International Polar Bear Day

This is my second favorite day to celebrate after Miles birthday.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved bears.  One year she received a stuffed polar bear as a gift.  She named the bear Bashful.  Bashful and the little girl became fast friends and went everywhere together.

When the little girl got older she had to do a mammal report as a school project.  The girl chose to study polar bears.  While doing research (The old fashioned way.  Using a card catalog.) The girl came across a trip to see polar bears in the wild and spent the next 5 years saving all money gifted and earned detasseling corn to go see polar bears.
She flew to Churchill, Manitoba, Canada to see the beautiful creatures in the wild.  The first night on the trip the group saw cubs nursing and the girl began taking pictures.  She was in a tundra buggy (It's like a bus on tractor wheels.) The girl was sitting in the driver's seat and leaned out the window to get a better picture.  As she did this an adult male bear climbed up on the wheel and bit her arm.  She screamed and the bear let go.  The people around her thought she'd just been scared until she rubbed her arm about 5 minutes later and stated that her arm hurt.  Her parka, sweatshirt, tur
turtleneck, and long underwear were moved aside and there was a little scratch with two indentations from the eyeteeth of the bear.

(The girl was just fine.  They insisted on calling her mother and freaking her out though.)

That day the girl was told that she carried with her "the spirit of the bear."

Polar bears are back on the endangered animals list.  I ask each of you to think of some way to help the environment.  Try taking a shorter shower, reducing, reusing, or recycling. Try adding something you wouldn't normally do.

I want my great great grandchildren to know what a polar bear is and not just think that it's a myth that someone made up.

Orchids at the Zoo

One of the really nice thing about the Evansville Zoo is that a family membership is quite reasonable, so when Miles wants to go see some animals we can just hop in the car and go see a piece.  If you have a membership you don't feel obligated to walk the whole zoo unless you want to.  You can pop in and see the animal or animals that your kid is into that week and then go home.  No pressure to hurry through to see everything to "get your moneys worth."

Miles and I went to to the zoo the other day for just such a trip.  We just went to Amazonia and then we walked up the new curvy path and went home.


Miles seemed to spend more time exploring the exhibit.

They have their orchids on display this month and he stopped to smell a variety of them.

He stood and watched the cockroaches move around their exhibit for quite a while.

Miles was taken with the scarlet ibis and the spoonbills this time.

He does tend to stand a little too close to some of the birds.

We had a first this time at the zoo.  The jaguar walked to the outside part of his cage put his back side to the little caged in area that kids can crawl in and marked his territory before he went on to roll in the grass.  I guess he told us.   

Here are some of the pictures of the orchids that we took.

Skiing

We took Miles skiing this weekend and had a blast.  We went to Ski Snowfall.  (A nice facility for a young beginner.)  They have a bunny hill with a moving sidewalk and another with a tow rope.)  Miles was getting the hang of skiing by noon and was turning and stopping by the time we left around dinner time.  I'm so proud of how willing he is to try new things and laugh at his own falls.  I think skiing is one of the few sports that if you fall it's just your closest friends that laugh with you.  Everyone else seems genuinely concerned for your well being.   Here's a video of Miles being awesome!!

We had so much fun!!

Construction Casserole

Miles, like many little boys, is obsessed with machines.  He has been playing with his "digger" and watching episodes of Mighty Machines.  He has been playing in the sandbox and creating all types of buildings.  So this evening we had "Construction Casserole."  

Construction Casserole

1/2 cup Quinoa (cooked in 1 1/2 cups of water) sand

4 turkey hot dogs sliced boulders

1 cups peas rocks

1/4 cup alfredo sauce  

Use your favorite "shovel" (spoon) and enjoy!!  

In the Dragon's Lair

I was truly inspired by hearing Lella and Amelia present at the Reggio Emilia conference (The Wonders of Learning) at Henderson College.  (There will be a blog post about this experience as soon as I can collect my thoughts and wrap my brain around all of the wonderful things that were shared with us.)  The reason that I mention this conference is that the Reggio Emilia philosophy of early childhood education uses documentation as a key piece in expanding on experiences with a child and their learning.  Both the "teacher" collecting thoughts, written documentation, photographs, and work samples and the child contributing to the documentation, reflecting back on what they have learned and expanding on their knowledge of a particular topic by revisiting the topic over and over time.  I am inspired.  Not only to use this with the students and staff that I work with but also with Miles.

So here it is... A little bit of documentation about a topic that was inspired ENTIRELY by Miles' imagination.

Miles- "Oh No there's a dragon print in the snow!"  

Today there was an inch or so of snow on the ground when we left for church.  Miles asked, "Can dragon walk in the snow?"  I assured him that we would have plenty of time for him to play with Dragon after church.  (There is a little bit of a dispute between Chris and Miles as to Dragon's  name Chris thinks that since it's a 2 headed dragon one head should be named "Crouching Tiger" and the other "Hidden Dragon.")

After church Miles and Dragon beat me soundly at a snowball fight at  which time miles began making Dragon a house under the slide.  Jessie sniffed it until it fell apart, so I suggested we make it in the crook of the tree where Jessie would be less likely to accidentally knock it over.  I introduced the idea of calling it a dragon lair instead of a dragon house.

 Miles really wanted the dragon lair to have a roof, but when we tried to put the snow across the top it kept caving in on Dragon.  We came up with the idea of using sticks across the walls to then set patted down snowballs on top of to create a roof.

(Miles took the documenting photographs of this step.)  Miles decided that we didn't need to make it solid, because Dragon would need windows to look out.  After he decided the roof was finished we used dried hydrangea flowers to add some decoration and camouflage to the house.

Once we were done creating the dragon lair Miles happily played with it for about 5 minutes.  Then decided that he and dragon needed some hot cocoa and an indoor lair and we went in to set to work. 

When we got inside we made Dragon an indoor lair.  We used an old milk carton some fake flowers (giggle flowers if you were to ask Miles) and some tape to secure the flowers and leaves used for camouflage.  

Miles and daddy played that the knight was going to get Dragon because Dragon had captured the princess. The knight came and saved the princess from Dragon and returned the jewels that the dragon had taken from the village.  

 While Chris and Miles were playing they started to make up songs about what Dragon was doing.  Chris played the Banjiar and made up lyrics about what Miles was having Dragon do.  

At one point Miles made a picture of Dragon.  

To encourage his new found love of dragons we took a trip to the library and checked out some books that have dragons as the protagonist.  

It will be wonderful to see how Miles expands on this dragon play.  

"Healthy" Cupcakes

By now you have learned that I enjoy a substitution.  I have once again taken my mom's advise on this one and have incorporated veggies in an unlikely place.  (If you are one of the people that I cook for please stop reading now, I'd hate for you to learn how I've snuck another veggie into your diet.)

Red Velvet Cupcakes are Chris' favorite.  These are simply made with beets (Instead of the things the manufacturer says to add) and white chocolate chips instead of frosting.

So to make these cupcakes

1. Open a can of beets.

2. Pour contents of can into a blender.

3. Blend on "liquify" for 1-2 minutes until well pureed.

4. Put boxed red velvet cake mix in a mixing bowl.

5. Dump in the entire can of beet puree.

6. Mix.

7. Add white chocolate chips (1/4-1 cup depending on how much you like.)

8. Pour into cupcake tin.

9. Cook according to the box directions.

10. EAT!!

If you like the above recipe try making it with a....

German Chocolate cake mix, 1 can of pureed beets, dried cherries, and coconut. (Black forest cake cup cakes)

Or

Chocolate cake mix, 1 can of purred beets and dried cherries (chocolate covered cherry cupcakes)

These turn out super moist and are hard to put down.  Enjoy!!

P.S. Beets won't work in a light colored cake because it will make the cake red.  (You might be able to get away with it for "Christmas Cupcakes" or "Valentine's Day Cupcakes.")