This is a very fun and entertaining craft for toddlers. My kids love to use glue, so in most of our crafts we use some glue to keep them interested.

Before we start, I cut out colourful card stocks in to flower and leaf shapes.

I use a paper plate for glue for them to share. Each gets a wood stick to apply the glue with and then there are sticks, and the shapes I already cut.

To make it easy on them I make one of each flower and leave them with the material to go crazy. It is funny how they pick different leaves and different flower and come up with a totally new thing (sometimes flower J).

This is quick, easy and clean (well except the glue part. I use washable glue J ) and my kids have lots of fun creating different flowers by picking different shape or glue it to some different spot.

Until later,

Tags: paper flower, paper flowers, toddler craft, washable glue

Usually I don’t trust internet easily. Even for recipes I always check at least couple of websites to decide which one I like better or mix the two together to create a recipe that works for me.

That was for recipes, when I’m looking for something more serious I check at least five or six websites before deciding if the info is correct or not. But even doing that didn’t help me this time to find the correct info.

Last week I posted an article which was based on the misleading information on blogosphere. Although I checked a lot of website all confirming the story, it turned out that all those blogs and website had incorrect information, and unfortunately there are very few website with the correct info, all lost among the others. Here I am a victim of misleading information on internet.

So my question is can you really trust the information you get from internet.  What precaution do you take not to fall for the wrong info?

Until later,

I always try to have some kind of vegetable in my food. Especially in Pasta as it is my kids’ favorite food. They will eat any kind of pasta, which works for me perfectly.

Ingredients:

Carrot- eggplant- zucchini – celery – onion- garlic – tomato sauce – tomato paste-  dried oregano – salt – pepper- cumin and, turmeric.

Grill the eggplant and zucchini skin on, clean celery stalks and skin carrots. Then when the eggplant and zucchini are ready throw them in the food processor and mix them well until you get a paste

Meanwhile you can chop up the onion and sauté until golden brown, and then add finely diced garlics. When you can smell the garlic is a good time to add your tomato sauce and tomato paste. Let the sauce warm up a little then you can add you veggie mixture.  Add the spices and let the sauce thicken up.  Make sure that the heat is low, tomato sauce has a tendency to burn quickly and as the sauce is already thick it will burst and you will have sauce all over the place, like a little volcano of your own.  So stir as much as possible.

I created this pasta sauce out of the veggies that were going to go bad soon. I don’t like wasting food so from time to time I come up with a new idea how to save the produce from going bad. In this recipe, I didn’t give exact amount of each ingredient, because first you can change the veggies as your family’s liking, and second the amount is based on how much you are making.

You can add other herbs to this recipe like adding flat leaf parsley or dried Basel and celery seeds.  Or you can just make it with Carrots and celery or add your favorite veggies to the mix.

I made this sauce to keep in fridge and use for couple of months as pasta sauce, pizza sauce, and adding to my meat sauce.  I used carrots and celery each double the size of eggplant and zucchini, one onion and few cloves of garlic, and couple of hand full of dried oregano.

The sauce will have a reasonable amount of water in it because of the veggies, if you are using the sauce immediately it’s fine. If you are making a big batch to keep for months, you want to make sure to reduce the water as much as possible and add a little bit more salt to prevent the sauce from going bad.

Until later,

Tags: pasta dish, pasta recipe, pasta salad, pasta sauce, pizza sauce, toddler food

I was thinking of making a reward board for a long time, but never got in to it. Until my son fixated on having this expensive talking Buzz Lightyear, I didn’t want to buy it for him obviously. But had to do something to get his mind out of convincing me to buy that. So I made this reward board, and told him if he gets 5 happy faces each week he gets some allowance and then he can save his money and buy that toy himself, because I’m not buying it.

He has to behave and be good to his sister to receive a happy face at the end of the day. I can’t tell you how many times a day we change from happy face to sad face and back to happy face again, but we are more focused on getting the happy face instead of the Buzz Lightyear.

Here is how to make the reward board. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: kids reward board, reward card, toddler, toddler reward board

Although we are heading towards fall, I still like a cool drink in sunny warm days. I made this drink for the kids a few days ago and they love so much so that they keep asking for it.

I filled a toddler size glass in half, added one scoop of vanilla ice-cream, then for the look, and to make them feel special added a little bit of cool whip and a drizzle of chocolate sauce.

Try it; it may work for the kids who don’t like milk.

Until later,

Tags: kids drink, kids drink recipe, milk shake, recipe