Happy Chinese New Year!

Today is Chinese New Year.  Year of the Horse.

We celebrated with a dumpling party with some friends.  I had horse crafts for the kiddos, compliments of Red Ted Art, the adults made dumplings and even some of the kids helped make some dumplings.

For dessert we had sweet rice cakes.  A great way to ring in the new year.

I love the post from Mystic Mamma for what's to come for the Year of the Horse.

“Fast action flows just right for you if you are compatible with Horse energy by having Horse, Tiger, Dog, or Sheep in your Chinese Four Pillars chart of animal year, month, day, and hour…”

I'm a dog!  So this will be a good year for me!! Thank goodness because I was not really feeling last year.  I was really glad for last year to be over.  This year is gonna ROCK!!

Oil-pulling

Oh my goodness!  My sister just sent me a blog post on oil-pulling.  Thank you to my sister and thank you to Design Mom for posting such a thorough review of oil-pulling!

Apricot Jam Bars

Do you ever have these hanging around?  Not the empty jars but half full ones.  Well, I did!   I bought the first one for a dessert and then forgetting that I had it, I sent the FIL out to get some more for a different dessert.  He bought the Reduced Sugar one. I don't ever buy things like that.
Anyhooo, I had a couple of jars of Apricot Jam sitting around and wanted to clear out my fridge a bit.
A search on the Internets brought me to Your Homebased Mom and her delicious recipe.  I added flaxseeds into my mix and then sprinkled shredded coconut and some sliced almonds on top.

It was a winner!  The fam loved it!!  This bar recipe can probably be used for any leftover jam.  I baked mine for closer to 50 minutes.

Storytelling...is magical

I am currently reading, "Healing Stories for Challenging Behavior" by Susan Perrow.  I came across this book at the Pasadena Waldorf School Store.  It's not that D has any challenging behaviors, I just wanted to read more about storytelling and this particular book had actual stories to address certain behaviors.  Through Waldorf education, I have been made aware of the transformative quality of storytelling.  I think it was about a year ago that I attended  a workshop of an author who wrote a book on Play and how through play (and storytelling), one could change a child's behavior.  It was really interesting -

The dentist and the detective

Just took D to her 6 month teeth cleaning. The nurse comes out and says, "So for today we will be taking X-rays and then teeth cleaning."
Me, "Whoa, wait. Why are you taking X-rays?"
Nurse: "Oh it's just customary. We take X-rays every 6 months for kids her age just to make sure there are no cavities forming."

Real Food Pantry

Ooh, Lisa Leake from 100 days of Real Food blog just gave us a tour of her pantry!

I'm super excited that while my pantry is not as neat and organized as hers, we have practically the same exact ingredients in there!  Whoohoo!  I keep our chocolate in the refrigerator.

Can't wait to see what is in her refrigerator.  I am just getting ready to CLEAR mine out!!

Lana

Just realized that Lana spelled backwards is Anal.  Whaaat?!  Yeah, ya might not want to name your child Lana...in case she turns out to be, well, "anal."

Am I right?

Cultural Mondays

D goes to school Tuesday through Thursday.  She used to go Tuesday through Friday even though technically, age-wise she is really just in preschool.  But because our school, Seeds of Joy, is a mixed age program we had a 4-day program for the 4 year olds and up (preschool/Kindergarten).  That changed this year since we have such a young class.  Almost everyone is below the age of 5 (which is great for the growth of this school!)

American Horror Story

Finding out commonalities through television...The hubs and I just started watching the first season of American Horror Story on FX. I think we are now four seasons behind.

He thought I'd enjoy watching since I loved Nip/Tuck (same producers) and I also enjoy horror flicks. Okay. First episode and it's about how haunted this house is...get more into it and there is a couple who moves in with their 16 year old daughter.

A bunch of creepy things start happening and the hubs and I keep asking the telly, "why are you still living there??"

At one point, the hubs turns to me and says, "Wouldn't you just move out?? And I replied, "Not only would I move out, but I would leave everything in the house!! Take nothing with me!!" The hubs agreed.

It's nice to know that if we were ever caught in a scary situation, we at least think alike.

Meanwhile, we often will watch tv in bed on the computer. So naturally, a show really has to be interesting enough to me such that I would want to stay up to watch it. Sadly, or maybe even fortunately, American Horror Story does not fall into that category. But, I think Jessica Lang does a great job on that show.

Jenga!

Remember this game? So fun. D got this from her aunt for Christmas. What a great gift for a five year old.

Good cop, bad cop...a little maturity, or...instilling FEAR

Soo...yesterday was an interesting day.  D was acting particularly ornery.  We had taken her and a friend to Mountain High for a day of skiing.  We had a good time but G was a bit annoyed that D was a bit whiney and wouldn't carry her own skis (um, she's four...) In the car, I'm not sure how we got on the subject, but D's friend said, "I am so lucky to have my dad because he always plays with me."  D says, "I wish I had parents that played with me..."

This tweet...really??!

"Being a dad is not hard work at all. When you love doing something this much, it never feels like work." @likeadad

This tweet was a "retweet" Umm, I am pretty sure I would not like to follow this guy. Clearly, his world view is all sunshine and rainbows. Yuck!

Really?? It never feels like work?