Growing up

Little Miss Muffin and Goldie left our Kindergarten class to visit the First Grade for the day.  They sent us two really cute pictures!!  They are growing so fast and have a real personality already.  We are still counting down to our chick eggs hatching!

Choose your flavor Quinoa Muffins

I love to have healthy snacks on hand, a go to protein packed quick pick.  Quinoa is an awesome way to add health and protein to the kids diet.  I have posted a quinoa cookie with chocolate chips before, but today I am sharing with you a Quinoa muffin.
Once or twice a week I make quinoa in my rice machine. This way I have cooked quinoa ready for recipes, stir fries, or to mix in to a recipe.
The muffins I made today would be great with any berry (blueberry, cranberry, raspberry, blackberry) fresh or frozen, whatever is on sale!  Whatever flavors your kids enjoy.  You can also use a nut, or a chocolate chip of any kind.  One son hates chocolate chips, and only likes white chips.
Today we offer for your snacking pleasure:
White Chocolate Chip Quinoa Blueberry Muffins

1 cup cooked quinoa
2 cups flour ( we used sprouted wheat)
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp orange zest
1 cup milk (we used almond coconut milk)
2 TB cornstarch
1/2 cup Orange Juice
1/4 cup coconut oil or applesauce
2 cups total of added items to include nuts, coconut, berries, or chips

Preheat to 350 degrees
In a large bowl mix 1 cup quinoa(cooked) with 2 cups flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 cup sugar, and 2 tsp orange zest.
In a small measuring cup whisk 1 cup milk and 2 TB cornstarch
Add the wet to the dry.
Stir very gently.
Add the 1/2 cup OJ, and the coconut oil.
Fold in the berries, nuts, chips, etc...
Bake for 25 minutes.

Spread some peanut butter on it and enjoy with some cold milk.

Before I go, wanted to share a quick picture of Goldie, the chicken who is in my daughter's class.  Goldie and Little Miss Muffin, as they were named by the class are growing so much every day.  It is amazing.  When I went into class yesterday to snap a quick pic, I think Goldie was posing for me.

Stay tuned for the eggs to hatch soon!!!

The chicks are so cute!!

The chicks are a huge hit in our Kindergarten class. I am not sure the kids are able to concentrate on much else.  Maybe next week the excitement will settle down a bit?

The kids love feeling how soft the chicks are.  They are just too cute, sleeping under the heat lamp.

And here are our 7 eggs incubating.  One is a special blue hen.  Stay posted for more chick updates!

Milestones

As my children grow older, I find myself trying to remember specific milestones.  My memory is spotty though as I age. But this weekend will be a big milestone for my middle child.
Being the middle one is a fun position. I was the oldest and I always felt in charge.  I still like to think I am in charge, even though I am losing some ground as the kids get older.
My middle son, Noah, turned 13 last week and will celebrate his Bar Mitzvah this weekend.  His Bar Mitzvah comes with more responsibility and tons of hard work.  Noah studied with my Dad for the past two years.  He worked very hard and his hard work will show this weekend.  I barely remember Noah as a baby.  In this picture Noah is 2 hours old.  I blinked and here we are 13 years later.

As I have written here before, Noah and his older brother suffer from an auto-immune illness called POTS(Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome). This illness has a huge effect on both of their daily lives.  Noah is raising money for research into developing a cure for POTS.  If you would like to make a donation(no donation is too small!) you can go to this link https://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/noahlafountain/noahlafountainsbarmitzah 

This week is also exciting because spring  is finally here! It took a while, and we are still wearing jackets and long sleeves off and on, but when our trees bloom, we know spring cannot be far off.

This winter was brutal, many storms, tons of snow, really cold temperatures, and sky high heating bills.  But spring is here and we will enjoy it, until it gets too hot HA!
I will be posting over the next month some photos of the chicken hatching I won from teachmama a few weeks ago.  Diane's class is going to be hatching chicks as well as observing and taking care of two chickens.  The kids are so excited.  It will be a wonderful learning experience for them.

If you are local to Maryland and you want to hatch some chicks or have backyard hens yourself, please contact Rent-A-Coop! They have been wonderful to work with and our Kindergarten class will show you how much fun the chicks are.

Spiral Night at Harbor School

Last night was magical.  Walking through each of the classrooms, that hold children as young as 3 and as old as 2nd grade was incredible.  Once a year the Harbor school holds a sprial night.  The theme changes each year.  Last year the theme was the human body.  We went through each classroom and looked at the incredible projects that had been created based on the body.  There were questions to answer in each room, contests as well.  The excitement built as we exited one room and entered the next. After last year's spiral night I did not know how this year could be better.

The theme this year was Artists.  Each child wore a piece of art (that they had decorated themselves).  We were handed our artists' passport with secret mini photos inside, one special picture to find in each classroom.  We were excited to enter our own Museum!

The artwork was incredible.  We enjoyed each and every room.  The teachers and kids are so incredibly creative and talented. 

The entry wall was inspired by Mondrian.  I love how each child had such a different final project.

The Gelede Headdresses were really creative. Honestly, each display was more impressive than the next.

This map was AWESOME!  I wish I had time to read everything.

Two classes studied Leonardo Da Vinci.  These sketches were so detailed and I loved reading the descriptions as well.
Diane's class made flying machines.

Each child in Diane's class studied an artist and then displayed a poster with some of their art.  Diane was excited to choose her Great Aunt Carla as her favorite artist.  I am not sure who was more excited Diane or Carla!  Diane learned that she and Carla have a lot in common. They both love dogs, cats and birds.  They both love pink, purple and aqua.

But wait, Diane's class did something even cooler.  They replicated Lascaux Cave.  Imagine having an actual cave in your classroom.  The kids each made paintings and the paintings were hung up inside, on top of, and all around the cave. It was so much fun walking into a cave in your Kindergarten classroom.  This is something Diane will never forget.

I have so many more pictures to post and no time to do it.  This blog post has been sitting open on my computer for about 10 hours now.  I keep sitting down and adding one more thing, then getting busy with something else.  I live-tweeted many other photos on Twitter #spiralnight.  Here are a few more of my favorite displays!

International Day of Happiness is a great way to show our #Disneyside

This post was scheduled to go up on Thursday last week.  Alas, it did not.  But it is not too late to talk about two wonderful things, The International Day of Happiness and ways to show our #Disneyside.

What is the International Day of Happiness?  The HuffPo had a great compilation of articles here telling you all the ways you can be happier. I love that being happier had a day, but why only one day? We need this to last forever.  No one seems happy anymore.  There is so much tragedy and reason to be sad.  But, wouldn't it be nice if people smiled more and treated you with kindness?

Strangely enough on the Day of Happiness, I did feel happier.  I went on a few shopping errands, and I saw people smiling.  In one store two employees went out their way to chat with me and my daughter and they even offered us fresh baked cookies, for free! Not much makes my daughter happier than hot chocolate chip cookies, YUM.  But maybe it was me. Maybe I was trying to feel happier and smile more, and in return others were showing the same feelings.  I loved the Happiness Day and I hope that if I feel happier it will be contagious and rub off on others around me.

I cannot end Happiness Day without the song that is being played almost as often as Let it Go.  I hope today is very happy for all of you!

But, before I go, I need to quickly post and fill you in on our #Disneyside party.
The most exciting part of our party was the buildup, waiting for our #Disneyside party box to arrive.  Every single day Diane and Molly would wait for the UPS man.

Finally the box we were waiting for!  We could not wait to see the goodies inside.

                   Stay tuned for more photos and stories from our party and show me your #DisneySide!

Our family has been showing our #Disneyside for the past 25 years.  I visited Disneyworld as a child a few times and so did my husband.  We won a trip to Disney, and we took our inlaws with us.  Then we went to Disney for our HONEYMOON!  We have had our DVC membership for the past 20 years and showing our #Disneyside makes us very happy.  So many of our best family memories are from our trips to Disney.
Do you want to learn more about Disney Side?   Check out DisneySide.com and DisneySideCelebrations.com and get inspired to show off YOUR Disney Side!

I was provided a suitcase full of amazing party supplies and ideas by Disney, HP, American Tourister, Disney Parks, Mom Select, Hanes, and Ocean Spray to create this fantastic party.  The ideas and opinions are 100% my own.

Mr Peabody and Sherman Real Parents Review

Mr Peabody and Sherman is a new film by Dreamworks based on a 70s cartoon from the Rocky and Bullwinkle show.

When you were a kid, did you enjoy this cartoon? I do not remembering watching it, but my husband remembers it fondly.  The new Mr Peabody and Sherman movie is a current version of the same story.  We saw a sneak preview of the movie this weekend and we enjoyed it very much.

In the new movie, we are introduced to Mr Peabody(a dog) who is the adoptive father of Sherman(a human). Mr Peabody is a dog of unmatched intellect.  One of Mr Peabody's fantastic inventions is something called the WABAC (pronounced "way - back") machine and is basically, a time machine. In the original cartoon series, they used the time machine to go back in time and learn about various historical characters and events.  In the new movie the WABAC machine has been modernized and their travels through wormholes looks like something out of Star Trek.  Mr Peabody tells Sherman to never go in the WABAC machine without him.

As the movie begins, Sherman is now old enough to attend school and his experiences with Mr Peabody (and the fact that his father is a dog) set him apart from his classmates and put him at odds with one popular girl in particular (Penny) who prior to his attendance, was the top student.  She then goes out of her way to bully and make fun of him.  Mr Peabody decides a good way to overcome this, is to have Penny and her parents over for dinner.  Everyone is a bit uneasy at this prospect, but they all give it a try. Despite an amazing evening planned by Mr Peabody, Penny and her family are still skeptical. While the parents/dog are chatting, Penny continued to tease Sherman about his thoughts on history.  Sherman decides to prove to Penny that his history knowledge is correct and he pulls her in to the WABAC machine.  Their trip through time does not go as planned, and you need to see the movie to see all the mayhem that Sherman and Penny cause and who they meet.

 

I felt like I was one of the few people who knew where these characters came from at our screening.  But even without the prior knowledge, it appeared that both children and parents enjoyed this movie. There are plenty of jokes that parents will enjoy and the children will not understand.  

 

This movie really tackles the issue of bullying and good strategies for overcoming this problem without being preachy about it.  There is very little violence (only of the cartoon type) and no cursing that we can recall.  I would highly recommend this movie for children 5 and up. Parents and kids give this movie 4.5 stars out of 5.  Enjoy!

Here is the current trailer for you to watch with your kids before going to the movie: