Kids Choice Day

We made up a new holiday today.  It's called "Kids' Choice Day" and takes place the day after Christmas.  Today was a trial run, and we all rated it a smashing success!  It came about because of my thinking about how we need to be better about playing with our children, and letting them take the lead on play more often.  Here's how it works:

Kid's Choice Day

Rules:

• The family needs to stick together
• There is a set budget 
• All the kids need to be in agreement
• The kids get to choose what the family does all day!
• The grown-ups can't be involved in the decision-making unless requested

We had a blast.  The kids watched a couple cartoons in the morning (including watching UNICEF's Global Handwashing Dance three times--a family classic), then we went to the awesome College Park Aviation Museum for the rest of the morning.

 From there, we went to the park to try out our new Christmas scooters.

#backwardshelmet

Next up on their list was Chuck e Cheese.  Where in the world did they even hear about it?  Well, we stuck to our guns and didn't use veto power.  But we kept it short and only spent $5, and they seemed to have a good time.  We were too embarrassed to take pictures.

Then we came home and had pizza and watched Fantasia and read books.  We all had a great time, and it's something that they'll definitely be looking forward to for next year.  After all, it's the only other day besides their birthday when they don't have to do ANY jobs!  For us, it was fun to have a relaxed vacation day, where we were not in charge of entertaining, and the kids liked talking with each other about the plan and informing us.  

Hurry Up and Play!

One summer when I was a teenager, I met some second-cousins and we soon started playing together and having a great time outside their family cabin.  After about a half hour or so, their mom came outside and said, "I was washing the dishes inside, but I had to leave them and come out here and play because you looked like you were having so much fun!"

Evelyn obviously has too much unsupervised play

I was so impressed that she would leave her work half way through to come play with us that I determined to be "that kind of mom."

After reading and playing by himself for a half hour, Benjamin came upstairs like this.

I, unfortunately, don't think that I've held to that determination very well.  When the kids are playing happily by themselves, instead of thinking, "That looks fun!"  I think, "Look how much I can accomplish!"  And when I'm done with the urgent things on my "To Do" list, I often read to myself or to the kids, but not often enough do I think of playing with them.  

Source

The holidays are a perfect time to take advantage of the kids being around and playful, but it's also very convenient to keep hacking away at the endless "To Do" list. It's not always a get things done OR play decision.  I've been surprised how much faster my chores go when I really make an effort to go fast. And it's more fun!  When I work hard to make child-led play a priority, there are big payoffs in our relationship, and it's also really fun! 

Are you good at remembering to play with your children?  What do you like to do together?  How do you find time, and how do you remember?

How to De-Seed Your Pomegranate in 30 Seconds

source

I love pomegranate season. Our California trees are laden heavy with fruit, begging to be eaten yet simultaneously defying us to try to pick all those scrumptious, nutritious, versatile little seeds from their insides. Only the most patient among us can win, right?

Not anymore!!

Up until recently, I used to boast that the ultimate way to de-seed a pomengranate was to dismantle it in a bowl of water: the seeds sink, the membrane floats. No juicy mess! Yes!

And NO FUN! And still soooo LONG.

May I present an infinitely better technique? (If you already know about this and didn't ever tell me, you are in big trouble.) We have been eating so many more pomegranates these last weeks for the ease of it. The bowl of water method doesn't even hold a candle!

Items Needed

pomegranate

knife

bowl

wooden spoon

STEP 1: Score pomegranate with a knife, about 1/8" deep.

STEP #2: Twist apart to open the fruit.

STEP #3: Loosen the membranes a little by gently pulling back around the edges with your thumbs. If you do this too hard, you could crack the fruit (the technique will still work, but might be messier).

STEP #4: Turn upside-down and whap it hard with a wooden spoon, rotating the fruit in your palm as you strike. Smile.

Demonstration video:

The video cut off just before I finished, but it literally takes seconds to strike out all the seeds (see here or here for extra proof). Behold the finished product:

STEP #5: Gobble down those precious seeds so you can have another whack at it!

Happy smacking! May it make your holidays a little brighter and a little tastier.

Simple Crafts for Halloween: Ghosts, Pumpkins, Spiders (and the Boo Cannon)

I have generally not considered myself particularly crafty (as in: thank you cards, holiday decor, scrapbooking...).

I think it's because I'm too practical. I tend to use my creative time to produce things that have clear utility. Since crafting doesn't add to my health, enrich my mind, or clean my house (quite the opposite, in fact), I have not often sought them out. Even when I look through a book of fun and easy sewing projects, appearance is second to function. (It wasn't until recently that I decided that it might be okay to include some non-edible flowers in my garden, alongside the vegetables.)

I feel very boring admitting this.

But recently I've been thinking back with great nostalgia at some of the decorations that adorned my childhood home around the holidays. At Halloween, it was the big pumpkin in the front window, the "elegant witch" on the mantle, the gangly skeleton hanging on the wall, the flying ghosts on the kitchen ceiling fan. I can't imagine my childhood empty of these festivities.

So last week, I thought, we need some ghosts to brighten up this holiday! I ended up spending the afternoon making some inutile but completely awesome little Halloween decorations with my kids. They are a cinch (had to be for me). You probably have everything you'll need already.

I hope one of these adds some fun to your Halloween week!

~~~~~

TISSUE PAPER GHOSTS 

Items needed: tissue paper, string, marker, tape

I have kept every piece of tissue paper I've been given for the last seven years, so I have lots! If you don't have any, it would work equally well with regular old tissues.

1) Lay a tissue paper out on the table (cut smaller for smaller ghosts).
2) Crumple a second piece of tissue paper into a ball, placing it in the center of the first.
3) Gather the corners of the flat tissue paper up around the ball and tie with some thread.
4) Draw eyes (and mouth if desired) and hang.

I used an extra long piece of string to tie up the necks so I'd have some leftover for hanging the ghosts. To help them hang straight, I brought the string up the back of the head and taped it to the top. We like watching them slowly turn as people walk through the room.

Sammy made some all on his own, preferring longer "floaters" (his term) to the smaller ghosts I made.

FOLDED PAPER PUMPKINS

Items needed: paper, scissors, stapler, tape

This is basically just cutting, folding, and a little taping and stapling. These were fun to make, but I really wouldn't have made so many if Sammy hadn't insisted he needed 10 for a project he had up his sleeve. Instead of doing a step-by-step for you, I'll direct you to the YouTube tutorial I found. I tried all the sizes she suggested, then made up some of my own.

Isn't it a sweet little pumpkin patch?

Note to those who make up their own sizes:
The width of your strip of paper = the squatiness (width) of the pumpkin
The length of your strip of paper = the heighth of the pumpkin


EGG CARTON SPIDERS
Items needed: egg carton, paint, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, glue gun

This idea came from my neighbor's bush, and actually, but not surprisingly, exceeded my scant crafting supplies. I lacked the googly eyes and a glue gun (Keenan says every home should have a glue gun hiding near the back of some cluttered cupboard... apparently his home was like mine!). I'm thinking about investing in one for these spiders. Anyone know of another kind of crafty glue that would stick tight and dry fast??

Each spider is a single section of egg carton, painted black, with pipe cleaner segments hot glue gunned to the sides and eyes on the front. Too cute to be spooky.

~~~~~

My 5-year-old was thrilled with my holiday craftiness and jumped right on the decorating bandwagon! The following gradually appeared around the house:

Window ghosts and witches

Some quick-sketch scares

A sparkly knight

The "Boo Cannon:" pull the string
and the mini-ghost pops out!

He tells me he has decorating plans to last us all week! Personally, I'm glad he's taking over so I can get back to my boring, functional life. ;)

Have you made anything fun to display at your house this year?

Happy Halloween!!

Tea Party Food

The tea party for our sweet baby's first birthday was really fun.  I tried to design the setup and food for the birthday girl and the other babies to be comfortable and enjoy themselves. And I think they did.

Birthday Princess

We had three little tables, one for the babes, one for the big girls, and one for the mamas.  They all had variations on the same food. 

The Mama's Table

The Mother's Table had herbal tea, banana cupcakes, cucumber sandwiches and oranges.

Cucumber Sandwiches
Mix softened cream cheese with dill-weed, a little lemon juice and a bit of Tabasco, salt and white pepper. Peel and slice cucumbers thinly, let sit in salty ice water for up to an hour or more in the refrigerator. Drain and pat dry with clean dish towel or between paper towels. Assemble on good quality sliced bread, and use cookie cutters to cut them into cute shapes :)

The Big Girl Table

The Big Girl Table had apple juice, mini banana cupcakes, and jam and cream cheese sandwich

The Baby Table

The Baby Table had water, cheerios, bread stars, and tiny cupcakes (in ketchup cups).  It was all in plastic, and baby-proof, and they were very happy to wander around a table their height and browse the food at will.

The banana cake is a sugar-free recipe I have (that works equally well as a muffin or banana bread). 

BANANA SPICE CAKE

Beat together in a bowl:
3 ripe bananas
2 eggs
¼ cup natural peanut butter (I use chunky)

Stir together in another bowl:
2 cups whole grain flour (I use oat)
2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon ginger (do not use fresh ginger root, use the powdered ginger)

Directions:
Combine all ingredients.  Pour into greased pans.  For a 8" square cake pan, bake at 350 for about half an hour, until a knife comes out clean.

For frosting, I beat equal parts Trader Joe's Pumpkin Cream Cheese and Butter until fluffy, and then added a sweetener of choice until desired consistency. 

Tea Party

My little baby, Evelyn, is turning one!  I can hardly believe it.  In honor of the occassion, she is throwing herself a tea party.  Here are the invitations, as she dictated them to me.

In case you can't read them (they were very small because they were for babies), they read:

Dear Colette,

The pleasure of your company is requested at

 A Morning Tea

In honor of my first birthday

Saturday the 28^th of September

At ten o’clock

1234 Anywhere St

Silver Spring, Maryland

You may bring your mother and sister.

Evelyn Bea Marshall

Please arrive promptly, as my attention span for social gatherings is limited.

RSVP regrets to my assistant at: .........@gmail.com

The envelopes I made out of thick brown paper I had.  I did mine free-hand, but you can just carefully take apart an envelope you like and trace it on any paper to create your own custom (cheap) envelope of whatever you have on hand.

For party favors, I'm giving out these little headbands.  The small flowers are for the babies, the bigger ones are for their sisters.  The elastics were from the dollar store, and the fabric was out of some IKEA fabric I found for super cheap in the as-is section.

If the spread proves presentable, I will post a few recipes next week.

Wilbert

Benjamin recently finished an "after potty chart."  He has been potty-trained for a long time, but the whole flush-underpants-pants-wash thing does not happen.  He usually runs to the toilet, and when my back is turned, tip-toes outside bare-bunned before I can do anything.  He's going to pre-school on Tuesday, so I thought (before he really frightens the little girls in his class) it was a good time to get this thing under control!  

His reward for finishing his chart was going to be a pair of cowboy boots, but when I saw the prices, I thought a hobby horse would be more economical.  And it was!  I only ended up spending about $3 (for the stick).  The rest was made from odds and ends I already had.  

Wilbert, the DIY Hobby Horse

Meet Wilbert (Benjamin thought of his brilliant name).  He was pretty fun to make.  I couldn't find a tutorial for one I liked, so I just looked at a bunch of pictures and used what I had here to make him.  Along the way, I thought "I should be making a tutorial for this."  However, I'm just not good at taking pictures while doing projects.  In fact, my children are lucky if they get fed and put to bed when I'm working on a project.

My work station looks like this right now.

So, because there's no picture tutorial, I'll tell how I did a few things that took me a little while to figure out.

• The eyes are fabric, pasted on with my glue-gun
• The ears are kakhi pant fabric and burlap. I made a pattern that looked like this (look, I even took a picture of it for you). 

• I sewed them together insideout, flipped them right-side out, then sewed along the bottom. They took the right shape on their own.
• To attach them to the sock, I cut a line on each side of the heel, stuck the bottom of the ears in, and sewed them in inside out.  
• For the hair, I wound some yarn around and around something that gave me the right side of loop, then I sewed it on a long skinny piece of fabric in batches (does that make sense at all?).  Then I cut a long line on the top of the sock, and sewed the whole thing in (again, with the sock inside out, and all the "hair" inside the sock, being careful that the other piece of fabric didn't show.  It also would have worked fine to glue the yarn to the fabric, but sewing seemed easier.

Well, that was probably completely un-helpful without pictures explaining what I meant.  It was a half-day project that was cheap, and turned out fun.  And if Benjamin learned the lessons his chart was supposed to teach him, then it was well worth it!

Birthday Questionnaire

It's birthday season around here!  I have seen a few different versions of "20 (Birthday) Questions," but I wanted to make my own list of questions for open-ended answers, allowing for more creativity and longer answers, rather than short fill-in-the blank questions.  

Hint from Abe--wear your party hat all day on your birthday, so everywhere you go, everyone knows its your birthday!

We got some great answers from the boys today.  Some of the questions were a little advanced for Benjamin (who's turning three), but that only makes his answers better:

"My favorite thing to learn about in school is cookies." 

"I think up a cow."

Abraham had more predictable answers, but still fun and even poignant:

"I like when I go to a fair."

"I think of scary and fun things."

You can download the document to personalize it here (it looks funny when you look at it on Google Docs, but when you download it, it looks just like this one).

You can find other examples of birthday questions here and here.

What other questions would you add to the list? What traditions do you have to mark the changes over the years with your children?

Summer Schedule

Happy Summer!  Abe's school just finished, so we made our big summer plans!  I have always really loved summer, and I get excited about it every year.  In order to make sure we took full advantage of our time, for Family Home Evening, we made a weekly schedule, a daily schedule and a checklist!  

I had to cut the checklist off there, we could have kept going on forever! What's on your Summer Checklist? What are you including in your Daily Schedule?

Kid's Fine Art

I really love the color in our diningroom:

Behr's Swan Sea (It's brighter than it looks on your screen)

But I needed something big to contrast it in that big space.  I remembered that my friend, Amy of Progressive Pioneer, helped her kids make a big painting of "fine art."  The how-to video was gone, so I emailed her and got the instructions.  If I still lived by her, we would have gone to the craft store together and picked out some really fun paint combination (she has great taste), but as it was, I put it off and put it off for about a year before I finally just got some paint and did it.

Here's the how-to.  Imagine it in your favorite color combination.  (note: sorry, our camera is having issues and it's in the shop right now.  You'll have to forgive the very sub-par pictures. The color is particularly off.)

Tools:

A large canvas

Large paint brushes (the cheap plastic ones give the most texture)

A cheap squeegee (it may not work for it's intended purpose after this, so buy a cheap one!)

Gesso (at any paint or craft store)

Paint of choice (I went to the hardware store (where I'm much more comfortable than a craft store, I'm embarrassed to say), and paid about $2.50 for paint samples and just used those.

Instructions:

1. Put on smocks or painting clothes
2. Have your kids paint on the gesso.

Here's where much of the "artistry" comes in.  Don't make it smooth.  Be generous with the gesso.  Use things with interesting texture (like leaves, a comb, lids, etc) to spread it around.



Leaving her mark

3. Let it dry.
4. Squeegee on the background color.  This bring out all the texture you created with the gesso.

5. Let it dry.
6. Paint on the foreground color.

I kind of regret how long I let the boys paint.  They were super fast!  I wanted it mostly to be a yellow painting, but it's mostly a red painting (yes, that is red, believe it or not).

6. Let it dry
7. If desired, paint an accent color.  We chose to splat ours:

I just had the boys dip their fingers in the paint (we used our wall color--is that cheating? :)), and flick and shake it onto the painting.

Then we needed something for the other wall, so we made three more :)

Now, we have something to fill the wall space, and best of all, the kids made it!  It's a fun bright piece of art that's also a fun memory.  If you do some "fine art" with your kids, let me know!  I'd love to see it.