Mama is an evil genius

My son is picky!  Seriously food picky, and it drives me nuts!  Up until about a month or so ago, I could feed him chicken nuggets from the freezer.  But just one brand...he tried every brand we could find until he settled on Yummy brand chicken nuggets.  Every other one was yuck!  To top it off, I can only find them at Lowe's Foods.  I don't mind too much, since these seem to be better made than the others brands.

He willingly eats homemade chicken nuggets (the only form of chicken I cook that he will eat).  But I just don't have the patience to go through all the effort to make them all the time, especially for just a quick lunch.  So that left us with frozen ones cooked in the microwave when we needed a quick meal.

Then, it happened.  He got his first loose tooth.  What does this have to do with chicken nuggets?  Well, he was eating chicken nuggets when he discovered the wiggly little guy.  It freaked him out a little, but I calmed him down with some videos about loosing teeth and how it was normal and all.  Finally the tooth fell out.  Unfortunately, the tooth was not the only thing that was lost.  He lost his appetite for the last brand of store bought chicken nuggets he had been willing to eat.  He started to freak out if I even mentioned them.  We had a whole box left in the freezer that he wouldn't eat!  So his limited palate suddenly became even more limited!  This did not make me happy.  :(

So, here's where evil genius Mama finally jumped in....Today, I decided that I was so sick of making "tortilla pizza" for the umpteenth-thousandth time, and so I just did it.  I put the chicken nuggets in the toaster oven, hid the box, and lied to my son.  Yep, I flat out lied.  

"I got some new chicken nuggets for us to try sweetie."  

"Yeah, they are shaped like dinosaurs, but a lot of different kinds are." 

 "They are supposed to taste like McDonald's nuggets."  

Whatever I could think of to say that would convince him to just taste one.  And he did it.  He tried one.  

"Mmmm, these are good ones, Mama.  Make sure you buy more of these!"  

He gobbled down six of the little buggers very happily!

I felt a little guilty, but his palate was expanding (sort of)....then he asked "Do these come in a bag?"  

"Umm, yes, they come in a bag in a box....It's in the trash can if you want to see it."  

He ran to the trash can and popped up the lid..."MAMA!  These are the ones I don't like!!!!!"  

"You just ate them and said they are yummy.  Maybe, you just don't like them cooked in the microwave.  But you do like them in the toaster oven."

Thank goodness that he's amazingly logical for a 5 year old!  "Yeah, Mama, you're right.  I just don't like them in the microwave.  You can buy more if you make them in the toaster oven."

Whew!  One food back on the list.....only four kajillion more to convince him to try.  (This could take a while...)

Our terrarium

We learned about the water cycle recently, so I thought it would be fun to put it in action in our own terrarium.  I had an empty pickle jar, like you get at Sam's club, that we recycled for our project. We collected rocks from outside our house for the drainage in the bottom. Plus we used moss we found in our yard. I had to buy some potting soil since we were out, and picked up a couple small plants. Add in some small plastic figures P already had and we have 1 cool terrarium for around $7 bucks. Pretty sweet, huh?!

Winter harvest

I planted more spinach last fall in the hopes of having some more fresh bounty before winter set in. Well, thanks to a beautifully mild winter, we are still enjoying this lovely greeny now in January. Oh, happy spinach dip, here I come!

You might be a knitter...

If your son uses yarn scraps to make scarves for his army men.  LOL

Recipes?

Have you seen my other blog? My recipe box is where I post my favorite recipes. They have all been tried and taste tested in my own kitchen. :)

Hello, my name is Yva, and I'm a coupon junkie...

I caught the coupon bug last year...and it still remains with me. (I admit it, it was THAT show that sucked me in.)  However, I do NOT act like the people on there, and I try to keep my stock piles within reason. Unfortunately though, during the holidays, we were so busy, that I got way behind on my clipping/organizing. EEK!
But I finally had time yesterday and today to reign the chaos in and cleanout  and organize my binder! Yay! I feel so much better!

New Year, New Projects!

So, I have a standing order to make 16 pair of wristlets this year to be finished by November (which gives me plenty of time).  I finished the first pair today! I'm so itching to start the next pair, but alas, there are other things I have to do too. It's a shame I can't just sit around and knit all day long.
Don't you just love the pretty sparkly yarn!

P’s First Lapbook

I’m so excited! Ever since I discovered lapbooking, I just couldn’t wait to try one with my P. So when the opportunity presented itself to go the Museum of Natural Science in Raleigh, I thought, “Hey, let’s do a dinosaur lapbook to get ready for our visit!”

This was a pretty simple lapbook. (I figured we should start simply until we get the hang of it.) But the process was pretty fun. I let P choose which dinosaurs to do, with the only guidance that we would look at 3 herbivores and 3 carnivores. We used the website Enchanted Learning Dinosaurs. They have more dinosaurs than I’ve ever heard of, which gave us plenty to choose from. I printed out a small coloring page of each dinosaur he chose, and we read about them on the website. We did about 2 dinosaurs a day until we had all six in his book. We sorted them into 2 small booklets, herbivores and carnivores.

(He got so into it, that he even started matching up some of his toy dinosaurs to the ones we were studying.) P decorated the cover with dinosaur stickers, and then it was time for the museum! While we were at the museum, we took lots of pictures of P next to the dinosaurs. He loved it! Then we printed some pics at home and included our favorites into the lapbook.

Anyway, I think the result was pretty cool, and I just loved hearing P pronounce all the dinosaur names (which he did amazingly well!).

That Garden Time of Year

It’s that fun time of year again, when we get to go out and get our hands dirty and plant yummy things for our bellies!

I took my Sweet P out with me to pick out the seeds for our garden. And this year I told him he could pick one packet of whatever he wanted to grow. His selection was, of course, watermelon. I think Sweet P could live on watermelon alone if I let him.

I took a little extra time to plan our garden this year, and thanks to our dear friend, Nicole, we have an abundance of large planters to use. So the main portion of our garden will now be housed in planters lined up along the wall, with just a few other items planted directly in the ground. Our soil isn’t necessarily the best, and there really isn’t much room to amend, so I’m limiting what goes directly in the ground this year. I hope this will prove the most fruitful method.

Our selection of things from seeds this year include:

• Sugar Baby Watermelon (Sweet P’s choice)
• Hot Salsa Mix Peppers (DH’s choice)
• Teton Hybrid Spinach
• Evergreen Bunching Onions

• Grand Rapids Lettuce
• Garlic
• Landstar Garden Beans (These will be sown directly in the ground, because I’ve always had luck with them in the past. I will also plant these in three sections about 2-3 weeks apart to hopefully have beans for a longer period of time.)

Our selection of live plant start items includes:

• Tomatoes
• Basil (I can’t ever have too much of this stuff!)

And still growing vivaciously is my wonderful Rosemary Bush. Yes, I think I really have to call it a bush at this point. And I still have 3 small Strawberry plants that survived the winter, so we’ll see if we manage to get any berries this year. If we can keep the obnoxious squirrels away from them.

Christmas time!

We finally got our tree tonight! Normally we get it the first weekend in Dec, but it's been crazy busy around here lately. Concerts and gigs left and right! Not to mention all the crazy weather. (I mean really, it's this cold here, and we have no snow. C'mon on now! Not fair!) We wanted to get the tree two days ago, but thanks to the two days of rain (and gigs), it was a no go. But finally it was a dry, yet cold day today, so we went out this evening and bought one. It turned out to be a slight blessing in disguise, because the tree we wanted was on clearance!

I let P help hang ornaments on the tree this year. It was fun, but slightly nerve-racking. (Especially when I heard things hit the floor.) But the tree got decorated, and it's finally starting to feel like Christmas in our home.

If you are wondering; yes, the tree is slightly crooked. And the ornaments are clumped together in places (P's fine handiwork!). It may not be a perfectionist designer look, but it was decorated with love, and that makes us happy.

Oh and here's some extra cuteness from P and his Savannah.

Merry Christmas!

P's Leaf Collection

P has been collecting leaves for a while now, and I finally came up with something to do with them. We made a tree poster together, and glued his collection onto it. When it's dry, we're going to hang it on his wall so he can look at his leaves whenever he wants. Even one of his rocks made an appearance on it (just a little one).

(Plus, this will keep the dog from eating the leaves. YUCK!)

Re-purposed!

So we finally got a flatscreen for the living room. YAY! We mounted it over the fireplace, which meant I could rearrange the room. But we still had the old stand from the old tv that had died. It was massive compared to the new one, and it's hard to believe it was about the same screen size. Anyway, since we never seem to have enough seats, and I hated to lose the storage capabilities of the stand, I decided to turn it into a bench. I figured if it was strong enough to hold that giant tv before, it should be plenty strong enough to hold a person. So I bought some 1 inch foam, which I doubled up to make it more comfy. Then I picked some fabric from my stash, a pretty green wool I got from my Nonna, and proceeded to sew a cover. Having a small child, I made the cover with an opening in the back like a sham, so I can take it off to wash it. Then I cut a piece of an old mattress pad to add a little extra fluff to the top. I stuffed the mattress pad piece and the 2 pieces of foam into the cover and voilà! A comfy seat with storage below. The pillow in the picture is from the couch, but I think I will have to make some nice pillows just for my bench. And if you're wondering, I did make the cushion slightly smaller than the stand on purpose. I left the end open so I'd have a place to set a drink down. Clever huh?!

Autumn Beauty

Our trees are rapidly losing their foliage. P seems to enjoy this very much. Especially since I taught him how to jump in a leaf pile. He has also started a leaf collection. Anyway, I just found this beautiful Bradford Pear leaf for him, and I had to take a picture. Just thought I'd share some beautiful fall color. Enjoy!

Pecan harvest has arrived!

I'm so happy! I actually managed to rescue some of our pecans from the squirrels this year! It's not much, maybe about 1 1/2 to 2 cups shelled. But I just love it when I can harvest edibles from around our house! I also got some good practice at shelling them. I think I've gotten pretty good at getting mostly whole or half nuts from the shells!

Now, what to make with them. Hubby would love a pie, but it's not enough for that. Maybe some pecan snickerdoodles. That sounds yummy!

Buzz Lightyear and Mama to the rescue!

I went to the fabric store today to get a few supplies, and what does my darling P find? Buzz Lightyear fabric, and he just has to have it! In fact, he needed it! Being a sucker for cute 3 year old faces and easy projects, I promised him a new pillowcase. There were several different prints, but this soft cotton flannel was his favorite. And it really is quite snuggly. So we bought a yard and brought it home. 30 minutes later, voila! An excellently executed pillowcase with french seams and a double stitched hem to seal in the edges. The best pillowcase I ever made! And I have a very happy little boy! If only it will encourage him to go to bed when I tell him to....

Yamaha 221 Bass Clarinet on Ebay

This is a download for a recording of my husband, Jeremiah, playing the Yamaha 221 Bass Clarinet we currently have for sale on ebay. The listing will end this Sunday, August 8th, so go check it out! If you prefer not to download the recording, use the player in my sidebar to stream it.

UPDATE: Bass Clarinet sold and was sent off to a very happy customer across the pond.

The Sailor's Sonata - New Music for Flute

This is a 3 movement sonata that I wrote for my Dad on Father's Day a few years ago. He has been saying for years that he would like to buy a boat (and has yet to do so), so I thought a sonata related to sailing would be appropriate.
The Sailor's Sonata is written for solo flute. It is my attempt to evoke feelings, emotions and scenes related to the ocean and sailing. The first movement is called "The Ship at Sea". The rolling flute lines should sound a bit like waves or the rocking of the ship. The second movement is called "The Waves are Calling" and is meant to evoke the torn emotion of a sailor trying to explain to his beloved why he must return to the ocean. The third movement is called "The Dancing Sailors" and is a theme and variations movement meant to evoke images of sailors trying to outdo each other while dancing.
Please see the media player in my sidebar to hear it, and I hope you enjoy listening to The Sailor's Sonata. If you are a flutist yourself, or you know one, and you would like to order a copy of the score, please visit my etsy shop Vividly Dreaming Blue for more details

No Christmas cards this year?

I feel so hmmmm...interesting today. With the rapid descent into the holidays, my family and I are in the midst of the busiest time of our year. Nov-Dec is really quite hectic for us.

It starts with the birthday of my SIL mid-Nov, followed by our dog's b-day (not a huge deal, but fun none the less), followed by Thanksgiving (which we celebrate at my parent's home), followed by my brother's b-day...And that's just the second half of Nov.

Dec brings several gigs for DH and I (both musicians), including my holiday orchestra concert and his 2 middle school band concerts. We also have to help our SIL move this month, go to a wedding, and celebrate my dad's b-day. Don't forget that we still have to shop for some gifts!

(Did I mention, we also have to squeeze in time to paint the room SIL is moving from and rearrange it for DS?)

Finally, we get to Christmas! I leave the Christmas prep to my mother, since we celebrate at their house...but that still leaves me with a very excited 3-year-old (who finally understands about presents and Santa) to deal with. Whew...I hope I haven't lost you yet, because we're not done yet! Then, after Christmas we get a minor lull for a couple days while we try to figure out what to do with all DS's new toys, and then we're off again for my DH's New Year's Eve gig, where I finally get a break with nothing to do, but read, knit, crochet, and listen to DS breathe while he sleeps. (Sigh of slight relief) But, the holidays are not over for us yet, because we have DH's b-day to celebrate, while squeezing in a dentist appt and eye doctor appts all in the first week of Jan.

So, I hope I will be forgiven if I don't send x-mas cards this year. I just don't think I'll have time to do it.

Yeah, I suck at blogging, so far...

Ok, I haven't been the most avid of bloggers since I started this, but I am becoming quite an avid crafter! Most of this creativity has been spurred by my recent shop opening on etsy (http://flutistyva.etsy.com/). I started the shop quite some time ago but just started posting items about a month ago.

I've sewn diapers, flute and piccolo covers, and knit and crocheted a couple hats! I even sold my first item a few weeks ago, a set of coasters. So this has thoroughly spurred my creativity and now, the only thing I can seem to think about is crafting. What can I make? What would sell?

I've also been checking out some message boards, and came across basket coiling. "Hmmmm, what's that?" my crafty-brain wondered. So I googled it and found out some information. Then my crafty-brain kicked into hyperdrive, and said, "You must try this!" But what to use for the core....Hey, what about plastic bags. I have a million-zillion of them cluttering up my mudroom! What a cool way to get rid of them!

So I used plastic bags for the core, and pulled some yarn from my stash to start my coil! Yay, so easy, and totally fun....

Flash forward to 4 days later....

Man, this is tedious. What the hell was I thinking! Anyway, I am definitely NOT coiling with yarn again. But I do think I can adapt the technique to strips of cloth and make a larger basket quicker. I can now feed my basket addiction without having to buy baskets! YAYAYAYAY!!!

Anyways...here's my one and only coiled yarn basket. Just big enough to use as a cell phone holder.

Rose Red and Other Garden Things

My garden is so beautiful this time of year! I'm so excited! My rose is doing splendid. It has even more blooms than last year! We discovered the poor thing in our backyard when we bought the house. It was just a pathetic couple of vines tied to the skeleton frame of a carport in the middle of the yard. It was very odd. The rose produced one bloom that year where it was located. But it just was not happy in such a shady untended spot. And we were removing the skeleton, which left the rose, a climber, without support. So DH and I transplanted it to a nice sunny spot on the side of the house, which the rose apparently loves! It outgrew the first small trellis we had gotten for it, so this year we gifted it with a nice large metal one that is much better supported. It's just so beautiful, and it makes me happy to see it every time I walk by!

I'm really excited about our strawberries too. This is the first year we planted them, and already they have berries growing! I just can't wait to taste them.My rosemary is just exploding! I planted it last year, and thankfully it wintered well. It's the first one I've manage to keep alive more than 6 months. And my second planting of parsley is doing fantastic! The first planting was dug up by our crazy squirrels. UGH!! So I had to make pot nets to keep them out while the seeds sprouted. They've grown so much now, that I had to take the net off to keep them from growing through and getting stuck!