Real Brownies!!

I have mentioned a few times that I've been having symptoms of possible food allergies/sensitivities. I have been on a gluten free diet for close to a year because I think I'm sensitive to wheat and gluten. I'm to the point where I want to find out for sure if I have an allergy. I'd like to know because I think N displays a number of the same symptoms I have. And if I have the allergy he could too. I also want to know for sure if I need to be on this diet because it takes dedication to stick with it! There are several ways you can be tested for food sensitivities/allergies. I am starting with the blood test route. I've had one test so far and am preparing for another blood test. In order for the tests to be accurate, I have to put gluten and wheat back into my diet for two (or more) weeks. This is both exciting and exhausting. I'm super excited to eat some of the foods I've been missing, but it's not exciting because most of the symptoms that indicate that I have food sensitivities are returning. Ick! One of things I've missed are gluten filled desserts. So the other night I made a Ghiradelli brownie box mix (not gluten free). D didn't know I was doing this until he walked through the kitchen. His response was said with great delight, "Are you making "real brownies?!" (as opposed to gluten free). So apparently, not only do "real brownies" taste better, they also smell better. Ha!

Art Cart: Van Gogh

I have the pleasure of being one of the Moms in N's class room who teaches Art Cart (AC) once a month. The other Mom and I take turns heading up each month's theme. The Mom who doesn't head it up, helps the other Mom with set up, etc. I've lead Art Cart a few times already this year, but haven't gotten around to blogging about it. I will do that in the near future.

This month, we learned about Van Gogh. I read a book to the kids called "Katie and the Sunflowers." It's the cutest book about Katie's visit to an art gallery with her Grandma. Her Gma falls asleep on a bench while Katie runs around the gallery. Katie ends up following a puppy in and out of several paintings (mostly by Van Gogh). She's going in and out of the painting in an attempt to catch the puppy because he is carrying the Sunflowers from Van Gogh's Sunflower painting. Katie ends up catching the puppy and puts the flowers back in their original painting.

When we were done reading the book I showed the kids a poster of Van Gogh's Sunflowers painting and we talked about Van Gogh's technique. Then I walked them through the steps to make their own Sunflower painting using petal shaped sponges and paints. Each student got a 12x18 piece of card stock paper with a vase already drawn on the paper. The first thing the kids did was to write their names on the vases on their pictures just like Van Gogh did and then they got to work painting! I wish I would have had taken my camera with me because their paintings turned out so nice! The bright colors were so refreshing on a gloomy, cloudy day. So fun!

Below is a picture I took of the practice painting I did.

Treasure Hunt & Baggies

This morning N was on a pirate kick. Not sure why, but he realllly wanted to do a treasure hunt before school. We didn't have time. I can usually figure out a way to do a little something fun before school, but today we really didn't have any time. So, I promised him I'd do a treasure hunt with him after school. I remembered my promise at like 3:15, so I had to hurry up and get something set up before he got home. I rounded up some post it's, put little clues on each note and stuck 'em in place all over the house. Then I packed a picnic snack in our lunch bag and set up a picnic snack at the end of the treasure hunt in our guest room. The snack of pretzels, cheese sticks and two miniature oreos and one Hershey kiss per boy was the treasure. I wasn't sure how interested the boys would be in the treasure being that it really wasn't anything too huge, but they loved it! N especially loved the hunt for the treasure. Once again, our picnic snack got N out of his once a week after school funk (that tends to take place almost every Thursday).

One more little story that I told some friends tonight and forgot to share here. The other day N and I were talking over a few new fun lunch ideas. We started the conversation with food. Then a light bulb went off in N's head. He said, " Mom! The other kids at school have their food in these little bags. Like, they have their sandwich in one bag. And their chips in one bag...and the bags stay shut when you sqeeze them!! Can you make my lunch in bags sometime?!" At first I wasn't sure what he was talking about, then I realized he meant Ziploc bags! (His lunch box is like the one below and doesn't require baggies, so I've never used baggies in his lunch.) Once I figured out what he was talking about I smiled and thought it was so cute that he thought it was such a revolutionary idea to use baggies in your lunch box! Then I told him we certainly can try it sometime. ;)

Glue Paint & Outside in February!

Today N had a half day of school. L and I were out running errands, so we swung by the school and picked N up. We took home our favorite sammies from a local restaurant (and I actually ate a sandwich 'cause I'm prepping for another food allergy test..more on that later). After lunch and after L was down for a nap, N and I had art/craft time. We made glue paint that I saw on this website. We followed the instructions and mixed the paint into the bottles of glue. I wasn't sure how much interest N would have in this activity, so I only got three bottles of paint and glue to make three colors. N did a good job of mixing the paint and glue together. We'll let these dry and I'd like to try to water color it like the Mom on the Pink and Green website did. Her's turned out really neat. Our work is below.

The weather got nice and warm this afternoon (52), so we played outside with the neighbors. Being outside with friends was so refreshing! It's one of the things we miss the most during the cold winter months.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! We had a low key celebration at home that consisted of a candle lit meal (battery operated candles for safety of course) "fun-due" (fondue), and small gifts. Hope you had a good day too!

Fun-due

Curious George book for L, scratch off for N.

Busy Boys

The first Saturday of February D took N to his first toy tractor show. They had a great time and N did well with 2.5 hour drive. While they were gone, L and I went to a nearby Children's Museum. He really enjoyed it! His favorite activities were the water table and the painting area.

One day last week N got off the bus and was in a very cranky mood. We got inside the house and I suggested we have a snack picnic and I'd let N choose any room in the house for our picnic. That snapped him right out of his funk!

The boys were sick this week. L started with symptoms a week ago Sunday (could we have picked s'thing up at the CDM?) then was full on sick my Monday. So, Mommy and L stayed home Monday through Wednesday. N woke up on Thursday morning with symptoms and a fever, so he stayed home too. By Friday morning we had ear infections, coughs, runny noses and pink eye in our house. Ick! The boys were sick, but they still had energy to do some low key activities. We needed to pass the time somehow!

I made Sensory boxes for the boys. They each have their own box of rice and toys to play with. Last week I freshened our Sensory Boxes up with a Valentines items. I was going to dye the rice red or pink, but opted not to because I found cute colored beads to put in the box. I ended up with heart shaped pink and purple beads as well as red bracelet beads. I also got each boy a heart shaped clear container. L likes running his hands through the beads and N likes sifting the colored beads out of the rice and sorting them into different containers.

One day while L played in his sensory box (or "flower box" as he calls it), I worked on an Art Cart project for N's class. I will be teaching them about Van Gogh and his Sunflower painting. I cut lots of sponges into pedal shapes. The kids will use the sponges to create their own Sunflower painting. So, between L's rice play and my sponge cutting, we made a big, yet colorful mess!

Because L liked painting so much at the Children's Museum, I decided to break out our giant roll of paper (IKEA) and paints and supplies and let him go to town.

We put tempura paint in plastic bags and practiced writing.

N wanted to play hotel, so we made door hangars out of construction paper and put a number (and stickers) on each hangar. N put them on all of our bedroom doors so each "guest" knows which room is his/hers. L played Play-Doh while N and I played hotel.

I tweaked this idea (below) I saw on Pinterest. Love Pinterest!!! The original use was for a chore chart. Each pin had a chore listed on it and once the child completed that chore, he/she move the pin to the right hand side so they could see what they'd done and what they had left to do around the house. Well, since the boys were sick and because N needed several doses of meds each day, I made this into a medicine chart. Suprisingly, N is actually very interested in it! He loves moving the pins after each dose. I told him if he takes all of his meds like a big kid and once he's moved all the pins over, he can have a treat. That has worked very well.

L woke up with a yucky ear this morning that will require several doses of medicines and drops each day, so I see a second medicine chart in our future for him.

D and I managed to get out of the house Saturday night for a Valentine's date night. We had the most delicious meal at Biaggi's. Biaggi's has an entire gluten free menu, so I felt like a princess ordering such yummy food. They even had gluten free bread to munch on while we waited for our entree's to arrive. Yum!!! The food was good and so was the company. It's always nice when D and I can get out w/o the boys for some grown up time. :)

On Sunday I couldn't handle the thought of germs in our house anymore, so "Operation Sanitize" commenced!