Lithuanian Easter Egg Fun

Lithuanian Easter Eggs - Funny video clips are a click away

Dyed Easter Eggs

PVC Free Yoga mats for your toddler

If you are thinking about practicing yoga with your child, consider purchasing a PVC free yoga mat from lotuspad. They even come in children's sizes (scroll down in the "shop" section to find them).

I entered discount code Fbook1 and received 10% off my purchase. They are currently offering free shipping for orders over $75.

Many yoga studios offer family yoga classes. If you are lucky enough to live in Austin, Texas, Ruta Maya offers free (with purchase) family yoga on Saturday mornings.

Homemade Guitar

This homemade guitar was inspired by a "Curious George" episode on PBS... seriously! We used 2 rubber bands to make different sounds!

Cardboard Castle

We're trying to make toys from trash. I cannot think of a better way to teach your kids about recycling than to make new things with your recyclables.

We have made other trash toys in the past.

Weapon X saw a need to paint inside his castle, so I had to make sure to get a good view!

Blue Cereal Milk

We've never been intimidated by the blueberry-toddler combination. Weapon X loved frozen blueberries when he was teething (use small ones as large blueberries can be a choking hazard), so we just gave them to him before bath time.

Now X finds joy in pouring frozen blueberries (thawed) into his cereal. The freezing process makes berries soft and releases the juices, so what you end up with is purple milk! I also slice up frozen strawberries to put in his cereal.

Buying berries frozen is one way to get these antioxidant filled foods organic all year round without breaking the bank.

Awesome kids music!

Yeah, I haven't been around lately.... but here's a little treat! Enjoy!

Splurge! Solia Flat Iron

Ok, I finally did it. I bought a flat iron for my crazy hair. For those of you who know me, this is a HUGE splurge, as I really don't like speding money on girly things.

I have been hearing really good things about the reliability and function of this iron. It has tourmaline plates, adjustable temperature, and can be used on damp or dry hair.

This is a big step for me ladies! Once in a while we have to splurge!

Greenling Local Only Box

We recently decided to take a culinary adventure and get the Greenling Local box delivered. It is a giant box of organic, local produce. The great part is they pick everything for you. The bad part is if you are a picky eater you may get some items (like mushrooms!) that nobody in your house will eat.

This, our first box, came with items that made me realize how picky we are! The scary items were: eggplant (stewed it), asian eggplant (fried it), fresh black eyed peas (stewed it), mushrooms (gifted it to a neighbor), and sorrel...

I was a little frightened of the sorrel. I responded by immediately pureeing the whole bunch in my blender with some olive oil and putting it in the freezer with more olive oil on top.

On saturday, I made a stew with a lot of the random veggies. Big eggplant, sauteed onion, blackeyed peas, tomatoes, 2 potatoes, some left-over kabocha squash, salt, garlic powder and water all went into my crock pot for 20 hours. At that point, I added masala to taste and 1/3 of my pureed sorrel. In the future, I may add less. The sorrel has an incredibly intense flavor!

I don't know what I will do with the rest of the sorrel. This blog lists the items of the week and says I'm not getting any sorrel this week (whew!) I don't really want a back-log of frozen sorrel :)

Health Nut - Gelatin Shapes

This is easy and fun to do with your kids. And these jigglers are much more healthy when you sweeten the gelatin with fruit juice instead of sugar!

Recipe:
4 Envelopes Knox Gelatin
3 c Fruit juice heated to
1 c Cold fruit juice

Instructions:

In a bowl, sprinkle gelatin over cold juice; let stand 1 minute.

Add hot juice and stir until gelatin is completely dissolved.

Pour into 9x13-inch pan; chill until firm.

Cut into1-inch squares or cut out special shapes with cookie cutters.

Makes about 9 dozen squares

If you make shapes with cookie cutters, line them up in a row. As shown below, each row should be as wide as your spatula. Cut the width of each row with your knife so each row comes out cleanly. If you try to get your shapes as close as you can, you will lose quite a few to tearing :(

You can throw all your left-overs into a container and use your imagination to find shapes!

Toddler Tips: Tooth Brushing

My son is too smart for me!

Any tooth brushing trick works for a week (MAX!) and then we're at square 1.

The only thing that works for us with tooth brushing is to let him chew on the brush until he is done. Then when he is finished I "clean his mouth" with a thin cloth (Especially For Baby washcloths are perfect). I'm not sure why this works, but it does. He opens wide "like an alligator" and is full of cooperation.

I think brushing is an activity that he wants to be in control of. He does not like being dirty, so "cleaning his mouth" is separate from brushing, and is very important to him. He talks about his mouth being dirty with great concern.

I hope this helps some of you! Tooth brushing had been a nightmare for us!

Storage - Black Cabinet

Where did I get that great black cabinet in my post post a few weeks ago?

I got it at Home Decorators Collection. Beware! If you order from them, you will get catalogs for the rest of your life :p

Beyond Sesame Workshop - Programs for toddlers

Weapon X loves Sesame Street Workshop, but I would like him to be able to be more interactive with the computer. He always manages to hit function buttons which lock up the fun and frustrate all of us.

We have not tried any of the following, so we cannot endorse them, but we are interested in trying the following highly-rated, virus screened programs from CNet's download.com.

All of these programs have free trials, and some of them are completely free.

Key lock programs
Maddie - Customizable key lock
Toddler Keys 0.97 - Keys pop-up your pre-loaded pictures and sounds

Other fun options

Primitive Painter - Learn to use the mouse to color pictures
Kids Abacus - Count objects like bunnies and cakes.

ABC 4 Kids Workshop - Learn letters and basic spelling
Sebran’s ABC - Learn basic math, spelling and ABC's
My Reward Board 1.61 - A glorified sticker chart
Ten Amazing Fruits 2.2 - CNet called it Mr. Potato Head with fruit

Hello Dolly!

My parents live in Harlingen, Texas. Hurricane Dolly is quickly approaching!!! The eye of the hurricane should hit the coast Wednesday morning bringing lots of wind, rain and possible tornados. Batten down the hatches people!

Austin Weekend, Kiddie Style

Saturday 6/28: Build a mini baseball game at Lowes - Free

Saturday & Sunday 6/28-29: Luling Watermelon Thump - $3. Kids under 11 free!

There are so many other fun things happening this weekend!

My kid is so smart!

Ok. I know I'm biased :) But my kid just blows me away!!!

Yesterday he was playing with the homemade caterpillars in the post below. He was having lots of fun making them go "Boing! Boing!" And then he turned one over and said, "egg mommy." It just blew me away that he made that connection between the caterpillars and the egg carton when we have never played with egg cartons before.

Another thing that surprised me is his understanding of the concept zero. I asked him, "do you want Mommy to brush your teeth for 5 seconds, or 10 seconds?" He replied, "zero seconds, Mommy!" I couldn't help getting excited about that one!

Free Toys - Egg Carton Caterpillars

Weapon X turns 2 soon and we're throwing a fun party at his grandma's house. I was talking with a friend about it today and he was wondering how many toys we had already bought him.

Uuuuuummmm... none! And I'll tell you why! We really can't fit a mountain of new toys in our 860 sqft condo! Plus, we get him new toys all year round. He went on to joke that X is pretty spoiled (yep!), but I forgot to mention that most of the toys he gets from us are used or homemade.

That's where these lovlies come in! Tonight I took a few cardboard egg cartons (insert save the earth plug here) and made some fugly caterpillars for X. It was fun for me, and I did it while Moss was putting X down to sleep (after I cooked dinner and put away all the dishes...whew!).

First I cut a cardboard egg carton into 2 pieces.

Then I dipped them in a pitcher full of water. I added food coloring to the water, thinking the cardboard would absorb the color, but it didn't. So, just soak the carboard in regular, old water.

I put parchment paper on the counter, and some paper towels on top of that. Then laid out the caterpillars and put a drop of food coloring on top of 1 hump. I spread it around immediately with a pastry brush. A paint brush would have been nice, but I didn't have a small one around, so I improvised! The green caterpillar took many drops per hump, but the blue went a lot further.

Then I painted eyes and decorations on each caterpillar and left them to dry. You can add pipe cleaners for tentacles, but I left them off for safety reasons... and I didn't have any ;)

I did this after X went to sleep because he is in the, "NO Mommy! MY DO IT!" stage, and it is best to do activities with him that are good for complete involvement.

Happy crafting!

Designing a Wall Box

Yesterday at 5pm I decided I was finally going to make that shelf that I always knew I wanted to be above the black cabinet in my kitchen. Weapon X had been a sick crankypants all weekend long, so I think I really needed an outlet.

In anycase, sometime after 5pm I left for Lowes. I had my dimensions planned out, so I had them cut my pieces. It was ready to hang at midnight, but I decided to give the paint a little more time to dry. Now it is hung in my kitchen, and I have to wonder why I didn't do it sooner.

It is 36" wide, 13.5" tall, and 16" deep. It is the perfect palce to display/store my stemware and wine bottles... away from grubby little toddler hands! When I planned the size and placement, I made sure I had room to store my sewing machine and beloved stand mixer underneath for easy access!

What I learned from this process is that when you want to finish a piece fast, having Lowes cut your pieces is great. You just have to deal with the inaccuracies in the cuts and move forward. It kept me from being a perfectionist! Also, I went on Sunday evening, so there wasn't a line of people behind me giving me dirty looks for making so many cuts :) I definitely would not try this on a Saturday morning!

Cost = $43. And I have some paint left over for another project!

I will post a tutorial another day.

Instead of a specialty non-slip pastry pad

Instead of buying a specialty non-slip baking liner, $20, to roll out your pastries (I use mine for pizza dough)
consider buying a roll of non-adhesive, reusable shelf liner for $6. From this slip-resistant, 5 foot roll, I cut 3 mats that I can use for rolling out pastries or playdough.

I do not assume this material is food or oven-safe, but it will keep my parchment paper from sliding around when I roll out pastries!

The label even says it is washable!

Texas Music - Sarah Sharp

Today I heard a really great artist on the University of Texas radio station, KUT, (that's 90.5 in Austin). Sarah Sharp has some great lyrics and her voice is genuine. I heard her sing live, in-studio, and I was really intrigued. You can get a pre-release of her latest album on iTunes.