A shoebox jewellery castle

I have mixed feelings about crafts. 

I love it when they keep my kids busy, but I am easily flustered by the mess that ensues.  And as a bit of a neat-freak, I am certainly not a fan of the junk that is often produced. 

As I'm sure many a parent can attest to, there is enough junk accumulating in my house as it is.  So when a craft project produces something to control the clutter, instead of contributing to it, I'm all in!

We have a subscription to a Disney princess magazine, and every time it arrives in the mail, I cringe as my daughter gets all excited about the not-so-easy-
to-make-with-materials-I-don't-usually-have-in-my-house craft that is featured that month.

Fortunately, my daughters recently got excited about a jewellery castle that they saw in a princess craft book.  It looked relatively easy, and it seemed like a good solution to our growing beaded necklace* and kids' jewellery problem.**  Plus, it was a great feeling to actually volunteer to make a craft with them, and then to sit down and help them with it.  A welcome change from my normal groan and 'maybe-on-the-weekend' response I usually give when they ask about a craft project.

*For the record, I think beads and necklace- and bracelet-making are great craft-y activities for kids.  Except for inevitable spillage of beads all over the 
floor.  But that point aside, it keeps even my attention-challenged daughter focused on a task that ends up producing something that serves a purpose.   Of course, we are amassing a large collection of beaded jewellery, but at least it is something that can be worn, put away easily or given as gifts. 

**I also want to note that each daughter does have her own music-box style jewellery box, but as these have been subject to a lot of wear and tear, the figurine is either bent out of shape, broken or missing.  And the boxes aren't quite big enough to contend with our growing collection.

So, for our shoebox jewellery castle project:

• We took some grown-up sized shoe boxes and covered them with card stock or construction paper.  This seemed easier and more time efficient than painting them.
• Empty paper towel and toilet paper rolls were used to make the towers.
• Turrets were made by taking a semi-circle of card stock and gluing the folded cone into place. 
• The favourite part, of course, was decorating with stickers for the windows, and jewels to make it fancy.

The towers, turrets and balconies give lots of places for draping necklaces and bracelets.  But the best part: the big shoe box that can be used to hide and store a vast quantity of rings, bracelets, necklaces, hair accessories, favourite rocks... you name it - all out of sight! 

So while the swathing of necklaces across the turrets can look a little messy, it's a small sacrifice for knowing how much more jewellery is hidden inside!

Kale, a crock-pot and a ukulele

Week one of my challenge and I’d say I faired pretty well. Three for three, actually.

The kale is the challenge to which I feel most accountable. We’ve been getting a bunch of kale each week from our local winter farmer’s market, and knowing that I’ll be getting another bunch each Sunday challenges me to use it up by the end of the week.

 

 On Tuesday, I simply sautéed some kale with mushrooms. It was alright. But nothing special. I know, I know… it’s kale. How exciting can it get? We’re eating it for its nutritional benefits, not its taste.

On the recommendation of another market volunteer, I used up the rest of this week’s ration but chopping it thinly and adding it to our chili con carne. I was also inspired to add some thinly sliced radishes which worked well, but next time I’ll skip the thinly sliced parsnip. As for the kale, it was picked out by the girls, but enjoyed by me.  My husband was a little less convinced and suggested blanching it first.  Maybe.

Using the slow cooker is an amazing dinnertime saviour during the work week. All day long, I pat myself on the back, knowing that dinner is preparing itself at home while I am at the office. I’ve received a few new slow cooker cook books lately, and since my husband professes that all crock-pot meals taste the same, I’ve been both limited to using the crock-pot more than once a week, and challenged to find some good recipes.

This week I chose Chicken with Baby Portobello Stroganoff:

Of course, I adapted the recipe.  I rarely follow a recipe exactly.  I used normal mushrooms instead of portobellos. Chopped fresh onion instead of frozen pearl onions.  And since I couldn’t find cream of onion soup, I used cream of mushroom. Plus, I only had half as many chicken thighs as the recipe required.

But it turned out fine. Tasted decent. Definitely acceptable for a weeknight crock-pot meal. Although, as far as crock-pot meals go, I prefer the ones that require little, if any, last minute preparations before eating. For this recipe, I had to cook the egg noodles, of course, but it also required about 20 minutes of thickening with the flour and butter mixture, and then with the sour cream.

However, the girls mostly ate it. There was some mushroom- and onion-picking out, needless to say.  I ate everything.

Finally.  I did it! I played and practised my ukulele at least twice this week. And it reminded me how much I enjoy it. Enough to make me want to do it more.

And maybe learn some new chords.  I think I'm ready to graduate from "Skip to my Lou" and "You are my sunshine".  

Suggestions for kale and crock pot recipes and ukulele songs welcome.

How can we have a Healthier Halloween ?

When it comes to Halloween, I’m pretty sure what it is that kids enjoy most. When I asked my kids “What’s your favourite thing about Halloween?”, they confirmed my suspicions. “Candy!” was their enthusiastic response.


We all know that the power of candy at Halloween is pretty strong. Case in point: the Halloween when I was 7 months pregnant and my middle daughter was about 18-months-old, she was initially pretty terrified about trick-or-treating. In fact, I seem to remember that she didn’t want to go out at all. But we got her dressed up and out went, her 3-year-old sister leading the way. At first, our toddler was very timid about going up the stairs to our neighbours’ houses, and would only go if I was carrying her. But if I recall correctly, it only took two houses and two handfuls of candy to encourage her to do all the other houses of our route on her own!

The whole concept of Halloween seems a little off to me. I know that it’s lots of fun, but it also seems so greedy and gluttonous. I must have bothered me, at least subconsciously, even when I was a child: I actually remember having dream one year in early November in which all the kids were required to go back to all the houses they had visited on Halloween and give back the treats they received!

And ironically, no one really seems to want all that candy anyway. Well, except the kids, of course, but then the parents don’t want them to have it. So everyone buys oodles of candy to dole out to the trick-or-treaters, and then tries to pawn it off on all the kids and families that come to their door so that they won’t have any left. Then the parents go through the trick-or-treat stash that’s been collected and try to get rid of as much as they can to the late-night kids who come to the door, or take it in to the office the next day. And I confess to immediately throwing out all the toffee, gummy candy and gum.

Which leads me to ask: why do we bother?

And as I try to stress healthy eating to my family, and limit their exposure to sugars and treats, Halloween becomes very tricky indeed.

Fortunately, my daughter’s school teacher is on board. Along with the information about the Halloween class party came the request for healthy treats. While this might require a little more resourcefulness or imagination than sending traditional cookies or cupcakes, I give kudos to the school for putting nutrition ahead of sugar.

A little Internet searching turned up a number of great ideas, including these Healthy Halloween Snacks from Spoonful:

I really like the crudités shaped into a skeleton or cat or witch, but since I won’t there to set it up in her classroom for the party, I can’t see how I can make it work.

 

I also think the frozen banana ghost pops are a great idea, although I’ve read somewhere else about coating them with yogurt instead of chocolate to make them even healthier. But again, I’m not sure how we can manage the frozen treats at a school party.

The jack-o-lantern oranges filled with fruit salad look fantastic too, but I’m a keep-it-simple kind of mom, so we opted for tangerine pumpkin faces drawn on with marker. Plus, my daughter was able to help with this one.

And what about the hand-out for the trick-or-treaters? Having recently read that eating 9 mini chocolate bars equals 875 calories(!), I knew I had to stay away from candy I liked. But I also decided that somehow, I would avoid contributing to the I saw some great ideas for Halloween Candy Alternatives from Canadian Family, and since my daughter is currently obsessed with stickers, sticker books and sticker trading, stickers seemed an obvious choice.

My husband insisted that we also need to give out some sort of food treat. I decided on potato chips. Maybe because I don’t like them too much, I figure that they won’t be consumed 4 to 5 at a time, like chocolate bars. And at least they’re not chockfull of corn syrup and sugar.

I just hope we don’t get egged.

(However, given that Halloween is predicted to be a cold, windy and wet one this year, I think we should be safe from pranks. In fact, I may end up eating little bags of potato chips and filling my daughters’ sticker books for months to come…)

How do you feel about the sugar grab and rush of Halloween? Are you making any changes to make it a little healthier for your kids?

Our Silly Weekend Craft

Like all kids, mine love to pick up and collect all manner of things they find: rocks, twigs, chestnuts, acorns, more rocks, pinecones... Alice, in particular, has an eagle eye for finding the smallest of tiny little beads and sequins.  And Sophie is really good at finding coins.  One day, I hope that these skills might bring us large monetary rewards.

In the meantime, we amass a large collection of junk. 

Mostly, I can convince them that nature should stay outdoors.  But even I can see the appeal of chestnuts and acorns.   Chestnuts in particular, with their odd shapes and glossy, shiny coats.  Sometimes finding a whole spiny green shell waiting to be cracked open to reveal the precious chestnut inside.

And for some reason, I immediately see them as little faces.  And so, I was inspired with this silly weekend craft:

Maybe it's the googly eyes.  Any craft looks great with googly eyes!

I'm sure there will be many more chestnuts over the next few weeks.  And more chestnut people will be made.

Question is, what do we do with all these crafts we make?  Just because it's been transformed from raw junk, isn't it still junk?  How do you manage all of the crafts and creations of your children? 

Homemade Nutella

Who doesn't love Nutella, right?  Lawsuit aside, based on the number of Nutella-based recipes on Pinterest, brand loyalty is pretty strong.  But after reading Michael Pollan's book "In Defence of Food", I started reading labels more.  And although there weren't many words that my grandmother wouldn't recognise on the ingredient list, Nutella seemed to contain too much sugar for me to purchase another jar.

So when I saw this recipe for Chocolate Hazelnut Butter in Chatelaine last winter, I clipped and filed the page (the old-fashioned way) for a weekend project one day.

It's a very simple recipe: hazelnuts, semi-sweet chocolate and honey.  Roast the hazelnuts, melt the chocolate, add the honey and chop, mix, blend it all together.

Except that it didn't really work.  It never got creamy.  Oh, and I didn't have semi-sweet chocolate squares on hand, so I used dark chocolate instead.   I thought it tasted good, but the consistency was wrong, and it wasn't sweet enough for my girls.

It stayed in the fridge for a couple of days, until (as suggested by my sister), I blended it again with some oil.  And I added some maple syrup to try to sweeten it some more.

Much better!  It tasted scrumptious and wholesome on my croissant this morning.  

But the girls still don't like it.  I'll try again.  But next time I'll use semi-sweet chocolate, more honey, and oil right from the start.  They're bound to like it eventually, right?  Maybe after 12 tries...

Let them eat cake!

Last week, Middle turned 4.  She was very excited.  But still quite pragmatic.  On the day before her birthday, when I told her that this was her last day of being 3, she corrected me.  “No, this is my last day of being 3 and a half.”  It’s important that she be as big as she can be.  Maybe I should call her the big-little sister instead.

I really like making birthday cakes.  And as a working mom, I kind of feel that I should really make the effort to make a homemade cake for events as important as my children’s birthdays.  Like I owe it to them.  Maybe it’s also because I’m part of the Martha Stewart generation, and I feel compelled to do things from scratch, even if it causes me some stress.  But mostly, making cakes is fun, and it helps me feel like I’m managing to balance everything without cheating.  Plus, it’s one of those ‘you’re such a mom’ things that I do.

When Oldest turned 1, I made a baby friendly carrot cake from a baby cook book.  I felt quite virtuous about it, but it wasn’t very good.  The next 1^st birthday cake was chocolate, but still homemade.  By baby number three, the number 1 candle was plunked in the middle of a store-bought cake.  When Oldest wanted a princess cake from the grocery store when she turned 5 last September, although I felt a little disappointed, I also obliged without protest.   It might be a little less satisfying for me, but buying a cake is so much easier.

Back to Middle's 4^th birthday cake:  we had been talking about and planning her birthday cake for weeks.  First, she wanted a chocolate cake with pigs on it, like they were playing in the mud.  (Cool, I thought – that could be both easy and fun!)  Then, it was a white cake with flowers around the edges.   (Sounded like a store-bought cake to me.) And for a while, I thought for sure I was going to be making another castle cake.

The first castle cake came when Oldest turned 3.   I did a lot of Google research looking up “how to make a castle cake”.   Some of the cakes I found were beautiful, but also quite elaborate and complicated.  I prefer to go for simple and easy.  So I skipped covering the ice cream cones with chocolate, and stuck to a single layer.  But pink icing, chocolate windows, and marshmallow parapets were very important.  It was obviously a hit because the castle cake returned for the 4^th birthday of Oldest, and the 3^rd birthday of Middle.   I was afraid that I might be making it for Youngest's 2^nd birthday too, but I managed to talk her into a bunny rabbit.

Middle also talked for a while about a doggie cake for her 4^th birthday.  Then, out of the blue, on the day before her party, she decided she wanted a Dora cake.  (Dora?  We hardly even watch Dora.)  I thought this would mean that I would have to surrender to another store-bought cake.  However, when I checked it out, the Dora cake in the grocery store was fancy, but I wasn't sure that our families would appreciate the fluorescent green and orange icing. In the end, it was a homemade cake with Dora cake toppers (thank goodness for the Bulk Barn!).  Definitely no work of art, but Middle was happy.

Love, work and chaos

I made cookies for Valentine's Day for my girls.  Heart-shaped sugar cookies.  Pink, heart-shaped, sugar cookies.  Enough for big sister to take some to school for her class party, and enough for middle and littlest sister to take some to share at the drop-in centre.  Enough that there is a few left at home for the girls to eat later.

I also made heart-shaped toast for Valentine's Day breakfast. 

I love doing these sorts of things for my girls.  My hubby calls it 'being such a mom.'  He means it in an affectionate way, and I'm proud of it too.  I love being a mom.

I love making cut-and-paste Valentines with them.  I love taking them out sledding in the snow.  I love snuggling with them in bed.  I love reading to them (except for Disney princess stories, but that's another post).  I love making play-dough for them.  I love singing to them.  I love dancing with them after dinner.  I love playing with them.  I love listening to them tell stories.  I love colouring with them.  I love hearing them giggle.

But as much as I love being with them, I am comfortable in admitting that being a full-time stay-at-home mom is not for me.  I don't mean to be controversial.  I am fully supportive, and somewhat in awe of those who do it.  But for me, returning to work was about more than just economics.  It was also about my sanity.   I'm really good at looking after my kids, and managing our household.  But while being at home on maternity leave, I learned that I'm not always so good at stepping back to enjoy my children.  It can be hard to break from the housework and the list of all the things I believe need to accomplish, in order to just spend time with my kids. 

So, as terrible as this might sound, spending less time with my children allows me to enjoy them more.  In spite of the dinner to be made, the laundry to be done and the housework that perpetually awaits, I feel as though spending the workdays at the office grants me permission to just relax (a little) when I'm at home.   By allowing myself to let my standards to slide, I can just spend time doing some of the fun mom things that my girls and I love so much.

So let the dinner wait.  I've earned the time to read one more story before starting the spaghetti.  Vacuuming can be put off for another couple of days.  I deserve these moments of love and chaos with my kids.

I love being a (working) mom.