Three Boys and a breakfast diner

Breakfast is my favorite meal. I have ALWAYS looked forward to going out for breakfast...until I had kids. And I don't mean for that to come across negative - it's just how it is when you have a 2yr old, 3 yr old and 4 yr old.
Waiting for the food is the most stressful part. Then once the food arrives it feels like I can't dish it out fast enough, etc.
The good thing is, the few times we have gone out to eat with the kids, I get at least one compliment on how well behaved our kids are.
Here are my tips:

• Before we enter the restaurant, I tell the kids what my expectations are.
• I take advantage of anything the restaurant has to offer to entertain the kids - coloring, crayons, etc.
• The last time we went to a restaurant it had no crayons, etc. It was breakfast time so they had packets of jelly out on the table. Each boy took a turn counting all of the orange jellies, or the purple ones, etc. Then we lined up the jelly packets and made a jelly train. We made a jelly "bed", tucked in the spoon with a napkin and sang Twinkle Twinkle.
• Look at the decor and make conversation about it. "Do we have a rolling pin at home?" "How many flowers are in this vase?" And so forth.
• Save the paper from the straws. I always end up doing random things that crack the boys up like I weaved a wrapper through a fork's tines and pretended it was a giant spagetti noodle trying to attack Brant's mouth.
• Lately my boys pretend it's someone's birthday or that they are Santa Claus. They take a small toy and cover it with a napkin. They give it to me and I "unwrap" it and act all excited. We did this in the restaurant with one of their napkins (we wrapped up a jelly packet, a creamer, whatever we could find) and it bought us some time.
• Praise when they are eating well, using manners, etc.

My favorite part of eating out with the boys is when Adam takes all of the boys out to the car and I get to finish eating and pay the bill. Seriously.

  

Crazy Glasses Toddler project

I saw this idea in Disney's Family Fun Magazine and thought we would try it.
Brant participated but was not really into it. Mason on the other hand LOVED it.

Here is what you need:

• I found kids' sunglasses for a dollar at the grocery store of all places. I tried to pick out ones that had thick frames.
• Left over craft items - googly eyes, pom-poms, etc.
• Glue

End Result:

setting the table

This was so cute I had to write about it!
I was in the kitchen making breakfast for the kids and I could hear that Brant's feelings were getting hurt because Jaxon would only sit on Mason's lap - not his. Lately it seems like I can't cheer Brant up like I used to - I need a new bag of tricks.
I went downstairs and went through this "Birthday Party" bin that I have - basically leftover party supplies. I found a bunch of different charactor napkins, paper placemats, etc.
I called Brant into the kitchen and his whole face lit up when he saw the pile of stuff. I told him he was in charge was setting the table for the family today. He did a great job remembering who liked which plate, he put out Mason's favorite fork, etc.
I have been meaning to give him this job anyway - I remember doing it at his age and loving it.
This simple thing changed Brant's mood, made him feel special - did exactly what I wanted. He was so cute about it - gave me a BIG hug when I was praising him.

garden update

I'm so excited! The garden is doing great!
These are pictures of our garden less than three weeks ago.

I took this picture today!



Homemade strawberry champagne sorbet

We have "The Ultimate Ice Cream Book" by Bruce Weinstein. It's awesome. He has a recipe for raspberry champagne sorbet so I just switched out the berries.

Ingredients:

• 1c sugar
• 1/2c water
• 1 quart fresh strawberries (about 1 pound)
• juice of 1 lime
• 1c champagne (I used brut since strawberries are sweeter than raspberries)

Make a simple syrup by combining the sugar and water in a small saucepan over low heat. Stire until sugar is dissolved. Remove and cool to room temp.
Place the berries in a blender with the cool syrup and lime juice. Blend until smooth. Pour into ice cream maker and use as directed. Transfer mixture to a freezer-safe container, gently fold champagne in, and freeze for another two hours.

18 pounds of strawberries

My family and I went to the Strawberry Madness Festival (at Johnson's Farm in Hobart, IN) on Saturday and we bought 10 buckets of berries. And I want more. I know, makes no sense. But I get like this in the summer because I HATE the produce in grocery stores - especially the strawberries (prematurely picked, barely any nutrients, chemicals added, I wonder who picked the fruit? Was it a child?). I do remember Alton Brown, from Foodnetwork, doing a show on strawberries and him saying that mass produced strawberries are groomed for size and shipping - not flavor.
I cannot afford to buy everything organic like I would prefer. So I take advantage of the farmer's markets/local farms/our garden and stock up over the summer.

This is what my mom and I did with our 18 pounds of berries:

• Sorted and quickly rinsed the berries (Be careful! They get waterlogged easily - so rinse before hulling)
• Removed stems and caps
• This is when Alton Brown swears by an acidic bath to prevent discoloration. Lemon water is common but he used red wine (1 bottle of red wine for every two pints of berries.) Discoloration doesn't bother me but I will try this and let you know how it goes.
• Dumped 2 cups of berries into a bowl, then sprinkled 1 TBSP of sugar over them. Repeated this until the bowl was full. This prep was for our homemade sorbets, ice creams, cheesecake topping, etc. You are not normally supposed to add sugar to berries when freezing them long term. However, we want these berries sweetened and will use them within the week. To freeze long term, unsweetened, simply fill up a baking sheet full of strawberries and freeze until firm (a.k.a flash freeze). When thawed, they will be dark in color and be soft but will still taste way better than prematurely picked fruit. I use whole frozen berries in smoothies instead of ice cubes.
• Let the berries sit for at least an hour

• Measured out two cups of berries per ziplock bag (The sweet strawberry juice sitting at the bottom of the bowl is our FAVORITE part. Out of all of the berries, we collected about two cups of this juice. SAVE IT! GUARD IT WITH YOUR LIFE! We put a few teaspoons in our iced tea, it was amazing. You can add it to: milk (the best strawberry milk EVER), strawberry shakes, whip cream, pancake batter (or pour it over your pancakes instead of maple syrup)...possibilities are endless!)
• Gently squished them to extract a little more juice (Mason's favorite part)

• Stacked the bags in the freezer. This way they will freeze flat and you can just crack off what you need.



Making Fertilizer

The boys and I made some plant food today. I was surprised at how much they liked the process of making it, "feeding" it to the garden, etc.

This is what I did:

• All week I saved my egg shells and K Cups. I threw the eggshells in a ziplock baggie and stored them in the crisper drawer in the fridge. I just hid the K Cups from my husband...cannot reveal where in case he reads this entry.
• I put the eggshells on a baking sheet and put them in the oven on 250. I just dried them out a bit, browning them in some spots. They were in there about 10-15 minutes.
• Then I threw them into a blender, along with my coffee grounds and grinded it all up.

 I would make a mulch if I could but I don't have the space.
And it sounds weird but I hate throwing out eggshells and coffee grounds - seems like such a waste. Author Ruth Yaron suggested in her book, Super Baby Food, to save the water you make hard boiled eggs in and water your plants with it (the shells are full of minerals). I think its a great idea but I don't make hard boiled eggs. I probably could just throw the eggshells in the garden whole but I knew the boys would like to sprinkle this over the plants.

As for coffee grounds I have read several things about it: the coffee-eggshell combo sprinkled at the base of a plant can repel pests, sprinkle grounds before watering for a slow-release nitrogen, etc. It's my first year using coffee grounds in the garden so I will keep you posted on the progress.