Thursday, February 14, 2013

Happy Valentine's Day! (Little Boy Love Letters)

I ❤ U.
XOXO

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

DIY Edible Chocolate Play Dough Gift (Special Preschool Age Activity and Treat in One!)

This year I decided at the last minute on February 2 that we would actually celebrate Groundhog's Day with some activities this year. Yeah, I'm kind of random like that. So (among other things that maybe I'll talk about another time) I mixed up some chocolate edible play dough on a whim, and we made chocolate groundhogs. They were tasty.

The boys loved the play dough so much and they have been asking for it ever since. So I decided one of their Valentine's presents would be edible chocolate play dough and M&M's to decorate their creations with. This activity is great because it is so easily customizable for any holiday. You could also challenge a young child to make certain shapes or an older child to make letters and spell words out of the play dough to make it more educational.

Whether you need a last minute Valentine for your kids, an activity and treat in one for any other holiday, or just something to do on a rainy day, I think this will be a hit.

Homemade Edible Chocolate Play Dough Recipe

  • 1 cup peanut butter (you could probably substitute sun butter for those with allergies, but I haven't tried)
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 cup powdered milk or oat flour (I used homemade oat flour and it worked great)
  • 2 Tbsp cocoa powder (of course you can just leave it out for a non-chocolate version)
In a mixing bowl stir and knead all ingredients until well combined to form a soft dough. If it turns out too dry, you can add more peanut butter or milk (if you are going to use it very soon) one tablespoon at a time.

Store in an airtight container. And since I made it ahead of time,  just to be safe I am keeping it in the refrigerator until I give it to them in two days.

I am packaging it up with some M&M's which are a huge treat at our house. I think any colored candy or even dried fruits and nuts could work well though.











DIY Oat Flour

This is so simple that this may be my shortest post ever. This isn't even really a recipe, but it uses basically the same process as making powdered sugar at home.

Homemade Oat Flour

  • Rolled oats or oatmeal

Place rolled oats or oatmeal in the blender and blend until finely ground. This homemade oat flour has worked well for me in pancakes, muffins, cake and bread. I haven't tried it yet in a recipe that uses 100% oat flour, but I don't generally make recipes that call for that. I love adding this whole grain flour into recipes for some variety now.


Sunday, February 10, 2013

DIY Chinese Potstickers

Traditionally, Chinese Dumplings (jiao zi) are eaten at Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) time because the shape resembled ancient money and they are thought to bring prosperity to the household. We just think they are tasty. Jiao zi prepared any way (boiled, steamed, fried, and deep fried) are probably one of our most favorite Chinese foods. My boys helped me make these this time and they were super excited to help cook one of their favorite foods.

I have talked about how to make the actual dumplings before and then how to boil them. More recently I learned how to pan fry these same dumplings the traditional way to make what is called here either jiān jiǎo, 煎餃 (meaning oily but dry fried) or guō tiē, 鍋貼 (literally pot-stick) and is known in North America by the name potstickers. This is probably our most favorite way to eat them because the bottom is fried crispy, but there is only a small amount of oil and the top is steamed soft and chewy.

Homemade Potstickers

  • Premade dumplings homemade or purchased
  • Oil
  • Water
  • A wok (chǎo guō, 炒锅  which literally means fry pan- so why do we call them woks?) with lid
  1. Put a small amount of oil (you can use any amount from 2 Tbsp up to just covering the bottom of the pan that you want, but keep in mind these are called potstickers for a reason).
  2. Place on stove and begin to heat.
  3. Add dumplings in a single layer and begin to heat.
  4. Now very carefully, the oil may spit and splutter and you don't want oil burns,  add water (3/4 cup is enough if your filling meat is precooked use up to 2 cups if the meat is raw) to the pan. and put the lid on.
  5. Cook until the water evaporates and then the jiao zi should be done. Eat with vinegar, soy sauce, and/or hot chili sauce for dipping.

 
Make dumplings
Dumplings prepared by my 4 1/2-year-old, pretty good!
Add oil

Place dumplings in single layer


Very carefully add water
Place lid

And they're done!



Saturday, February 9, 2013

Chinese New Year Preschool Craft: Firecracker Decorations

Chinese New Year (which is actually called Spring Festival in China) festivities are underway here. Today is "New Year's Eve" and the actual Lunisolar New Year Day is tomorrow. This will start the official two weeks of the festival, but really people have been celebrating for at least a week and there are generally festivities for a month or more surrounding the holiday.

During this time there are lots of firecrackers and fireworks going off all over, even in cities where they are less prevalent in general. Today we've heard a lot more than usual and tomorrow night will probably be the biggest firework day of the year (if I remember right from last year).

Updated February 10th:
We learned later that we were kind of confused on the dates. The actual New Year's day this year was February 10, but the festival starts New Year's Eve, so people refer to this as the start of the holiday. So anyway, the biggest firework day is the New Year's Eve night into the New Year's Day. Last night/this morning there was definitely a huge amount of fireworks at midnight. I think we figured out our confusion on this subject now on to other cultural mysteries.)

In addition to lighting off fireworks, firecracker decorations like this one are all over as well. A few days ago we made this simple hanging firework decoration. We don't in any way believe we need real or decorative fireworks to scare away bad luck or vampires, but I thought this would be a good way to explain to our boys that some people here do believe that. That is why they buy and use those things, and why we don't. (Besides the strong focus of visiting with family, the big emphasis of this holiday is good luck for the New Year, and pretty much everything surrounding this holiday has to do with either inviting good luck or keeping bad luck away, so we can't really do anything related to Spring festival without addressing it.)

We also got a lot of tracing practice writing the Chinese characters for firecracker (biānpào, 鞭炮) on each firecracker. If you didn't want to write the characters you could just decorate the red paper with black and/or gold designs as well.

Street-side cart of firecracker and other decorations

Spring Festival Firework Decorations


  • Red scrapbook or construction paper (I cut up a red gift bag with a swirly design that had torn a little, but any sturdy red paper would work)
  • Pencils, pens, markers, or even glitter glue pens
  • Scissors
  • Stapler and staples (or tape could work)
  • String to hang
  1. Cut small rectangles of red paper (mine were about 3x5 inches).
  2. If you want you can write the Chinese character for firecracker (biānpào, 鞭炮) one each piece of paper and have your child trace over it. Or you could have an older child try to write it on their own. Or you can skip the character and just make designs in black or gold.
  3. Curl each piece of paper around to make a small tube and secure with a staple or piece of tape.
  4. Cut some lengths of string and attach on to each tube.
  5. Tie the tubes together at varying heights and hang. 
 If you want you can practice saying, biānpào. The pow sound with the strong falling tone almost sounds like a firecracker, which helps me remember it. :)










Friday, February 8, 2013

Alexander at 4 Months

Another month has passed quickly and Alexander is 4 months old. Growing quickly he is now 16 pounds 10 ounces and 27 inches long.

At four months:
  • He is starting to grab toys and put them in his mouth.
  • He definitely notices and plays with his hands a lot.
  • He notices and tries to grab his feet often, but he still seems quite surprised that they are there the next time he sees them.
  • He loves when his brothers talk and read to him and play nearby him.
  • He loves attention! He even like diaper changes and baths most of the time because someone is paying attention just to him. :)
  • He is still doing fine on just a milk diet, but is very interested in food. He has really liked the few licks of apple and pear he has had.









Thursday, February 7, 2013

DIY Paper Heart Wreath (Valentine's Decoration and Preschool Craft in One!)

Much like our paper heart garland, this is another pretty Valentine's decoration that I adapted from a picture perfect version to make it into a preschool activity for my two boys (4 1/2 and 3 years old).

We also don't have any scrapbook paper and I didn't want to waste printer ink on this project, so I came up with a different way to make the decorative paper. This added another element that small kids can do easily as well.

Homemade Paper Heart Wreath






  • Paper
  • Markers, crayons, or colored pencils in Valentine's colors of your choice
  • Stamps and ink pad (you could use stickers or something else to decorate the other side as well)
  • Hole punch and string (Or some other way to fasten the hearts together like glue, tape, or even staples)
  • Tape and or a straw to make a needle for the string (optional)

    1. First we decorated our paper. We stamped Valentine related stamps on one side and scribbled a lot of reds and pinks on the other.





    2. Then I cut the strips, about 2 inches by about 14 inches, and folded the strips in half. I folded half of the strips with the stamp side out and the other half with the scribble side out.

    3. I punched two sets of holes at the top and middle. Later I discovered I needed another set of holes at the bottom to stabilize the wreath.
    4. Then we strung them together. First we curled the top ends around so the outsides went in and touched each other forming a heart.
    5. Then starting at one side sew through the heart, looping it through both the middle holes to secure the top of the heart together, and then out the other side. Sew through all of the holes on one side of the heart this way and then go back through the other side. Then sew through the holes at the bottom of the heart.








    6. Tie ends of string together and make a loop to hang.







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