April May Blog

April here. Reporting from another rainy day in the City of Fountains. Talk about a lot of water. 

Today's post shall feature New Found Favorites.

NFF number one would have to be Kale salad. Love, love, loooooooooove me some good kale these days. For all you folks who haven't tried it, do it. For all of you who have, do it some more. It's easy to find, mixes well with almost any veggie, and keeps for days even after it's been dressed. My biggest tips would be to chop everything up pretty small. The smaller the pieces, the better the mixing, the yummier each and every delectable bite. The last salad I made was with kale, green onions, cilantro, yellow onions, green pepper, yellow cumber, avocado, cherry tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes (a MUST), sprouts, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, and a light Asian ginger dressing. 

Like I said, kale goes well with almost anything, so just take a walk through your grocer's produce section, and start grabbing all your favorites.

NFF numero dos would have to be curly bangs. When you have hair that looks different everyday on its own, it's hard to want to throw in additional variables. It's easier to establish two or three looks you know will work at least 80% of the time, and hairspray the shit out of them. However, at the request of a close friend, I let my bangs hang curly one night (I was wearing a new leopard print dress, and Katherine felt that wild hair could enhance the exotic kind of beautiful I'm so desperately reaching for). Since then, I've fallen in love with my curly bangs. Not all the time- sometimes they don't curl just right. Other times it goes against the look I'm going for. And then there are days when they are just annoying and need to be pinned back in time-out. 

Moral of the story: try something new. Especially if that means embracing more of your natural beauty. For me, the change makes me feel more myself, get more compliments, spend less time getting ready, and use less hairspray. Not too shabby for such a small change, eh?

NFF number three, and the closing of this New Found Favorites chapter, is crafting without the craft store. This is a HUGE revelation for me being that I have always had a special place in my heart for art stores and craft supplies. I'm that weirdo that gets turned on by aisles of scrap booking paper and overpriced, 3-dementional stickers. I can get lost for hours planning DIY projects, and buy canvases before I know what I'm gunna paint or even that I'm going to paint. But I've recently found a special kind of excitement and satisfaction from creating with what's already in front of me. Like most ideas, this NFF came to me as a solution to a reoccurring problem: the kids I was nannying for often felt like crafting on days when it just wasn't practical (or even possible) to take a trip to the nearest Hobby Lobby. Not wanting to waste their creative spirits, I took the situation as an opportunity to challenge myself and create something fun and super. Here are my three favorites from the last couple weeks:

Flower Faires. 

This project was a total success, and has become my favorite thing to do with Bella. We walk and talk around the yard, filling up our bags with leaves and petals. After the fairies have been arranged, glued, dried, and named, we cut them out and hang them from strings around the house. Some of our flower fairies will become part of Bella's Book of Fairies (our next project).

Building Robots. 

Burke, age 4, is a special kind of kid in that he always has to be doing something. The problem is, it's hard to really pin-point what that 'something' is. One second he's a Spy Kid with a squid launcher, and the next he's a baby named 'Jack Jack' who lives with Peter Pan. Connecting with Burke is a challenge I find fun and extremely rewarding and I've found that building robots is something that always excites him and consistently proves to hold his attention for longer than most activities. He enjoys a big box and a can a metallic spray paint almost as much as I've come to enjoy the subsequent robot competition his father and I seem to have started. Now days, most of mine and Burkes conversation revolves around robot designs- secret compartments, removable brains, wheels for legs, eyes that shoot out lasers and kill pirates...It's crazy to see that what began as a tuesday's cure for boredom has now become such an important part of mine and Burke's relationship.

Recycle City

Recycle City is great because there's sooo much creative freedom and room for expansion. The two buildings here are milk cartons covered in construction paper and stickers. The kids love paint and glueing things, so, naturally, there's tons of that going on. The strip of feathers you see laying across the top is Burke's rendering of God. No, those feathers do NOT represent angel wings- he's made that very clear on numerous occasions; it's just God.

Welp, that's really all I have for you right now. I'm off today, so no kiddos. Which usually (but not always) means no crafting. Instead, I have plans to pay bills, clean house, and join a friend for Happy Hour, which may be a first for me (us nannies don't often meet up for drinks in the afternoon- although I think most people would understand the need).

Until next time, I encourage you to keep your eyes and ears open for your own New Found Faves. Or try some of mine. I mean, who couldn't use a good robot building session?