Because we NEED to Know This Stuff

Just in time for all your holiday festivities!

Calling All English Geeks- Just for Fun!

The word 'set' has the most definitions among all the English language words in existence.

The one-syllable word in the English language which is the longest is 'screeched'.

R, S, T, L, N and E are the most common letters in the English language used.

E is the most used letter while Q is the least used of all the letters in the English alphabet.

'Town' is the oldest word in the English language.

'Uncopyrightable' is the only word in the English language that doesn't repeat any letter and is 15 letters long.

'Angry' and 'hungry' are the only two meaningful words that end with 'gry'

'Bookkeeper' is the only word which has 3 consecutive double letters.

There are 6 words in the English language which have the letter combination 'uu':

1. 'muumuu' (which means a long loose-fitting dress)
2. 'vacuum'
3. 'continuum'
4. duumvirate' (which is an alliance between 2 equally powerful political or military leaders)
5. 'duumvir' (which is a rule by two people)
6. 'residuum' (which means remainder).

Peanut Butter Cup & Candy Corn Turkeys (plus a Cookie Pilgrim Hat)

This is a fun and yummy Thanksgving project from Our Best Bites. 

I have copied and pasted in case the post is no longer available. Today is actually June 8, 2011 so I am post dating for Thanksgiving 2011.  I also plan to PIN IT @ Pinterest  :-)

Between now and then I want to kitchen test these and take my own pictures.

 

If you are reading this post it is most probably because of one of he following reasons:

1) I died (I really hope thatis not the case. If it is, please pray hard for me!!)

2) I moved far, far away and do not have Internet access.

3) OR - Sara's post is no longer available and I did not kitchen test so I am using this as a fall-back.  :-)

 These little turkeys are perfect for school parties, family nights, and Thanksgiving place holders.  At the end there’s an easy pilgrim hat as well.  I don’t really know where this idea originated -- I made the turkeys as a kid as I’m sure many of you have and I’ve seen the little hats all over the internet.  Both are Turkey Day classics, so go have some fun!

Ingredients/Supplies

Double Stuff Oreo Cookies
Candy Corn
Whoppers
Peanut butter Cups
Chocolate frosting
Yellow Frosting
Optional: Red frosting
Optional: black sprinkles for eyes

*For these kinds of things I love to use the little pre-filled tubes of colored frosting you can buy in the baking isle.  The chocolate is easy to make, and homemade actually works a little better because you can make it stiff.  However for the colored details like yellow and red, these little tubes are great.  It doesn’t really matter what they taste like and they last forever (which is both cool and disturbing at the same time.) I’m using store-bought tubes for everything here purely for convenience- works great!

First step:  Grab a cookie.  You don’t have to put frosting in there, but I like to because it holds in the candy corn a little better. Just give it a little squeeze of chocolate.

Then stuff in your candy-corn.  If you’re in some sort of candy corn shortage, you can cut off the white tips to use later for your beaks.  I think the candy corn sticks in better with the tip so I leave it on.  Go ahead and do all of the cookies through this step.

Next put a dab of frosting on the opposite end of the cookie and secure it to the “base” cookie.  It helps to place them next to a wall as they dry so they stay put.

While those are drying, unwrap your PB cups.  Take a sharp knife and cut a sliver off of one end.  (I don’t need to tell you what to do with the sliver, do I?)  It helps to gently cut in a sawing motion so you don’t break the PB cup.  (Although I wouldn’t have to tell you what to do with a broken one either, would I?)  Cut it from the bottom like I show here:

Once those are ready, flip your cookies over, but you may find it’s easy to keep them next to the wall.  My frosting was a bit soft, so they needed the extra support.
Place a dab of frosting on the pb cup, and place it on the cookie like so:

Now those little guys will need heads, so glue a whopper on there with frosting as well. I put frosting on the side of the whopper that hits both the cookie and the PB cup.  Wouldn’t want a turkey running around with its head cut off, would we??

While they’re still laying there, use a dab of frosting (I use yellow) and glue on the white tip of a candy corn for a beak.  Put two yellow dots on for eyes, and for the black spots in the eyes you can use a dab of chocolate frosting, or a mini chocolate chip, or a little sprinkle like I’ve used.  A sprinkle is really the perfect size if you have them.

Once the beak stays put you can flip them over and draw on some little yellow feet.  If you have red frosting too (usually comes in a set with the tube of yellow) you can add a little wattle.

And there you go, cute as can be!

These make really cute place card holders too, for either a kid, or adult table!  I just made little name tags with Sara's Silhouette and then I popped them in there on toothpicks.
How cute is my little turkey family?

Stick one on each plate and everyone will say “Awwwwwwe….” If you have kids old enough to handle making them, it’s a fun project for them to be in charge of.

They’re also darling combined with pilgrim hats.

Those are just marshmallows dipped in chocolate and placed on a fudge strip cookie.  Use yellow frosting to make the buckle.  (Pretty much the Thanksgiving version of the Halloween witch hats seen in this post!)

Big Leaf Prints

A perfect project for all ages -- very young to very old! These examples were created by 3 year olds!

I used the lid of my cake pan to hold the paint (acrylics in a variety of colors).  The children were free to add colors as they liked . . . . just a bit, spread around works very well.

Then the children pressed the leaf into the ink . . . . I used a big leafed plant in my garden.


Then we transfered the leaf to the paper.  The children really need to press down all around the leaf . . . .making sure to press all the way to the corners.  It takes a minute or two for small hands to be able to do this.
Carefully lift the leaf off the paper.

The results of the mixed colors are striking.

And each one comes out so differently, despite using the same leaf over and over.

Source: http://kleas.typepad.com/kleas/2010/10/leaf-printing.html

Science Tricks You "Gotta" Try

For more quirky science visit http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com
Prof Richard Wiseman's daily blog

5 Minute Chocolate Cake in a Mug!

2 large wide mugs
4 tbs flour

4 tbs sugar
2 tbs cocoa
1 egg
3 tbs milk
3 tbs oil
3 tbs chocolate chips (optional)
Small splash of vanilla extract


Add dry ingredients to one mug and mix well.
In a separate mug, beat the egg, pour in the milk, oil and mix well.
Stir into the powdered ingredients.
Add chocolate chips (optional), vanilla extract and mix again.
Put cake mix mug in the microwave for 3 minutes at 1000 watts.
The cake may rise to the top of the mug.
Allow to cool a little before eating or tip out onto a plate if desired.

H/Ts to my friend, Julie in Indiana who inspired me to search for the recipe,  SugarFish and CourierMail

Orange You Glad It's Fall?

Happy Autumn, everyone!!!

Natural Aphid Control

I highly recommend Garden's Alive's Lady Bugs. Here is their information:

Adult lady beetles and their larvae are an excellent, non-chemical way to control aphids, Colorado potato beetles (egg stage) and other insect pests in your garden. But unlike the lady beetles sold by most other companies, ours are:

• screened to remove patasitoid-infested beetles
• ready to lay eggs the day you release them
• hungry for pests!

Up to 20% of the lady beetles shipped by other companies are parasitized. So, not only will their lady beetles die shortly after you receive them, but they'll also release parasitoids that will kill any lady beetles previously in your garden.

Our Sta-Home lady beetles arrive healthy and ready to feed on pests! Females immediately lay eggs, which provide a second wave of pest-eaters within a week. And these larvae, which can't fly, have an even bigger appetite than the adults!

• We precondition our lady beetles by feeding them a healthy diet to encourage egg laying. We also remove all parasitoid-infesting beetles so they don't attack your purchased or existing beetles.

• One package of about 900 Sta-Home adults will produce more than 10,000 pest-eating larvae in your garden within 30 days! We ship at the proper time for your area or on the date you specify.

Note: We take great care to ensure that your insects arrive safely and in good health, ready for your garden. We normally ship them on Monday or Tuesday so they arrive before the weekend.

Pricing? Here it is. Go to Gardens Alive to order. This is just a cut and paste. :-)

1 pkg of Sta-HomeTM Lady Beetles (covers 1,000 sq ft)
1+	$13.95	Qty
1 of 3 pkgs of Sta-HomeTM Lady Beetles (1 package each of 3 shipments at 3-week intervals)
1+	$35.95	Qty

Cross-posted @ Coffee Grounds and Egg Shells

Scavenger Hunt & Postcards

What cool ideas.
H/T and a big TU to Bia over at La Dolce Vita. This is a copy and paste straight from her blog - fabulous blog btw!


I wanted to share two great ideas for children during a family vacation:

The Scavenger Hunt

Two years ago my husband and I took our boys on their first trip to Italy. Because I wanted this trip to be both memorable and educational, I prepared a scavenger hunt highlighting some of the things I knew we would be seeing. The night before the trip I gave them each a list of 25 items to look for and a disposable camera. Some of the items on the list were obvious: someone eating a gelato; a tower that leans; a square with a fountain in the middle; a sign written in Italian; a vespa. Some weren't so obvious: a lion carved in stone (lion: symbol of Venice and found everywhere in that city); a love letter to Juliet (the wall near Juliet's balcony is plastered with love letters asking for advice).

They loved the scavenger hunt and took it very seriously. Once we returned home they put their list and their photos in a small album . . . a wonderful memento of our trip.


Postcard Journals

On this same family trip, I wanted the boys to record in some way what they were seeing and learning. I knew, however, that a traditional journal was just not the way to go. Instead, the boys sent postcards . . . to themselves!! After a day spent sightseeing the boys would select a postcard and write some highlights of the day. A postcard was perfect because they had a picture of what they saw, and the limited space on the back kept their journaling down to a few sentences.

The best part was that a few days after returning home the postcards started arriving, and the boys would get so excited to receive mail. Their postcards were also incredibly funny:

Dear Me: This postcard shows the day when we went to Collodi . . . a park all about Pinocchio. When I saw the spitting whale, monstro, my eyeballs were popping out of my ears. Dear Wonderful Self: I went to Poppi and saw Poppi castle. I saw everything from a model of a medieval guy on a battlefield with his guts spilling out, to a real skeleton in the dungeon. This was awesome!

Dear Me: I went to Cortona today. It was so high on the mountain my ears had trouble getting used to the altitude. We sat on the steps pictured on the postcard and ate a panino. The pigeons practically attacked us when I threw a chip on the step. Dear Me: Today we went to La Verna, a Franciscan monastery. We saw the real cloak that St. Francis wore. My favorite was, of course, the gift shop!! (My middle son mentions a gift shop in every. single. postcard.)

Dear Cool Kid (aka me): In Verona I saw a Colosseum and the Piazza Bra - a bra that looks like a pizza. Not really. Anyway I saw Juliet's balcony with all the love letters attached to the wall. By the way, the Piazza Bra is a square named Bra.

Well, I hope this gives you some ideas for a memorable family vacation. Happy summer and safe travels to you!

The Tickle Me Plant

Just in case you have not met, I would like to introduce you to the Tickle Me Plant.

The Best Nest carries these amazing seeds and plants. So come on by!

What's so special about this plant? The leaves react to your touch. Touch the leaves and they will fold together for a time and eventually reopen. Perfect for you and your young gardeners in training!

You can find more information about these plants at Wikipedia

Wear It With Pride!

Purse Meme

H/T to Are We There Yet?
URL: http://arewethereyet-davisfarmmom.blogspot.com/

1. Do you frequently switch between several purses? (Diaper bags are their own category, Moms!) How many purses are in your rotation right now?
Unfortunately, I do not switch (except for a very formal event). My youngest made his First Holy Communion this weekend and I realized I was carrying my backpack/purse. Ahh well, I stowed it under the pew but away from the kneelers' feet space.

2. What kind of purse do you usually carry? Is it huge and slouchy, small and trim, or somewhere in between? Do you go for colorful and quirky or neutral and conventional?
I had a rather stylish red purse for almost a year but I am a backpack gal. I have a small one - as backpacks go (from Walmart)

3. Do you call it a purse? Or a Pocketbook, Handbag, Bag, or ??
LOL - I usually call it my purse

4. How old is the oldest purse you own?
I have 3 clutch bags from the days I used to go out to pretty fancy places. The oldest over 20 years old.

5. When did you buy your last purse? Describe it! My RED purse (now retired) in May 2007

6. What is the most you ever spent on a purse? Maybe $40.00 back before kids. So, since that was "the olden days . . . with the cost of inflation that might be $60.00 today. YEEEouch! I cannot fathom spending that these days. What was I, crazy??

7. How many pockets, divisions, or pouches are in your everyday purse? Can you tell without looking? Without looking . . . hold on let me count in my head. 4 or 5 (I use containers within the main part of the backpack)

8. Have you ever purposely hit someone with your purse? No, but what a grand idea LOL

9. How badly would someone be hurt, if you really wholloped 'em with it?

a) ow.
b) OW!

c) Silence... because it laid the offendee clean out on the floor.

It might hurt a small child but an adult would just laugh.

10. Without looking guess how many of the following items your purse contains (You don't need to identify, but you can if you want to):

*makeup items (including nail care): face powder, eyeliner, mascara, shadow and lip gloss.
I do not wear make up everyday so often I forget as part of my "getting ready regime" when going some place that warrents a "grown up" look.
If I carry it in my backpack I can fix that forgetfulness! I OFTEN put make-up on in the rider side seat!! It all fits in a small clear cylindrical zip pencil case.

*hair care items: None, I have fingers (and very short hair)

*pens and/or pencils: 2

*books/notebooks/address books/mail: Sometimes I carry my planner in there

*items relating to your kids: A couple of pictures, a buddy buck now and again

*items belonging to your husband or boyfriend: nope

*food: 2 -3 Packets of Sustain sports drink powder - to add to water. (great stuff - has more electrolytes that any other sports drink - all natural)

*medicines (including tissue): inhaler (just in case)

*church related items: St Joseph's prayer card, rosary, my daily devotional (using the White Book right now)

*glasses/sunglasses: nope

*category to be named by you: wallet(s) with all those store punch cards and discount cards.
PHONE!