A Simple Moment is a post that appears here every Friday.
A photo I want to remember of a simple moment, with a few simple words.
If you are inspired to do the same, leave a link in the comment section for all to see and read.
A spring like day (just before more snow flurries blew in) inspired some mud in the toes and old fashioned worm digging at our house.
A Simple Moment was inspired by SouleMama. Visit her site to see many more moments.
That is why, while making the meal plan for the week, it was so incredibly rewarding when she said she was going to make kale. It is, mind you, a side for her homemade pizza. But still – KALE! I had never even tasted kale until we started getting it in our CSA bin. And my eight-year-old wants to make kale!
I am hoping this new project of ours, having the girls each cook dinner one night a week, will inspire them to open up a cookbook, be more adventurous and try (maybe even like) some new things.
Last week I had a friend call me for advice on getting her kids to eat a wider variety of foods. While I think we are far from perfect eaters, I have learned a few things along the way.
These small successes of kids requesting kale and liking spinach come after years of hard nosed effort on my part, visits to farms to teach kids where food comes from, and continued education about why it’s important to eat a variety of healthy, whole foods. I do cook a few different things every night to make each family member happy – vegetarians and non-vegetarians. But we have a rule that you have to eat a vegetable and a protein, and that no one is allowed say anything rude about the food at the table. When one kid says “ewww” to something, it’s a sure guarantee that the rest won’t eat it either.
We eat dinner together every night, family style with the food on the table. The girls – even my three-year-old – serve themselves and help pass the food around the table. I always make sure there is at least one thing everyone will like, even if it’s just sweet potato french fries. Everyone has to put something green on their plate.
And that is dinner – with nothing more to eat after dinner. It probably sounds harsh to some. But if a child is hungry at 7:30 my response is, “You should have eaten more dinner. You can have a big breakfast in the morning.” We never eat before 6:30 and they are in bed by 8:30. So I really don’t think it’s too much to ask to not eat again until breakfast.
There have been trying times, and kids crying at the table times, everyone whining about what I made times and plenty of mom drinking wine times. But now our dinnertime ways have become part of our family culture. And finally – FINALLY – I believe it’s starting to stick, with more and more small successes along the way.
So for other moms out there like my friend struggling to find a dinnertime grove. I say stick with it! Be strong, and once in a while cut yourself a little slack.
Like last week when I was supposed to make the Spinach Frisbees. But after a hectic Thursday afternoon I bailed. I turned on the TV for the kids, put in a frozen pizza and called my sweet husband to bring home the pad thai noodles I was craving.
My middle girl made the Spinach Frisbees last night for dinner.
We were low on spinach this week so they ended up being chard frisbees, and they were more like nuggets than frisbees. As they were quickly cooking (some burning) I thought there was no way anyone is going to eat these. Much to my surprise they were a hit! And my picky girl volunteered her approval for us to make them again. She ate seven of them!
The recipe is from the book One Bite Won’t Kill You: More than 200 Recipes to Temp Even the Pickiest Kids on Earth. When I saw it in the Chinaberry catalogue at Christmas I had to buy it, just for the name. Santa left it Christmas morning. My picky girl who knows the Santa secret said, “Mom, really!?!” Turns out we have a few new favorite recipes from it already.
Recipes serve as inspiration and a starting place for me. I never follow them exactly and I always adapt things to better fit the pallets we are feeding, using what we have fresh and on hand. If you want the exact recipe for Spinach Frisbees, please buy the book, support the author, and Chinaberry.
Here’s our adapted version of the Spinach Frisbees recipe, using fresh instead of frozen greens, different cheeses, and a food processor.
Put fresh spinach (or chard, or both) in the food processor. We used a few handfuls of spinach and about seven large leaves of chard with the stems cut off. Pulse until very small but still resembling small leaves.
Add two-three minced garlic cloves, two-three eggs (depending on egg size and mixture consistancy), 1/4- 1/2 cup bread crumbs or a mixture of crackers for a good kid friendly result (I did a little of both).
Add the cheese. The recipe calls for 1/4 cup parmesan cheese. I used 1/2 cup pre-shredded blend of pizza cheeses and a handful of feta cheese – because I have gotten the thumbs up making spinach pizzas this way before and that’s what was in the fridge.
Blend it all together. Then in a pan put a thin layer of vegetable oil and turn the heat on medium-high. Form small frisbees or nuggets out of the mixture and lightly saute (okay, more like fry), flipping them as you go along. They cook fast! I suggest making the frisbees before, or you might not be able to make them as fast as they are cooking. When done, we put ours in the toaster oven on low to keep them warm while we cooked the rest. This made a lot. And I think I about tripled the original recipe. Which was good for our family of five.
We served them with marinara dipping sauce for the kids. I figure it’s better than ketchup. They are eating chard after all. Which makes it all OK.
I must confess, my patience did come unravvled when my middle girl lost interest in cooking halfway through this time. But the peace was regained with the impromptu additions of edamame and her happily munching on plain lettuce like a little rabbit. It was a lesson for me that she wants to be able to do all the steps on her night to cook – not pushed out of the way when there is hot, splattering vegetable oil.
Since I’m helping one child cook, while home alone with three children – we have a rule for that. If you are not cooking that night stay out of the kitchen, unless you have been asked to help. The girls see this as special time, and want to approve who gets to help. Usually, helping is encouraged and it’s not an issue. But if it is, like it was last night, the rule is go find something else to do.
If not helping or setting the table, the other girls may choose a craft, read a book, play a game, do a chore or go play upstairs. (Going upstairs rarely happens because no one strays far from the kitchen when they are hungry.)
This was the scene Monday night, as a game of ISpy was opened for the first time, and a biggest sister happily entertained the littlest sister. It was another sweet success.
A Simple Moment is a post that appears here every Friday.
A photo I want to remember of a simple moment, with a few simple words.
If you are inspired to do the same, leave a link in the comment section for all to see and read.
The remnants of a morning being iced in, when everyone stays in their pajamas all day and Valentine hearts get glued to the windows. (The boxes are china and dishes that are still waiting to be unpacked into our new cabinets. Perhaps some day soon it will happen?)
A Simple Moment was inspired by SouleMama. Visit her site to see many more moments.
This time I thought it would be a fun treat to have French toast and fruit kabobs for dinner, on the night it was my little girl’s turn to help make dinner.
Really it’s perfect for a three-year-old. Especially one who loves to crack eggs, dip bread and stick fruit on a stick. There are SO many things that toddlers can do in the kitchen. And this is the age where they truly love doing practical life work and feeling useful.
I did the prep work of cutting the bread and the fruit. She could have managed cutting the strawberries, but at the moment riding bikes was more fun. As it should be!
But with this dinner there was a lot of important jobs for her to do too.
And because I was enjoying making the fruit kebabs too, I couldn’t resist a little creative creation of my own, using small heart and flower cookie cutters. So far this this project of getting the girls more involved in making dinners turning out to be a lot of fun.
So she taught her. In the front yard, when we got home.
Both of them were so proud. One because she felt like a good teacher and one because she was on her way to learning something new. It’s these moments that make the work of mothering all worth while. Like getting a good report card, written for the heart.
Smiling sisters and knowing just how much they mean to each other is truly priceless.
The small notebook shown in the photo is where I jot down items to pick up at the grocery store. It’s handprinted from Vermont Vittles.
Then, the kids got involved by wanting to help make the menu. I took that opportunity to get them more involved in the kitchen and start helping to make dinner. Now all three of them have a night where they each make dinner. Obviously, I help a lot – especially with my three-year old. But my hope is that soon, the two older girls will have a couple dinners they can make by themselves, for the family.
After a few weeks of working out the tweaks I found them taking turns every other night works best. No one likes cooking on Saturday or Sunday because they would rather be playing outside and riding bikes with dad. So for now on they will cook Monday, Wednesday and Friday. They are not allowed to cook the same thing two weeks in a row. And they must prepare an all round balanced meal. It is all based on eating real foods, like what we did for the Real Food Challenge.
Last week my middle girl made bow tie pasta with red sauce and shredded cheeese, with raw carrot strips. My little girl helped with fish taco night, making the beans, rice, fish, and getting out all the fixings. My oldest girl ended up getting out of dinner last week because of our surprise snow day. But the week before she enjoyed making fried okra, roasted asparagus, noodles and red sauce. I made Minestrone soup and grill cheese sandwiches. One night we had manderine orange veggie (faux) chicken, sweet potato fries, kale, cheesy cauliflower, and scrambled eggs. It’s all basic stuff, inspired by what was in our CSA box, what struck me as interesting at the grocery store or the feeling that everyone needed an extra boost of protein.
Here’s what’s on the menu this week.
Sunday – middle girl cooks – Chicken tenders breaded in fresh corn meal, roasted carrot strips, “lettuce salad” from roman lettuce with cut spinach and vinaigrette. (We also had a block of cheese on the table for the non-meat eaters.)
Monday – cabbage potato soup and spinach, feta scrabbled eggs. (With left over chicken tenders, beans, hummus and pittas for the soup protesters.)
Tuesday – little girl cooks – French toast and fruit kebabs
Wednesday – Spaghetti night with veggies from our CSA.
Thursday – Spinach Frisbees (from the cookbook One Bite Won’t Kill You) and sweet potato fries.
Friday – oldest girl cooks – Tomato soup (from the Southern Living Kids Cookbook) and grill cheese sandwiches in the panini maker.
Saturday – we go out for dinner!
Here’s a few snapshots of the kids making dinner….
(Please ignore the clutter in the background that did not belong on that table. It shows we are not perfect here. But my oldest girl was SO proud of making dinner that night, it’s worth the shot – and the added play dough dinner on the table)
A Simple Moment is a post that appears here every Friday.
A photo I want to remember of a simple moment, with a few simple words.
If you are inspired to do the same, leave a link in the comment section for all to see and read.
A Simple Moment was inspired by SouleMama. Visit her site to see many more moments.
At 2:00 on Thursday I left the pick up the girls from school. The temperature in my car said 34 degrees and it was raining. Fifteen minutes later, still on my drive, it was sleeting and the temperature had dropped to 32 degrees. By the time I got to school five minutes later it was 30 degrees and the snow was coming down in buckets. Since I didn’t really believe the forecast, I thought we had time to stop for some milk after school. Because just incase it did snow, I wanted to have plenty of hot chocolate.
So then, I was totally the person in the grocery store, with a total for four kids (we car pool) buying milk, bread and eggs. The girls were all so excited about the snow, it was totally worth it. And then we had slow drive home, coming home to this.
It didn’t take long for the snow gear to go back on and the girls pulled the sleds from the basement, to play in the VERY WET snow.
Thinking the bigger kids would follow me to the park and big sledding hill, I took off for a walk with my little girl.
They didn’t follow us. And we had a beautiful, cold, wet walk. I LOVE walks in the snow. I love that snow is rare enough where we live, that the world seems to stop. It’s a wonderful special kind of peace when it snows.
Our walk was followed by an impromptu gathering at a neighbors house with more children, adult conversations and thankfulness for our wonderful community. School is out tomorrow. Cinnamon rolls, building a snowman, indoor games by the fire and more hot chocolate is on the agenda.
Crafts are keeping my pre-school aged daughter the most busy right now on cold winter days. And with a constant crowd of girls at home (mine and others), more are always sure to join her.
What was our Montessori shelf of lessons, has become our winter craft shelf. First it was decked out with Christmas crafts, wrapping materials, hole punches, card making supplies and snowman stickers. When that got old it became the place for all the new craft kits that were Christmas gifts.
But for now, we’re just having a free for all. A pom pom kit and pipe cleaners was a hit. It was designed to make detailed pom pom animals. But when it comes to crafting with small children, I’m a throw it out there and let them make something mom versus trying to have them make a Pinterest perfect craft. They have a good time this way, and course I’m there to help. We found sewing the pom poms works better than glueing. 
Then that led to sewing the pom poms together to make a string of pom poms – that was used to decorate her doll’s treehouse. 
There is a lot of crafting, cutting, and taping of things that happens for those dolls in this house! They have a mailbox, they received letters, games are made for them, zip lines, bucket delivery systems on kid-made pulley systems. It goes on and on, and I continue to be amazed how much creativity and the hours of imagination that goes into playing with dolls here, mostly led by my oldest daughter. She enjoys many various craft kits by American Girl, but still comes up with the majority of her creations on her own.
Making old fashioned snowflakes and paper chains are always enjoyed in the winter. Cutting snowflakes from coffee filters, like these from Heart of Wisdom, has been a long time fun winter activity here. My oldest daughter has made 3D snowflakes at school. The directions the art teacher sent home are from WikiHiow.
The snowflakes below are from a kit at Hearthsong, which is no longer available. It’s meant to be something different and more complicating with stain glass paper between the holes. But my kids just pop out all the little card pieces in the flakes and enjoy them as decorations. Then, I gave the girls a bowl of glue, a paint brush and glitter to paint sparkles on the snowflakes. At the time there were five girls at my house for the day. They all loved that activity!
Last year we had fun making these snowman out of clay, when we didn’t get quite enough snow to make a real snowman. As well as ice danglers using collected things from nature, when we had some colder temperatures but no snow. We are hoping for some real snow this year – and it’s in the forecast for tonight!
My youngest daughter received a My Giant Busy Box for Christmas and it really has kept her busy. She likes making the puppets in it, with lots of help from me. But her favorite is the play dough. It’s so simple and such a treat for them to have store bought play dough versus plain bread dough. I’m savoring the days when cranky moments turn to instant glee with the offer to do play dough! One evening it kept the two younger girls independently busy long enough for me to help my oldest daughter make dinner.
It looked like this, with my middle girl wearing a headband she crafted from a Fashion Headbands kit, another Christmas gift put to good use during winter break.
The iPod did get some sticker embellishments during this (somewhat) unsupervised play dough process. And, the baby got her mouth taped shut – weird I know. I’m still strangley pondering the secret message involved in that from a third child who is always trying to be heard more often and more loudly.
Then they served us play dough soup and hot dogs for dinner (which is strange because we rarely eat hot dogs, even veggie ones). But still. I loved this little addition to my oldest daughter’s night to make dinner.
Next up, the craft shelf will become a Valentine shelf stocked with inexpenive crafts placed on Montessori style trays for “lessons.” Here’s a snapshot preview of valentine crafting with kids around here – a card being held too close to the camera by my little girl, who enlisted the help of my oldest girl “to draw a picture of my teacher Chrissy.” She drew a photo of her doing a disco dance, with a disco ball that said, “Disco Chrissy.” Then my little one decorated it with stickers and proudly put in her bag to give to her teacher today at school. 
The response from Chrissy at pick up time today should be fun, because I’m sure she loved the card. Man I love these quirky kids! 
It feels strange to have been away from this space for so long. But I have, and now I am finally ready for the new year. When I returned here, to Facebook, Pinterest and email, I was welcomed back by several new likes, subscriptions, and comments. Thank you! I love spending my free time here. The fact that people read it and like it, makes it even more purposeful to me. I’m very glad to be back, and thankful to have had this quiet rainy day to sit by the fire and write.
We had a wonderful winter break from school. It was somewhat of a magical break, where I loved spending everyday with my children. In the 24 straight days they were at home with me, I didn’t have a single instant when I was wished school would hurry up and start back.
There must have been some magic in those Christmas toys, because they have kept my girls happily engaged and playing imaginatively together for weeks. Seeing them play together, read together and help each other, fills my heart with smiles. (I wanted to share a favorite gift list from 2012 – I apologize if you’ve been waiting for that – but I missed that window so now it will now get rolled into a few winter activities at home posts).
But now onto 2013. For the first time in several years I had no resolutions and I ate no black eyed peas on New Years Day. Maybe I really hadn’t thought about it enough, maybe I was not quite ready to think about it, maybe I just didn’t care. I was too busy being in the moment with the girls. And for the past few weeks, that felt like the right place to be. Not sitting at my computer while they played, but joining in on a game of Candyland and puzzles. Not staying up too late where I couldn’t be fully present for them the next day, but tucking myself in with them, at their bedtime.
So these leaves me with a new form or resolutions for the new year, as our family grows another year older, needs grow bigger, parenting decisions are raised up a notch and we reach a little deeper to figure out what that all means for us.
After giving it some thought, I’m not going to make a definitive list of things to check off, home improvements to do, places to travel or things to want. Instead I’ll focus on the little things that surround us everyday.
With all that said, I know this year will be full of adventures, inspiration and happy times.
Welcome 2013.