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 Hope you all had a fun filled and pleasant weekend! I just wanted to drop in and and let you know that I will be writing for Alpha Mom and all about baby food! This couldn't be more perfect timing as I'm expecting our little girl in a little less than three months (wowza!) and I've wanted to really delve into making my own baby food for some time. So now I've done just that and am sharing all my know how with you.
Take a look at my first post: Introducing Solid Foods (Fruits and Veggies) to your Baby. It's jam packed with great info. And if you have any insight on what you like to prepare for your baby, I'd love to hear it!
 It's Friday! Where has the week gone to my friends? As busy as we've been playing catch up we did manage to make this weeks summer fun treat, Apricot Rice Pudding Pops, recipe by Michael Laiskonis for Bon Appetit. We used simple IKEA popsicle molds so the didn't turn out looking as gourmet as Michael's did. The technique sure was involved and definitely something I would consider above and beyond what I would normally do. But that is the fun behind these Summer Fun Jars! It forces us to try new things and break out of our old routine. For our Summer Fun Savory Eat, Little O picked out this Slow Cooker Chicken Tikki Masala. Were planning on having that tonight.
 Honest evaulation of the pudding pops: I preferred the warm rice pupping taste to the frozen one and the boys are a bit squeamish about the rice and apricot bits in their pops. But, I'm so glad we tried this. We're all forcing ourselves to step outside of our comfort zone! Which is always fun, right?
Hope you are having fun and relaxing summer! Enjoy the weekend. We have a lot fun stuff to share with you all next week!
 I have to give full credit to my cousin Crystal for this summer fun idea. For the Mudpuppy giveaway she commented:
"So this
summer me and the kids made a summer fun jar so I don't have to be as
creative everyday. Each week they pick out an outing, a food to make,
and an activity to do at home and we make sure we do all three that
week. "
Crystal I LOVE, love, love your idea! So of course we had to implement it here in our home as well.
This approach to summer fun works really well for us. I often get super busy with work while it seems like our friends are gallivanting off to swim parks, camping trips and more. I've been feeling really bad for my little guys and have worried that their summer just isn't turning out as fun and exploratory as I'd hoped it would be. So when Crystal mentioned this idea, I thought, "Hey! I can do that!" This simple approach satisfies my little ones need for structure and planned events (especially my oldest who has been ansty non-stop ever since school let out) and also allows me the freedom to chose when the events/projects work best in my schedule. I don't have as much pressure to do something extravagant every day and the littles love looking at our calendar, looking forward to what is coming up next!
To make our summer fun jars we used old pickle jars (we are pickle fanatics here), covered the lids with decorative paper and affixed a label for each summer fun item, reading "LET'S GO, LET'S MAKE, and LET'S EAT."
If you'd like to do the same, I've made some jar labels for you to download here.
 Each Monday evening, during family night, we have our kids draw out one slip of paper from each jar. The kids then love looking at and discussing what types of things we have in store for us that week. In our "LET'S GO" jar I've put in outings to local hot spots as well as things we can do closer to home such as "have a BBQ with friends." In our "LET'S MAKE" (which could also be called "LET'S DO") I've placed a number of prompts for us to get creative such as "make a summer scrapbook" or "learn a new skill".  Our "LET'S EAT" jar has been a huge hit (notice the explosive amount of papers in the jar). I decided that I'd finally do something with all the delicious food pins I've been collecting on Pinterest. So I printed out several pages of pins, cut them up and then placed them in our "LET'S EAT" jar. This is so popular we actually ended up pulling out two food items, one sweet and one savory each week (I ended up making another savory jar, not shown here).
*(You could also use this Pinterest approach for your "LET'S MAKE" jar. Just
print out all the DIY's you've been saving up and start doing them! If you need motivation to
get started, take a look at a few of the pins from Mer Mag).
 The kids love looking at what we have in store to make and eat. Somehow it's so much more exciting than just reading it. For example, take these delicious Mint Brownies from Brooke of Inchmark. I've been dying to make these ever since she posted about them! And now they have been drawn and placed on the calendar. We will be making them today!
 So when we draw a food item from the jar, we then go to back to Pinterest to get the recipe. All the ingredients to make that item then goes on our shopping list for that week.
The kids loving doing this and I love that they are learning a bit about shopping and cooking (and if I'm really ambitious I can give a little lesson about money on our shopping trip).
 And it may be a bit late in the season (unless you are in Cali where school just let out for the summer) but we finally made our summer calendar. My mother would do this for us each summer and we loved visually looking forward to trips, events and fun summer activities. It really made summer SO much fun. To make ours I simply took a piece of black poster board and divided up the space into squares with decorative washi tape. I then used white oil pastel to write in all the dates and days of the week. From there we simply taped it to the wall with more washi tape.
And when the boys draw something out of our summer fun jars, we choose a day of the week and then have them tape up the paper right to the calendar. They love it!
And now we need to prepare for our big summer fun activity... our annual trip to Colorado for the 4th of July! We are so excited! To see some of the great summer reunion fun we've had in the past, take a lookly lou here, here, here and here. This summer we are going with a traditional 1776 white wig, Betsy Ross type of gala. No fireworks though, due to all the fires in Colorado :( but I know we'll come up with something just as fun. Apparently my mother is making little white wigs for all the kiddos and I just can't wait!
 Last week A and I met up with with one of his newly favorite friends (and his super cool mom, whose awesome idea this was!) for the most perfect play date. Together we made custom painted plates for Father's Day at Color Me Mine, a DIY ceramic painting studio. We actually had the dad's with us but sent them away with the wee ones so we could work on secret surprises (Little O was having a hard time sitting still long enough to create, but I think he'd love this otherwise. He was entranced by the many many pottery options and just couldn't leave them be, so away to play in the fountains he went).
I always love creating custom pottery and find myself wanting to spend hours in these places, scheming up entire lines of ceramic ware. Lucky for us however we had two 5-6 yr olds to keep us moving right along.
A was more than into this project and loved picking out colors for his plate. I think having a buddy there with him just made creating that much more magical. He didn't hesitate to jump right into painting and I love what he came up with. He's really been into layering outlines of colors, one after the other in what ever shape the art material is in. So for example, he's done a number of rectangular book marks with several layers of colorful rectangles inside one another. And with this circular ceramic plate, he created a number of various circular rings stacked within each other. I really like his choice of bringing the black and green back into the color pattern right in the very center.
 As for the back of the plate, he enthusiastically painted the different portions of the plate (after trying for a dotted motif around the rim that just didn't turn out to his liking). He then wrote "DAD" in bold black letters and I just love it. I'm pretty positive that Jon will love it as well (who I've forbidden to look at this post until after Father's Day...so if there are typos it's because I didn't have my trusty proof reader to keep things in check for me on this one).
 I knew that I wanted to make something for Jon as well that could be from all of us as a family (and something that Little O could present to him so he didn't feel left out for not having a plate - although I'm sure I'll have him make something with his own hands just for Jon, at some point). After much thought and debate I decided it would be fun to do simple illustrated portraits of the kids. And if we are representing all the kids, I knew I had to put our baby girl to be on there as well, which I'm sure will make Jon very happy indeed. And I have to say, it was pretty exhilarating for me to do this as well as it really helped to sink in the idea that yes, we are indeed adding another lil' rascal to our bunch! Zoiks! I'm getting more excited every day! (which is a good thing because I also just get bigger and more uncomfortable as the days progress on. Boy I'm not looking forward to the hot months of July and August...).
 I finished the plate off with a "happy Father's Day" tribute on the back, commemorating this year, 2012. I think it might be a fun tradition to do one of these every year and show how the kids grow and change a bit each year. Wouldn't that be the most special collection ever!? I think I just might have to do this.
 And if you are wanting to do something similar for a special dad in your
life, there are a number of approaches you can take. Like me you can
grab some friends for a play date at your local DIY pottery studio or
you can create you own version at home with a simple white plate and
some porcelaine paint markers, similar to what I did for our 2011 Santa cookie plate (which I'll now have to update at the end of this year!).
And don't worry about perfection. I think simple stick figures could be really cute as well as having your Littles draw on their own version each family member (similar to what A did for his embroidered family portrait pillow). You'll cherish it!
A couple of weeks ago I promised to share with you photos from Little A's 6th birthday party, and I'm so happy to finally be able to do so! But first I have to say, I think this birthday marks the graduation of Little A's "Little" title. I know he's still technically just a little guy but I feel sort of odd calling him "Little A" here when I see just how much he's growing, learning and doing these days! It seriously blows me away. I think he just might simply be "A" now. Wow. It's a bit crazy for me but I feel it may be time. I remember when "Little O" shed his "Baby O" title and I was equally parts sadly nostalgic and eagerly excited for the future. Similar feelings accompany the shedding of A's "Little" title. And of course, as a collective, my "Littles" will probably always feel like my "Littles", and I'm sure I'll continue to refer to them as such (even when they are 18+...).
So on to the birthday celebration. A and I had tossed around a number of birthday theme ideas for this years party. I was feeling a party for party's sake (not necessarily any theme at all) and he just kept coming back to Legos. Six is a great year to delve into these little interlocking building blocks and so a Lego theme it was. I was over the moon excited about this but still wanted to keep things simple. I didn't want this to be an over-the-top, everything screams "Lego" party. So we went with an overall blue color scheme with little bright pops of Lego, here and there (Such as the candy Lego "A" that Jon constructed atop of A's cake [which promptly fell flat on it's face and into the frosting after a bump to the table. But at least we got some photos of it before hand. If you do this, I would suggest securing the candy Legos together with either frosting or melted sugar, etc. and then finding a way to actually stick it into the top of the cake).
On the day of the party Jon surprised A by bringing him a bundle of balloons complete with a gigantic mylar "6". He was thrilled. And I taped out a "Happy 6th!" message (which he requested) with painters tape to the wall which he was very pleased with (in fact, he has since become obsessed with creating his own words and numbers with painters tape on the wall, and I'm quite impressed with his skill at doing so. I'll have to share these with you later). I also freezer paper stenciled "A CAT" (one of our nicknames for him) on the front of a baseball tee and then added a "6" on the back.
When the guests arrived we had them gather around the living room table to engage in a bit of free-for-all Lego play. On their own they decided that they would collectively build "Lego City" and they had quite a fun time with it. In fact, I had to nudge them a bit to get them to move onto to other games, such as "Find the Little Lego Man" in the back yard.
After games the little guests settled down a bit to frost and decorate their own individual Lego cookie. I used Angie Gubler's mom's recipe for the cream cheese-sugar cookies and brightly colored frosting. This is seriously the best cookie/frosting recipe I've ever tasted and it's very simple. After rolling out the dough, I simply cut out rectangles and popped them in the oven. And to create the little Lego "knobs", I purchased Spree candy, which worked incredibly well.
The Littles had a great time frosting and decorating their Lego bricks...
...and an even better time eating them!
After the cookies were decorated, we gathered around to munch on snacks and goodies.
And no birthday party is complete without the cutting and distributing of the cake. This year decided that I'd try to make the cake extra special (which was something A was really keen on). I toyed around with a couple of ideas and settled on a 6 layer blue ombre cake, with each layer celebrating a year of his life. (And with only one cake pan at the size I needed, well, I was celebrating each year until 3 AM the night/morning before his party). A and the other kids loved it and I was seriously happy that it actually all came together.
I used this recipe for the cake. It was rather involved but still a fun endeavor (even if I did over whip the top frosting a bit). Perhaps I'll only do this once in their little lives, on their 6th birthday. Could be a fun tradition.
For the little guest gift bags, I made a Lego man button and pinned it to each bag, complete with their initial. I then stuffed the bags with several goodies such as a mystery Lego character in a bag, play dough, Lego stickers, a ring pop and Chinese handcuffs (my personal favorite. I played with A's the rest of the afternoon). The kids were also able to fill a few bags with jelly beans and Lego candy and take those home as well.
A great time was had by all and A still talks about the party. In fact, he had a number of suggestions for what could be done for another Lego party in the future. Such as "Mom! what if we hung Legos on a string from the ceiling?!" Or, "What if you put the 'Happy Birthday' sign right outside my door, in the hallway, so that I could see it as soon as I woke up?!". Yes, I do believe the party planning gene has officially been passed on. Perhaps I just might let him do all the planning for his next birthday. Which is guaranteed to be Oh so far away. I made him promise me that.
**Oh and don't forget to enter the Hand in Hand: Crafting with Kids book giveaway! End of day Wed., April 18th, is the last day to enter. And as a reminder, I'll be announcing the winner on Friday, so stay tuned!
Little A turned six this past week and we had lots of crazy fun celebrating this fine little gentlemen on Saturday. I will share pics from the party soon but here is just a little teaser of more things to come.
We also have lots of Easter crafts and sewing endeavors to share. And as Easter is coming fast and furious, we might be sharing those first. But rest assured, a fun 6 year old birthday party is coming soon!
(and didn't we just have his 5 year old cereal mixer? Seriously...)
We had a marvelous weekend. It started off on Friday with a fantastic benefit held in miss Davy Jean's honor. I can't begin to describe what a special night it was. Truly amazing people working together to do something even more amazing for this special little girl. And can I just say that Ruthy is one of my new BFF's? She's seriously as great as she comes off on her blog.
Then on Saturday Jon and I spent the day, with the kiddos, at the LACMA visiting the fabulous Tim Burton exibit. Needless to say it was fantastic (it's a little frightening for kids however...no surprise there...so we did a run through each on our own to really soak it all in).
And then on Sunday we enjoyed being homebodies with a little lemon square making and some freezer paper stenciling. I had a few tee shirts of Little A's that I've wanted to spice up for a while so I had Little A start out with a simple, imperfect, pattern of triangles in yellow.  He really enjoyed working on this. I love seeing how his concentration increases as he gets older. He was very into this craft and loved seeing it come together. His favorite part was choosing where to put the two random black triangles. He really got into that little element of surprise.  So like a said a great day. A great weekend.
And if you are interested in doing freezer paper stencils yourself, you can find a fab tutorial here.
What did you do over the weekend? Anything fab, indulgent or crafty with the family? Do tell.
So sorry to be MIA lately. We've been doing a lot of party planning around here for a lot of different events and have therefore been very busy. Last week my Little A turned five. I seriously can't even believe it! I can vividly remember seeing him lying in the hospital basinet on the day he was born and looking over at his little squinty eyes and chubby cheeks and thinking how this day was like Christmas morning, only better - and I'd get to take home the best present ever. I had to keep pinching myself to make sure it was all real!
Fast forward to five years later and my little baby is having a birthday. It's true what they say about time going by too fast and kids growing up, etc. All I have to say is that the next five years better go a whole lot slower. Seriously.
My little A has the best personality. He has a multitude of imaginary friends whom he impersonates on several occasions. He loves learning and begs me to sit down with him to do his reading lesson everyday and he's getting very good at it. He's memorized the track numbers to all of his favorite Gabba songs in the car and requests them by number each time we go for a drive. He's still a puzzle fanatic, a little comedian, rather particular about almost everything and an all around wonderful big brother. Oh, and he recently told us his favorite food is cereal.
It was this such revelation that inspired the theme for his 5th birthday party. He had originally requested a Captain Underpants party. As he's getting older and coming into his own, I really wanted this to be about HIM, so I wanted to find a way to work in the Captain Underpants theme, but was struggling with how to really run with this. We had previously thought about taking him to a local cereal bar, Mix and Munch, for his birthday breakfast, as I knew he would love the idea of mixing cereals and adding toppings, etc. Then, after seeing Brooke's early morning PJ party, I thought, hey, we could do the cereal bar thing for his party, and hold it in the morning! And that is just what we did. We started off with simple invitations with a yellow fruit loop adhered to the front of the card, inviting the guests to come in their PJ's and enjoy gobs of cereal and Saturday morning cartoons. We'd throw in a Captain Underpants reading for good measure and just all around have a good time. I tried the whole, you're turning 5 so you can invite 5 guest of your choosing thing, and it went over pretty well. With siblings, etc. there were more than 5 guests, but the effort still helped things not get too hectic with party planning and favors. It also helped him feel like he had some say in all of this, which was really fun for him (I know, it's about time right? The curse of having an artistic, meddling mom I guess...).
Little A was ecstatic about his "Captain Underpants Cereal Party" and had a blast picking out the cereal flavors ahead of time. He choose several brightly colored and fun flavored cereals because of their exciting packaging but ended up loving the tried and true Cherrios the best (and I, and his Dentist, couldn't be happier).  We set up two tables: one for the cereal and toppings, and one for the milk, orange juice, spoons, napkins, etc.  Then we let the kids go at it. It was so fun to see how excited they were. Seriously the next best thing to a kid in a candy store (and slightly healthier?). A lot of them even opted for no milk on their first trip, which made spills that much easier to clean up.  For toppings we had marshmellows, mini chocolate chips, pop rocks, chocolate covered sunflowers seeds (my fav!), strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, bananas, almonds and chocolate, carmel and marshmellow flavored syrup.  I made sure it was adult friendly with non sugar cereals such as granola with fruit toppings (which I had two generous helpings of!) and a few muffins in case there were any non-cereal lovers attending.  The kids then sat around our coffee table, which was covered in butcher paper and adorned with Captain Underpants drawings (that I quickly drew the night before) that they could then color in whilst watching "Saturday morning cartoons". We actually don't have our TV hooked up to cable but we used our instant streaming from our netflix account and watched a few of Little A's favorite cartoons (which he loved showing off by giving narration to as well as dancing in front of all of his friends and singing the theme songs. Yeah, he was pretty happy and very comfortable with being the center of attention).  After a couple of cartoon episodes the kids then all sat around to listen to a Captain Underpants reading headed up by Jon (and assisted by Little A).
We kept things pretty chill and after some unscripted play, we gathered everyone around for some cake. A giant Rice Krispie treat cake in fact.  Songs, candles, wishes...  ...and the cake was cut and distributed.   For party favors, I made little boxes for the kids to take home their very own custom cereal concoction (which, by using 12x12 inch scrapbook paper, just happened to be the perfect size for a bowl size serving of cereal).  I also made custom cereal spoons for all of the kids based on some I had seen on the web. Mine are not nearly as cool as I managed to get the wrong wire to wrap them all together and couldn't run out and get any more at midnight when were were putting them all together the night before.  ....or to enjoy at the party. Yeah, they were a hit.  When the party was over, Little A and Little O had fun picking at the rest of the cake and lounging around in their PJ's (which were custom made for the event).  In fact, Little A requested to wear his PJ's for the rest of the day and being as it was his big day, I happily obliged.  Now here's hoping the next birthday takes a very, very long time to roll around again.
Happy birthday my Little A.
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