Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

I am a big fan of Dr. Seuss, and I never pass up the opportunity to celebrate his great works.  This year, I had another motive too -- we had a vacation to Universal Studios planned right after the birthday of Dr. Seuss, and there is a Seuss Landing section of the park.  I wanted Kate to be very familiar with a few of the books that are featured in the rides so that she could enjoy the rides that much more.  It worked!!!

Here is the Seuss fun we had before our trip:

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss

I love the month of March because there are so many fun days to celebrate!  Today, we celebrated Dr. Seuss.

I added a little spinach to create green eggs and ham for breakfast.  Reagan read the book to Kate.

Whipped cream, strawberries, and marshmallows became Dr. Seuss hats.

After reading My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss, Reagan and Kate decided to use all of the colors of paint to create their own artwork.

Our Week in Pictures

I am so happy that I could jump up and down!  The reason for my happiness is that Kate seems to be back to herself, finally.  The croup, ear infection, respiratory inflammation, medication, and stomach issues are all done and over with, and Kate sat down in the tub and enjoyed her bath tonight!  She didn't want to get out of the tub!  Yippee!

Earlier this week, she was still feeling crummy and her little cheeks were so red; I think the red cheeks and the stomach issues were a reaction to the medication she was taking.

While she wanted to be held most of the time, Kate did play on her own a little this week; she enjoyed our bin of animals.  We have had these since Collin was about Kate's age; I'm glad we kept them.

She liked the animal magnets too.

Collin and Reagan had two days of activities in school to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday.  The whole school participated in Read Across America.

They focused on Horton Hears A Who and turned pencils into clover with specks of dust on top.
Different grades worked together on Seuss activities that included reading, crafts, and games.  Collin and Reagan enjoyed all of it.

For the first time in years, I didn't do anything at home to honor Dr. Seuss on his birthday.  Next year!  We do read a lot of Seuss and always make time for oobleck in the summer;  Dr. Seuss is celebrated in our home all year long!  There, I feel better now!

Reagan is still enjoying gymnastics.  Today, her group worked on bars and beam.  She is SO close to getting over the bar without help.

This Quinoa Pesto with Vegetables from My Whole Food Life was a HUGE hit in our house this week.  Tom, Reagan, Kate, and I all LOVED it.  Collin and Tyler aren't so great at trying foods; it's too bad, they missed a delicious meal.  Kate and Reagan kept asking for more!

Cookbooks for Kids - Part Five

We have decided to work our way through some cookbooks for kids.  There are really no rules, except that we will choose cookbooks written with children in mind and make at least one recipe from each cookbook.  This is just for fun, and to give us an excuse to work together in the kitchen. 

The fifth cookbook we chose for review is Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook by Georgeanne Brennan.  (Thank you to Child Central Station for recommending this one!)  All of the recipes in this cookbook were inspired by Dr. Seuss and they have funny Seussian names.  There are forty-two recipes and the table of contents is divided into breakfast, beverages, lunch, snacks, dinner, and desserts.  Before each recipe, there is some text from the Dr. Seuss book that inspired the recipe.  The cookbook is also full of Dr. Seuss artwork. 

I like that there are a lot of healthy recipes and that each recipe has something that the kids can do to help prepare the food.  Some of the recipes have pictures, but most do not.  Because C and R are 6 and 5, I prefer cookbooks with pictures so they can look through the book and pick something that looks good to them, but we still like this cookbook.

The first recipe we tried is "Pink Yink Ink Drink" inspired by the book One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.  This drink has a layer of pureed blackberries topped with blended strawberries, milk, and honey.  My rule is that everyone has to try the food or drink.  C took the obligatory one sip and declared it terrible (I knew he would, but I'm happy he tried it).  R and I liked it.

While C was at school another day, R decided she wanted to make something all by herself from a cookbook.

Luckily, we found the "recipe" for "Brown Bar-ba-loots' Truffula Fruits" inspired by the book The Lorax.  I'm not so sure you can really call this a recipe since it just involves dipping strawberries in strawberry yogurt, but R was thrilled to make herself a snack from a cookbook without any help from me.

Our final recipe (for now anyway) from this cookbook is "Valley of Vung's Chocolate Rocks" inspired by the book I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew.   This is a very easy recipe (chocolate, heavy cream, confectioners' sugar, and cocoa powder) and the kids were able to do everything except heat the cream.  They really enjoyed forming the chocolate into rocks and rolling the rocks in the cocoa/sugar mixture.

Believe it or not, they thought the rocks were too sweet and didn't eat them!!!  R doesn't really like sweets so I knew she wouldn't care for them, but C has a sweet tooth. 

We had a lot of fun with this cookbook!  I recommend checking it out. 
To read all of our cookbook reviews, click here.

Cat in the Hat Snack

We are always happy to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday around here.  He was born in our home state of Massachusetts, and C and R both love his books.  C's favorite is The Cat in the Hat and R's favorite is Green Eggs and Ham.

I made an easy after school snack to honor the special day.  First, I followed the directions on a box of cherry Jello to make Jello Jigglers.  Once the Jello was set, I used a biscuit cutter to cut Jello circles.  Then I layered the Jello circles with dollops of whipped cream.  Simple and delicious!

Oobleck

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!  In your honor, we made up a batch of oobleck.  Don't tell me you have never heard of oobleck!  This goo is something special.  It's so amazing that you just have to try it because I surely cannot do it justice with words and pictures.

There are many recipes for oobleck, but the one we used is:

1. pour one cup of water into a container
2. add a few drops of green food coloring to the water
3. add two cups of corn starch and stir

You now have oobleck.  It feels like a solid when you try to pick it up, but it quickly becomes a liquid and drips through your fingers.  Experiment by dropping different objects into the oobleck, stirring it, picking it up, and dripping water on it. 

T, C, and R had so much fun playing with this while I read Bartholomew and  the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss.  In this book, the King of Didd wakes up one morning and decides he is bored with predictable sun, rain, fog and snow.  He wants something different and orders his magicians to get to work to make something unique fall from the sky.  They make oobleck!  The King learns to be careful what he wishes for when the oobleck causes problems in his kingdom.

If you want the scientific explanation, oobleck is a slimy polymer classified as a non-Newtonian fluid.  Non-Newtonian fluids can look and feel like both liquids and solids, but their flow only changes when you change the type of pressure you apply to its surface.  If you want more details, you can google those terms.

WARNING:  This is not for the faint of heart.  This stuff makes a mess.  My advice is to cover all surfaces with plastic tablecloths that you can just dispose of later.  I did not do this, and clean up was interesting.  The more water you add, the more resistant to clean up this stuff becomes.  Believe it or not, this stuff washes off of clothing without a problem.  Phew!  Also, whatever you do, DO NOT put this stuff down the drain or toilet.  If you do, you better call a plumber! 

It's worth the mess.  I enjoyed this myself.  It is so cool the way it changes in your hands.  So, relax a little bit, cover all of your surfaces, and have fun! 

A Cat in the Hat Party

We had a party to celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss.  Theodor Seuss Geisel was born on March 2, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts.  Dr. Seuss is a favorite around here and we enjoy all of his books, but we started the celebration with a Cat in the Hat party.

C and R wore their red and white striped hats and enjoyed red and white hat treats.  The base of the treat is a vanilla wafer, and I alternated layers of vanilla frosting (on some I used slices of large marshmallows) and red gummy lifesavers.

 Stay tuned for more Seuss fun!

Green Eggs and Ham

I couldn't resist taking this photo. Kelly really enjoyed listening to R read Green Eggs and Ham.

Seuss, Seuss, and more Seuss

We had an entire weekend of Seuss! C, R, and I read a lot of Dr. Seuss books. I listed some of them on our shelf but we read a lot more than that. They both enjoy Dr. Seuss books and I really like reading them out loud because they are fun.

Auntie Karen gave us the idea for this Cat in the Hat snack. We used vanilla wafer cookies, vanilla frosting, and red gummy life savers to make our hats. They disappeared almost as fast as they were made.

One of our favorite Dr. Seuss books is My Many Colored Days. After reading that book, C and R painted the colors they were feeling that day.

R's hat just kept falling off! I think I made it a little too small.

We ate green eggs this morning, but no ham. Ham isn't very popular in our house.

Today we happen to have a snow day so we will play one of our favorite board games, Dr. Seuss's ABC game.