Christmas Photos

Warning!  This post contains a lot of photos!  But, I figure it's ok since Christmas only happens once a year.  

This year we went to two family get-togethers.  We had lunch at one aunt's place and dinner at a cousin's house.  Fortunately for us, both houses were only 5 minutes apart.  We had a lot of fun hanging out with family and stuffing ourselves silly.  Here are some photos from our Christmas adventure:

(Thanks hubby for taking most of these while I played with the kids!)

Hubby, Chuck, and I wearing our Christmas headbands, ready to party (thanks Tito Ric for the photo!)

Click below to see more photos...

Making different shaped marshmallows

Merry Belated Christmas!  How was your holiday?  Good, I hope. Ours was filled with family, food, and a ton of fun.   Chuck really loved playing with all of his older cousins.  I'll upload some photos from the day's event a little later on. 

Until then, I thought I'd share this neat food trick that I learned from here.  Did you know that you can make your marshmallows into different shapes?  Well, you can.... and it's super easy to do.

Aren't these heart shaped marshmallows lovely?

Keep on reading to make your own fun shaped marshmallows...

Finding beauty in the everyday

Heart shaped candy canes 

(bent using this tutorial)

Our current car collection

Christmas tree toys 

Red and white rice krispy treats

White play dough on our black table

Happy Thursday friends!

Thanksgiving photos

Hi everyone.

Hubby and I just finished watching Sound of Music.  Wow!   That was really a marathon of music.  I can't believe that the singers had the stamina to last three hours. I felt exhausted just watching them! 

(Did you watch it?  I completely melted when I heard the head nun singing "Climb every mountain."   Wow.  Voice  as like butter, I tell ya.)


Back to today's post.  Here are the promised Thanksgiving photos.  Ermm.... looking through them, I realize now that they're mostly of food.  I gave hubby the camera for the night while I hung out with the kids.  He came back with lots of food photos... so you could tell what he was mostly focused on. :)   Just imagine some people congregating around the food and then you've got the gist of  our Thanksgiving.

Happy Friday, friends!

I took this photo before the evening's events.  Chuck just looked too adorable and I knew that the outfit would be covered with food by the end of the night.

Yum.

*Drool*

I'm getting hungry again...

Yurmmm.... pie...... I wonder what we have in our fridge to snack on....

What's up Chuck? Eately!

Awhile back, hubby, Chuck, and I had lunch with friends at Eately, an Italian marketplace in the city.   We loved the food so much that we went again this weekend with another friend.  

Oy vey!  Oh New York, I love you dearly, but I really don't like your crowds.  Eately's shops and restaurants were jam packed with rows and rows of people.  Poor hubby struggled to maneuver our stroller through it all.  But despite being pushed around,  I'm really glad we made the trek across the river.  We saw shops lined with rows and rows of yummy goodies and we got to hang out with a dear friend.  Oh yeah, and let's not forget about the food.  Oh boy, it was just as good I remembered.  In fact, I'm drooling now just thinking about our pasta dishes.  Yum yum.

Here are some photos from our Italian adventure:

Cheese and meat shop

I love the little hearts on these desserts

Cool geometric tile design

Italian candies

Fresh, handmade pasta

Hubby's dish

Chuck taking a big bite out of his gluten free pasta

What's up Chuck? Canstruction!

Hi everyone! Did you have a good weekend?  Ours was kind of a mixed bag.  On the one hand we got a chance to relax and hang out as a family... which is especially nice since hubby is still away most of the week for work.  But on the other hand, we were just so sad hearing about Typhoon Haiyan's terrible aftermath in the Philippines.  (To see how you can help the survivors, click here.) 

*Sigh*

Ok, I'm trying to stay positive here.  Hearing about such destruction and devastation reminds me to be thankful for all the things I usually take for granted.   So I'm thankful for moments that we get to share together as a family:

Pretending to be monsters

Showing off our non-existent yoga moves

Enjoying the warm weather (Look!  No coat!)

Chasing each other around the park

I'm also thankful that we were able to see Canstruction at the Brookfield Place Winter Garden.  It's a joint competition and food drive  where teams of engineers, architects, designers, and students create sculptures out of nonperishable foods.  Sculptures will be up until November 13th and admission is free (just bring some canned food to donate).   Then, they'll be taken apart and the food will be donated to City Harvest, an organization dedicated to feeding the hungry in New York City. 
  
The sculptures were amazing.  I left feeling quite inspired seeing how people's artistic and creative skills were used to highlight the very real problem of hunger in New York City. 

Have a safe Monday, friends! 

DIY Kids' Portable Stove top

Sometimes when I'm cooking in the kitchen, Chuck pretends to cook alongside me.  It's pretty cute.  I'll give him one of my unused pots and a large plastic spoon, and he'll whip up something for me to try.

Lately he's been cooking for his toy cars.  With this new interest in entertaining, I thought it was high time he got his own stove.  Taking inspiration from this Pack-n-Go Kids Play Stove, I made him a mini portable stove top.

DIY Portable Kids Stove Top Toy

Since we live in a small apartment, I'm always hesitant to purchase large toys for Chuck.   I loved this simple DIY toy because it supports his imaginative play and doesn't take up too much space!  The storage container's lid becomes the "stove top" and all his cooking toys are stored inside.

Materials:

• Plastic storage container
• Sharpie Marker
• Scissors
• Contact Paper

Directions:
1.  Doodle some burners and knobs onto your contact paper using your Sharpie marker.
2.  Cut out your doodles.
3.  Stick them onto your plastic storage container.

That's it!  Now you've got an easy-peasie DIY stove for cooking.  Pretty awesome!

Happy crafting!

Trip to Baltimore

Hi everyone!  How was your weekend?  (Good, I hope!)

This past weekend I left hubby and Chuck to fend for themselves (eek!).  I had a mini adventure and rode the bus to visit a friend in Baltimore.  We met there while we were both college students.  I guess our goofy personalities just clicked because we're still friends ten years later.  Here are some photos from our Baltimore adventure...

Fried green tomato, avocado, egg, bacon, and cheese on pumpernickel bread... yum!

Make your own gummy candies

Did you know that you can make your own gummy candies?  I didn't know that it could be done so easily until I saw this fruit juice gummy candy recipe on Instructables. 

Last week I roped my sister into trying the recipe out.  Using just four ingredients, we made homemade gummy candies in a  little over an hour.  Here are our results:

Ingredients:

• 2 envelopes of Knox Original Unflavored Gelatine
• 1 tablespoon of sugar (or more if you want them sweeter)
• 1 C of juice
• Canola oil

Directions:
1.  Combine gelatine, sugar, and juice in a pot.  Let the mixture sit there for a minute.

2.  Lightly oil your mold.  (If you skip this part your gummy candies will break apart as they pop out of the molds.)

3.  Bring the mixture to a boil.  Let it boil for 10 minutes.  The liquid will become more viscous.

4.  Spoon the hot liquid it into your molds.
 Notes:

• I placed my mold on top of a plate before I did this to catch my spills.
• I had some extra liquid, so I lined a glass baking dish with saran wrap and then poured the liquid into that.  Once the liquid hardened, it was easy to pop out a very large gummy candy.  

  5.  Put your mold into the fridge until your candies harden.  (Mine took about 1 hour to solidify.)

6.  Pop your gummies out and enjoy!



Can you believe that the recipe worked?  I was super stoked because the resulting gummies had a great texture and easily slid out of their molds.  I also liked that they weren't too sweet.  Next time I'll probably try using fruit juice concentrate instead of juice (as recommended by the original recipe.)  That should give them a more intense flavor.... and maybe they'll taste more like the store bought ones.

Happy Wednesday!

Cardboard Spaceship Climbing Toy

Currently Chuck and I have been reading books about the moon and space travel.  He loves the Berenstein Bears "On the Moon" book and Eric Carle's "Papa, please get the moon for me." 

So with that in mind, I made him a little cardboard spaceship climbing toy.  I found some lovely examples online and one of the mommies in our toddler group made a very simple version out of paper.  So, I based my design off of these.        

To operate the toy, you simply attach the moon to the wall or a doorknob.  Then, you pull the two brown tabs apart and your spaceship shoots straight to the moon.

Materials:

• Cardboard box
• Scissors
• String
• Paint and paint brushes
• Mod Podge and brush (to protect your paint job)
• Packing tape
• Straw 

Directions:
This was a really quick and simple toy to make.
1.  Cut out your spaceship, moon, and two small rectangular stopper pieces out of cardboard.
2.  Paint your spaceship and moon.
3.  Once the paint dries, protect your paint job with Mod Podge.
4.  Cut your straw in half.  Tape it to the back of your spaceship.
5.  Fold your long piece of string in half.  Tape the middle of the string to the back of your moon.  Then, string your two strands through the two straws.  Tape the ends of  string to your cardboard rectangles so that the spaceship doesn't fall off.

Here's a shot of the mechanics: 

And that's it.  Simple to make, and simple to use.  You don't even have to make a spaceship and a rocket.  What about an alien spaceship and earth?  Or a basketball player and a basket?  The possibilities are endless.

We went this route, and Chuck got a kick out of sending his cardboard rocket to the moon.


Cardboard Rocket Ship sent to the moon from Pink Stripey Socks on Vimeo.


And then, since I was working with cardboard already.... I figured I'd make Chuck some cardboard food as well.  All that flying sure gives an astronaut a hearty appetite. 

Have a wonderful weekend!  See you back on Monday.


Psst-  If you've got a ton of cardboard lying around... check out these fun kids' crafts that use cardboard:

• Cardboard and Styrofoam Picture Frame
• Cardboard Camera
• Cardboard taxi bank
• Cardboard rattle-drum 
• Cardboard guitar 
• Cereal Box elephant
• Cereal Box giraffe

Orange Peel Canola Oil Candle

Did you ever watch MacGyver?  I was introduced to the show by an older cousin, and I loved it. MacGyver was my hero.  Give him a paper clip and he could do anything, unlock handcuffs, start a car, or even disarm a bomb.


Last week, I definitely channeled my childhood hero when I made this orange peel candle:

Can you believe that it was only made out of two materials?  1.Orange peel and 2. Canola oil.   Yup.  That's it.  Super duper easy and it stayed lit for over an hour. 

Materials:

• Orange
• Knife
• Cutting Board
• Canola Oil (or probably any oil, really...)
• Lighter

Directions:

1.  Slice around the circumference of your orange, trying your best to not slice the fruit inside.  Then, use your finger to carefully peel off the two halves.  One half should have a white membrane stem sticking out of it.   Keep that stem intact! It's going to act as your candle's wick.  The other half will become a decorative "hat."

2.  Cut a design out of the half without the wick.  Now you've got a little "hat" for your candle.  (Note:  This hat is more for looks than function.  It makes a pretty light design, but ends up getting quickly singed by the flame.)

3.  Pour oil into the bottom half with the "wick."  Then, light the "wick."  It'll take a little while for the stem to light, but once it does, you've got yourself a lovely, long lasting candle.

 Happy MacGyvering!