I’ve just made some changes over here at jkwdesigns and switched the blog over from wordpress.com to a self-hosted site. I don’t plan to make any major changes to the blog–other than bring you some fun new content in the near future–but I wanted to be able to have more control over what I do with my site. Everything has already switched over to the new site (all the old content, links, etc.) except for YOU! There’s no simple way to just move all my followers from the old blog to the new blog, so I ask you to take a minute to hop on over to www.jkwdesigns.com (same URL) and enter your email to follow the blog. Thank you for being a loyal reader! ❤
Author Archives: Julia
New Adventures!
I can’t believe it’s been so long since my last post. So much has happened in the jkwdesigns household that I don’t even know where to begin! Not long after the school year began, I was elected PTO president at my boys’ school, and that part of my life simply took over EVERYTHING. It certainly didn’t help that my husband had to leave for a 6-week long work trip right around the same time. He returned from his trip at the beginning of November, and within weeks, he was offered a job in Pittsburgh that we simply couldn’t turn down, so from my whirlwind “term” (haha!) as PTO president to packing up an entire household and moving across the Pacific Ocean right before Christmas, spending the holidays with relatives that I hadn’t seen in over 3 years, house-shopping, and finding a short-term place to live while we wait to close on the house…all while juggling 3 kids who were battling jet-lag for what felt like WEEKS… Well, it’s been a busy couple of months!
However, life is returning to some kind of normal now. We’re settled into a little 2 bedroom apartment for the next 5 weeks, the boys started at their new school THIS MORNING (wahoo!!!), and I have become downright obsessed with what I’m going to do with our beautiful new home! It’s been a while since I’ve had the freedom to decorate and to indulge my DIY side. Seoul is an absolute dream when it comes to certain things such as art supplies and sewing and knitting, but painting and refinishing furniture and all the DIY glory of Home Depot—NADA!
Our new house, although it’s pretty much move-in ready, has so many possibilities, and it’s driving my husband absolutely crazy that I’ve already compiled a huge list of projects for the house. With our apartment in Seoul, the bright, open spaces really was perfect for the modern, minimalist style that I adore, but our new house is such an interesting space with lots of character, and I’ve already decided that I’ll be going with a slightly more eclectic look for the house.
The front part of the house is the original home, built in the 1940s, so the rooms are a bit smaller and there are some strange hallways, doors, and staircases, but it has beautiful, original hardwood floors, and the previous owners did quite a bit of renovations and updates to the space. Somewhere along the road, a massive addition was built onto the back of the house, and this space is just amazing. There’s a large gourmet kitchen with vaulted ceilings that is open to a huge great room, and alongside the great room is a massive, indoor basketball court.
Yes, an indoor basketball court. My husband, who is not a huge basketball fan, wasn’t sold on the idea of having this huge, open space because what in the world do we do with it??? But oh, the possibilities!!! As a mom, having a giant space where I could just give the kids a ball and tell them to go run amuck on those rainy, bad weather days is PRICELESS. As a self-proclaimed party-planner, just imagine the kind of shindig I could put together in that space–I just need to make some friends in the area to invite over to party with me! 😉 And as someone who is absolutely obsessed with art and design and DIY projects… Seriously, what CAN’T I do with a giant, indoor gymnasium?
So stay tuned!!! I’ve already begun collecting inexpensive thrift-store finds to makeover into fun, updated pieces for the new house. Can’t wait to share the details with you!
Free Printable: Thank You Card for Teachers
I’ve spent the past several weeks working diligently on things for my delightfuledesigns shop on Etsy. With my big boys headed off to school in just a few short days, my mind has definitely been on teachers and the classroom.
So here’s a little peek at what I’ve stocked my shop with lately:
But I’ve also been teetering on the brink of insanity while my kids bounce off the walls and have become The. Neediest. Children. EVAR. as we get closer to the end of summer break. All I can say is WINE. Yep. Wine.
So as my children drive me to drink and the first day of school draws near… THANK YOU, TEACHERS!!! 😉 For all the moms out there who would also like to thank a teacher, or two, or ten… Here’s a free printable for thank you cards with a beautiful quote about teachers from Albert Einstein. Just click on the image to access a high resolution JPEG file with 2 thank you cards on an 8.5×11 inch/letter sized sheet of paper. Select “letter borderless” for printing, and make sure that the image is set at 100% scale. Print on card stock, cut, and fold! The cards fit perfectly in A2 envelopes.
And if you’re looking for something to gift to the special teacher who will be caring for and shaping your darling child(ren)’s little heart(s), the delightfuledesigns Etsy shop has a 50% off coupon code–good until August 31st! Just enter ONEYEAR at checkout to get 50% off any purchase, including personalized items.
Enjoy the free printable, the coupon code, and THE FACT THAT KIDS ARE GOING BACK TO SCHOOL!!! I’m looking forward to it not being so ungodly hot and sticky that I can pull out my yarn and start knitting and crocheting again. Yay for cooler weather and hopefully, some new knit/crochet patterns in the coming months!
Preschool Adventures in Seoul: Marvel Avengers STATION Exhibition at the Korean War Memorial and Museum
*This exhibition is OPEN RUN with no ending date announced at the moment.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a new Preschool Adventure in Seoul, mainly because my big boys entered kindergarten last fall, and although I thought it would be easier, it’s actually much more difficult to explore the city with my now-3-year-old because I have to be back at the boys’ school to pick them up at 1:50pm. But it’s summer vacation now, and we can’t just sit at home and do nothing! 😉
The Marvel Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. Exhibition (website in Korean only) has been at the Korean War Memorial and Museum since May, and I was reluctant to take my kids simply because of the cost. Tickets to the exhibition are 20,000W for kids (age 3 and up) and 25,000W for adults, so for my kids and myself, it would cost 85,000W. However, Ticketmonster currently has discounted tickets for 13,000W for children and 16,250W for adults (good only until 9 August 2015), which kind of took the sting out of the ticket price… Plus, we’re in the middle of monsoon season. Rain, rain, rain in the forecast for days on end. And it’s about 8000 degrees in our house. We needed to do something!
The exhibition is not in the main building, but to the east of the main building, next to the Children’s Museum, which is located behind the outdoor exhibition space (where all the planes are). Tickets can be purchased at the ticket booth on site (although the discount is only offered online). As you enter the exhibition, you’re given a Samsung smart watch, and at the first station, you scan the QR code on your watch and enter your name and birthdate. At the second station, your watch is scanned again, and you get your photo taken for a STATION ID badge, which you can purchase for 5,300W at the end of the exhibition. You will also have a photo taken of your entire party before entering the exhibition space for yet another souvenir photo (5,300W). Once that’s done, one of the exhibit guides explains how the smart watches work inside the exhibition space. Your watch alerts you to missions that can be completed in the exhibition space. The kids were getting pretty darn excited at this point, until the guide informed us that the “missions” and the “quizzes” are only available in Korean. Bummer!
From there, you enter a high-tech “briefing room” where a STATION employee explains what you’ll be doing in the space. In Korean. I really can’t complain though that everything is in Korean considering that we ARE in Korea… 😉 My boys loved this small white space with laser beams crisscrossing across the floor. My 3 year old daughter, on the other hand, was immediately uncomfortable as the doors shut on the space. Once the briefing video ends, another set of doors slide open and you’re in the exhibition space.
The exhibit itself explains the history of the all the major characters. It’s all very high-tech and glamorous, but there’s a great deal of reading, which isn’t so great for my beginner readers. On the bright side, most of the text is in both Korean and English!
The interactive stations aren’t so linguistically sophisticated; however, the exhibition guides will take you through the screens and explain what’s going on. There are a number of fun activities for young children that allow kids to compare their strength to Captain America’s. My boys were bummed that they’re no where near as strong–hahaha!
The interactive portion of the exhibit includes a virtual reality station as well as a full body, interactive video game station.
My boys didn’t really have much to say about the virtual reality glasses, but they LOVED the full-body Hulksmasher game. The coolest part for them was watching their own bodies on the screen in front of them transform into Iron Man because what little boy doesn’t want that??
There are also some cool life-sized models, but the vast majority of the exhibition is digital, which makes sense considering the exhibit is sponsored by Samsung Galaxy.
My 3 year old daughter had a tougher time with the exhibition overall. Because most of the exhibit consists of digital monitors, the space itself is fairly dark. Also, a number of the interactive portions are quite loud. She started off a bit uncomfortable when the doors shut in the briefing room, but when we got to the Bruce Banner/Hulk portion of the exhibit, a large digital image of Hulk suddenly moved and roared at us, causing all 3 of my kids to run screaming from the room and my 3 year old to begin crying and shaking uncontrollably. From that point on, she wanted to be held or otherwise wanted to bury herself under my shirt.
It took a bit of coaxing for my boys to go back into the Hulk room, and even after getting acquainted with the space, they refused to walk in front of the particular screen that had scared the crap out of them.
As you exit the exhibition space, you’re given the option of purchasing the photos that were taken at the beginning of the exhibit. Prices are clearly listed, and you can see the items before purchasing/printing. To the left as you exit is the gift shop. My kids were especially excited for the gift shop because they brought their own money from their piggy banks to buy something–something small. BIG MISTAKE. The shop is incredibly overpriced, even for a museum gift shop. The are absolutely no items under 7,000W. Most things in the shop are 25,000W and up. So if you’re taking your kids, I suggest skipping the gift shop altogether because your kids will want to buy ALL THE THINGS and you will be forced to say NO to all the things because you just spent an arm and a leg getting your kids into the exhibit!
Overall, I felt that my kids were simply too young for the exhibit. My boys are 6, heading into 1st grade. They don’t read Korean, and they’re beginning readers in English. They weren’t interested in all the text, and the handful of interactive stations just didn’t justify the cost for me. We were in and out of the entire exhibition space in less than an hour. And it was absolutely a waste of money for my 3 year old!
I would recommend the exhibit for kids aged 9 and up. Kids who can read independently. And I would absolutely recommend it for adult fans of the Avengers! However, if you’re an adult fan of the Avengers and you grew up reading the comic books… You’ll likely be pretty disappointed because the entire exhibition is about the recent MOVIES (unlike the Transformers exhibit last year at DDP, which covered the entire history of the Transformers).
The boys had a good time, but even they admitted to me that they didn’t like it as much as they thought they would. They thought it was too short, and there really wasn’t enough for them to do, but that goes back to the age-appropriate thing. I’m sure they would have liked it more if they were just a few years older!
Free Printable: Simple Chores Chart for Kids
With 3 kids between the ages of 3 and 6, keeping up with chores is a MAJOR chore for me. Over the past several years, I’ve actually come to hate chores. Not the act of doing them myself, but the whole trying to keep with with my kids getting chores done and keeping track of it part. I’ve tried different types of charts, and they ultimately end up shoved into the junk drawer in the kitchen–abandoned… Because it was simply too much work for me to keep up with it! And it’s not like my kids don’t love doing chores. They’re still at the age where they LOVE to help, so I really should capitalize on that, right? I should take full advantage of the fact that I have a tiny army of helpers… Plus, there’s the whole teaching kids the value of hard work part too! Haha!
So, in my attempts to basically simplify the chores and chores chart process to a point where the kids and I can keep up with things without feeling overwhelmed by chores, I created a single chart for all 3 kids with ONE CHORE PER DAY because honestly, between school and martial arts classes, homework and the very valuable play time and family time, my kids don’t have a whole lot of time to devote to chores. Nor do I want to work them to the point where they hate doing chores.
So for my 6-year olds, their weekly chores include swiffering the floors, putting away laundry, cleaning their playroom, watering plants, taking out the recycling (only because we have to walk down 3 flights of stairs and our regular trash bags tend to be pretty heavy), washing dishes–with supervision!–and wiping down bathroom surfaces. For my 3 year old, I had to keep things simpler. She can help with putting away laundry and cleaning the playroom with the boys, and since toys seem to migrate from the playroom to the rest of the house, her job is to make sure those toys go back into the playroom. I can also entrust her with dusting the windowsills and wiping down doorhandles!
At the end of each week, the kids receive a SMALL reward for completing their weekly chores. I do want to give them some incentive for being responsible, but I don’t want them to think that they should be rewarded for doing things around the house that they should be doing anyway. At the end of 5 weeks, if they successfully complete all of their chores, my husband and I treat them to something special, but their rewards are family-oriented rather than individually-oriented. For example, a new family board game, ice cream at Baskin Robbins, lunch with Daddy during the work-week.
There are three different versions of this chart available for download:
Version 1 is the same chart I used, but the individual chores have been left blank for you to fill in yourself. Version 2 has a colored grid rather than lines, and Version 3 has no lines or grid.
These charts can easily be used for a number of other things–not just chores! You can track your child’s summer reading progress, homework throughout the school year, your own work-out schedule, etc. And the blank space at the end of each week is a great place to write down an incentive for getting things done throughout the week!
Just click on the links below to download the PDF files and print as many as you need. Please feel free to share on your own blogs, but provide a link back to jkwdesigns.com if you do. Teachers and educators, you’re welcome to use the chart however you’d like!
Version 1: Weekly Chores with Grid Lines
Version 2: Weekly Chores with Color Coded Grid
Version 3: Weekly Chores w/o Grid
Hope you enjoy the chart! I’d also love to hear your ideas for getting chores done simply and effectively, especially if you have several young children in your family.
Teacher Appreciation – Free Printable Poster
I can’t believe nearly 3 months have passed since my last blog post. It has definitely been a crazy time at the jkwdesigns household. But let’s be honest–when is it not??? I went on an amazing trip to Cambodia with my husband in March, then to my 14 year college reunion in April (my VERY first solo trip since having children–7 glorious kid-free, husband-free days to relive my youth–hahaha!), then my husband was gone for the entire month of May for a work trip, which really sucked, by the way… And why are the weeks leading up to the end of the school year so absolutely chaotic?
And it’s not like my kids truly understand the meaning of “summer break” since this was their first year of school. In fact, they told me that they didn’t want kindergarten to end. They just wanted to keep going to school. On the work front, I had the honor of designing the graduation program and the baccalaureate service program for Seoul American High School, and there have been so many baby showers lately! I’ve also been working on a new bridal/wedding stationary line for my delightful. Etsy shop, AAANNNDDDD… On top of that, TEACHER APPRECIATION GIFTS!!!
My boys have 8 teachers, so it really needed to be something that I could make relatively quickly and that wouldn’t break the bank. For their homeroom teacher, the amazing woman who spends 6.5 hours with my children, 5 days a week, we did something extra special, because, really… How do you thank someone for loving and guiding and teaching your children while also creating a wonderful and safe environment that is fun and exciting and filled with laughter? I don’t think it’s possible to express the depth of my gratitude.
***But you can try with this FREE PRINTABLE! Just click on the image to view it in full size and download. It’s an 8×10, so you can either print it on 8×10 photo paper or on letter sized card stock and trim the edges, frame and give it as a gift to your favorite teacher(s)!***
So with that impossible task in mind, I scoured Pinterest for gift ideas. I didn’t want to clutter teachers’ lives with more cute and nice, but useless junk or junk food or baked goods… I read several blog posts and articles written by teachers that talked about gifts they didn’t need and gifts that they would actually love. On several lists were the PERFECT thing for me as a crafter–personalized stationary. I sat down at my trusty computer and got started.
Some of the designs were easy because over the school year, I’ve gotten to know several of the teachers since I feel that as someone who doesn’t get paid to be there, I spend an inordinate amount of time at my kids’ school. Others were a little more challenging because despite wanting to capture both their style and their profession, I don’t know anything about their personal style. Still… I think they turned out nicely, and hopefully, the recipients enjoy them! I love writing handwritten notes, so I’d like to think that I’m doing my part to bring back the art of handwritten correspondence. 😉
16 Yarnspirations for the Creative Knitter/Crocheter
Need a bit of yarny-inspiration? Here are some projects that I’ve hand selected just for you! Maybe they’ll inspire you. But probably not. Mostly, they’ll just make you laugh. Or burn your eyes. 😉
1. To Humiliate The Dog – Because what tiny dog with an inferiority complex doesn’t want to be dressed up like a mouse? You can find the free pattern for this ADORABLE dog hat/snood/ridiculousness here.
2. If you’re an overachieving dog-lover with a penchant for embarrassing your canine BFF, then this should definitely be your next project. Unfortunately, the crochet pattern for this particular tool of humiliation is not available yet although Ravelry-users can check on the creative dog-mommy who created this masterpiece here to see when the pattern becomes available.
3. Wondering what you could make with granny squares besides an afghan? Why, a sweater and matching pants, of course! Your husband can thank me later.
4. A Ravelry search for the work “toilet” results in 150+ toilet roll and toilet seat covers and even a handful of knit/crochet toilets. But there can only be one Commode-O-Dragon.
5. I love seeing hand-knits on the runway. Makes me feel like my yarny-pursuits are creative and high-fashion! But apparently, I missed the memo because this is knit haute couture.
6. I have no words.
7. I wonder how long it took the person who knit this to get the cables just right in the crotchal region… 
8. If the hooded cabled onesie isn’t quite enough for your manly man, then surely, this will be adequate. 
10. I can’t decide if this is genius or really, really weird.
11. This is what happens when you cross a luchador with a clown and a Cabbage Patch Kid. 
12. I don’t know about you, but this guy is seriously rocking the look. His sweater vest is the perfect match for those granny glasses. 
13. I don’t get it. 
14. I want to know the secret to getting the yarn to stick straight up on the mohawk! And I kind of love the pants. 
15. Knit pasties. ‘Nuff said. 
16. Who needs knit penis cozies when you can knit a dress covered in them??? 
Happy Wednesday! 😉
Free Printables: Star Wars Themed Birthday Party
February is a short, crazy month in the jkwdesigns household. Now that my big boys are in school, I have Valentine’s Day crafts, 100th day of school crafts, and the birthdays of all 3 of my children to celebrate. All within a week of each other. 😦 I feel like I’m juggling 30 crystal wine glasses while doing the river dance.
When my boys asked begged me for a bowling party, I have to admit that I was a little sad. As a party planner, I had grand plans for a Jedi Academy themed party, complete with Jedi robes, lightsabers, training course and certificates of completion. Two minutes later, I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief because I wouldn’t have to worry about prepping all the activities and planning the menu. Feeling about 10 lbs lighter, I vowed to throw all my efforts into the invitations and party favors and got started.
And here’s what happened!
INVITATIONS HOW-TO:
Inspired by other lightsaber invitations I saw on Pinterest, but absolutely unwilling to cut out individual lightsaber pieces and construct, I decided to go with a more realistic approach. Plus, hunting down card stock in various colors here in Seoul seemed like a waste of time. (I really, really miss Michael’s and AC Moore!) I did some research on lightsaber hilts and found that Yoda’s lightsaber would work best. It’s fairly uniform in width from top to bottom, so it would provide the width I needed to be able to slide a blue or green ray of light/paper in and out of the hilt. Using an image of Yoda’s lightsaber hilt, I adjusted the size to widen it without making it look disproportionate.
Materials:
Card stock in white to print lightsaber hilts
Card stock in color of lightsaber blade
Printer
Scissors
Sookwang double sided tape (1/4 inch wide)
The lightsaber hilts are approximately 2 inches across, which leaves about 1.5 inches to work with on the inside once the pockets are constructed.
You can download the PDF file containing the adjusted lightsaber hilts (3 per page) here: Lightsaber Invitation
Print on card stock and cut the lightsabers out. You will also need to create a stencil of the cut piece in order to create the “pocket.” If you’re handy with the Silhouette cutter, then you could easily import the image and have your Silhouette do all the cutting for you.
The most tedious part of the invitation is creating the pockets for the blade. I used Sookwang tape (readily available here in Korea), which is an amazing double-sided adhesive. I placed the adhesive along the edges of the lightsaber hilt (approx. 1/8 inch) and cut the excess adhesive off. This allowed me to make the pocket as wide as possible since I had very little room to work with.
For the blade portion of the invitation, I designed a long, narrow invitation strip and printed half in blue and half in green (because I have twins who insist). And the result was an absolute hit. The kids–mine and the recipients–were thrilled with the invitations, and many of them went so far as to bring their lightsaber invitations to the party.
FOOD:
Our local bowling alley is all set up for parties; however, as part of the party package, the only food that you’re allowed to bring in is a birthday cake. Everything else must be purchased from the bowling alley. And the options are very limited. As in what toppings would you like on your pizza limited. So pizza and fruit punch it is.
ACTIVITIES:
The rental is for a 2 hour party: one hour of bowling followed by one hour of food and cake. We’d been to enough parties at the bowling alley to be familiar with the set-up, and the bowling portion of the party is enough to kids occupied, so there really was no need for planning any other activities.
I did, however, create an activity placemat for the tables, just so it wouldn’t be so bare. It contains a blueprint-type coloring page of the Millennium Falcon and a personalized word search that includes my boys’ names. There are some great word search generators online–here’s one of my favorites from The Teachers Corner.
DECORATIONS:
It’s no secret that I like simple, bold design, and since this party was for MY kids and not for a client, I was able to go with my very own personal style. Luckily, my boys don’t really have opinions on this sort of thing, and they were just so excited that everything was Star Wars-related that I received no complaints. 😉
So as my design style goes, I stuck with black, white and gray with a splash of yellow. Since I couldn’t bring in my own food, it limited my party styling. I kept the cake table pretty clear because I definitely wanted the cake itself to be the center of attention. The cake was made by an incredibly talented friend of mine who will be in Seoul for the next few months, so if you’re looking for a cake designer, let me know and I’ll pass along her information!
Almost all of my decorations were made with the help of my trusty Silhouette Cameo. I cut Jedi Order symbol stickers (in white) and applied them to black paper cups. I cut white star stickers and applied them to a black plastic tablecloth which was hung on the wall for the backdrop. I cut additional Jedi Order and Rebel Alliance symbols from black poster board and placed them on the yellow napkins on tables. The “Welcome Young Jedi” sign was also made from sticker letters cut with the Silhouette. Seriously, I love my Silhouette.
The only other decor item that I designed for the party is the birthday banner, which you can download here for free! This includes the Jedi Order symbols. Just print on card stock, cut, punch holes and string together!
PARTY FAVORS:
Since I had decided early on that I was going to put all my efforts into party favors, I knew that I wanted to make personalized t-shirts for my boys’ guests. However, I knew that many of them would be coming with younger siblings. Then, I got to thinking about the people I really wanted to thank for coming, and that was PARENTS! So here’s what went into the party favors:
For the Jedi Masters:
Each of the guests received a personalized t-shirt, which was created using heat transfer paper. I’ve worked with heat transfer paper before in the past, and I don’t love it. The finished product doesn’t typically hold up very well in the wash. The image cracks, and the colors fade. However, on the bright side, if you’re going for a vintage look, it’s perfect! 😉
For Younglings:
Younger siblings received a glow stick/lightsaber favor, which actually ended up being super popular with ALL OF THE KIDS. Luckily, I had so many glow sticks left over from our Valentine’s Day project that I’d made extras so there were enough glow sticks for everyone.
You can download the lightsaber cards here: Lightsaber Party Favor Card
For the Jedi Council:
Last, but certainly not least, I made gourmet chocolates for the parents! I had so much fun with this, and I’d actually been preparing to make these for quite some time, experimenting with recipes (particularly the raspberry ganache recipe) until I came up with one I liked. My husband and I ate A LOT of chocolate during the experimenting process. A LOT. But I think the end results were well worth it! And of course, the Darth Vader and Stormtrooper molds were perfect for the dark and white chocolates. The molds are available on Amazon.
May the Force be with you!
Free Printable: Love is all you need
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Life has been (as usual) a bit crazy and hectic at the jkwdesigns household. My husband was away on a business trip for two weeks, and again, as usual, the timing couldn’t have been better. :-p With all 3 kids’ birthdays in February as well as Valentine’s Day and all the crafting that (obviously) has to happen… Thankfully, today wraps up the Valentine’s crafting, so now I just have to make it through the next 4 days to bid farewell to this year’s birthday festivities. Then I can breathe. I can’t wait to share photos and some free printables from the boys’ Star Wars (surprised??) themed birthday party.
Until then… Here’s a little (free) love to hold you over. 😉
Just click on this link to download the high resolution digital file without the watermark. You can either print it on 8×10 photo paper or letter sized card stock and trim to fit an 8×10 frame.
Wishing you a day filled with much love and hugs and kisses!
Free Printables: Snack Time = Fun Time!
Happy New Year from Seoul, South Korea! I can’t believe it’s been so long since my last post–the past month has been an absolute whirlwind of activity. As a mother of kindergarteners, I have experienced my very first Winter Break, and let me tell you… It wasn’t pretty. My boys were BORED OUT OF THEIR MINDS and craved the daily activities, the friends, and the stimulation of school. In the meantime, I was running around like a crazy person trying to make sure that everything was PERFECT for Christmas, mostly because I know that we only have a precious few Christmases before my kids stop believing in the MAGIC of the holidays (see previous post).
So basically, this control-freak, Type-A mom was desperately trying to make sure that EVERY. LITTLE. THING. was in perfect order. By the end of their two-week reprieve from school, I was just about ready to kick them out the door and return to the (relative) calm of our day-to-day routine. Except we had friends come for a 12-day long visit with their incredibly adorable 9 month old baby, which made me even crazier because I was basically smacked in the face with baby fever and the slightly depressing (but also exhilarating) realization that I would never again have a sweet little baby to snuggle and nurse and make completely ridiculous noises and faces at–just for a perfect gummy, toothless grin. My husband commented several times within the first hour of our houseguests’ arrival that I was acting like a crazy person. He only stopped teasing me when he realized what a lunatic he looked like every time he got a hold of the baby. After a few hours of baby time, both the husband and I agreed–thank goodness we’ve both been “fixed” or we’d TOTALLY be talking about having another baby! My youngest would beg to differ though. She was not terribly pleased with mommy’s attention being diverted to the new baby in the house. 😉
Anyway, with all the excitement in the house and the fact that I was pretty much blinded by the baby cuteness, I completely forgot that the boys’ first week back in school was MY WEEK TO PREPARE CLASS SNACKS! I remembered as the kids were leaving for school Monday morning, and since the commissary is closed on Mondays, my options were limited. I sent my husband to the shoppette/liquor store and literally told him, “I don’t care what kind of junk it is. We have to send SOMETHING!” Feeling my crazy-mom panic, he assured me that all would be fine, and he wouldn’t let on to Mrs. S, the boys’ teacher, that I had forgotten.
Since Day 1 consisted of Cheez Its and Rice Krispie Treats (the pre-packaged variety that I will assume absolutely no responsibility for thanks to my husband’s self-sacrifice in the name of marital bliss), I had to step up my game and make up for my failure to deliver fun and nutritious snacks for my children and their classmates because this is the type of thing that only a crazy lady would worry about. Tuesday, I was able to deliver fruit from our local produce market (bananas, apple slices and clementines). Monday is really The Worst Day for the commissary to be closed. 😦
Since I was (finally) able to get to the store on Tuesday, Wednesday, was more fun for me to put together, and much more fun for the kids to eat! When my boys came home from school, they were super excited to tell me about what a big hit the snacks were and what they built with their grapes, pretzels and cheese sticks! Small cubes of cheese would have worked well too as well as crackers of various sizes and other fruit (blueberries, strawberries, banana slices, oranges, etc.). So here’s a simple little printable to throw in the baggie along with edible “building” supplies!
To download a PDF with 8 little cards per sheet, click here: Let’s Build With Food
For Day 4 of my frantic snack-making, I decided on my boys’ all-time favorite treat–S’mores. But without the fire and melted marshmallows, which seasoned s’mores-lovers may balk at, but thankfully, my audience consisted of a bunch of 5 year olds, so no one complained about the lack of dangerous, hot, burning embers in the classroom.
Delicious make-it-yourself mini s’mores can be made with Teddy Grahams, mini marshmallows and chocolate chip morsels. As my boys would say, “Easy peasy!”
Click here to download the mini s’mores printable: Mini Smores
And finally, to round out my week of snack-making hell fun, I made cheese and veggie muffins. I had originally planned to make these delicious and nutritious muffins for Thursday and give the kiddos the mini s’mores as a Friday/End of Week treat, but I failed to remember (until after the groceries were purchased) that my miserably small Korean oven can only handle one muffin pan at a time, so I needed the extra time to bake 4 dozen muffins. And please excuse my lack of a photo of the muffins. I was too busy taking photos of a certain adorable 9 month old. 😉 But you can take my word for it–they’re pretty and colorful!
Cheese and Veggie Muffins
Ingredients:
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 diced red bell pepper
1 cup frozen corn (defrosted)
1 cup frozen chopped spinach (defrosted)
4 eggs
6 slices of white bread (cut into small cubes)
salt and pepper to taste
Makes approx. 1 dozen regular-sized muffins
Cooking Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray muffin/cupcake pan with non-stick spray. Do not use paper cupcake wrappers. The paper will stick to the muffins and will not come off easily.
2. Thoroughly combine all the ingredients in a large bowl.
3. Spoon mixture into muffin pan.
4. Bake for approximately 20 minutes (or until tops of muffins are golden brown).
Easy peasy! 😉
I actually have no idea how well these muffins went over with the kids. My children will eat anything and everything, including spinach and red bell peppers. However, the cheesiness of the muffins mask the taste of the (healthy) veggies, so I’d say there’s a decent chance that non-veggie lovers would be willing to give it a try. When I make these muffins for my family, I also add BACON because… well, bacon. Just chop up some cooked (but not crispy) bacon and add to the mix.
Now that my houseguests have gone home and my week of snack responsibilities have ended… I can return to the lunacy of the everyday that is my life with three kids. 😉
...somewhere between the stitches... 
