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JDaniel4s Mom

growing & learning with him

Deirdre Smith writes/owns JDaniel4’s Mom. After twenty years as a elementary school and technology resource teacher in Northern Virginia, she became a stay at home mom in upstate South Carolina. Her blog features ways she and her 5 year old are exploring learning, crafting, creating healthy meals and living life to its fullest. Deirdre can also be found on twitter as @jdaniel4smom and on her blog's FB page. You can also check her out on Google+.

Muffin Tin Monday on Sunday- National Ice Cream Day

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Today is National Ice Cream Day! Today’s muffin tin is filled with frozen treats! There is an ice cream cone toasted cheese sandwich, scoops of grape tomatoes, frozen banana pureed with a blueberry (see recipe below), breaded chicken, a cupcake with created with cake mix and melted raspberry sherbet (see recipe below), and frozen grapes.

 

Ice Cream Themed Muffin Tin Lunch

 National Ice Cream Day Muffin Tin Lunch

JDaniel ate everything! The cupcake did disappear first! The frozen banana went second. The chicken went last.

He thought the ice cream cheese sandwich was really cute! I just love it when he digs into lunch! I don’t know if it loved that it was National Ice Cream Day or the fun foods he liked best.

Ice Cream Themed Lunch in a Muffin Tin

We love ice cream at our house. We couldn’t let the holiday slip by uncelebrated.

Frozen Banana Puree

Ingredient

  • 3 bananas

Directions:

1. Freeze bananas for about 3 hours.

2. Take the peel off the bananas.

3. Slice them into chunks one to two-inch chunks

4. Puree the bananas in a blender.

5. Pour banana puree into a freezer container.

6. Return to freezer for 2 hours.

7. Eat with a spoon from a muffin tin lunch or as a cool treat.

Ice Cream Cupcakes

Ingredients

  • 1 Orange Supreme cake mix or mix of your choice
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 1/3 cups of melted raspberry sherbet or ice cream of you choice

Directions:

1. Mix the ingredients together.

2. Pour the batter into cupcake cups.

3. Bake according to the directions on the cake mix package.

4. Eat along with a muffin tin lunch or on its own.

 

If you like this food creation, here are some more muffin tin meals and bento lunches you will love serving to your kids.

Apple Chicken Salad Bento Lunch

Lunch Ideas with LEGO

Pirate Bento

Minion Lunch with Blueberry Overalls

Star Wars Food Creations for Kids

Flower Themed Bento

Bento Lunch with Cracker Sandwiches

Summer Sunshine Bento Lunch

What is your favorite kind of ice cream?

Read.Explore.Learn.- Counting Chickens, Ducks and Marbles

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Welcome to week two of the Read. Explore. Learn Summer Reading Challenge- July Edition! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie-in to children’s books. I look forward to seeing ways you have learned with and explored books.

Remember each post you link up counts as an entry in the the July edition of the Summer Reading Challenge. One post linked up to Read.Explore.Learn during the month of July will selected to win a $10 Barnes and Noble gift card.

Steps:

  • Link your activity below.
  • Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.

  • Please try to visit at  least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.
  • If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.
My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

JDaniel can count to ten on his fingers and loves to count objects. I thought we would look for a book on counting to feature this week.

The book I found at the library is called the The Missing Chick by Valieri Gorbachev. It is a fun story about a wayward chick and the lengths his mom will go to when she thinks he is lost.

At first Mother Hen didn’t know the little chick was lost. She was busy hanging laundry and watching her other six chicks to notice.

When Mrs. Duck stops by to chat, she points out that there are only six chicks.

Mother Hen searches in her house without finding him.

She get neighbors, the police, the firefighters, a helicopter, and no one can find the chick.

Finally Mrs. Duck notices something moving in the laundry basket. Can you guess who it was? Yes it was the little chick. He had fallen asleep.

Mother Hen is so happy to have her little one back.

The little chick promises he won’t get lost again, but before the story can end he is sleep on the clothes line and his mother is heading back into the house with his siblings.

While the one little chick stays hidden until the end of the book, JDaniel and I had fun counting the six little chicks that appeared on most of the pages for and over again.

 What did we do?

Counting Marbles

During the speed dating session at the Type A Parent Conference, I met the wonderful people from Marble Jar. They have created an application for iPads and iPhones that allows you to designate a jar for a certain area of growth or goal and decide how many marbles can be added to the jar when a behavior is exhibited that a part of that goal or area of growth.


I have heard to real jars with real marbles for goal setting. The beauty of this program is that it makes the jar mobile. You don’t have to wait to get home to add a marble to the jar.

JDaniel and I set up a jar for successful potty training events and have been adding marbles to the jar when he has done them.

He really enjoys just adding marbles to the jar and counting them. So, we do. We created a few jars just to add marbles to and count.

Counting Ducks

We don’t have any chicken to count, but we do have ducks. I took out the Valentine’s Day ducks to count on the measuring tape. We put one duck on each number starting with one and then counted how many ducks we had.

This post is linked to Feed Me Books Friday, Link and Learn, We Play and It’s Play .

 

The Big Mouth Frog Joke

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On Saturday night after the dinner dishes had been cleared we sat around the table discussing our day. We talked about all the yard work we had done and the great books that we had checked out of the library.

It is such fun to have three year old that can join into discussions and share. JDaniel remembered specific details about the edging project he had helped his dad do and the weeds he had helped pull.

When we had finished chatting, my husband decided to try a joke out of JDaniel. With a three year old you can never be sure if they will understand the humor in a joke. Sometimes you have to explain the joke to them and even then you can end up with them rolling their eyes or looking confused.

JDaniel really enjoyed the joke and I thought I would share it with you.



The Big Mouth Frog Joke

One day a big mouth frog was out exploring the swamp not to far from his home. He had a wonderful time seeing new things and meeting new animals.

Just before heading home the big mouthed frog came upon an alligator gliding along the top the water in the swamp.

The big mouth frog noticed the alligator had started gliding towards him and remembered a question he had wanted to ask an alligator if he ever met one. The big mouth frog waited for the alligator to get close enough to him enough to him to ask his question.

The alligator thought is was odd that the frog was waiting for him, but decide to see that he wanted and glided even closer to him.

“Good day!” said the alligator with a grin on his face and twinkle in his eye.

“Good day!” replied the big mouth frog with a smile on his face.

“Can I help you with something?” the alligator asked slyly in a deep voice.

“I have always wondered what an alligator’s favorite food was!” the big mouth frog exclaimed.

“Really?” grinned the alligator.

“Yes, really!” said the big mouth frog.

“Well, I don’t know about all alligators, but I love big mouthed frog!” said the alligator still grinning.

“Oh!” answered the now wide eyed big mouth frog pursing his lips into as tight a pucker as he could and slowly backing away.

You probably needed to see my husband sly grin and final pucker to get the full effect of this joke. Since I didn’t video tape it, you can get the full effect by smiling as wide as you can for both the alligator and big mouth frog parts until the every end. At the end remember to pucker your lips when you read the final words of the big mouthed frog .

This post is linked to Mama Kat’s Writing Workshop!

Managing the Hedge Trimmer

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If you went over with the teenager that lives next store exactly how you wanted the bushes trimmed and shaped in the backyard, you would probably trust him to do the job exactly has you had described it.

Your three year old might think that the teenager needed a supervisor. He might feel the need to supervise the work while standing on a stepstool on the deck a few feet away from the bushes.

As the supervising manager he might feel as if he was needed to watch the teenager work on each step of the task. Each stroke of the trimmer would need to be analyzed and commented on. Critiques of how well trimming is going would need to be shared.

Despite the warm temperature and the need to constantly wipe his forehead, the bush trimming  manager might stay on the deck until the task is complete. He would just wipe his brow with his baseball cap from time to time.

Thankfully the teenager has two little brothers close to the manager’s age. Thankfully he is patient and good with kids! Thankfully he played along with the manager and asked him from time to time how he was doing.

The manager was a tough task master, but displayed expert management skills by issuing words of praise to the bush trimmer from time to time.

You have to love a manager that isn’t afraid to sweat it out with you in the heat of a Carolina summer day!

This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday.

Pause Life for a Moment- Good Day, Regular People

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Today’s Pause Life for a moment blogger is the Empress. She reigns over Good Day, Regular People with a kind heart, a generous spirit, and a sense of fun. I love to stop by to read her posts. Her blog shares her insights as well as her son Baby E’s. Life can get you down at times. The Empress’ posts can brighten your day and  can make you laugh, think or cry.

First, JDaniel’s mom, I want to thank you for the special gift of being invited to guest for “Pause Life For a Moment.”

This series you’ve created, just in writing on the topic, allows any guest poster and reader of these words, to pause in their day, and refocus on what is going to matter to us, our families, and our children.

I thank you, for the space you’ve given me here, to “re-focus.”

**************************************************************

Women are busier now then they have ever been.

The opportunities, along with the lure of social media, exercise clubs, personal hobbies, working outside of the home or inside the home, is deliciously tempting, and rewarding.

We are no longer lonely women at home, we have friends at the push of a key. Contact with others can be a short 20 minute drive away.

How easy it is to answer the call of instant access to others. Especially when you’ve found yourself feeling isolated, while home with your children.

The pull to go online, or build your social circle, email friends, go on twitter, text, join a cycling club, interact with others, is a very strong one.

It is for me.

How do we, as women, find the time that is necessary to do what matters in life? The important things. To devote ourselves entirely to our families is a saintly goal. One that I tried for, but found that pursuit leaving me resentful, lonely, unhappy, and with a clinical case of depression that did not make for a happy home life for anyone.

I enjoy my interaction with others outside of my family. Conversations and quick exchanges between friends can buoy my mood upward for days.

But, again, the question: how do you FIND the time for special moments for your family? Aside from the necessary of keeping house, preparing meals, grocery shopping, working?

And it isn’t only women who are online that are short on time. There are women who exercise faithfully an hour and a half at a time, daily. There are women who delight in being immersed in a good book for at least an hour of their day. There are women who find joy in their work outside of their home, or who work at home.

Where do we find the time to Pause. And really be in our lives.

I had a light bulb moment a few years ago, and it occurred by accident.

Our mornings here, in my quest for efficiency, ironically in hopes of creating a pocket of “worthwhile” time later, were spent in quick, drill like processes.

Breakfast, washed up, dressed, prayer, boom – start the day.

While my children ate, I’d clean up. So streamlined, in and out in 45 minutes.

One particular day, I noticed my oldest son just kept talking to me, coming over to stand next to me at the kitchen sink, and talking. Thank God I felt the tug in my heart to stop the activity I was involved in, and decided I needed to go sit and listen to him.

When he went back to the kitchen table, I followed him. I pulled up the chair next to him, poured myself some orange juice, and sat to look at him while he spoke. I cleared my mind of my mental to do list.

I listened to my boy.

He had plans, ideas of what he thought he might want to do as an adult. I listened, with my eyes on his face instead of the usual downcast look while I did the dishes, in the hopes of getting a jump on my day.

I watched my beautiful son’s face grow more animated, as he drank in my mental presence. I saw his smile burst big and bright, the longer I sat with him.

I felt my heart grow warm with gratitude. I felt nothing and thought of nothing, but this moment with him.

I was Pausing Life for the Moment.

I was living in it, and I was there with him.

This was a connection, this was joy: on an ordinary morning with no special pre-arranged “time for each other.”

Yes, there should still be an intention of creating moments and time for our children. But, simply put, pauses don’t have to be planned in order to happen.

We just have to recognize them.

And that has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of time in a day.

Please stop by Good Day, Regular People and let the Empress know about a time you pause your day and connected with your kids.

Muffin Tin Monday- Summer Storm

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We seem to be having major rainstorms every other day here in South Carolina. We’ve see wind and we’ve seen rain. We’ve heard thunder and seen lightning . There have also been rainbows.


Some storms have been strong enough to break limbs off the birch trees in the backyard. This limb cracked in an earlier storm and then fell down completely in one two weeks ago.

I decided to create muffin tin in memorial the summer storms.

The tin contains a rice cake cloud with Alouette’s new Light Spinach Artichoke Soft Cheese ( I will be reviewing it later this week.), chicken nugget lightning bolts, blueberry balls of hail, catsup to dip, broken trees tops of broccoli and cauliflower, and playdough looking rainbow cookies.

The rainbow cookies are loosely based on Red Ted’s Rainbow Cookie recipe. I tried to take a short cut by using cookie dough from a mix. It was way too sticky and looked like playdough when I added flour to the dough. I really should have used her recipe and made them from scratch. JDaniel loved them, but they would have been better without the short cut. If you want to see them as they should have looked, please check out her link above.

I am still looking for recipe ideas to feature on Muffin Tin Monday. I am calling this series Serving Lunch with JDaniel4’s Mom. Just leave me a comment on this post or an upcoming Muffin Tin Monday post with a link to a recipe you think I should get JDaniel to try a muffin tin. If I use your recipe, I will mention your blog in the post it appears in along with a link back to it

What has the weather been like where you live?

 
 
 

Rockin the Baby Link Up with Things I Can’t Say

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The amazing Shell of Things I Can’t Say is hosting a  link up called Rockin’ the Baby. Rockin’ the Baby is a wonderful opportunity to share your favorite baby pictures and maybe win a prize.

It offically starts tomorrow, but I am sharing my post a day early. There were over 200 bloggers that linked to her Rockin’ the Bump link up last month. I had the best time visiting many of them. It should be fun to see how cute everyone’s babies were or are in this link up!

My Favorite Baby Picture of JDaniel

I was so hard to pick just one picture of JDaniel as a baby. I knew I had to pick one or you would have ended up seeing hundreds of pictures. I do have hundreds.

Why is this my favorite?

There are several reasons that this picture of a three month old JDaniel stands out from the rest of the collection. This photo reveals so much about him.

Starting from when he was a newborn JDaniel stuck one of his hands in one of my sleeves. It usually happened when he was tired. Sometimes it happened when he was around new people and just wanted to be close. In his picture he has he hand in his own sleeve. It may just be a coincidence, but when look at it I remember this special quirk.

In this picture he is laying on his back. He loved being on his back when he was awake as a baby. He hated being on his back when it was time to go to sleep. When we finally let him sleep on his tummy, his nights go longer and he was less fussy.

I love the stretch suit he is wearing. He had tons of clothes given to him and handed down to him. This was a favorite. It was super soft and brought out the blue in his eyes.

The thing I really love most about this picture is that he is looking at the baby he sees in the mirror. He probably had no idea that he was the baby in the mirror. He does seem very focused on him. From the very beginning JDaniel was very aware of everything and everyone around him. He was obviously thinking about this baby. He looks so serious.

Serving Lunch with JDaniel Recipe Search

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Last  week I started the Serving Lunch with JDaniel4’s Mom series on my Muffin Tin Monday posts. It will run through July and August.

JDaniel is cutting out stars for potato salad.

How does the Serving Lunch with JDaniel4’s Mom work?

You just leave me a comment on this post or an upcoming  Muffin Tin Monday post  with a link to a recipe you think I should get JDaniel to try a muffin tin. If I use your recipe, I will mention your blog in the post it appears in along with a link back to it.

I have received two recipes so far. Two Bears Farm’s Corn and Bean Salad recipe was featured last week and Red Ted’s Rainbow Cookies will be featured this week.

Letting Him Have a Cup and a Cone

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We decided to go to a wonderful ice cream spot in our town on the 4th of July. It used to be small train station along railroad tracks. Now it is small ice cream spot along the railroad tracks. They serve soft serve chocolate or vanilla ice cream with a wide array of topping for a very reasonable price.

While he waited in line JDaniel watched for a train. They don’t come by often in the evening. We usually hear them in the middle of the night.

He really wanted to play in the large puddle behind him, but I persuaded him that his feet would get drenched and he listened to my advice!

You can get your ice cream in a cup or a cone. JDaniel really wanted a cone. Due to the fact that ice cream can fall off a cone and become unable to be eaten unless it is is licked off the ground. (Which we won’t allow him to do) He conceded to having a cone in a cup.

Once he sat down he pulled the cone out and set it to the side. He never touched it again. I guess he just likes the idea of a cone.

The ice cream was yummy, but JDaniel hardly made a dent in his. He is usually the first one finished.

Why?

He was distracted by the discussion he decided we needed to have on fireworks. JDaniel knew we would be watching some later in the evening. He wanted to know everything we knew about how they worked and what they are made of.

We ended up taking the rest of his ice cream home to have later.
I bet next time we go it will eat it all!
What are your children interested in learning about now?

Sharing a Joyful Moment- Tell Me Yours (Every Comment is Chance to Win)

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There are so many joyous moments in my life. I have been truly blessed in many ways, but one that stands out is the day I finally got married.

My sisters both got married in their thirties and I am sure my mom had given up all hope I would ever get married. There had been wonderful men I had dated in my twenties and thirties, but I had a lot of homework to do before I was ready to get married and just wasn’t ready for them.

I am so blessed that by the time I was ready my husband was too. We were both late bloomers in the marriage department. Both were in our forties and both had never married before.
Planning our wedding was just wonderful. I almost everything we chose to celebrate our special day. One of my favorite wedding details was a Shutterfly photo album that we used as a guest book. It was filled with important events and people in our courtship.

I have never understood the need to have people you invited to your wedding tell you they came by signing their name in a book. Our photo guest book has messages of encouragement around photos we love.

Here are some of them:

The cover fo the guest book.
A picture I love taken at Great Falls Park in Virginia.
 These are my matron of honor and bridemaid’s wedding pictures.
This is the church where we got married.

I’d like to hear about your moment of joy! Share your story and upload a photo (optional), and in return Shutterfly will gift you $5 off your next photo book to commemorate life’s joyous moments, and you”ll be entered for a chance to win a $200 Shutterfly Gift card.

Do you have a favorite photo that captures it? Upload your photo below with your story for a chance to win a $200 Shutterfly Gift card.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Shutterfly. The opinions and text are all mine. Offer valid for $5 off one photo book order and valid for one-time redemption per member. Taxes, shipping and handling will apply. BlogFrog hosted gift card contest live from June 17th to July 14th. For $200 gift card, participants must have uploaded a photo to be eligible. A winner will be randomly chosen and announced on July 18th. All participants remain the copyright holder of their photos.

What was  a joyful moment in your life?

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