Since my [insert older] son loves it when I decorate the house for an occasion, I thought I would make the most of the upcoming festivities. My son sometimes watches a show called Team Umizoomi and they had an episode about a special “I Love You Day”, so between that and school, I think Valentine will actually mean something to him this year.

So here are some great ideas for a modern Valentine Day celebration, with many simple DIY ideas:

all photo credits of their respectives sites

Clockwise from top left:

Heart Garland from here; Glitter Banner from here; Red table setting from here; Valentine bubbles from here; Sweet Treats from here; XOXO cupcakes from here; Cupid’s Arrow Brownies from here.

Now that I’m the mother of two boys, I’m taking the time t re-read Raising Boys, by Steve Biddulph. I remember reading it after the birth of my first son and feeling better equipped at raising a boy, and while I am more experienced this time around a refresher course never hurt.  Not only will it remind me what to do with my baby, but I will better understand what to expect of my four year old.  While leafing through the pages this morning, I came across a wonderful passage that I firmly believe in:

TENDERNESS IS TAUGHT

In the 1960s, anthropologist James Prescott carried out a very large scale study of child rearing and violence across different societies.  He found that those societies which gave less touching and affection to young children had by far the most violence amongst adults.  It’s clear that the more tender and warm are the lives of children, the safer and more loving they will be as adults. (Sex offenders and other sexual predators almost always have a history of rejection, institutionalization and disrupted childhoods.)  Treating children with warmth and affection immunises them against the wish or need to harm others.

All my clients will attest that I’m a firm believer in hugs and kisses.

I’ve also got The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids, by Madeline Levine, Ph.D. The title is intriguing and I certainly don’t want to raise disconnected, unhappy children. So I picked up a copy in the hopes that I will be confirming that I’m on the right track, or worst case scenario, learning where to make corrections.

Sure, there’s nothing like real experience, but when it comes to something like parenting, I firmly believe you can learn from other people’s successes and failures and books are a wonderful source of invaluable information. Looking at my bookshelf, I think going all-kindle might be the way forward for me.

What great parenting books do you recommend?  I’m always interested in learning.

I’ve always loved Thanksgiving.  It’s one of those holidays that seems to have withstood becoming overly commercial (excluding Black Friday).  This year, unlike in years past, we are actually going out of town, which is not something to be underestimated with two little ones under the age of five.  But at the time we booked it seemed like a good idea to go up to San Francisco and spend Thanksgiving with my brother and his wife, and let them play hosts this year.

That said, I’m a sucker for entertaining and decorating for the holidays, so I still managed put together a Thanksgiving Inspiration Board, even though we are not hosting.  Our Thanksgiving will be small, as our family is small, but the food will be delicious.  Above are some cute ideas for decorating your home and some neat recipes with an autumnal flair, that while not “traditional”, still manage to capture the spirit of the season.

Since we are a small family, we will be opting for a chicken instead of Turkey.  The recipe for the chicken is not just for any roast chicken.  It’s a Thomas Keller roast chicken, and frankly the best roast chicken I’ve tasted!  Unlike conventional roasting recipes, his requires no basting, but relies on a generous amount of salt to keep the bird juicy and flavorful. The sweet potato French Fries are for my oldest son, who hates “mushy” food.  I don’t blame him, he spent the better part of his early years eating only purees, so I’m not surprised he likes texture and crunch.  The pear salad is for me, as I love the idea of making a salad tower.  And, last but not least, the “horns of plenty” are so cute and such an easy cheat using waffle ice cream cones and a bounty of fresh fruit that I would be remiss not to include something so pretty, so easy and so healthy.

Photos are copyright of their respective owners, follow the links for each:

1. Autumn Basket

2. Welcoming Entry

3. Pumpkin Centerpiece

4. Thomas Keller Roast Chicken, BTW- this site is full of gorgeous recipes. Too bad the author decided to discontinue blogging.

5. Fresh Fruit Cones. (unfortunately for these there is no link to the original source.  let me know if you come across one as I would prefer to give credit).

6. Crispy Sweet Potato Fries

7. Vertical Pear and Walnut Salad

Lastly, here are some nice FREE Printables to dress up your festivities that you can download here:

Wishing you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I used some of the ideas from my inspiration board, but also came up with other things.  Here are the details:

For food I tried to keep it semi-healthy.  While I love the look of a dessert table covered with candy a la Amy Atlas, the truth is I and most parents I know don’t really love our kids to be full of sugar.  So for the sweet stuff, besides the cake, I had cupcakes, fossil cookies and grapes in individual cups. For the savory stuff, I had individual cones of Veggie Booty (my son’s fave), mini cups of edamame, and cups with julienned vegetables, some with ranch dip, some without… and of course pizza which seems compulsory for a kids party.  I served the latter because most kids eat it, but funnily enough my son doesn’t.   The cupcake toppers were created using a template from Paper and Cake on etsy.  Then for the fossil cookies I decided to make it super easy on myself and bought ready made sugar cookie dough which I just baked normally, then when the cookies were still warm from the oven I pressed a dinosaur form into them.  Presto! Dino fossil cookies without much fuss, but they looked great on the table.  I also served chocolate milk in cute vintage-y glass bottles and paper straws from Sweet Lulu.

For fun, I had a bouncy castle, but since there could only be 5-6 kids in there at a time, I figured I needed other activities.  I had a “decorate a dino” station, with ready made cut out shapes of different dinos, and buckets of stickers and googley eyes.  This station was a hit with the girls who were more into the crafting aspect.  I also had the requisite “dino dig”.  I filled two galvanized metal buckets with play sand and buried dinosaur skeletons into each of them.  Kids then dug them out using sifters and brushes, like mini paleontologists.  I’d seen different sites with how-to make your own dino bones, etc, but again I opted for the quickest route since time is not always readily available with a little one just a few months old.  I bought a Dino Excavation Kit from Lakeshore Learning, it had the skeletons and the sifters and the brushes.  My twist on the dig is that each dino had a number inscribed on it and the number matched a prize in a big bin I had next to the dino dig.  As I told some of the parents at the party, as a child I was not one to dig for digging’s sake, so I wanted there to be a reward for the digging, it also made it into more of a game.

Lastly for the goodie bags, everyone left with personalized bags filled with dino loot.  From dino stickers, dinosaur toy and a treat bag filled with chocolate rocks and a mini dinosaur, topped off with a matching tag.  Unfortunately I don’t have pictures of the the dino chocolate rock bags, but I heard back from some parents and I know they were well received. Imagine eating rocks, how cool

Happy Birthday my big boy!  Hope it was memorable.

p.s. My son’s personalized T-shirt was from Priceless Kids yet another etsy vendor.

Last year we hosted an art party, this year I’m going with a dinosaur theme.  Cars, trucks, etc are still my son’s favorite, but this last year he discovered the world of dinosaurs through one of his favorite shows on Nick Jr., Dino Dan.  In one episode Dan has a birthday party and, of course, it was a dinosaur party.  Ever since then I’ve been planning on throwing my son a dinosaur party, so I’ve been surfing the internet and I’ve found some great ideas/resources.  Here are some that I’m planning on taking inspiration from:

Clockwise from the top:  chocolate milk bottles from here; edible fondant dino cake toppers from here; dino party hats from here; dino terrarium from here; pin the hat on the dino from here; dino excavation from here;  fossil cookies from here; molten lava cakes from here.

For the first couple of weeks I really had to force myself to take pictures of him, between sleep deprivation and recovering from my C-section (he was breech), I didn’t feel strong physically.  But I forced myself, because I didn’t want my son to suffer from the second baby syndrome, i.e. as a parent you’ve seen it all before so you don’t document their lives through the lens in the same way you did your first.

One of the things I was most apprehensive about was how my older son would adjust to the arrival of his baby brother, but so far so good.  My older son is a true nurturer and after a couple of days he settled into being a big brother, stroking him, kissing him and generally being the sort of big brother I always knew he could be.  What’s been more difficult is juggling my attention between the two.  I don’t want my older son to feel neglected, so before giving birth I mapped out all kinds of weekly activities to keep him engaged once school was out.  This past Friday we took him to see Cars 2 and left the baby at home.  The other thing I have found difficult is getting my newborn on a schedule.  With my first I managed to get him on a schedule after four weeks, but with this one, I’m finding impossible as I am not able to give him the undivided attention.  We’ll see how things continue to unfold.  In the meanwhile, hope you enjoy the images of our new bundle of joy.

photos via links provided below

1. Fun Card. I think the iDad card is genius and because it’s a DIY project, you can really personalize it.  You can have the App windows reveal a message or a photo.  I’m so glad I stumbled on such a cute idea from here.  In our case it would make the perfect card from my son to my husband, since my son has basically taken possession of my husband’s iPad. This ends up being almost like a trade.

2. A Photo for the Office. They say the personalizing your work space is important, but I don’t think men take that to heart as much as women.  So, here’s a fun DIY idea for a framed photo using scrabble tiles, originally found here.

3. Travel Kit. Well, if you look closely at the photo, it’s really a kit with essentials for dad’s car, but I thought more than anything my husband needs a little travel kit.  He’s been on the road A LOT, and I he’s not the type of man who likes to be away from his family for very long.  So, I think that for all those road warriors out there, a travel kit would be nicer and could include things like a family photo, favorite cookies, herbal tea to ease sleep on the road.  Original car kit found here.

4. Superhero Package. With a label addressed to “Our Real Life Hero”, the package can include anything, eg. tickets to go to the movies, favorite snacks.  What’s important here is that you are showing appreciation for all the things he does that make him your real life hero.  Original found here.

The superhero package can be enhanced and personalized with the FREE printables found here.

photos via links provided below

1. Sleeping in. I don’t know about you, but since my first son was born, I never get to lie in anymore.  He’s up early and that means I have to be as well… and I’m not a morning person.  Never have been.  So, a lie in would be a real treat.  (Bed photo from here)

2. Sparkle. No not diamonds, though I agree they are lovely.   I’m thinking something more practical, more everyday for a busy mother.  I have many pairs of earrings where one has gone missing, much like the missing sock syndrome. (Earrings from Banana Republic, $35)

3. Certificate. Of course these could be certificates to actual stores, but I’m thinking more certificates for “time”, for instance an afternoon with tea with girlfriends, or a morning at the flea market.  I’m sure I’m not the only mother out there who feels that between family, kids and work there’s not as much time left for the fun stuff that feeds your soul.  But if you’re like me, you feel too guilty to actually take the time for yourself.  These certificates would essentially give me/you the permission to do these things.  Not that you really need permission, just permission from yourself. (Coupon booklet from here)

4.  Something Sweet. Most of us women have a sweet tooth, so something sweet never hurt.  For me, this is something I especially crave as I have developed gestational diabetes during this pregnancy, which means sweets are not something I can casually indulge in.   Pictured here are Nutella cupcakes (from here).  I LOVE Nutella and besides gummi bears, Nutella has always been one of my greatest vices.

I’m also including a link to FREE printable cards from here.  These are intended for invitations, but their designs look very Mother’s Day appropriate, and since they are customizable, I thought, pourquoi-pas?

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

I’ve always been keen on encouraging my son’s artistic expression, but as I get ready for the arrival of Number Two, I’ve come to realize that I need to figure out a way to celebrate each of my sons’ evolving artistic visions.

My dedicate wall shown in a previous post is a great “temporary exhibit” space, but it’s not a solution for storing and cataloging the growing number of projects that will be brought home. I’ve seen kid’s art collages around and figured it would be an easy project to undertake, but I wanted to give it a personal twist, so I made mine a exhibit retrospective poster.  That way I can name the artist, since there will be two, and I can date the artwork.

My son is not the most prolific artist, but I like to think that when he does put pen to paper he does it with flair.

Here are the steps I took to put together my collage:

1. Sort through the artwork to select your favorites;

2. Photograph your favorite pieces (scanning works too, but photographing allows for more 3-dimension);

3. Insert photos on to a white or black digital canvas and arrange the photos to your liking.  My digital canvas was sized for an 11×14 print, with 12 openings for artwork;

4. Label art poster, with name, year and place;

5. Send to print, frame and voila!

I created the template and made my own collage, but since then I’ve discovered, Juxio, a service that will do it for you, if you’re not feeling too DIY.  Of course, I discovered it after I’d gone through the effort… Murphy’s Law.

I have and always will love all things Martha and while I LOVE the Valentine free printables I featured at the beginning of the month, when I saw the little treat bags above, I knew that I had to make them my own.  I like their clean look, but also I liked the idea that my son’s photo would be on there since he and his classmates are not yet able to read.  Following is my interpretation:

Step 1.

I had originally planned to fill the treat bags with a large homemade heart cookie or heart shaped brownie, but the weekend got away from me so store bought it was.  While not particularly thrilled at the idea of sending kids home with sugar, I chose chocolate as a lesser evil, as our pediatric dentist told us it was the better choice for candy as it doesn’t stick to teeth.

Step 2.

I designed and printed  4″x3″ folded tags and printed them with my home printer.  My design also included guide lines for cutting. I tried the scalloped edge (like in the original) but I decided the clean straight edge worked better for my design.

Step 3.

This is where my son comes in.  He helped to fill the treat bags with an assortment of colored chocolates, it was good practice for counting too.  I then folded the cut tags and stapled the bags shut and voilà!

And, finally here’s a picture of my son just before leaving for school, admiring the treats he helped put together.  Notice the super cool “All You Need is Love” T-shirt which I found at Target.  I bought it because the Beatles are his favorite; it just so happened to be perfect for Valentine’s.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all.

p.s. the nifty little tape strips are from Pugly Pixel.