….to the new Muses of Megret now that it’s up and running.

Change your RSS or Google subscription if you haven’t already, and also your browser tab!

Thanks, and I’ll see you there!

We’ve been stuck inside a lot the past week or so. Not just because of our head colds (which I am a stickler about….no swimming whilst sick!), but also because of the insane record-high temps we’ve been having.

Needless to say, the kids do tend to get a little stir-crazy and…shall I say?….bored at times. Especially around those magical hours between 3-5pm (when my fuel’s almost empty…I’m a morning person).

We’ve been pulling out some of our old childhood toys for the kids to explore and play with. Nothing too sentimental or fragile — but things we intended to hand down anyway. (We just put my childhood dollhouse back into the attic because it was being destroyed piece by piece. It’s a renovation project for later, rest assured. That house will be restored to its original glory!)

Barbies, dress-up clothes (including my ballet recital costumes), cooking aprons, Legos. Recently we had fun with one of my favorites from childhood (Snoopy Sno Cone Maker) and one of Ken’s (GI Joes). The kids enjoy these because they’re new to them, despite the fact that there’s missing pieces, musty-attic-smelling, and dirt-studded parts here and there. It’s a great way to entertain them, and it’s great fun to watch your kids enjoy something you loved so as a kid yourself.

G’s little arm isn’t quite up to the task of grating the ice just yet, so Ken helps.

R enjoys her cherry sno cone.

One of two boxes of childhood-survived GI Joes.

My personally-outfitted “GI Jane.” Not sure how I feel about the very large, very violent weapon she’s hoisting, but at least she’s color coordinated in a Christmas kinda way.

There’s a whole lotta toys on my list-of-things-from-my-childhood-to-buy-for-the-kids (held endearingly within my Book of Lists), such as:

Kenner See Wee Mermaids

Tiny Blessings dolls by Ban Dai

My Friend Mandy by Fisher-Price

Weebles Treehouse

Chirping Woodstock

Superscope Storyteller Books & Tapes

Owl Answer Clock by Tomy

And last but not least, Texas Instrument’s Speak & Spell. (And better yet? I found an online simulator! Whoa. This’ll take you way back.)

Muses of Megret finally has its own official home, so point your browser to the new site, www.musesofmegret.com

- thanks, mgt.

I have no clue where I first heard about Polo, but I wish I could thank the person/blog who introduced us to this very adventurous canine! I decided to order it for G after a semi-disappointing children’s book exchange I recently took part in fell through. (R received 8 or 9 nice storybooks, but G never received any.) Since I don’t believe you can spoil a kid by buying books for them, I jumped at the chance to shop around for this title. Kind of hard to find, Polo is, but I was able to order his first translated (from the original French) storybook from Amazon: The Adventures of Polo.

This is a comic-style book for kids. Regis Faller, the creator/illustrator, is brilliant. Brilliant, I say. He’s so technically minded in parts but then so extremely and wonderfully right-brained in others. I joked with Ken that this might have been a book that the “grown up G in the future” wrote and then came back to 2008 to enjoy it as a kid himself. It’s uncanny to see the way G took to this book.

For the first three, four, oh, five days this book was under our roof, I’d frequently check on a very, very quiet G and find him in a spot just like this:

I’d creep in, and he would scarcely notice my arrival. He was so absorbed in the illustrated story he practically had to be carried to the table to eat meals some days. He kept his green-glow night light buddy tucked under his arm so he could continue “reading” after lights out.

It wasn’t long after that G began asking to read Polo’s adventures to us. We sat and listened, marveling at how, every single time, G came up with new details, creative nuances, far-out storylines to go with the beautiful pictures.

This is a good thing for G — so often technically minded and concrete-thinking, like his Dad. Yet Ken is also very artistic, and we’ve talked at length about ways we can help foster a creative environment in our household, all the while not shunning all of those “how things work” question-and-answer sessions. (We love, love our The Creative Family and Child of Wonder books! Much of we do now is inspired by these two valuable reads.)

This book takes a child’s natural imagination and inflates it. It fosters storytelling (and future creative writing) skills. It’s pretty and pleasing to look at. We love it so much I have the second volume, Polo: The Runaway Book, heading our way this week. I don’t know who’ll race to open the box first — me or G!

There are a heap of other creative/outside the box books out there for little ones (some wordless, some not):

Follow the Line by Laura Ljungkvist

The Red Book by Barbara Lehman

Not a Box by Antoinette Portis

Un-Brella by Scott E. Franson

The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg

A few links regarding toddlers and preschoolers and fostering their creativity/imaginations:

Preparing for Preschool: The Importance of an Active Imagination

How to Raise an Imaginative Child (via ParentCenter)

Imaginary Friends Revealed (via Wondertime) (I had one….did you?)

The author of “>The Creative Family has a wonderful blog, SouleMama — go here to see tons of creative, crafty ideas for your children to enjoy.

This time it’s back-to-school themed.
Just click on this image (or the same one in my right-hand sidebar — it’ll be up all week) to read the rules and how you can take part.
Have fun!

While I was pregnant with G, I somehow stumbled across an online plea for household cooks who’d be willing to test recipes. I didn’t have a whole lot to do at the time (except for feeling Baby kick and typical nesting urges), so I said, “Why not? Sounds like fun.”

I don’t remember which three recipes I tested. I can’t find record of my reports in my email, so there’s no way of knowing. (And most of you know what pregnancy-induced memory lapses are like.) I do remember having fun with it, but after G was born, I promptly forgot all about the cookbook itself.

Fast-forward to this year. I randomly checked out a cookbook in the “New Non-Fiction” section of our local library called The Good Home Cookbook. Hm. Something about it struck a familiar chord with me — maybe I’d checked it out before — but curiosity made me add it to my bag anyway.

I used and cooked out of this wonderful all-inclusive cookbook for over a week before I thumbed through the entire thing, including the credits and appendices. Wait a minute. Could this be??…. I scoured the list and, sure enough, my name appeared within the list of recipe testers. Wow! It always makes me look twice when I see my name in published print.

I now have my own copy. Since that day, I have tried countless recipes from this book, and all of the dishes turn out splendidly. This book really has become one of my most-used cookbooks on my shelf. It is basic and, well, thoroughly tested. Nothing fancy, impractical, or over-the-top. Let me describe it this way: Like the Betty Crocker Cookbook on steriods, and like The Joy of Cooking for the practical, everyday cook.

This book looks kitchy on the outside (which I love). The inside boasts nary a photo (which usually turns me off in a bookstore), but I soon found it didn’t need any. The recipes are so wonderfully simple and well-laid out and explained you can literally taste the dish you’re reading about.

I snapped a few photos of our favorites. (They all happen to be sweet-ish foods, but hey, we’re like that.)

Date Nut Bread (with whipped cream cheese)

Chocolate Snacking Cake

German Apple Pancake

Monkey Bread

Some other recipes in the book we tried (and loved) but that were devoured too quickly to make it to the foodie photo shoot:

- Breaded Chicken Fingers with Peach Dipping Sauce
- Party Cheese Ball
- Pasta with Marinara (excellent, frills-free marinara)
- Chicken Chow Mein
- Veggie Omelets
- Lemon-Baked Fish Fillets

The best news I’ve heard all week is that the folks behind this cookbook are working The Good Home Vegetarian Cookbook — which means they’ll be looking for more recipe testers. Pick me! Pick me!

SO. If you’re looking for a good catch-all, user-friendly cookbook that’ll stand the test of time and trend, pick this one. I’m adding it to my list of wedding gift ideas, too. Where was this when I was a young bride eight years ago? (Still a brainstorm in someone’s head, I guess. Oh, well. Good things do come to those who wait.)

- Feeling stir-crazy and homebound due to all of the skyrocketing gas prices? Blissfully Domestic is helping us dream a little bit of traveling — a list of worldwide landmark webcams up and running.

- A Bit of This and a Bit of That’s oh-so-creative use for her son’s artwork — a handmade memory game! She sure does know how to treasure his artistic creations — it’s inspiring!

- A seemingly much easier way to create your child’s silhouettes. I have no excuse not to try these now. (Thanks, Little Momma and Co.)

- Just look at these homemade Rocky Road Fudge Pops. Wondering if I have the ingredients in my pantry right now….

- And this week’s blast from the past….remember the show “Today’s Special?” Not many people know what I’m talking about when I mention this show. I remember watching it, but I didn’t live in Canada. Perhaps I was lucky enough to have a PBS station that picked it up.

….commenter # 22, Ashley! Congrats, Ashley! I’m sending over an email to get your mailing info so I can get The Jesus Storybook Bible out to you next week!

And thanks to all who stopped by this week during the carnival.
Good luck on the other contests!

Yep. Still pretty vacant from the blog front, aren’t I? I have good reasons, I promise.

Well, for one thing, this whole Bloggy Giveaways thing is going on this week, and honestly, it is hard not to go there first and only when I get on the computer. I have had to limit myself to just a small handful of contest entries a day. Last time around I entered all 500-some-odd….lost a lot of sleep…..walked around like a zombie and couldn’t move my fingers for about two days. I had to maintain some composure this time around.

Secondly, the kids and I have come down with a dreaded summertime head cold. We’re all in it together — the past two days have been the worst (lethargy, achiness, sore throat, heavy chest). We’ve holed up here with lots of OJ and fun movies and tried to make the best of it. Not much else takes precedent over two kids with runny noses, one of which (G) kept telling me tearfully today, “Mommy, I just don’t want to be sick anymore.” My focus and goal since Tuesday has been to keep their noses wiped and their drink cups full. Not much room for other things.

To top things off, I had to make an unplanned trip to the dentist today for a toothache. Long story short, I am flossing between my molars TOO MUCH and need to hold back. I have my gums “angry and mad and generally irritated” at all of the flossing. I mean, the dentist doesn’t get to tell his patients that everyday, I can pretty much bet ya.

So that’s my week in a nutshell. Ken and I are both utterly spent and exhausted for different reasons, but we have a common dream: To relax and READ this weekend — and enjoy it for what it is: A weekend. Can’t wait.

So, sitting here curled up under a blanket and fully milking my pitiful state all that I possibly can, I will eat my SECOND bowl of ice cream tonight (purely for soothing my throat, of course — ahem) and say goodnight. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

We’re still here….we’ve just been taking a hiatus from school at home lately. I knew we were going to hold off on our activities last week due to birthday party plans for R, but this week…. Well, I realized how much I loved the low-key feel of last week — it truly felt like summer vacation for all of us — and I wanted to extend it out a bit. After all, we can always pick up where we left off — I have it all written down in my planning pages.

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I was strung out and burned out from planning and compiling our own curriculum and activities. It’s not that I don’t love doing it — I DO — but that is a full time job in and of itself. I have found that after planning it all I am left with little energy or excitement to actually follow through with it….and that defeats the purpose of all that work in the first place!

I am currently on a deep search for ready-made, pre-packed curriculum. I have a whole Firefox folder full of companies I’m comparing and contrasting for the job. I have all types — full packages with everything included (even craft tidbits) all the way to Biblical-based packages and then down to the slim lesson-plans-only options. It’s quite overwhelming.

So bear with me as I take a little breather in between our “school years.” I will still post things we’re doing (we still have to fill an entire day with activities to keep four little hands busy!). Hopefully in a couple of weeks I’ll have made the curriculum decision and I can ease up a bit on my focus.

And also — good, new things are coming to the blog. I am working on a total blog makeover, hopefully switching to my own separate domain name.

So hang in there with me! These dog days of summer are slowing down my brain a little, but also forcing me to slow down and enjoy life a little more with my family. But with summer also come storms, and in my case, brainstorms are included with that, as well. Greater, cooler stuff ahead, I promise.