Wiggly Giggly

Have you heard of "eyebombing"?

A form of public art, you basically take those craft store "googly eyes" and stick them onto objects out in public, or as the eyebombing website states: "Eyebombing is the act of setting googly eyes on inanimate things in the public space. Ultimately the goal is to humanize the streets, and bring sunshine to people passing by."

Cute, isn't it? I think I may start carrying those peel and stick wiggly eyes around town with me!

Sharing the Kitchen

Munch is now a very grown-up six years old and I have been working on giving her more independence in the kitchen. A couple of years ago, I bought her a set of measuring cups and spoons at Cost Plus; each cup or spoon was a different color, making it easier to give her directions when measuring out ingredients (an orange cupful, rather then 1/2 cup). For the most part, I handled reading the recipes and let Munch practice measuring, pouring, and mixing.
Munch is a much better reader now, and between cooking and baking with me and her aunt, she has internalized a lot of the steps of cooking. She knows to keep the dry and wet ingredients separate when baking, that a pan should be hot enough that you hear a sizzle when something is added. I can trust her to use a paring knife to cut things up. However, recipes as they are written in cookbooks remain a challenge- they are still too wordy for Munch, and often printed in a small enough font that she often loses her place. I have taken to rewriting ingredient lists and simple instructions for her on a separate piece of paper, which helps tremendously. She can now make a batch of chocolate chip cookies on her own, with me handling the oven for her. I do however, let her check on the cookies' progress and determine if they need more time or are ready to come out.
The newest recipe Munch has tackled is a mix-in the pan chocolate cake. All the dry ingredients are sifted and mixed directly in the pan before adding the wet ingredients. It's fun for kids because they also create a hole to place the baking soda in, then pour vinegar over it creating a mini volcano.

Mixing the dry ingredients- flour, cocoa, brown sugar, and salt

Watching the baking soda and vinegar bubble

Sprinkling marshmallows over the cake batter before putting it in the oven

Recipe: Munch's "Moon Mud" cake, also known as a mix-in the pan chocolate cake, or a "craters of the moon" cake because of the way ingredients are added to "craters" in the dry mixture

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Sift the following dry ingredients directly into a 9 or 10-inch round cake pan (I have found it more difficult for kids to mix thoroughly in a square pan due to the corners) and mix carefully until it looks like light brown sand.

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons cocoa powder

Add 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips to the sand and mix in.

Use a spoon to dig out three holes, or "craters", in the sand- small, medium, and large.
In the largest hole, pour in 5 tablespoons melted butter.
In the medium sized hole, spoon in 1 teaspoon baking soda.
In the smallest hole, pour in 1 teaspoon vanilla.

Here comes the fun part- Pour 1 teaspoon white or cider vinegar over the baking soda and watch it foam and bubble!
When the bubbling stops, pour 1 cup milk over the all the sand and mix carefully until it looks like smooth mud.

Scatter about 1 cup of mini marshmallow "rocks" over the top of the batter.

Bake the cake until a toothpick stuck in the center comes out dry/clean- about 40-50 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan, then slice and serve.

Munch's Annual Interview

I've been doing a New Year's interview for the last few years. It's nice to have something to remember Munch at each age. We fell a little behind this year, but better late than never!

Munch, 6 years old, fabulous as ever!

Munch, Age: 6 years
Grade: Kdg

Favorites:
Color: Gold
Animal: Unicorn
Restaurant: In N Out
Number: 100
Vegetable: Carrots
Book: Ivy and Bean
Game: Fairies
Food: Root beer float
Place: Home
Candy: Cotton candy
Best friend: Bella

What makes you happy? When I get to stay home with my mom and my dad.
What do you love best about your family? That I have one. 
What is the smartest thing you know how to do? Like 1+1.
What is hard for you to do? Minuses because I can do pluses a little more gooder.
What is your favorite thing to do? Go on my trampoline. 
What do you want to be when you grow up? A dog sitter. 
What will you get to do now that you're six? I get to learn more stuff that I haven't learned yet. 
If you could be in charge for the day, what would you do? I would clean the house.
What is your wish for this year? Go to Marine World (Six Flags Discovery Kingdom) because I haven't been there in such a long time. 

Not yet a FOLLOWER?  What are you waiting for???

Pinch Me...Pt. 2

So the last few months have seen us getting settled into our new home. I got right to work painting most of the rooms before we brought the furniture out of storage. The house is much smaller than our last home, but its dark walls made it look even smaller. A fresh, lighter color just brightened the whole house!
The kitchen before...

during...

and after...

Dining room before...

and after...

We were fortunate that this house has freshly refinished wood floors and new windows. Once the new paint color went up, all our furniture seemed to make so much more sense than it did in the old house- what was left of it, anyway (remember, MUCH smaller house...must need to pare down!) We have beautiful hills and open space surrounding our neighborhood. I reduced my commute from well over an hour each way to about 10 minutes, and once the first day of school rolled around last fall, we were pleasantly surprised to find that many of Munch's preschool friends live within a block or two. We have so much more time together as a family, and are within a few miles of Munch's grandparents and cousins. Money is tighter than ever, having sold our first house at a loss and purchased this new one for more than double the value of the last. We're still trying to spruce up the house and yard, figure out our new routines, and have found that driving home still doesn't have that familiar feeling yet. But I NEVER would have guessed a year ago that we would be where we are today- it is so much more than I dared to want.

Pinch Me...Pt. 1

Wow. I was stunned to discover I hadn't posted in almost a year. Somehow, the blog just got away from me. It HAS been a busy year, after all.

We had been talking for the last couple of years about the possibility of moving. Both AudioDad and I had hour-long commutes from our home in an affordable part of the SF Bay Area to our jobs in the most expensive county, also the place where we grew up. The commute wasn't so much of a burden until Munch came along. Spending hours in the car every day, we didn't have much time for family life.

Still, I was surprised when early in May, AudioDad made the decision to meet with listing agents. Our house was on the MLS by that afternoon. Two weeks and an Open House later, we had a buyer and a move-out date in mid-June. The problem was, we didn't have a closing date on a new place yet!

Luckily it was summer, and between vacations, house sitting, and rotating between various family members' homes, Munch and I found ourselves enjoying our nomadic life. We stored all our belongings and AudioDad settled in with our dogs with other family for what we anticipated would be a couple of weeks. But as problem after problem surfaced with the house we were negotiating on, weeks stretched into months. When the deal finally fell through, we were within days of Munch starting kindergarten.

We quickly looked through a handful of homes for sale, put a new offer in, unearthed some school and work clothes from storage, moved more permanently into a corner of my 10-year old niece's room, and crossed our fingers. School started. Munch and I hardly saw AudioDad as our family was now split between two homes so as not to burden our accommodating families too much. We learned that buying a home in today's market was a significantly different and more complicated process than when we were first time buyers ten years ago.

At last, we received keys for our new home at the end of September. We could finally live together as a family again. But now, we were facing a significant amount of work on our new, old house.

Munch's empty room

Last day in the old house