Every parent needs a recipe for chocolate pudding – to satisfy the cravings of mom & dad, and of course, to satisfy the chocolate cravings of the children.

I am obsessed with “finding” the perfect recipe. To eliminate the need to keep trying to find a good recipe. To have “the” recipe I will make again and again for the family. To have the children, when they are grown, come back home, and eat and enjoy those things with will flood their senses with memories and moments from a happy childhood. And, I believe that in raising children, repetition, is key. Repetition is the foundation for happy memories.

Our eldest daugther asked me for chocolate pudding, and I didn’t yet that perfect recipe in my recipe box. I rathered a recipe that did not call for only egg yolks. I like recipes that call for 1 cup of this 2 cups of that, rather than recipes that call for 1 3/4 cups this, 2/3 cup that. Silly, I’m sure, but they just make me more comfortable. It’s much easier to multi task, when you don’t need to think too much. And, for my own curiosity, I test recipes with the more rounded-off ingredients, to see if it makes a difference. I also test to see if it makes a difference using easiest mixing methods (i.e. combine all ingredients, vs. first combine this, then that, then this, then that, etc.). This chocolate pudding rocks. And, it’s soo easy.

Ingredients

2 cups milk
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips (the better the chip, the better the pudding)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
dash of salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients except the vanilla in a medium saucepan. Whisk somewhat constantly over medium-high heat until the mixture comes to a boil. Boil, while whisking, for 1 minute. Remove from heat, add vanilla, and divide among 6 cups, ramekins, or 1 bowl! Cool and enjoy.

To open and print the G-Clef music flashcards, open this file: g_clef_flashcards.pdf

I’m actually not a homeschooler, but I do supplement my children’s education at home. And, I find this moves along the progress and intellectual challenge, well. I hope all our children will play a musical instrument, and sing. I started our eldest two children on the piano at four years of age. Our older two play, and number three will be up for starting this year. And, learning how to read music is so key! It can frustrate new learners, and slow down children in their third year of lessons, – it even slows me down! And, I have played for a decade!

To print the Bass Clef Flashcards, open this pdf file: bass_clef_flashcards.pdf

So, here are some printable flash cards, for all those children that are learning music. I keep a set in the car (we practice while waiting for the bus). And, I keep a set in the kitchen, so that I can quiz the children when one of them is around, and I am making dinner. I think with how busy we are these days, it makes all the difference to make things a little easier, – and for me this means not having to remember things. The more copies I keep around the house, the better!

With love, from Dina

I don’t know what made me think of it, but in December, I found these great, beautiful, nightgown cullottes, for the girls. A lady in Utah sews them, and sells them online. I found them after hours of searching online – literally. I bought a few for the girls (I hope to feature them next week, and will invite the lady that sews them to share with us how she does). They are made out of a tricot fabric – a silky smooth material, that you can throw in the wash, into the dryer, and don’t need to iron. Unfortunately, it is a nylon material, which are not my favorite. But, my girls love, love, love them!

Anyways, I wanted some slippers to go with them. And, I wanted to find those little mock-ballet slippers, in pink satin.

Walmart has great ones, 2 pack for $4. Danskin satin sippers in pink or white. They have a little cute bow on the front. Unbeatable price. And, super comfy. I think they are sold-out online. But, I found them at our local store and bought some for the girls.

Here are a pair I bought from a Payless Shoe Store in Chinatown (Manhattan). Not all stores carry them. They were more expensive because they are leather. Made by American Ballet Theatre.

And, here is a picture of a pair of ballet slippers that I purchased on e-bay. You can buy then in all different colors. Only $7. Our toddler wore a pair of these with her red Christmas dress for pictures. (eDanceZone is the store name). Yes! This is how this all started, now I remember. I needed a pair of red dress shoes. And, I couldn’t find anything under $40. But, I knew they would only be worn once. So, that’s when I thought of red ballet slippers instead. They are a perfect innocent style of shoe for little girls. And, just $7. And, they have a leather sole! Imagine that.

It was not until my honey took off with the older two children for a ski trip that I found the time to tackle the task of organizing and backing up all the photos on my computer. I had to do it because I had so many photos on my computer, my computer was running out of memory and slowing down. I needed to back them up in case my computer crashed, and I had to get them off my computer hard-drive, to free up space.

I started with the idea that I would subscribe to a general back-up service to back-up all my folders, including my pictures. I looked into and signed-up for both iDrive and Mozy. The problem with these services, however, is that they do not allow you to view your photos online. So, once you upload or back-up your Pictures folder, they sit online, invisible, until you re-download and restore the pictures folder to your hard-drive.

general back-up services, like MOZY or iDRIVE, will not let you view your pictures online.
you back them up to a folder, where they remain invisible, until you re-download them.

I then started looking into the special photo backup services. I had used Snapfish in the past, but Snapfish’s interest is in getting you to buy prints, not store your photos. So, Snapfish will delete your photos after a certain amount of time, if you do not continuously order more prints. Snapfish also charges you a per image fee to re-download images to your computer hard-drive.

SNAPFISH will delete your photos if you don’t keep ordering prints & will charge you a fee for each photo you want to re-download.

In my quest, I learned that a lot of the companies that were around three years ago, are gone – a disheartening discovery. A few years back, CNET recommended a company called ProtectMyPhotos.com, which is now out of business. HP offered a back-up service, and then discontinued this service, giving people 30 days notice to re-download their files, before HP would delete them. And, this was a paid HP service. A classic move.

There are really four other options at our disposal: Picasa, Flikr, PhotoBucket, or SmugMug. These are the four major services that allow you to back-up your photos online. Picassa is owned by Google, Flikr by Yahoo, PhotoBucket by Fox, and SmugMug is an independent family-owned business.

Since SmugMug is a relatively new, and small company, I would only use them as a secondary back-up. The back-up service costs $40 per year, allows for high-res uploads and downloads, and is easy-to-use. But, they do make money when you order prints. Their printing service was the most expensive at $0.19 per 4×6 print.

Flikr and PhotoBucket were the next options I tried. Right off the bat, the one thing that I did not like was the fact that both services are primarily focused on photo-sharing not photo-backup. I get the worried feeling that somehow my family photos are going to end up in the public’s general sharing pool. With both services, it was difficult to figure out how to opt-out of the sharing. I couldn’t figure out how to do it with PhotoBucket.

My next stop was Google’ Picasa. Picasa is both a desktop client as well as a web-based backup service. Once you download Picasa, it serves as your photo-viewing tool. So, when you click on a photo, the photo will open up in Picasa.  I am not a big fan of all the frills, but Picasa does have face-recognition technology, which I understand they purchased the patent to. You can label the family members in your photos, and then search for photos of that person. I can think of a handful of times when this might be useful (searching for photos of children for the yearbook, etc.).  You can then checkmark the folders you want to sync to the web. And, Picasa will quietly work in the back-ground syncing your photos to the Picasa online back-up service. Picasa will give you 1 Gig of free storage, which is 10x what Flikr will give you, and 2x what PhotoBucket will give you. The upgrade is also by far the cheapest. Only $5 for 20 Gigs worth of storage, compared to Flikr and PhotoBucket’s $24.95 per year for unlimited storage. I backed up five years of photos (original high-res size), about four thousand pictures, and am only using about 5 Gigs. I also trust Google not to pull a fast one on consumers. To understand the trust that consumers are giving them with their photos. To be a little nicer. (You can also order prints from one of many print services: Walgreens, Snapfish, RITZPIX, Shutterfly, Lifepics, fotoflot, or American Greetings).

A snapshot of what my backed-up files look like on the web (secure to me only):

I’ve always wanted to sew nightgowns, pajamas, and robes for my children. Because I remember always getting a nightgown for Christmas from my grandmother, and because I can never find classic styles in stores. This past Christmas, I sewed a great robe for our eldest daughter. It was my first time using a pattern. I was so excited about the finished product, I didn’t even think about seams (I hardly knew what they were). I wished someone had taught me. It makes the whole process so much easier. The objective with finished seams is to hide the raw edges of your fabric, in the interior of a garment or piece, so that when you wash it, the fabric does not fray. It also makes the finished product look clean and neat. Here are my favorite ways to finish seams.

1. French Seam

A couture finish, yet the easiest and cleanest of them all. Only requires sewing 2 straight lines. I couldn’t believe sewing french seams was so easy.

Step 1

Place wrong/back sides together (insides of garment facing each other), sew very close to edge, using a plain old straight stitch. Then trim any extra fabric (if you weren’t able to sew close enough to the edge on your sewing machine).

Step 2

Now, fold right sides (exterior sides of garment) over the seam you just made, so that right sides are now facing each other. And, sew a straight line, as close as possible to the end. Now, turn your garment outside-in. That’s it!

2. Sewing two straight lines then trim fabric with pinking shears

Pinking shears are scissors with saw-toothed blades, that cut in a zig-zag pattern. The zig-zag cut helps keep fabric from fraying. It is not the neatest finish, but it usually does the trick, and it’s fast.

A great pair of pinking shears on Amazon:

3. The no-sew seam: iron-on hem tape

Iron-on hem tape, in my experience, is a little wimpy. It will only work well on thin, light-weight fabrics. After you sew your pieces together (wrong sides facing each other), simply turn your piece inside-out, and iron on the hem tape to hide your unfinished seams.

4. Fold seams over, inward, then sew together

Does not work well on very thick (quilted) fabrics. You also need to have enough fabric to work with. It looks very clean however.

Turn your piece inside out to finish seams. Wrong sides (interior sides) of fabric should be facing each other. Sew your seams using a straight line 3/4 inch from the edge of fabric (or, on your pattern’s seam lines).

Now, turn the extra fabric on your seams inward (folding each piece of fabric once, to the inside). Iron these two pieces flat together. And, sew another straight line to join them together and finish your seams.

5. Using a serger or overlock sewing stitch

A serger (two to three hundred dollars) or overlock sewing machine can serge your unfinished hems. This is great! But, if you don’t have one, like me, you can find a dry cleaner’s that does. And, they will finish your unfinished seams for a few dollars (this is what I did on my first few pieces).

With love, from Dina

Our youngest little girl is going to be turning two this February, so I’ve started thinking about her birthday. Another reader recently asked me for the white cake recipe I use too. So, here it is. I’ve tried tens of white cake recipes over the years. And, this is the one I will pass down to my children. Though, it is not mine. Sometime, when I have time, I would like to make a few changes, and I will share that one too.

When I am not inclined to bake a cake from scratch, at times I am not, then I buy a box, and make my own buttercream frosting. But! I often find that going to the grocery store to buy a cake box takes more time than just making it in the morning while the kids are eating their breakfast. A final note, there is no perfect white cake recipe, that doesn’t use only egg whites, and cake flour. You just can’t get around these two buggers with white cake. I’ve tried everything.

With love, from Dina

White Cake Recipe from Cook’s Illustrated Magazine

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
1 3/4 cup white sugar
6 large egg whites, room temperature
1 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/4 cups cake flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350.

Using a stand-alone, or hand-mixer, beat sugar and butter, on medium speed for about 3 minutes. Combine rest of wet ingredients together, and set aside. And, combine rest of dry ingredients, and set aside. Butter and flour your cake pans, I used 2 9-inch rounds. Add a little bit of the wet ingredients to the butter/sugar mixture while continuing to beat on medium. Now, a little of the flour/dry mixture. Continue alternating, until done. Divide among your cake pans. And, bake until a toothpick comes out clean. 2 9-inch rounds take 23-25 minutes.

My Buttercream Frosting Recipe

This is actually an Italian Merigue buttercream. But, it is the only recipe I use to frost and decorate birthday cakes. It is the PERFECT eating (tasting) recipe & the PERFECT decorating recipe. Two birds with one stone. I actually have this recipe on All Recipes, for those of you that would like to read the good reviews first. It will give you plenty extra to color and decorate. If I have extra, I squeeze it into a ziplock bag, and stick it into the freezer, where it will keep for months. And, when I get a “Mommy, can you make me some icing for my cupcake?” I just pull it out of the freezer, and I’m done!

6 egg whites
2 cups white sugar
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature (if a little cold in center, that’s fine)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract, optional

Well, at least I am set to finish the Christmas cards this year, before … 3 days before Christmas. I had decided that I did not want another picture of all the children, sitting next to each other, smiling at the camera. Every Monday morning, I accompany one of our son’s to a teacher’s lesson prior to the start of school. And, the teacher has all the Christmas cards she receives tacked to a wall. There are quite a lot of them. And, in every one, the children are looking straight at the camera smiling. And, this is what we have always done too. But, I find something quite unnatural in them. So, this year, I decided to take a different approach. And, in doing so, learned learned a lot about pictures, lighting, and cameras.

I started by looking for inspiration. Something, or some idea, to spark a creative ah-ha moment. I always start with Google, then Google image search, then Flikr. And, really, nothing caught my fancy. Everything looked so posed. Looking through magazines from the 1930s, 40s, or 50s, would have been nice. But, where to access these? However, I did stumble upon this photo, which I thought was super.

I loved this photo of the two children, whispering in Santa’s ear. Just loved it. I initially wanted to re-create something like this. With all four children, whispering in Santa’s ears, and whiskers. But, I didn’t have anyone that could pose (and pose convincingly) in a Santa costume. Maybe, with a little more prep, I will try this one next year. It’s such a fun and sincere picture.

I ended up deciding to take an un-posed picture of the kids, dressed up, in our home, in front of the fireplace. I’m sure many of you can attest to the stress and logistics involved in taking family pictures. It was several hours of intense stress for me … making sure the little ones got their naps at the right time (so they’d be happy!), prodding the older ones to get dressed, dressing the younger ones when they woke up from their nap, making sure nobody ate anything or got into any food (I have pull locks on the cupboards), getting everyone into the room at the same time, and so on. Very stressful. And, prior to that I had to set up some lights in the room (it was nighttime so there was no natural light, and the room itself does not have sufficient light), setting up the camera, practicing with the different camera settings, and on and on. But, anyways, we have one picture that is not perfect, but it will do. It seems to me photographing children should be a job for 3 people. One to photograph, and one assistant per two children.

The red Christmas frocks I found for a steal at a little shop in Greenwich, CT, that is going out of business, unfortunately. So many of these brands going out of business, Best & Co., gone, Oilily, gone, Old World, gone. I was able to get these for less than $20 a piece. The red ballet slippers on our eldest girl, are real ballet slippers, around $5 on e-bay, brand new. We buy a bunch of them in different colors, and the girls use them as house slippers. And, the boy’s bowties I made from a brown velvet, to match the brown corduroys. But, you can find (and alter) adult velvet bow-ties also on e-bay for under $5.

On a side-note, I just finished a large wool quilt, that I am planning to gift to a couple as a wedding present. I will try to post it in the next few days, with a tutorial for anyone that has not made a quilt before (it was my first!). It has one square that is a collage of the couple, a collage made of fabrics. And, all the wools, are super quality, which I was able to find at Mood Fabrics in New York City (Carolina Herrera and Ralph Lauren wools at great prices). (A lot of the big time designers unload their remnant fabric inventory at Mood – it’s a wonderful place to shop – aside from e-bay!).

Dina

To print, open this high res .pdf file: gingerbread_men_paper.pdf

Gingerbread men stationery, that a wonderful artist created for us, I believe that this one is done in watercolors. The high-res .pdf here is the original high-res .pdf, that can be used for professional printing. It looks amazing printed on a good home color printer.

To print, open this high-res .pdf file: gingerbread_men_craft_paper.pdf

Open this .pdf file to print the above pictured Thanksgiving Turkey Hat: thanksgiving_turkey_hat.pdf

Here are some printable Thanksgiving Turkey Hats for the children to have fun with. We make Thanksgiving Hats on Thanksgiving Day, and leave them on the children’s table. They put them on, and color on them, and have fun with them. But, they are fun for any make-believe day in November. I find that our 8 year old girl, is playing school more and more often with her younger siblings, and she loves to have these types of crafts to entertain them.

I have matching Thanksgiving Paper here: www.familye.com/thanksgiving-paper/

A few years ago, I had a wonderful designer, create this theme, for a pattern of Thanksgiving/Fall inspired stationery. We also used the theme, to make printable Thanksgiving Hats (for children), craft paper, and place cards, all of which I will upload later this week. I love it because it is sweet, charming, and perfect for family life.

The children print it come November, and draw on it, play school with it, write letters to friends on it, write letters to family on it. It is one little thing that helps propel the theme of Thanksgiving and November in our house. We have a few dozen turkeys that like to wander through our backyard at this time of year – and, this helps too. It’s simple, but it’s fun, and it’s free. So, print as much you like. And, if you would like me to offer print/mail services, please email me at dina@familye.com, and I would be happy to print let’s say 50 sheets, and mail them for a small fee.