Emma has been wanting to try pin curls ever since she read about them in one of the American Girl doll books that she borrowed from the library (I think it was one of the Molly books). So this week we gave it a go – dividing her hair into sections while it was still wet, twisting them, and pinning them up with bobby pins.

Emma is used to hair that lays straight, and she was really surprised at how much curly hair poufs out! She brushed it out before she would let me take a picture, but you can still see the pin curls above her left ear, especially.

Lily decided she wanted pin curls, too! At three years old, she is not nearly as patient as seven-year-old Emma, so her curls are much looser, and only divided into three sections instead of four. Her hair was also dry, so we spritzed it with a little water using a spray bottle.

Lily’s hair has some curl to it naturally, so even with just a little water the pin curls held nicely. Lily’s curls came out looser than Emma’s because we pinned larger sections and didn’t twist it as much.

Usually my girls aren’t interested in doing much with their hair, so I really enjoyed this – and Lily especially was thrilled with the results! Emma didn’t like the puffiness of it, so tonight we tried braids for a less voluminous look. I think it looks pretty adorable!

Do you have a favorite easy, kid-friendly hairdo for us to try?

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In my previous update on my Home Depot sponsored organic gardening series, things were not looking very good. Local animals had chewed our Swiss Chard to the bone, consumed every single pea plant, and even one tomato plant! The obvious solution was to put netting or fencing around the garden. I wasn’t thrilled with that idea, because I plant my garden primarily for my kids, and fences and nettings that keep animals out also keep kids out!

Thankfully, Cassidy heard about my dilemma, and suggested trying ground black pepper around the stems. I had some black pepper corns in a pepper grinder in the kitchen, so I started grinding a little pepper on and around the plants. I try to do this every day, but I think it’s especially important after it rains, and after the garden has been watered.

So far, it’s working! Here is my slowly-recovering Swiss Chard plant:

Our lettuce is also recovering, and the newly-planted (from organic seeds) pea plants have been left untouched:

If you look closely, you can also see three baby carrot plants that somehow wound up too close to the peas. It’s always interesting when kids help plant the garden! My seven-year-old is already anxiously asking if she can pick the carrots yet – I’ll let her pick these so she can understand why they need to grow into something worth eating!

The animal meddling has us with some catching up to do, but if this strategy continues to work as the plants grow taller we should have a decent harvest this summer! I have even started peppering the strawberry and blueberry plants, in hopes that this will allow us to eat some of those berries this summer instead of merely feeding some very happy chipmunks!

I put together a mini garden tour, so you can see what is growing so far!

How is your garden growing? Have you ever tried using pepper to keep animals away? Did it work?

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This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of The Home Depot.

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Today’s world culture for kids post about Ensenada, Mexico comes to us from Maribel Reyes at Stroller Adventures. Check out these three posts from her blog: Empanadas (loved eating these when we lived in Bolivia!), Top Tips When Moving, and 5 Ways to Workout with Kids!

Just 75 miles South of the United States and Mexico border you will find a little town that has grown into a big city called Ensenada. Through the years it has multiplied its population and grown its port to host cruise ships as well as container ships transporting goods across the Ocean.

Ensenada has the best of both worlds; it is geographically blessed with the Pacific Ocean to the West and beautiful majestic mountains to the East. The rain season is usually during the winter months of November – February, which leaves fields of yellow flowers that can be seen from afar.

As you arrive you see the Ensenada port to your left with its large cranes that are moving freight containers in and out of ships. When brought down from the ship they either stay in Ensenada to be turned into finished goods or continue their journey through Mexico or even into the United States. This has helped and still continues to boost the economy. Large manufacturing companies established in Ensenada are: Fender, IR Schlage Lock, ALCOA, CEMEX {Mexican Cements Co.} to name a few.

A little history of Ensenada: from 1882 to 1915 it was the State Capital to Baja California. Full name is Ensenada de Todos Santos; however, it is mostly known as Ensenada which means cove in Spanish. Back in the 30s it was popular among celebrities for the now historic landmark El Riviera which was a beachside casino/resort that hosted big Hollywood names, such as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Mirna Loy, William Hearst, and Al Capone was also one to visit regularly.

Ensenada is home to 1979 Miss Universe Maritza Sayalero and her tennis playing husband Raul Ramirez. It has also hosted famous guests, including Pamela Anderson, Sandra Bullock and U2’s Bono. It is a quaint City that is always welcoming with open arms. People from Ensenada, or as they call themselves “Ensenadenses”, are friendly and warm. Their native language is Spanish; however, don’t be surprised that they are fluent in English. It is very common to be bilingual and even trilingual as nearby in Valle de Guadalupe {Baja Wine Country} many French and Russians reside.

A short drive from downtown towards the South is the famous “Bufadora”. The Bufadora blowhole is located in the Punta Banda Peninsula and is one of the largest blowholes in North America, shooting up more than 100ft above sea level. It is beautiful and always fun to enjoy. There you can enjoy some freshly made “churros”, which are delicious fried-dough pastries sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.

Wondering where the Fish Taco came from? It started in Ensenada, and you will find many Fish Taco stands. Our family’s favorite is in the downtown area, and it is called Tacos El Fenix. Tacos El Fenix was actually featured in one of Andrew Zimmerman’s and Anthony Bourdain’s shows. The fish is dipped in beer batter and deep fried, then placed on a warm corn tortilla with a special cream and you top it with some shredded cabbage, pico de gallo salsa, lime juice and hot sauce! It is quite tasty and popular with my kids.

You may be asking how I know all this; it is quite simple! I grew up in Ensenada and married an “Ensenadense”.

Maribel Reyes, is a Cubxican {half Cuban-half Mexican} SAHM of 2 very active and curious kids -a boy {3} and a girl {7}. In 2005 she left Corporate America and life in the fast lane to enjoy her family to the fullest.  Born in Los Angeles and raised between Ensenada Baja Mexico and Los Angeles she is fascinated by other cultures, traditions and languages, which is why she majored in International Business.  Since 2010 she has been sharing her adventures in life on her personal blog Stroller Adventures where she shares her family recipes, her life as a mother, her experiences while traveling and local attractions from California to Baja that she and her family visit.  Most recently she has been sharing her journey to lose weight and become healthier. She has lived in both Southern and Northern California. Currently she is preparing her family for their biggest adventure yet: to relocate to Costa Rica.

Exploring Geography is a world culture for kids series that showcases cities, states, and countries in a child-friendly manner. Email mamasmilesblog at gmail dot com if you are interested in contributing a guest post. Cities, states, and countries that have been covered thus far are listed on my world culture for kids page!

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Last month, I took my four kids and flew from Boston, Massachusetts to Panama City, Florida, and back – four flights, including one red-eye, with just me and the four kids. Traveling with kids is always an adventure, and if you had told me even a couple years ago that I would be flying on my own with four kids I would not have believed you. Flying with kids has not always gone smoothly for us. But my kids are older, I have more experience parenting, and I’ve learned what makes flying with kids work for me. I’m sharing the things I have learned here in hopes that they will help someone else!

• Have kids carry their own stuff, wherever possible. This prevents over-packing and gives kids a job in the airport.
• Bring a comfort item from home. My kids consistently pick their Owie Dolls. They were a little disappointed that I didn’t get Anna’s made in time. Hopefully I can before we fly to California, because she really liked playing with the other kids’ dolls on this trip! Comfort items that double as entertainment (like the ALEX Toys Learn to Dress Monkey) work especially well!
• Give kids ownership of the trip. Look at airport maps with them in advance and discuss the itinerary.
• Give kids responsibilities. On our trip, Emma (7 years old) was in charge of helping Johnny (5 years old, and a little phobic of flying) stay calm. Johnny was in charge of making Anna (8 months old) laugh, and Lily (3 years old) was in charge of making sure I didn’t forget anything while going through security or when getting off the plane. They all did their jobs perfectly.
• Let kids know what to expect. The TSA has worked hard since I first started flying with kids to make security more child-friendly (TSA officers even gave my kids stickers in Panama City!), but it can still be frightening for kids to send their backpacks through the x-ray machine and be separated (albeit briefly) from parents as they go through the metal detector.
  
• Wear the baby. You can usually wear your baby through security now – they’ll just do a little extra screening on you.
  
• Be stroller smart. You can gate check or luggage check a stroller for free. If you have a long layover, I recommend gate checking – it makes a great luggage cart for the kids’ carry-ons, even if you are wearing the baby. If you have a short layover, I recommend luggage checking it, because waiting for it on the gangway could make you miss your flight.
  
• Plan layovers. We had a three-hour layover in Atlanta on the way there, and a 40-minute layover on the way back – at the same airport. The Atlanta airport is HUGE, with a train connecting the various terminals. On the way there, I planned a train excursion to Jamba Juice, which I love from my Stanford years and which my kids had never experienced. It was the perfect way to spend the time. On the way back, I was worried about making our connecting flight – especially since we had to change terminals. I called the airline, and they were able to arrange for us to ride on one of the airport’s electric carts. We made the connection – barely.
• Pack surprises. I put one thing in each kids’ backpack that they weren’t expecting to find in there (ALEX Toys Ready, Set, Write tablets they had all been coveting because I raise nerds). I also had three small angry birds and three small animal figurines as back-up surprises. All of these were used – and they were enough for our trip. Note: I have learned that these surprises are most effective if kids don’t know they exist.
  
• Bring Post-It Notes. You can use them to stop the scary auto-flush on airport toilets, create a mini art gallery on the seat in front of you on the plane, or teach an older child how to make simple animated flip books!
  
• Enjoy this quality parenting time. Plane travel is a great time to connect with your kids! Use this time when you are away from daily responsibilities to learn more about their hopes, dreams, and takes on the world around them!

Have you flown with kids? What tips would you add to this list?

Disclosure: I blog for ALEX Toys and receive toys from them, including those referenced in this post. All opinions are my own.

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I like to use blogging as a personal motivator. I set goals every month and type them up here to give myself a little accountability. I’ve been wanting to expand my crochet repertoire for a while, so I was thrilled to receive a review copy of Crochet One-Skein Wonders: 101 Projects from Crocheters around the World. The range of projects as well as the variety of designers make this a great book if you’re looking to expand your crochet repertoire. This flower (not this large in real life) was the first project I tried – I stuck it on a card for a friend (and Mike found that very strange, but Emma understood perfectly). The button is an old one I found a long time ago – isn’t it pretty?

The patterns in the book range from very simple to more complex charts that I need to figure out how to read. Every project uses a single skein of yarn – but some of those skeins of yarn are very large! The book is organized by yarn weight, so it’s a great pick if you have a yarn stash you are looking to use up!

I’m a pretty visual learner. This book has fewer pictures than the other crochet books I have, but the written instructions are clear and easy to follow. I imagine anyone well versed in crochet will have no trouble following along, but if you are a relative newbie you may need a second book with basic instructions or google searches to decipher some of the instructions.

I’m working on baby booties now, but they are taking a long time because my kids have big feet and I need to adjust the pattern (and I’m not very good at that). And I’m writing about that here in hopes that it will give me the determination to figure it out. Not because my daughter needs crocheted booties (who knows if she will even wear them when they are finished), but because it’s the type of brain teaser that I enjoy – even if I need a little extra motivation to face it sometimes.

Crafting is my favorite way to relax. What do you like to do with your down time? Do you crochet?

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I can finally share our big news: we’re moving! Far, far away, to Silicon Valley in California. Very clever readers already figured this news out, from this post or from seeing this same photo on Instagram. The kids and I will probably move out before Mike, depending on when our house here sells, and when we find a place to live there. I would like to make it out in time for the kids to start school with everyone else, but we’ll see if that happens.

I have started packing, if only because we have to box a bunch of stuff up to get the house in show-ready condition. I’m crafting in between packing, because that is how I cope with stress.

California is where Mike and I met, and it will be fun to introduce our kids to that part of the world. I love the diversity and passion that you find in Silicon Valley, and the weather. I will miss the stunning fall leaves and the snow. I am sad about leaving our yard and beloved Japanese Maple tree behind. Massachusetts has been my home for longer than anywhere else, and I am struggling over pulling up the roots I have put down here – and even more over pulling out my kids’ roots. It was nice to have a proper home, for a few years.

We’re moving for Mike’s job, and it’s an opportunity well worth taking. I know my kids will fall in love with California, and am looking forward to no more winter fights over how to dress warmly! Mike is moving back to his home state, and I know we will have lots of adventures there.

We have the summer ahead of us, and I plan to make the most of our remaining months in Massachusetts. What do we need to do and see before we leave?

The post The Big News: We’re Moving! appeared first on Mama Smiles - Joyful Parenting.

I saw Mikhail Baryshnikov dance on TV when I was little, and I was completely amazed by how he could fly through the air and float across the stage. It was absolutely magical to me. I was also very fascinated by the pointe shoes. I even made my own out of paper and tape, reinforcing the toe with the cardboard of a toilet paper roll and tightly packed toilet paper. Even though a lot of tape was used, it was largely ineffective in making me dance like the ballet dancers I saw in the Nutcracker.

Now our daughter Emma is into ballet. Last night, I got to take her on a daddy-daughter date into Boston to see the Boston Ballet perform Coppélia! Before the show, we had our picture taken with Coppélia!

For people who are not yet ballet enthusiasts, Coppélia is a great introduction to the art! It is a ballet comedy, and the first two acts are absolutely hilarious. Joseph Gatti played Frantz last night, and his facial expressions are priceless. He shows so much joy when he dances. Kathleen Breen Combs played Swanilda (and then later Coppélia). Both Joseph and Kathleen are beautiful dancers, and I was amazed by how hard they were able to make Emma and me (and the rest of the house!) laugh just through dancing. Kathleen portrayed a very convincing and comical robot.

The third act involved more traditional ballet dances, but what stole the show were the young performers from the Boston Ballet School! Emma found one who looked just like her. They danced with the same level of precision and grace expected of the more experienced members of the company. It was amazing.

After a spectacular performance, we got a back stage tour! We learned about how the stage is constructed, how the dancers warm up with bars on the stage, where they do quick changes, etc. We also got a few glimpses of the performers leaving for the night! Emma fell asleep on the way home. She had woken up at 5am with all the excitement for the performance that evening!

The Boston Ballet is very family friendly and provides boosters for children (ages 2+). Emma and I had a great time and can recommend it to families in the Boston Area!

Thank you to the Boston Ballet for providing tickets for this performance!

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I’m always looking for simple gifts my kids can make. Spin Art is a perfect gift-able kid craft – it looks neat, and it is simple and fun enough that kids will happily mass-produce art in this way for, say, thank you cards! I also like to take multiple cards and frame them as a study of sorts.

We were sent the ALEX Toys Fantastic Spinner – and we love it as a battery-free tool that makes it really easy to create spin art – my three-year-old and five-year-old preschoolers were able to work together to make all of the cards featured in this post! The design of the paint bottles as well as the splash guard made this a virtually mess-free activity (parental supervision is required, especially for very young crafters like these two. Children aged six or over, as recommended on the box, can probably do this entirely on their own). My kids were able to load the paper, start it spinning, and add the paint all on their own!

I did help them remove the paper, just because they had a hard time not smudging the wet paint when they did it on their own. You can see my three-year-old making a card in the brief video below:

She added the paint first, which makes it spread out a bit less than if you add the paint while the paper is spinning. My son added the paint while this card was spinning:

My seven-year-old thinks this is a neat activity, too! She made spin art (all on her own, without my help) that she turned into a card for her teacher!

Spin art is also a great way to introduce young kids to color mixing, and with older kids you can use it as an introduction to Newton’s First Law of Motion! What’s not to love with crafting that teaches kids science and produces a beautiful work of art as the end product!

Do you have favorite crafts that kids can make and give as gifts? You can find more ideas on my For Kids to Make for Others Pinterest board!

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I loved seeing artwork from the places my family has lived when I visited them with the kids last month! These two paintings are from Bolivia, and they represent life as I saw it when we lived there! The hut above is like many that are on the Altiplano, and we always saw alpacas and llamas when we drove out there from La Paz, where we were living. There are no trees, because the Altiplano is over 12,000 feet above sea level – well above tree line! Sometimes there wasn’t even a road that you could see, and my dad would navigate by compass and dried-up riverbeds. Alpaca wool makes beautifully soft and warm clothing, and I loved the bright colors locals dyed it! It was here that I hiked one of the highest portions of ancient Inca roads when I was 13 years old – climbing up to 16,000 feet above sea level and then descending into rain forests at 8,000 feet!

The picture below is of a fisherman on Lake Titicaca – the highest navigable lake in the world! The reed boat shown in this picture is a smaller version of the type of reed boat that adventurer Thor Heyerdahl used for his Ra expeditions.

I didn’t bring my good camera with me to Florida (I didn’t trust myself to navigate the airports with it AND four children). Some day I want to go back to my parents and captures these paintings with a good camera, in proper lighting, to do them justice!

Pan pipes and charango are the instruments I remember best from living in Bolivia. I even learned how to play charango – thankfully from one made entirely from wood rather than the traditional armadillo shell! I have found it a little bit hard to find good recordings of Andean music, so I was excited to see this CD and eBook that Daria put together about life in the Andes. I think it’s a very worthwhile purchase for anyone wanting to give their children an introduction to this part of the world! Her ebook explains a lot about daily life in the Andes, and it includes some fun activities for kids!

Follow the link to read more about my experience living in Bolivia as depicted through childhood art!

Exploring Geography is a world culture for kids series that showcases cities, states, and countries in a child-friendly manner. Email mamasmilesblog at gmail dot com if you are interested in contributing a guest post. Cities, states, and countries that have been covered thus far are listed on my world culture for kids page!

The post Exploring Bolivia Through Art and Music appeared first on Mama Smiles - Joyful Parenting.

Playing school was one of my favorite games – especially before I started school (I was unschooled until I was seven years old, back before unschooling was popular). We had a huge, classroom-sized chalkboard in our bedroom in the first house I lived in, and my siblings and I spent many happy hours playing school and drawing on it. My kids don’t have the wall space for that kind of a board, but they have made great use of this simple easel from IKEA!

My kids enjoyed playing with a school bag full of interesting learning activities before they started school, and pretend school continues to be a favorite game for them, even though they go to real school for hours every day. They design learning games, process disciplinary issues that come up in their real classrooms, and reinforce new skills by teaching them to teach other! Even their toys get educated – here are two classrooms, inhabited by a diverse population made up of Littlest Pet Shop animals, squinkies, and cars.

My brother and I essentially taught ourselves to read by playing school with phonics tapes and worksheets my mom supplied, and Emma and Johnny have done the same. My kids have always had handwriting worksheets available, and – so far – they have effortlessly developed good handwriting.

Not every kid will teach themselves handwriting, and my kids have their own things that are hard for them – learning to ride bikes and other gross motor skills, for example. So we focus our family time on the things they need more support to learn, and leave them on their own to continue to hone their strengths!

Do your kids play school? What kinds of learning come easily to them, and what skills have you had to work on more as a family? Did you enjoy playing school as a child?

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