The Rowdy Pea

wow, january already?

I can't believe my poor blog has been so neglected these many weeks. With the two (!) moves,  another busy Etsy holiday season, and general Christmas/New Year hullabaloo, we've had more to do than time to write about it. And I wish we could say we sailed through the holiday season on a tide of time-honored tradition, but once again we tended to do more flying-by-the-seat of our jammies than intended. All is well though. We had a wonderful end to a busy year and our new year is off to a good start. A cold start too. The Minnesota cold followed us into Wisconsin apparently. Which brings me to this photo:

 

It's a bit grainy because of the low light, but this is bedtime at our house. We've put away the Christmas stories and are now reading through our collection of Winter books. The Tomten is a favorite, it's maybe one of the all-time best bedtime stories at our house. Ivo loves the cozy imagery of children and animals sleeping peacefully while the bitter cold is held just at bay. And he loves the sweet, impish Tomten who ambles through the snow in the moonlight, bringing a word of comfort to everyone at the farm. We've been saying it ourselves a time or two when the temperatures drop below zero:

"Winters come and winters go,

Summers come and summers go,

Soon you will be in your clover field." 

etsy christmas shopping . . .

Something for Ivo:

A wooden axe from Friendly Fairies. It's one of those gifts that I cannot wait to give because it is so perfectly right for him. I can just imagine all of the chop-chop-chopping he will do. So many of his favorite stories feature axe-chopping scenes: Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, the Woodcutter and His Wife, I'm sure there are even more. And any time Josh has to chop wood or use his hatchet Ivo begs for a try of it. So now he can chop to his little heart's content and still keep all of his fingers. Hooray for finding the perfect gift!

baby fairies

 

The Baby Fairies*

 

Four tiny babes, snug as can be

Nestled in the moss at the foot of our tree

In acorn caps and wooly buntings

Fast asleep while Papa’s gone hunting

Mama stays close by, gathering seeds

And all that a fairy mother needs

To delight her babies when they awake

With a supper of thimbleberry fairy cake.

*An original poem by Ivo and me. Inspired by (mostly) real events.

 

we love pancakes

We have tried so many recipes for homemade pancake mix, and this one is the best of the bunch so I thought I would share it here.

Whole Wheat Pancake Mix

Mix together the following ingredients and store in an airtight container:

4 cups of whole wheat flour

2 cups of all-purpose flour (or you can substitute 2 more cups of the WW flour)

2/3 cup of sugar (you can use less if you prefer)

2 tablespoons of baking powder

1 tablespoon of baking soda

To make a batch of pancakes, stir one egg and 3/4 cup of milk together together in a medium size bowl. Add 1 cup of pancake mix and stir to combine. Pour batter by 1/4 cupfulls onto a hot, lightly greased griddle and flip when bubbles start to appear on top.

Fun things to do with pancakes:

1. Instead of two or three medium pancakes, make silver-dollar size pancakes and serve them in a high stack, tiny lumberjack style.  Once we made a stack for Ivo that was over ten inches tall, with pancakes that tapered down to the size of a quarter on the tippy-top. He was so surprised and totally delighted. It looked like a Tim Burton or a Dr. Suess breakfast. And easy to make, too.

2. Some pancake books to read at the table: Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie dePaola, Pancakes, Pancakes by Eric Carle, If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff, and The Runaway Pancake by Mairi MacKinnon.

3. Maple syrup is one of the yummiest things on earth, but it can be fun to mix things up a little. Other ideas for topping pancakes are honey, jam, cinnamon and sugar, and/or fresh fruit. A few weeks ago we were out of bread so I made Ivo a pb&j sandwich on two pancakes, and he loved it. I would love to hear what other folks eat on their pancakes too. I know there are lots of versions of savory supper pancakes out there, but we have yet to try one. So if someone has a favorite recipe like that please do share, won't you?

 

 

a book for papa

For Father's Day, Ivo and I made Josh a book about our recent fishing trip up north. Ivo dictated all of the text to me, and then I picked out the pictures and put the pages together. When I asked him what he wanted the title to be, he said "Moby Dick" because that's a grown-up book about fishing. So here are some excerpts from Moby Dick:

To create the text, I put a slide show of our fishing trip pictures on the computer and as we watched it together I asked Ivo to tell the story of our trip. Then I wrote down his words. This was a really fun project and very easy to make.  Ivo loves hearing his story, and Josh said it was his favorite present ever.  Here's the whole story of Moby Dick:

We are going fishing.

We bring my life jacket, the rowers, and a tackle box.

We bounce the oars. 

In the canoe the fish swim under my seat.

We are rowing.

Papa casts his line.

We see a turtle, a line, and a loon.

All the fishes that we caught is model.

Then we row back to the dock.

We feel happy. 

 

We tried to make the cover look like an old-timey leather bound edition (it looks better in person than in this picture). The binding is a pamphlet stitch, which is very easy and only requires a nail and some string. Here are some good directions for making a book with a pamphlet stitch in case you want to make your own story.

 

we got worms

One recent, raining morning Ivo said, "Let's build a wormery Mama."  He must have seen this somewhere, because he explained all about filling a big plastic bottle with sand and dirt and leaves and worms. So I did a google search and lo and behold : A pop bottle wormery.  Later that morning we went to the library and checked out An Earthworm's Life which was perfect. There's just a sentence or two on each page and the illustrations are actually quite beautiful (which I'm sure is not easy when your book is about worms).  Ivo's favorite part was when a boy finds a worm "stranded" on a basketball court and gently moves him to a garden. That small act of stewardship really inspired him, and now he likes to scan every sidewalk for worms to help.

 

 

We love to watch our worms. In a few days they will be back in the woods, but for now they are sparking lots of questions and creative thinking. Yesterday Ivo asked me, "Do worms breathe dirt? Papa said the fish breathe water. So do the worms breathe dirt?" I thought that was very clever. And I got a chance to be clever too. Today I picked up a dead junebug from our laundry room floor and my neighbor said, "Ew! I can't believe you can touch that." I said, "Hey you're talking to the lady with a pop bottle full of worms on her dining room table."  She'd heard all about the wormery from Ivo so that sent us both into giggles.

flannel board: the three billy goats gruff

Our favorite story this week is The Three Billy Goats Gruff, so a few days ago I used my paper cutter to make Ivo a flannel board set. He loves listening to stories told with the flannel board, and sometimes he tries his hand at being the storyteller. Yesterday he put on a show for Josh and me. It was a hoot: "Once upon a time there were three Billy Goats Gruff." Then, in a tiny voice, "Trip trap, trip trap," A booming voice, "Who's tripping over my bridge?" Tiny voice again, "It is I, the littlest Billy Goat Gruff." Then the troll voice again, "Oh, wow, I'm coming to eat you!" This is the funniest part . . . then in the little billy goat voice he said, "Oh, don't bother with me. My brother will be along soon and he has horns on his head and will bing you down off the bridge never to be seen again." So much for the surprise ending!

a little stroll through the neighborhood . . .

Sometimes I can go a few days without the chance to hop online and visit my favorite blogs, and then when I finally do sit down I feel like I'm in some magical neighborhood going on door-to-door visits up and down the block. Sort of like a version of speed-dating but in this case it's ok to be interested in everyone! And since I love a good linky post (doesn't everyone?) I thought I'd pass on just a few of my recent favorites to my neighbors in this neck of the woods . . .

Jenny from Wildwood Cottage recently posted a slew of links to great children's book resources on her blog.  Did you know there are websites where you can actually look at every page of a book online, like you can really read the whole picture book from cover to cover if you want to? Very neat! Jenny uses it for previewing books for buying or borrowing, which I think is a great idea. Her blog is chock-full of book reviews and recommendations, and lucky for me Ivo is about the same age as her daughter CJ.  We often take her reading list with us to the library and have found some great books that way.

Jessamyn from Love This Life had me nodding along and saying, "yes!" with her Love Thursday post from last week. Which I find myself doing a lot when I read her lovely blog. I would totally sign up for her podcast if she had one.

We will be copying Denise from Mom in Madison with the arts and crafts projects featured here and here. It's so great to see these art ideas that are unfussy, inexpensive, and yet totally creative and clever.  I know Ivo will love to make those texture stones; I can almost picture them in his little hands. And another way to use all of these watercolor paintings I could wallpaper our living room with? yes please and thankyouverymuch! 

This post from Lizz at Red Dirt Mother is really perfection.  Beautifully photographed, a great craft project, and most importantly an inspiring little window into the life of "just another" creative, happy family making their way through the day together. Lizz always makes me wish for a house full of children.

And speaking of creative family living, I'm awaiting my copy of this book which should arrive any day. Can you guess what it is without clicking on the link? I know some of you will :)

OK, neighbors, that's all for today. Don't be a stranger now!