Having Fun at Home

Gardening with Kids

2023-01-27T11:25:00.005-06:00

I think many of us have an instinctive sense that gardening is good for kids. It gets them outside, gives them a sense of where their food comes from, gives them interesting and stimulating sensory experiences, and the list goes on and on.

Actually following through and making a garden that is successful and enjoyable for everyone involved, however, can often be frustrating and/or intimidating.

Here are the top things I have learned so far from my 8 years of gardening with kids and having grown up with a father who gardened.

1. Seeds. It is always nice to take a kid to a seed shop and let them see all the packets. These are fun to plant (especially the digging in the dirt part) and it is especially fun to watch the little seedlings poke up out of the ground with your kids.

2. Anticipate points of tension ahead of time. Clearly mark path where they can walk, teach them early on what weeds look like and what the seedlings will look like.

3. Plant things that will capture your kids imagination. Not just vegetables, but also flowers and interestingly shaped plants. Another idea is to let your kids each choose a plant to take care of (with reminders and guidance, of course) :)

4. Plant things that kids can easily harvest themselves and eat right away: peas, green beans, cherry tomatoes. Short maturation time. Seed packets will often tell how long that variety takes to harvest. If you are a beginning gardener, the information on the seed packets can be especially helpful.

5. Love your plants, but love your kids more.

P.S. The kiddo in the picture is E, our second to youngest, two years ago, with the sweet potatoes.

Let us know in the comments below: Do you have any tips on gardening with kids?

Make a Garden with Your Kids

5 Easy Tips for Beginners

The Five Little Peppers Books

2023-01-27T11:15:00.004-06:00

Recently, I've been re-reading some of our older books that I haven't read in years. I've really been enjoying the Five Little Peppers series. It is a really fun series with lots of books and it is great for a family read-aloud or for kids ages 9 and up!

It is a series by Margaret Sidney about a family with five kids (which is, by the way, relevant to our family now, which makes it even more fun) and about their hard life in the little brown house. They count their blessings though, and are happy, lively, and a very closely-knit family even in the midst of hardships. The series starts with The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, and continues on to have twelve books in total. There are also four films on the series that we haven't watched, but are on our 'to watch' list.

This is one of my childhood favorites, along with many others. Let us know in the comments below: what are some of your favorite childhood books?

Marbled Fall Cookies

2022-10-18T14:33:00.002-05:00

Over fall break this year, I made some cookies with the kiddos. This is a really fun thing to do with kids because it doesn't take a lot of time, but they are still fun to make and enjoy together. I got this recipe for marbled sugar cookies, and they were quick and easy and came out perfectly.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately?) I couldn't get a picture of the finished product because they were all eaten before I got the chance! :)

You can get the effect by separating the dough into different bowls and dying it, then arranging colored bits close together before rolling them out. As you might guess, re-rolling the dough more than once diminishes the marbled look (oh well). To learn more about this fun activity, go to the Land O' Lakes post on marbled sugar cookies.

Let us know in the comments below: have you tried this recipe or something like it?

Russian Piping Tips

2022-10-11T20:42:00.004-05:00

Recently, I became interested in Russian piping tips and decided to try them out. There are three types- nozzles, balls, and the basic tip. The nozzle is the most well-known, and it is often referred to as just a 'russian piping tip'.

Then there's the ball tip- less common, and, yes, it uses up a lot of frosting. (;

Finally, there's the last one- the pointed tip.

There is a great variety of each one, and, although they can be really hard to master, the effect is really stunning. For starters, you're going to need a REALLY STIFF buttercream- and I mean STIFF. This will help the piped frosting keep its shape, and will also . Make sure that you don't keep your hands around the piping bag, that will make the frosting less stiff. For the nozzle tip, you start a little ways straight up from the cupcake (or whatever it is that you are frosting) and squeeze gently until the frosting touches the surface. Still squeezing very lightly, pull up slowly. Finish. You can add a little leaf off to one side- it works best if the leaf is leaning against the piped flower.

We did not try the other two tips this time (we had enough on our hands already), but here are some pictures from Amazon.

This is the set we got- it is good quality and comes in a pretty little box.

Here are some of our results- as you can see, they are not yet quite professional, but some of them were piped by an 8-year-old. :)

The above picture is a shot of when our coupler slid out of the bag while piping. I suppose that this happened because we cut the hole too large? This happened two times before we decided to stop using the coupler. That made it harder to change tips, but we managed.

All in all, however, we really enjoyed the experience and are definitely trying these again. Let us know in the comments below: Have you ever tried this or anything like this? If so, do you have any tips?