Read With Me Wednesday: Hey, Little Ant

I love to read!  As a school teacher I am always looking for and reading all kind of wonderful books.  So every Wednesday here on my blog I’d like to share some of my favorites.  And I would LOVE to hear what you are reading!

Hey, Little Ant
Written by Phillip and Hannah Hoose
Illustrated by Debbie Tilley

In 1992, Phillip Hoose and his daughter Hannah, then nine, wrote a musical conversation between an ant about to get flattened and the child about to squish it. It ended with the question, "What do you think that kid should do?" Their popular recording of the song "Hey Little Ant" led to the story's publication as a children's picture book in 1998, which has become a runaway success. Now the ant and the child – and their shared dilemma – are known by parents, children and educators throughout the world.

 

 

I love that it teaches about tolerance and respect in a way everyone can understand.  I let the kids discuss in groups what they would do if they were the kid and what they would want to happen to them if the ant and the kid reversed roles.  We have had quite the interesting discussions. 

 

Thanks for reading along with me on this fabulous Wednesday!

I {Heart} This Gorgeous Quilt

I saw this and instantly feel in LOVE!  It completely brightened my day.  I wish I was a quilter, or even that I could sew.  I can’t decide if I want to keep it for myself or make it for my daughter.  Maybe we will just have matching bedspreads. 

She makes it look so easy with a tutorial . . . Maybe some day.   

Ladybug Cupcakes

My friend asked me to make some ladybug cupcakes and a cake for her daughter’s first birthday.  I looked all over, but didn’t find anything that was simple enough or that I liked enough.  So this is what I came up with.

{What You’ll Need}
dozen cupcakes
1 can of vanilla frosting
1 can of chocolate frosting
black food coloring
red food coloring
ziplock freezer bags
mini Oreo cookies
edible eyeballs
black licorice strings

{How To}
Tint vanilla frosting red.  *What I learned:  Use coloring paste not regular food coloring.  These ladybugs turned out being pinkish red, and the picture makes them look orange.  Blah!

Add a few drops of black food coloring to the chocolate frosting.  Using chocolate frosting makes it so much easier to get your frosting a true black

Fill two ziplock freezer bags with black or red frosting.  Snip of the end of each.  Make sure you don’t take too much off of the black bag, you can always go back and make it bigger if you want, but you can’t go back and make it smaller!

Frost cupcakes with red frosting.

Add a head by making and oval outline with the black frosting then filling it in. 

Make a stripe down the back of the cupcake.  I used a piece of thread and laid it in the red frosting to give me a line to follow. 

Add edible eyes and spots.  Split Mini Oreos in half and push into frosting.

Snip black licorice strings and push into cupcake for antennae.  Sorry these aren’t in the picture, I forgot to buy them and then forgot to take another picture when I got back.   

Orange Chicks

I found this on a blog that I follow, she made them for her kiddos for Easter.  Brilliant!  I had a hard time thinking of what to put in my 20 month old’s Easter basket.  These would have been perfect.  You could use felt for the beak and feet.  Cloves for the eyes.  Ribbon for a bow.  Why didn’t I think of this.  I wonder if I could find an excuse to make some up anyway.  

I {Heart} Nie Nie

I hate reading Nie Nie.  Honestly I do.  But I am totally addicted to it.  I bawl my eyes out every time I read her blog.  She is truly an amazing woman.  She was in a plane accident and was burned over 80% of her body.  She is real, honest, faithful, and inspiring.  Go check her it out if you haven’t already.  The woman’s been on Oprah, so I’m sure you’ve heard of her by now!

 

A few of my favorites:

Anyway, I went to Parent Teacher Conferences with Mr. Nielson today.
The girls are doing great.
Jane needs a little improvement in the spelling/handwriting area, while
Claire is stuck on learning her phonics.
Generally they are both dear girls in the classroom.
I just need help being a mother.
At least my stools are softer.

 

Disappointment and discouragement sunk in as I wept.
Then I wiped my eyes, and said-
"Lets do it again, lets try it again, I am not giving up"

 

I came home from the hospital eager to be Mom. The mom I used to be. Oh, how I wanted to pick up Nicholas, get down on the floor with Ollie and play army men. I wished I could have jumped on the trampoline with Jane and Claire.
But those days will come. I am sure of it.
For now, I sit and tell Nicholas stories about when he was born. I hold Ollie's hand around the house. And tonight I did valentines with the girls.
It is good enough for now, although they are concerned. They worry about me, and my condition and what will happen. I assure them that my very talented Dr. L and his team will help me enjoy life more fully (and hopefully decrease the amount of tears I shed daily)

 

 

I’m bawling again.  Wow, truly grateful for all of my blessings and for the faith of others. 

Dying Easter Eggs

I know, Easter was yesterday.  But I wanted to share something that worked well for us this year.  Maybe you’ll find it helpful next year. 

I have a 19 month old.  Of course she wants to do everything we do, just the way we do it.  I really wanted her to be able to dye Easter eggs with us this year.  So we tried it this way.  Her dear sweet grandmother was so patient with her.  But it was a little challenging. . .

But we had this Marble Swirl dye kit.  The original instructions were to use some plastic gloves they gave you and spread the dye/gel all over the egg.  Still too messy for a 19 month old.  So this was the solution I came up with. 

Dipped egg into some of the dye. 

Put into a plastic bag.  Blow in some air.

And shake it all about!  We put a twist tie on my daughter’s and she loved to shake it. 

      The results:  Beautiful Easter eggs.  Nothing too fancy really, but we had fun making them.  The ones we did in bags turned out pretty neat.  It was almost mess free, when we were finished we just threw out the bags!  Talk about easy clean up.  When they dried they even had a sparkliness to them! 

 

So what are your fabulous Easter egg dying tips?  How do you help the little ones be able to participate too?

Bunny Pop and Chocolate Milk

I did it!  I did have time to make the Bunny Pops I told you about!  I loved the way they turned out!

{You Will Need}
Brown and Pink cardstock – On hand
Small Pink Pom Poms – 99 cents @ Michael’s
Googly eyes – 99 cents @ Michael’s
Rootbeer in a glass bottle or Chocolate milk – cheapest @ Walmart $2.50
White floral wire – 69 cents @ Walmart in Craft/Floral
Cotton balls – On hand
Hot glue gun

 

{Instructions}
Cut paper to look like bunny ears, I used the Paper Doll cartridge and my Cricut.  Glue ears together, tie bows, cut wire into about 1 inch pieces.

Glue ears onto bottle.  BE CAREFUL THAT YOU GLUE IT LOW ENOUGH SO THAT YOU CAN STILL GET THE LIT OFF!  I think I permanently hot glued some of my lids on. 

Glue on bows, eyes, whiskers (wire), nose (pom poms).  I zig zag folded one bunnies wire, it made him a little quirky but cute, if you don’t just want plain straight. 

Cut cotton ball in half.  Glue on cotton ball for tail.  DO THIS LAST!  If you choose to do this first I will not be held responsible for any painful glue gun burns you may incur. 

 

 

 

Inspiration found, 30 days via Be Different, Act Normal

I {Heart} Gourmet Mom on the Go

Wow!  I want to go live at their house!  Talk about THE COOLEST mom ever!

 Rabbit Hole Pancake Stacks

 Fairy Dust Sandwiches

 Creamy Mango Pops

 

Hungry yet?  I honestly have not seen something from her site that I haven’t loved!  Most things are simple and of course fabulous!

This past weekend I tried out her edible eyeball recipe.  I was making ladybug cupcakes for a friend’s daughter’s birthday party.  They turned out great.  Who would have thought?  All these times I’ve been trying to make eyeballs with frosting.  It’s such a pain.  Now I have plenty to use next time!

Mini Monkey Bread

I had never eaten Monkey Bread until I married my husband. What a sad existence I was living up until then. I have been dying to make it ever since (for two years now!). I found a simplified recipe at Get Off Your Butt and Bake that was perfect because our freezer was being over powered by Rhodes Rolls. I didn’t have the Texas size rolls, just the dinner roll, but they worked just fine. I also made some MONSTER Mini Monkey Bread in my MONSTER muffin tin. My changes and thoughts are in { }. I didn’t make too many changes and we loved them. I don’t even know if they’ll make it 24 hours!

Mini Monkey Bread

12 Rhodes Dinner rolls thawed, but still cold
1 stick of butter, melted
2 tablespoons corn syrup
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Icing (I doubled this.)
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1-2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Cut each dinner roll into 6 equal pieces. In a bowl, combine butter and corn syrup and stir until well mixed. In another bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon and mix well. Dip each roll piece in the butter mixture and then in the sugar mixture. Place 6 pieces in each well sprayed cup of a 12 cup muffin tin {I just used cupcake liners}. Cover with sprayed plastic wrap and let double in size. (Watch them so they don’t rise too much!) Remove wrap and bake at 350°F 15-20 minutes. Combine icing ingredients and mix well. Drizzle over monkey breads if desired. {Lazy me, I just used a can of Cream Cheese Frosting.}

Cool at least 5 to 10 minutes before removing from pan, or they fall apart. {Still important even if you used cupcake liners!}

Jellybean Easter Song

I’m always looking for cute songs for school, I found this one that is semi related to Easter and wanted to share.

I started off asking the kids to give me a name of a bean {Black, Pinto, Green, Coffee, Garbanzo . . .}

I use the first answer and sing the song. 

My dog {Black} likes to roam.

Likes to roam from his home.

He came back nice and clean.

Where oh where has Black bean?

Black bean, black bean, where oh where has Black bean?

 

Eventually someone will say Jelly is a kind of bean.  Then I give the kids a jellybean. 

Cheese Ball Goldfish “Carrots” and Bunny Pop

I’m sure we’ve all seen these “carrots” around the web somewhere. Not the most original idea ever. I made these for our Primary kids and for my daughters little friends.

{Supplies}
12, 16 inch cake decorating bags. These things are super heavy duty and about $5.00 at Walmart

1 Sam’s Club size jar of Cheese Balls. I really only used about a 1/4 of these.

1 Sam’s Club size box of Goldfish. Again I only used one of the three bags.

Green tissue paper

Green curling ribbon

{Instructions}
Alternate layering Goldfish and cheese balls until bags are about 3/4 of the way full. Cut a small square of tissue paper, insert into the remaining empty space of the bag. Scrunch and tie tightly with ribbon.

So easy and I think the kids will really enjoy them!

P.S. I had every intention of making these cute bunny pops:

See, I had everything bought and cut out, bows tied, they just need to be assembled. I was even going to make a chocolate milk one for my daughter. Hopefully I’ll have time before Easter!

Follow The Prophet

I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  We believe that there are living prophets on the earth today that receive revelation from God.  Every six months, in April and October, we hold a Semi-Annual General Conference . Church members can attend the conferences in person in Salt Lake City or tune in via TV, radio, or internet. 

For those of you who will be tuning in to Conference this weekend there are a ton of great ideas to get the whole family involved!  All of us are either too old or too young to use most of these, but I can’t wait til the young ‘uns get old enough so we can start some General Conference traditions. 

The Church has a ton of great activities for children of all ages. 

Including the ever classic Conference Bingo, or in this case Conference Squares. 

 

Have you ever been to Sugar Doodle.  Some times I find it a little confusing, but I found a few different cute activity books for different ages.

An apostle coloring book for younger kids.

And a great book for older kids with tons of fun activities. 

 

And last but not least, The Creative Homemaker shares her weekend plans.  Their theme is “C Stands For . . .”  She made this awesome plaque and has a tutorial so you could make one too!  It could work for all kinds of letters and pictures.