Eye Spy Discovery Bottle

Buddy came home from church on Sunday with a little discovery bottle filled with treasures for him to look at it. It was his "eye spy." He was smitten with it and carried it everywhere. He even carried it to the grocery store where he promptly left it in the car cart we were using.  I didn't notice that he didn't have it with him and he didn't notice either until we got home.  He was devastated.

So, (in order to stop the sobbing) we decided to make our own... 

We went on an expedition to Hobby Lobby and picked out a few little things to go in our brand new eye spy bottles. Buddy was especially enthusiastic about the ABC beads we found.  I gathered a few more items around the house and then I let Buddy and Jellybean pick what they wanted in their bottles. After they had put in what they wanted, I poured in a generous amount of corn syrup and glitter.

In retrospect, we should have used smaller bottles. I also should have added more glitter. The glitter looks really cool throughout the corn syrup. All in all, the kids are happy with their bottles. Buddy reminds me daily that he is sad he lost his eye spy, but he likes that his new one has ALL of the letters.

To add a little personality and to secure the cap on the bottle, I glued on a bit of ribbon and felt.  With that much corn syrup in there, I wanted to make sure the cap was on tight.

Here's a link to an entire page of discovery bottle ideas.  There are a ton of great ones.
Discovery Bottle Ideas

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

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WW- Playground Sequence

Slide:

Swing:

Climb:

Happy WW! Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

Quiet Activity Idea: Handkerchief Folding

When I was a little girl, my mom would bring a simple white handkerchief to church and would fold it into a baby cradle in order to keep me entertained.  I loved it and would request it often.  As a child, it seemed like magic. Recently, I started carrying a bandana in my church bag and have been experimenting with some different ways to fold it.  Jellybean likes these handkerchief tricks as much as I did all those years ago.  It's a fantastic quiet activity for church or the doctor's office.  Here are two folding ideas that we've been enjoying.

The Bandana Bunny:

Start with a flat bandana and knot the top two corners. Bring the corners together and tie a big knot to create the bunny head and ears.

Knot the remaining corners into two little arms and bring the knot up in the back to make a little bunny tail.

Handkerchief Baby Cradle:

Fold handkerchief into a triangle. Roll each corner to the center, then fold in half. Take corner on very top and fold out and around to create the cradle.  Look, they're twins!

Jellybean likes to hold the cradle by each corner and rock it while singing, "Rock a bye, rock a bye."

Throw a bandana or a handkerchief in your bag and experiment with some folding of your own.  Here are a couple more ideas that I found out on the web.

Handkerchief Doll
Handkerchief Mouse (I couldn't figure this one out. I'm special like that, so maybe you can.)

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

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What have I done to my hair?

I've been thinking a lot about hair this week. Not only did the kids get new haircuts, but I decided to change a few things about my hair by jumping on the no shampoo bandwagon. 
Take a gander at my cute kids first, then let's talk about hair shall we?

Jellybean got trimmed and styled.

Buddy got a new, short, Summer cut.

Pretty cute, right? 

Now let's let the discussion get a little hairy.  A year or so ago, I started researching the concept of ditching my $20 shampoo and going without shampoo altogether (i.e. going "no-poo"). There were a lot of reasons why going sans shampoo seemed appealing. Here are the most compelling of the reasons:
1. Clear skin. My skin is a nightmare.  Call me crazy, but I always assumed that when I hit my thirties I wouldn't need to worry about acne. In fact, I find it utterly ridiculous to have to deal with acne at my age.  My skin has always been sensitive to different shampoos and I've noticed that it is just worse lately.  Daily (or in my case every other day) shampooing strips your hair of natural oils. This in turn can lead to an over production of oil. It may be my own theory, but it occurs to me that stopping the over production of oil may aid in my quest for clear skin.
2. Curl.  I discovered in my research that those with naturally curly hair (like myself) can benefit by eliminating sodium lauryl sulfate and other sulfate based chemicals from their routine.  SLS is used as a foaming agent in shampoos and can be pretty harsh, drying and damaging to curly hair.  Not only that, but SLS can also irritate the skin your hair touches (another push for reason #2). My hair has gone through a lot of changes since having two children. My natural curl can use all the help it can get.
3. Cost.  I've always spent a lot on what I assumed were high quality hair products.  The cost of baking soda and apple cider vinegar compared to my salon shampoos is pretty convincing.

I understood from my research that going without shampoo could turn into a two month oily science experiment and I just couldn't figure out a good time when I could stay shut up in my home for two months and not be seen by any living soul until my hair got straightened out.  Then I realized that there would never be a good time for that and that there had to be some middle ground between becoming an oily mess and continuing my less than satisfactory hair routine.

I did quite a bit of research on different methods for eliminating shampoo. Here's what I've come up with for a middle of the road approach to weaning my hair off of the "poo." I'm going to put weekly updates on the side of the page so that you can see how my experiment is going:

First, I purchased/gathered together a few items. I'll note that I rarely purchase something unless it has good reviews on Amazon. Here's what I needed:
-A natural, no sulfate, clarifying shampoo and conditioner
-A good boar bristle brush
-Squeeze bottles
-Dry shampoo
-I already had baking soda and apple cider vinegar in my cupboard

My new shampoo and conditioner.

Next, I readied my new "shampoo and conditioner."  In one squeeze bottle, I mixed 1 tablespoon of baking soda with 1 cup of water.  In the other, I mixed 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar with 1 cup of water. The idea is that you use the baking soda mix on your scalp and the vinegar solution on the ends of your hair for conditioning. Make sure you use apple cider vinegar and NOT white vinegar.

My method:
-Once every week to twice a month, I wash my hair with a good clarifying shampoo. This will become less frequent as I wean myself off of shampoo completely.
-Every other day after that, I wash my hair using the baking soda and vinegar solutions.
-Each morning and night, I brush my hair well with my fabulous new brush. This helps distribute the oil from root to tip.
-If the oil seems out of control or annoying, I use a tiny bit of dry shampoo to refresh my hair.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this experiment goes. If it works well for me, I'm going to move towards no shampoo for my kids and *gasp* my husband, too. 

Here are a few helpful links on the subject:
How to wash your hair without shampoo
Using the No Shampoo Method
How to quit shampoo without becoming disgusting

Look for my updates in the side bar as the weeks progress.  Let's see how it goes.

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

Oven Safety

Maybe it's time for a more serious discussion on the topic:

Turning up the heat...

Happy WW. Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

Bebop-a-rebop Rhubarb Pie

My sister's rhubarb went nuts this year.  So nuts that she cut a ridiculous amount for me and kept a ridiculous amount for herself. Neither of us had ever cooked with rhubarb. So we were left asking the question: What do we do with all of this rhubarb?

We decided to do a rhubarb pie bake-off. Of course.

We chose two different recipes. I enjoy a tart pie, so when I ran across a recipe for a raspberry rhubarb pie, I knew that was the ticket.
My sister opted for a more classic combination; a strawberry rhubarb pie. She decided to replace the double pastry crust with a graham cracker crust.  This is an ideal substitution if you are trying to bake a pie while caring for a colicky baby (read: a baby that was crying all-day-long) and while potty training a two year old.

The Contenders

Raspberry Rhubarb

Strawberry Rhubarb

Because we are both highly experienced in the field of eating. We got together to sample and to critique the results of our labors.  We discovered that both recipes were delicious, but both had some drawbacks. Here's the break down of the pros and cons to each recipe. (Links for recipes to follow)

Raspberry Rhubarb Pie:
Pros:
This pie is full of personality. The double pastry crust was buttery, flaky and suited the filling well. This was a fairly tart pie and the flavor had quite a bit of depth. We felt that the cinnamon was an interesting compliment to the raspberries. Beyond the rhubarb, this pie called for very few ingredients that weren't already in my cupboard. Major points for that. 
Cons:
The subtle notes of the rhubarb were a bit overwhelmed by the raspberries. Plus, I'm not always a fan of raspberry seeds.  Also, the crust was a bit of a pain to roll out.
Bottom line:
A nice, tart, enjoyable pie. Worth the effort that went into it.


Strawberry Rhubarb Pie:
Pros:
The flavor is sweet, tangy and pleasant. Strawberries are wonderful paired with rhubarb. The addition of the graham cracker crust added sweetness and made for more of a cobbler effect. The graham cracker also added a nice texture. Like the other pie, very few ingredients were needed from the store to make this recipe possible.
Cons:
This pie is sweet, but lacks some depth of flavor. We suspect that adding the optional orange zest would help with this. The graham cracker substitution needed some more tweaking as the crust turned out on the soggy side. My sister is still unsure of why arrowroot is preferable to a cheaper thickener like cornstarch.
Bottom line:
Definitely a sweet treat. With a little tweaking to the crust, this would be an amazing pie.

Just a word to the wise, both pies demanded vanilla ice cream. Okay, without further ado, here are the recipes:
-Raspberry Rhubarb Pie taken from Gourmet. Go there to find a dozen more rhubarb recipes that look and sound wonderful.

-Strawberry Rhubarb Pie adapted from America's Test Kitchen.

Here are some more photos from my baking process.

Jellybean was very excited to get that pie out of the oven.

Get yourself some rhubarb and Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

P.S. For your viewing pleasure:
Prairie Home Companion's Bebop-a-rebop Rhubarb Pie Commercial

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Planting Tomatoes

A couple of weeks ago, my awesome sister gave me some tomato plants that she had started from seed. When I received them from her, it was a bit cold to put them in the ground, so I waited.....a bit too long.  By the time I was ready to put them in the ground, they were looking pretty shabby.  I hadn't taken very good care of them.  I went ahead and planted them anyway, though I had written off all but one of them.  After two weeks of care, here's the break down of my 4 tomato plants:

I yanked out number 4, sans post mortem. Enter the replacement tomato plant:

My mom had found some very reasonably priced plants at Costco and gave me one. Hooray! I worry that the other three plants are jealous of the newcomer. Look at all of that gorgeous foliage.

The kids, per the usual, were very good helpers. They generously offered their services and helped me put the new plant in the ground.  Their services included: digging in the dirt, dirt transportation, flinging dirt long distances and watering.

 And a few more photos:

Have A Happy Day!

~MJ

Ladybird, Ladybird Fly Away Home

Ladybird, Ladybird fly away home

the fairy bells tinkle afar 

make haste or they'll catch you and harness you fast 

with a cobweb to Oberon's star

Happy WW! Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

5 Minute Craft: Color Your Own Wrapping Paper

We were invited to celebrate my beautiful niece's first birthday last Saturday.  Unfortunately, we didn't have a scrap of child appropriate wrapping paper in the house.  We did, however, have a bolt of plain butcher paper and lots of crayons.  Both very useful items to have around. Am I right?

First thing in the morning (which ought to explain what they are wearing), I taped a large piece of paper to the floor and let Jellybean and Buddy go nuts.  If you don't have any wrapping paper, just make some.

Buddy was certain she'd like the ABCs as well as an "Icy Monster." Apparently, that is a monster that is mean to people.

The "Icy Monster" looks pretty mean.

Buddy writes out the ABCs every chance he gets.

Jellybean, just let's the creativity flow. She's a big fan of orange, but I tried to convinced her to branch out a bit.

No, Mama. I don't want to use another color.

A fun time was had, wrapping paper was created and it turned out kind of cute to boot.  I think I'll have them color all of our wrapping paper from here on out.

 Have a Happy Day!

~MJ


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My Favorite

When D and I had been dating a while we started saying the phrase, "you're my favorite," to each other. We said it a lot, even sending messages to each other that stated: To My Favorite. When we became a family, I started having to qualify that statement.  Buddy is my favorite little Big boy. Jellybean is my favorite little girl. I guess you can't play favorites anymore when you're the Mom.
So, now I have my three very favorite people.  I feel so overwhelmed and amazingly blessed by these three people in my life.

Notice Jellybean starting to smile with her mouth full of chocolate milk.

I'm almost at a loss to describe that feeling I get when I look at that picture. I'm just so full of joy knowing that they are mine. If I had to describe what my "Happy Song" is, that would be it.

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ