Continuing with the strawberry theme of the week, and to celebrate Lisa’s birthday, we went strawberry (and raspberry) picking last night. It’s sort of the tail end of a not-so-great season for strawberries, but the ones we got are quite sweet and everyone had a good time!
I found a recipe for making homemade strawberry playdough (scroll down on that page) and decided to try it this morning. I will never buy commercial playdough again – this smells better, is more malleable, and I know exactly what’s in it. It would taste awful, but if some ended up in a little mouth it certainly wouldn’t hurt anyone!
So, I had my doubts at this stage:
But then after a bit of kneading it looked like this:
Add a toothpick for a tool, and here’s a strawberry made out of strawberry playdough:
The kids have spent the past hour and a half playing with this stuff. I think we have a winner!
Carolyn has been asking to learn how to play piano for a while, and I went out and bought a couple of beginner books, and tried to work through them with her. I’ve discovered that while I am very proficient at playing piano, I am absolutely terrible at teaching piano.
A friend recommended her teacher, who conveniently lives just a few minutes away, and Carolyn had her first lesson today. How exciting!
In an effort to avoid relying on the TV to occupy the kids, I’ve planned out some themes for every week of the summer, and come up with some craft ideas, “field trips” and other activities around each theme.
This week is “Strawberry Week”. We’ll see how it goes!
It all started seven years ago. Seven years ago, we took a guest room and turned it into a nursery. Lots of stuff from the guest room migrated into the craft room. Sometime later, I sort of cleaned it up so it was partly usable. Then three years ago, we took an office and turned it into another nursery. Lots of stuff from the office migrated into the craft room. With two small children and a small business, I’ve had no time to try to clean it up, though I have made a couple of half-hearted attempts over these past three years.
Last summer it looked like this:
And really, it’s only gotten worse since then. Much, much worse. Two weeks ago I decided I was either going to have this room cleaned up before school let out, or I was going to rent a dumpster, park it outside the window, and throw it all out.
This is what it looks like today:
(We won’t talk about how much I’ve neglected the rest of the house in order to get this room clean. That’s a project for this weekend!)
Carolyn came home with a backpack stuffed with stuff and a shirt covered with her classmates’ handprints. Let summer vacation begin!
It’s the last week of school, which means “Cook’s Choice” for the whole week on the lunch menu. “Cook’s Choice” (aka whatever’s left in the bottom of the fridge) is not a friendly sounding thing to a somewhat picky eater, so Carolyn has been bringing her lunch all week.
This morning at 8:05 (the bus comes at 8:27) I got out all the sandwich makings and said “Sunbutter and honey, right?” and got a face. I tried again, “Ham?” and got another face. So I said, “All right, what do you want for lunch??” “Can I have a lunch without a sandwich?” “What do you mean, a lunch without a sandwich?” “Like you used to make, with lots of different things but no sandwich, remember?” Errr…it’s 8:09 AM, the bus comes in 18 minutes, and you want me to make a bento?!? After not wanting a bento lunch since last October…? Oh, sure, why not?
Not bad, considering how out-of-practice I am and how very little time I had to stand in front of the fridge and figure out what on earth could go in a bento and form a complete-ish meal!