Side dish #25: Stories

My sister is graduating from high school and one of her senior projects was to write about meaningful books throughout her life thus far.
Anyways, when I was thinking about what a neat idea that was, I thought of it in two ways. One, having my students create a reading log of meaningful books to them throughout their first grade year (maybe choosing one book a month). I really want my students to start valuing reading and realizing that they can have favorites, but then also think about why.

AND then I was also thinking about how Will and I go on about how many times we read THAT book today to Alex. What makes him love that book so much and want to hear it over and over again?
Since I failed miserably at keeping up with his baby book, I decided I would try to do a better job keeping up with his favorite books throughout the years.
So thanks to a couple of quiet minutes this morning I came up with this! :)

(click on the picture to take you to the other pages)

I only have two sample pages at this point, but they are pretty general so will just make copies. one for before he starts school and then one for after. I think as he gets older it might change too. Wouldn't this be such a fun memory to give him when he graduated high school or even has his first child (I know...I am thinking WAY in advance!) 

I might put it a binder with sheet protectors, or eventually bind it, or I might do something else all together, but still...

a fun way to remember the treasured stories throughout the years.

Just thought I would share! :)

Recipe #281: PB&J roll ups

We have officially started giving Alex peanut butter! Thank goodness he is not allergic! Will and I love it too much! :) He got first a taste accidentally, and we slowly gave him more tastes until we felt like it was okay for him to eat! We didn't have any bread so I made a PB&J wrap instead and he loved it! He also makes a complete mess because he has to unravel the wrap! :)

You need:
Peanut butter (our favorite is Natural Creamy Skippy!)
Jam (alas, we have run out of my grandma's homemade so I used grape jelly)
tortilla

• spread peanut butter on tortilla
• top with jam
• roll up, cut into small pieces
• feed to your child and steal a couple for yourself! :)

Side dish #22: Travel tubs

As we anticipate another long trip in February (yay for mid-winter break!), I know I will definitely be pulling these out again!

Everyone has old wipe containers I am sure! I get a new one every time we get our big box of wipes from Amazon (Amazon Mom is the best!) Anyways, over Christmas break we took a trip up to ohio and so I made up these tubs to organize Alex's toys on the trip. I made fun little picture on the front because I knew that these would probably become a permanent fixture on trips! I would pull one out at a time and let him play with the toys. Once he was done with it, I would try to collect as much as possible and put it back in the big basket and give him something else to play with. I had a bag of books too and since he had to be mostly still, he enjoyed reading them more than usual! :) Of course we also traveled with a huge container of animal crackers, gold fish and cheerios. With all of this we survived our trip and feel up to try some more! (Indy and Chicago here we come!)

Recipe #228: Peekaberry Boos or Alex's first baking experience!

Well, today was not a great day to go outside thanks to Alex's cold, so when trying to decide how to keep the little man occupied for the afternoon, I decided to make some cookies. Alex loves to be with me in the kitchen, or rather, Alex loves to be HELD by me in the kitchen. That does not always work great. So when I made the pancakes (found here) on Saturday, I decided he was big enough to stand on a chair next to me, under GREAT supervision of course.

 He occupies himself with some measuring cups and spoons and he can see what I am doing which seems to make the world of difference to him. So his part in the whole cookie process was to play with the measuring cups and then get a closer look when everything was mixed together, which of course was very fascinating!

Then, since he was such a great help, of course he got to eat a cookie which was probably the best part to him. He loved them judging by the amount of pointing he did when he wanted more!

wearing his Japanese smock!

fun times!

Alex liked them!

It was a good time!
Anyways, here is the recipe!

You need:
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup margarine, softened
1/2 cup water
1 tsp almond extract (I used vanilla since I didn't have any)
2 eggs
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 cups oats
2/3 cups jam

• beat sugars and margarine until light and fluffy
• add water, vanilla, and eggs. blend well
• stir in flour, oats, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. 
• drop by rounded tsp 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets
• make an imprint in the center of each cookie and fill it with a 1/2 tsp of jam
• drop a small amount of cookie down over jam
• bake at 400 for 6-9 minutes or until light golden brown

Hope you enjoy them as much as Alex did!

Side dish #18: Subway Art

wow, happened upon this blog today, and I pretty much stopped everything I was doing to try it. (That is the beauty of christmas break and a napping baby!) So much fun. All you need is picasa and some fun fonts! I love Kevin and Amanda's fonts found here. Kind of like wordle, i guess, but I felt like I had more control over everything!

I got to work on a couple I can't share right now because they are presents :), but make one, print it, and stick it in a frame...that is one personal, yet VERY inexpensive gift!

Anyways, tonight I worked on one for Alex, it is a little different then the others because I only used one font, but I really like the way it turned out. Won't it be cute in his room! Then we can keep doing them throughout the years if we want!

So go check out this blog post found here to get great directions! Hope you are enjoying break as much as I am! :)

Recipe #168: Elephant cake!

In honor of Alex's birthday trip to the zoo I made a elephant birthday cake! I need a little help with frosting a cake still, but I was so happy with how easy it was to shape it!

I used two 8 inch cake pans. one became the head, and the other i used to cut out the smaller pieces--ears and trunk. A boxed mix of devils food cake worked great!

I tried to make frosting, but decided that it was a little too thick to work with and didn't want this too be too difficult. So some white frosting out of a can worked just great mixed with an 1/8 tsp of the wilson's delphinium blue icing! It was the perfect elephant blue! (just save a little bit of white for the eyes!)

Lots of fun! He wasn't too sure about the cake and frosting at first, but by the end...he was a chocolate cake fan! 

Side dish #8: DIY Ninja costume!

After mulling over a couple ideas for what Alex should be for Halloween, I finally went back to the original idea...NINJA.

While some people are super elaborate, i went really simple and cheap!
First go to your local target and buy a black sweatsuit...$8.00
Next, go through your fabric stash and get some black fabric...5 minutes $0
research how to make head wrap (pictures found here) ...10 minutes
then cut the fabric so you can make one long skinny piece, and two rectangles 5 minutes
sew (if necessary) 2 strips together to make one long piece, hem two rectangles 10 minutes
wrap long piece around body to create the "yukata" look of the front.... 2 minutes
tie head piece on child's head... 5 minutes
trying to make it more like a ninja's head piece...good luck trying to get your squirming child to be still!

give up and call it a day, because regardless, you have one pretty cute ninja wandering around your house! :)

Side dish #7: Pull-it-out Toy!

So Alex has discovered the joy of tissue boxes, wipes containers, napkins...anything you can pull out and destroy! As a way to help redirect him I made a alternative activity for him to play with! Thanks to pinterest, I was directed here for directions, and in an evening I was set!

You need:
An empty wipes container
scrap pieces of fabric.

I got really lazy as I cut out the pieces and didn't even worry about hemming them all!  I looked in my fabric stash for different scraps with different textures, sizes, and colors.
Cut them in to smaller pieces and STUFF into the wipe container. I have to sit there sometimes and help Alex get started, but he loves it! I tried at first knotting them together, but he was not a fan of that. He still takes each one out and tries to see if he can rip it! Adding their name to the front with some fun stickers also makes it quite exciting! :)