The Good [Kids'] Stuff: To Peter; Love Santa

I love the idea of the "I'm not bored anymore art jar" from Land of Nod. I'm all about giving Pete odds and ends, a little glue, some scissors and paint, and watch his imagination go. After seeing these spectacular wooden acorns, I decided to create a custom-made art jar just right for little three-year old hands. Here's are some more of the contents:
Pipe cleaners, paint brushes, beads
Googly eyes, Popsicle sticks, and a teeny tiny beehive and wooden baseball bat, just because I couldn't help myself.
These beads are perfect for snakes and trains and mice and doggies...
Little people:curvy ladies and straight-figure men.

We've had a few fun sessions so far--desperately needed during the January slump.

My multimedia fruit still life.
Acorns falling in a rain storm or, alternatively, alien with many eyes

Good Tunes: What we're listening to...

We have music going at our house almost all day long. I have worked on finding things that are appealing to all of us and have some sort of musical integrity. Ask anyone who has borrowed my ipod, and they will tell you my taste is quite eclectic. But, I do like try to find the good stuff in every genre.

Pete adores A Child's Introduction to the Orchestra. Each instrument has a funny little song, and has helped Pete pick out instruments in other songs. It's a little hokey, I'll warn you now, but a cool way to get the kiddos interested in real live instruments. You can find a free download to this here. (this site has a wide variety of great old lps for kids that are available for free download--yay! Some may be somewhat dated in their cultural sensitivities, but others are totally awesome. Songs Children Sing in France is another favorite.)

We are really in the middle of musicals here: Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Singin' in the Rain, and Peter Pan. We have "Snacktime" and "Food Party" on repeat from BNL and the Curious George soundtrack by Jack Johnson remains very popular. As far as our classical hits, Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf continues to get a listen every other day. Barberini's Barber of Seville is great, and anything by Aaron Copland is also well received. Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra is fantastic. Although not quite as overt in identifying each instrument, this piece gives each instrument a moment to showcase its sound, along with it's family. Pete has gotten the hang of the different groups: woodwinds, brass, strings, percussion, cool! I love it! Saint-Saens Carnival of the Animals is more great program music for kids, giving Pete different animals to think about. We've heard snippets of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, and Pete was particularly interested in Baba Yaga.

So, tell me, friends, what great children's music have you found out there? I'd love to expand our repertoire!

The Good [Handmade] Stuff: Merry Christmas! Love, Peter

I was inspired by this post at Design Mom. How she manages to help her five kids make gifts for each other, I'll never know. I love the tradition of having our kids make gifts for each other, and I tried to think of things Pete could do for Nathan and Shane. Borrowing a few ideas directly from the blog, here's what we came up with:

Bookmarks for Shaner, who is recently graduated from school and enjoying recreational reading for the first time in a long time. Nathan generously rounded out the gift by giving him a Wallace Stegner novel, which Shaner is really into right now. I wish I had a laminater (word?) at times like these.

Apple-Print Bibs for the little guy. We put acrylic paint on half of an apple and Pete stamped some muslin we had on hand. It was tricky to get the stamp on evenly--I learned that the apple has to be cut perfectly straight for it to work. I had a bib pattern from Amy Butler's Little Stitches that worked out nicely. I ran out of bias tape after the first one and couldn't be bothered to make yet another trip to Michael's. I am particularly fond of the green buttons.

So, that would have been good enough for me, but no! After finishing our immediate family, Peter insisted on gifts for his twin cousins and best buddy, Kate.

For the twins, 'we' made some tutus (Pete did help tie the tulle). I think they turned out pretty cute:

We brainstormed a lot of ideas for Kate's gift, but Peter felt quite insistent that Kate needs a playmat. We compromised that it would be a small playmat, and we included the essentials, like Kate's old house and our old apartment and Yale and maybe the most important thing: the food carts.

Pete had a fun time making these and hopefully caught the spirit of giving amidst the Santa insanity.

The Good [Thrifted] Stuff: DI is awesome.

I grew up with a strong aversion to DI, the main thrift store in Utah. DI does leave some things to be desired, with its pungent aromas and characters hanging around. As a teenager, I only dared enter when I needed a last-minute Halloween costume. However, when I went to the highly acclaimed Brimfield Antique Show over a year ago, I thought to myself, "I bet I could find a lot of this stuff at a thrift store, without paying the antique dealer a penny!" I tried a few Goodwills in Connecticut, but they were disappointing. It wasn't until I revisited DI that I realized....oh me oh my, I totally love this place.

So, for all you naysayers out there who stick your nose up to DI, let me show you what I'm talking about:

Thanks, Kat, for this image!
I've mentioned this typewriter before, but, ah, don't you love it? I saw typewriters on Etsy going for $250! I can handle the $4 paid at DI.
Remember this barn? This one is in mint condition!
I nearly fainted when I opened the "moo" barn door and found all these inside! Merry Christmas, Petey!

(Out of focus) Books. So many great books.

Can you believe this fabric? Perfect trim for the boys' Christmas jammers.
I just had to cut around these freaky ladies. No wonder it was only $1. Creepy.
And a bunch of other fabric.
This mid-century lamp! So cool! I love it!
Binoculars for Pete! Why not?! Perfect for birding expeditions and exploring in his treehouse (that is many years to come!)

I'm telling you, Utah folks, give DI a chance! There are lots of treasures hiding there!

Good Taste: Wise Words

Here's what my hero and New York Times food editor, Mark Bittman, says is the most important skill when it comes to cooking:

“The ability to go in there and start. I am the least impressive cook you will ever see. I am completely without knife skills, I screw things up all the time. When I’m in the kitchen I’m not obsessively trying to create the perfect dish; I’m trying to put dinner on the table. Comparing yourself to the people who cook on television is like comparing yourself to Andre Agassi. If you can drive you can cook.”

I love a good party: He's Three!

"Happy birthday to you"


It was all trains for Pete's third birthday party.

The cake was a success (and the frosting, too, which I find utterly miraculous). I am not good at decorating cakes. Like those little roses and writing and, well, creating anything with frosting that is supposed to look like something? Not my forte. I had to be outside the birthday cake mold on this one.


It was to be a mountain cake with a train comin' round it.


Do I think too much about this stuff? Last night, I was thinking, what if I had a boss who told me that I had to do this stuff as part of my job. I would think she was totally nuts as she explained: "So, tomorrow, I need you to figure out how to make a mountain cake...you need a domed cake mold, but don't pay a lot of money for it. Just find a cake mold for, hmm, maybe one dollar. And then, in a couple weeks, figure out how to make your newborn look like a banana..." More to come on the banana baby later. I just keep telling myself: I'm using the same skill set as my former professional, blow-dried, black-suited, put-together self. It's just a different application of my skill set. Right? riiiight?



Anyway, I found my one-dollar domed cake mold. I baked the cakes a few days earlier and froze them (using this favorite cake and frosting recipe which I will now always use for yellow cake and chocolate frosting)
Why pay for one of those white-noise machines when you have a perfectly good KitchenAid?

I then left the actual construction up to my very capable husband. Shaner is a procedure man; one who has sutured and poked and extracted. I leave the fingernail clipping, the bath giving, and the cake constructing up to his steady hands. The results were my vision realized! I patted myself on the back for delegating this task to just the right hunk of burning love.



And the only thing left to do for Pete and I was to adorn our mountain with little lego pirates and knights and trees and horsies. I call this cake a success!

Ok, so maybe not suitable for the cover of Martha Stewart Living, but Pete thought it was awesome.

We had a modest spread of train-shaped pb&js, popcorn, and crackers with apple juice. I tried to keep it all low-key this time around, given the recent events (that is, bringing baby brother to this world a couple weeks earlier. oh man.)




And, for party favors, I found these little engineer hats and train whistles at Oriental Trading. Pete likes his homeboy style.

The Good [Handmade] Stuff: Happy Birthday, Pete! Love, Mama

Pete turned three!

For his birthday this year, I really tried to think of something that would grow with him and put his fantastic imagination to good use. I remembered one of the most highly coveted toys from my grandma's house: the flannel board.


It's simple--a piece of felt stretched taut and stapled to a wooden board. I chose to frame it for better looks and the hopes that we'll be able to hang it low on the wall in our next place. After researching online for flannel board kits, I was quite appalled at the price--really, $20 for a few little felt-backed pictures? Instead, I made my own little flannel board kits, with the help of some adhesive-backed felt I found at Michael's. At that point, the options were limitless! I used the images from books bought at DI (our thrift store) and suddenly, I had a great assortment of pictures for our board: cars, planets, animals, the Nativity scene, and even photos I printed up of our family (this was a huge hit!). I also cut out felt shapes for Pete to make pictures out of and my attempt at felt continents for a future geography lesson. Asia is quite unidentifiable and none are quite to scale, but it's the spirit of the thing, right?


Figuring out how to store these pictures was tricky--I ended up sewing some 'pockets' out of scrap fabric and put zippers on them. I lined the inside of the pockets with different yet oh so coordinated fabric just to make myself crazy. I think I was watching Martha Stewart when I thought that would be a good idea...that show makes me feel waaaay too ambitious.


So far, Pete likes it. I've already received requests for more felt board pictures: trains and Santa Claus, please. And more photos of friends, too!