Suburban Homestead

Boston Tea-rrier Party

We've been drilling down into the American Revolution in our studies this past month - books, audio, video, and then this silly doggy Halloween float as our art component. I had the idea for the Boston Tea-rrier Party float last year, but we weren't able to pull it off. In fact, we nearly didn't pull it off this year either having set our sights high on things like - "A super tall mast!", "Boxes full of tea dangling off the sides!!",  and "Large feather head pieces for everyone!!!". We were also hoping to make it into an online research project (identifying all the pup parades in town, maping out our attendance, travel, etc.) But it turned out there was only one in town that issued prizes and so that was the only one my kids cared to attend. Last Saturday morning, after throwing the final touches on our ship, minutes before leaving the house, we headed out to the Marin Country Mart for their annual pup parade. The dogs wore little Indian attire, cut, fringed and hand stitched by the kids, puff-painted my mom. Tiny Buns walked around like a colonist, holding a bown of tea backs and dog buiscuts saying "Tea or treat! Tea or treat!". We took first place(!!!), a $100 gift certificate at George, which we put towards a new doogy bed and some toys for Oliver. Someone gave us the great suggestion that we should save the float for 4th of July parades, which we will definately do. Happy Halloween!!!

How We Homeschool - Week 4

This week was tough. I was sick, Daddy was out of town, and two of my three were on-and-off sick the entire week. We had to miss some of our classes, some of our classes canceled on us, and each day felt like a juggling act. The good part was we wrapped-up our focus on the Rennaisance after attending the fair on Sunday, and we launched into Colonial times and the American Revolution, which will take us through Halloween week when we showcase our Boston-Tea-Terrier-Party-themed-doggie-float at various pet parades. Dork alert! DORK ALERT!!!

IN THE CAR THIS WEEK

I love audio books. I can NOT tell you how good audio books are for us. For all that time spent in the car each week, instead of the pop music, we go educational. 

Living Language - Spanish Started this as an in-car suppliment to our in-home classes (2xs/week). I secretly love it when we are all repeating words and phrases together in the car. Highlight - 5yo: "Oh, mom. Did you hear that one? I just did a really good 'Buenas noches'."

Johnny Tremain  A story of the turbulent, passionate times in Boston just before the Revolutionary War. Johnny, a young apprentice silversmith, is caught with Otis, Hancock, and John and Samuel Adams in the exciting operations and subterfuges leading up to the Boston Tea Party and the Battle of Lexington. As Johnny is forced into the role of a full-grown man in the face of his new country's independence, he finds that his relations with those he loves changes for the better as well.

FINISHED UP

Leonardo da Vinci - Science of Giants Another great one and only 2.5 hours. Lots of fun tidbits to keep kids engaged. (Note: You might want to listen to track 11 + 12 of disc one before sharing with younger kids. Some heavier/sensitive content there.)

Shakespeare for Children: A Midsummer Night's Dream + The Taming of the Shrew, Jim Weiss. These short adaptations are a great starter for any age (40 and over included :). Easy enough to understand in today's modern world, they offer a nice foundation, with just enough original wording to get everyone comfortable in the world of Shakespeare. A great primer. 

 

MONDAY

Because we are down south still for the Renaissance Faire, we decided to skip our Monday Homeschool in the Forest, and spend the day in Santa Cruz, taking our time driving home along the coast. We took our breakfast at the infamous, Gayle's Bakery, and while it wasn't meant to be more than a quick *lesson* in eating snickerdoodle muffins, it evolved into a lesson in fractions after Beanie meticulously removed one muffin crumb at a time, until she was left with a perfect 1/4 wedge missing, and exactly 3/4 of her muffin remaining. What I've noticed with homeschooling is that because we know we are 100% responsible for our children's education, we step-up at every opportunity to teach them. Never does a moment slip when we might be able to awaken their senses to something new. And I just love this.

After breakfast we plopped ourselves down at Natural Bridges State Park and took in the perfect fall day with hundreds of brown pelicans and a pod humpback whales off the coast. :)

 

TUESDAY

Language Arts + Drawing Out Arithmetic were canceled this week. Instead I worked with the 10yo on some of the assignments his math tutor gave him - a math cross word puzzle, making a deck of fraction flash cards and building a dodecahedron out of rolled paper. (This took about three hours to complete!!)

I have Beanie work on her penmanship and she's off to do imaginary play with her little brother. 

Chores: brushing, cleaning, bed making.

12:00 - 2:00 Open studio art class for homeschoolers. Imagine a fully stocked open room and the freedom to create whatever you want. 10yo works leather pieces, cutting and stitching. I forget to ask Beanie what she worked on.

2:15 - 3:15 Music for the 10yo. He's super excited to get his aunt's middle school guitar re-strung and proudly brings it to his lesson. While he's in his lesson, Beanie and I hit a cafe where we order hot drinks and take turns reading Who Cloned the President. I'm thinking this series will be good for her as she just returned from DC and her reading skills are finally taking off. 

3:45 - 5:15 Soccer 

Tonight the 10yo finishes up his latest book - The Boys of Blur, by N. D. Wilson

 

WEDNESDAY

Chores: brushing, cleaning, bed making. 

9:30 Kiddo haircuts, followed by tag in the park, a stop at the library and then breakfast out. I'm feeling guilty about enjoying a quiet breakfast out with my kids and so we go over our manners once the meal arrives. 

12:30 Drop 10yo at a friend's house who will bring him to science class and back. Beanie is sick and will stay with me. Report from science instructor for this week: 

"This week we worked on our review of the nervous system.  We finished our neurons and assembled our spinal cord with the different bones that make up the vertebrae.  We added it to our posters and labeled the different parts.  Next week, we'll connect the nervous system to how the fingers move."

1:00 - 4:00 Tiny Buns does PreK  

3:00 - 5:00 10yo and his buddy go to Nana's house and fish on the creek. They get nibbles, but no bites. I'm just happy that they are on their own, doing boy stuff. I will always wonder what they talk about, if anything. ;) Beanie and I are at home, I'm super under the weather, she plays in her room. I start reading her an easy reader edition of Les Miserables. We've been meaning to do this since we went to Paris. 

 

THURSDAY

8:15 - 9:15 Math tutor for 10yo. 

9:30 – 3:00 Homeschool 4-wheel drive - the 10yo's second day a week in nature. Run by the same organization as Monday's class, this group happens have only boys enrolled at this time, which I love. It's great to see them just go off a wild adventure with a great male leader. This week's report:

"We started our day playing a migration game in the morning, as the "Hawk Watchers" tried to 'catch' the migrating hawks on their journey south (and north).  Our day started warm and sunny, but as we approached Mill Valley we could see the fog lingering...and linger it did, all day long.  We enjoyed some sound exploration in the tunnels up there, and made our way up to the top of the hill for snack, only to realize how cold and windy it really was.  Like animals, we made our way back down the hill to a little microclimate that was protected from the wind.  Some stealth games in the tunnel, with fog rolling in, while I played flute or didjeridoo made for an epic game - that they didn't want to stop.  After a couple rounds, we came back to the warm spot for some raptor journalling, drawing and learning more about the birds we chose at opening circle.  We headed up the hill to explore wingspans of various raptors and see how we measured up.  Atop the hill, we were still in the fog, we we found a place to process some acorns.  Since our last search for Black Oak Acorns, at Azalea Hill, wasn't a success, I brought some from home.  We cracked open hundreds which I've since leached on the stove, using a hot-water leach.  I'll dry out the acorn meal and save it for some autumn treats.  If we had running water, we could have done it that way as well.  Our search continues for more wild ingredients to make some wild foods this autumn."

Tiny Buns has sickness flare-up, stays home from soccer and PreK. Instead we drown our sicky sorrows in comfort food for lunch. 

Meatballs and French fries. 

1:15 - 2:15 French class for Beanie. This is a time when I plan to walk for an hour and get some much needed movement. I am finding that I'm sitting entirely too much with all the driving around I do. But Tiny Buns is with me today and sick, so we just hang out. :(

3:00 pick-up 10yo, 3:15 soccer drop 7yo 4:15 soccer pick-up

8:00 We watch Johnny Tremain, a 1950's Disney movie on the classic, and perfect for the kids. I found it while online at our county library, searching *Boston Tea Party*. I love, love, love our county library and all that it affords us. Every few days I'm on the website, researching subject matter and ordering audio, books and videos to be delivered to our local branch. 

 

FRIDAY

Our Friday morning Spanish class was cancelled due to it being Tiny Buns' birthday party. Unfortunately, Tiny and I have been sick all week and so the party is cancelled. We are home all morning which gives us the perfect opportunity to get started on our big history/Halloween project - a doggie float which we plan to enter into local pet parades. We'll call it "The Boston Tea Terrier Party". More to come on this exciting project. For today, we begin crafting our float out of cardboard, making templates, learning about planning one's project out, mock-ups, pattern making, trial and error. When the kids need a break, I have the 10yo read to the others about the BTP while I keep going. They spend much of the morning crafting a first round of doggie costumes. Despite me throwing my back out during this activity, it was super cute to see them all get so into it. 

Kiddos scrubbing a wagon which will serve as a base for our history project/Halloween doggie float.

The doggie costumes (colonists disguised as Indians!) are coming along!!

7:00 Kids watch Old Yeller. 

 

EXTENDED LEARNING (aka THE WEEKEND)

SATURDAY Soccer games and I'm out with a bad back. Daddy takes kids out to play and eat burgers. These awesome, never before used board games arrive! I found them on Etsy while looking for math games. I'm super excited to try them with the kids. 

SUNDAY Pancake breakfast at the firehouse, a birthday party for one, fishing with Daddy for the other two, dinner with three other families. Phew!

The Big Time Festival: A Celebration of Coastal Miwok at Kule Loklo, Point Reyes National Seashore

I've been meaning to drill down into the history of our local Indians. If I learned about the Coastal Miwok while in grade school, I've not been able to retain any of it. As we get ready to embark on a long roadtrip from Wyoming to South Dakota, I've been researching the many stops along our route where we can visit points of interest in relation to American Indians. That said, I randomly came across information this past week for the Big Time Festival, while exploring hiking trails in the Point Reyes National Seashore. The timing of the event coincided perfectly with our upcoming summer plans, and so we took a couple hours and checked it out. 

The Kule Loklo site is a short half-mile walk from the Bear Valley Visitors Center. We just discovered the center recently, and were amazed at how much it had to offer. It never seizes to amaze me just how much there is to explore here, in our own backyard.

Along the walk to Kule Loklo, the kids kept themselves entertained exploring the terrain. The boys love to look in holes and lift rocks and logs in hopes of finding lizards and snakes. Beanie Love prefers to skip around, daydream and experiment with plant textures and touch.

When we reached our destination, we were immediately greeted by an older volunteer who was eager to teach us all about bull roarers - wind turn sticks used in Indian ceremonies. The boys loved it. Tiny Buns is always swinging stuff over his head, so to do it and have it make a cool sound too, just put him over the moon. 

The highlight of this little festival, at least for the kids, was the crafts. We made necklaces of abalone and beads, while listening to a member of the Miwok tribe tell a wonderful story about how man came to be. We hand-drilled into soap stone, making beads that we then polished and strung-up into another necklace. We observed basket weaving, explored huts and the sweat lodges, and even got to watch some traditional dance ceremonies. 

Don't be fooled by her shy expression - she loved every minute of it!

After the festival, we made the short drive to The Farm House Restaurant in Olema where we indulged in a late lunch of organic, local fare. West Marin never disappoints. :)

Cookies + Code

Our days have been full. It is December, after all. And while I'd like to think I've got this season nailed down to a science, I seem to flail every year. I thought to simplify the 2013 holiday season and play my get-out-of-jail-free card by skipping the holiday card mailing, but this strategic move offered minimal relief. We've still been gleaning fruit from friend's trees, canning for gifts, socializing with friends and family, exploring local open space, celebrating birthdays, learning to read, daydreaming, designing, cooking comfort food, experimenting with new interests, on and on and on...

I've yet to do much Christmas shopping. :-/

Yesterday was another big winter weekend day as we did our annual cookie decorating party with good friends in our old neighborhood. 

Former neighbors, and good friends for life, the mid-western contingency always provides the best treats -- and they rarely involve any added heat. Here they are shaking-up some Puppy Chow. 

After every last piece of dough was baked, iced, sprinkled and plated, the kids sample the leftovers and fuel-up on sugar before we all set out to make our deliveries. 

 

Because it's all about giving. 

From one party to the next, we regrouped at our (former) next-door-neighbor's house so we could get on board with the Hour of Code movement taking place this week. Having absolutely nothing to do with the holidays, this will definately go down as a highlight of our season! Why they planned this Week of Code during the holidays, I have no idea, but we pulled it off and all parties loved it! Simple, easy and fun to do. Please take a moment to explore the movement to get our kids coding by visiting code.org. 

P. stepped-up and prepped the kids about what we planned on doing with them. He engaged them first with an inspirational discussion, followed by some of the videos available on the website. He was awesome - a born teacher! We stopped for a quick lunch before breaking-out the laptops and P. got us up to speed on what he's been doing within our school district to bring robotics to our elementary school kids. Thank gawd for enthusiastic citizens like him who make our communities what they are. Our future depends on the brilliance, sacrifice and dedication of parents like him. 

And then it was time to code! Between the five kids that were actually able to navigate the online lessons, 495 lines of code were written in less than an hour!

I love that this mama is a programmer. A great personality and strong fashion sense can really work well with computer science. ;)

Because most of the Puppy Chow went out to neighbors, B. shook-up a second batch for the kids and called it Coder Chow. Too cute. 

 

Their work! :D

Fabulous Friday

Tell me you don't love Fridays.

See - you can't do it! Fridays are THE BEST. And with summer upon us, and one. more. week. down., I had to pee my pants when I read this post about the marathon that is the end-of-the-school-year-shuffle.

I'm feeling a little bit more pressure these days than normal, but to be truthful, Jen Hatmaker's description of the end of the year is kind of how I feel all year long. I'm always feeling like the worst mom. My paperwork is always late, I'm always forgetting volunteer shifts (despite checking my calendar upon waking), I've yet to muster up the strength to volunteer for a *board position*, and our pediatrician just called to say she hasn't seen either of our boys in over two years. We haven't all five enjoyed a *similar looking dinner* in over two weeks and I really need to make an OBGYN appointment - cos it's been 3.5 years (as in, since I last gave birth).

But I'm pretty sure I did something right today when Mr. Noodle asked me if we could make a dinosaur garden outside his window and I said "YES!" My enthusiasm to oblige was completely selfish though. See, that sweet kid pretty much has the worst view in the house - all cinder blocks and ivy out his window. Every time I take in that view I silently fear I am crippling his creativity with my lack of motivation to make it more interesting.

But that was Thursday, and today is Friday...

After the big kids left for school, and after Mr. Noodle and I scrambled to get to the kindergarten concert, we went to our favorite nursery and stocked up on all sorts of wonderful succulents fit for a dinosaur habitat.

"Hey look at this one, Mama!" he'd say. "This one looks super dinosaur-y to me!"

And so we selected, purchase, planned and planted our garden. The final touches came in the forms of little plastic dinosaurs that now call these high-gloss orange pots their home. Overall, the finished pots didn't add quite the punch I'd hoped they would there on the wall, but they are pretty cute up close, and Mr. Noodle is in no way critical of our work .

All that said, we didn't have much time to do our usual Friday morning dessert making. But I figure it doesn't have to be homemade every single week. (Right? That's OK to do that, right?) So this afternoon we picked up one of everybody's favorite at Miette Bakery. Each one of these desserts (I'll admit I sampled three) tasted *perfect*. They honestly tasted just as pure and perfect as they looked. Nothing unusual or unexpected, just pure goodness. I'm glad we cheated this week, in the name of the dinosaur garden.

Wordless Wednesday

Decorating Gingerbread

This will be our first Christmas in the new house and so everything about this holiday season feels a bit brighter...more exciting. At least to me.

I had originally planned to spend yesterday alone with the kids decorating gingerbread men, women, soldiers, dogs, angles and polar bears. Everything was going along as planned until Friday night when I learned my friend M. was flying solo with his girls too.

Invite extended. 

Of course that meant I had to call C. to see if she and A. wanted in. Everyone was free and so Little Miss helped me bake a double batch. I had plenty of powdered sugar and just enough powdered merengue. We squeezed colorful icing from clear plastic bottles and loaded on candy confections until they overflowed onto the floor beneath our bare feet. M. decorated gingerbread women to resemble C. and me, all while entertaining us with stories of being a solo parent to two kids, and taking morning showers with conference calls on speaker phone (and mute), until he hears his name, has to turn off the water, jump out to the phone and answer a question like he's paying any attention.

Good times. :)

Lazy Mom's Flag Cake

If you've been on Pinterest this week, you most certainly saw this cake pinned.

Again. And again. And again.

My friend Jill and I tried to make something similar, but with a lot less effort involved.

Don't assume us unpatriotic. We just prefer to spend our summer days floating in the river, chatting.

Rainbow Cakes in Jam Jars

Happy St. Patrick's Day! (Personally, I'm on the lookout for a rainbow and hoping I get *lucky* with a call from the Genius Bar. I want my computer back!)

I made these little individual cakes last night to surprise the kids with today. Apparently, I *could have* done more. "Why didn't the leprechaun stop at our house last night?" "Why isn't our toilet water green, Mama?" "Why were there no green surprises left in my room last night?!"

Oh, brother.

Here I was, in all my delusion, thinking I was doing so well! ;-)

I fell in love with these desserts when my friend posted pics of this post on Pinterest. I modified mine and made them in 1/2 pint jars instead (I didn't think anyone in this house needed a whole pint of cake). I did use a white cake mix from a box, but drew the line at frosting and made a small batch of buttercream from scratch. Once the jars were fully cooled, I inserted little surprises into the cakes - chocolate gold coins, like I did with last years cake. The kids added their own sprinkles and coin to the top this morning.

I had high hopes for my Weck jam jars shaped like little pots of gold (see this shape, top left of first picture). Unfortunately, as the cake cooled it peeled back from that glass and didn't look so good - the straight jars worked better.

Happy St. Patrick's Day and don't forget to wear green!

This day last year: St. Patrick's Day Surprise Cake

Wordless Wednesday

New Couch Pillows

This weekend, I dusted off my sewing machine, and stitched a bunch of pillows for a girlfriend who was looking to add some color and pop to her living room.

I love sewing. Once you master the invisable zipper, pillows are a relatively quick project that provide big returns. Needless to say, the whole experience opened up a can of worms for me, and now I want to sew all new pillows for my living room couch.

It was so easy and sewing is sooooo therapeutic...

Ooooommm....ooooommm...

I've since delivered these to their new home but am now on a mission to brighten our living room (just a couple notches ;) with some new and colorful, hand-sewn pillows.

It just never ends...

Puerto Vallarta: What I Bought

Whenever I travel internationally, I always have to do a little shopping. For me, it's never been about acquiring, but about discovery, and bringing the taste of a foreign culture back home to always remember a trip by. I love beautiful things and I am happy finding them in the appliance section of a Japanese department store, the seconds room of an Italian manufacturing plant, or off a Mexican cart. There is beauty at every turn.

When my reaction to an object is visceral, I know it's one that needs to come home. Like that funny, winged cupid at top center. I have no intelligent explanation for my feelings, but my heart started to race when I spotted him, and I couldn't stop smiling. The woman photographed here painted all her pieces right there on the street. I wonder what her whole story is, and I wish I could have communicated how much I loved her work beyond just a smile and a "Gracias".

Love Bug Cookies

Guess what the toddler and I did Sunday morning?

A little bit of this...

...and a whole lot of this:

A new friend and neighbor just had her third child! So I decide to make a double batch of sugar cookies for Valentine's, and personalize a plate full for her and her family. I've got to say, the labor intensive production of artfully decorating cookies gets easier each time, and that much more therapeutic. Once you go to all the trouble and fuss to make it happen, it's so calming to just sit down and pump out a ton of pretty little treats. I need to do this with a group of committed friends on occassion. This kind of craft needs to be the modern day sewing circIe. I was certainly grateful to only have one child in my care that morning. Together, we made for one happy little pair.

Congrats, Hilary!!!

Valentine's Cookies

Last night I hosted another one of Kate's cookie classes for all my girls who could not make the first class in December.  The theme was Valentine's, and the students were a great mixture of neighbors and friends.

Here are some pictures I took of Kate's art - cookies decorated the night before so that *students* could have a little inspiration. If it's not obvious from these shots, let me tell you: they were flawless! (I say *were* only because Kate and I ate them all while cleaning up the kitchen.)

Here Kate shows us the proper *technique*. Oh the jokes that followed... ;)

I'll leave you with this shot below - one Kate forwarded me from her phone, of some recent work she'd done. (OK fine, I grabbed her phone and forwarded it to myself.) Who knew I needed a pear-shaped cookie cutter? And a lemon one to go with it? Well now I know.  Thanks again, Kate! xoxo

If you live in the Bay Area, and would like to throw a cookie decorating party with Kate as your instructor, it's such a great way to get a group together, morning, afternoon or night. She charges $45/head and pretty much does it all! You leave with some great, new knowledge and a box of your cookie art. For more info, you can contact her at kateplaskon(at)gmail.com or at 415.225.7516

Happy New Year!

Happy 2012! How appropriate that my new calendar starts the year off with a chicken!!

We Love Bouche de Noel!

I have always admired the whimsical Bouche de Noel (aka Log Cake), although I've yet to bite into one.

That will all change TONIGHT! I signed us up to bring one to Christmas dinner at my sister's house and if the reactions from licking the bowls are any indication of how this is going to go, I think Mommy has a new Christmas tradition.

The kids and I had a blast yesterday morning making all the holiday desserts. They loved making the marzipan mushrooms.

I also rolled out some Christmas lights in marzipan, a trick I stole from our grocery store's log design. The almost-five-year-old made the mushroom below on the right - which I love. It's true to form with all the baby mushrooms shooting up on the big on.

I used this recipe but reserved 1/3 of the frosting recipe to use on the exterior of the log - something that wasn't actually called for. I will serve it up at my sister's house surrounded by leaves and dusted with powdered sugar, like this photo.  I'm already thinking about next year's cake - I'm going to dress up the log with little gnomes, red capped mushrooms and tiny presents. Happy Holidays!!

Wordless Wednesday

This day last year: "The Island of Misfit Toys"

Cookie Decorating Class

I recently hosted a cookie decorating class, instructed by my friend Kate, and opened it up to all my friends with early morning availability.

Kate baked cookies for nine, and brought all the necessary elements for decoration. For 2-1/2 hours she instructed on how to make piping and flood, how to correctly prep all your tools and lastly, how to decorate gorgeous holiday cookies. (I, of course, couldn't help but throw in lunch - Ina's Roasted Butternut Squash Salad with Warm Cider Vinaigrette... of course.  ;)

The Dickens Fair!

"Welcome to London!!" bellows the hearty woman after taking our tickets and ushering us in. We had finally arrived at our destination - Dickens' mid-19th century London.

And just like that, the magic began! Our early morning preparations of recounting the story of Scrooge and the good lessons learned, of discussing the evolution of the English language with our small kids (read: "People used to talk funny!"), of contemplating top hats and hoop-dresses, and the pin-pointing on London on a map - had all been for this moment. And as we enter the Cow Palace, all aglow with soft lighting and the hustle-n-bustle of a Victorian era London street scene, we are truly transported back in time, to a place best traveled with the eyes and hearts of small children.

Our first stop - Mr. Fezziwigs, to watch a dance routine while snacking on warm, sugar-cinnamon toasted almonds, served up in a paper cone.

For over 30 years I have carried the most wonderful memories of attending the Dickens Fair as a child. I remember the dark, damp air of a covered pier at Fort Mason, it's original location. I remember eating a giant, frosted sugar cookie that tasted like the finest Christmas dessert and strolling the streets among lively actors in costume, and performers on stilts. I have visions of fog lying low to the ground - a memory I'm not certain is even accurate. Were there really fog machines? Or has time allowed sweet memories to grow even sweeter? There were no fog machines during yesterday's visit, but I was far from disappointed. For three and a half hours I had a smile ear-to-ear, regretting only one thing - that I had not shown up in costume myself.

Not that popcorn is any barometer for fine food, but I was impressed with the quality of everything we ate. Bangers and mash with peas were "just like home", and the chocolate covered shortbread cookies were just like, well, just like that awesome bakery in SF!

We played games, games, games - darts being the least creative of all of them. You could also try your hand at throwing a boot towards wooden cats outside your bedroom window, or whack a hammer on a board that would catapult a stuffed chimney sweeper into a chimney. If only my knowledge of low-light photography was a bit more advanced I could share all this. But I still have a lot to learn, which is evidenced in a whole lot of blurry and deleted photos from our day.

My favorite moments were spent watching the kids go around on a six-seater carousal of stuffed African animals while a bearded man in colonial safari wear serenaded everyone with vintage tribal instruments.

  

We sat in on great juggling, fencing, musical and theatrical performances.

Even Father Christmas was there, which thrilled our Tiny Tim!

We finished our day with an elaborate craft project, decorating a fairy house in hopes of inviting a little magic into our garden. You've just got to believe!

For more information visit: www.dickensfair.com

Incredible Cookies

I got the most incredible gift yesterday when my dear friend, Kate, made good on a promise to teach me how to frost cookies like a champ.

No, I did not frost that chicken. Kate did!

I was responsible for baking all the cookies, and Kate made the frosting. She came with all sorts of impressive tools and shared all kinds of useful tips and techniques.

Like how to check the consistency of your 'piping' without filling an entire bag.

The set-up was brutal. It must have taken about 2 hours to get all the 'piping' and 'flood' made, then colored. At first go with the pastry bag, I didn't think I could pull it off. My cookies looked like %*#@ and it all seemed to much to bother trying again.

But things picked up rather quickly as Kate watched over me and helped me get it right. I love this picture of her decorating a turkey while my daughter looks on, smiling. (But trust me, you don't want kids around while you tackle decorating at this level!)

Here are some that I did make! My absolute favorite is the turkey leg. I'm already looking forward to making Christmas cookies... I'm thinking chickens in santa caps. ;)

Thank you, KATE!!! xoxo

A Beautiful Train Table

Even though I value wide open spaces, free of kids toys, I have secretly always wanted a train table. Behemoth as they may be, a train table can entrance any child for hours upon hours. The only problem was, I could never bring myself to spent hundreds of dollars on something as unattractive as this.  The only train table I've loved, cost almost $1000 (and can be viewed here).

Then I had an idea - what about taking one of those great LACK coffee tables from IKEA and turning it into a train table?

$40 later, we had a beautiful one that I was happy to share our living space with.

Wordless Wednesday

Star Wars Party

A very, very talented, highly creative friend of mine, just sent me an image of a Star Wars party invite that she just designed for her daughters party. 

Ummm...ummmm...what's the word I'm looking for...?  Oh, ya --

AMAZEBALLS!!!

How adorable is that!?  She told me the party included Jedi training AND a guest appearance from Darth Vader. 

How the heck did they get him to come to their party?

To learn more about my insanely creative friend (her name is Teri) visit her blog here, or one of her two successful business: Giddy Giddy and Kukunest.

Lego Clone Wars Birthday

This past weekend, we celebrated the 7 year old's birthday with his friends. He wanted the theme to be *Lego Clone Trooper*....or was it *Lego Clone Wars*?  I can't remember.  Anyway, I focused on Legos, Clone Troopers and cake.

I purchased a couple items, like Star Wars cake plates, but turned away from the majority.  There is something about the relentless branding of a theme that just gets to me.  I prefer a homemade, crafty solution if possible. I can't help this, it's just in my DNA.  So I purchased a Star Wars Lego book for the kid (books are always good!), and snapped shots of a bunch of figures, then printed them out.  I cut them out and got some cheap and easy decorations that were super cute.

I still have a large plotter from my business, which I dusted off, plugged in and put to use, printing out 42" Lego characters for some big impact decorations. Check out the Princess Leia in the background below.

I got the idea for watermelon etched like the Death Star here.  I gave it a good shot for about an hour, then I called in my arthritic artistic mother to finish the job for me.  She was naturally much, much better with the detail than I was. I'm forever grateful.

The little man requested a Clone Trooper on his cake. I saw so many incredible designs online (search Google images for "Clone Trooper cake") but know better than to think I have the patience for something that time consuming.  I sourced it out to Susie Cakes and they did an incredible job. I backed up the vanilla cake with lemon cupcakes and topped them with Legos.

I am pretty picky about the quality of sweets my kids eat most of the year.  But when it comes to times like Easter, Christmas and birthdays, I've been known to go out on a limb and buy some crap, disgusting stuff just because I know the sight of it will make my kids happy. This time it was these marshmallow pops:

Blech!  I am certain to get blackballed by the mommies for sending these home ;)  Woops! (Gulp.)

Pin-the-helmet-on-the-clone-trooper.

Daddy taught a Lego Spaceship clinic.  There were some awesome creations!

The kid really wanted a pinata.  I purchased a skull one, for Halloween, and recovered it in Clone Trooper details.

Cake and some of Luke Skywalkers blue Bantha milk.

A rare, family shot - oh, wait, half of us are missing!?

Homemade Soap

I have been meaning to make soap for while now.  Over the years, I've seen some really cute ideas that I've sworn I would make and gives as gifts at the little girl's birthday parties. 

Next year, my love, next year.

This project was inspired by an online Martha Stewart article where she couldn't have made look -- anyone, anyone? -- easier.  And so I dived in to make some fairly simple soap.

I love that you can make soap using just about anything in your garden and mixing it with melted glycerin from your favorite crafts store.  Berries, herbs, flowers -- you name it.  At the suggestion of Martha, homemade lemon soap sounded divine and with all our Meyer lemons dangling from branches supported with sticks, it was almost a must. 

Unfortunately, not everyone shared my enthusiasm.

After searching several sites for tips and tricks, I sort of made my own plan and recipe:  Lemon, Thyme and Olive Oil soap.  The making was easy.  I took a one pound block of glycerin, cut it into 1" squares and melted it on the stove-top in a double boiler.  As soon as it was fully melted, I removed it from the heat and added: 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of lemon zest and about 1 tablespoon of thyme leaves. Nothing was exact, I was just kinda doing it the way the wind told me to.

(On a TOTAL side note, I just want to let you know that I'm making a coconut meringue for dessert tonight and my house smells flippin' amazing right now!!)

Making these soaps is a great craft because the soap hardens in 20 - 40 minutes giving little impatient people a very short wait for a big treat.  The down side of that is you have to work fast because before you know it, there is a film forming on top of your melted glycerin. For the molds, I was originally planning on using simple pint cartons that I'd saved to make blocks of soap that I could then slice up and dole out.  But then I remembered this adorable mini-cake mold and decided that I would be perfect for little Spring soaps.  I sprayed them will with vegetable oil and poured in my mixture to set.

 

These Lemon + Thyme with Olive Oil soaps turned out really well in these molds. While bright yellow in color, and all the bits of lemon zest and thyme leaves visible, they don't have a ton of lemon scent.  Maybe they need a little lemon scented oil for a kick start.

Next year, my love, next year.