kindergardens - week 21 {pumpkins and gourds}

How can it be that it is already time for another kindergarden post?  I am sadly behind...this week has just flown!

We harvested our pumpkins and gourds this week.

Aren't the pumpkins cool-looking?  I love all of the veins and different colors on them.  However, I will hazard a guess that these will not last until fall.  My dreams of a porch decorated with pumpkins during the month of October has fizzled and died - unless I want to go out and BUY a whole bunch of pumpkins.  Sigh.   Next year we will plant them later.  And kill the voracious cucumber beetles so that the pumpkins can grow up into adults.

As for our gourds, I am going to try to dry them.  I am not overly optimistic.  After I cut them off the vine the other day, I got on the internet and discovered that you're supposed to leave them out on the vine as long as possible - they will even dry by themselves out in the garden.  Oops.  Guess I went to more work than I should have.  The website went on to say that if you cut the gourds before they are fully mature, then the chance that they will rot increases dramatically.  Well.  I waited until the vine was dead, but our gourds didn't get a chance to mature (those ratsa-fratsin' cucumber beetles again), so I may have several of them rotting on me.  But I'm going to try anyway.

I ran to Lowe's (again! - I'm becoming a regular there) and picked up some of this:

Then I grabbed the drill and made holes through the stems of the gourds:

(Hubby taught me how to use the drill this summer.  I feel so empowered now).

After I had drilled all of the gourds, I strung them up on my newly acquired wire.  I was originally going to hang them up in the garage, but the website I looked at said that they can get pretty stinky as they dry.  I figured I didn't want to smell stinky gourds every time I climbed in the car, so they got banished outside.  I ended up hanging them on Kiddo's swing set. 

We'll see what happens over the next few weeks/months!  Stay tuned!  I am hoping to have at least a couple for some art projects next year.  Maybe something like this:

(courtesy of my super-talented preschool-teacher sister-in-law.  Aren't they CUTE??).

A couple of years ago I found this fun article in Parents magazine (archived online here) with lots of fun things to make out of pumpkins and gourds.  That led us to this little guy:

It's supposed to be a cat, but it looks an awful lot like a mouse.  Either way, Kiddo was smitten with it.

We also harvested our purple beans!  I threw a handful in a shallow skillet so that Kiddo could watch them change from purple to green as they cooked (chemistry assignment of the week:  what makes them change color?).

With school starting this week, it has been otherwise been pretty quiet out in the garden.  We still wander out there every few days for a tomato or two, but it's just about ready to be cleaned out for the year, with the exception of Hubby's peanuts, which are still going strong.  We've never grown them before - I'm tempted to pull one up just to see if there's any honest-to-goodness baby peanuts growing down there.

More adventures in "kindergardens" can be found here - go take a peek!

first day of school

Kiddo started first grade this week!  He was so excited and eager to jump back in to school.

(Although you can't really tell from the picture.  He wouldn't look at me because the sun was too bright, and I didn't have time to wander around looking for a better spot.  Oh well).

He settled right in to the classroom and I left him busily working on an art project the teacher had waiting for them at their desks. 

Can I just say, that after only three days of school, I am absolutely THRILLED with his teacher?  How did we get so fortunate to have great teachers every year - from preschool until now?  His teacher this year is such a good fit for him, I am so excited.  Kiddo and I are both really looking forward to this year.  What a blessing.  Thanks, Lord!

Meanwhile, back at home, I have been frantically attacking the many projects I have been putting off until I had the house to myself.  It is very quiet and a little hard to get used to, but I am enjoying the opportunity to cross some things off of my "to do" list.  This week, I've established some order in the mad chaos that has been our craft/art supplies, and now I am tackling the house in general.  Room by room, it is going to get a long-overdue deep clean.  If I stay focused while Kiddo is at school, then I feel like I can sit down and snuggle with him when he comes home, and hear about his day. I have really been enjoying that special time with him the past few days, when he is happy to see me and has so much to tell me.  Just melts my heart into an oozy mush.

bingo

Sometimes it's the simple, little things that make life enjoyable.

Things like sitting in a Chick-fil-A with your 6-year-old for over an hour, eating dinner and playing "bingo" during Family Night.

kindergardens - week 20 {kindergardens ROCK!}

It felt rather fall-ish earlier this week - we finally got some rain and the temperatures plummeted down to around 70 degrees, which sounds heavenly, but in reality is kind of chilly when it is cloudy and rainy and damp and you have just been through weeks of temps in the high 80s and low 90s.

Since we don't have all that much left to harvest from the garden, Kiddo and I focused on garden ornaments this week.  Inspired by something I saw here, I packed Kiddo into the car and headed off to Lowe's to buy rocks.  Yes, I actually spent money for rocks.  While we have plenty of rocks around here, they are rough, very angular, and usually either teeny tiny or big and heavy.  They also have a lot of clay/shale in them, so they tend to break when dropped.  Fortunately, a large bag of pond stones at Lowe's was only about $5.  Another stop at the craft store to pick up some rub-on letters (on sale!), and we headed home.  After I rinsed off a handful of rocks, we did a "test rock" with the letter "z."  It was a fail.  We couldn't get the letter to adhere to the rock, no matter how much we rubbed it with our little stick.  Bummer.  On to plan B - paint!!

 (helloooo, over-exposure!)

I plan on spraying a coat of sealant over all of them, but I'm going to have to do it on the sly while Kiddo is at school next week.  He was eager to take the rocks out to the garden as soon as they were dry, and now he won't let me touch them.

For more kindergardens, head on over to The Inadvertent Farmer.  Kim has a guest writer this week, Theresa Loe, who writes about school gardens in the city!

And, for more posts on our kindergarden, check out the archive over in the sidebar.

jell-o day

Yesterday was Jell-O day.  My sister-in-law makes a very cool Jell-O salad that always goes over very well at potlucks and large family get-togethers, so I decided to give it a try at our back-to-school picnic.  This very cool salad is super-easy to make, but a little time consuming.

First, you must assemble your ingredients:  Jell-O, sour cream, and water.

Dissolve the first color in boiling water.  Mix half of it with sour cream.  Pour into glass dish and chill.  While it chills, put together a freezer meal (which, by the way, calls for MORE sour cream) for your friend at church who just had a baby.

While you're at it, make extra so that your family can have it for dinner, too.

When the sour cream layer has chilled, pour the plain Jell-O on top of the sour cream layer.  Chill.  While it chills, drive matchbox cars with your 6-year-old.

Repeat all steps for the next color of Jell-O.

 While it chills, paint some rocks with your 6-year-old.

Repeat for the next color.

While it chills, spell words with magnetic letters on the bottom half of the refrigerator with your 6-year-old.

Admire the photos on the top half of the fridge.  Brainstorm more places for photos, since the fridge is more than full (there are more pics of family and friends down below these).

Repeat for the next layer.  And the next.  And the next...

While the last layer is chilling, deliver meal to tired mommy friend.  Come home and pop your own dinner into the oven.  And your Jell-O now looks kinda-sorta like this:

I wish I could show you a picture of what it looks like after someone has taken a spoonful or two out of the dish - the layers are much easier to see - but it was quickly consumed at the picnic, and I have nothing left to show you.  I'm secretly elated.  I love going to a picnic and coming back with empty dishes.

Renee's Rainbow Jell-O
1 box grape Jell-O (all boxes are 3 ounces)
1 box berry blue Jell-O
1 box lime Jell-O
1 box lemon or pineapple Jell-O
1 box orange or apricot Jell-O
1 box raspberry, strawberry or cherry Jell-O
1 box strawberry kiwi or watermelon Jell-O (I couldn't find either of these, so I just picked another red flavor)
1 pint (16 ounces) sour cream or plain yogurt

Repeat the following process for each flavor of Jell-O:  Add 1 cup boiling water to box of Jell-O, stirring until dissolved.  When Jell-O is dissolved, take 1/2 of this mixture and add it slowly to 1/4 cup sour cream or yogurt.  Stir together until smooth and then pour into a 9 x 13-inch glass pan.  Chill for 25 minutes.  Add 2 tablespoons cold water to the remaining half of the Jell-O mixture.  Pour on top of the chilled sour cream layer.  Chill 15-20 minutes.

Bonus recipe - my mom's potatoes (I made some honey ham and added these potatoes and a salad for my new baby meal):

Potatoes Lorna
1 2-lb bag hash browns, partially thawed
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 pint sour cream
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 cup onion, chopped (left this out for baby meal - onion and breastfeeding don't mix)
1/4 c. butter, melted
2 c. cheddar cheese, grated
2 c. corn flakes
additional butter, melted

Combine all ingredients except corn flakes and additional butter.  Spread in greased 9 x 13-inch pan.  In a small bowl, combine corn flakes with enough butter to make crumbly (about 1/4 cup).  Spread crumbs on top of potato mixture.  Bake, uncovered, 50-60 minutes at 350 degrees.

the zoo

We went to the Philly Zoo today - our last outing before school starts next week!

Studying the map:

This summer they have had several Lego exhibits scattered throughout the zoo.  We had fun hunting for the various Lego animals and collecting cards that had facts about the animals.

Lego penguins:

Real penguins:

Lego polar bear:

Real polar bear:

Kiddo the gorilla:

Kiddo's favorite part of the zoo was the duck pond.

Hubby and I liked the baby giraffe:

Planning our next move:

It was a beautiful day - we had a break in the heat last night, so we were able to enjoy ourselves without sweltering.  And our precious rain that we are so thankful for held off until we got home.

This week we have a few odds and ends to pull together, and then school starts on Monday!  Kiddo is really looking forward to it - if he ruled the world, there would be no summer vacation.  There have been days this summer when I would have happily agreed with him, but then we've also had days like today that make me kind of sad to see summer come to an end.

note to self #2

When you hear a small 6-year-old voice calling from the bathroom, and he hollers, "Mommy, I forgot to pull my underwear down when I went potty," you know you're in for an interesting day.