Dominoes for Babies

Don't tell Kiddo, but I let New Kid play dominoes so I can have my daily dose of caffeine.

Going Dotty

We love our "dot-makers!"

Required Reading:
The Dot
One Red Dot
Ten Black Dots

The Little Weasel (Transportation Tuesday)

I have long been a fan of mamaroots' charming handcrafted wooden figures. And guess what? I won this little weasel in a giveaway! Hooray! Upon his arrival, I placed him among our autumn bounty. However, he soon weaseled his way onto the N Train. He's been joyriding ever since.

Thanks mamaroots and Herbal Roots Zine!

Leaf Art

You've seen lots of leaf art on kid activity blogs lately (see below for some good links). Why should you be interested in ours? I don't know, except that we took an ultra simple approach. All you need is some glue, paint, paper and, of course, some beautiful autumn leaves.Since New Kid was snoozing, I was able to get in on the action. I may have had more fun than Kiddo. Required reading:
Leaf Man
Fletcher and the Falling Leaves
Autumn Leaves
Other Not-so-complicated Leaf Art Projects:
Beautiful Leaf Lantern at 5 Orange Potatoes
Leaf Garland at Frugal Family Fun Blog
Preserve Your Leaves at mama smiles
Fall Colors Suncatcher (it reminds me of falling leaves!) at Superheroes and Princesses
Paper Bag Fall Leaves (okay, this one's more complicated, but so cool!) at Creative Kismet

Enjoy the Autumn leaves before they leave! (so cheesy, I couldn't resist)

Why I Didn't Blog This Week... in Pictures

OK. ONE photo. I'm trying to Blog Without Obligation, but it's hard!

Kid-Friendly Apple Pie

Kiddo helped me make a delicious apple pie -- it was really ugly -- but really delicious. I wanted to make apple pie with some of the 40 lbs of apples from our recent apple picking trip and a fellow mom gave me this recipe. The dough for this recipe requires no rolling or futzing around with ice water and cold butter. This was great, because I really hate rolling dough. It was so simple that Kiddo could do most of the work for the dough while I cut the apples. I also love that helping make a sweet treat can be a cover for teaching fractions.

For the crust:
2 1/2 cups flour: all purpose, whole wheat pastry or combination of the two
2 TBSP sugar
1/2 c oil (next time I am going to use cooled melted butter)
1/3 c milk

For the filling:
1/2 c sugar
2 TBSP flour
1 tsp cinnamon (I also think cardamon would be lovely -- my favorite spice!)
about 6 cups chopped apples (I never peel them, do you?)

preheat oven to 375
prepare the crust:
stir together milk and oil; mix flour, sugar and salt in large bowl, add milk and oil with a fork until it all comes together, adding a bit more oil if too dry. Using hands, form ball and divide into two. Tear off pieces of dough and press into bottom and sides of pan.

prepare the filling:
stir dry ingredients together and toss with apples

Tear off pieces of second dough ball and smash flat. Kiddo used the bottom of a glass. Place smashed pieces over top of apples.

Bake 60 minutes. You will probably want to cover pie with foil for last 15 minutes to keep from burning top crust.

Enjoy!

Oldie but Goodie

Sorting: it never gets boring. We added shells to the beans and pasta routine.

Practical Life: Filling a Jar

As part of my master plan to get Kiddo to do all of my chores, I showed him how to fill a jar with the bulk quinoa. I usually pour it from the bag, but for obvious reasons, this was not the way to go with Kiddo. I gave him a funnel and scoop and showed him how to scoop without overfilling, slowly pour the contents into the funnel and then lift the funnel base off the quinoa already in the jar to allow the new to fall in.

52 Card Pick-up

Keeping a baby occupied so you can get something done can be a bit of a challenge. I like to put a bunch of playing cards at a standing level, which New Kid can push onto the floor. He likes to plop down and throw them around. It keeps him busy for about 5 minutes, which we all know, in baby time is the equivalent of 5 hours.

Pumpkin Prints

We were rained out of our pumpkin patch trip this weekend so we had some indoor pumpkin fun. I roasted and pureed some cooking pumplins and made pumpkin butter and pasta with creamy pumpkin sauce and we did some pumpkin art.
Split open a mini pumpkin or use carrots (or potatoes) and have at it.Kiddo actually preferred to use a brush. Look closely at the moon!Earlier last week we made some crazy model magic pumpkins.

Required reading:
Pumpkin Town! Or, Nothing Is Better and Worse Than Pumpkins
the Biggest Pumpkin Ever
Runaway Pumpkin
Pumpkin Moonshine