Fun with food

Both of these things were inspired by things I read on the AlwaysLearning list.

Someone posted this link, and it looked like something Taipan and Taisim would enjoy, so tonight we made them.

They joined me to poke the spaghetti through the hot dog pieces, and Taipan had the idea to put a few pieces of hot dog on one piece of spaghetti:



This was me getting creative - it looked sort of spidery when it was cooked:


Here's our finished product. I put it out with some toothpicks, and we grazed on them this evening. Taipan ended up liking the pasta best, and ate the spaghetti off the hot dogs, so we ended up with a bunch of hot dog pieces at the end ... he likes hot dogs with ketchup, but just wasn't in the mood for them tonight, so I offered to make him more pasta by itself, which he took me up on.


These pictures are from last night, and I didn't realize we did two fun food things in a row until I was starting this blog post. Some folks on the AlwaysLearning list were talking about Pajama Sam being available on the Wii and how much their kids liked it. I was curious and read up on it, and thought it sounded like something we would like, and we got it the other day. One of the mini-games is called "Cheese and Crackers", where you play tic-tac-toe and connect four and connect five, and one side uses cheese and the other crackers.

Last night Taipan said he wanted to play cheese and crackers for real, so we cut up some cheese, got some crackers, drew boards and played a few rounds. Simi liked putting pieces all over the board, while Taipan was focused on getting 3, 4 or 5 in a row. It was also a yummy snack afterwards.

Easter morning

We woke up on Sunday, and Taipan immediately remembered that it was Easter, and couldn't wait to get going on the egg hunt.

First, though, Easter baskets:



Checking out the eggs after the hunt, and putting them in egg plates (I'm so hoping we have warm enough weather for an outdoor egg hunt one of these years):


And then bunny cake (which my mom says we did have as kids, so I just don't remember it). Taisim was wanting to eat it the night before, but I really wanted to wait until Easter to dig in, so as soon as our egg hunt was over we had cake. Taisim wanted part of the ear, and Taipan wanted the pink bow.

Upside down and tulips

Two more from Saturday ....

we read some books when we woke up on Saturday - about five books, in sequence about four or five times. One of them was Silly Sally and a couple were Sandra Boynton books.

After a while we all tried to walk backwards upside down (like Silly Sally). Taipan and I managed to do the backwards part, and Taisim managed to do the upside down part.

She's been doing this upside down on the couch and ottomans multiple times a day since Saturday:



I love fresh flowers, but don't have them often - the cost and the cat are mostly why. But on Saturday night at the grocery store Taisim and I dedcided to get some tulips. I love having them around. Taipan likes them too, and it's been fun watching them open up.

Bunny cake

My mom used to make bunny cakes at Easter. I don't remember them from when I was a kid, but I remember having them around when I was an adult, so I don't know if I just don't remember, or if she didn't start it until we were adults. In any case, I was telling the kids about Grammy's bunny cake, and we decided to make one.

They requested that it look like Louise on Max & Ruby, so we made a brown bunny, and then they chose pink for the box.

This was late Saturday night, and Taipan was back and forth to the cake, while Taisim was interested in participating in every step:

Egg coloring & pillow making

We colored eggs the Thursday before Easter so that the whole family could be a part of it - Yuta worked Friday and Saturday.

This year the kids were very much into having their OWN eggs and keeping track of which ones they did, so we were careful to keep everything separated. After we finished coloring we put the eggs in the fridge, and on both Friday and Saturday they checked in on their eggs and brought them out to look at them.

Both of them said repeatedly, "I can't wait for the easter egg hunt!"





After we did our eggs I decided to tackle a fairly quick project - making pillows! Taipan asked a few weeks ago for me to make something out of fabric. He didn't really know what, and neither did I since I'm not terribly crafty (yet). I wanted it to be something cuddly - pillow, stuffed animal, etc. So a good friend agreed to go to Joann's with me and help me find supplies.

I ended up buying fleece and stuffing, and made them fleece pillow that don't require any sewing - just tying strips of fabric to create seams. The kids love them - they couldn't wait for me to finish.

Here are the finished products:



I'd originally planned to make them both rainbows with different color backing, but Taisim said she wanted hers to be all pink. I did hers first, and asked Taipan if he wanted it that size or smaller and he said "Bigger!!", so his is a nice floor pillow size. It could use a bit more stuffing, but it's nice for lounging.

And that dress that Taisim is wearing is the Easter dress that Yuta's mom gave her. She loves it - she got it on Wednesday night, and wore it off and on throughout Thurs, Fri, and Sat.

Neighborhood walk on 3/18

I just came across these pictures, and had forgotten about them.

They're from a walk that the kids and I went on almost a month ago now. It was a bit of a chilly day, and Taisim wanted to be in the stroller with a blanket while Taipan and I walked. We just did a quick walk around the block. But about two houses down from us Taipan ran up to a tree, gave it a hug, and said, "Look Mom! I'm a tree hugger". That's the first picture. The second picture is him taking a quick break on a bench down the street from us.