Posts from — November 2010

Every year I do a crafty little holiday party with the girls and a few of their friends. Last year I took on a few too many projects, but a favorite was felt ornaments.

What I like about this project is just how flexible it is. It can be very easy for young kids or a little bit more challenging for older kids or grown-ups. Cut a few simple shapes out of the felt and kids can come up with all sorts of creative combinations. In fact, I’m trying this craft as my contribution to our big crafty-fest at our church this weekend. Hopefully everyone will like it, too.

Anyway, here’s how we made them:

I cut felt into various sizes of stockings, trees, stars, gingerbread men, snowmen, and accessories like hats and scarves.  I used cookie cutters and ornaments around the house to trace shapes.  Kids could choose to glue or sew different pieces together. I had sequins, rick rack, embroidery thread, puffy paint, glitter, and buttons available as well.

It was a satisfying craft. Philosophically I know that art is all about the process and not the product. But when the kids can enjoy making something that turns out looking super-cute. . . well, come on. That’s even better.

Today I was quizzing the girls on their absolute favorite Christmas-time sweets.

M went with a classic that we would make every year when I was growing up, the Magic Cookie Bar. These are super-easy and delicious. I checked the Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk site, and sure enough, they have a recipe. I do only two things differently. First, I skip the non-stick spray and just melt the stick of butter directly in the pan while the oven’s pre-heating. This makes for less clean-up, but I might try the mix-it-up technique because my bottom layer occasionally crumbles. So that’s a debatable point. However, my second tip is a newer innovation, and I think that it makes the recipe much tastier and marginally more healthful. We use unsweetened coconut (found in natural food section) instead of the standard baking coconut flakes.  As it is, the recipe is almost too sweet, so upping the nut and coconut content balances these out better.

J chose Buttermints. These are a relatively new recipe, and I started making them because they were easy and fun for kid-participation. Plus, they look pretty. They’re very sweet. I use double, triple, possibly even quadruple the peppermint. That’s partly to distinguish them from another item in our repertoire, the Walnut Cream. We’ll get to that one later.

The first time we made buttermints J helped me, and we made cute little round mints in pale pink, yellow, and green. I’ve said before that she’s a little Martha Stewart, right? Well, that night, I found her thrashing wildly in her bed, clearly dreaming. When I managed to calm her down, she looked at me urgently and whispered, “I want to make the green mints shaped like trees!” It was an excellent idea, and for the next batch we used cookie cutters to shape them. They’re a little bit thin and delicate that way, but they’re awfully pretty, too.

Wow. There’s a ton going on, and it appears to be approximately 90% Christmas. It’s so much Christmas, in fact, that I was envisioning all the non-Christian readers sighing with exasperation over this post. For your convenience, the few items that aren’t Christmas-specific begin with a word in red for easier skimming. Although, in fairness, I have to warn you that I am insanely enthusiastic about Christmas. Alas, you’ll be subjected to Christmas cookies and crafts and traditions for the next month. I can’t help myself. Oh, oh! I’ve got an idea! If you want to share some non-Christmas tradition, send me an email, and maybe we could have a guest post for a little balance.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve found:

All Week:

• The Schenectady Jewish Community Center is having a Scholastic Book Fair all week from 9 am to 6 pm. It’s open to the public.
• Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany is performing  A Christmas Story, based on the movie in which Ralphie desperately wants a BB gun, all week and through the end of the year.
• The Schenectady County Historical Society’s Festival of Trees continues. Tickets are $5/adult, $2/ kids 6 to 12, kids 5 and under free.

Monday, November 29th:

• The Canadian Pacific Holiday Train will be at Saratoga Springs at noon. Decorated railway cars and music, free but requesting donations to fight hunger. I’d never heard of this until I read the Gazette, today, so sorry that I didn’t “catch” this train earlier.

Tuesday, November 30th:

• Proctors is having School Days performances of A Christmas Carol at 10 am on Tuesday and Wednesday. If you’ve never gone to one of these, it’s packed with kids on field trips, but you can also bring any group. I’m not sure if space is available, but you can call to check. There’s also a regular production, dubbed family friendly, tonight at 7 pm.

Wednesday, December 1st:

• Proctors is having School Days performances of A Christmas Carol at 10 am on Tuesday and Wednesday. If you’ve never gone to one of these, it’s packed with kids on field trips, but you can also bring any group. I’m not sure if space is available, but you can call to check.
• From 10:30-11:30 am, it’s the new Alphabet Soup program for the 3-and-over preschool set at the Children’s Museum at Saratoga. Free with admission.
• At 7 pm, there’s a Tree Lighting Ceremony in Saratoga Springs. Santa, Mrs. Claus, and cocoa.

Thursday, December 2nd:

• The Saratoga Festival of Trees is open today from 2-10 pm. It continues through the weekend with a Family Day on Saturday.
• From 5-8 pm, it’s Family Night at the Greens at the Rensselaer County Historical Society. Holiday stories and crafts, tour the house. The event is free, but there’s a fee if you want to take a photo with Santa.
• It’s Saratoga’s annual Victorian Street Walk from 6-10 pm tonight.
• As part of the Victorian Street Walk in Saratoga, the Children’s Museum will be hosting performances by the Saratoga City Ballet at 6:30 pm, 7 pm, and 7:30 pm. They’ll be doing selections from “The Nutcracker”.
• A musical version of A Christmas Carol opens tonight at 8 pm at Cohoes Music Hall and continues through December 12th.

Friday, December 3rd:

• At 10 am, there’s a School Days performance of The Nutcracker at 10 am at Proctors. If you’ve never gone to one of these, it’s packed with kids on field trips, but you can also bring any group. I’m not sure if space is available, but you can call to check.
• There’s a First Friday hike at noon at Albany Pine Bush. It’s $2/person, $5/family.
• The Woman’s Club of Albany will be having afternoon Victorian teas from 2-4 pm today, Saturday, and Sunday. It’s $25/person and reservations are required. One of readers reports that the teas are “very lovely”.
• At Historic Grooms Tavern in Clifton Park, there’s a free Barbie event from 3-7 pm.
• It’s First Friday in Albany from 5-9 pm.
• The Town of Bethlehem is having their Holiday Parade at 6 pm.
• It’s First Friday in Ballston Spa. There’s a Holiday Parade at 6:30 pm. This is a kick-off to weekend-long festivities because, apparently, Ballston Spa Rocks the Holidays.  Who knew?
• Classic Theater Guild, Inc. opens A Christmas Carol tonight at 7:30 pm at Proctors in Schenectady. Tickets are $16.50/adult, $13.50/students, and the show continues through December 12th.
• NYSTI begins A Christmas Carol tonight. They recommend their show for ages 7 and older. It continues through December 19th.
• The Schenectady Civic Players are opening Peter Pan tonight at 8 pm. The shows will continue most nights through December 12th, and tickets are $15.

Okay, I had to take pictures at the KC airport of this baby-and-little-kid vending machine.

Seriously, I thought that this was a great idea. It had diapers, socks, bibs, little games, binkies, a teether, and organic toddler snacks.  And it took credit cards. I Googled, and apparently it’s one of the first of its kind in the country. My kids are too big for most of the selections, of course, and I can’t quite imagine buying a vending-machine baby blanket.  But dude, I’m absolutely familiar with the intense need for a binkie.  Seems to me like clever marketing and a service to frazzled parents everywhere.

We arrived in New York this afternoon, and I ended up writing this to remind me later of my favorite five minutes of every homecoming.

I forget, until it’s time to unpack again, the sweetness of these moments. I’m in the bedroom smoothing clothes into drawers and the girls’ sounds are familiar and joyful. M’s voice is high-pitched and boisterous, narrating the events in their imaginative play, and from J, it’s all delighted giggles. They’ve slipped into their primary roles: M as directress, J as appreciative sidekick. Out in public, the games of pretend and six-year-old sister are too unsophisticated for M. At 8, she strives for the blasé aura of a world-weary 11-year-old. Home too long, and J chafes at M’s big-sister authority. She asserts her own storylines, makes claims on various toys. Sometimes they work it out; frequently they don’t.

But just-home after a week away, they relax and revel in the familiar. They greet stuffed animals and dolls exultantly, bounce on their beds, coddle the cat. Most of all, they enjoy each other’s company. Their contented togetherness pipes into my bedroom and overrides my fatigue and lingering queasiness from the flights.

And then, too quickly, I realize why I always forget these moments. Because instead of savoring it, I am unpacking and wiping off exploding lotion bottles and changing kitty litter. And then I discover the cat has something nasty in her fur. The harmony between the girls continues, but they’re tired and hungry. They migrate to the barren kitchen and begin rifling through the pantry in search of something scrumptious to eat or, failing scrumptious, just something. Moments later I’m helping them rip apart dried ramen noodles. I console myself: unconventional, but they’re probably better than Doritos. M teaches J letters (she needs coaching), and they toast each other extravagantly over their crunchy noodles. So extravagantly, in fact, that water spills all over an outfit. Soon I am nagging them to pick up the soaked towels, please, to throw the wet clothing in the laundry, to carry dishes to the counter because we’re not at Grandma’s anymore. And imperceptibly, the gears have shifted, and we’re no longer Reveling in Home. We’re just home. But it still feels pretty good.

Schauber Stables in Ballston Lake has special activities and photos with Santa (and a horse) on the weekends beginning this weekend.

We’ve been busy all week.

M skates at the outdoor rink at Crown Center

We experienced the most comfortable rental skates ever at the Crown Center ice rink, and their tickets are for all day. A few super-awesome tween skaters had arrived before us and looked like they were camped there for the day with their long-suffering mothers. J had a tough time doing any actual skating because she was so enthralled watching them. In fact, she moved so little that I thought that she’d forgotten how to skate over the long summer, but when it was time to clear the ice for the zamboni, she slid over skillfully and hopped right off the rink without lurching to the railing as I’d expected. Yay her.

Science City

M was especially excited to visit Science City, which we’ve visited before. It’s super-cool, but I kept losing one child or the other, which was unnerving. W enjoyed it, too. See the net above and to the left? It was to protect people who were riding the Sky Bike.

W rides the Sky Bike

Truthfully, I think that part of the attraction for M is that she’s always hoping that she’ll be tall enough to be permitted to ride the Sky Bike. So far, no luck. Frankly, I think that they’re a bunch of heightists.

In any case, if you’re ever visiting Kansas City with children, my top 3 recommendations are Science City, the Toy & Miniature Museum, and Paradise Park.

At Thanksgiving we conducted an experiment.  Apparently Great Grandma B used to present the turkey on a platter with flaming sugar cubes.  She’d put cubes on slices of orange, then soak the cubes with lemon extract and light it On Fire!

J, who is a 6-year-old Martha Stewart, envisioned a turkey surrounded by vegetables. She’d specifically mentioned tomatoes, so Grandma provided them. I don’t think that it quite lived up to J’s vision, but in 18 or 20 years, she can start hosting Thanksgiving herself, right? M, meanwhile, was hiding away in a desperate attempt to a) find serenity time from her cousins who would like her to entertain them constantly and b) avoid the open flame: I tell you Fire Safety Month every year has deeply affected her.

The flames weren’t huge (you can see a bit on the right, above). Apparently almond extract doesn’t work quite so well? In any case, apparently in Days of Yore people would eat the melty sugar-cubed orange slices, but everyone was too distracted by the stuffing to remember to try it tonight.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We have so many reasons to be grateful. And I’m thankful to you for visiting the blog.

Ready for the holiday? We spent an insane day which included the unbelievably cool Toy & Miniature Museum of Kansas City as well as Grandma, my children, and their cousins unleashed at the American Girl Store and Target.  Who needs to wait for Christmas, right?

In case you’ve got family in town and need to figure out to do with yourselves, here’s you weekend post a little early. Everyone enjoy your Thanksgiving feast!

New York State Museum has a Sesame Street Celebration Saturday & Sunday afternoon.

All Thanksgiving Weekend:

• It’s the Schenectady County Historical Society’s Festival of Trees. Tickets are $5/adult, $2/ kids 6 to 12, kids 5 and under free.
• The Albany Institute of History & Art has a Free Thanksgiving Weekend and Holiday Gift Fair from Friday through Sunday.  Storytelling and art making in the afternoon, free admission to the exhibits, and more than 50 vendors selling their wares.
• From 11 am to 8 pm Friday and through the weekend, it’s the North Country Festival of Trees at the Queensbury Hotel in Glens Falls.  Games, activities, and photos with Santa.  $7/adult, $3/kids 12 and under.
• A live musical of White Christmas is showing at Proctor’s Theatre all week except Thanksgiving, including 2 pm matinees for the long weekend.  It’s billed appropriate for all ages, and tickets range from $20 to $70.
• ‘Tis the Season Planetarium Show is showing at 2 pm each day at the Schenectady Museum. $4 + museum admission/person.
• The 14th Annual Hannaford Capital Lights begins on Friday. Pay $15 to drive your car in weekdays from 6 to 9 pm, or Fridays & Saturdays from 6 to 10 pm. There’s more information on discounted nights and other activities, so check out their website.

Friday, November 26th:

• The Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown (so, you know, that’s a drive people) has a Thanksgiving at the Farm program from 10 am to 4 pm today and Saturday.
• From 10 am to noon, there’s a Holiday Gift Workshop at the Children’s Museum at Saratoga.  Instead of shopping, why not make some gifts for family or friends?  Free.
• From 11 am to 6 pm at the Albany Art Room, you can get 10% off open studio and in the shop by printing a coupon from their website. There’s also hands-on participation in artwork, one If Kids Could Build What They Imagine, which involves tracks and marbles-bring your own cars to drive, as well as sculptures for kids to help paint.
• At 1 pm at the Children’s Museum of Science & Technology, there’s a Brainstorm Challenge for kids ages 8 and up.  The topic is balance, pre-registration is required and it’s $2/non-member.
• The Crandall Public Library is having a Carnival of Animals to celebrate the tortoise’s birthday at 1 pm. Free, with birthday cake.
• It’s Troy Night Out from 5-9 pm.

Hudson Opera House presents Paul Mesner Puppets in The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs

Saturday, November 27th:

• Both Thacher and Moreau Lake are having Wreath Making Workshops today–check the link for details. This is super fun (I make my wreath every year), but it’s really for teens and adults, not the kiddos.
• At 10 am and noon, the Hudson Opera House presents family performances of the True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Paul Mesner Puppets at John L. Edwards School in Hudson. $10/adult, $5/kid.
• At 10 am, Five Rivers will teach you about Watchable Wildlife: Woodpeckers. It’s free.
• From 1-3 pm at the Schenectady Museum, there’s a free Telescope Workshop.  If you’ve thought about buying one, you can get information about features and places to purchase telescopes. Keep in mind that there’s also the regular Fetch! lab and a planetarium show today.
• From 1-4 pm on Saturday and Sunday, the New York State Museum is having a Sesame Street Celebration.
• At 2 pm, Five Rivers will teach you about Watchable Wildlife: White-tailed Deer. It’s free.

Sunday, November 28th:

• At noon at the Schenectady Museum, it’s Super Science Sunday: Why Do Bicycles Stand Up? It’s $2 in addition to museum admission.
• Kids ages 4 to 8 are invited to do some Science Yoga at 1 pm at the Children’s Museum of Science & Technology. Pre-registration is required, and it’s $2/non-member.
• At the Bethlehem Public Library, listen to A Little Sunday Music at 2 pm. It’s free, and today’s will be Schumann on the piano.

I know: I’ve been AWOL.  Sorry about that.

We were nutty all afternoon and evening, and I had a couple of other little projects.  Plus I left my camera at my sister-in-law’s house, so after I’d finally found a USB connector-thingy-ma-bob, I had no camera to connect it. Oy. So much for sharing pictures of our trip with you tonight.

Anyway, I wanted to check in and give you, at least, some random suggestions for fun.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is on Hulu. Not one of my personal favorites, but if you’re dashing around trying to clean the house before folks arrive, or packing clothing madly, well. . .  it will buy you 40 minutes or so.

The girls were playing a game with their cousins yesterday that I thought was pretty cool and literacy-promoting and all that. It was eeBoo’s Fairy Tale Spinning Game. The concept was simple: each player takes a turn spinning, and first they have to land on setting in order to choose one of four settings. Then they gradually acquire things like a Hero or Heroine, a Magical Object, or a mode of Transportation, and they collect the pieces. When a player acquires one of each item, he or she tells a story using the elements that they’ve collected. Our ages ranged from 3 to 8, and everyone enjoyed it. Okay, everyone mostly enjoyed it, although the 3-year-old did sob when another player got the horse, and M’s story was a little too scary for her 5-year-old cousin.  But the game itself was simple and seemed to be a reading teacher’s best friend without getting all phonics-y on them.

Finally, for another project that I was working on, I was collecting ideas about books that encourage kiddos to try different ethnic foods. So I thought that I’d share what I came up with:

• Yoko by Rosemary Wells
• Bee-Bim Bop! by Linda Sue Park
• World Snacks series of board books by Amy Wilson Sanger
• My Mom Loves Me More Than Sushi by Filomenu Gomes
• The Sandwich Swap by Queen Rania of Jordan

And now I’d better get to sleep: it’s an hour later here in Kansas city, you know!

Here’s what I’ve found for this week:

All Week:

• A live musical of White Christmas is showing at Proctor’s Theatre all week except Thanksgiving, including 2 pm matinees for the long weekend.  It’s billed appropriate for all ages, and tickets range from $20 to $70.

Monday, November 22nd:

• There’s a Volunteer Fair at the Saratoga Hilton from 1 to 6 pm today.  If anyone goes and discovers excellent kid volunteer opportunities, I think that we’d all love to hear about them.

Tuesday, November 23rd:

• At 1 pm, take a Mud Pond Hike at Moreau Lake.
• Beginning today, there’s a special ‘Tis the Season Planetarium Show at 2 pm Tuesdays through Sundays at the Schenectady Museum.
• Do a Pet Rock Thanksgiving Turkey Craft at Saratoga Spa State Park at 4 pm.  It’s $3 to cover the cost of materials.
• There’s a Teen Writing Workshop at the Bethlehem Public Library at 6:30 pm.  Sign-up is required.

Wednesday, November 24th:

• The Children’s Museum of Science & Technology has a School Break program from 9 am to 4 pm for kids ages 5-10.  It’s $55/non-member.  Wednesday’s program is Sense-able Science.
• From 9:30 am to 4:30 pm, there will be a variety of Thanksgiving-ish crafts available at the Bethlehem Public Library.
• Take a Wetland Hike at 1 pm at Moreau Lake.

Thanksgiving!

• In the morning, it’s the annual Troy Turkey Trot and the Saratoga Turkey Trot.

Friday, November 26th:

• The Albany Institute of History & Art has a Free Thanksgiving Weekend and Holiday Gift Fair starting today and continuing through Sunday.  Storytelling and art making in the afternoon, free admission to the exhibits, and more than 50 vendors selling their wares.
• The Children’s Museum of Science & Technology has a School Break program from 9 am to 4 pm for kids ages 5-10.  It’s $55/non-member.  Friday’s program is Water Wonders: Below the Surface.
• The Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown (so, you know, that’s a drive people) has a Thanksgiving at the Farm program from 10 am to 4 pm today and Saturday.  Has anyone ever done this?
• Candyland Activity & Enrichment Center and Kidzart & Drama Kids are doing Black Friday Drop ‘n’ Shops, although I’m not sure if spaces are still available.
• From 10 am to noon, there’s a Holiday Gift Workshop at the Children’s Museum at Saratoga.  Instead of shopping, why not make some gifts for family or friends?  Free.
• The Schenectady County Historical Society’s Festival of Trees begins at 10 am today and continues through December 5th.  I found this one a little frustrating:  even their website and their Facebook page don’t have great information on times or costs.  I’d call if I weren’t way. far. away.  So if anyone happens to know the specifics, feel free to fill us in.
• From 11 am to 8 pm today and through the weekend, it’s the North Country Festival of Trees at the Queensbury Hotel in Glens Falls.  Games, activities, and photos with Santa.  $7/adult, $3/kids 12 and under.
• At 1 pm at the Children’s Museum of Science & Technology, there’s a Brainstorm Challenge for kids ages 8 and up.  The topic is balance, pre-registration is required and it’s $2/non-member.
• It’s Troy Night Out from 5-9 pm.

In my rush to get out and packing, I missed telling you that at the Albany Institute of History & Art, they’re celebrating a Mummy Birthday Festival from 1-4 pm on Sunday, Nov. 21st.  There will be storytelling, treats, and a craft in which kids can bring a toy to mummify.

We traveled with no problem, including M doing just fine, thank you. Which was especially fortunate because she chose Chinese beef & broccoli and fried rice at 9:30 am.  You have to understand that, since she’d woken up at 5 am, she felt ready for lunch.  And I am so slow-witted in the morning that I didn’t even put together that it might be an unwise choice.  So she was already digging into it when when Cute W made some dramatic facial expressions over their heads that alerted me to our peril. We were all overtired and a little punchy, so that we all ended up giggling and then guffawing at the frightening prospect of revisiting the fried rice as well as other assorted issues–W and I started it, and then J accused us of drinking too much juice.   Luckily, it turned out to be just what she needed.

The girls played with their cousins and J regaled Grandma & Grandpa with Thanksgiving songs from kindergarten, and we kept everyone up too late.  As we finally headed to bed, I was seriously afraid that someone was going to stumble and fall down the stairs.  So, phew! If anyone who sent “no barf” vibes wants to send “sleep in” vibes, I’ll take ‘em!