chocolate ice cubes

About 2 days after Ash Wednesday, while my body was still reeling from my lent induced abstinence of chocolate, I saw at the grocery store food network magazine's CHOCOLATE Issue!  Without allowing myself any time to drool on the cover, I purchased it.  Once home I left it in the plastic bag (I know, I always plan to take it all my recyclable shopping bags) and stowed it away in a drawer until after Easter!  At about 3:30am Easter morning, as I am unwrapping approximately my 300th Cadbury chocolate egg, I remembered the magazine.  Well, you can imagine the rest... let's just say it wasn't a pretty sight for the Easter Bunny to find me laying in an almost sugar coma, chocolate running down my chin and my tongue stuck to one of the pages of the magazine!   

One of the most unique recipes in the book is for chocolate ice cubes!  Being self proclaimed chocolate milk afficionados, my kids couldn't wait to try this recipe!  It's a simple enough to make, and produces squeals of delight when friends are over after school! 

Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp sugar
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 ice cube tray

Mix the first 4 ingredients in a small saucepan, bring to a slow simmer, whisking until all lumps are disolved. 

Remove from heat and add semisweet chocolate chips, stir until disolved.  (We got creative and added a tsp. vanilla extract at this point, but you can leave it out.)  Pour into an ice cube tray and freeze.

To serve, add to milk and swish a few times! Yum!!

The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White

E.B. White does such an amazing job in his books of bringing the animals to life!  Who hasn't cried for Wilbur when his BFF  passes away in Charlotte's Web, or cheered for the mini but mighty Stuart LIttle!  We read The Trumpet Of The Swan, and found ourselves thrilled with the adventures of Louis, a trumpeter swan who plays a trumpet since he has no voice, and travels the country in pursuit of money to pay off his debts.  Along the way, the responsible swan falls in love and learns that the happiest place for him is home.  White does an excellent job of detailing the beauty of nature, and of a young boy who respects the wonders around him, including the young swan he befriends. 

One of Louis' adventures takes him to Boston's Public Gardens, where he gets a job playing the trumpet while leading the Swan Boat around the lake.  I knew my kids would love a ride in a swan boat, even if we weren't serenaded by a trumpet playing swan.  We headed out to one of my favorite locations, Fair Park in Dallas!  We spent a fun day at the Museum of Nature and Science, and the Children's Aquarium.  The Swan Boat Rides are on the Leonhardt Lagoon, with the Texas Star Ferris Wheel as a backdrop.  My children and I long ago made up a story about the lagoon being the home of a rarely seen Lagoon Monster, whose size dwarfs the enormous carp and alligator snapping turtles which do inhabit the lagoon, and can be seen from the sculptures at either end of the lagoon.  As we paddled the boats, my 4 year old and I in one, my 12 and 10 year old in another, we laughed and joked about the monster stalking us, paddling quickly to escape him and probably causing a little fear in the waiting children!  The paddling is hard work, but we enjoyed it.  Afterwards, we ate our sack lunch under a shady tree near the lagoon and imagined what it would be like to have riden in a boat with Louis at the lead, playing "Beautiful Dreamer, Wake Unto Me". 

For more information on the Swan Boats at Fair Park;   http://www.fairpark.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=372
The Museum of Nature and Science http://www.natureandscience.org/
Children's Aquarium at Fair Park http://childrensaquariumfairpark.com/

Other places in Texas with Swan Boats include;
Captial Cruises on Lady Bird Lake http://www.capitalcruises.com/rentals/swan-pedal-boats/
Towne Lake in McKinney http://www.visitmckinney.com/adminnm/templates/nature.asp?articleid=14&zoneid=13

melting crayons

I love any art project involving melted crayons!  We have made the melted crayon bottles, and melted crayons in muffin tins, but this was something completely new!  I heard about it yesterday from a friend, melting crayons with a hair dryer!  My daughter made this picture, she said it reminds her of a Spring meadow filled with wildflowers! The splatter is my favorite, I imagine it is how Jackson Pollock used crayons in preschool. 

As we got into playing with it, we tried other techniques. She colored while the crayon melted, giving it a look like thick paint.  We also colored very heavily, then heated it and watched the colors run.  We then hot glued all the crayons at the top of a poster board, and heated the crayons and let them run!   A few words of warning, to melt the crayon the blow dryer has to be HOT!  We tried several different tools, for big splatters you can hold the crayon with tongs.  For smaller areas, you can either hold a long crayon above the hair dryer, or bend out a paper clip and heat it, then slide it into the crayon.  Crayola crayons work best for a thicker look, RoseArt crayons give a more watercolor appearance.

wooden learning letters

We have an assortment of wooden letters for my four year old.  They are the ones used for name plaques and signs, available at any art store.  When he feels like painting, they are fun to get out and let him paint.  While he is painting we talk about the letter, naming it often.  I tell him different words that start with that letter.  It's a great alternative to flash cards! 



Some other activities using wooden letters:

• To spell words. It's so much easier for him to have a hands on maniplitable as opposed to just seeing the word on paper. 
• We have a scavenger hunt, dividing out the letters evenly among the players, and then finding objects around the house that begin with that letter.  For example, if you had the letter C, you might grab a calculator.  It helps him to sound out different words looking for something that starts with that letter. 
• We also hide the letters, similar to an Easter Egg hunt.  For a younger child, you just find the letters, but for 4 and 5 year olds, it's appropriate to hide the whole alphabet, and put them in order as you find them!    

Sam Houston's grave at Oakwood Cemetery, Huntsville

 "The world will take care of Houston's fame." ~ Andrew Jackson

These are the words inlaid in Sam Houston's memorial at his burial site in Oakwood Cemetery in Huntsville.   It's right by the entrance, next to the road.  You really don't even have to get out of the car... but do!  Oakwood is a beautiful cemetery, filled with majestic oak trees whose limbs playfully reach down almost to the ground!  Stoic Cypress trees stand guard among the historical markers that dot the grounds.  Not only is our state's first father buried here, but so are many other noteables from Texas history.  I love the natural wildflower areas scattered throughout, also.

 We visited on Easter Sunday, and there were a few other tourist at the memorial.  Our kids had a great time running the path and seeing the abundant birds and squirrels that inhabit the grounds.  My husband and I walked the paths, me taking pictures and him reading aloud so I could hear the historical markers, like the one of Henderson King Yoakum, buried near Sam Houston.  Yoakum, also from Tennesee, authored History of Texas from Its First Settlement in 1685 to Its Annexation to the United States in 1846.  Another historical marker denotes  the original location of the Steamboat House, where Houston lived until his death.  The house was moved to the SHSU's Sam Houston Memorial Museum a few blocks away. 

While you are in Huntsville, take the time to visit the Museum, http://www.shsu.edu/~smm_www/.   Other places not to miss on the Sam Houston tour include The Sam Houston Statue and Information Center http://samhoustonstatue.org/department/division.php?fDD=4-12  The sculptor of the statue, David Adickes, lives and works in Houston, where more of his work can be seen. 
Washington on the Brazos State Park, visit Independence Hall, where the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed.    http://www.birthplaceoftexas.com/
The San Jacinto Monument, where Texas forces led by Houston captured General Santa Anna, thus winning Texas Independence!  http://www.sanjacinto-museum.org/

The Hunger Games

I love this book!  My kids love this book!  We looked forward to Spring Break, which we had predetermined to be when we would read it.  The three of us cuddled on the couch, and took turns reading out loud a chapter each.  I am going to admit that during some of the nail biting moments of the book, I would insist on reading, not having the patience to wait for my children, who read slightly slower than I do! 

As we read, I tried to think of an activity we could incorporate with the book.  One of the aspects I enjoyed most about the book was Katniss' foraging skills.  Eating off the land for us is limited to only wild berries, onions and nuts, but I love that it's enough for my children to have an understanding of where food really grows, not the grocery store or the garden.   I laugh when I recall a my daughter's friend, who accompanied us to pick up pecans from a local park in the fall.  She couldn't believe we were going to EAT the pecans we found in the dirt!  She tried the shelled nuts, and loved them!  When we dropped her off at home she told her mom, and I got a concerned phone call about letting her eat off the ground!

We decided to be adventurous with the the food that Katniss credits with saving her life.  It's an important moment in the book, right after she has received a loaf of old bread from the small boy that lives at the bakery, her first food in days.  She sees a dandelion growing, and remembers her father teaching her foraging skills in the woods, before he is killed in a mining accident.  We did some reading on dandelion recipes, and choose three.  We made dandelion greens, added dandelion flowers to a salad with poppy seeds, and lightly battered the flowers and fried them.  Can you guess which was my southern children's favorite?  We don't attend the Texas State Fair each year for nothing, we love anything fried!

Safe Lice Prevention

Does just thinking of lice make you start scratching your head?  It sure does me!                                                                                             

Luckily, our family has never had lice, but I completely agree with Ben Franklin that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure... and in the case of lice maybe two pounds.  After several boys in my son's baseball team all had lice, from sharing helmets, I began doggedly searching for natural repellents.  A friend of mine told me she read that lice, like many other bugs, do not like the fragrance of rosemary.  She said that as a preventive measure, she keeps a few fresh twigs inside her daughter's pillowcases.  I have a HUGE rosemary plant, in Texas they are so easy to grow, and require little care, the worst thing you can do is over water them!!  Inspired by my friend's idea, I began placing the fresh twigs inside my children's shampoo and conditioner.  After about an hour, the smell is infused throughout the entire bottle.  I just leave it in the bottle.  My kid's hair smells great; it's a clean, fresh scent.  I can't promise that this is 100% reliable, but we have never had any lice to prove otherwise! However, I still scratch my head just thinking about it!

I did some googlin', and found a few companies that sell rosemary shampoo and sprays as a natural lice deterrent.  Just a FYI.  http://www.fairytaleshaircare.com/