Pumpkin Blueberry Pancakes

As I have mentioned before, Hazel loves pancakes. Well she has been asking to make pumpkin ones again. I finally remembered to buy a can of cooked pumpkin so we could. Then when she asked to make them I was able to answer yes. 

We pulled out the ingredients. We adapted the recipe in our Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Cookbook that I have had since I was six. I love this book! We used one cup of whole wheat flour, two teaspoons baking powder, a half of a cup of almond meal, a half cup of oatmeal and a teaspoon of cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg. Hazel measured and mixed our dry ingredients! 

Next we beat an egg--Hazel cracked it by herself and beat it! Then added one cup non-fat milk, one tablespoon olive oil and a can of cooked organic pumpkin. Again she mixed it for me. At this point I started heating the pan and sprayed it with a cooking spray.

Then we combined the two together and added one cup of frozen blueberries. We had fresh ones but I didn't see a reason to waste fresh ones by cooking them.

Next Hazel pulled her stool over to the stove and helped me scoop it into the pan. She didn't totally understand why we had to do it over the stove, but she did help with the first two batches.

Hazel claims these are her favorite pancakes. When I flip them over I press down on with the spatula to make sure the batter gets around the blueberries. I usually flip them twice and do this both times.


Enjoy!!


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Imagination--Readathon Week 4

Sharing Saturday is still open through Wednesday!! Please stop by to share your child-oriented crafts and activities and to check out all the inspiration others have shared!

Also Happy Family Times is open! Please stop by and share your fun family activities this week! Help us to inspire each other to have more quality family time!


As you know, we are participating in several book clubs, readathons, etc. this summer. The Memetales Readathon 2012 has imagination for its theme this week! I love this theme!! For the people signed up, there are three free electronic books to read with this theme. (Plus for every child who signs up a meal is donated to FoodforEducation.org!)

The first is Night Boy by Anne Laurel Carter. I love this story. Night is the younger brother and Day is the older sister. Night cannot wait to play hide-and-seek with his sister, but he has to wait until it is dark. He pulls out his blanket to make it dark and she goes and hides (to the west of course), but he jumps in his spaceship and heads in the wrong direction and gets distracted creating constellations and the night sky. Day calls him back and it is his bed time, so she tucks him in for the daytime. The perfect activity is to study the night sky of course. Although Hazel's bedtime is well before the sun sets during the summer here, we did some exploring of constellations. We talked about how people saw images in the stars and named the constellations using their imaginations. Then we created some of the constellations using flashlights and black paper or tin foil as suggested in the links below.

Happy Family Times #16--Our Fourth of July BBQ

What have you been doing with your family this week? Anything fun and different? Kelly from Happy Whimsical Hearts and I are loving reading about everyone's adventures. Please share below!

Food Table Before Party

I saved our Fourth of July Barbeque to share with you. It definitely gave us some quality time as a family and with friends. We had a total of six adults and four children. It was a hot day and there was a chance of thunder storms which the rain held off until after everyone left. 

We put up our decorations. This year Hazel was not afraid of the wind and we were able to stay outside. A huge improvement from last year.

We had a kids' table set up, but Hazel is the only one who sat at it. I'm not sure she realized that it was funny she was the only one. The five-year-old didn't want to sit at the kids' table and the other two kids were too young (one being only two months old and the other needing a high chair). 

The kids had a great time playing together. Hazel and the five-year-old are on the swing together here. Then we ate. We had corn-on-the-cob, grilled chicken and hot dogs, orzo salad and green salad. For dessert Hazel and I made sugar cookies from a mix. Steve and Hazel decorated them that morning while I cut our red, white and blue fruit salad (apples, blueberries, strawberries and raspberries with a bit of lemon juice to keep the apples from turning brown). I saw this idea somewhere on-line. I don't remember where and apparently did not pin it. Sorry!

After eating, the two older kids went on the slip and slide to cool off. Hazel had the best time on it.

Then right before everyone left they played with the water stuff I left out and turned it colors. The one-year-old was also having a blast with the sandbox and sidewalk chalk.

After everyone left, Hazel still wanted to play on the slip and slide and Steve and I decided to join her and cool off.

While out on the slip and slide it started to rain. Steve rushed to finish the cleaning up though most of it was done except the slip and slide and Hazel and I went inside to get dry. That night I was able to watch neighbor's fireworks from our family room couch. I have to say they were a bit too close for my comfort but beautiful and then God provided us with his own which put a bit of a damper on other people's celebrations. From what I understand several of the local ones were stalled by the storm. 

Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

~ please link up (family time oriented giveaways are ok, but please no Etsy shops)
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Ok, now for our PARTY!! Please share your FUN Family Times!!

Multicultural Monday: Play! Book Review

Sharing Saturday is still open. Please stop by and share your child-oriented crafts and activities and check out what others have shared!

For Multicultural Monday, I am going to review the book Kids Around the World Play! by Arlette N. Braman. This is a book my friend got out of the library for me. For some reason her local library would not let me take it out through interlibrary loan. Thank you, Jill!!

This book is set up in different sections. It has your word games and brain teasers, chance games, skill games, action games, board games, and how to make toys. Many of the ideas in the book are not necessarily new, but the book gives you some history and how they are played around the world. 

American Jacks Source

For example, in America we play Jacks. In Kenya (remember our post about Kenya?) they are called Jackstones. They use stones, nuts, or peach pits for the jacks and ball. One of the stones is used as the ball and tosses it in the air and has to scoop up as many of the remaining stones and catch the one tossed in the air. The book goes further with names for this game, in Laos it is Jack Sticks (played with chopsticks), in Singapore Five Stones (using a triangular cloth bag filled with rice or seeds as the ball), in Vietnam Truyen-Truyen (picking up chopsticks) and in Iraq Knucklebones (using the anklebones of sheep). Knucklebones was also the name of the game in Ancient Rome and Greece.

Source

Another great example is Hopscotch (here is where I shared our Hopscotch). In Japan it is Ishikeri.The board described in the book is slightly different from the typical American board. It is rectangular with two columns--each column has squares go between two in the column or one and the numbers 1-16.  Again this game goes back to the ancient Romans. And it gives the different names from different countries--in Great Britain it is Hop-Round, in Aruba Pele, in China Gat Fei Gei and in Honduras LaRayuela.

Overall, I am enjoying this book. We have not tried any of the games in it yet, but I definitely want to have Hazel try some. So if you are looking for some fun ways to teach multiculturalism to your kids, this book is a great start.

This week the Readathon theme is imagination. I will be sharing more later this week. Next Monday the Virtual Book Club for Kids link party starts. This month's author is Don and Audrey Wood. I hope you will join us!

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Parenting, Discpline and God

So I was all set to publish a fun little craft we did today and tie it into some books from the library, but that will have to wait. I am going to get serious and deep here, so if you don't want to go there with me you may want to skip this post.

I've been reading Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp. I am going to apologize now, because I learned about this book on someone's blog, but apparently I did not pin it. So if it was your blog, please let me know so I can source you!! I'm only in the beginning of Chapter 4. Tedd Tripp is a father and a minister (possibly retired). I have been reading a chapter here and there for a few months now. In this book, Tedd Tripp discusses how everything you need to know about parenting and discipline are in the Bible. He also says any age child should know God and show a tendency to love God or to disobey God (and be self-centered). Or at least that is what I have taken from what I have read. 

Now Hazel is three and a half and I have to say I do not totally agree with the knowing God or being self-centered here. One example he used was when two children fight over a toy. Most parents, teachers, etc. say the toy should go to the person who had it first, but he says actually both children are in the wrong since God wants us to treat each other as we would want to be treated so the first child should have given the other child the toy if he/she is following God. Now I don't know too many any three-year-olds willing to give up a toy they are enjoying because another child wants it without some adult intervention. I honestly do not think the child's reasoning is far enough along at that point to understand that. 

However I do agree with many things said in the book. Today I was beginning Chapter 4 and he gave an example of disciplining his own son (a typical conversation between them) with him telling his child he must discipline (ok, he said spank but I will not spank Hazel) because that is what God says must happen when a child does not obey his/her mother/father. 

So this evening at dinner, Hazel and I were discussing spilling her juice. I explained if it was an accident it was all right, but it is not something she should try to do. We have had this discussion many times. About ten minutes later I watch as she takes her closed hand and pushes her filled juice cup over. Needless to say, I was not happy. (I should add that this is a day where we did not see Steven. He went with friends from work on a hike. When we first talked about him going I did not realize it would be an entire day thing. He left at 6 a.m. and now after 8 p.m. he is not home. Hazel amazingly slept until after 7 a.m. which is basically unheard of in our house, so she is missing Daddy since she did not see him at all.) 

While cleaning up the mess and trying to keep it from damaging anything, I explained to her that doing it on purpose was not funny or fun and for that she would need to be disciplined. I went into the whole story of that God wants me to discipline her like the book said. She was not happy with the discipline which was that I would only read one story to her this evening instead of our normal three and only told her one without a book as well which I often only tell her one and then Daddy tells her more. Yes, she was crying and upset about this, but I did not cave. I really try not to cave when she cries since her father and my mother-in-law often do. I do not want her to think she can get whatever she wants by crying. 

Well before she fell asleep we had a long discussion well I guess I had a long discussion about God and my beliefs. I had asked her if she had any questions about the discipline or my reason or about God. She answered yes, but asked me to tell her. She doesn't quite get what a question is all the time. So I told her I could tell her my beliefs, and she said she wanted that. Somehow, I feel awful about the whole experience. I'm not sure why, but I do. I'm hoping it is just because it has been a long, busy day. 

I have been trying to introduce God to her more. We do almost nightly prayers, but I'm not totally sure she gets it all. We go to church, but at church she goes to the nursery and plays with high school students (who are also her babysitters mostly) during the school year. It is only in the summer when the nursery is not open or when she goes to mass with Steve and his mother that she is in church. Oh, and the Christmas pageant when we are angels. I have found this book helpful to start introducing God to her and what being a Christian means. 

How have you introduced God to your child? Do you use God in your discipline? Any thoughts?