Blondkopfchen

Since my Blondkopfchen tomato seedlings were started way back in February at Little Miss' birthday party, it makes sense that these are the first tomatoes to ripen in our garden. In fact, I believe the first grape tomatoes turned yellow-orange at the end of June.

And of course, we ate them immediately.  And by "we," I mean the kids.

Little Guy assured me they were quite tasty.

Little Miss kept asking for more, and I had to stop her several times from picking the unripe tomatoes.

And now, Little Miss is absolutely hooked on fresh Blondkopfchen tomatoes. Every other day, we check the vines to see if any are ripe, and end up eating them right then and there.

A week or so ago there were almost 20 ripe at once. I convinced Little Miss to wait until dinner to eat them.

At least, I thought I had convinced her to wait.

But these little tomatoes are just too tempting for Little Miss.

As it turned out, we didn't have any tomatoes to go with dinner. 

I am totally okay with that.

Coloring eggs

We dyed eggs after dinner this evening. In fact, my freshly bathed and pajama-d kids are in the process of covering said eggs with stickers. 

Which is where I'm off to...there are some stickers calling my name.

Have a very happy Easter, everyone!

Starting from seed

Last year, all my vegetable plants (with the exception of pole beans) entered my life as seedlings. This year, almost everything will be from seed.  I bought seeds for Little Miss's farm birthday gardening activity, and once I started planting them, it just seemed the route to go for this year's garden.

Twelve days ago the kids and I started our King of the North pepper seeds from Seed Savers. 

We used a Burpee seed starting kit I bought on clearance at the end of last season. It came with these fun pellets of seed starter mix that expanded once they were wet. 

Clearly, it was really entertaining to watch them expand. The process was quite interesting.

Once the pellets had expanded, we planted the seeds. I let the kids do this part and they had a lot of fun.

So now we have 25 pepper seeds planted, and hopefully all of them will germinate and grow into fine seedlings and plants. 

I'm not sure I'm a start-from-seed gardener, but I have high hopes for this method.  After all, I'm totally thrilled with how my first two homegrown projects are turning out.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

A colorful Valentine's Day

Little Guy and Little Miss will be giving out these adorable crayon hearts for Valentine's Day:

Though it's been making the rounds on Pinterest, I first saw this idea in Family Fun a few years ago. Start by breaking up crayons. There's no need to buy new crayons for this project; I simply used all the crayon bits and pieces that my kids have broken over the past two years, as well as the crayons they get whenever we go to a restaurant. Between the crayon box, the diaper bag and the bottom of my purse, we had more than enough crayons to make 24 crayon hearts.  In fact, I could probably make 24 more!

Little Guy and Little Miss had a fun time filling the molds.  I broke each crayon into 3-4 pieces, and each heart-shaped cavity holds 6-8 pieces of crayon.  I always like craft projects that my kids can help with; not only is it fun for the family, but it also gives them a sense of ownership and pride in the finished product.

The baking molds went into a 230F oven for 10-15 minutes.  As you can see, some brand/type of crayons didn't melt well, but otherwise everything melted just fine. After the tins cooled, the crayons popped right out.

I decided to save a bit of time by using a pre-made cards for the crayons. I found this one, from The Long Thread, that prints out four to a page. Sweet!

Though it may look complicated, this Valentine's Day project is really easy to do and doesn't take a lot of time.  The hardest part might have been breaking the crayons!  Overall, this took less than an hour to do and it was a fun project for the kids.

And bonus: Little Guy's preschool friends will get a crayon, and not a sugary treat, for Valentine's Day.  That really makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Manda Monday--Merry? Very!

The television-turned-puppet-theater is a hit!  Little Guy performs productions using many of the 28 puppets the kids received yesterday, while Little Miss has commandeered it as her very own playhouse.  Project Sony was a total and complete success!

We had a great Christmas, and I hope you did, too!  

Christmas wishes

We've seen Santa Claus twice this season. The first time was at Blackberry Farm's Polar Express event. 

We immediately stood in line to see Santa, only to have Little Guy chicken out when it was almost our turn.  We rode the train a dozen times, saw Santa's sleigh, attended a reading of The Polar Express and finally worked up the nerve to see the Jolly Old Elf.

Little Guy delivered his Christmas letter (that's what Mrs. Claus is reading) and told Santa he wanted a television set he could climb inside and do puppet shows.  Santa said that was a very unusual request and that he'd have to get some special elves to work on it. 

We saw another Santa at Phillips Park Zoo.  There, the Little Guy asked Santa for elf and reindeer puppets.  Just an FYI: Little Miss is not yet talking coherently (at least, we are the only ones who can understand her language), so while she babbled away to Santa, we really have no idea what she asked for.  Let's hope it wasn't a pony, because that's not going to happen.

But what is going to happen is the television-turned-puppet-theater with the elf and reindeer puppets.  I'll give you the details tomorrow!

My kitchen elves

Yesterday, I shared with you some great chocolate-peppermint Whoopie pies. What I didn't show you is the little elves who helped me make them.

My regular readers know that Little Guy and Little Miss are my constant companions in the kitchen.  When I begin a recipe, one of them (usually Little Guy) will drag the step stool from the pantry to the island, and they'll both climb up and beg to help. 

Little Guy has been successfully wielding a hand mixer since he was two, and now it's Little Miss's turn. She's not quite there yet, but then again, she's not quite two years old. 

Baking with kids is hard under normal circumstances, and even harder when a time constraint is involved. Still, I try to let my kids do as much as my patience will allow, knowing that I want them to have fun in the kitchen and enjoy the processes of cooking and baking.  But it's more than just having fun and making memories:  I want them to see up close what it means to read a recipe, follow directions, measure, pour, mix, stir and improvise when necessary.  These are all important life skills that while learned in the kitchen, are applicable everywhere.  Further, I want them to be able to take pride in the result and understand that only when you put in the work can you reap the reward. 

And they sure do like the reward!

I wonder if my little kitchen elves know all that.  Maybe they're too busy enjoying the reward. 
Then again, so am I.  I just love my kitchen elves.

Handmade at its best!

Little Guy gave me some handmade gifts he had created at preschool.  I am a sucker for this kind of thing and I immediately melted! Take a look:

He even made the gift wrap.  Love it.

It's a sled ornament!

Little Guy also made this penguin ornament, complete with his thumbprints for the penguin's feet.

Finally, there was one last gift that he put a lot of time and effort into...

It's a framed picture, and he decorated the frame. It had magnets on the back so it immediately went on the fridge.  Darling! 

After a ridiculous amount of 'oohing' and 'aahing' over his obvious artistic talents by this impressed Mommy, my Little Guy proudly hung his ornaments on the tree. 

I just love, love, love stuff like this.  These ornaments will be on my Christmas tree for as long as I have one, and after that I demand to be buried with them.  Sniffle.

Thanks so much to my son's preschool teacher, and to all teachers, who help their students make gifts for their parents for Christmas and other special holidays and occasions.  This truly made my day. 

O Christmas Trees

O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!  Thy leaves are so unchanging;
Not only green when summer's here,  but also when 'tis cold and drear.
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!  Thy leaves are so unchanging!

Of course, my Christmas tree is green because it's fake, but let's not quibble over details. I have eight Christmas trees in my home...would you like a tour?

Let's start in the living room:

The living room is also the toy room, so all the ornaments are break-resistant.  The lights are colored, but all the ornaments are gold and red.  There is no real theme to this tree, unless you count "festive and sparkly" as a theme. If so, there is a definite theme!

Next, let's head to the dining room:

Last year, there was no tree in the dining room--this is one of the four new trees I bought on clearance after last Christmas.  The dining room has a circus theme going on already with the artwork, so I carried that over to the tree.  This tree has white lights and jewel-toned ornaments.  It also features several fun circus-style ornaments, like this Santa using a bullhorn while riding a unicycle:

I have a very small tree in the kitchen. It has to be small, because it sits on top of the fridge; I just can't spare the counter space, especially during this time of year.  The kitchen tree is decorated with handmade snowmen holding cinnamon sticks, baking-themed ornaments, and white lights.

Next is the 12-foot tree in the family room.  This one holds all of our heirloom and family ornaments. It has white lights and an angel on top.  This is where Santa leaves his presents for the kids, and where we exchange and open presents as a family.

Now, let's head upstairs...I now have a tree in the master bedroom (one of the four new ones to the house).  It is a (scrawny) four foot tree pre-lit with white lights, and a strand of iridescent pointy bulbs added for effect. 

This tree has a Wizard of Oz theme, which is actually more appropriate for the guest room.  Perhaps in the next year or two my dream of a beach-themed tree for the master bedroom will happen.  In the meantime, I am really enjoying Miss Gulch on her bike along with all the other Wizard of Oz ornaments.

Thanks to my after-Christmas shopping spree last year, the kids each have a tree in their rooms, too.  I thought I was buying two foot trees for them, which would have been suitable for their dressers, but they turned out to be three foot trees so I kept them on the floor. Little Guy's tree was pre-lit with white lights, but I threw a strand of blue lights on there to brighten it up. 

I tried to include ornaments on each tree that corresponded with their personalities and/or interests.  Here is the Hallmark ornament "Max Sets Sail" from the book Where the Wild Things Are, which is wildly appropriate for both the Little Guy and his very own Christmas tree.

Little Miss also has a tree in her room. It also has white and blue lights, though I added strands of pearls to give it a more feminine touch.  The ornaments on her tree, once all evenly distributed, are now mostly all of to one side: Little Miss likes to redecorate and reorganize her tree, it would seem.

Instead of a star, Little Miss's tree has a butterfly at the top.  I think it's a nice touch.

Christmas tree #8 is one I've had for a while, and it's also one of my favorites.  This tree is on the second floor balcony overlooking the foyer and just outside the master bedroom.  It's theme is The Twelve Days of Christmas and almost all of the ornaments relate to the theme.

The some ornaments are grouped closely together, which is Little Guy's tree-decorating style.  Fun story: the Little Guy and I decorated this tree, just the two of us.  It was after his bedtime, and I knew that he hadn't fallen asleep yet. I peeked into his room, got him up and told him we weren't going to talk, just work.  So (almost) silently we decorated this tree, all the while giving each other smiles and thumbs-up.  It was a fun mother-son moment I will remember for a long, long time, and I hope he does, too.

O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!  Much pleasure thou can'st give me;
How often has the Christmas tree afforded me the greatest glee!
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!  Much pleasure thou can'st give me.

I hope you enjoyed this Christmas tree tour. Over the weekend, I'll put up a full photo album of all the trees and special ornaments on facebook.  Become a fan to see the gallery. Have a great weekend!