#653 - The Great Pumpkin or Friendly Neighborhood Witch

Have you heard about the Great Pumpkin?  I know it's long past Halloween, but just wanted to share this great idea I got from Natalie Norton's blog.

I told the boys after they did their trick or treating, they could pick out 5 candies to eat and then if they wanted, they could leave their candy on the doorstep for the Great Pumpkin who would leave them a present.

Oster was very skeptical, but he did it.  Since the Great Pumpkin didn't plan ahead, he left them money instead with a note.  And ironically enough, our neighborhood real estate agent also left a note with a cute little scarecrow on our front door, so when Oster found the letter from the Great Pumpkin, he also discovered this gift from our neighbor.

He said, "Mom, the great pumpkin didn't come, it was a witch".

Then later on in the day, we got another knock at the door, Oster ran to check it and said, "Mom, the Great Pumpkin came again".  This time it was for me :)  Thanks Mom!

#652 - 20 questions for your kids during bedtime & our christmas tree

I saw this list of questions below on pinterest and decided to ask Oster them before bed tonight...I highly recommend it.  He's only 4, so I modified the questions a little for him.  Also, we decorated our tree today while Oster wore his Spiderman costume, so you'll see how that influenced his answers.

1. What do you like to dream about? - Spiderman/Star Wars
2. What is your best memory this school year? - playing with cousins
3. Who is your hero? Why? - Spiderman
4. How would you describe your family? - they help me (Dad - found/made the thing I put my tools on, Parker - shares with me, helps me, Mom- no answer)
5. If you could change anything about yourself, what would it be? - nothing, maybe I could be Spiderman
6. What are you most proud of yourself for? - decorating the Christmas tree
7. Who is the kindest person you know? Why? - Parker (his brother)
8. What do you like most about your best friend? - he shares and plays with me (pretty sure his brother is his best friend)
9. What is one thing you would like to learn to do well? - read (made me proud to hear this)
10. If you were an animal what one would you be and why? - myself, even more than Spiderman
11. When is the last time someome hurt your feelings? How did you react? - no one has
12. Do you know someone who is going though a hard time?- Parker, he didn't want to go to sleep tonight How can you help them? - clean our room
13. What is the scariest thing that happened this year? when you turned off the lights and shut the door 
14. If you could keep only one thing, out of everything you have, what would it be?- Spiderman costume
15. Who do you think is really important? successful? Why?  - me
16. What’s the best thing about your teacher this year? - playing games
17. When do you feel misunderstood by grown-ups? - when I'm mad
18. What three words best describe you? - I like last Christmas when I dressed up as an elf and Parker was Santa.  I like myself.  I like Spiderman.  I like decorating Christmas trees.
19. What’s something that makes you angry? - when I get in trouble
20. What’s the best compliment you ever received?  - not sure

#651 - Diddy Riese - best ice cream sandwiches ever! in LA

 I've only been here twice (my sister introduced me to it), but Diddy Riese is such a fun place to visit for the best ice cream sandwiches ever.

 You get to pick two cookies (I like the oatmeal raisin walnut and white chocolate macadamia nut) and then choose your ice cream flavor.  Oster and his cousin are here looking at all the cookies.

 Oster got 2 M&M cookies with strawberry ice cream and Parker got 2 chocolate chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream.

I got my two favorite cookies with mint chocolate chip.  All for $1.75.  Yum!

Plus, they sell a dozen day old cookies for only $2.  I wish I had bought more cookies to bring home as souvenirs for family (but maybe I would have eaten them first, so maybe it's a good thing I didn't!)

It's in LA next to UCLA.  And if you want to park for free, just park in the Target parking lot about 2-3 blocks away and buy something there, they validate for 2 hours.

#650 - a picture of Jesus

We visited my family last month and the room we stayed in had this picture of Jesus.  A picture of Jesus is important, but it brings on a whole new meaning when you have kids.

Every morning I woke up to my baby boy Parker snuggling with me (because he ended up crawling into my twin size bed (Pepe and Oster were in the other twin bed)) and saying, "there's Jesus" or "I see Jesus".  The first couple mornings I was taken off guard, but then I started looking forward to it.

 I hope he never forgets to see Jesus every morning of his life.

#649 - Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Have you read this book?  You should.  It's hard to read in places, but it leaves you with a sense of hope that we can change the world.  They've turned it into a tv show on PBS and I can't wait to watch it tonight.  I think it is airing tomorrow too...check your local listings.

Here's a preview:

You can read more about it here:  http://www.halftheskymovement.org/

"The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world."

#648 - Invisible Painting (with 2 simple ingredients)

2 posts in 2 days...what!!!

I've been doing preschool with the boys at home.  Sometimes it is formal, but most the time I'm just always looking for learning experiences and stuff to keep them busy (to keep us all sane.)

I checked out a bunch of preschool books (mostly art ones) from the library and Oster chose this invisible painting  (it's called "mystery paint" in the book) project from the book Preschool Art by Mary Ann Kohl.  Although the pictures aren't super flashy, I think it is my favorite art book of the bunch (I'll let you know if that changes.

So super duper easy!

 You just need equal parts baking soda and water for the invisible paint.  Then water colors to reveal the art.

Invisible Paintings
Mix 4 tablespoons baking soda and 4 tablespoons water.
Use a paint brush or cotton swab to paint onto white paper.
Let artwork dry (next time I'll try to have some dry ones on hand.)
When dry, paint with water colors to revel the picture.

This was super cool when it worked, but a few of our pictures didn't turn out.  So, I think the key is to have a good amount (but not too much) of baking soda when you do your first painting.  Then when you do the water colors make sure the water colors aren't too watery or too heavy with paint (see the black paint on the face below  (to the right) sort of obscured the painting, but the lighter black paint on the left turned out great.).

Let me know if you try this...we've already done it twice and we'll probably do it again.

#647 - Sarah's Key

I watched Sarah's Key awhile ago, but it was great.  Makes you think.  It's on-demand on Netflix, so check it out if you get a chance.

#646 - mini ice cream cones

 These are super tiny, but the perfect size for an ice cream cone for my kids.  In fact, I don't mind i they have a second.

 I had a hard time trying to find these a few years ago, when I first saw these mini cones at a restaurant, but luckily, our local grocery store now carries these mini ice cream cones.

I didn't think my other pictures showed a good size comparison, so I decided to take a pic next to a blueberry and grapefruit.  Aren't they tiny?

#645 - Homemade Spiderman Cake

 My boys are all about Spiderman lately, or more like for the past 6 months.  For example, when I put Parker down to bed he requests the Spiderman theme song, Iron Man (the Black Sabbath song), or the A-Team theme song, not Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. 

Then Oster requested a Spiderman birthday cake.  I googled, youtubed, pinterest"ed" ideas, but all of them involved lots of red food dye.  I'm not opposed to red food dye, but I also didn't want to spend hours mixing to get the red color and really, who wants to ingest all those chemicals.

 So, I decided to go a little more natural with strawberries.  It actually turned out pretty good.  In fact, I think it looked even better.  I made this graham cracker cake I saw on pinterest (not my favorite to be honest, but everyone else liked it.)  Then topped it with melted chocolate spiderwebs.

 

I made half of it with chocolate graham crackers (that was better than regular graham crackers).

As I was cutting the strawberries I noticed they looked like Spiderman masks/faces.  Oster loved it!

In fact he loved it so much, he wanted the whole mouth of the Spiderman mask.  And I just saw the new Spiderman movie...sort of loved it!  My favorite so far.

 

#644 - homegrown berries

 Blueberries from our bushes - we got so many more this year because Pepe tossed some pine needles on top of the bushes and around the soil of the bushes a few months ago (maybe last fall?)  Have you heard of this before?

Parker eating a strawberry from our garden.  We did a taste test with Costco strawberries, and while the Costco strawberries are ginormous, home grown strawberries are so much better!

 And I thought I'd share our carrots we dug up (we planted them last year).  I wasn't brave enough to eat them though.  I cut up some carrots from the store and feed them to the boys.

Our basil plant...yum!