The ground beetle

I found this on our family room floor the other night:

I am not squeamish about bugs, but this one creeped me out a little and I made Kiddo get Daddy to take care of it. Being a biology guy, he couldn't just kill it. He had Kiddo get his bug tongs (these are great, by the way. You can catch the bug without touching it, transport it, and release it. Fabulous!) Then Kiddo remembered his bug notebook (from art class), and wanted to draw it. He and Daddy talked about the bug a lot, looked at all the different parts, talked about distinguishing features, etc. That of course made Kiddo wonder what kind of bug it actually was. I was dispatched to the computer and told what to features to look for. Once I found something that I thought looked like the bug, I had Kiddo compare the bug in the bug catcher and the bug in the picture on the computer. We concluded that this was probably the correct bug--a ground beetle--Scarites subterraneus (Another picture here)

The beetle was released int the grass in the backyard once it was satisfactorily drawn and photographed. We'll be doing a bit more research on this beetle, however, because now Kiddo wants to know where it lives (when it isn't in our house!), what it eats, etc. I see a day of the beetle coming in our future!

Muffin Tin Monday--Themeless 2

It is Muffin Tin Monday! And this time I am prepared. We actually did our muffin tins yesterday, because we have friends coming over today and Muffin Tin Monday was just going to be too complicated! So, since we were having Muffin Tin Sunday...we had SUNDAES!


I put mini chocolate chips, white chips, rainbow jimmies sprinkles, peanuts, marshmallows, M&M's, and crushed Diam (crunchy caramel chocolate bar) in a muffin tin, and the kids picked out what they wanted. This was so much fun, I can't believe we haven't done it before!

Here is Kiddo's:

He chose to put one of each of the items onto his sundae.

Here is Kutey's:

She was all about the toppings, first on the ice cream, and then eating them plain. She is much more like her mommy!

Here is mine:

I participated, because who doesn't like a good sundae? My favorite topping turned out to be the crushed Diam I bought on a whim at IKEA yesterday. So nummy! They were cheap because their best by date is August 1, or I wouldn't have even thought about it. Now I want to go buy a bunch more!

Kiddo and Kutey liked the sprinkles, M&M's, and mini chocolate chips. They cleaned out the muffin tin after the ice cream was gone. We'll definitely do this one again!

Muffin Tin Monday--Dips and Sauces

Muffin Tin Monday?!?! Again?!?! So soon?!?!
This week's theme was dips and sauces. I had to punt, because we hadn't been to the grocery store yet. What I came up with worked, and the kids enjoyed it, but it was not terribly creative. We had chips, to dip in cheese, salsa, or guacamole. We had grapes, to dip in vanilla yogurt, and we had Mickey Mouse pasta with pizza sauce (I love pizza in a squeeze bottle. Gives you instant pizza pasta!)
Here is Kiddo's:


And Kutey's:


Kousin does not eat very well for me. His looks a little different, and he ate almost none of it. He would not have eaten anything in the others any better, except maybe the chips. I thought the pasta would be a hit, he ate one. I tried just a few grapes, refried beans, and carrots, all things my kids would have inhaled at Kousin's age, nothing. All kids like goldfish, right? Not today.

A little fun

A few weeks ago, Kiddo asked me how many Dixie Cups I thought it would take to equal a "big kid" cup. I asked him what he thought. He didn't know (hence he was asking me, duh, mom!). Then I asked him how he thought we might be able to find out. He didn't know, so I told him to think about it.

He thought about it for a while. He came up with a couple of ideas, but as we talked about them, it didn't seem as though they would get us to the information we were looking for. He brought it up again last weekend. We talked about it a little, and then decided it might be easier to try some ideas!

We first gathered our materials. I had Kiddo write down what we needed. I used the cake pan as a tray to catch the water spills, which are inevitable with this kind of thing! I filled the watering can with water and we went to work. I wrote down several questions that we wanted to answer such as "How many Dixie cups does it take to fill a "big kid" cup (the "big kid" cup is the small green one)? I then had Kiddo estimate before we started. Then we tested his estimation. We also got to compare the big green cup and the Tigger cup. Which is bigger? And we got to talk about surface tension of water. We even floated a paper clip on the water. We made a mess, spilled lots of water (mostly inside the pan, but a little did manage to escape), and learned something. There was no cost to this project. Everything we used we had on hand.

Not bad for a sort of spur of the moment kid-directed science and math lesson!

Muffin Tin Monday--Big/Little

It's Muffin Tin Monday! It always comes so quickly! This weeks theme was "Big/Little." Instead of putting together the tins myself, I put everything in bowls on the table and had the kids arrange them by size. They went from Big Bagels (which were actually mini bagels, but the biggest item in their meals) to Little Chocolate Chips. Kiddo also used his to count--1 bagel, 2 pepperoni, 3 bananas, etc.

The kids love assembling their own muffin tins. I am feeling a bit in a rut with them, however. I need to go explore what others have done again, to find some new food options! We did have mini pepperoni today, which has been well liked. I also need to get them some new muffin tins. Ours are looking a bit worse for the wear...

Kiddo's completed meal:


Kutey's:


Kuddly's (he was very cuddly today, though I am still not convinced that is a good nickname for him!):

I filled his, he isn't really old enough to understand what we are doing, but he is old enough to enjoy eating out of his muffin tin!

Some Fourth of July food fun!

I like to do something special foodwise on the fourth of July. Usually we go have a picnic somewhere and I just try to have red, white, and blue foods (usually some sort of fruit). This year, I was walking 13 miles on the 4th (I am training for the Breast Cancer 3-day), so a picnic was not in the plans. Instead we had a picnic at home on the 5th. We made these:

I put out bowls of strawberries, marshmallows, and blueberries and let the kids make what they wanted. They loved it! Kiddo has been able to recognize patterns for a long time, but we never did the "abacabac" thing. I tried it with these, and he got it right off and was naming his patterns as he made them after one introduction. He also was thinking of other things we could make kabobs out of (ham and cheese was the favorite of the ideas). I sometimes forget how fun simple things can be.

Muffin Tin Monday--Themeless

It's Muffin Tin Monday again! This week had no theme, and given the holiday weekend and the fact that I spent much of it walking (30 miles in 2 days), I didn't plan for this week. Kiddo simply went to the fridge and pulled out whatever he felt would be nummy for lunch. Oddly enough, they wound up being red, white and blue, so we had part two of the theme from last week! I made 3 tins today because I am taking care of my nephew for a couple of days a week the next few weeks while his day care provider is on maternity leave. Here is what we came up with:


Here is Kiddo's:

Kutey's:

and Kousin's (he needs a better nickname than that!):


Also, for those of you anxiously awaiting the answer to last weeks muffin tin, here it is:
O beautiful for spacious skies,--White chocolate pudding with red and blue sprinkles for fireworks
For amber waves of grain;--string cheese, yes a bit of a stretch
For purple mountain majesties--blue corn chips
Above the fruited plain!--fruits
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood,--bagels (they look a little like crowns, don't they?)
From sea to shining sea.--blue tinted yogurt

Num!

It's strawberry season!

Muffin Tin Monday--Patriotic/4th of July

Monday's Muffin Tin Monday theme was Patriotic/4th of July. I planned to go with just the standard red, white, and blue, but as I was putting it together America, the Beautiful kept running through my head, so I took a little different turn...

Here are the lyrics to the song, see if you can guess which food item corresponds to the highlighted words.

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain;
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood,
From sea to shining sea.

I sang the song and made the kids guess what each thing was. Kiddo did pretty well, and Kutey got a couple that Kiddo didn't get. She also got the ones he did get, but mostly because she was watching what he pointed to!

Here is a bit closer picture of Kiddo's:


And one of Kutey's:


I'll post the answer on Muffin Tin Monday next week!