Paper Flowers and Pumpkin Blueberry Pancakes

Monday morning Hazel and I made a few paper flowers to decorate our kitchen table. We made some of the handprint Easter lilies you see everywhere lately, but I first saw at Family Fun and some daffodils that I made up.

The lilies are very easy. You trace and cut out a handprint on white paper or cardstock. (We used construction paper.) Curl the fingers around a pencil. Then curve the hand around a green straw and tape it together. Fold half of a yellow pipe cleaner in half and bend the ends and stick into the straw. Then add a double leaf with a hole punched through it.

The daffodils are fairly easy as well. Design a three petal shape and cute two out of yellow paper (or white if you want white daffodils) and punch holes in the center of them. Then cut a strip about 2-3 inches wide and use scallop edged scissors if you have them or fringe it. If you want to add color to the strip you can. (We used Hazel dot markers just to give the edge a bit of color.) Put the sets of petals through a green pipe cleaner and bend the end so they stay on. Make sure they are open and not completely overlapping (you can use a little glue to keep them this way). Glue the strip into a ring and then glue in the center of the petals.

I then stuck them in a vase with a little bit of blue crumpled paper/Easter grass. They look beautiful with our Easter egg table cloth.

This morning we made pancakes. Hazel has been asking to make pancakes for a few days. We finally had the time this morning. She wanted to make pumpkin pancakes. I pulled out my old standby cookbook. It was a birthday present from a friend at my sixth birthday. Needless to say it is well used.

I of course modified the recipe.

Pumpkin Blueberry Pancakes  

2PointsPlus Value Per Pancake (Weight Watcher PointsPlus) 

Makes: 10-12 pancakes

Ingredients

	1 cup(s) whole wheat flour
	2 tsp baking powder
	1 tsp ground cinnamon
	1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
	1 cup(s) canned pumpkin
	1 cup(s) fat-free skim milk
	1 Tbsp olive oil
	1 large egg(s)
	1 cup(s) unsweetened frozen (or fresh) blueberries

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Mix pumpkin, milk, oil, and egg in a different bowl. Then add to dry ingredients and mix well. Then stir in blueberries.

Heat pan and spray with a cooking spray. When warm enough, spoon small amounts of the batter onto pan. When first side has had time to cook flip with spatula. Cook all the way through and remove and serve. Repeat until batter is gone.

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A Morning at Drumlin Farm

Today Hazel and I started a class at Drumlin Farm. Drumlin Farm is a full operating farm run by the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Our class is called Spring Sense-Sations. It is about using your senses around the farm and seeing what senses the animals use. Last year Hazel and I took a course that was for two-year-olds to introduce them to spring at the farm. Hazel was completely afraid of the animals if we got too close. We will see what happens this year.

He greeted us all when we came to the Turkey House

Our class started in the Turkey House. I don't know why it is called the Turkey House, but it is a building with a classroom. And we did see turkeys right outside. Our first adventure was finding the Turkey House since we had not been there before. When we arrived there was a table set up with all sorts of natural things--pine needles, leaves, coyote teeth, nettles, apple slices, etc. for the kids to use their senses with. Then the instructor talked about what our five senses are and then she introduced us to our guests for the day--three mice. We observed them in a somewhat naturally set-up habitat. She pointed out the size of their feet to their ears versus ours. At this point we had to make a bathroom run where we saw all the turkeys since we didn't notice them coming in since our main concern was finding the Turkey House.

The females turkeys the male was trying to impress

While on the bathroom run we saw our teachers from last year so Hazel was excited about that. She had been asking if we would see them. She did not want to stay inside too much and wanted to get out to see the animals. Next our teacher showed the kids how to make newspaper explorer hats--well ok, all the moms made the hats for the kids. Hazel didn't want one, but I made one anyway. Then we headed out to see the animals.

We saw the goats and the kids. Then we saw some chickens. Hazel was terrified of the chickens last year but couldn't wait to see them this year.

Then we looked at the lambs and sheep and headed to the pig barn. (Sorry I didn't get a picture of Hattie, the pig.)

Then we headed to the red barn to see Midnight, the pony, but he wasn't there. We saw the cows instead.

Then we walked on the Discovery Trail and saw the cows up close. On the Discovery Field they also had cement type makers with labeled foot prints--rabbit, fox, raccoon, etc. Then we headed over to see if we could spy the rabbit. We did! At least if we picked the kids up we all did. She is a good hider.

At this point the class was over. So Hazel and I went to check out the fox and then back to see all the animals and take pictures for you.

The fox was rather quick and I didn't get a great picture of him. Then we went back to the goats. There are kids laying where their food is suppose to go.

We went into the goat/sheep shed.

On the sheep side there was a ram and we saw a sheep eating.

Outside we found more sheep and lambs.

Then we headed to the chicken house. It took Hazel the entire class (7 weeks or so) last year to be willing to enter the chicken house. This year she couldn't wait to get in there.

Then we said hi to the pig, but I didn't get a great picture since she moved outside and there wasn't a good angle of her. And we headed back to the red barn and this time Midnight was there as well as another sheep that apparently did not get shaven over the weekend during their big wool shearing festival.

They also have a room set up to explore about horses. We discovered based on Hazel's height she is a pony---10 hands tall.

And she tried to ride a horse as well as groom one.

They also had a table of the sheared sheep's wool out for the kids to feel. It had not been treated or anything.

Then we headed up to bird hill to check out the birds--mostly the owls and hawks. They keep some of the "wild" animals--birds, rabbits, foxes, etc. that were injured or born into captivity and got too use to being cared for to be released safely.

Great Horned Owl

Sorry the hawks came out way too blurry to post and by this time Hazel was tired and getting cranky so we headed home, but not without stopping to buy the last dozen eggs from the farm.

Talk about colored eggs. Check out all the different ones in here.

Of course the view I got most while walking through the farm with Hazel was this:

her back! She was so excited to be back there!

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Happy Family Times #2

Thank you to everyone who shared with us their wonderful family experiences last week. If you missed it, go check them out here. Or visit our Pinterest Board for Happy Family Times where we pin some of our favorites. I know I find it so inspiring to see how we are all spending our quality time with those we love most.

Quick Knitted Bunny

Awhile ago I pinned this pattern on my Easter Pinterest Board. The pattern is from Mochimochi Land and is free. I made a few minor changes. I didn't have fingerweight yarn and couldn't find my small needles, so I used worset weight and number 5 needles. I also made the ears a bit longer. I also pulled a bit of the stuffing to be the tail. Without the ears and eyes the pattern would also make a nice Easter egg (especially with the right yarn).  That will be my next attempt.

It was really quick and easy to knit up. I did it in about an hour (once I found what I was going to use and sat down and did it). I'm going to put it in Hazel's Easter basket. I better make it a few friends though.

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Happy Monday!! Hope you will join us tomorrow for Happy Family Times and share what you have been enjoying with your family! And Sharing Saturday is open through Wednesday!! Stop by to share or check out the amazing links that have already been shared!! I hope you have a great day!!

Kids Valentine Swap

You may remember I put together a Valentine Swap for kids back around Valentine's Day. I was waiting for all the Valentines to arrive, but if they haven't arrived by now, they are not going to.

We had seven children participate in the Kids' Valentine Swap. One from England, one from Australia, and the other 5 from the United States: Massachusetts, Nevada (2 here), California, and Texas. There ages ranged from two to ten.

Here is a map to show you where they all came from.



To participate you needed to send a homemade Valentine to each of the other six children and a postcard of something from the area where you live.

From Massachusetts

From England

Two from Nevada

From Australia

From California

I know Hazel loved getting the mail and it was a lot of fun to see different crafts and different parts of the world through post cards.

Happy Palm Sunday, Everyone!!

Sharing Saturday #13

It is hard to believe that Palm Sunday is this week. All the Easter and spring crafts seem to be everywhere on line including at our Sharing Saturday from last week. Thank you to everyone who linked up. We are very sorry for all the technical problems that Linky Tools had last weekend. Now they are all set and there shouldn't be a problem this week.

Spring and Easter Crafts

This week we have been busy making Easter egg crafts and some spring crafts. We got a few ideas from Family Fun. The first is a paper mache egg diorama made to look like the sugar ones. I bought some water bomb balloons so they would be more egg shaped than the round ones. We used their recipe for paste and did our best to get three layers one. Hazel had a few issues but it was not too bad. The hardest thing was finding things to go inside the eggs.

This is messy, so make sure you put the newspaper down! They also can drip while drying, so leave it there for the first bit. The nice part of the flour water paste is that it cleans up fairly easily. This is a simple paper mache of dipping the tissue paper into the homemade paste and smoothing it onto a balloon. Some are smoother than others, but when making with a three-year-old we are not looking for perfection.

After they have completely dried you pop the balloon and cut a hole. Then you fill it with some Easter grass and a figurine. You can also decorate the outside around the hole, but you have to make more paste for this. Then glue a bow on top and glue a jar lid to the bottom to get it to stand.

The next craft we also got from Family Fun. We got to use our water balloons and I made the homemade paste again instead of the glue mixture and we invaded my yarn supply.

Hazel had more difficulty with these. She did not quite get the idea of wrapping the yarn. She wanted to apply it in bunches which did not stick and she also got a lot of the paste on it so it showed (this is the one downfall of using the paste and not the glue mixture). She decided to make all red ones because Chrysanthemum (formerly Ducky) wanted them red. She also experimented with putting the balloon in the paste instead of the glue. It didn't work but she kept trying.

The general idea of these are to dip the yarn in the paste/glue and wrap around the balloons. You let them dry and then pop the balloons and have a beautiful yarn egg.

I decided to use the ones we made to decorate the dining room. I hung them from the chandelier (which is high enough so the cats can't play with them).

I also made Hazel some flower fairies. I found this package of flower bath petals or something like that in the clearance section at Michaels for 45 cents.

Having recently seen Marie's of Softearth World post on Thumbellina, I bought them with that in mind. So I pulled out some peg dolls and made them into fairies to match the blue flowers.

Hazel also painted some wooden butterflies that I bought at the Dollar Tree. I then glued one ribbons for her to hang them on her tree.

We have been a little behind on switching her tree to spring so these will help.

Ok, that catches you up on all of our crafting this week. What have you been up to? I hope you will come back and share at Sharing Saturday! And if you have any family time related posts please come share at Happy Family Times each Tuesday.

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