IMM: Gluten-Free Vegan Banana Muffins
IMM: Garlic Home Fries
The Recipe: Garlic Home Fries
IMM: Gluten-Free Mongolian BBQ
Last week we were recovering from the week before so Insta Meals Monday was put on the wayside. After a week of a stomach bug for Sweet P and bronchitis for Sprout, Sweet P had a fever on Monday (also bronchitis) so no IMM last. Hopefully this meal makes up for it...especially since it's actually a meal. Although, I'm pretty sure I could just eat Homemade Almond Butter as a meal.
My sister (Auntie Rosita) told me about this amazing Mongolian BBQ she made and I knew I had to figure out how to make it for us. It's gluten-free, vegetarian (vegan if you want to get technical) and delicioso.
The Sunday Showcase: Earth Day
Did you know Earth Day is April 22nd? How are you celebrating the Earth? This week I'm featuring Earth Day activities that I hope will inspire you to get out and celebrate!
Earth Day Multi-Colored Crayons from Frogs & Snails & Puppy Dog Tails
Free Earth Day Song from Daria
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15 Earth Day Activities for Kids from B-Inspired Mama
Were you featured today? Don't forget to grab a button!
Now it's your turn to link-up! If this is your first time, please read this informational post for details.
This is a fun and relaxed linky with a few guidelines:
- You can link as many kid friendly or child-centered posts as you'd like, however, links for giveaways, shops, or downloads for purchase, etc. will be deleted.
- Please try to visit a few other posts if you are linking up. Everyone loves comments, feed-back, pins and shares!
- I'll share some posts via Facebook, Twitter and Google +, while commenting on and pinning others.
Please NOTE: By linking up you are giving us permission to use a photo (with proper link to you!) in our featured section! If you prefer not to be featured comment below or e-mail me.
Thanks for joining us and I look forward to seeing what you've been doing this week! Don't forget to visit my co-hosts for additional features this week!
The Sunday Showcase: Lions
Because I love the saying that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb and our March very much went out like Lion - I'm featuring Lions this week! Sounds a little random, but I saw these two cutie patootie posts and said, yep, Lions it is.
L is for Lion Activities from Memorizing the Moments:
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Lion Crafts for Toddlers from Craftulate:
Happening on the Blog:
We spent the last 2 weeks celebrating the joy and sorrow that comes with Easter. See all of our crafts, activities and books in our Baby Bear Preschool: Easter post.
Were you featured today? Don't forget to grab a button!
Now it's your turn to link-up! If this is your first time, please read this informational post for details.
This is a fun and relaxed linky with a few guidelines:
- You can link as many kid friendly or child-centered posts as you'd like, however, links for giveaways, shops, or downloads for purchase, etc. will be deleted.
- Please try to visit a few other posts if you are linking up. Everyone loves comments, feed-back, pins and shares!
- I'll share some posts via Facebook, Twitter and Google +, while commenting on and pinning others.
Please NOTE: By linking up you are giving us permission to use a photo (with proper link to you!) in our featured section! If you prefer not to be featured comment below or e-mail me.
Thanks for joining us and I look forward to seeing what you've been doing this week! Don't forget to visit my co-hosts for additional features this week!
Preschool Book Club: Mike Mulligan & His Steam Shovel
March's Preschool Book Club was hosted by my sweet friend Kortney - who I'm delighted to introduce as my guest poster today! What a fun day full of music, noise and outdoor play! Kortney has 2 cutie-pie kiddos and a twin sister, Brooke, who guest posted for last month's book club! Read more about Kortney in her bio at the bottom of this post.
For this month's book club, we chose Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton. My little guy and I read Burton's Katy and the Big Snow several times this winter, and he enjoyed Mike Mulligan the first few times we read it. But what really hooked us was a narration/music combo we found at our local library. The London Philharmonic Orchestra preformed a symphony composed by Stephen Simon to go along with the story. It was fantastic! We've listened so much that he literally has every word of this long book memorized. (Maestro Classics is the name of the company who produced this work, and they've done several other symphonies to go along with classic children's books. I highly recommend them!)
We started book club by listening to the symphony/story narration and looking at the pictures in the book. It was quite long and harder for a one-time listening audience, but I think kids who get to hear it over and over - or who are very familiar with the story - will enjoy the music recording better.
For our snack we did a little building of our own. The book repeats the line "four corners near and square, four walls straight down" several times. I broke graham crackers in half and we looked at the four straight sides and four corners of the cracker. Then I gave them a plate with a scoop of peanut butter and five square crackers. They were supposed to spread the peanut butter on the bottom cracker, then try to build up four walls on each side. Then end result *could* have looked like the cellar Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne dug. I'm not sure any of ours were up to building code, but it was fun to try and yummy to eat.
While they were finishing snack, I showed them a few pictures of Mary Anne from the book, and pulled out some pre-cut shapes to show them. We looked at rectangles, a square and an oval and talked about the properties of each shape. I showed them an example of a Mary Anne that I built using my shapes, and asked them to build their own steam shovels by looking at my picture and the pictures of Mary Anne in the book. They did great with this activity! We ended with naming each of our steam shovels, which was probably my favorite part — Christy, Lily, Louie and Sueie.
Since the weather is finally warming up here, we took our last activity outside. I showed the kids pictures of a few other types of construction vehicles and trucks and talked about what they do.
Then I pulled out a bag of assorted instruments - a triangle, cymbals, wooden blocks, dowels, bells, etc. I asked each child to think of a construction vehicle, and try to make the sound it makes using an instrument. My directions were a little too open-ended for this age. I wish I would have assigned a vehicle/sound to think of first for more guidance, "A cement mixer goes around and around mixing the cement. What instrument do you think could make a sound like a cement mixer?" But they got to try a lot of different instruments, make some noise and then go play on the swings!
Even the little ones couldn't resist playing some music.
{Kortney is a stay-at-home mom who spends fun-filled days with her 4-year old and 18-month old copying all the fabulous ideas she can find on the Internet. She serves as a childcare coordinator for her church and has a huge heart for kiddos. While she has no musical training or talent, she has a son who loves music and fosters that love through musical books like Mike Mulligan & His Steam Shovel.}
Insta Meals Monday: Homemade Almond Butter
- Heat/roast your almonds before you put them in the food processor even if you're using roasted almonds. It makes the process 432 times faster. Trust me. HEAT them.
- Be patient. It takes longer than 2 minutes.
- It's so easy your kids could make it!
- This is by far the best nut butter I've ever tasted in.my.life.
The Recipe: Homemade Almond Butter
What you need:
1 lb. Dry Roasted/Unsalted Almonds (I use Trader Joe's)
Optional Mix-ins: honey, maple syrup, salt, cinnamon
A decent food processor
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place almonds on a cookie sheet and bake for 3-5 minutes. WARNING: Almonds will be HOT.
Dump almonds into food processor. Turn to first setting (mine has 2 options) for 1 minute. Stop, scrape down sides. Repeat until the mixture starts to clump together. Continue scraping every 30 seconds or so until it reaches a creamy consistency. Process for 1 more minute. The mixture will be HOT. Allow to cool slightly and pour into mason jar or other airtight container. Cool completely and store in fridge.
1 pound of almonds yields approximately 12-13 oz. of almond butter.
I'm not positive how long it will last in the fridge because ours was gone in less than a week.
If you don't think it's working, process a bit longer. Remember - PATIENCE!
NOTE: I've made this twice and the 2nd time I forgot to heat my almonds and the process took MUCH longer and my mixture got clumpy and stayed that way. I heated the clump of almond butter in the oven for 3 minutes and stuck it back in the processor. It eventually got creamy, but I'd recommend roasting them first to avoid this step.
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