Black Island Farms

Yesterday we went to our annual field trip to Black Island Farms. Black Island Farms is a local vegetable farm. In the fall, they have a huge corn maze along with giant slides made of hay bales, a petting zoo, and all sorts of fun stuff. The kids' school arranges the field trip, and we have now been homeschooling long enough for them to start asking when we are going as soon as the cold weather kicks in. We spent several hours there, and I took many, many pictures. My apologizes if you are on dial-up....

The first thing we did for the day was wait for a big tractor to come and take us to the fields. The girls found a cozy spot to sit and wait.

On our first stop, our unconventional tattooed and ear-gauged farmer/guide, N8 (Nate), popped some carrots out of the ground to show the kids. Here he was showing them a carrot that had gotten confused and started going to seed. He did an awesome job of making it fun for the kids and parents. He said if we ever wanted to give the kids some truly hard work, to send them to the farm to work for a day.

And then we were off to the pumpkin field. Squirt found a pumpkin he liked. He even tried to bite it.

Princess found her perfect pumpkin. She specified that she wanted a small one, because she is small.

Gizmo and her friend.

The whole crew. This was seriously the best I could do at getting all four of them to look at me and smile.

Princess heading down a big slide.

The big kids and a homeschool friend heading down a big slide. I love Gizmo's face in this one.

While the bigger kids were going down slides, Squirt enjoyed one of the carrots that Farmer N8 had dug up. I don't remember the name of the variety, but whatever it was...he loved it.

One of the fun attractions at Black Island Farms is a big sandbox filled with corn....a corn box. It is amazing how something so simple can be so much fun.

Squirt could have played in it all day long.

Princess on the little train.

The boys on the train. Squirt was a little unsure, but Spike was in absolute big brother heaven.

Spike always pulls weird faces at me. :)

Halloween Bento Boxes

 We needed packed lunches today, and I thought I would surprise the kids with Halloween themed lunches. They loved them!

In case you are interested in what everything is made of:

The ghosts are onigiri, made by squishing sushi rice into a cookie cutter to mold it into a ghost shape. I put the cookie cutter on a plate to do this, and frequently dip my fingers into a bowl of water to keep the rice from sticking too bad. After carefully removing the cookie cutter, the rice onigiri can be gently picked up and placed into the bento box. The eyes and mouth are made from black olives (since my son gave me grief about using nori), which I cut with a piece of drinking straw that I squeezed slightly to give it an oval shape. I then placed them in the general area of the face and used a toothpick to get them just where I wanted and push them into the rice.

Surrounding the ghosts are just some seasoned black beans and a bit of broccoli. I was trying to make it look like grass and the night sky, and I was not super happy with how it turned out, but it is only lunch after all.

The pumpkins are clementine oranges that I cut jack-o-lantern faces into. I had seen this idea before and was looking forward to trying it. It was really quite fun this morning before the kids got up, and the smell started off my morning nicely. You just poke an outline of the shapes that you want to cut out with a toothpick. Then, drag the toothpick around the outline like a knife, connecting all of the holes you poked. Finally, pry the shape out and scrape the pith away as much as you can, again using the toothpick. I made two faces on opposite sides of the oranges, and then sliced the orange in half so that I could fit them in the bento boxes. I added some of my leaf picks into them to make them look slightly more pumpkin-ish.

Surrounding the pumpkins is just plain blueberries.

Plans

This past Wednesday, I awoke with a plan for the day. Pancakes for breakfast, a bit of school, playgroup, some much needed grocery shopping, and home in plenty of time to make dinner and relax. It is funny how life sometimes takes the plans that you make and jostles them around, especially life with kids. Spike got sick, and my plans changed from being productive to curling up on the couch with my 9-year-old, trying to make him feel as comfortable as possible. I think it was time well spent.

It can be rough sometimes for a list and schedule loving person like myself, to step out of my practical mind and just enjoy the moment. I am making it my goal to not stress myself out so much; to remind myself that is okay when my plans don't always work out. After all, we had planned to have three kids, and now I could not imagine life without Squirt.

I did accomplish my plan of knitting a soot sprite though. We really enjoy Studio Ghibli films, and when I ran across the knitting pattern I knew we just needed one in our house. And it only took me five days longer than planned.... :)

The kids have all found it's current hideout on top of the microwave very amusing.

Millet for Breakfast

When the fall weather hits, I am a sucker for a nice warm bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. Unfortunately, oats are now one of those items on the "Do Not Eat" list for me, along with casein, gluten, and *gasp* chocolate. We have tried a few different items to fill the void that is left in our breakfast menus. Cream of Rice was one of our favorites, but I was not really happy about adding even more rice to our diet since that is now the grain we eat most frequently. What can I say....I am always just on the lookout for something new.

A few weeks ago I was hanging out at the library while the big kids were in their chess club. I was talking to one of the moms that I know from homeschooling activities in the area, and she mentioned that her daughter had made millet for breakfast. We have had millet flour mixed into baked goods, but I had never thought to eat it as a whole grain. I was pretty interested at that point. Millet went on my shopping list.

Cooking millet is pretty simple. I picked up a little instruction card when I bought the millet that said to simmer 2 cups water and 1/2 cup millet for about 25 to 30 minutes, or until the water is absorbed. I am still wondering if I could make it in my rice cooker....I bet I could.

I did find that the required 2 cups of water was not enough in my opinion. The millet still had a rather dry texture to it, so I added an additional cup of water and let it simmer a bit longer. When dished up, we added almond milk, brown sugar, and cinnamon to the millet. It was more filling than I had expected, so no one except for Squirt actually finished theirs, but they all assured me it was good.

Goodbye to Summer

The mornings lately have a crisp feeling that makes me want to snuggle up in a blanket with a mug of something warm and not do much else for the entire day. Many days are gray and overcast. I am thoroughly enjoying every minute of it. I love fall. Noting the first few leaves that decide to shift to red on our maple tree gives me a thrill every year. And then there is always apple pie....delicious apple pie that is good anytime of year, but so much better in the fall.

Along with the joys of fall, there is always a little bit of sadness that summer is over. While we have been doing schoolwork for a while now, it suddenly feels more official. As a small tribute to the fun of summer, I decided to post some of the pictures we took while camping this year.

Princess

Princess playing with Squirt by running around his playpen, with him trying to chase her. We were constantly putting his pants back on as he had figured out how to quickly get them off.

Gizmo eating a fireball candy. She kept saying it was too hot.

This was a squirrel that stole a piece of bacon that fell while I was making breakfast. We nicknamed him Joey and saw him often throughout our camping trip.

Three kids on a funky tree.

Handknit socks and dirty Crocs.

Despite being confined to the playpen more than usual due to the dangers of camping, Squirt still had a fun time. The homemade gluten free graham crackers we gave him sure didn't hurt.

Playing in the water. The big kids were usually off exploring, but this held their attention near camp.

A stump. I just liked it.

One of our dinners in the Dutch oven. It was quite yummy.

Gizmo's Birthday Party

In keeping with my blog fashion of posting things a week or two after they happen, I decided that now would be a great time to post about Gizmo's birthday party. This was the first birthday party that she has had with friends in a few years, so it was very exciting for her. Most of her friends were even able to spend the night. Her nonstop excitement for the party nearly drove me insane in the week previous to the big event, but I am glad she had such a wonderful time.

When we were trying to come up with a theme for the party she told me that she really wanted to watch Howl's Moving Castle, her favorite movie, with her friends. I suggested that we have an Asian themed birthday party to go along with that. While at first she seemed to think it was a dumb idea, she soon loved it.

She and I made most of the decorations together. We went to Jo-Ann's craft store while they were having a scrapbook paper sale and got a bunch of paper she liked. Most of it was sparkly, which really looked neat.

I drew the letters freehand while looking at a font that we liked, then I cut them out. Gizmo glued them on the shimmery blue paper, and we worked together to string them along some yarn.

We didn't make the paper umbrella. That was something Gizmo loved from the party store.

A view of some of our decorating.

Sparkly paper lanterns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While waiting for her cake to cool the night before the party, I decided to make some origami lillies for the table. Spike woke up and helped me make one. If you look carefully, you can see that he stuck a little paper airplane onto his contribution.

Princess wanted to be just like her big sister, so they both wore some Chinese clothes that my parents picked up in Chinatown and had chopsticks in their hair.

Her cake. I managed to keep it a surprise like she wanted.

Thinking about her wish.

Opening presents.

What we put in the favor boxes.

The favor boxes all closed up.

The girls were just silly enough to be fun, but not enough to drive me and Brady crazy. They did stay up later than me for sure, and one of her guests brought silly string in her present so I was finding bits and pieces around the house the next day though. Mostly that just made me giggle. It was wonderful seeing Gizmo have such a fun time with her friends, even if I am a bit sad about the fact that she is growing up so much.

Bento Boxes for the Fair

Even though I don't have to pack a lunch every day for the kids since I am not sending them off to school, occasions do arise when a packed lunch is necessary. Since me and Gizmo are gluten-free, and I am casein-free, it just makes sense to be prepared for lunch instead of seeing what we can find when everyone gets hungry. Even without the dietary restrictions, I would probably chose to pack lunch anyway, since healthy fast food options can be costly and hard to find when you are talking about feeding a crew like ours.

The problem with packing lunches is that it gets quite dull. Gluten-free sandwiches are alright, but the bread is expensive and the kids get bored of them quickly. I have previously been slightly obsessed with Japanese bento boxes. I played around with preparing bento lunches with containers bought from Target. It was alright, but not enough to hold my interest.

After being stuck somewhere with no good food options available once or twice I decided my lunch packing skills needed improvement. I bit the bullet and ordered me and each of the kids a bento box, along with some cute picks and bento accessories. We also all went and picked out a new insulated lunch bag.

Our field trip to the fair was the second time that I had used the boxes. Since the kids were excited about seeing the animals at the fair, I decided to make their lunches fit the theme.

The bento boxes that we have are two-level ones. I filled the bottom level of each with onigiri (shaped rice) in the shape of a chick, a cow (Gizmo's favorite animal), and a pig. The rice used for the chick was colored with tumeric, and the pig was colored with powder that I made from dehydrated beets. With the beet powder especially, a little went a long way. That is why my pigs are so much brighter pink than what I planned. The chicks beak is a piece of carrot, and the cows' noses, pigs' snouts, and pigs' ears are made of ham. All the eyes and nostrils are nori. I did not succeed in hiding the fact that nori is seaweed from the kids, and next time I will be using something else since they all voted against it. Around the animals, I filled in the space with broccoli. In the top half of the box, I threw in some summer sausage and cheese (minus cheese for mine), and a Wilton silicone muffin cup with nectarines from our tree. The cute little panda in the picture above is a bottle for soy sauce to sprinkle on the rice. The kids each have a different animal for theirs.

This is the boxes stacked up and ready to be put into lunch bags along with drinks. So far, I am really having a lot of fun packing bento boxes, although I do not think they will be quite this intricate every time. The prices are not bad, this is the box that I am using now, and I am happy with the quality. It is much darker in real life though. My box is the dark blue one in the picture.

There are more expensive options as well. I have been considering splurging on this one for myself.