paper to form the top part of the hat and cut out the inside circle of the paper plate and taped the tube of construction paper in.

To tape them in we cut slits so it would fit the curve better.

Then Hazel attempted to get a picture of me. It took several times, but she managed to get me and the hat in a picture. Not a very good picture, but a picture.

This afternoon we also made some cupcakes and took out some Dr. Seuss book from the library. Our birthday celebration continues for Dr. Seuss. I finally used the silicone turtle cupcake cups I bought. (Steven loves turtles so I got them for him.) They are perfect Yertle, the Turtle cupcakes. Too bad we didn't get that book.

I quickly frosted the cupcakes. Hazel picked out the pink frosting at the store. She of course wanted to add more to hers.

Then she added some sprinkles to all of them in her style.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Look later on for a new knitted swap idea. I'm hoping to post it today or at least over the weekend. And of course Sharing Saturday will be starting up tonight!!

A Giveaway from PrintRunner!

2012-03-01T07:50:00.001-05:00

Our Cross from Soup Supper

The final craft we did at the Lenten Soup Supper at church was to make a tissue paper cross. This was from a kit from Oriental Trading. We did not put the "He Lives" stickers on it yet since that seems more Eastery than Lent. We have this hanging above our front door as a reminder of the season.

I was recently contacted by PrintRunner! about offering a giveaway. As you know I have only done one other giveaway, but they offered a sticker giveaway and I thought what Crafty Mom doesn't want custom stickers. I know Hazel loves stickers and would love some with a picture of her or similar!

PrintRunner is your convenient online printing resource. Check out their print stickers.

They have offered a lucky winner 250 standard sized (width 2", height 3.5") stickers in full color (four color process) or black and white printed on premium sticker stock with no proof. And the prize will be ready to ship in 3 business days from submission. This giveaway is open to US Residents only who are 18 and older. (Sorry to all of my international friends and followers!)

Thank you to PrintRunner for providing us this giveaway, I will receive a set of stickers for hosting this. Good luck to all of you!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sunshine Award!

2012-02-29T16:47:00.001-05:00

I have been honored to receive the Sunshine Award from Jenny over at The NY Melrose Family! She has a wonderful blog that I have gotten to know thanks to Sharing Saturday!

"Friends are the sunshine of life." John Hay

As a recipient of this delightful award, I have a few rules to follow:

Include the award’s logo in a post or on your blog. See above.
Answer 10 questions about yourself. See below.
Nominate 10-12 other fabulous bloggers. See my list below.
Link your nominees to the post and comment on their blogs, letting them know they have been nominated. So happy to share the love!
Share the love and link the person who nominated you.

Ten Sunshine Award Questions (and answers):

Favorite color: Pink! I have always loved pink things. In fact I still have a poem I wrote in third grade about pink things.

Favorite animal: Ok, I guess it would be a cat (I've always had one in my life), but I also love giraffes and lions. I can honestly say that Simba, the cat we put down in July, was my absolute favorite ever, but I had him for 17 years and a good portion of those were when I was single so he was the only one I was living with. He was always getting into my things. You can see a bit more about Simba here. And of course I love our other kitties--Fluffy and Pumpkin very much! I just have to share them with Steve and Hazel so it is a bit different.

Simba checking out the printer

Favorite number: 20--don't know why, but it always has been.

Favorite non-alcoholic drink: Water--I drink it all day long. The only other thing I drink is chai lattes and tea some times.

Prefer Facebook or Twitter?: Facebook. I have not adventured into Twitter and really don't have desire to.

My passion: Hmmm...equal rights for everyone. It is what I feel strongest about. I guess it was the years of teaching and advising the diversity clubs and Gay Straight Alliances. (Other passions of course include crafting!)

Prefer Giving or Getting Presents: Definitely giving. I'm always so excited to give presents. Opening them isn't nearly as fun as watching someone enjoy something I picked out or made for them.

Favorite Pattern: Don't really have one. As you can tell from my many changes to my background here.

Favorite Day of the Week: Sunday--to me it is still a day to slow down and spend with God and family. I hope to always think of it that way.

Favorite Flower: Pink roses--I absolutely love them. But I love most flowers as well.

OK. So now here is the fun part – here is my list of blogs that regularly bring a little sunshine into my life. In no particular order:

Toys in the Dryer

Reading Confetti

One Artsy Mama

Softearth's World

Marie has such beautiful needle felted work. She is truly an inspiration to me.

Tippytoe Crafts
Betsy always has wonderful ideas for crafts with young children. I always am trying something from her blog.

April's Homemaking

Mama Mia's Heart2Heart

Silly Eagle Books

Happy Whimsical Hearts

Creating a Family Home
Kelly always has beautiful knitted crafts as well as the simple life in the country. I always find it inspiring to read her blog.

Easter/Spring Buckets--Dollar Tree Crafts

2012-02-29T08:14:00.000-05:00

Getting some inspiration from Pinterest, I decided to go to The Dollar Tree to see if I could gather some supplies to make similar things. The first inspiration was from The Sweet Survival. It is a Hydrangea Covered Easter Egg. I had trouble finding a reasonably priced large Easter egg (Michaels had them for $10 or more) and The Dollar Tree had none. However I love hydrangeas so I still wanted to use them. (Hydrangeas were the flowers at my wedding.) I also saw these cute baskets at AllYou.com Kids flower crafts. I liked these ideas but wanted to do them differently.

I found these green buckets at The Dollar Tree as well as a faux hydrangea bunch and faux forsythia branches. I bought two of the forsythia branches and one hydrangea bunch and two buckets, so a total of $5 plus tax. Since I wanted Hazel to help me with it, I did not use the hot glue gun. I used tacky craft glue. However, this did not work well. We did start to take the center parts out to make them smooth to glue better. We also found we needed to work sections with it laying down on a side and let it dry completely before trying another section. I will touch them up with some hot glue later. I'm also thinking of adding a ribbon around them.Or maybe we will continue with our gluing and cover them completely. We may make a few more to give to the family or at least grandparents who we will see at Easter.

We also started on the pink pail that I bought for Hazel's kitchen in which to keep her cloth napkins and napkin rings. She got bored part way through this one though. She did say she wanted to put both types of flowers on it though. So stay tuned for what we do with this one.

Even though this has been a warm winter, I am starting to want the spring weather already. I love seeing flowers this time of year. I often buy flowers for the table to keep remembering spring is on the way. Here is a rose from a bunch I bought over a week ago. They still look beautiful. (I have not had much luck with the spring flowers lasting--tulips, daffodils.)

The Bunch after a week

I guess this post is appropriate today since we are suppose to get snow tonight. I hope you are having a great day!

Pin away

2012-02-29T07:56:00.000-05:00

There have been many posts lately about pinning on Pinterest and needing permission. For more information you can check out this post at Corkboard Connections. I am happy to grant such permission. Please do not pin anything from a Sharing Saturday since those are not my pictures to share and I would ask that you not pin a picture with my daughter in it. Otherwise I'm happy to allow anything to be pinned.

I know I use Pinterest instead of bookmarks now. Being able to see a picture of the item makes it so much easier to find what I'm looking for. I really use it for inspiration and new ideas. After reading some of the legal stuff, I question some of my pins and from now on will look for a permission to pin from sites before I do so. Corkboard Connections provides the red button with Permission to Pin on it and is having a link party of blogs that are doing a post like this to grant permission.

So Happy Pinning!!

The Ant and The Grasshopper and Prayer Bracelet for Lent

2012-02-28T12:23:00.000-05:00

On Sunday, one of the crafts at the Lenten Simple Soup Supper was to make The Pearls of Life bracelets to use in our prayers. Each bead means something. Starting with the gold one which is to represent God. The clear oblong ones are for silence. The white pearl is the I bed. The white bead is the baptism bead. The brown bead is the desert bead. The blue bead is the serenity or calm bead. The red beads are for love given and received. The three small white beads are the secret beads. The black bead is the night bead. The translucent circular bead is the Resurrection bead. For more details about the meaning of each bead check out here. For a bit about the history of them read here. Personally I like to wear it especially during Lent to remind me to prayer and to bring me closer to God.

Sharing Saturday is still open through tomorrow. Please go check out the amazing projects people have shared. There are many for celebrating Dr. Suess' birthday on Friday as well as St. Patrick's Day and more! And I hope you will follow me at Facebook!! And voting at Circles of Moms is still open. I'm at number 34 and could use some more votes. You can vote every 24 hours.

One of our favorite books to take out of the library lately is Ant and Grasshopper by Luli Gray. So today, we began to work on some ants and grasshoppers. We also plan to make Ant's house out of tissue boxes. Hazel has already included Ant and Grasshopper in her daily activities of shopping, etc. when she plays. She also repeats some of the things Ant says in the book. I for the most part made both of these, however Hazel is working on some as well. We will share those when they are finished.

The story is a take off of the Aesop Fable. Ant is rich and has a big house. He likes to count the food he has collected each day. Grasshopper sings and plays the fiddle in Ant's yard and bothers Ant while he is trying to count. As fall comes Grasshopper tries to come into Ant's house and get fed and Ant laughs at him and turns him away. One night Ant wakes up and finds Grasshopper on his stoop nearly frozen to death and covered in snow. He brings him in and saves his life. There are so many lessons that can be taught from this story. The Grasshopper is homeless. Ant admits in the story he wishes he could sing. And the last line is my favorite: "'Everybody counts.'"

I used pom poms, pipe cleaners, googly eyes and felt for the grasshopper's wings. Hazel is painting some egg cartons for them and I have a great grasshopper out of TP roll pattern I found in several places when I searched grasshopper crafts. Here is one location. Another with a template is here.

We will share more of our ants and grasshoppers and our Ant's house soon. Hope you are having a lovely day!

Lent and The Big Wide Mouthed Frog

2012-02-27T13:45:00.001-05:00

Our Lenten Table

Close up of our Lenten Tree

So Lent started last Wednesday. I was away and didn't really do much for it (except stop eating candy) until yesterday. Last night my church held a Simple Soup Supper for Lent. It consisted of soup, rolls, drinks and desserts (potluck style on the desserts) and crafts. We went, but I brought a hot dog and mixed vegetables and blueberries for Hazel since she doesn't do too well with soup yet. One of the crafts was a Lenten Tree. It was a cardboard tree trunk and branches and you added leaves. The directions said you should cut out 40 leaves and write things to do to celebrate lent (like do something nice for someone else) and then put all the leaves in a jar and have one person pick one each day and then try to do that thing during the day. This is a bit beyond Hazel's comprehension so we cut out 40 leaves and colored on six of them (for the six days that have already gone by) and I wrote words like Jesus, God, Love on them. Then we glued those six on. Now we will do one each day until Easter when we can decorate our tree with yellow or gold ribbon. I put our tree (and extra leaves) on a table in the living room that we covered with Hazel's purple play silk (it has red undertones which came out in the picture) along with a cross I received when I was young, and a purple candle. This will be our Lenten table. We will add more to it as the season goes on. And I will let you know some of the different Lenten activities we do.

Just a reminder that Sharing Saturday is still going on. Feel free to share a kid-friendly activity or craft with us and go check out all the amazing ones already shared! I also bit the bullet and started a Facebook page, so please come like me over there. And finally, please vote daily for me in the Circles of Moms Top 25 Creative Blogs. (I'm so honored to have been nominated!!) Thank you for all your help!!

A few weeks ago, Lorie over at Reading Confetti posted a great craft to go along with the book The Big Wide Mouthed Frog by Ana Martin Larranaga. I looked for the book at the library and we loved it. Instead of doing her craft, we decided to make all the animals. I did some searching on-line for help. I found several at DLTK-Kids. I needed a wide mouthed frog, kangaroo, koala bear, possum, emu, and crocodile.

Our collection minus the crocodile

The wide mouthed frog is the main character of the book. He goes out into the world one day to explore and asks every animal he meets what they are and what they eat. Then he tells them he is a big wide mouthed frog and that he eats flies. He does this until he meets the crocodile who eats big wide mouthed frogs. So needless to say he was the most important animal to make. I found a great paper plate frog puppet template at DLTK-Kids. I followed it mostly except I used white pom poms and googly eyes for the eyes instead of the print outs.

The frog first meets a kangaroo. The kangaroo we made from a TP roll and followed the directions at DLTK-Kids. Next he meets a koala. The koala bear also is from TP roll and we used the color template and directions at DLTK-Kids as well.

Our Kangaroo and Koala

The third animal he meets is a possum (hanging upside down). The possum I had more difficulties finding. I found an interesting looking one at Danielle's Place but since I'm not a member I couldn't get the actual template and instructions, so I went from the picture and made a few changes. I used two pipe cleaners for the tail and used a TP roll to give the body some weight and steadiness. Then I cut the body from grey scrapbook paper and made a cone for the head from a grey beige paper. I added a small black pom pom for the nose and some paper ears and googly eyes. Overall, I'm happy with it.

Our Possum

The next animal he meets is an emu. I did a google search and found a paper plate one at MSSS Crafts. Changing a few things to go with the story and based on what we had available we came up with a pretty good one. We did glue feathers onto it instead of a paper bag. I also made sure his feet had three long toes since the frog calls him three long toes.

Our Emu

The final animal the frog meets is a crocodile. I didn't really like my options on this one that I found. DLTK-Kids had some TP roll templates but they were green and since the frog calls the crocodile a knobby brown log I felt it needed to be brown. Since Hazel is not great at coloring in lines, etc. I figured that might be too hard. I also wanted it to be bigger than the frog since it eats frogs. So, I painted a paper plate brown for the mouth. I stuffed a brown paper lunch bag with paper and plastic bags and glued it the open end around a paper towel roll for the tail. I then glued on the bumps from a cardboard egg carton to make it knobby and added some googly eyes. I also tried to shape the paper towel roll to be a bit pointed at the end. Ok, I probably should have given her some legs and feet, but this was good enough for us.

Our Crocodile

So now when we read the story we have all the characters to act it out with. What do you think? Hazel loves them.

Happy Monday!!

Weekend Time==Cooking, Snow Angels, Lent Preparation

2012-02-26T09:00:00.000-05:00

Coming home from my parents we rushed to the library for the Move and Groove program that we signed up for. Hazel loves it. While there we got a few new books. One of them is The Snow Angel by Glenn Beck.

This story is about a sister and brother who are very upset because their parents are working so much (out of need) and their grandmother keeps spending the night with them. They have been eating macaroni and cheese made by their father (which they claim is not as good as their mother's) every night. Their grandmother tells them a story about a young girl who had similar circumstances--her father was fighting in the war (World War II) and her mother was sewing uniforms for the soldiers and she was home by herself. When her father was home on leave he taught her how to make a snow angel the last day he was home and explained that snow angels are magical. They stay with the person you make them for and watch over them. Therefore, since he made one for her, she wouldn't be alone anymore. She no longer felt so alone when her parents were gone. The sister figured out the girl in the story was their grandmother. Then they talk about making snow angels for their parents, but their is no snow. The next morning the children surprise the parents with breakfast in bed and downstairs hung paper snow angel chains all around.

I folded some white paper like a fan (back and forth) and then sketched a snow angel and cut through all the layers. Then I tried folding it smaller and sketched half a snow angel. These are the chains on the top of the page. Hazel tried to cut some but had a bit of trouble so I helped her and cut it in half so she didn't have as many layers. Sorry the picture is a bit out of focus. (We also started some more crafts to do with books we have been reading, but we will save those until we are done.)

We also started our grass egg shells for Easter. Since Lent started on Wednesday and we were away, we started it a few days late. I had been saving half egg shells from whenever we used eggs. I washed them out and left them to dry. Then I used a safety pin to punch a hole in each one for drainage.

We lined them in a plastic egg carton (which we usually use to put Hazel's paints in when she is painting with different colors) and filled them with top soil. Hazel enjoyed this part and made a bit of a mess.

Then we put some grass seeds in each one (again Hazel had fun and dropped the handful in the middle so we had to spread them out). We added some more soil and water and placed them in the window. Now we need to check the water of them each day and look for growth.

We will share these closer to Easter when we hopefully have some grass. We did this last year and used them as part of our Easter basket center piece. Plus it helps Hazel learn about the growing process.

Yesterday morning we made pancakes. We decided on pumpkin blueberry pancakes. Hazel had a small breakfast with Daddy earlier, but she at almost four of these pancakes with me. Needless to say, they were a hit.

Mixing the Dry Ingredients

Dry Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup ground flax seed meal
2 Tablespoons toasted oat bran (you can use wheat germ as well)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
dash of ginger

Mix all together. Then set aside.

Beating Liquid Ingredients

Then we did the eggs. I separated the egg white and let Hazel crack the whole egg. Then let her beat them while I got all the liquid ingredients together.

Liquid Ingredients
1 large egg
1 egg white
1 can of cooked pumpkin (you could use homemade as well)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 Tablespoon canola oil
1 cup fat free milk

Mixing all the Batter

Beat these together with a whisk. Then add dry ingredients and mix. Then add a cup or so of blueberries (we use frozen) and mix. (I find the blueberries hide most of anything you put in there.)

Then heat a pan sprayed with a cooking spray. When griddle is warm enough pour batter on in small circles. Let cook until edges look a bit cooked and then flip. Press down with spatula to make sure insides cook. Flip a few more times pressing down.

Enjoy!

Sharing Saturday #8

2012-02-24T20:37:00.000-05:00

Thank you for all the wonderful entries we had last week!! I'm always amazed at the creativity everyone has. If you missed getting to see any of the 116 entries, please visit them. There are so many wonderful ideas!!

On a side note, I hope you will vote for me in the Circles of Moms Top 25 Creative Blogs. Just click on the button to the left and then click on vote for Crafty Moms Share. You can vote once a day for me if you will. Thank you!!

Our most clicked on entry was from Learning Ideas - Grades K - 8: Shamrock Clock

Our second most clicked on was from Frontier Dreams: Waldorf Heart Crafting

And a few of my favorites:
From Jellyfish Jelly: Weaving Loom (when Hazel is older I definitely want to do this with her!!)

From Projects for Preschoolers: Make a Felt Pizza (another wonderful activity we will definitely try!)

Please visit my co-host, Mama Mia's Heart2Heart for more features!!

If you were featured please feel free to grab a featured button and display it proudly on your blog!

Button Code:

FROM YOUR HOSTS:
From Mama Mia's Heart2Heart: Cat in the Hat ABC Game

From Crafty Moms Share: Story Telling Picture

Now on to this week's Sharing Saturday!

There are just a couple of simple rules.

1) Please follow both hosts via GFC.

Hosts are Crafty Moms Share and Mama Mia's Heart2Heart.

2) Link any kid-friendly, child-centered post. Please no etsy shops or giveaways, etc. Remember to link to your actual post.

3) Post the button on your sidebar or somewhere on your blog to help spread the word.

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All right everyone... This is a party, LINK UP

AND HAVE FUN!!!

Family Time...Nature Walks at Cape Cod

2012-02-24T14:16:00.002-05:00

View from their deck

Well, Hazel and I returned home from my parents house at Cape Cod. It was nice and relaxing. We got out both Wednesday and Thursday for nature walks. It was not as warm as we had hoped, but it was nice. Of course we got to drive home through a wet snow/rain mix. Oh, well.

One of Hazel's favorite places to run

The best part for Hazel is she gets to spend lots of time with my parents. My father has amazing patience (funny I don't remember that growing up) and will play like a ____-year-old (fill in the age of his grandchild). So she loves to play with him.

Pop showing Hazel the blueberry bush--Hazel saying no pictures!

My father recently cut down a cedar tree and made some natural blocks for Hazel as well as some stumps for us to make a bit of an obstacle course for her.

Wood blocks and checking out the stumps

On Wednesday, my mother, Hazel and I went for a walk. (All of us were going to go to the Mass Audubon, but my father's stomach started not feeling well, so we changed our plans and stayed local.) On the Cape they have a bike trail from South Dennis to Wellfleet. It is an old railroad track that has been paved over. There are two parts near my parents' house. One takes us to the center of town and the other to Nickerson State Park. We drove over to near the trail (we could walk but we would have to walk on the streets with no sidewalks and it is a rather busy street). We parked near my mother's friend's house and went for a walk. The salt marshes are so beautiful to walk near. We of course also brought a pail to collect our treasures.

First Sign of Spring--Snow drops!

We walked quite a long way and Hazel got tired. Since it was not as warm as I would like I could only carry her for a short bit without my asthma bothering me. So I walked quickly to the car and left my mother and Hazel playing in the leaves to get the stroller.

The interesting moss we saw everywhere

Checking out some nature

Checking out the marsh

Checking out the view before we turned around

On Thursday, we went to the Mass Audubon. Hazel of course fell asleep in the car, so my father stayed with her while we went in to check it out. After a bit, we went out and woke her up and then went on a walk. We have a membership with the Mass Audubon since Hazel and I took a class for 2-year-olds and a guardian last year at Drumlin Farm. We highly recommend attending an Audubon program. It was wonderful.

Another sign of Spring--Don't know why it was in bloom, but it was great to see yellow in February!

Well when my mother and I went in we were told that there has been a very special visitor from Mexico. They did not know why this bird decided to visit them, but they were very excited. It is a blue bunting. Of course it did not make an appearance while we were in the Visitor's Center, but waited until we were on our walk and left before we returned. Oh, well. From the pictures they had, it looked more like this one, but a bit lighter. It was just starting to get its blue feathers.

Source: http://www.google.com/imgres

We however did have a lovely time. We walked toward Goose Pond.

Checking out the pond

The View of the Marsh and Cape Cod Bay

Checking out Goose Pond

The View and Wet Path (High Tide was Receding) from where we turned around

It wouldn't be a nature walk at an Audubon Society without some birds:

A Cardinal

A Chickadee under the feeder--I had seen some woodpeckers here but didn't take a picture

The One I was most excited to see---A Hawk (you can see his tail up there mostly)

We saw woodpeckers, sparrows (including I think they said a house sparrow), chickadees, finches of all types, doves, the hawk, cardinals and squirrels.

After our walk we went to Provincetown for dinner to our favorite restaurant--Napi's. We were in luck. Off season they have a Thursday night special of buy one get one free on most entrees. I guess it was actually a good thing our plans moved from Wednesday to Thursday for this trip.

My mother and I also did a bit of shopping. We stopped by my favorite store--The Priory at the Community of Jesus. It is such a lovely place to spend a bit of time with many religious books, handmade food (jams, granola), beauty products, candles, knitted ware and art. They always have beautiful music playing and it smells so lovely. I like to go just to relax. You can see the angel that watches over their new church from my parents' house.

Well there are our pictures of our week. Hope you had a good one.

Please, please, vote for me in the Circle of Moms Creative Moms Blog competition. You can vote daily!! And please join us later for Sharing Saturday!!

Oh, and an interesting article to share: How to Stop Your Kids from Stressing from CNN.

So Excited!!

2012-02-23T20:13:00.000-05:00

I'm so excited. I just received an e-mail from Circles of Moms saying that Crafty Moms Share has been nominated to the Top 25 Creative Mom Blogs 2012 list on Circle of Moms. Now I need you my dear friends and followers to vote for me (and you can vote once a day!!). So if you would please click on the picture at the top (and now on my left side bar) each day. I would really appreciate it.

I am still enjoying family time with my parents and Hazel. I will share pictures after I come home of our adventures.

For today I will share a quick You Tube link really explaining a lot about a Waldorf/Steiner Education. In case you have been wondering about it at all.

Being Creative

2012-02-21T06:51:00.001-05:00

Every once in awhile I feel the need to create. Does that ever happen to you? It happens when I have let life get in the way and I don't feel like I have had time to make something on my own or my own design. Tonight was one of those nights. As I was trying to create some order out of the chaos my craft area is right now, I came up with an idea this afternoon. And tonight I decided I wanted to take the time to do it.

Hazel has started asking us to tell her stories after we read some books to her. Sometimes I tell her a watered down version of a fairy tale and sometimes I make one up. The made up ones don't have to be anything to difficult or too long. In fact I like the made up ones since they are short. Lately I have been telling her one about a princess who lives in a pink castle surrounded by beautiful flowers and then there are dark woods. In the woods there are many creatures including unicorns. The story is about the first time the princess meets a unicorn. The princess always plays in the woods and brings food to feed all the animals. One day when she is playing hide and seek with a rabbit she ventures to a part of the woods she has never been and runs into a mother and baby unicorn by a small pond. She realizes she doesn't know the way home from where she is. She offers the unicorns some apples that she had in her pocket and the mother gives her a ride back to her castle. After that they play every day together.

So my creation (perhaps I've been inspired by April at April's Homemaking and her 52 Weeks of Fairy Tales and the craft to go with each one). I decided to needle felt a picture of the castle, gardens, woods and unicorns.

I needle felted it onto a piece of white wool felt just for stability. I also used a embroidery hoop for the frame and used it to size the picture.

So, what do you think?

Speaking of creativity, Sharing Saturday is still open through Wednesday and there are over 100 creative entries. Please go check them out!!

Hazel and I are off to visit my parents for a few days so my posts may be sporadic and without pictures. First we are stopping to visit my longest time friend since she brought her daughter (my goddaughter) to visit a nearby college. We have been friends since we were 6-months-old!! It will be good to see her.

Making Soup

2012-02-20T16:40:00.000-05:00

Today Hazel is feeling a bit better. We went to the doctor's to have her ear checked and she does not have an ear infection. (I was surprised her pediatrician's office was open, but they were even on President's Day.) She apparently caught a nasty virus and the left side of her throat is still red and apparently the ears and throat share the same nerves so this is why she thinks her ear hurts. So since she seemed much better we let her have her weekly playdate with Nonni.

Before she went to her grandmother's though we put some soup in the crockpot. Hazel helped me chop the carrots and celery. (I did have to adjust some of the sizes in fear that they might not cook in time.) I cut up the onions and chicken. Then she poured in the chicken broth and a can of tomatoes. Then she also put the lid on and turned it on.

I have my Weight Watchers Meeting during dinner so now I know there will be a good dinner for them while I'm out and one for me waiting.

Here is the recipe we came up with:

Easy Chicken Noodle Soup
4 boneless chicken breasts cut into pieces
5 carrots chopped
4 celery stalks chopped
1 large onion chopped
1 1/2 containers of reduced sodium chicken broth (you could use more...this is all I had and I added water and bullion instead)
1 can of diced tomatoes with no salt added
dried oregano
dried basil
ground black pepper
4 cups of water
2 bullion packets--no salt added
1 cup frozen cut green beans thawed
1 cup frozen peas thawed
1 cup extra fine egg noodles

Instructions:
1) Add the chicken, onion, celery, and carrot to slow cooker. Add chicken broth and tomatoes and season with oregano, basil and pepper to your taste. Cover and turn on low for 3-4 hours

2) If it seems like it doesn't have enough liquid add the water and bullion or more chicken broth.

3) 30-45 minutes before you plan to serve stir in the green beans, peas and noodles.

4) Enjoy!

The Versatile Blogger Award Again

2012-02-20T12:42:00.000-05:00

I have received the Versatile Blogger Award (again). I never responded to Alison at Fun Learning at Alison's FDC when she gave it to me and now April from April's Homemaking has also passed it on to me. Thank you both so much!!

The Rules according to April:

Here are the RULES for the Versatile Blogger Award-

1. Add the award to your blog.
2. Thank the blogger who gave it to you.
3. Mention seven random things about yourself. (see below)
4. List the rules.

5. Award to 15 bloggers.
6. Inform each of those 15 by leaving a comment on their blog.

The Rules According to Alison:
So the rules:
Thank the person that nominated you with a link back to them.
Tell 7 things about yourself.
Pass this award on to 10 newly discovered blogs and let them know that they've received an award.

Hmmm...maybe I'll pass it on to 12 people since that is right in the middle of the two rules. Ok, I had a hard time picking so I went with 15. Enjoy!!

Ok, now to come up with 7 new things to share (if you want to see my original post you can check it out here). As I remember this is the hardest part of this.
1) I am a true example of a messy desk or workspace equals a creative mind. I find everything is always cluttered much to Steve's dismay.
2) I grew up with a cat (well 3 throughout my childhood at different times), but now we have 2 and want to always have 2 at the same time.
3) I am not a perfectionist unlike my husband and mother who are. (In case you haven't figured that out.)
4) I do crafts for relaxation and fun and not any other reason really, though I do like to make gifts.
5) I have many, MANY unfinished crafts floating around. Some were even gifts that never quite got done.
6) I am a horrible drawer, cutter, painter. I just don't have the detail oriented part of me for that.
7) Although I enjoy singing and dancing, I have bad rhythm and a bad voice.

Ok, now who I am passing this on to. (Thank God for Sharing Saturday so I have plenty of choices!) Please check out these great blogs. These are in no particular order:

1) The NY Melrose Family
2) Mrs. Fox's Sweets
3) Juise
4) Waldorf By Me
5) Cheap Crafty Mama
6) Tot Treasures
7) Mess for Less
8) the crafting fiend
9) vixenMade
10) Creative Passage
11) Mom's Heart
12) Learning Ideas K-8
13) Two Sasters
14) Teaching 2 and 3 year olds
15) Choosing Today

Ok, that is it for this award this time. I will post something crafty later. Have a great day!!

Baking Cookies and Getting Sick

2012-02-19T08:12:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning Hazel announced she wanted to bake cookies. I had been meaning to make something for Steven. His favorite candy is Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and somewhere I saw an easy recipe to make something similar involving Reese's Peanut Butter Chips and Chocolate Chips. Well, I bought the supplies (Steve got into the peanut butter chips on me) and I couldn't find the recipe anywhere yesterday. So we made the recipe on the back of the peanut butter chip package with a few minor changes. We used one cup whole wheat flour and one cup all purpose flour and since Steve had eaten some of our chips we added some milk chocolate chips (enough to finish the 1 2/3 cups and then some more). The package recipe also was for dropped cookies. Drop by the rounded teaspoon full onto ungreased cookie sheets and bake at 350 for 8-9 minutes. The recipe calls to make 4 1/2 dozen, but I must have made them slightly big since we got just over 4 dozen.

Hazel beating the eggs (after I got the egg shells out)

Hazel did a lot of the mixing on this. I have to say I found it a bit frustrating because with Hazel mixing came the mess. We worked on holding the bowl with one hand after she put a good amount of the dry ingredients came out. You can see her practicing with the eggs. She also cracked one of the eggs herself. I had to get a few eggshells out, but she did well and is not as afraid of doing it. She also wanted to control the mixer, which was my biggest frustration of the day since she didn't listen to instructions on it.

After turning the mixer on high with the flour in it

The mess I got to clean up (besides the floor and the earlier one by hand)

I was afraid the cookies wouldn't come out well since she spilled so much of the dry ingredients out. The dough looked a bit sticky so I added a bit more all purpose flour. And the end result was they turned out great. We all loved them.

After cleaning up the kitchen and myself, we went downstairs to work on the craft room re-organization. Hazel painted while I worked. I decided to rearrange her areas. Now I have to find places for everything, but we decided to go buy more shelves for the organization which go on sale today. After painting we let her play with play dough and then draw. Steve sat with her while I kept working. Unfortunately she slowly got stuffed up and started sneezing and coughing. It was obvious that the scratchy throat she said she had wasn't made up. Well we went and ate lunch and took a nap--not as long as the day before but a two-hour one (Friday she took a 3 1/2 to 4 hour nap). Lesson learned when you 3-year-old who has basically given up naps takes a super long nap and another nap the next day, she is getting sick.

When she woke up from her nap she asked for something to eat and drink. I saw this as a good sign and of course got her something. Then I tried to finish something on the computer that I was working on while she napped and next thing I knew she was by her toys, coughing and vomiting. And this was the start of five longs hours of vomiting on and off. The first sign that she was about to be sick was no matter where I was she would find me and want to cuddle (even if Steven had been in the room with her). It is not fun to watch a small one have a stomach bug. Finally last night she stopped and fell asleep. She woke up during the night (I slept in her room for the first part of the night) and after a couple of hours of being awake and waking me up, she decided she wanted Daddy and they apparently slept pretty well after that. I slept fine in our bed after that. It was a long night. I'm not sure how my stomach is feeling yet, but am starting to feel hungry, so I'm guessing that is a good sign that I probably am not getting it. We are hoping both of us are healthy enough to visit Mimi and Pop this week since it is school vacation week so no school for Hazel and no tutoring for Mommy.

Hope all is well with you!!

Bloglovin' Blog Hop

2012-02-18T08:33:00.001-05:00

Sharing Saturday is still in full swing. Please join us for it. In the mean time, I'm joining in a Blog Hop.

Melissa over at Serendipity and Spice started a Bloglovin' Blog Hop. She kindly invited me to join it and so here it is. Bloglovin' is easier to follow with than LinkyTools.

The Rules:

You must have a Bloglovin gadget on your site, so others can easily follow you.
Follow Serendipity and Spice on BlogLovin.
Visit other blogs and follow them too.
Leave a comment for them to follow you back.
Follow the person hosting this Blog Hop as a Thank You!
Add 1 link to your blog’s homepage below. (1 link is sufficient, extras will be removed)
Click "Get the InLinkz Code" and add it to your site to keep the party moving!
Have fun finding new Blog friends!!

Sharing Saturday #7

2012-02-17T19:50:00.001-05:00

Wow, we had our largest Sharing Saturday on record last week. Go check it out. There were so many amazing entries. Mia and I were blown away.

Here are a few of my favorites:
From Taming the Goblin: Felt Gnome House and Bag

From Choosing Today: Love is (a great activity to work with our children on being more loving!!)

From Freeflowing Ways: Valentine's Day Wreath and Story (such a great story to share)

From Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds: Painting on Foil (this looks like so much fun!!)

If you were featured please grab a featured button and display it proudly on your blog. And make sure you check out my co-host Mama Mia's Heart2Heart for more features including our most clicked on this week!

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From your hosts' this week!!

From Mama Mia's Heart2Heart: The Fun Felt Bag

From Crafty Moms Share: A Day at the Museum

Now on to this week's Sharing Saturday!

There are just a couple of simple rules.

1) Please follow both hosts via GFC.

Hosts are Crafty Moms Share and Mama Mia's Heart2Heart.

2) Link any kid-friendly, child-centered post. Please no etsy shops or giveaways, etc. Remember to link to your actual post.

3) Post the button on your sidebar or somewhere on your blog to help spread the word.

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All right everyone... This is a party, LINK UP

AND HAVE FUN!!!

Solar Prints

2012-02-17T13:08:00.000-05:00

I remember as a child my mother and I purchased a solar print kit. It is funny the details one can remember of certain things. I actually remember the exact store we bought it at. Anyway, I was so fascinated by it. I remember collecting flowers and leaves and such to leave on it and leave the papers in the sun. My memory is for hours, but I don't know now. I decided to buy one of these kits at Lakeshore Learning to show Hazel a bit about the sun. (Sorry they don't sell them on their website.)

It was a bit different than what I remembered. It came with prints you could use or you could use any flat thing you found. At first I didn't buy the flat things (back from my memory I didn't worry about flat things), so we tried pine cones, acorns, sticks, etc. things from our nature table. I didn't bother trying to use the clear covers it came with either since the non-flat things would not fit in them.

They also said to leave it in the sun for 1-5 minutes until the paper turned white. Then you needed to soak it in hot water and then cold and then dry. As you can see my 3-d objects were more blotchy than anything. We also left them for a few hours in the window since we started this project just before we had to leave. Since it is winter and our sun is not too strong right now, I figured we would be ok.

We also tried a paper heart and a doily. Then tried flat objects like a feather, pine needles and some of the prints that came with the kit. We used the clear plastic holders for these. I also watched these more closely.

These came out much clearer, so I guess with this kit flatter is better.

Hazel was not as excited as I expected, but she is still young for it. We will try it in the summer and see what fun things we can use.

Our next project will be to do some things with shadows as Hazel is showing great interest in shadows.

Now we can make them into cards and what not. The kit came with cards and envelopes and some of the prints they gave us were words like Happy Birthday.

Hope you will join us for Sharing Saturday tonight/tomorrow!! Last week was our largest one thus far and hopefully this week we will break that record!

Busy day

2012-02-16T16:22:00.001-05:00

My Wool Lavender Heart

Today Hazel and I went to our parent/child class at Cape Ann Waldorf School. We love it. We made some crafts there--Hazel made a card for Mimi and Pop and I made a wool felt heart lavender sachet. I hung mine in my car and we will bring Mimi and Pop their anniversary (49 years today!) card next week when we visit them. Sorry I've been lazy with the camera.

When we got home, we had a quick lunch with Daddy and then the three of us went to run errands. The big one was buying a new car seat for Hazel in Daddy's car. A friend had given us her car seat when her son outgrew it. Well, now Hazel is outgrowing it so it was time for a new seat. After some quick research we decided on a Graco Nautilus. While there Steve also decided to buy his mother a car seat (since she has wanted one for her car for awhile--I'm not sure why). Our second choice was the Evenflo Maestro which is also half the price so that is what we picked up for her. He is now over delivering it with Hazel and trying out her new one since I installed it for him. Hopefully he will be able to install his Mom's. It is a job I usually do. These hopefully will be the last seats we will have to purchase for these cars at least. Sometime soon she will outgrow the one in my car, but not yet. She has a few more inches though considering she has grown a half inch already in 2012 who knows when that will be.

Oh, and Hazel got two more Valentines for our Valentine Swap. These came from a sister and brother in Nevada.

That was our exciting day. Now I have a bit of a break and could use a nap.

Some things to check out today though. Some of my favorite places to party on Thursdays. Check out Happy Whimsical Hearts Thursday party of baking with your kids and I HEART CRAFTY THINGS Blog Hop.

A Family Day

2012-02-15T19:44:00.001-05:00

Museum

Today, I was lucky enough to spend the day with my family. My dear husband has taken today, Thursday and Friday off for a mini-vacation. We loved having him home. We decided to go to the Peabody Essex Museum for their story time or what they call PEM Pals. Hazel and I had gone once before and loved it. They share stories, sing songs and then do some sort of art or craft in the museum. They also have a Art and Nature Center (which is where the PEM Pals was held) that has all sorts of hands-on things to discover about nature. Currently in the Art and Nature Center they have an exhibit called The Ripple Effect all about water. Sorry I didn't take any pictures since cameras are not really allowed in the museum. However they have plenty on their website if you follow each link. (I scanned in some of the post cards we bought to send to Hazel's penpal in Australia and her project.)

Hazel's craft

Since it was Steve's first time in the museum we also went up to check out a few of the other galleries. Currently they are having a Native American Exhibit called Shapeshifting. It was interesting, but we didn't feel all of it was age appropriate for Hazel. Then we looked into some of the Native American Art, American Art and the Maritime Art Galleries. Oh, and Hazel wanted to check out the Asian Export Gallery. Then we went back to the Art and Nature Center and let Hazel play a bit now that the PEM Pals crowd was gone. She loved playing with the different types of musical instruments.

One of the neatest things of the Peabody Essex Museum is the Yin Yu Tang House. It costs a little more to see it but it is so interesting. We did not do this today, but I hope to when Hazel is a bit older. It is a 200-year-old Chinese house that was disassembled and brought to America and reassembled. It is so interesting to see and learn about.

Then we had to get home for some lunch. Hazel fell asleep in the car on the way, but woke up when I tried to get her out. We had a quick lunch and then had more things to do--nothing worth blogging about. But it was a lovely day with my family. Do you have a museum or place like this near you?

Finally, a few things to share that I found interesting.

Play Again a film trailer for a dvd available for purchase about screen time taking away our children's care for nature.
Tarbeyah: Sharing My Love of Waldorf Education gives a good overall view of her children's Waldorf education and reassures me on our choice.
LA Time: Hyping Classroom Technology... interesting column expressing opinions on technology in the classroom and how each generation deals with the new technology that will replace books.

Hope you had a great day!!

Valentine Tea Party

2012-02-14T19:18:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was my dear husband's birthday, so Hazel and I baked cupcakes. However we did not have time to make frosting, but had some leftover from some time and frosted a few to bring with Hazel to Nonni's (Steve's mother) so when Steve picked her up they could all celebrate. We left a few at home for Steve to eat throughout the day or at dinner (I was working through dinner, so I wasn't here to celebrate). Then left the rest to frost with homemade frosting for Valentine's Day. Then I got to thinking, I remembered Homespun With Love shared a Valentine's Tea and Cookies a couple of Saturdays ago at Sharing Saturday. I also am running a meeting tonight at church for the Stewardship Ministry. We picked Valentine's Day because no one else would touch it for meetings, however it looks like it will be a small turn-out. Anyway, I figured we could make some cookies (I still had a cookie mix from Christmas sales) and I could bring a few cookies and cupcakes to my meeting and we could also plan a tea party. Hazel loved the idea and so did Steve.

Hazel cracking an egg for cupcakes

We cheated a bit with the cupcakes and used a cake mix. However, we made it low fat by using the changes I found at About.com Busy Cooks. It uses egg whites (though Hazel did get a bit of yolk in with the egg she broke), applesauce, water, and flour with a yellow cake mix (instead of the oil and full eggs). If you are making cupcakes like we did, I highly recommend not using paper cup liners. They stick to them since they do not have the fat in them. They came out delicious and we all enjoyed them.

Cupcakes Out of the Oven

I didn't take any pictures of the few we frosted with the cheating frosting. I did cut a flower out of the top and try to frost just in the hole. They came out cute with a bit of practice.

There aren't any cookies in here?

Then today we made the cookie dough. We cheated again and used our last box of Trader Joe's Sugar Cookie mix. Hazel saw the cookies on the box and wanted to open it herself. She was a bit surprised to pull out a plastic bag of powder and one of icing and foil wrappers. I believe her direct quote was, "There aren't any cookies in here? What is this?"

I let her do a lot with these cookies. I melted the butter first so the mixing was pretty easy and she did it. Then when it got harder I took over and then we had to use are hands (as instructed on the box) and of course she wanted to try.

Then it was time to roll out the dough. She helped and helped with the cookie cutter. We are still working on her placement of cookie cutters, but she is getting it.

Then she remembered tasting the cookie dough last time. We ate the scraps after we had two pans worth of cookies. Somehow she got flour all over her. I'm glad we put her apron on first.

Enjoying the cookie dough

After baking the cookies, we made some frosting. We wanted to make a chocolate frosting. I found a chocolate buttercream frosting that I had all the ingredients for at Savory Sweet Life. I cut the recipe in half since we only had half the cupcakes to still frost. It came out delicious.

Frosting the Cupcakes

Hazel helped me frost the cupcakes. She did tell me it was hard to do. We also had picked up some Conversation Hearts to put on top.

Sorry it is fuzzy, but here are the finished cupcakes

Then we started to ice and decorate the cookies. I always find the icing packet is not enough for all the cookies. Maybe I put it on too thickly. So I always need some more frosting and we used the leftover buttercream for it.

I iced and Hazel decorated. She had fun with the candies and the sprinkles. She wanted me to get the green sugar out as well as the red, but I explained to her that the colors for Valentine's Day were red and pink (and luckily had some pink sugar) and that Christmas colors were red and green.

Then we did some clean up and stalling since it was still an hour and a half before Daddy would be home. Then we made some tea. Hazel wanted red raspberry (her favorite) and Daddy wanted lavender chamomile. I made a pot of the lavender chamomile and a small amount of the red raspberry (which I added cold water to as well). However, Hazel's looked great in the teacup for Valentine's Day.

We lit the candles and set the table in the dining room (after clearing it off) and used our good china (well our good china that can go in the dishwasher). I have a set of good china that I was given from a friend--it was her wedding china that she bought from an elderly couple on her honeymoon. Each piece is numbered and has a gold rim so it is hand wash only and I didn't dare let Hazel use it yet. My Lenox set is replaceable so we used that.

One of the bonuses to having the tea party with the good china and in the dining room is we were more aware of behavior and worked on it a bit more. Steve thinks we should do this much more often, but for now I'm going to commit to every Valentine's Day. It is such a nice way to have some together time that is fun.

A few more things to share:
I got Hazel to let me put the barrette in her hair only long enough to get a picture and even with that it involved crying.

Needle felted barrette

Our flowers this morning

The colors definitely got better with more time. Even the orange is starting to show. The purple not so much besides looking a bit blue along the edge.

Hazel in her doily stenciled t-shirt. I had mine on too, but didn't get a picture of both of us.

Hope you had a lovely day!!