Little Elephants: Kids Crafts and Fun Activities

Hoola hooping

Somehow, we ended up with two hoola hoops. Perfect not just for M to show off her acrobatic prowess, but also fun to imagine new games to play.

Quiet time, painting

I am always picking up random craft items to keep the kids engaged, and I keep a good stock of tempera paints and varous sized brushes on hand. Like everything I do with the kids, I start out knowing I'm probably going to have a bit of a clean-up job, but I'm also likely to come away the proud owner of a masterpiece. [if I know I don't have the energy to deal with the clean-up, I don't haul out the paints]

Project runway

We love Project Runway -- ok... everyone but B does. After dinner on Sunday, we asked the kids to describe the outfits they would design for each member of the family. Tomas drew this sketch of what M imagined for him: black dress pants with a black belt, a white shirt, black tie, black jacket, pointy black shoes and a black top hat. We all agreed that M's outfit should be a shiny, floor-length, silver number. Well... almost all. B wanted to dress her in a pink skirt with a black top, and rainbow tights.

Double vision

This photography experiment is about imagining what it would be like to meet ourselves.

All last week Tomas had been talking about doing a family photography project. Life happened ... Little T was sick all weekend with what turned out to be Roseola, so we were extremely low on sleep and all a bit cranky. While I was out walking the dogs with B, Tomas decided to do a test run. This picture is the result, and I think it really worked out well. I especially like that M looks like she can really see herself. Next time, we're planning to do the photo-shoot outdoors, but this was an excellent first try. Long live Photoshop!

Birthday cupcakes

I'll admit it... I'm a bit lazy and if there's as easy way out, I'm likely to take it. I've found that one of the easiest birthday treats to bring to school or daycare is cup-cakes. The kids love 'em & I don't have to sweat over it. I buy cake mix, follow the directions, and let the kids choose how I'll decorate. When they are old enough to hold the icing bag I let them do their own decorating. B has decided that doing the dishes is fun, so I can even hand over that dreaded task. Please don't let him discover too soon that doing the dishes is not a treat.

>> Also check out In the kitchen: Spooooky cupcakes, Sept. 27th, 2006

Tomas' basic bread

One of Tomas' jobs in the house is to make fresh bread for special occasions. He tells me that once you know how to make basic bread, you can make just about any bread recipe. Just be prepared to have a bit of a clean-up job to follow the fun of beating up that dough :-)

You'll need:

• 1 package dry yeast
• 6.5 cups flour
• 3 Tbsp Butter
• 2Tbsp sugar
• 1Tbsp salt
• I cup milk
• I cup water (hot)
• Optional: 1 egg, vanilla extract, almond extract

Activate youe yeast in hot water, then mix with all remaining ingredients.
Jamie Oliver has a pretty good recipe that details the steps that follow quite well.

There's a cobra in my kitchen

A poem by M. age almost-eight

There's a Cobra in my kitchen
It's really very scary
It's breaking pans, and cutting boards
It's breaking wires, and killing pliers
But there's one good thing
I'm teaching it to do that thing

Community gardens

Our town has an incredible program where you can lease a small plot of land to garden for a very low rate. We live in a small apartment sans outdoor space, so we took advantage of this until I got too big in my last pregnancy to be of any use. We grew sunflowers, leeks, artichokes, raspberries, at least six different varieties of tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, peppers, numerous herbs... the list goes on an on. We loved it.

The kids were always guarranteed to find some new adventure in the garden; meeting neighbors, learning about compost, identifying new seedlings, celebrating a good crop, pulling weeds...

I miss my garden very much.

Tomas' cocoa-licious ice cream

We've been using the gelato machine quite a bit lately. Tomas is obsessed with ice-cream & my obsession is with sorbets (I'm determined to re-create my Tante Armelle's orange sorbet -- haven't gotten it quite right yet...).

Tomas has made a variation on Alton Brown's Chocolate Ice Cream. The main difference is that he used 6 egg yolks instead of eight, and added a bit more cocoa. The result is ice-cream that tastes a lot like the fudgecicles my Mom used to buy me when I was a kid. Way too sweet for my taste today, but the munchkins loved it. Next time, we'll try the recipe with real chocolate instead of cocoa.

Lovin' Legos

Today was the first day of school. The kids were over-excited, and exhausted. I fed them some of Tomas' Cocoa-licious ice-cream & poured out a giant box of Legos. They're happy. I'm happy. The baby is napping. Life is good.