The Birthday Interview

We started this family tradition when my oldest was 3 years old. On or around one of our children's birthdays, we sit them down on the couch and videotape a birthday interview. We ask them their name (because it's cute to hear them say their names when they're little) and how old they are and then ask questions about their life, such as favorite food, color, song, tv show, treat, toy, movie, doll, parent, etc . . .

We also have them do any of their signature tricks for that age, or try to get them to say their signature phrase, like my 3 year old christopher who's favorite thing to say at that time was "That's the deal, okay? Don't break the deal." We also talk about things that they have accomplished during the year, like potty training, moving to a big kids bed, or starting school. If they're learning to play an instrument, we have them play a song. There's also a fair amount of silly voices, face making, nonsense, and telling jokes.

We keep each child's interviews on a separate miniDV tape (that's the kind of tape our camcorder uses) and then we are able to watch all the child's interviews without anything else in between. We usually watch them after we've recorded the most recent one. The kids love seeing how they've grown and laughing at their silliness. And there is a lot of silliness.

It's not to late to start with your children! (well, if they're 20 it may be) It doesn't have to be long. Shorter in this case is better. It doesn't have to be right on their birthday. This year we didn't get Joshua's done until a month and a half later, but it still works. Just grab the camcorder and ask some questions. You'll be glad you did!

Here's a sample of interview bits from age 2 to age 6 of one of my sons.  It's about 4 minutes long, but will give you an idea of how we do our interviews, and some of the questions we ask.

Chocolates

Every Christmas growing up that I can remember, my mom would make delicious homemade chocolates. She would make the centers, temper the chocolate, hand dip the centers, put them in little paper cups, and package them in nice white boxes tied with a gold ribbon. We always got to eat leftovers from the "reject" plate - chocolates that weren't quite pretty enough to give away. If there was any chocolate left over, she would make molded chocolate lollipops for Valentines.

Now it's my turn to be in charge of chocolate making. It's not the healthiest skill to know, but I enjoy making things that I can give away as a nice gift and make other people smile.

I've had a few people ask about how I make the centers so I thought I'd share the recipes I use. I dip the centers in Guittard chocolate which needs to be tempered. A few years ago my mom bought me a chocolate tempering machine for christmas, which makes it a lot easier to dip the chocolates. If you don't want to invest in a temperer, or hand temper chocolate, you can just use candy melts or chocolate bark.

Chocolate truffles

1 1/4 lb. sweet chocolate (about 4 cup finely chopped chocolate)
2/3 cup heavy cream
3 T. butter

Melt chocolate over low heat (double boiler). Cool slightly. Heat butter and cream to 140 degrees. Cool to 120 degrees. Stir cream and butter into the chocolate. Beat with mixer until it is pudding consistency. Let chocolate rest for one minute. Beat again for a minute or until chocolate goes about one shade lighter. Can be flavored if desired at this point. Pour into Saran-Wrap lined square pan. Refrigerate. Cut into squares and dip while still cold.

(I usually add peppermint extract and then dip them in dark chocolate. Really Really good. I also tried raspberry extract this valentines day and those were yummy too. But I still like the peppermint better.)

Cream Fondant

1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
2/3 cup white karo syrup
4 1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. salt

Place liquids in heavy 6-8 qt. saucepan and add sugar and salt. Stir and bring to quick boil. (After boil, cover pan briefly (30 seconds) to steam crystals from sides of pan.) After you take off the lid, clip on candy thermometer. Do not stir from this time on. (for reason why see here) Cook to 238 degrees, or softball stage. Remove from heat and pour, without scraping pan, onto a marble slab. (what! You don't have a marble slab? I hear you can also use a shallow pan, but I've never tried it) Cool until you can flick the candy with your finger and the candy takes 10 seconds to fill in the space. Add 2/3 cup marshmallow cream (you can also add flavoring and food coloring at this time if you want it all to be the same flavor) and beat until candy begins to lose its gloss - about 10 min. Let rest for 3 to 4 minutes. Continue beating until candy stiffens and completely loses its gloss. Put in container until you're ready to roll it into balls and dip. If you want different flavors, you can divide it and knead in the flavoring at a later date. It gets pretty sticky if you overwork it though. I usually do orange, lemon, and mint fondant, and tried raspberry this valentines day (as pictured). It was good.

The fondant is a bit tricky, especially if you haven't seen someone beat candy before. It's kind of the same process as fudge, with the crystalizing at the right moment. You can read about the science of it all here. Sometimes the fondant won't "turn" for me, and I use my hair dryer to heat it back up and then I try beating it again. It can be frustrating.

When I'm getting ready to dip the fondant, I spray my hands with Pam spray and roll bits into balls. I let them sit a bit to harden slightly on the outside so they're easier to dip.

I also use this recipe to make fudge, just adding some chocolate with the other ingredients.

Butter Caramels

1 cube unsalted butter
2 cups heavy cream (split)
1 3/4 cups light Karo syrup
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Bring all ingredients except 1 cup cream to a boil in heavy saucepan. Add withheld cream a little at a time without reducing the boil. Cover briefly (count 30) to steam crystals from sides of pan. Cook without stirring (same reason as fudge) to 242 degrees or firm soft ball stage. Pour into Pam-sprayed or buttered 9x13 glass pan and cool. Cut into squares when cool, or, while still warm, spoon over chopped pecans for turtles.

I have found that, for me, cooking to about 236 degrees makes the caramel how I like it. The temperature you cook it to will depend on where you live and the weather. Candy stores usually keep track of each batch of candy - what the weather was like at the time of cooking, what temperature it was cooked to, and how it turned out.

If you want to come make candy sometime, just let me know!

Valentine's Day Homeschool 2011

School time was shortened for Valentine's Day this year. We had some deliveries to make, so we mostly just did some fun math things with conversation hearts and a valentines worksheets I had printed from the internet.

We started by doing a lot of estimating. We estimated how much our conversation heart boxes weighed and checked using our balance scale. We estimated how many were in the box, which color we would have the most of, and which we would have the least of. We found out how much 7 conversation hearts weighed, or 10, or all 21.

Then we sorted and graphed the colors in our box and compared graphs.

Next we chose 10 hearts and put them in alphabetical order.

Maren wrote a story using the phrases from 10 conversation hearts. It was a story about a man who sold cupcakes, and the cupcakes were "too hot".

Joshua and I played "Valentine Battleship" which was an idea I found on one of the educational websites. I'm sorry I don't remember which one. Joshua loves playing battleship, so I knew this would be a great game for him. I just made a grid on 2 pieces of paper and we put hearts on the intersecting points. We took turns writing out our guesses on a different piece of paper so we would remember what we had already chosen. If you found your opponents heart, you got to eat it.

Christopher and I made patterns with the conversation hearts. At first he would just randomly put them in a line, and I kept trying to correct him. Finally he got really frustrated and said "fine mom. see?" and he made a perfect repeating pattern and then said "now I do it my way!" and put them back in a random line. So at least he knows how to make patterns. He just chooses not to.

While we ate snack I read a cam jansen valentine book to them. The rest of the morning was spent tracing, cutting, and writing on hearts to prepare to go decorate Daddy's office as a surprise. We made him a valentine with the kids handprints on it that said "We love our handsome daddy".

Roll Over, Roll Over

Today for preschool math with my almost 4 yr. old we made craft stick people and a construction paper bed to act out the song:

There were 5 in a bed
and the little one said
roll over, roll over
so they all rolled over and 1 fell out
There were 4 in a bed . . .

He thought it was a lot of fun. Not to be left out, my 6 yr. old and 8 yr. old insisted they get to make one also, but they had to have 10 people and they rolled out by 2s or 3s to make it a bit more challenging.

Block Valentines

image

I have been trying to find a Valentine craft that is simple enough for a two year old. Unfortunately a lot of them require too much cutting or other things that are just too difficult for my toddler to do. I end up doing the entire thing by myself which I am not complaining about, but would rather have my child more involved. I recently came across this idea from Parents.com. I love the one on their site. The light pink with mint green letters is a fun and unique combination. Unfortunately when you are doing a craft with a toddler that they are able to do they get to choose their colors. Maybe I micromanage a little too much because it was hard to relinquish creative control. They turned out great though and Grace is very excited to give them to her dad.
There are a lot of other really great ideas for easy Valentine crafts on Parents.com. Check them out here. All of them are forms of printmaking which was a really fun way to teach my toddler about that unique type of art and how different shapes and textures create different designs.

"Super" Easy Cape

When my 6 year old had his most recent birthday, a friend's mom made him a super cool cape that he loved and loved and loved. He wore it everywhere the first week, like to the mall and walmart. He received many compliments. Since my almost 4 year old wanted a superhero party I decided to try and make him one, and one for his cousin since then everyone attending the party would have one. And although mine is not nearly as well done as the one my friend made, I thought I would share because it's just so fun and easy. And if I leave out steps or something is confusing, I apologize. I'm not a very detailed writer and I tend to assume other people just know what I'm thinking.

First you go to the store and pick out two colors of shiny costume fabric. I found some great stuff on sale for $2 a yard. You buy a yard of each and some elastic. You'll also need a piece of white felt. I found a paper size sheet of the stuff in the craft section.

Cut a circle out of the felt and then trace whatever letter you want reversed on the back side. Cut it out. Decide which color is going to be your inside cape color and then cut a bit off the bottom to put behind your cut out felt. Pin it on the felt and sew around the letter. I'm not sure this is the best way to do it, but it's how I did it.

Since you had to cut a bit off the 1 piece of fabric, trim both pieces to be even. You could just buy more of one and less of the other so you wouldn't have wasted fabric. I planned to make capes for my boys build a bears which is why I didn't mind the leftover fabric. Anyway, pin and sew the circled letter in the middle of the outside cape fabric.

Next put the two pieces of fabric right sides together and sew around the sides and bottom. Turn right side out, and sew along the top. Then you make the casing for the elastic by folding down the top and sewing down. Thread through the elastic and sew at edges. Add a ribbon loop on one side and a button on the other and you're done.

The one I made for cousin was light blue and yellow, so it's a bit hard to see in the pictures. Christopher's is red and gold. He was very excited when he opened it before his party.

It only took a little over an hour to make (I'm kind of a sloppy seamstress. It might take longer if you iron and pin stuff). I think it's really fun and hope that made some sense.

Superhero Birthday Party

My 4 year old wanted a superhero birthday party. He doesn't really know much about specific super heroes, so we just did a generic superhero party. I decided I didn't want a bunch of 4 year olds running around the house, so we kept it small, just his siblings, cousin, and 1 good friend. It was really manageable and nice and fun and low stress. I should have done it that way for my others when they turned 4.

When the guests arrived, I had them color superhero wrist bands, which I had made out of mismatched baby socks. I just cut off the top bands and let them color them with markers. They were nice and stretchy and worked great, except that they did fray a bit since I didn't hem them, but I wasn't looking to do something that would last forever. I was looking for simple.

Next we gathered in the training room, and practiced "flying" around the house, follow the leader style. I put on some superhero music and the kids took turns being the leader.

Then we sharpened our "leaping over buildings in a single bound" skills. I set up little geotrax buildings we had and the kids took turns leaping over them, or in some cases, just going around them. But nobody tripped and that's all that matters.

After the leaping, we rehearsed our superhero kicks and yells. I tied a couple balloons to strings, hung them up, and instructed the kids to yell "pow!" "zap!" and other such expressions as they whacked at them one at a time. Each child wanted several turns at this game.

Next we played "Good guy, good guy, bad guy" just for fun. We took off our capes for this game to minimize chances of getting hurt.

Finally, we put all that hard training to good use when the evil "super bad man" came and attacked the group with lots of balloons. The only way to beat him was to hit and kick all the balloons back over to his side of the room. There was much cheering when he fell defeated to the ground.

We celebrated our superhero victory with cake and ice cream. I tried to make this cake look like a city with "Super Christopher" standing above as if he were defending it. I used a small round on top of a larger round cake. Vanilla and chocolate sugar wafers were cut to different lengths to look like buildings, and some of the wafers were pulled apart so the buildings were different depths also. I took one of my son's imaginext guys to be super christopher. I taped on a picture of his face and a circle with a "c" in it and a red cape.

All in all, a successful mission for my Super Christopher.

Love Bug

Every February the love bug visits our home. The first day she leaves the kids a note by their valentine mailboxes, telling them that she loves to watch the kids be loving to each other and will leave treats in their mailboxes when they treat each other well. The love bug writes notes to them praising the good things they did for each other the day before and leaves a little valentine something in their mailbox, usually cheap stuff from walmart, but hey, she's on a budget. One day it might be a hershey kiss, the next a plastic valentine cup, or a heart eraser. Maybe they'll find a heart silly straw to drink their morning milk with. Sometimes I have to gently remind the kids that the love bug is watching and they better shape up.

The kids think visits from the love bug are lots of fun, and my daughter decided that the love bug must be living in the love at home box I made earlier in January, and has added a mailbox to the door so that she can write letters back to the love bug. The love bug does like getting thank you notes.