Deirdre, Author at JDaniel4s Mom

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+.

A Book About Home and A Home for Construction Vehicles

August 6, 2010 By Deirdre

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After being on the road from July 20th through July 26th, it is wonderful to be home. There were a few times while we were gone that I wished I could have just put my house on wheels and brought it with me the way the characters in Home did. This wonderful book subtitled Once There Was A House, A House That Was A Home by Alex T. Smith tells the tale for four friends. Each friend has a dream that they want to share with the three others that share the home. When they start sharing them, they realize they really don’t want to do them together. Each one takes off to live their dream with a different part of the house. One takes the door and goes off to be a pirate. The second character named Two takes the wall and goes off to be pirate. Three goes to live underground with the windows. Finally, Four goes off to the big city with the floor. At first, they each enjoy their dreams. After a short time each learns that although they each have part of the house, it isn’t a home without all the friends together. In the end, the characters decide to rebuild their house, add wheels to it and share their dreams with each other in their new mobile home.

I love the pictures and messages in this book. The author/illustrator does a wonderful job of painting a picture of what makes true friends true friends along with what makes a house a home. As someone that lived in a condo for eleven years that I didn’t consider home, I really appreciate the aspects of my life and house that make where I live now a home.

JDaniel has a growing number of toy construction vehicles. Some of the vehicles are small enough that they have been living in a “garage” under the loveseat in the living room. The larger toys haven’t had a permanent home. They sometimes live under the coffee table. I decided we would create one out of a cardboard box.

We headed early one morning to the grocery store to get a box while the shelves were being restocked. The clerks at our local Bi-Lo walked JDaniel and I down the cereal aisle and let us chose a box. After creating three different size doors for the vehicles to enter the garage, we sat down at the computer and brainstormed what words and signs would be needed to decorate the box. JDaniel was sure the text needed to be red and the name had to be the Front Loader Garage. His favorite sign was the one that says “JDaniel Working.”

Here are some of the signs and words he chose.

Here is how the small doors work on the front for small vehicles.

Here is the entrance for big machines and apparently big boys.

Disclaimer: Home is a book published by Tiger Tales. As an official Tiger Tales reviewer, I was sent a copy of this book to review. The views and opinions expressed about this book are my own.

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The Orange Sign, The Wedding, The GPS, and the Deer

August 4, 2010 By Deirdre

JDaniel is so into John Deere right now. It could be because his Cousin Charlie’s room is decorated in John Deere pictures. While we were up visiting my sister Kate’s family in the country outside of Syracuse, NY we saw a lot of orange signs. The only one that really stood out to JDaniel was the John Deere signs. I know they are supposed to be a deer crossing signs. According to JDaniel it is a John Deere sign. I am not sure if that means John Deere tractors across there or all things John Deere can cross at the sign. I think it is funny that he made that association.

The second reason we went to New York was to attend a cousin’s wedding right on Seneca Lake. It was a beautiful time for the bride and groom to share their love for each other. The food was amazing. Seeing relatives was great. What will JDaniel remember? He remembers the piñata my Aunt Sue set up and getting to throw rocks in the lake. If he had his way, he would have thrown rocks the whole time we were there. It was one way my sisters Kate and Michelle could convince him to leave mommy’s side. Each enticed him to go with them because they would take him to the rocks. While his cousins skipped rocks on the lake, JDaniel dumped, threw, and hurled them.

The wedding was almost two hours away from my sister’s house. By the time I decided it was time to leave it was getting dark. My sister Kate lent me her GPS to get back to her house. She and her family would be heading back later in the evening and were familiar with the roads. JDaniel loved echoing the GPS. The GPS would say, “Turn left in four miles.” JDaniel would say, “Turn left” for four miles. He did this over and over again. I tried singing to him and chatting with him. He decided he would rather chat with the GPS. Thank goodness this new game lost interest eventually. We discovered while driving home that GPS does a great job most of the time. Sometimes it causes you to drive in a circle or a square. I was pretty sure at one point I needed to go straight. The GPS said to take a left. I followed the GPS. It said to take another left and then another. Yes, you are right it put me back on the same road I thought I needed to go straight on. As we made the final left, I saw a deer on the left-hand side of the road. (A real deer not a John Deere) It looked like he was shaking his head at me. If he could have talked to me I bet he would have said, “I bet a GPS sent you this way. It is happening on this road more and more all the time.”

The Adventures of Driving to New York and Back

August 3, 2010 By Deirdre

I really dreaded the long car ride two weeks ago to New York from our house in South Carolina. While JDaniel and I looked forward to seeing my sister Kate’s family and going to a family wedding, the hours in the car were going to be a challenge. I drove the first leg of the trip from South Carolina to Virginia without any trouble. JDaniel read books, played on his toy computer, and listened to me sing The Digger Picks up Lots of Dirt and several other variations of the Wheels on the Bus with construction equipment as the featured vehicle. We made several stops along the way one for lunch and one for ice cream. We both needed to get out and move.

After spending the night at my friend Cheryl’s in Virginia, we headed north to New York. We made two stops then too. I let JDaniel run around the battlefield in Gettysburg. Seeing a toddler running around with a bag of fruit chews on a battlefield seemed like such an anachronism. I am pretty sure Lincoln’s troops didn’t carry fruit chews into battle. The battlefield run wore him out. He ended up taking a long morning nap. That meant I could cover a lot of ground before lunch and I won’t be singing the forklift version of the Wheels on the Bus for a few hours. He woke up just in time to eat lunch at McDonald’s and run around in their play area. He was in heaven fries and climbing tunnels. After lunch, we hooked up the DVD player my neighbors lent us and Thomas the Train provided the afternoon entertainment. I learned not to stop for gas right after you start a movie or you have to go through the whole process of starting it again.

Coming back from New York and going to Virginia was a breeze. There were tons of areas with road construction. Yes, that is a good thing. Traffic may slow down, but my two years old was thrilled at getting to see his favorite equipment in action. He loved getting back to my friend Cheryl’s house. She has a toy treasure box he was allowed to explore and a wonderful pool in her community he could play in after dinner. He really thought she was the best.

After three wonderful legs of the trip, you knew something might have to happen. Well, it did. I left my purse at Cheryl’s and didn’t realize I didn’t have it until I reached Harrisonburg, Virginia. Harrisonburg is about an hour in a half away from her house. It was thanks to JDaniel wanting to listen to his new music from Cheryl that I noticed it was missing before I was further away without my credit cards and cash. It would have been hard to fill up the gas tank without them. Thankfully she was home when we got back to her house and were able to get back on the road quickly after a brief lunch to try and make it home. Since it was much later than our original start time, I decided to take a different route home that was supposed to be faster. We ended up going through three rainstorms crossing the mountains of Virginia. There were several opportunities to see construction equipment. It wasn’t as much fun this time. After many hours of watching movies on the DVD player, JDaniel decided to become Harry Houdini and slip his arms out of his car seat straps. He couldn’t figure out how to get them back in and claimed it hurt to try and put them back. This doesn’t sound that bad, doesn’t it? Well, the toughest part of the trip still hadn’t occurred yet. Just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina Interstate 77 was completely shut down heading south due to three tractor-trailers jackknifing. It was a mess. We sat on the highway now a parking lot for 45 minutes before weaving our way through traffic to get gas. After filling up, we sat on the on-ramp with the overhead light on reading books until traffic started moving about twenty minutes later. By the time we started moving it was ten o’clock at night. JDaniel then fell asleep, the heavens opened up again and we started making our way home again.

It was wonderful to wake up at home. We loved visiting family and friends, but I think it will be a while until I take a road trip without my husband. Next time I am writing out a checklist of things not to forget. My purse will be at the top of the list.

Muffin Tin Monday- Breakfast with a Swap

August 2, 2010 By Deirdre

I am starting a month long series of Muffin Tin Monday breakfast tins today. This week’s breakfast features two animals we saw on our visit to my sister Kate’s house in New York. She took her two children, JDaniel and I to several farms as part of local farm tour event. One of the farms had cows. JDaniel speaks cow so he had a lot of fun there. Kate’s family has a dog named Justice. He really caught JDaniel’s attention.

Today’s breakfast consisted of whole grain animal shaped waffles with syrup between them. The second row contains mandarin oranges, raspberry yogurt and blueberries. While JDaniel likes syrup on his waffles, sometime he like fruit or yogurt on them. This tin gave him a number of option as to how he wanted to eat them.

Swap Items

JDaniel and I were sent a wonderful set of animal cookie cutters and a toucan chopsticks as part of the Muffin Tin Monday Swap. We swapped with Jasmine. She really sent us a wonderful package. I have displayed some of the cookie cutters she sent around JDaniel’s tin today. There are 50 total animal cookie cutters. (I think we will be using them a lot to create muffin tin meals! JDaniel loves the chopsticks that came in our swap. They are a bit of a challenge, but he is up for challenges. They come out for muffin tin meals and other everyday meals.

If you like this muffin tin meal, here are some more muffin tin meals:

Earth Day Muffin Tin Meal

Star Wars Muffin Tin Breakfast

Leaf Year Muffin Tin Snack

Muffin Tin Monday- Thanksgiving with Sweet Potato Casserole and More

You will find more muffin tin meal and food creations on my Food Creations board on Pinterest. Please take a moment and check them out.

Free Personalized Cards from Tiny Prints for Teachers

August 2, 2010 By Deirdre

I taught for twenty-one years. One of the reasons I think I went into teaching was because I had wonderful teachers. I remember most of them fondly. Each was amazing in their own way. The teacher that stands out most is my mom. I was never in her class per se. I was able to watch how she taught her students and cared for each of them as individuals when I visited her classroom. There was always a wonderful project they were doing that was based on books they were reading or places they were studying.

One thing she always did was start out the year by contacting the parents and children. Tiny Prints is offering free personalized cards for teachers to welcome students, thank parents, or award students for great work. If you are a classroom teacher as I was, you know the expenses of the school year are just starting. This is a great resource to have and it’s free.

Tiny Prints personalized greeting cards for teachers for FREE offer starts Monday, August 2nd and runs October 31, 2010. Teachers can access the cards at Teacher Greeting Cards and apply the code: Apple2010 at checkout.

Oh! There is going to be a Tiny Prints Teacher Greeting Card Twitter Party with the tag #makeitpersonal this Wednesday from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. ET/1:00 to 2:00 p.m. PT.

Disclaimer: Tiny Prints is randomly awarding five bloggers a $50 Visa card for letting you know about this opportunity. I would have mentioned it anyway.

Mice on Main Street And In My House

July 30, 2010 By Deirdre

Here in Greenville, S.C. we have a great mouse hunt on Main Street. Bronze mice are scattered up and down the street. Some are easy to find and others are quite difficult. I took my nephews down to search for them. We had a print out of clues that I found on the Mouse on Main website.

The mice are very popular and have even had a children’s book written about them called MICE ON MAIN: HOW NINE BRONZE MICE CAME TO LIVE ON MAIN STREET.

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JDaniel is a little young to find most of the mice. I pointed one out to him when we were downtown for a Touch-a-Truck event. He thought mice statues were in his words silly.

I decided to have him decorate some mice with glitter glue and crayons. I would hide them around the house. He was given clues as to where I hid the mice. He had a blast.

Tiger Tales and Under Sea Creature Giveaway Winners

July 30, 2010 By Deirdre

Taylorbagels has won the wonderful collection of Tiger Tales books related to bugs.Kim won the Under Sea Creature Cookie Cutter giveaway. They are so cute.

I have contacted both winners via e-mail.

Two Red Ys

July 29, 2010 By Deirdre

We were exploring downtown Greenville and came across this red sculpture. It is titled Untitled. When JDaniel and I stopped to look at it, I asked him what he thought it was. He replied “Ys”. It really does look like two ys stacked together.

This sculpture is sort of symbolic of conversations I have with JDaniel some days. They seem to be filled with a least two whys.

Here are a couple of examples:

Conversation One

JDaniel:“Why did we have to stop car?”
Me: “There is a red sign that says stop on it in front of the car”
JDaniel: “Why sign?”
Me: “There are a lot of cars on the road and if we didn’t stop we could hit one.”
JDaniel: “Mom, no cars here.”
Me: “The law says I have to stop anyway”

Conversation Two
Me: “What color is that car in the picture?”
JDaniel: “Orange car”
Me: “Close. What color is that red car in the picture?”
JDaniel: “Orange car”
Me: “Honey, that car is not orange. It is a red car.”
JDaniel: “Why?”
Me: “They decided to make it that color in the book.”
JDaniel: “Why?”

Visiting the Children’s Museum of the Upstate

July 28, 2010 By Deirdre

I mentioned two weeks ago that I splurged and went to The Children’s Musuem of the Upstate. At $12 for both JDaniel and I, the visit was a special treat.

Here are some pictures from our visit:

The water play area was really wet. I got wet when he discovered you could point the toys and other objects at mommy. I didn’t have smock like JDaniel did.