room to grow

in a day and age where there is so much to protect our kids from, i thought this was a great read. although fostering independence in our kids is the hardest thing, sometimes its the best thing. 

beaba babycook

i love my beaba babycook! its a french baby food maker (oo-la-la). i received this as a gift from my spectacular work friends when my baby was born and i have been dying to put it to use. i tried it last week now that the baby is ready for solids. so fast, so easy, so convenient. i did a batch of sweet potatoes in 15 minutes, i'm not exaggerating. you just chop up the fruit or veggies, add water to the steamer compartment, put the veggies in the steamer basket and turn it on. it will shut off when the water is gone. then you pour off the water and puree the steamed food in that same container. then i put the food in the freezer in an ice cube tray -- the baby eats about two cubes at a time, so i can just pull out what i need. i love that i can make all of his food, i know exactly what's going into it and it literally costs pennies to make a batch. yes, i could do all of this on the stove top and use a blender or food processor, but this is so easy and convenient to have it all in one.  to watch a video of how it works, click here. so if any local friends want to get together to make baby food, let me know. i'm out of control with this thing.

check out more beaba products here. lots of cool european baby goods, including the coolest high chair i've ever seen. that deserves another oo-la-la. 

cupcakes and tom foolery

i've been having so much fun with cupcakes this week. for my girl's 6th birthday, i made a swarm of monarch butterflies. they are actually much easier than they look. i melted dark cocoa melting chips and orange melting chips, piped them out onto parchment paper using ziploc bags, swirled them a bit with a bamboo skewer (or toothpick, but i used what i had on hand), then added white non pareils.  the idea comes directly from the cupcake book du jour hello, cupcake by karen tack and alan richardson.  in case you didn't know, you must own this book! the most fun and creative cupcakes i have ever seen. they're fairly simple even though they can be somewhat labor-intensive, but making a few of these fantastic creations are a surefire way to secure rockstar mom status. 

the t.v. dinners are also from the hello, cupcake book. a friend of mine, sarah, owns her own cupcake business and she is a total pro at whipping these out. check out her website here. sarah helped out with our activity at church and showed all the girls how to make these for april fool's day. they were a total hit -- that sarah is one amazing gal, not to mention being way too much fun. 

i'm thinking my next cupcake venture needs to be panda bears... i'll let you know how they turn out.

story time

i'm always excited to find a kids book that's not about star wars or princesses, thus eliminating the nightly fight over what we're going to read. i love these books by nick bruel. bad kitty is great for pre-school aged kids (the text teaches the alphabet in a fun way), and bad kitty gets a bath is fun for older kids as well. my second grader reads it to my kindergartener (you can't buy that kind of endorsement, really). there's also a third book in the series, poor puppy. 

here are a few other books that we've loved (for preschool age and up), if you're trying to satisfy both boys and girls: 

a bad case of stripes by david shannon (although we love the david books, too!)

llama llama, mad at mama by anna dewdney

mike mulligan and his steam shovel by virginia lee burton

pinkalicious and purplicious by victoria kann and elizabeth kann (boys will pretend they don't like it, but they will laugh) 

pirate mom by deborah underwood, illustrated by stephen gilpin

cloudy with a chance of meatballs by judi barrett, ill. by ron barrett

on the nights that we don't want to read a story, sometimes we will flip through the audubon first field guide to birds (lots of info and colorful photographs) or the fantastic animals of the world book that i received as a baby gift when i had my oldest (thanks, rach!). i know costco always sells books like this, and i even saw a great planet earth book that i know my kids would flip for.  happy reading!