Teething necklaces

A few weeks back I had the pleasure of hosting a beading party to make teething necklaces with wooden beads. Everyone enjoyed snacks and good company while working to get our creativity going.  The results were fabulously colorful creations for our teething tots to chomp on.  I know my little one loves when I wear mine and I even get compliments on it as if were real jewelry! 

Turkey Day Delights: Favorite Foods

There are many traditional foods that show up on the Thankgiving table that lots of us look forward to each year.  For me it was always stuffing and cranberry sauce and I can't wait to see what my little one's favorite will be!  Anyone else looking forward to their baby's first (or second, third, etc) thanksgiving?

What is your favorite Thanksgiving food?

I look forward to turkey and gravy.Stuffing, lots of stuffing!I look forward to Pumpkin Pie and other sweet treats.I live for mashed potatos.Cranberry sauce is my weakness.How dare you not mention __________!

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Harvest & Holiday update: How we're celebrating so far!

It's that time of year again! No matter what your beliefs might be, everyone has memories of the holidays and what they mean.  As moms, we have the challenge of carrying on the traditions we like, forgoing the ones we don't, and creating new ones that fit our little ones personalities along with our life styles.  Here's some of the things we've been doing to celebrate the holidays and get in the spirit.

Julie HR has hosted some harvest inspired crafting with leaf rubbing*, corn cob wreath making*, and coming up next, the group with make hand print's representing one of Columbus's ships. Can't wait to see Nina, Pinta, or Santa Maria painty digit ships!!

Also, we collected food goods at BIG Play Thursday to donate to Human Needs Food Pantry in Montclair.  I will be making the drop off this Tuesday and will post more details about what to bring for the December BIG Play food drive.

Those who celebrate advent will remember the joy of opening tiny doors to eat chocolates each day as the days counted down to Christmas.  Emily MS is hosting a handmade advent calender that will be just in time for December 1st.  Looks like it will be a festive way to reuse toilet paper rolls and let the count down begin!

*If anyone has photos from these events, I'd love to post them!

November's B.I.G. Play Thursday!

Today was our second indoor B.I.G. play T.hursday! Loving (and living) our acronyms, there were lots of Babies Interacting and Growing Together. Mama's and babies alike were riding, pushing, crawling, chatting, and enjoying the roominess of the gym.  As the season changes, and the weather turns cold we are all grateful to have a big space to run around! 

Last month we all enjoyed "big rigs" (anything with wheels that can go vrrrrm!) that it was brought back as the theme for this month too along with tents and tubes to crawl through. So far everyone has done an excellent job of utilizing  such a big space!

Next month our celebration of things with wheels continues and we'll be adding cardboard boxes to the mix! 

Halloween party 2013

Emily and Davy hosted us for a memorable Halloween party this year.  To accompany her yummy chili, some snack favorites were sweet potato brownies, candied bacon and more!  I brought along a kiddie pool filled with dry corn that was a Halloween hoot for all. As the corn got spread further and further around Emily's screened in porch, many little ones became helpers and turned our fiesta into a "sweeping party!"  Another highlight was an impromptu parade to the school next door where the older kids and teachers oohed and ahhed over our adorable costumed kiddies. 

Hey look it's Elmo, a construction worker, and a lion in a corn pool.

Gio's awesome homemade monster costume and Charlie dressed as his mom for halloween.

Sweeping Party go!

Gotta love babes cleaning.

Mocktails and Dips - Cooking Play Date

EVENT-PLANNING + MOTHERHOOD. NOT THE FINAL FRONTIER, BUT THE ULTIMATE FRONTIER.

As one of the many hats I've donned in my life experience, event planning & the torrid love affair I have with it, has a way of secretly re-surfacing in my life at the oddest times just when it seems my love tank needs a refill.  I love it. I just really do. So, the minute Takisha asked if I'd mind stepping up to host "Mocktails & Dips 2013" the YES was already "out" & all the party details began floating in my head & the list making started in my mind from that minute on.  What fuel can be added to make event-planning even MORE extravagant? Motherhood. Is it not true we will move heaven and earth for our darling angels?  I explain all this to say, Takisha tells me the DAY before the party to not "go crazy". Too late. When everyone arrived, we had nametags so we could all feel comfortable learning each others names.  Everyone was greeted with a warm smile & welcomed to the event with general "housekeeping" instructions like where to put the entourage of bags we mommies travel with, where the bathrooms were, how to operate the dang trash compactor, etc... Then they were shown the presentation example & instructed to snag their child's bucket (Can you say play date favor?!) with all the play date gear in it & create their own mini-bar & sampling station how ever they saw fit.  

Next began the introduction of Hummus makers, Wendy & Logan, Annabelle & Sam. They set out to inaugrate my professional Ninja by making smooooooth hummus. They added Tahini paste, chickpeas, garlic, lemon, olive oil & salt. It was so tasty, so fresh! Really. All of us devoured it (and personally if I had to pass out a Mohan 5 star rating for my favorite, it was definitely the hummus!). Even the kids came back for seconds...& thirds! Smothering fresh veggies & organic chips, the hummus was gone instantly! While the hummus was being sampled, Colleen & I quickly chopped up some bananas to throw in the freezer later to go along with the caramel sauce. I began making sandwich wraps in the middle of my sweet Emilie having her roughest day in the history of her short 11 month life! Boo! 

Marie, Danie & Henry managed our guacamole creation using fresh avocados which had been purchased on Monday and were placed in a paper bag for ripening.  To the delicious bowl of avocado, they added fresh onion, salt, cilantro, tomatoes, garlic, red chili pepper & limes. The texture they were striving for was the PERFECT blend of smooth & chunky......the metal bowl was the secret weapon along with the fork!

Clare was a great taste tester walking around the kitchen sampling everything!  After the guacamole, we decided to move the caramel dip to the end because by this time in the playdate mommies were also

  getting hungry & thirsty.  We set out a variety of blackforest ham & cheese, turkey & cheese & veggie wraps for the mommies to eat while the drinks were being made. We even took care of our friend, Wendy by making her a fresh salad! We turned the bar-tending part of the play date over to Marie (who was ALL too familiar with serving up some Shirley Temples)!  Axel was mostly interested in exploring the cabinets, carrying the racket & just looking innocently laid-back & adorable (can you say future ladies man?). Marie gets an extra shout-out because she went to a lot of trouble to hunt down a small, yummy, but pricey $7 jar of maraschino cherries that did not contain disgusting dyes!  So sweet how our mammas watch out for each other and their kiddos, right?!  Well, the Shirley Temples were a cinch to make. It took ginger ale, grenadine syrup, lime & cherries.  

Picking up the pace, I made the Strawberry Daiquiri from a simplified recipe I sampled in a store at home in Indiana.  I took a carton of strawberry puree, blended it with ice, added a splash of ginger ale & boy was it sweet! I squeezed in 1 lime to balance the sweetness & served it up in a cute white cup with an umbrella, paper straw & a fresh strawberry sliced on the side!

The strawberry daquiri was quite tasty & a big hit among the older kids! 
While mommies mixed and mingled,
the kids were mostly interested in playing in the den aka designated Thomas the Tank Engine tent area just off the kitchen & downstairs in our Montessori-inspired classroom.  In spite of the kids re-surfacing at times to restock on the goodies, the laid out chef's coat (pushed down below the attached human body felt board) & learning tower remained untouched throughout our cooking time. A mom can only ask so many times, right? I mention this to point out that while we would have loved for the older kids to be more interactive with the cooking, we maintained flexibility and rolled with it... especially when it comes to the kids and the play dates!

Soon, our tummies were feeling quite satisfied & while we were ready for Pina Coladas, darling John was still napping on his mommy, Takisha, so we let him!  Colleen and Katie took to putting their cooking skills to the test by making the caramel sauce for their first time ever!  They began with boiling the water, salt & sugar, using a candy thermometer.

In another saucepan, they combined the butter & cream.  When all temperatures were reached, the caramel was blended & served up!  We dipped it in apples.  We dipped the bananas in it. We dipped our fingers in it. We slurped it out of the sample cups...and the next night I warmed the extra up & drizzled it over my popcorn. YUMMY!  Since caramel is my all time favorite, the hummus had serious competition!  Also, while a lot of us enjoyed the caramel, Annabelle, in particular who is not a fan of caramel, braved the sample, which I was so proud of her for!  Even tho it wasn't her taste, we made it up to her by not counting how many dark chocolate Godiva's she ate (yes, again, over-the-top hostess thought every mamma braving a cooking play date deserved spoiled with chocolates!).

Next, once Takisha's angel woke up from his nap, she threw him on her back & they gave us the 411 on how to pick a fresh, ripe pineapple & cut it.  She even wowed us with using her fancy pineapple corer gadget!  She combined ice, fresh pineapple, coconut milk & limes to serve up a refreshing Pina Colada!

 While that wrapped up the cooking part of the play date, we lingered, cleaned up, relaxed & chatted while kids played & babies slept, ate & needed diaper changes.  Some mommies stayed & some mommies left when they needed to. Unfortunately, a cloudy, milder temperature day spoiled the chances of us hopping in the pool, but promises were made to have those meet up times later when the weather was more cooperative!  Final farewells were said around 8 pm & all in all it was the perfect day because event-planning + motherhood is truly the ULTIMATE frontier!

Lyndhurst Sprayground

What a great idea for fun, unstructured free-play time. This play date was set for a Tuesday at 10:30am at Lyndhurst Spraypark.  The spraypark is open from 10am-4pm but on Tuesdays there is restricted parking for street cleaning from 8-10 so some of us found out the hard way that you can't go early.  Then, once we get to the park we were surprised to see a ton of older kids.  Turns out there was some camp visiting the park and the babies were overwhelmed with all the commotion so we were forced to leave and spend some time on the swings in the adjacent park.  Luckily it didn't take long for the camp kids to clear out and we were able to get some time in the spray park without any big kids.  Once it was less crowded even the crawlers had a blast!  If you plan to visit this spraypark with your little one be prepared to get wet! 

Address: 367 Valley Brook Ave. Lyndhurst, NJ

Cost: $1 per person including little ones.

367 Valley Brook Aveg

367 Valley Brook Ave