Sharing Saturday 14-33

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week and to all who took the time to visit all the amazing ideas shared. We did not have a most clicked, so this week I am featuring some new painting ideas, back to school and first day of school ideas as well as a few of my favorites.

Painting Features

1) From P Is for Preschooler: Magnet Painting

2) From Inspired Montessori and Arts at Dundee Montessori: Doily Prints

First Day of School and Back to School Features

1) From Little Bins for Little Hands: Early Learning Play Ideas

2) From Planet Smarty Pants: Back to School for Gifted Learners

3) From Krafts and Kiddos: Back to School Printable

4) From Lou Lou Girls: The First Day of School Celebration

5) From Living Montessori Now: 100+ Back-to-School Celebration Ideas

A Few of My Favorite Features

1) From Crystal's Tiny Treasures: First Nations Activities for Kids

2) From In the Playroom: Tissue Paper Butterfly Craft

3) From Mosswood Connections: Cooking Play Date

4) From Growing Book by Book: Environmental Print Billboards

5) From Two Keck Girls: DIY Pom Pom Rug

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog. 

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From Your Hostess: This week Hazel had full day camp and I did not post much since we were not crafting much. We shared our book for Virtual Book Club for Kids, Quiet in the Garden by Aliki, our mermaid tail for dolls tutorial and pattern, and an easy doll spa wrap from a washcloth.

Now for This Week's Party 


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Explore Different Cultures with Food Using this Cookbook

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

With the Covid cases rising more than it has for any real travel, it is time to explore the world and cultures from home. Today's book will help you and your family do just that. It is Katie Chin's Global Family Cookbook by Katie Chin.

Summer Fun: Activities & Crafts for Beginning Campers

For a very long time Hazel has really wanted to go camping. She has seen various television characters go camping and has heard about it from her friends. Now I grew up camping with my family, but Steve did not. I own a very small tent, but have always camped with people who know how to camp better than I do, so I do not have much confidence. We have promised to take her at some point, but in the mean time I made her a tent and campfire for her doll and then we tried some beginner activities. 

Fairy Tales in Different Cultures--Fair, Brown & Trembling

Well with St. Patrick's Day approaching we have been thinking Irish lately. So I thought this week we would share one of the Irish Cinderellas. We will explore the second one next Sunday since the Virtual Book Club for Kids will be on Monday (and Sunday is St. Patrick's Day). This week we will be looking at Fair, Brown and Trembling by Jude Daly. This version seems a bit softer than the versions I have read on-line at Sacred Texts and Authorma. But before we explore the story, let us learn a bit about Ireland.

Japanese Food Ideas: Bento Boxes & Sushi

 

Disclosure: I was sent copies of these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Have you been watching the Olympics? This year is the first time I have really watched in a long time. I love watching the women's gymnastics but always hated how it was shown so late. I love the live streaming videos that I can watch any time. With the Summer Games in Tokyo and where spectators are not allowed, I thought it was the perfect time to explore Tokyo and Japan. Today I'm going to share some cookbooks to bring home a bit of the Japanese culture with food and it is food your kids may enjoy! These books are also perfect for getting ready for school lunches, parties and more! We will start with Ultimate Bento by Marc Matsumoto and Maki Ogawa. 

Embroidered Woodland Creatures -- a Crafty Weekends Review & Link Party

Disclosure: Sterling Publishing sent me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

We had the pleasure of celebrating Thanksgiving a little early with my family this weekend. After a week of substituting in the kindergarten class at Hazel's school, I needed a good break. Therefore, I have not completed any crafts this week, however I want to share this fun embroidery book with you. This book takes me back to my childhood. I remember my mother having a huge book of iron on embroider patterns. We would get to go through it and pick a picture to try as we learned various stitches and more. It was so much fun and I want to share this experience with Hazel. Today I share Embroidered Woodland Creatures by Aimee Ray. 

Happy Family Times--Family Dinner

Have you done anything fun with your family? Kelly at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I are collecting different family activities in hopes to inspire all of us to have more quality family time. Please share below and check out both mine and Kelly's stories for the week!

Growing up my family ate dinner as a family in the dining room. We used our good china and good silver every night (well Monday through Friday). Their belief was always if we have it we should use it and enjoy it. The only thing that was not used regularly were the Waterford Crystal glasses (my grandparents brought back from Ireland) and some other fancy glasses that were all hand wash only. My mother also would say if we ever were robbed she would be most upset about losing the silver since it had our teeth marks in it from when we were teething.

It was at these family dinners that we (my sisters and I) learned our table manners. I still remember my father's reaction to my sister's elbows on the table. I learned fast not to do that even by mistake. It was also where we heard about each other's day and what was planned for the next one. Now I had a parent at home with me until I entered third grade. (My father was in construction, so when there was no work he was the one home. Yes, I was one of the only kids growing up that had my father chaperone class trips.) When both parents were working as I was in third grade our chore system started. This included cooking dinner once a week (Monday through Friday). The weekends were a bit a free for all and it depended on who was around. So yes, my father and I learned to cook together when I was in third grade.

Our dining room set (at my birthday party)

I think this is why having a dining room set and good china was important to me when I got married. We bought our dining room set right before we got married and considered it our wedding gift to one another. Our china was on our registry. Well actually it was our second set of china. One of my friends who had lost her husband and daughter gave me her china set that she bought from a retiring couple when she was on her honeymoon. She said she never used it and had no one else to give it to.

The china my friend gave me

This beautiful china is hand wash only, so we do not use it very often. I knew I wanted some every day china to use like my family had growing up. So we also picked a Lenox pattern to have something we could throw in the dishwasher.  Of course, it became discontinued (as did everything we registered for) just before the wedding. We picked it knowing we would want it to have blue and pink flowers to match the first one.

Our Lenox Dishes

Our set also had matching silverware or I should say stainless steel flatware. We got those as well. Whatever we hadn't gotten but wanted we bought from our registry since it was being discontinued. So recently we started eating in the dining room with our good china. We started doing it  a few weeks ago, but stopped when Hazel got sick. So Saturday we started again with our Michaelmas celebration.

For our Michaelmas meal, I made Harvest Apple Soup. I followed the recipe from How Sweet It Is for the most part, but made a few changes. I used closer to two cups of pumpkin since our small pumpkin from my father's garden gave me two cups. I also tasted it while it was cooking and thought it needed a little something more so I added some cinnamon and nutmeg. Hazel and I loved it. Steve (who doesn't like pumpkin) did not.

Then we made our huckabuck bread. We used the recipe that the teachers used in our parent/child class last year. This time I used my Kitchen Aid to make it and knead it. It came out wonderfully. I shaped it as a dragon and used the rest to make small sword rolls.

 Then for dessert instead of the traditional blackberry dessert we had a raspberry tarte. It was in our freezer from awhile ago. We also don't really like blackberries so I figured raspberries were close enough.

Overall, it was a lovely dinner. We have continued to have dinner in the dining room. Steve and I were talking tonight about how it is more relaxing. Plus I can already tell we are teaching Hazel more table manners. Everything is more formal when you are in the dining room versus the kitchen.

Where do you eat your dinner?

Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

~ please link up (family time oriented giveaways are ok, but please no Etsy shops)
~just crafts will be deleted since this is to share family times ~ use our button so others can join the fun

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~ we'd love for you to follow us Crafty Moms Share and Happy Whimsical Hearts
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Ok, now for our PARTY!! Please share your FUN Family Times!!

Sharing Saturday 14-5

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week!! We had some amazing ideas shared. I hope you have had time to go check some out. We had a tie for most clicked.

This is 52

 

This past week I turned 52. Fifty-two is not one of the benchmark years. I turned 50 in the summer of 2020. It was when we were afraid to be indoors with too many people and were still wearing masks often. Yet it was one of my best birthdays ever. My sister came for the day and she and Hazel made a delicious meal topped off with a homemade birthday cake. They did all the planning, the shopping, the cooking and the cleaning. They even decorated our patio for the party. Yes, we ate outside. My sister works with newborns and their moms in a hospital setting and has taken being cautious to a new level. She wore her mask whenever she was in our house. It was truly the perfect birthday for me because I didn't have to do anything. It was small, intimate and simple. It certainly wasn't the ball my girlfriend went to for one of her friends who turned 50 this year. My girlfriend and many guests caught Covid from the ball. My girlfriend who is a nurse on a Covid unit in a local hospital. My girlfriend whose kids got Covid last summer and her oldest was truly sick for weeks. He could barely move off the couch, and she didn't get it. But she went to a 50th birthday ball and got it. No, my 50th was simple and fun and perfect and best of all we didn't get sick from the celebration!

Exploring Vietnam

 

Disclosure: I was sent copies of these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

May is Asian/Pacific Islander-American Heritage Month. Last May I focused on Japan and I thought this year I might try to do that with Vietnam, but as I looked at my resources this year I decided I would do one post on Vietnam and posts about other Asian and Pacific Island countries. Today we will focus on Vietnam and I will share two books--a cookbook and a picture dictionary. At the end I will share a round-up of some activities and books on the topic of Vietnam and the culture.

Baking and Cooking

When I was in college I loved making banana bread. I made it all the time when I lived in off-campus in an apartment. I used a recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book similar to this one. I had a different version of the cook book then and the newer version changed their recipe some. But the truth is I changed their recipe as well. I like my banana bread to be moist and not dry, so I always add more milk. I decided to use up some bananas today and Hazel and I made some. I changed the recipe to make it healthier as well.

Mashing the Bananas

Hazel is a good banana masher as well as a pretty good mixer. She also loves adding the ingredients.

Mixing the dry ingredients

Beating the eggs

The completed batter

Banana Bread

Your Recipe

4PointsPlus Value

Prep time:  30 min

Cook time:  60 min

Serves: 16

Ingredients

	3 large banana(s), over ripe and mashed
	1 1/2 cup(s) whole wheat flour
	2 tsp baking powder
	1/2 tsp baking soda
	1/3 cup(s) sugar
	1 tsp ground cinnamon
	1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
	1 pinch ground cloves
	1/4 cup(s) ground flax seed meal
	1/2 cup(s) uncooked rolled oats
	1/3 cup(s) lard and vegetable oil shortening
	1 cup(s) fat-free skim milk
	2 large egg(s)
	1/4 cup(s) chopped walnuts

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350. Mix dry ingredients. Mash bananas and set aside. Beat eggs, then mix in shortening and milk. Then add banana. Add liquid to dry ingredients. Mix well. Stir in walnuts. Pour into a sprayed bread pan and back for 1 hour. Let cool 10 minutes in pan and then let cool on rack. 

The consensus between Hazel, myself and our babysitter is that it came out great. We each had a few pieces. I think there is some left for Steve, but he worked late tonight. I don't know if he found it when he got home since I was leaving when he came home.

Then for dinner we put some chicken in the slow cooker. Since we had our usual Wednesday babysitter here, I didn't want to spend too much time cooking when I could be doing something else. We changed the salsa chicken recipe I have seen in cook books and heard at WW meetings. I wanted it a little more well balanced. I will serve this with rice tonight. Oh, and my chicken was frozen. Hopefully it cooks in time.

Hazel helped with this as well. I didn't let her touch the chicken, but she loved adding the vegetables, salsa and canned goods. And of course turning it on. Sorry I didn't take any pictures of this.

Salsa & Vegetable Chicken

Your Recipe

5PointsPlus Value

Serves: 6

Ingredients

	6 item(s) cooked boneless, skinless chicken breast(s)
	1 cup(s) fat free salsa
	2 cup(s) canned diced tomatoes
	1/2 package(s) frozen mixed vegetables
	1 1/2 cup(s) canned black beans

Instructions

• Mix all ingredients into slow cooker. Cook on low for 4 hours or if chicken breasts are frozen cook on high for an hour and low for 4 hours.

Again, we all liked it. This Steve did tell me was good as well. So it got four thumbs up. We had it with rice but you could also serve it in a taco shell or tortilla. My little kitchen helper loves to help prepare all meals. Of course her favorite thing is to chop the vegetables now that I got her a cutting board and chopper. We seem to be eating a lot of zucchini now that she is chopping since it is easy for her to cut. Unfortunately, it is not one of our favorite vegetables here, but we are learning to love it.

How do you let your kids help you in the kitchen?

Places I sometimes share.

Flamingo Friday: Birthday Party Part 2: Food & More!

Last week I shared the first part of our Flamingo Birthday Party for Hazel's fifth birthday. That post was more about the decorations and activities as well as what we did on her actual birthday. Today I am going to share the food we had and one other extra for the party I did. 
First our menu:
Appetizers
Chips and Salsa mixed with Sour Cream (it turns pinkish) and plain salsa
Vegetables and Dip (in particular carrots)
Shrimp
Edible Arrangement of Fruit

Lunch
Ginger Carrot Soup
Sandwiches (make your own ordered platters from grocery store)
Strawberry Avocado Spinach Salad with Raspberry Balsamic Vingarette

Dessert
Strawberry Birthday Cake
Pink Flamingo Rice Krispie Treats

Beverages
Pink Flamingo Punch
Spiced Warm Cranberry Apple Cider
Coffee
Bottled Water with diy labels

The appetizers were fairly easy. For the salsa mixed with sour cream, I did two parts salsa to one part sour cream. My goal was to make it pinkish. I bought a pre-cut vegetable platter that came with ranch dip, but added more vegetables and divided it all into two plates. I also found a red pepper dip that was pink, so we served that as well. My mother brought the shrimp and prepared them (Steve and I do not eat shrimp) and my mother-in-law brought the fruit. I was going to use my flamingo cookie cutter and cut out some flamingo watermelon to add to it, but the watermelon looked awful at the store the day of the party, so we skipped it. I made signs for all the food. The most intriguing ones were the shrimp and carrot items. This also gave me a way to mark the salad with the nuts. Shrimp is what turns flamingos pink and carrots have the same beta carotene (it makes the carrots orange).

For the ginger carrot soup, I combined recipes I found at Fine Cooking and Simply Recipes. I tripled the recipe and used 3 pounds of carrots. I liked the Roasted Carrot Soup recipe since it also had celery in it. I thought the portions were better in the other one. I used vegetable broth so it would be a vegetarian option. My mother is now eating vegetarian mostly, so I wanted her to have options. It turned out fine, but was not the best ginger carrot soup I have ever had. The main meal I order a deli platter and roll platters from the grocery store that is five minutes from our house. The Rite Aid is next door and the manager always gives Hazel balloons for her party as a gift. It makes it all easy to pick up and much easier to put together. Then I adapted the recipe I found on Closet Cooking for the salad. I liked that it has avocado in it. I did not put the bacon in and since I do not like blue cheese, I used goat cheese. My mother helped me make the salad. I had made the dressing the day before using frozen raspberries.

Hazel and I had big plans to make pink rice krispie treats. We used brown krisped rice instead of the Kellogg's brand. I added some red food coloring to the melted marshmallows. Then we let it sit while we went out. Then I tried to cut the flamingos out of them with the cookie cutter. I put pink frosting (which I bought) on them and pink sugar to make them sparkle. Since Hazel was sick (she has been since Christmas night), I did this by myself. I also made the cake myself even though she talked about making it with me all year.

For the cake, I adapted the recipe I found on  Confections of a Foodie Bride. Since we used the same recipe last year, I knew how it turned out. I roughly doubled the strawberry puree used in the cake. I also added some red food coloring since Hazel wanted the cake to be pink like a flamingo. I made it into a 9" by 11" sheet cake so it could be the water the flamingo (lollipops) live on. I used store bought blue frosting and then used a sparkle frosting gel to write on it. Hazel shares her birthday with a good friend of ours and she wanted her name on the cake as well to honor her. Then I used the flamingo lollipops I got from Oriental Trading to finish our cake. 

For our beverages, I peeled the labels of a pack of 24 water bottles and printed out my own with something about Hazel's party and flamingos on it. For the pink flamingo punch, I was inspired by the recipe I found on Kathryn's Kloset. When I went to buy pink lemonade I found strawberry lemonade that was bright pink and used that. The punch was a huge hit and was finished at the party. I left the short plastic cups for the punch but also had tall thin ones for the kids to use with the flamingo straws and had the covered ones with straws (Hefty Zoo Pals) for the younger kids. For the Spiced Cranberry Apple Cider I used the recipe I found at Betty Crocker to cook it in my slow cooker. I did not look at it carefully and did not get whole allspice. I used about a teaspoon of ground though. It was delicious!! Steve or his mother made the coffee. Since I don't drink it, I don't make it well.

The final personal touches were Flamingo Trivia at the various tables and in the bathroom. (You can get a copy without the Hazel line on it.) Then I took some of our leftover wedding favors (votive candles in glass holders) and replaced the wedding stickers with flamingo birthday stickers. I wrapped them in pink tulle and tied a pink feather to them. I left them on a table in Hazel's bedroom where we were putting coats with a sign telling people to take one when they got their coats to leave.

For more ideas for flamingo parties, check out my Pinterest Board! For more on flamingos (books, crafts and info) check out all of our Flamingo Fridays!

Christmas in Hawaii -- Hawaii Challenge -- Christmas in Different Lands

As part of the Multicultural Kids Blog's annual Christmas in Different Lands Series, we are taking a look at Christmas in Hawaii. I figured since we are participating in our Hawaii Challenge we might as well find out what Christmas is like on the islands.

Decorations and Gift Crafts & More from Oriental Trading -- a Crafty Weekends Review & Link Party

Disclosure: Oriental Trading sent me these items in exchange for this review. All opinions are my own. 

Are you getting ready for Thanksgiving this week? Have you started to look towards Christmas? We have gone a bit Christmas crazy here and have been loving it. Today we are going to share some crafts and other things that are great for gifts and Christmas decor. All of it came from Oriental Trading and their amazing Christmas items. Earlier this month we shared crafts and items that focus on the nativity. Today's are more non-secular. Hazel LOVES Peanuts right now so several of them will be Peanuts themed including this fun Peanuts® Christmas Wreath Craft Kit. 

Exploring Navajo Nation or Dine Nation -- Global Learning for Kids & Multicultural Mathematics

Last week we shared some books we used to explore a bit about Arizona from Massachusetts. I even shared some of the pictures my family took in Arizona on our trip across the country when I was young. While flipping through the pictures I noticed pictures labeled near the Navajo Monument and thought it would be fun to learn more about Navajo Nation. I remember fondly stopping to look at the beautiful jewelry made by the Navajo and getting to pick out a bracelet. I wore that bracelet all the time until it broke. So we went off to find some books about the Navajo.

Baking with Hazel again

So on Saturday morning Hazel had it in her mind that we were going to bake muffins. She came up with this idea Friday night. I slept in (Thank You Steve!!), which was wonderful and Steve had already fed her some breakfast. But she was determined, so I pulled out a cookbook. We did not have overripe bananas this time, so we decided on pumpkin blueberry muffins.

I adapted the recipe from C is for Cooking: Recipes from the Street by Susan McQuillan, RD. It is a cookbook I bought awhile ago for Hazel when we were letting her watch a bit more television and she was so into Elmo. She still loves all the characters and loves the cookbook. The recipes are relatively healthy and very easy. They also mark the parts they consider kid friendly to do.

My Little Baker with Ducky Watching

Pumpkin Blueberry Muffins
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1 egg
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup non-fat plain Greek yogurt
1 cup uncooked oatmeal
1 cup blueberries (or you could use 1/2 cup of raisins or dried cranberries)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line or grease 18 muffin cups
2. In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and ginger.
3. In a different small bowl, have child crack egg and take out any shells (if there are any). Then beat egg with a fork.
4. In a large bowl stir together sugar and oil. Then add egg, pumpkin, and yogurt and mix until blended.
5. Stir in the flour mixture and oatmeal.
6. Gently stir in blueberries (or raisins or dried cranberries).
7. Distribute batter into the muffin pans filling each to about 2/3.
8. Bake for about 25 minutes. Cool on rack slightly and serve warm. Store in an air tight container for up to 3 days.

Yesterday I had a busy day. Do you ever notice how your child seems to grow out of her clothes all of a sudden. Well that happened to us. So I went out yesterday after church to buy Hazel the next size of clothes (which all seem big now). Then I went to tutor, but before I left I got another call about tutoring and planned that one for a few hours afterwards due to the student's work schedule. I tutor about 45 minutes away from home so I try to get them all done at once. Well with two hours to kill, I decided to go shopping. On my way to Target to see about more clothes for Hazel, I saw a fabric store I had been meaning to check out for my mom. Needless to say I spent an hour wandering around and came home with three fabrics. I did show some control since I only bought three. After that I decided I would go to Starbucks and read my book.

Magnolia Flowers from kit from the Paper Source (my first ever purchase there)

Well then I remembered the Paper Source and they were still open. Do you know the Paper Source? It is a great store. They have an on-line store as well at http://www.paper-source.com/. I never order on-line but I love wandering around and looking at all the great craft things. They are basically a great store for any paper craft and stationary. They have beautiful kits for paper flowers (see above) and wreaths as well as ones for kids. It is really a fun store. Well, I found some great scrapbook paper to make some of the wonderful crafts I have seen on this week's Sharing Saturday (there are already over 145 entries and they keep coming).

The crafts are from the crafting fiend: Toddler Valentine Craft

and It's Overflowing: Simple Valentine's Day Craft

They are pretty similar. I think I will cut double the hearts and have Hazel do one while I do one.

My Purchase at the Paper Source last night

Isn't that heart paper perfect? All I have to do is cut them out. Plus I have the stencil to make other sizes. Then the needle felting flower kit was on sale--half price and the clothespins were so cute. I thought I might use them with something from a couple weeks ago Sharing Saturday.

From Desire Empire: Pretty Artwork for a Little Girl's Room. Won't they be perfect?

Well I'm so excited to be able to share my purchases with you. I was so excited to buy them and wanted to share them with someone who would appreciate them. Somehow I didn't think Steve or Hazel really would.

Hope you have a great day!! Happy Monday!