Rainbow socks

I just made these for my little guy!!! Now I am in love with rainbow socks!

All you need is love

Are you like me looking for some cute Valentine's Day project, that you can display somewhere, where everyone can see it? Here is a little tutorial how to make a front door Valentine's Day decoration. 

First cut up some tissue paper into squares.

Then cut a heart out of a cardboard, card stock, or like me out of a cereal box. Draw a heart shape in the middle using a tacky glue. Use pencil with eraser to help you crunch up the tissue paper (place the eraser in the middle of the tissue paper square and twist) and stick it to the glue.

Your kids can help. I had both of them help and they loved crunching the tissue paper. 

First use the white one for the middle, then frame the white heart with the red tissue paper. Of course you can alternate the colors. 

The kids and I decided to add a little twist to our tissue paper heart and we taped streamers to the back of the cereal box heart. 

And now our heart is free to fly around in the wind. 

(I had to tape a skewer to the back so the heart doesn't keep on bending)

Coloring snow

I have decided that we have to go back to our awesome art projects! I did some research and here is the first one I found. Since it's winter (with no snow) we have been doing lots of activities with winter theme. This one uses shaving cream (snow), water, and food coloring. 

I sprayed the shaving cream on top of the water and the boys squeezed the food coloring on top of it

This is what happens (sorry for the blurry picture)

Doesn't the food coloring look beautiful on top of the shaving cream?

They dipped their card stock papers in the shaving cream and I let them have some fun!

Little smudging... But I really think the best is the feel of the shaving cream :-)

We even used the shower squeegee.

And the final product! I love using my light fixture as the drying rack.

I got this awesome idea from a very inspiring blog Chasing cheerios

about life

1. “There is only one success–to be able to spend your life in our own way.” – Christopher Morley
2. “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” – Dr. Seuss

our new homeschool room

With new school year comes a new classroom!!! Today we started our new homeschooling year and we are so excited about it. Both boys tested on kindergarten level, so we will be focusing on a higher level than we originally planned. Tuptus has been reading level 1 books with no problem and he calls (my favorite) BOB books "not-the-real-books". Adi has a great imagination, drawing and building things out of blocks and Legos. I think we are on a great way to a great year.
So take a look at our new place ;-)

We have a limited space only in our basement with very little natural light. We still make it work.

My favorite art corner!!!

Our bulletin board serves as an inspirational corner for the kids. Also to remind them what we are learning about. 

This is where our new giant black board will be. I hope I will have time soon to paint this green wall black all over. 

And this is how it looks now. The kids love it!

some inspiration for today

you can make your own granola

... and here is how!

you will need:

4 cups old fashioned oatmeal
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
1 cup walnuts
half cup brown sugar

MIX THEM ALL

Now you need some liquid ingredients:
3/4 cup coconut oil
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons 100% maple syrup

(There was a lesson about liquid density for my kids. They were absolutely amazed by this. They kept stirring and stirring and it would not mix. They loved it!)

POUR IT OVER THE DRY MIXTURE AND STIR

 Then put the granola onto a baking pen and bake for about at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Pull it out, turn over and bake it for 5 minutes longer.

 Display it in a glass jar for some cute kitchen decoration!

cooking from my garden - shish kabob and organic quinoa

I am back from my vacation, very happy to be home but missing those I love overseas. Being back home means that I am back in my kitchen! And seeing my garden just beaming with life I can't help but pick some crop everyday and try to incorporate it into my menu. Here is our dinner!

If you have your own garden, this is the best time to make a use of it! Here is what I picked:

cherry tomatoes
zucchini
red beats (boiled and peeled)

Then I spiced up some organic chicken thighs. I used:

garlic salt
oregano (my all time favorite spice for grilled chicken)

The kids helped fill up the skewers with the ingredients (which helped them practice pattern as well ;-))

At this point I started to boil the quinoa according to instructions.

I placed the shish kabobs on a grill and after about 4 minutes I rotated them.

Enjoy!

look at the world through your children's eyes

"Mommy!" I heard T calling from his room. It was past his bedtime and I was wondering what he came up with this time.
Everytime I close the door there is at least one thing he requests just to stretch the hour. And like always, I dragged my feet to his room thinking 'now what?' After the whole day I just can't wait to quickly finish cleaning the kitchen and just do whatever I WANT TO DO!
I walked in and saw T sitting in his bed. I can find him there in a complete dark but that's not necessary because there is a night light in his room. He is afraid to sleep in the dark so daddy bought him this beautiful mosaic guarding angel night light that keeps his dreams free of monsters.
"What do you need, honey? It's past your bedtime," I said to him when I kneeled by his bed.
"Please, mommy take the dragon away! It's scary," he said in his soft quiet voice.
I looked around the room, searching for a shadow that looks like a dragon, that's keeping my son awake but I couldn't find it.
"What dragon?" I asked.
"The one that lives in our castle."
I still don't understand what he means. Do we have a dragon living in our house?
"Look mommy, over there," T points his finger towards his wooden castle by the opposite wall.
I look that way and I see his toy dragon just sitting in its usual spot, the castle tower.
"Honey, that's just your dragon toy."
"But mommy it looks very scary. I don't want it there," T says with his whinny voice.
At first I still don't understand what's so scary about this small rubber dragon. I lay down next to T, ready to comfort him. Then I look towards the dragon...
And there it is:

The terrible beast with giant mouth full of sharp teeth and fire. 

And here comes mommy, the knight in shining armour, to save my little prince! 

"Don't worry! I will take care of the beast!" I say as I pick up the dragon from his usual spot and hide him inside the castle. T falls asleep almost immediately. 

This reminded me to look at things through my children's eyes. Sometimes the things they see, don't look the same way we see them. They look at the world with different eyes... and from a different angle. 

xx

Lilac Jelly

Who doesn't enjoy the smell of spring? Right now our lilacs are blooming and it feels like spring festival! I recently read a blog entry about lilacs being edible and actually delicious in muffins and jelly. I looked up the recipe (on this lovely blog www.roscommonacres.com ) and here you go: 

You will need:

4 cups of lilac
4 cups of water
8 cups of sugar
juice from one lemon
and 2 boxes of pectin

After you pick the lilac, separate the blooms from the green part and place into a glass bowl.

 Boil the water, pour over the lilac, and cover it with lid. Let it sit for 24 hours until your lilac infusion is ready.

Using colander, strain the lilac into a pot and discard the blooms.

Add lemon juice and pectin and bring the mixture to boil.

Look at the color! Nothing I expected!

Add sugar and bring to boil. Boil for one minute.

Now it's ready to be skimmed and put into jars. 

After tasting it, I thought it was on the sweeter side, so next year I will experiment with no pectin recipes. I am pretty sure that will make a difference. In the mean time, you can put less sugar... or simply put less jelly on your toast. That's what I have been doing. I really like the taste of this jelly!

menu for this week

Here is some inspiration for this week...

Monday

Mongolian Beef, Rice, and Broccoli
Spinach/Strawberry Salad with homemade Strawberry Dressing

Tuesday

Chicken Tortilla soup
Cheese Quesadilla with homemade Avocado dip and salsa

Wednesday

Chicken Tortilla soup (left over from last night)
Grilled chicken breast, Mashed potatoes

Thursday

Homemade Hamburgers, Fries

Friday

Homemade Pizza
Spring salad

bon appetit!!!

to simplify my life

I decided that I will connect my two blogs into one. See, I am trying to simplify my life and having two blogs is just confusing. Therefor, from now on I will be writing on this blog everything that I like to talk about and I will see where things lead me to. 

My other blog is about one of my biggest passions - homeschooling! From now on I will be also posting things that relate to that topic, such as projects, interesting facts, photos, and reflections on life in the busy day in our "classroom".  After all, we are chasing butterflies everyday over here! ;-)

Fun place for my little boy!

I was very happy to read Jen's blog and find an opportunity to link to her little party of room tours. Today is the "Boy's room tour" and I am showing my son's room that I put together with many of his suggestions as you will see. Everything, except for the bed and curtains, has been freecycled to me by my friends! THANK YOU! 

Here we go:

As you can see, we are in between themes. I am in denial that this room should be updated... because of two reasons - not only do I not want to admit that my little T is growing up, but also I don't feel like painting and rearranging furniture and organizing etc...

so right now we are in between "The Cars", "Pirates", and "Star Wars"... I have a feeling that I should go more with the Space/Star Wars theme. After all he is writing songs about the Planets right now and he is teaching his girlfriend how to fight with a lightsaber in her Snow White costume...

When I was pregnant with T (almost 5 years ago) I had all this time on my hands - the one I don't know about these days - and I painted his room full of these cute animals. Soon, the time will be here, to paint over my little masterpiece. Sigh

Easter Bunny brought T the Star Wars wall stickers. If I knew I will be exhibiting his room just couple days later, I would wait with putting them up... but then again would I? He just couldn't wait to peel those stickers off that paper and place them on his walls...

There used to be a crib under those giraffes. It was a perfect spot! Someone told me that T must be happy to sleep there as it looks like two huge breasts looking at him from above. Not intentional... That made me laugh.

 

I wish my hubby read my blog... Those drawers are broken and maybe he would have fixed them after I posted it on here... I painted the letters of T's name orange, cause it's my favorite color... His is pink!

Gum ball machine is a must! Now I wish I had one as a kid... And books... we have tons. This is just a small amount that fits on this shelf. We have more in his closet and in B's room. Let's don't forget to mention our monthly trips to the library. We get on average 25+ books and puzzles...

I added the moon not long ago after I got it from my dear friend! I love that piece (painted cast). B is scared of it... she wants to spank it :-D not kidding...

Next to the door is a small table, where T does his art (smaller projects anyway) and my blue doggy. The magnetic board holds some dear pictures, sight words, and buckets with markers (idea from another of my dear friends). oh yeah, did you notice my little musician in the mirror? She wouldn't move. Her tune of the past month is "Jesus loves me". Now she is jamming it on T's guitar over and over...

I love the door organizer from IKEA. It holds those small things that I couldn't find a spot for. Now we know where T's flash light, slippers, and sunglasses are!!!

So this is it. Now looking back at it, I will have to come up with a plan to redo his room into one (less chaotic) theme. But I am glad that I got to share it with all of you before I have to say good bye to my wall creations (not talking about Star Wars stickers :-D) Thanks for the opportunity! ... and don't mess with the dragon!!!