Fun In the Sun Toddler-Style

‘Twas a lovely, warm afternoon, with sunshine, light breeze, and low humidity. A perfect day to play outside in the water. The day began with a thunderstorm, though, so we didn’t set up the pool. Instead, we tried out the new “kidwash” sprinkler that Greg put together the other day.

It’s just simple construction using ¾” PVC pipe, a couple of tees and a couple of 90° elbows. To connect the garden hose, we used a $6 connector with a valve so we can turn the water off at the hose. This means we can adjust the flow from a dribble to a hard jet, and so we don’t have to run around to the back yard and shut it off at the hydrant.

I’d seen this idea posted somewhere online last summer, and had bookmarked it, but I lost all of my saved blog inspiration, hundreds of recipes, and all of my “favorites” when my old laptop died last winter. I was happy to come across a photo of a kidwash on Pinterest, which led me to some easy instructions.

Our sprinkler just has holes drilled instead of the mister jets installed, and is just dry-fitted. If possible, we’d rather not glue it so it can be disassembled for winter storage. There was one time today when one of the feet popped off the leg, but I was able to turn the water off using the valve, and pop it back together, then turn the water back on. Easy peasy.

The kids LOVED it! I have Alan’s girls here this week and it was the perfect time to try it out. Reese wasn’t so keen on getting under the water, but enjoyed playing in it without getting soaked. Taylor and Bradley, on the other hand, had a wet blast.

(Taking a little break from the fun – Taylor has tattoos on her legs and arms, courtesy of Grace. I mention that only because so many people have asked us “what happened to her knee?”.)

If you’re interested in building one of these for yourself and you have any questions about how we did ours, please email me. Greg said it took him all of 10 minutes to cut the pipe and assemble, and it only took that long because he had to heat up the fitting for the hose to soften it before screwing in the valve piece, because the threads didn’t match up. You may not have to worry about that.

Conversation from the Back Seat

Taylor (4 years old – in the back seat of the car as I’m driving): “When I grow up I’m going to have lots of good babies.”

Me: “You are?”

T: “Yes. All of my babies will be good. I’m not going to have any naughty babies.”

Me (trying not to LOL): “How many babies do you plan to have?”

T: “Lots and lots and lots – a hundred! Or more than that – I can’t even count that high!”

Me: “That is a LOT of babies. Who is going to change all of those diapers?”

T: “Oh. Hundreds of babies will be a lot of work.”

Me: “Yes. That would be a lot of work. And lots of diapers. And you have to feed them.”

T: “Well, I guess my daddy will have to stay home and help me.”

Hear that Alan? You’re going to be a stay-at-home grandpa and help care for your hundreds of good grandchildren. Good thing you work out! :o)

 

The Box I Built

What does a chop saw, a skilsaw, a drill press, and a nail gun all have in common? They’re all power tools I learned to use last weekend when I built this:

A few weeks ago I read about a challenge to build an old-fashioned toolbox on Funky Junk Interiors. The blog author had a guest post a tutorial with directions and possible dimensions. I showed it to Greg and he was more than happy to help me put this together.

Unfortunately we didn’t have any old wood to use, but there was some leftover pine from a couple of woodworking projects Greg’s been working on. He found enough pieces to put the toolbox together. I kind of pounded on them and sanded a bit of the paint off, and scratched it a little. The handle is just a plain wooden dowel.

So it took just about an hour for me to get through all of the measuring, cutting, sanding, and nailing. (Less time than it’s taking me to write this blog post…)

True confession: I’m pretty scared of power tools with sharp blades, so the chop saw was not my favorite thing. You know what I did like? The drill press and the nail gun! I did really well with the Forstner bit on the drill press, cutting out the circular hole for the handle. And that nail gun? Pow-er-ful! I coulda nailed stuff all day long!

So what will I do with my new creation? There are so many possibilities! I love it with the geraniums:

And we can use it for picnics for napkins and utensils:

Or use it to take a sweet little picnic out to the fire pit for a relaxing and romantic at-home date:

Anybody want one for Christmas? Cuz I wanna make some more!

Fun in the high-clouds-overcast-Sun

It was a busy day with Randy’s kids here. I invited them to come finish a project they’d started many weeks ago for their garden. Besides that, we had a picnic lunch in the living room, played Wii, and ran through the sprinkler.

It’s already summertime hot here, temps in the 90’s the first week of June. UGH! While I’m not a hot weather lover, there are certain fun things you can do when the mercury gets up there that you cannot comfortably do in the other seasons. One of those things is good, old-fashioned, running through the sprinkler.

We put it in the yard on the back side of the house and they had a blast. I love watching them develop their own little games and then cooperate and share and take turns. These three will be best friends their whole lives.

(I wish the video was a little longer, but I ran out of memory on my SD card.)

They had a good time experimenting with the different settings on the sprinkler, then, as you saw in the video, they would hold their faces in the spray as long as they could.

They played out here for about half an hour, then it was time to get changed and head to town.

I guess if we have to have it hot outside, we may as well have a little fun and get a little wet - “we” being “them” of course.

Gettin’ the Mojo Back

True confession time: I’ve been a slug. Spending too much time on the computer (have you heard of Pinterest?!), or watching TV, not sleeping well, being exhausted by running after the baby and overwhelmed by everything that I need/want to do around here. Oh, and the clouds and rain and gloom have sucked the energy out of every day.

Fact is, I don’t have Bradley here as often now and there is plenty of time to get things done. I’ve had a couple of nights of good sleep, the weather is beautiful, and the flowers are blooming in my garden. (Don’t you love the photo above? It’s my clematis that is growing on the back deck. It has never bloomed this early before, nor with such big flowers. That one is bigger than my hand.)

I have an online friend whose motto is “If you do stuff, stuff gets done.”

It is time for me to get busy.

There are a few projects in the works and I cannot wait to show you what I did last weekend! I’ll post it on Saturday, but will give you a hint – it involved power tools. And I did not lose a digit!

Off to work…

 

"One day, an Autobot shall rise from our ranks and use the power of the Matrix to light our darkest hour." Optimus Prime

If you know my family at all, you understand that my son, Nick, is a fiercely independent young man. He lives alone, works two jobs, and protectively guards his free time. After his recent hospitalization, though, it didn’t take much to persuade him to spend a few day at our house. He needed some time to adjust to some new things in his daily routine, and I was happy to “baby” him a little. He doesn’t allow me to do that very often…

One of the changes he has to make is to carry medical supplies with him at all times. We joked about a “man-bag” or “satchel”. He really doesn’t need anything that large, so I looked around the house, but didn’t find anything that worked. Nanny had a small shaving bag, but he vetoed that idea, insisting he’d find something himself.

I think he already had plans to use this:

When I met up with him on Monday morning for his follow-up doctor visit, this is what he was carrying when he got out of his car.

I love it!

I don’t know why I was surprised, it fits his well-hidden sense of humor perfectly. His original Transformers lunchbox, circa late 1980’s (he has the original Thermos container for it, too), works perfectly for the assorted things that must be kept with him.

His new diagnosis is not his “darkest hour” but I liked the quote used for the title of this post as a way to say Nick still has his sense of humor and, I think, takes some comfort in this childhood keepsake. Perhaps it’s also a way to integrate this new facet of his life into the old. Accept it and move on without over-thinking things. That’s the way Nick is.

Winner, Winner, Tuscan Garlic Chicken Dinner

I came across this recipe several days ago while blog-hopping. Any recipe with the words “Tuscan” and “garlic” will immediately grab my attention. In reading through the ingredient list and preparation steps, there were a couple of ingredients I didn’t have, and one I knew I couldn’t use if I wanted Greg to eat it, so there was a little tweaking going on as supper was prepared a few days ago.

I knew he’d never eat cooked spinach – I’ve asked a few times when wanting to make something like this. So that part was out. Instead, I steamed some frozen asparagus as a side dish.

I also wasn’t about to give the appendage required to purchase a red bell pepper at the grocery store last week, so that got left out. When pepper prices come down, or I have my own from the garden, I’ll make this again, because the red pepper would have been really good here.

Here is the original recipe, with my changes in blue.

Tuscan Garlic Chicken

(www.thefarmgirlrecipes.blogspot.com)

3/4 c. all-purpose flour

1/2 T. salt

1 t. pepper

1/2 t. dried basil (I used Italian seasoning)

1/2 t. dried oregano

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

5 T. extra virgin olive oil, divided

1 T. finely minced garlic, 4-5 cloves

1 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips or chopped (left out)

1/2 c. low-sodium chicken broth

6 oz. fresh spinach (omitted)

1/2 c. heavy cream

2 t. cornstarch

1 c. milk

1 c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 pound fettuccine (or whatever pasta you have on hand) (whole grain angel hair)

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a shallow pie plate, combine the flour, salt, pepper, basil and oregano. Dip each chicken piece in the flour mixture until both sides are well coated.  (note: if your chicken is quite thick, butterfly them so they are thinner)

2.  In a large 12-inch nonstick skillet, heat 3 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat until the oil is hot and shimmering. Carefully place the chicken breasts in the pan, cooking them for 2-3 minutes on each side, until they are golden and browned but not cooked all the way through, they will finish up cooking in the oven. (note: don’t move the chicken around once you lay it in the hot oil! Let the oil work it’s magic to sear the crust on the chicken. If you get all antsy and try flipping too early and/or moving the chicken around the pan, the breading will likely fall off) Gently remove the chicken to a foil-lined, lightly greased baking sheet and bake in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through. Set aside and tent with foil until ready to use.

3.  While the chicken is cooking, heat a large pot of water to a boil and add the noodles, cooking until al dente. Also, wipe out the skillet with a couple paper towels and return it to medium heat, adding the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and bell pepper, sauteing for 2-3 minutes.

4.  Stir in one tablespoon flour and stir constantly while cooking for another minute. Add the chicken broth to the skillet and bring the mixture to a low simmer, whisking constantly, until slightly thickened, about 3-4 minutes. In a small liquid measure, whisk together the cornstarch and cream, and milk. Add the spinach, milk and cream mixture to the skillet. Bring the mixture to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the spinach is wilted and sauce is slightly thickened, about 2-4 minutes. Stir in the Parmesan cheese.

5.  When the pasta has finished cooking, drain and return it to the pot. Toss the pasta with half of the cheese sauce. Place some of the coated pasta on each plate. Top with a breaded chicken breast and spoon some of the sauce over the top of the chicken and pasta. Serve immediately.  Enjoy!

This was really, really good. The chicken is tender and flavorful, the sauce is garlicky and smooth. I use angel hair pasta for dishes like this – I like the delicate texture.

New from Old

Good Monday Morning! I’ve so enjoyed having Greg home for this long weekend. He took Friday off from his job which gave him a four-day weekend. We’ve completed a few tasks and had some fun as well as some good family time.

Ah, but that is not what I want to tell you about today. Besides being  Memorial Day, it is “Make Do & Mend Monday” where my friend Heidi encourages us to make-over, re-cover, re-invent, re-purpose things we have around our homes to make them useful and/or beautiful again. I have a few of these types of projects in the works around here, but my first was relatively quick and simple.

A few years ago I was gifted an old iron crib that belonged to my grandparents. It was used for awhile as a daybed/display area in the master bedroom, but it really took up more space than we liked, so I disassembled it recently. I’ll make use of all of the pieces, but one of the sides has become something completely new.

Here it is, standing on end. Do you see what I see? It would be a great place to hang more towels in the bathroom!

There is little storage in this tiny bathroom, and while I would like to put in a cabinet for towel storage, it just would crowd the room more. There is also a “regular” towel rack on the wall, but it doesn’t hold all of the towels I want to store in that bathroom.

As you can see in this next photo, the ends of this piece have a small “loop” and you would think that would make it easy to mount on the wall:

The problem is that it is turned the wrong way to hang flush. I considered using several options, and decided to just put hooks in the wall and hang it from the frame instead.  Those yellow arrows are pointing out the hooks that I hung it on.

You can’t even see them. I think this is the smartest way to hang it, too, since once the towels are hanging there, it is heavy.

I really like the way it looks!

Incidentally, those hankies in the frames next to the crib piece, belonged to the same grandmother. I love having little pieces of her in my home.

If you click on the link above or the Make Do button, you’ll go to Cranberry Chronicles where Heidi has listed more Make Do & Mend participants in the right-hand column. I “know” all of these ladies and they are all resourceful and talented in using what they have to make their homes cozy and welcoming. Go see what they’ve done and then take a look around your own home. What can you make new again?

Rainy Day Play

One of Bradley’s favorite activities is to play in anything he can scoop and pour and stir. I’ve talked before about making colored rice and how much he enjoys playing in it. I’ve always set him up at the table in his booster seat and given him a cookie sheet as a play area. The other day, I put an old tablecloth on the floor and set out the rice and various “tools” there instead. This became a combination small/large muscle activity as he played and crawled around the tablecloth.

Yes, I still vacuumed up some of the rice, but it wasn’t bad. It’s pretty easy for him to help clean up the rice that ended up on the tablecloth.

Here’s a little video of him playing. As usual, I talk to him as he plays, describing what he’s doing, always working on those language skills.

I love the look on his face at about 1:36 when I’m talking about him taking the lid off and putting it back on the spice bottle. Like he’s humoring me that he’s done something neat and unexpected.

Veggie Nuggets

I know I mentioned in a previous post that I was going to try to sneak some veggies into Nick’s diet, and these would be a great way to do that, if I could convince him to eat them. I’m afraid they’re a bit too obviously veggie.

Oh, but they are delicious! You can find the actual recipe here.

I used some fresh broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, and a little onion for the veggies. I had homemade bread crumbs made from toasted garlic bread, but not enough quantity, so ran some Panko through the food processor to make up the difference.

First I ran the veggies through the food processor, then sautéed them in batches for just a few minutes in a tiny bit of olive oil.

 

After sautéing, they went into a bowl to cool momentarily before adding the crumbs, eggs, and shredded cheddar cheese. There was a good quantity of vegetables, and after two eggs the mixture was still a little bit dry, so I added a third before shaping them into large-ish nuggets. I got an entire sheet cake pan full of them. You can make them smaller if you like.

After baking, Brad had one for lunch. He liked it, but once Jess gave him some Ranch to dip it in, he devoured it!

There are so many variations to try – zucchini and yellow squash, shredded carrots and peas, green peppers/onion/mushroom. You can vary the cheese, too, for a different spin.

These were bagged up after cooling completely and put in the freezer. They warm easily in the microwave or toaster oven. They’re really handy to have in the freezer for a quick lunch side dish or a snack for the little man. Or his mama.

She’s eaten as many as he has.

Hot Wheels

Last summer Jess found a big box of Hot Wheels tracks and cars at a garage sale and called me right away to see if I wanted it. I was thinking the Wyatt and Garett would enjoy it, and they have.

Bradley has loved Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars since he was big enough to recognize that they’re cars. He plays with them every time he’s here and has his own collection at home. The other day when he and Jess were here visiting, he brought out the box of tracks, and Jess set it up for him.

 

She figured out a simple oval track for him to play on, and is fitting in the battery-operated “booster” thing that shoots the cars down the track. He likes to bring that out to the living room and we shoot the little cars all over. :o)

It wasn’t long before Grampy came in and joined the fun. Jess happily gave over the track duties to him. After a little sorting and revamping there was a loop so the cars would shoot around and go upside down. Bradley loved that!

 

What fun to watch them playing cars together. Somewhere in the car collection is one that Grampy played with when he was a boy, as well as some that belonged to Uncle Nick. I love that Bradley is able to play with their old toys!

“Food That Doesn’t Suck”

There is a recent situation in our family that dictates a bit more thought about our menu and method of cooking. Our son was diagnosed with diabetes over the weekend, and while he has no diet restrictions, there are guidelines for what and how much he eats so his insulin level and blood sugars stay balanced. Because he was so incredibly ill when he got to the hospital, he got low-sodium meals, which, let me tell you, DO suck. His discharge papers listed “no diet restrictions”, so this mama has been trying to fill him up with delicious food that follows the diet guidelines he was given. I don’t usually cook for him on a day-to-day basis, but he’s staying here for a few days as he adjusts to the new parts of his daily routine. 

The title for this post comes from his comment about his supper last night, his first meal outside of the hospital in four days. When asked how it was, he said, “This food doesn’t suck!”

Tonight’s supper was one we discussed in the hospital and he’s been looking forward to for a couple of days. My boy (well, he’s 27 years old, but he’s still my “boy”) is not a veggie lover. That’s really an understatement – he’s a veggie hater. I will confess here, because he does not read this blog, that I intend to try to sneak some new-to-him vegetables into the food I make for him. We’ll see how that goes…

Anyway, back to supper tonight. He hates veggies, but will eat peppers and onions. Think, fajitas. Fajitas are delicious, but I wanted to do something a little different. So we planned chicken kabobs.

Really simple – pieces of green bell pepper, chunks of onion, and cubes of boneless, skinless chicken breast – all marinated in fat free Italian dressing. I added pieces of portabella mushroom to Greg’s and my kabobs, too. A few minutes on the grill and we had a simple, tasty, nutritious meal that didn’t suck.

“Sleeping In”

Tomorrow morning the alarm will go off, and it will only go off once at 6:00. NOT at 4 a.m., then again at 6. ONLY at 6! Yea!

After three years and seven months of getting up at 4:00 every weekday morning, I resigned and finished up my last early morning on Friday. I’m so excited!

This was an easy job and I so very much enjoyed the people I got to know. What a blessing it is that I was able to work just part time and then spend the days with my grandson. But I’m tired. Exhausted. Fatigued. It’s time to catch up on some sleep.

For the moment I’ll watch Bradley when Jess needs me (she’s between jobs and is going back to school – yea!) and then when our second grandboy arrives in late July, they’ll both be here as needed. That’s all I know so far about what I’ll be doing for the next several weeks.

Oh, and Spring cleaning. And painting. And gardening. And sleeping in.

“Sprinter”"

We got much more than the 1-2" of snow that was forecast last night.  One of Jessi's FB friends posted "Welcome to Sprinter".  The perfect moniker for this time of year and the reason that March is my least favorite month...

This photo is what greeted me out my back door this morning. It is very wet snow and I drove to work through many inches of slushy, icky-ness that wanted to suck me off the side of the road.

Pretty? Yes.

Fun? Notsomuch.

There is another inch forecast for overnight tonight, then more next week. In the overall scheme of what's going on in the world, I cannot complain about a Spring snow. I am blessed to have a warm home, abundant food, reliable vehicle, and the means with which to fill it with fuel.

I also will not complain when it’s gone and we’re enjoying sunshine and 70°!

Scenes from the Back Seat

There are some days when Bradley is none too fond of going into the car seat, and even less so when the straps get buckled and snapped into place.

See? He’s loud, too. Makes it tough to drive while trying to soothe the tantrum with songs or stories. The other day a light bulb went off and I dug my digital camera out of my purse. I keep a small, inexpensive one tucked away in case I need a quick photo.

Bradley was ecstatic when I turned it on and handed it back to him. He giggled and chattered and our drive to town became instantly a thousand times more pleasant. Happened again today. I think we’ve hit on the lucky charm for the moment to have that car seat be not such a horror.

Here are a few things Brad saw through the camera lens from the back seat:

Yep, the back of Grammy’s seat and a little bit of her hair. Whoo. No wonder he’s not excited about being back there!

A self-portrait of the bottom half of his face. I think watching the flash was the fun thing here.

Gotta love the ceiling. Look! There’s a light! And a handle so Grammy can get all the way up into the car when she has to get into the back seat!

Ooooh. A finger.

Can’t forget to look down! Gotta love the tennies!

Now don’t be horrified that I gave a digital camera to a toddler. It’s a really inexpensive one and the entertainment value for him is priceless!

Are We Blue? Oh, Yeah!

A few years ago Greg had to go to Newton, Iowa for several days for work. During his time there he visited the Maytag Dairy Farms store and was able to sample several kinds of cheese. He brought home a few samples for us, not the least of which was the blue cheese.

Maytag Blue Cheese is made from homogenized cow’s milk as opposed to the usual sheep’s milk. You can read about the process here. It is sharp and pungent, and so flavorful.

Along with the cheese sample, Greg also brought home a handout from the store with recipes for using their product. I glanced at them, then tucked the handout into my recipe binder and left it for “someday”. In the meantime, we used the blue cheese to top grilled steaks, to sprinkle into salads, and sliced with a drizzle of honey to go with our wine. And it was good – really good. Then on Food Network there was a chef using wedges of iceberg lettuce with blue cheese dressing as their salad course and I thought that looked pretty tasty.

About that same time I went through the recipe binders and came across the old handout. I happened to have a small wedge of Maytag Blue Cheese in the frig, so on Saturday I picked up a head of lettuce, then that afternoon, handed the paper to Greg and told him to choose which of the three recipes for blue cheese dressing he wanted me to make. I think he must’ve chosen the best one because it is thick and rich and tastes just like what you get at Chances R and PK’s. YUM!

Here you go, straight from Maytag Dairy Farms:

“Maytag Blue Cheese Dressing”

Place in mixing bowl:

1 C sour cream (I actually used part light sour cream and part homemade yogurt)

½ tsp. dry mustard

½ tsp. black pepper (fresh ground would be best)

scant 1/3 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

Blend two minutes at low speed (I used a hand mixer). Add 1 1/3 C mayonnaise (NOT SALAD DRESSING); blend 30 seconds at low speed to mix, then blend two minutes at medium speed. Crumble 8 ounces Maytag Blue Cheese; add half to blended mixture; blend well at low speed. Add rest of crumbles, stir in by hand. Refrigerate 24 hours before using. Yield: 3 Cups

Since my wedge of cheese was only 4 ounces, I halved this recipe. We went ahead and ate some of this about an hour and a half after I made it, and it was good. We ate some tonight, 24 hours later, and it was amazing! It had thickened up noticeably and the flavor was much stronger.

Okay, now that I showed you how delicious it looks, and given you the recipe, I’ll give you the bad news. Maytag Blue Cheese is expen$ive and it’s not easy to find. Every now and then our local WalMart has the foil wrapped wedges. Usually we pick it up when we’re at a HyVee in either Lincoln or Grand Island. It is not something I usually have in the frig, rather a splurge for every once in awhile. I was looking forward to grilling steaks in the near future, so that’s why I had picked up a 4 oz. wedge a couple of weeks ago.

We’re having a big family spaghetti dinner next weekend with all of my siblings and most of our kids. I plan to offer a big bowl of salad to go along with the pasta, and with the salad, we’ll be having homemade blue cheese dressing. Yeah, we’ll use Maytag, this one time. Cuz I love ‘em and want to share the deliciousness.

Now to find a homemade Ranch recipe we love…

Entertainment for The Boy

Everyone knows that the key to keeping a toddler (or child or teen) out of trouble is to keep them busy. If you don’t provide constructive activities, they’ll find something themselves to occupy their time – and it’s not always desirable…

I just want to share a few things we’ve been up to lately to keep Bradley occupied for a few minutes here and there while I do housework:

First, the old stand-by where you  build a tent from a card table and a (rather raggedy, but I love it) blanket. We piled sofa pillows inside and snuggled up to watch Dinosaur Train for a few minutes. He would lay his head on the pillow and fake-snore, then giggle. :o)

Now this activity might not be for everyone, because, yes, we did vacuum quite a lot of this dyed rice off the floor, but let me tell you, he LOVES this. I used a two pound bag of plain white rice, liquid food coloring, rubbing alcohol, and white vinegar. You just mix either 1/2 cup rubbing alcohol or vinegar with the food coloring and the rice. I let the rice sit in the dye mixture for several hours, until it had soaked up most of the liquid. Then I let it dry on paper towels overnight before storing in jars. You can see I also left a bit of it white.

Of course, by the time we cleaned up and put it away, the colors were all mixed up and now we have a jar of beautiful rainbow rice. That’s okay – he’s more into the whole scooping and dumping and pouring thing right now. I will confess that he tried one bite of the rice and promptly spit it out. Didn’t try that again.

These are stickers made into magnets to use on the magnetic whiteboard that hangs on the wall between the kitchen and dining room. We have whiteboard crayons, too, so we drew an ocean and beach for the fish and sea-life to play in. (Fortunately, Bradley doesn’t mind my rudimentary artwork…)

The stickers are part of a package from Dollar General that were priced at just $1. They’re plastic and kind of “bubbly” and have held up well to Bradley’s carrying them around and wanting to bend them. I stuck them to black scrapbook cardstock, cut them out, then stuck them onto a sheet magnet and cut them out again. Lots of cutting, but that’s what made them sturdy. He says “fish”, and when I ask which is the crab, and which is the turtle, he knows those, too. The seahorse is a bit difficult, because he knows what a horse is, and this doesn’t look like one! :o)

So these things help keep him busy and me sane. Totally worth any effort to put them together. There are lots more fun things to come as he grows!

He Knows Alot About That!

Today is Dr. Seuss’s birthday. When I taught preschool we used to have green eggs and ham for either breakfast or lunch. Many of the kids thought this was wonderful, but every single year there was at least one child who would not eat those green eggs!

I never much got into Dr. Seuss until Nick was learning to read and Nanny had the book “Hop on Pop”. He enjoyed having that book read to him, then it was the first one he read by himself. And he truly read it, instead of just reciting the words from memory. His journey to reading was on a bumpy road, one I shan’t travel down again to explain here, so when he read that book, I was ecstatic. I became an instant fan of Dr. S.! Jess also had regular access to that book when she was learning to read, and it was the first one for her to read alone, too.

On to preschool where we used Dr. Seuss to learn about rhyming and the beginning sounds of words. I often recommended his books to parents and took them along when I made home visits.

Now, Bradley has discovered “The Cat in the Hat” cartoon on PBS and he just loves “Cat”. I don’t think he really grasps what they’re talking about in the episodes, but he loves Martin Short’s voice (as The Cat) and the “thingamajigger”, and the music. One day a couple of weeks ago, we were sorting toys and rearranging things in the playroom when we found a little stuffed toy of The Cat. He was thrilled and carried it around all day, sleeping with it for nap, and taking it home with him that evening. Jess said he plays with it all the time at their house.

One thing he was frustrated with was that the hat didn’t come off the toy. In the cartoon, Cat takes off his hat and finds all sorts of interesting things inside. :o)  I knew Bradley needed his own Cat in the Hat hat, so on Monday I dug out my box of felt to make him one. There was a huge piece of nice red felt, but only scrap pieces of white, so those had to be patched together to make the stripes. I followed this easy tutorial and it took a couple of hours, just because I had to keep stopping and take care of Brad. If he hadn’t been here, my bet is it would have taken under an hour.

He knew what I was making and was happy to keep trying it on as I put it together. When it was finished, he was thrilled!

Yes, the living room is a mess in this photo – that’s what happens when I try to work on projects while Bradley is here. He trashes the place. Oh well, it cleans up. (And yes, that is a Barbie on the floor. He loves her. Don’t judge.)

When Greg got home, he made him try on the hat. Sorry, no photo was allowed. Greg didn’t love it as much as Brad did, but he’ll do anything for that boy. :o)

I’m happy to give tribute to the wise Dr. S. and his funny rhyming books, green eggs and ham, and The Cat in the Hat. They’ve entertained many a child in my life and that’s given me extremely good memories.

Only TEN Months Til Christmas!

Yep, I’m gonna come back here on the 25th of every month this year and poke you in the ribs so you don’t forget how long we have until Christmas. Heehee.

Admittedly, I didn’t work on much this month, and finished this project only yesterday. I did the cross-stitching many, many years ago, stitched the names last year, and finally have finished these into stocking ornaments.

All I did to finish them was sew on a backing fabric around the outline of the stocking, leaving the top open, then turned them right side out. The do need to be ironed, but I don’t want to drag out the iron while Brad’s here.

I must confess that we didn’t even have Max and Tucker when I stitched these stockings. I was going to make several and use them to hold our flatware on a Christmas tablescape. I should know better – I really don’t like to stitch the same pattern more than once. I’m glad to have one less unfinished project in my cross-stitch box, and the kittie boys will be glad to have a little treat tucked inside them on Christmas morning!

Scrap Art

There is a small box of paper scraps in the den that I’ve been meaning to throw away for some time now. It gets moved around and I found it this morning tucked behind the treadmill. I’m glad now that I didn’t get around to tossing it. Bradley will make good use of those teensy and odd-shaped pieces.

Yesterday he stuck little pieces to contact paper, collage-style:

I cut a piece of clear contact paper and just set it on the table. It works better if you can tape it down, and blue painter’s tape is on my shopping list. Then I took the scrap pieces and just tore a pile of smaller pieces for him to choose from. Eventually he’ll tear the pieces himself. This time the activity was more about picking them up and sticking them down. I kept using the word “sticky” in reference to the contact paper – always working on that vocabulary.

When he decided his masterpiece was finished, we stuck it on the whiteboard for display. He likes to rub his hands over it.

We’re going to have so much fun making art together!