Scrumptious Spatulatta

A key ingredient to our summer this year has been my daughters love for cooking. Let’s just say she has definitely taken it up a notch. She scours the cabinets looking for what she needs to make whatever culinary concoction that strikes her fancy. Her approach is reminiscent of a scientist; experimenting, mixing, pouring, measuring, tasting (OK, you don’t taste your science projects but you get the idea).

On many a morning the first thing out of her mouth is something like “mom, do we have any cream of tartar?” For the record I do not share this love affair with cooking. It’s taken me most of my adult life to even find any satisfaction out of feeding my family a home cooked meal, even though (to my credit) I do it almost every night. I chalk it up to being creative in other ways and for this reason perhaps I don’t have enough juice left for the kitchen. All that said, I would never let my culinary malaise damper my daughters enthusiasm. Heck, if she can make the meals around here (and love it) then I can check it off my own list. See, I’ve got motives—can you blame me?

Needless to say that when the new Spatulatta Cookbook came in the mail, my daughter and I were equally thrilled and I am pleased to report that we are giving this kid’s cookbook two yummy thumbs up! The chefs that are featured in the book are the young, lovely and talented Liv and Belle (who are also the hostesses with the mostest at the website of the same Spatulatta name). My daughter appreciates that they are girls, just like her; playful, energetic, funny and real. I love that they are obviously and genuinely really into food and are passionate about getting other kids into it as well.

I will admit that my daughter has complained that, “eeew, Shepard’s Pie sounds disgusting” among a few other recipes she’s cringed at, but that make me give this cookbook even more credit. Unlike some other cookbooks for kids, the Spatulatta recipes go beyond the typical kid’s food (like peanut butter, plain noodles, or sweets). I am happy having my daughter look to these young foodies as role models that offer excellent resources (the book and the site) to encourage her love for cooking in a way that I really can’t. The fact that these girls provide real meals for their family proves that my daughter can do it too and that fuels her passion even more. And to my delight, her enthusiasm about working in the kitchen with is rubbing off (except maybe when she is begging me to try the new quick fudge recipe at 7:30 in the morning). Because of books and websites like Spatulatta, creating fun, festive and yummy meals together is becoming a family activity for us that nourishes body and soul. It doesn’t get more delicious than that.

The Good Morning Fairy

Is it just me or is there something magical about waking up to Tinkerbell flying through your kitchen?

Soul Sisters

Here's me with my heroes (blog and otherwise) in the photo booth at BlogHer 07. Jen Lemen and Myriam Joseph are just plain kick-ass women. It's as simple as that.

This shot has been posted especially for the Cool Mom Picks BlogHer 07 Scavenger Hunt.

Can You Feel the Love?

Melody over at Slurping Life (who for the record is one of my favorite virtual friends) is sharing lots of love with Parker (of Praying for Parker) and because of her example, so are a lot of other people in Blogville.

I urge you to go visit Love for Parker and be prepared to be inspired by a courageous little boy and his family! And take your checkbook.

Snappy Kids

Do you have a little shutterbug living under your roof? If the answer is a resounding yes, like it is at my house, come get the scoop on A Little Perspective, the Kid's Photo Contest I'm hosting over at Picture This with the help of my partners in contest crime Sheri of The Little Zygote that Could and Susan of The Snapshot Chronicles.

It's going to be lots of fun. I hope you join us as we learn a little something from our kids.

Noah and His Animals Pals

Considering there isn't a day that passes that at least a few members of our family are not engaged in playing a very important game of "animals"of one type or the next, when the chance arose to check out the latest Caboodle! Collectible Toy (of the animal kind),I knew my youngest would be all over it. I had a hunch too when I heard about Noah's Pals that my oldest might want in on the action. When the delivery came and we caught a glimpse of these wonderfully packaged hand painted animals (that come in pairs...hence the hint Noah) each couple in their own boxes, it was my oldest who indeed seemed most interested. Second to me that is.

The animals themselves are delightfully detailed and each one has it's own name. My favorite is the tiny and totally adorable Derek and Delilah Dove, Universal symbols of love and peace (you can't take the hippie out of the girl). The dove pair came with an ID card (like very nifty membership card) as does each of the Noah's Pals pair. The cards are full of educational info like the animals habitat, stats, scientific name, etc. My kids love that kind of thing. And what adds to the fun is that each card has an ID code that you can plug in online at the Noah's Pet's website so you can keep track of what you have collected and what's left to collect. That's one more feature I really like about them. And that they are toys that I feel good about giving. Collecting things is cool. It gives the toys more perceived value somehow and I think helps kids take batter care of them. Or is that just me?

And speaking of...if you think Noah's Pals are something your child would like to start collecting (like mine have) they are offering a discount when you buy the whole set now (think gifts worth giving for the next year--or two). Visit amazon.com for those details. And when you do collect them all, you get a prize. Not too shabby.

Read more about Noah's Pals and what other Parent Bloggers have to say about them at the Parent Bloggers Network.

Kaboom! Kaboom!

I am not a mom who takes pride in how clean her home is, just so you know. Yes, I try to have it look nice and tidy, but really clean? Um, not really. Unless we're having company over and then, I'll clean it. So, as soon as I heard that some cleaning product called Kaboom Neverscrub was up for review at The Parent Blogger Network, you had better believe I was trying it. Although, I was skeptical.

To my delight, I have literally only had to scrub my toilet twice since installing the little miracle cleaner over 2 months ago. I know it's called Neverscrub but when you live with 2 young children and a husband...well...things happen. I won't pretend I was 100% comfortable "installing" the little doohickey in the toilet at first. I was going to save the job for my hubby BUT I decided to be a real woman about it and empower myself (yes, conquering something as silly as this makes me feel empowered--say what you will) and it really was easy to do. My favorite part about Kaboom Neverscrub is the fresh scent it gives the bathroom after every flush. No, I'm not kidding. My office is right off the main bathroom of the house so I will tell you , I appreciate the fresh smell. I really do! And I only have to replace this baby every few months which is only makes me love Neverscrub more. I kinda thought the refills might be expensive but no way. Like 6 bucks a refill (they last 3 months). Hello clean toilets!!

I got a bottle of the Kaboom Shower, Tub & Tile cleaner too and find that equally as effective. Since I'm not hip on deep cleaning, we shower with water stains at our feet. I know. Eeew. SO, I thought "what better a test for this purple bottle of Kaboom than my shower floor." I tried it once, waited a few minutes and wiped it off. It lifted the stains a bit. But since they have been there since we moved in practically (which was over years ago--double eeew) I gave it one more spray and a little elbow grease (only a little) and KABOOM! It worked. My shower floor looks as good as new! And I wasn't all dizzy and sick from the toxic stench like those other miracle cleaners because there isn't one. Another big plus. In other words, I'm pretty much sold on Kaboom now and from what I've heard around The Parent Blogger Network reviews, you might be too.

Dream Weaving

My oldest daughter has always been an avid reader. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly she can devour the latest “chapter book” (that what kids call the books the graduate into after the early readers). And she’s big on books in a series. She goes from start to finish of each one and then begins a whole new group. It's awesome to watch her fly through the pages. I am impressed with her enthusiasm as I was never one of those loved to read kids. It was excruciating for me to sit still long enough to get through a chapter, let alone and entire chapter book. I’m not proud of that, and I do like to read more now but I will admit I still have some issues with sitting down for any extended period of time. But, this isn’t about me. Not today’s post anyway.

When The Parent Blogger Network put the call out to parents with kids in the tween category (9-12), I was thrilled to give my 5th grader a chance to crack Nick Ruth’s mysterious tale, The Dark Dreamweaver. This one in particular seemed right up her alley. With a name like that, any tween would be intrigued. And it’s the first offering of The Remin Chronicles which makes it that much more appealing. Anything with the word Chronicles sounds good to me. So, I was snagged on the title alone.

As I expected my daughter jumped in as soon as she got a hold of the paperback, which proudly dons the “Mom’s Choice Award” seal on the front cover. I probed her as she read asking her about the story line, the characters, the main gist of this magical adventure chock full of wizardry, suspense, a little spook factor, and endearing players like David the main character who is a child living in the present day and the caterpillar wizard Houdin who although is little is in some “big trouble”. “It’s great mom, I love it, it’s cool,” She offers as she peeks her eyes up over the cover briefly, in more like a “leave me alone and let me read” tone than the book review I was hoping for. But, I think it speaks volumes (is that a pun or what?) when your kid doesn’t want to put the book down to chit-chat.

From what I can tell, The Dark Dreamweaver is a classic tale between good and evil, reality and fantasy, truth and imagination. What’s not to love? My daughter really enjoyed the book and is certainly looking forward to the next Chronicle (Book 2- The Breezes of Inspire—sweet title!). As a mom, what I appreciate most about The Dark Dreamweaver is that this “normal” kid David is challenged to dig deep, rely on his inner powers (courage, strength, determination, wisdom, imagination, and compassion) to help not only his caterpillar friend but the whole state of the world. And he travels into the unknown to do it. Totally awesome! And after doing what he set out to do, he gets plopped back into his regular life where he recognizes that he his indeed extraordinary. Isn’t that what every parent wants their child to know?


The Parent Blogger Network is giving away copies of both The Dark Dreamweaver and The Breezes of Inspire via a random drawing. All you have to do is comment on this post to be entered in the drawing. Free books for summer reading is good thing!

edited to add....
WHOOPS!!!
To enter the drawing you must comment at the post that is on the Parent Blogger Network. I realize my last paragraph explanation was misleading. So sorry!!

All Pharmacist, All the Time

I eagerly awaited my copy of The 24-Hour Pharmacist in anticipation for a reference book for all those crazy kid ailments that go bump in the night. See, when you have children, you just assume that everything ever written has a kid slant. I’m thinking, cool, I need another book for those sleepless nights of fevers and rashes. Was I surprised when I browsed the table of contents and saw chapters like, Overcoming Fatigue, Monthly Madness, and the most intriguing, …Really Icky, Weird Stuff. Forget the kids, this book was for ME! And in many cases felt like it was written directly to me which made me embrace it even more.

I dove headlong into the PMS (a la Monthly Madness) chapter first because well, it’s not surprise to anyone who knows me, I suffer from it (as does everyone that crosses my path) and to my delight, I took vigilant notes and have committed myself to the idea (not the asylum) of giving the advice of Suzy Cohen, Pharmacist Extraordinaire a go. I’ve got nothing to lose and something tells me, this gal knows what she is talking about. I was a little skeptical when she broke the explanations of our hormones down into American Idol terms but since I think I might be the only one on the planet who loathes the show, I’ll ignore it and admit that her pop culture comparisons did make me understand the relationships between all those crazy hormones a little bit better.

The 24-Hour Pharmacist is one of those books that you can’t help but want to read, even when the topics don’t really apply. It’s like you’re just dying to know what the real story is with this western medicine shtick we subscribe to and how someone who works in the industry is in her own way bucking the system. Or at least trying to tell the truth for goodness sakes. Suzy is my kind of girl.

If you are anything like me and you have been vowing for months to kick yourself in the ass and get a little healthier, you should pick up a copy of the book. If nothing else it sheds a whole lot of light and gives a boat load of practical info about some of the medical issues we grapple with everyday and offers ways to get a big healthy grip on them.

This review was written for The Parent Bloggers Network—who is always giving me something to talk about.

Fashion Statement

Sometimes it just has to be made.

Seeing Things

I've seen some fantastic photography lately. The fam and I got a chance to check out Illume before it left Huntington Beach. Wow. The incredible images themselves were only highlighted by the presentation of them glowing from these huge boxes on the beach. Really a sight to see.

And last night we went to an artist's reception for Andy Summers new book "I'll Be Watching You" at the Frank Picture Gallery in Santa Monica. I stood this close to Sting himself and he looked...um...hot. As I figured he would. I will comment however that I towered over him in my heels. No judgement, just observation. I took my camera in hopes to have something to post here but just felt wrong about shooting pix of him. That's just my "I hate to be gawking like everyone else" side. Anyway, If you get a chance to head to the gallery to see Andy's images (life with The Police circa 1980-1983) you should. He captured some incredible stuff.

Sweet Stuff

In honor of the birthday girl (this is me playing on your emotions), it would be much appreciated if you all poped over to Modern Mom and voted for her photo --Just scroll down to the photo on the contest page and click on it--in the Family Fun w/Fruity Cheerios Photo Contest. There's $500 at stake which sounds pretty delicious to me.

I mean, come on, how can anyone resist this sweet face?

Four Yesterday

My Cup Runneth Over

Guess where I was this fine evening?
Oh, nowhere too special. Just Anaheim...

photo of Teemu Selanne and The Cup by Jeff Golden/Getty Images

...witnessing NHL history!
The Ducks won the friggin' Stanley Cup BABY!!!

Needless to say, it rocked. Hard.

Yummy

Food Fight!

Twist and Shout

Remember this story? Well, it's that time again.

And I am really ready to party (no wisdom tooth issues). I will have my child in one arm and my camera in the other as I boogie down at Baby Loves Disco in Los Angeles. They are having the family extravaganza at a whole new venue this summer and it ought be to loads of fun.

I'm the official photog of the event this time around (scroll down and check me out on the blog--I'm an action hero!) so if you're able to make it look for the mom dancing circles around The Derby and shooting pix of all the fun. And just to refresh your memory, they serve grown up drinks. Yuuummm. Grown up drinks.

My Latest Favorite

Tapping Into the Source

Whenever I talk with a new mom I always offer the same advice; find support. Immediately. Although Motherhood is Universal, it can be unbearably isolating which is nothing you can fathom until you're in it and you convince yourself that you are the only one on this planet who has ever been up at 3 am with a inconsolable baby. I remember thoughts racing through my delirious mind about falling asleep standing up, being sure my friends with children never had it as hard as I did and wondering how it was I felt so alone. Sigh.

The only thing that got me through the first few months (OK, years) of Motherhood was my connection to my mommy friends. And even more specifically, the mommy friends that had children the same age as mine. Those kind of friends are essential to surviving. Sounds simple but it's not. At all. Unless you're one of the lucky few who's BFF had a baby at the same time as you did--green with envy--finding another mother who is in the trenches with you can sometimes seem impossible. Especially when you can barely button your blouse long enough to meet to mailman at the door. Since you're not getting out much in those first few months the Internet comes in mighty handy. No matter what time of day or night, no matter what subject you are struggling with, no matter if you've showered in the past week, there are community websites for parents at your fingertips. Bless you Internet.



One new site that caters to moms and is open 24/7 is called Mamasource. Because MotherTalk is on the blog tour train again, I hopped aboard as I so often do, this time because my little sister is due with her first baby in August and I thought it's be cool to test out the mom-community website waters for her. I know what to look for, what is helpful, what you need and what you don't and because I know how badly she's going to need support and connectedness, I want to get her all set up. Don't mean to scare you sissy but, um...it can be scary.

Back to Mamasource. From the get go you can pop over and look for answers to questions on a variety of topics that you'll really need as a new mom (from baby's health, to your health, etc). But, what I think is really nice about this site is that you won't outgrow it because as your parenting needs/questions/concerns change and grow, so do the resources found at Mamasource. Once you're out of newborn hell (sorry, does that offend anyone?) you've got solid foods to talk about, and then potty training, oh goodness, then preschools, activities, sports, orthodontists, college...OK, maybe not college, but you get the picture. Mamasource not only offers the request and response approach (where you ask a question and you get some answers) but they offer a whole other dimension of stuff that's local to you (stores, restaurants, parks, doctors, etc). As in, what gems can be found in your own neighborhood. That's sweet. And it means that you find other moms in your community (not half way across the country) that will tell you where to take your baby to get their first hair cut, or what swim school worked for them, or where to get the best cup of coffee. Coffee? I'm giddy just thinking about it.

For moms that really want to tap into a fantastic resource and actually get the chance to communicate with other moms in their area (yes, you can even plan to meet for that awesome cup of coffee) Mamasource is a perfect place to frequent and as the site's community grows, it's only going to get better.

Hear that little sister? You might not get any sleep come August, but at least you'll be connected.

Please Join Me

I will be sharing tips and tricks on how to take better pictures of your children at an evening event at the fab So Cal bookstore The First Page in Newport Beach. I will also be offering ideas (easy and inexpensive--time wise and money wise) on documenting life with children. I said easy and I mean it. And let me assure you that there will be NO GUILT involved. You can hold me to that!

I hope you can come for some information and inspiration on this 'adult only' night out. Yay! And please feel free to invite your mommy friends!

Wednesday, May 23rd

6:30-8pm

The First Page

2818 San Miguel
Newport Hills, CA
949) 644-5437

Space is limited so please call to reserve a seat. $10 per person. Drinks and hors d'oeuvres will be served. If you need more info please email maypapers at yahoo dot com.

A Mother's Question

What Makes You a Mother?

I answered that here but I think this says it all.

No matter how you answer that question (and by all means feel free to do so and join the Blog Blast) I wish you the Happiest of Mother's Days.