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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+.

If Mrs. Matlock Offers You Lemons, Take Them and Make a Pie

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Every week for about nine months I have written a post for Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday. There are about seventy bloggers a week that join Jenny Matlock in sharing ideas, thoughts, reflection and more that begin with a particular letter of the alphabet.

Reading each of the posts along with the comments Mrs. Matlock leaves for all of her students or meme followers is a highlight of my week. (Yes, she visits every person every week and leaves amazing comments. She sends e-mails to her students if she has a chance too.)

During L week Mrs. Matlock’s post was called L is for Lemon. In her post, she mentioned she was going to give away boxes of lemons and peppermints. It sounded like she had a multitude of lemons growing in her yard. We love fresh fruit and peppermints at your house so; I left a comment stating that we would love to win a box.

Much to my surprise, we were picked by Mrs. Matlock to receive one of her special boxes. The box arrived two days before Christmas. We loved the luscious lemon scent of the box. I wonder if the mail carrier kept it in the front of her truck just to smell the lemon scent as she made her deliveries.

We had guests over for dinner that night and I cut lemon slices for us to have in our sodas and iced teas. They were as impressed as we were that this wonderful box filled with candies and lemons with leaves still attached had been sent across the country to us.

I loved having the Larsons for dinner, but I could hardly wait to begin looking through my cookbooks for a recipe for a lemon pie to make for the holidays. The first book I pulled out was The Taste of Home Cookbook my husband had given me several years ago. It was within its pages that I found a two page spread dedicated to lemon pies.

I settled on one that was label light and easy. With all the sweets we have during and before the holidays light was definitely needed. I am all for easy recipes that are guaranteed to come together.

The pie turned out so well. JDaniel and I were able to work together to squeeze the lemons and mix the ingredients. He did have to be distracted to keep him from drinking the lemon juice right from the measuring cup right after squeezing it. Mrs. Matlock’s peppermints were the perfect answer.

I could tell by the way JDaniel enthusiastically licked the bowl clean that it was going to taste good. Actually I knew it was going to taste good too. My fingers were dipping into the remnants left in the bowl as fast as his were.
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So, if Mrs. Matlock offers you lemons I hope you will accept some and use them to make this lemon pie.

Here is the recipe:

Lemon Cream Pie
1 envelope of unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup of cold water
1/3 cup of lemon juice
1/3 cup of Splenda
2  6 ounce cartons of whipped fat-free yogurt
1 tsp. of lemon peel
1 carton of frozen reduced-fat whipped topping
1 graham cracker crust ( 8 inches)
Directions:
  1. Sprinkle gelatin over cold water and let it sit for 1 minute.
  2. Microwave this mixture for twenty seconds uncovered.
  3. Stir in Splenda and lemon juice.
  4. Add yogurt and lemon peel.
  5. Mix well and then fold in whipped topping.
  6. Spoon into crust.
  7. Refrigerate for 8 hours.
  8. Sit in front of a computer with a slice of pie and read the other wonderful posts from Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday.

 
 
 

Back to the Salt Mines

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Many of you probably returned to working in the salt mines yesterday after a holiday break. I have been working in the salt mines for several weeks now without a break in sight.

My husband says I’m heading back to the salt mines almost every morning. I’m not sure if that is why JDaniel loved to pretend to work in the salt mines so much or it could be the Mighty Machines video on machines working in the salt mines that we have watched over and over again.

As JDaniel told his friend Nathan when he came over to play and was invited to work in the mine, “I work here almost every morning.” He does work in the salt mine every morning with me by his side. There is a space between the futon and closet in the guest room that has been transformed into the mine. There is also a brace that supports the futon that is the perfect tunnel for the machines to slip under to begin their work.

There used to be only construction trucks and machines on site. They would dig up the salt and transfer it to other machines that would carry it out of the mine.

Then the whole operation expanded. JDaniel has dragged or driven in almost every machine he has across the hall from his room into the mine. When I asked him about it, he said they all had to be there for a reason.

Now there is a fire truck that waits just outside the mine encase there is a fire after salt is dynamited out of the mine. You won’t want to have a fire and not be able to put it out immediately. The ten feet between JDaniel’s room and the guest room is just too far for the truck to travel.

A lawnmower that makes popping sounds when you push it is used to dynamite the salt. The pops of the ball in the mower are the sounds that come from the explosion. We have to back away from the mine and close our eyes during all explosions. Salt in our eyes would really hurt.

A drum has been added to the mine too. It is a salt drum crusher. Once the salt has been extracted from the mine, it has to be brought over to the crusher to be banged on with drum sticks. In the Might Machines video, there is a crusher and we couldn’t leave it out of our pretend to play.

There are tons of assorted cars and tractors parked on the edge of the mine now too. They belong to the mineworkers. Other than the plastic dogs that drive the fire truck JDaniel and I are the only mineworkers I know off, but apparently there may be others I just haven’t seen them yet.

What pretend play are you doing at your house?

 
 

Muffin Tin Monday- New Year’s Eve Meal

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Happy New Year! I hope that you and yours had wonderful New Year’s Eve and will have fantastic New Year.

We had a Chinese carryout meal for > at my house. It was just the three of us so; I decided a fun meal that required no more than mom ordering food and taking it out of little takeout boxes would be wonderful. My guys both agreed a restaurant meal would be a perfect way to welcome the New Year.

We ordered shrimp with broccoli, sweet and sour pork, and pork fried rice that came with fortune cookies. (I love pork. Can you tell?) It was all really wonderful and we loved feasting on it. Oh! JDaniel also had a New Year’s cracker with chocolate bits in it.

JDaniel have a few opinions about the meal that he shared with my husband and I. He didn’t think the sauce on the shrimp and broccoli was good in fact he announced it wasn’t a favorite. He usually loves shrimp but commented on how the sauce made it not good. He loved the restaurant nuggets. Most of the world would call it sweet and sour pork JDaniel renamed the dish restaurant nuggets. The dipping sauce that came with the restaurant nuggets was very much loved. He dipped everything in it including the fortune cookie.

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday .

What did you have for New Year’s Eve?

 

Read.Explore.Learn.- Christmas All Year Long

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Welcome to Read. Explore. Learn! 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 the ways you have learned with and explored books.

Steps:

  • Link your activity below.

 

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

Board book A Wish to Be a Christmas Tree Book

 

A Wish to be a Christmas Tree is a wonderful book about a tree that finds out he has a purpose all year long. What fun it is to be so helpful to others all during the year and not just look pretty at Christmas time.

What did we do?

Thank You Notes Using Hand Tracings

I trace JDaniel’s hand in a thank you note as his signature. I was reading about reusing wrapping paper on Red Ted’s Art Blog to make thank you notes. It gave me the idea to trace JDaniel’s hands onto wrapping paper and add the hand cutouts to the thank you notes I need to send to relatives to thank them for his gifts.

 
 

Christmas Card Puzzles
I love reusing Christmas cards. Last year we created a picture walking book using some of the cards. We would look through the cards and talk about what we saw in each picture. This year found a great post on Nurture Store called Christmas Card Games. It talked about making puzzles with Christmas cards. I just cut a few of the cards to make puzzles. JDaniel really enjoyed them.

signature

Celebrating New Year’s Eve- Toddler Style

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What is the toddler style? It means we will be celebrating at 12 noon on New Year’s Eve with JDaniel.

What do you need for a toddler style celebration?

Ingredients:

Food

 

A meal that matches a place in the world that is actually celebrating New Year’s a twelve midnight.

We are actually going to cheat and have Chinese food even if it is really a thirteen-hour time difference. You can check The World Clock and find a country that is twelve hours ahead of you.

Balloons

Balloons are fun for toddlers any day of the week. New Year’s Eve can make them extra special if you try to throw them up in the air and watch them drop from the ceiling.

Mixed Drinks

 

We will be having ginger ale or green tea with red grape juice.

You may have your own fun kiddy cocktail. We love juice here and don’t keep it in the house all the time.

Treat Cracker

Christmas Around the World- France

An old toilet paper tube covered in tissue is a perfect treat holder. We will be having little candies in ours. We will pull them at 12 noon to start the New Year off with a bang.

 

What are your New Year’s Eve plans?

 
 

Wordless Wednesday- The Christmas Light House

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We visited this amazing house surrounded by lights and inflatibles right before Christmas. It is truly amazing. 
JDaniel’s favorite part was the bag of popcorn they gave him as he entered the display area. He enjoyed the lights, but loved the popcorn.
 

Grocery Store Made Santa Decision for JDaniel

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We had talked (JDaniel and me) about how Santa was based on a wonderful man that live long ago named St. Nick. I had mentioned that presents come on Christmas Day in remembrance of this wonderful man. We had also read books that had Santa in them. I tried not to make a big deal about him.

All seemed to be going well until we need to stop at our local BI-Lo for milk one evening. Seriously all we went in the store for was milk. We got a whole lot more than milk on this visit.

Right inside the doorway of the BI-Lo is a photo studio. (Not all BI-Los have them. The one closest to us does.) Right outside of the photo studio in front of the frozen foods was set up an area where you could have a picture taken with Santa. Sitting right on an emerald green wingback chair was Santa as happy and jolly as could be.

JDaniel had never seen Santa outside of a book. This man in a white beards and read suit stopped him cold in his tracks. Peeking at him from behind my legs JDaniel waved and smiled broadly. When Santa invited him to come and sit with him, JDaniel suddenly remembered we needed to get milk and guided me quickly away from Santa and through the frozen foods to the milk cooler.

After retrieving and paying for the milk, we headed out the door and JDaniel looked back at Santa’s chair and Santa was gone. “Where did he go?” JDaniel asked. I told him I thought Santa needed to go and eat dinner just like we did. JDaniel seemed think that made sense.

While eating dinner that night, I asked JDaniel to tell his dad who we saw at the grocery store. “I saw the real Santa,” he said, “Right there at BI-Lo.”

I guess we have seen Santa and for the next few years he is real.

How did you handle Santa at your house?

 
 

Muffin Tin Monday- Christmas Breakfast

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Christmas Breakfast Muffin Tin>

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! This is probably the first Christmas JDaniel will remember and was totally aware of. It was so much fun.

The night before Christmas we did some prep work for the arrival of Jesus’ birthday and Santa’s arrival. Baby Jesus arrived in the crèche after having his manger bed empty for most of the month of December. We also put a NewTree chocolate bar out for Santa. Santa gets so many cookies we decided to leave him a treat that he won’t get anywhere else.

Christmas morning JDaniel’s first words were to ask if Santa had come. He was so happy to hear that Santa had come and brought presents. When we came downstairs to see what Santa had brought, we found presents along with a partially eaten candy bar. It was decided that candy bar needed to be part of JDaniel’s Christmas breakfast tin.

Along with the remains of Santa’s chocolate JDaniel had a fruit salad, yogurt with Christmas sprinkles, syrup, and pancakes with sprinkles. The sprinkles didn’t remain visible in the pancakes once they were cooked. They looked pretty sitting in the muffin mix.

 
 
 

Snow for Christmas!

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Yesterday was a Christmas Day for the record books. The newspaper this morning stated that Greenville, South Carolina hadn’t had snow on Christmas for forty-seven years. My husband had never had a white Christmas in his life until it started to snow yesterday afternoon.

Watching the snowfall outside our windows as we sat down for our Christmas lunch was wonderful. It was a little like sitting inside a snow globe. For most of the afternoon and evening, the snow fell but did not stick to the ground. It looked like it would only add up to a slight dusting not nearly enough to play in.

This morning we woke up to a few inches of snow on the ground and damp roads. It was just the right amount of snow to play in and play we did.

After dressing JDaniel in snow pants, hiking boots, and a big winter coat my sister Kate had sent us in a hand me down box we headed out to play.

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After almost an hour my husband and I were ready to come in from the cold and he still wanted to stay outside and play. JDaniel’s cheeks were bright red, but the rest of him was warm and toasty.

We promised JDaniel more time in the snow after lunch and a good nap. He wasn’t happy about it, but he did finally agree to come in from the snow.

 

Musicians Making Merry Music

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There is just something wonderful about Christmas music. If songs are familiar, the words just dance about in your head like sugar plums. You may start to hum the words or eventually, they may just slip across the tongue and through your lips.
Last Saturday I drove JDaniel and my mom to Atlanta to attend my nephew Jason’s orchestra concert. He has been playing the cello for a year and a half. Jason is the kind of boy that takes everything seriously from playing the cello to entertaining his biggest fan and youngest cousin. I knew if the other children were anything like Jason the concert would be well done.
When we arrived in the auditorium for the performance, my sister and her husband found a seat up front to make recording the performance easier. My mom, my nephew, JDaniel and I sat in the middle of the middle row to be able to see the performance well and hopefully focus on it. They worked out well for everyone.
There were three sections of the performance. The first-year students went first. Then the second year performed. Finally, the teacher performed with both groups of children together. The person in charge of the production decided to take advantage of all the bells and whistles available in the auditorium to help the audience enjoy the music. There was a projection screen that displayed parts of Christmas specials that fit the music like Frosty the Snowman. JDaniel loved watching the images flash by. There were all kinds of lights that danced around the musicians. Sometimes they danced like a conductor’s baton over the head of the musicians and onto the ceiling. JDaniel’s eyes caught the movement of every light. At the end of the concert the smoke and snow machines add their special effects to the music.

JDaniel sat mesmerized through most of the performance which is saying a lot for a two and three-quarters-year-old. He hopped off and on my mom’s lap twice but, most of the time he sat in a chair by himself and took it all in. He loved music. I could hear him sing the songs that were familiar to him in a sweet quiet voice. Thankfully the people around us didn’t mind.

The appearance of snow at the end of the performance was his favorite part. Curious George has an episode that features a snow machine. JDaniel has been asking me to make it snow inside for a few weeks. Now someone else has made the dream come true.
Jason did a wonderful job. He was in the first chair in the second row. We were able to see him play and enjoy the performance. All of the children did a great job really.
It was a wonderful way to introduce JDaniel to attending a concert and support his favorite cousin.
I hope you have had the opportunity to hear merry musicians make music this holiday season.

 
 
 
 

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