Connecting with Other Bloggers Archives - Page 5 of 12

Muffin Tin Monday- Valentine’s Day Party Treats

February 7, 2011 By Deirdre

Before I share my Muffin Tin Monday Meal, I want to let you know I have a guest review up at The Book Chook today. I reviewed the book the Alaska’s Three Pigs. If you get a chance, please stop by and check it out.

To celebrate the second day of the Virtual Valentine’s Day Party I am sharing a muffin tin of yummy lunch treats. We both enjoyed the foods in this tin.

This week JDaniel had a heart-shaped empanada ( I will share the recipe for them tomorrow.), homemade tomato soup, grape tomatoes, a heart-shaped crouton to dip in the soup, red grapes, and strawberry heart-shaped marshmallows.

Here is the recipe for the tomato soup:

Tomato Soup

3 large cans of stewed tomatoes

3 large garlic cloves

2 cups of chopped onion

1/4 cup of minced basil

1 can of chicken broth

1/2 cup of half and half cream

Salt and pepper to taste

2 slices of whole-grain bread

Directions:

In a large saucepan, sauté onion, garlic, and olive oil. Add tomatoes and basil; cook for 5 minutes.
Add broth; bring to a boil.
Puree in a blender until large chunks are removed and return the mixture to the saucepan.
Warm half and a half in a small saucepan over medium heat.
Stir half and half, salt and pepper into the soup.
Enjoy with croutons cut out of bread with a cookie cutter and sautéed in a pan with olive oil.

This post is linked to the Muffin Tin Mom’s Muffin Tin Monday meme.

What is your favorite Valentine’s Day treat?

Do you have a post on Valentine’s Day treat you would like to link up to the Virtual Valentine’s Day Party?

Welcome Virtual Valentine’s Day Party Guests!

February 6, 2011 By Deirdre

I have been so excited about this Virtual Valentine’s Day Party. Can’t believe it is finally starting today. The last few weeks I have been creating crafts with JDaniel and testing out new recipes to share with you. It has been hard to not share them with you as we did them. Many of you have been anxious to share your ideas with other party guests too. I heard from one of you that you were so excited about one of your projects you couldn’t wait until the party to share it.

The Purpose

This Valentine’s Day gathering is a time to share your party ideas, enter giveaways planned just for the party, and to mingle with other guests. I hope you take the time to share your posts and visit other party guests.

Party Idea Link Up

There is a link below for you to post your Valentine’s Day Party related posts. Each family-friendly or child-related post linked up will need to have a Virtual Valentine’s Day Party badge or a link at the bottom of it pointing back to the Virtual Valentine’s Day Party Link Up. One of the people that links up a post that contains a badge or links back will be randomly selected to receive a $10 Visa Gift Card. You may link up to four posts during the party.

Here is the badge:

What party is any fun without guests mingling and getting to know each other?

I am also going to randomly pick a comment stating the two link up posts a commenter has visited to receive a prize too. You will be able to leave as many comments as you like making the above statement. I will check to make sure that you have really visited the two posts you have said you have. The prize is a $15 Visa Gift Card.

Reminder:

In order to be eligible for the $15 Visa Gift Card, you have to visit two of the links above, leave comments on the posts you select, and leave me a comment telling me which two you visited. You can enter as many times as you like. You will need to visit two posts for each entry.

Examples:

Entry One: I visited links 1 and 35. Each post has a comment from me.

Entry Two: I am still visiting. This time I visited links 25 and 43. Each post has a comment from me.

Entry Nine: I am having such a great time visiting. This time I visited links 50 and 3. Each post has a comment from me.

Just leaving a comment is wonderful, but doesn’t count as an entry.

Queries and Questions for Hibernating Mama Quadrapeds

February 2, 2011 By Deirdre

I know there are many of you have sleep issues with your children. I have read your blog posts about them.

Lately I have been wondering if hibernating animal mothers have the same issues with their little ones that we do.

If I could talk with a groundhog, here are some of the questions I would ask:

Do you children call out “Is it spring yet?”

JDaniel asks if it is morning yet through the monitor at least once a week.

Do your little ones sleepwalk through your tunnel? If so, do you find them in odd places underground when spring comes?

I have a friend whose daughter walks up and downstairs at night.

Do they need to get up in the middle of the hibernation cycle to use the bathroom or to get water?

One of my sister’s children does this a lot.

Do they have trouble settling in at the beginning of hibernation?

There are many moms in my playgroup that have children hopping in and out of bed each night.

Do they complain that they aren’t tired yet or that other moms let their children stay out later than you do?

JDaniel has just started commenting he isn’t ready for bed yet. I have let him know while that may be true the bed is ready for him.

Do they need to gather fifty million loveys around them to go to sleep?

JDaniel only gets five loveys to sleep with. He would love every stuffed animal he owns in bed with him at night.

How does your husband get up to check his shadow without waking up your little ones?

If JDaniel is close to waking up and my husband turns on the microwave to make coffee in the morning, it totally wakes him up.

Finally I would want to know this:

Do you hope and pray your husband will see his shadow so you can sleep for six more weeks?

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

Pruney Fingers and Pickled Toes

January 26, 2011 By Deirdre

Many years ago my sister Michelle asked me to give her oldest son a bath. I asked her about the water temperature and she said he liked cold baths. I thought it was odd, but filled the tub with mildly cold water.

When the tub was ready, I lifted my nephew into the tub. He screamed loudly about ice cube water and stood shivering in the tub with his arm wrapped around his body. I grabbed him out of the water and wrapped in him in a towel.

My sister came running into the bathroom wanting to know what was wrong.

“Ice cold water is in there!,” my nephew told his mom.

“She put in super cold water!” he pointed accusingly at me.

“Why did you do that?” she asked.

“I did what you told me to,” I announced.

Jump forward from the past to the present day

When JDaniel is ready for a bath, I always try to draw a warm bath for him. The water is not too warm and not freezing. Every time I put him the water he complains it is too hot. I remind him that it will lose all its warmth by the time he gets out of the water and encourage him to sit down.

By the time he has been bathed, shampooed, and has played with his bath toys the water is frigid. He protests that he needs more time. He hasn’t tried to swim in the water yet or he hasn’t squirted all the water out of the toys. (Bath toys that could now start growing icicles.)

I let him stay in the tub until all the water has drained out of it. He tries prevent the water from exiting the tub by sitting on the drain and to keep the water in the tub.

When he finally gets out of the tub, his fingers are pruney and his toes are pickled. Wrinkles cover his hands and feet.

I don’t know how he stands it. I do know that long ago when the water was that frigid another little boy couldn’t even stand in it.

This post in linked to Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday!

Virtual Valentine’s Day Party- Feb.6th- 14th

January 15, 2011 By Deirdre

Beginning February 6th JDaniel’s Mom will be hosting a Virtual Valentine’s Party. There will be four giveaways offered during that nine day period along with a Virtual Valentine’s Day Party Link Up.

I wanted to give you a heads up in advance so that you could plan to be a part of the festivities.

Virtual Valentine’s Day Party Link Up

I am going to provide a link for you to post your Valentine’s Day Party related posts. Each family friendly or child related post linked up will need to have a Virtual Valentine’s Day Party badge or a link at the bottom of it pointing back to the Virtual Valentine’s Day Party Link Up. One of the people that link up a post that contains a badge or link back will be randomly selected to receive a $10 Visa Gift Card. You may link up to four posts.

Here are some ideas for party related posts:

children’s Valentine’s Day game

party food
party favors
books you could read
decorations
crafts
fun songs or finger plays

You can create a post that contains many Valentine’s Day ideas, but each link up must be a different post.

Here is the badge:

What party is any fun without guests?

I am also going to randomly pick a comment stating the two link up posts a commenter has visited to receive a prize too. You will be able to leave a comment once a day making the above statement.

Giveaways

I have secured a wonderful Valentine’s Day book collection from Tiger Tales and a yummy food related giveaway for party guests. Both giveaways will be launched on February 6th and will run until the 14th of February.

I hope you will consider attending my Valentine’s Day event.

Muffin Tin Monday- Owl Moon Lunch

January 10, 2011 By Deirdre

Owl Moon is one of my favorite wintertime tales. Jane Yolen does a wonderful job involving the reader into a hunt for owls one cold winter night. The pictures by John Schoenherr draw you in and make you want to go on your own owl hunt. JDaniel is now dying to search the backyard in the dark to look for owls.

I decided to create an Owl Moon muffin tin meal for JDaniel and see if he could find the images I was trying to represent in the book while we ate.

There was a cheese moon, yogurt with tiny spoon like footprints, a turkey dog, Christmas fruitcake with the darkest shadows you have ever seen, milk representing snow whiter that milk from a cereal bowl, and finally a sandwich owl. Most of the food was served in silver icicle like muffin cups.

Here is a better shot of the footprints.

He did a pretty good job of finding things mostly though he just wants to go owling. It is snowing here is South Carolina today. We may have to go out at dust, trample through the snow and look for owls.

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday.

I have been tagged by Noelle from Jumpin Bean. She is a great blogging buddy and friend. I have answered the questions below and have tagged a few bloggers at the end of this post who will hopefully continue the game.

When do you usually know and feel that it’s finally the holidays? We wait a long time to put up our Christmas decorations. When the lights are up outside and the tree is up inside, it finally feels like Christmas.

What do you want for Christmas this year? I would love a new cell phone and a computer monitor. I believe Santa is bringing a cell phone.

Do you go all out with decorations? We put up several crèches and a tree in the living room. The kitchen has an advent calendar and Christmas Countdown chart. We don’t go all out. I am not sure where we would store a lot of Christmas decorations during the rest of the year.

What are you doing Christmas Eve? We will be having a simple dinner and opening one gift. It will be just the three of us.

What are you doing Christmas Day? I have my mom coming for a Christmas lunch and my father will arrive from Virginia around dinnertime. I will be serving my dad a Christmas dinner. I can also see playing with new construction equipment a lot on Christmas Day.

It’s Christmas time. What are you reading? We are reading a lot of children’s books about Christmas and I am reading a non-Christmas related Nora Roberts’ book.

Favorite movie to watch during the holidays? I love It’s a Wonderful Life. I love the part when Clarence arrives on the scene.

Favorite Christmas song? I love Mary, Did You Know? It has wonderful words and the music puts me in the right frame of mind for Christmas.

Favorite holiday drink? I love hot cider with caramel. It has a great mixture of spicy and sweet.

How is your Christmas shopping going? I need to get stocking stuffers. The big presents have been purchased and need to be wrapped.

If you could spend Christmas Day anywhere else, where would you spend it? I love being home for Christmas. Traveling over the holidays is lots of fun, but I love being home Christmas Day.

Any holiday traditions? We are waiting until Christmas Day for Jesus to be placed in the crèche. We have shepherds that have been circling around the house waiting for Jesus’ birth. They will arrive on Saturday. We are having a birthday cake for Jesus on Saturday too.

Favorite thing about the holidays? I love getting cards from family and friends. I get to see what they are up to and how their children have changed and grown up in a year.