Cardboard Mom: holidays

Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts

We continued our mini unit study of Mid-Autumn Festival by reading pages 8-12 in "Celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival" by Eugenia Chu and Y.Y. Chan. This section is all about preparing for the festival!

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Author Eugenia Chu is at it again and this time she's teamed up with Y.Y. Chan and illustrator Eliza Hsu Chen to bring us an amazing reference book for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Just like "Celebrating Chinese New Year," this is an all-inclusive guide to the holiday including information about its history, legends, traditions, as well as instructions on how to make your own mooncakes and decorations.

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Makeup artist, mom, and author Lauren Vena is back at it with her second book, "My Dad...the Best Dad Ever." This book celebrates the endearing and sometimes weird imperfections of dads that make them so lovable and super to their kids.

Like I said about moms in my review of "My Mom...the Best Mom Ever," the roles and expectations for fathers have also changed through the generations. While the norm years ago was fathers earn the money and mothers raise the children, now I see the roles more blurred a lot of the time. And I think it's awesome! While I haven't met any stay-at-home dads in my little circle yet, we do know tons of families where both parents work and both share the job of raising their children.

Just like us moms, all those dads out there haven't figured out how to be perfect parents (and they never will!) but on the whole they are much more involved in their kids' day to day lives than generations before. But we all know it doesn't matter exactly what you do or don't do, when you truly love your children they know it and that will make you the best dad ever in their eyes. Here's some proof:

Why is your Dad the best dad ever?

"He makes the best pierogis and makes us multiplayers [servers]." - Lil C, 10

"He plays games with me like Minecraft Dungeons and other video games, Nerf wars, tag, and hide and seek. And he's better at putting maple syrup on pancakes!" - Squidgy, 6

"I think Daddy is really cool. I love Daddy's really stupid funny dad jokes. I like all the cool creative things I do with him. I like when I went to Home Depot and Target with Daddy. I got to listen to Encanto and Hamilton the whole car ride." - Chloe, 12

"I like asking him cool science questions. I also loved going to Sonic 2 with Daddy in NYC. I also like throwing footballs or basketballs with Daddy." - Ben, 6

"He likes to play with us, like board games, wrestling, nerf, and video games." - Logan, 10

"He lets us have dessert and buys us ice cream." - Alice, 6

Activity: Tell your Dad what makes him the best dad ever! Download and print the Best Dad Ever Drawing Page then fill it out and give it to your Dad on Father's Day! And if your child would like their drawing featured on the Cardboard Mom Facebook page, please scan and email their drawing to cardboardmom@gmail.com with their first name/nickname and age.

I'm very excited to share my second Global Explorers GET'EM mystery with you all! I originally planned to have one ready last month but I ran into trouble when I tried to do too much. I was right in thinking creating the mystery this time around would go much more smoothly than with Korea. However, wanting to also add in a full meal menu proved to be a little crazy trying to test out recipes while doing everything else! (There were also various other ideas popping into my head distracting me...) So I've realized I should focus on one thing I want to do and if I end up with extra time I can add more. Since my kids like the mysteries the best, that's going to be my first focus!

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In honor of Earth Day, we're going on a nature hunt today! "We're Going on a Nature Hunt" by Steve Metzger and Miki Sakamoto is an adorable book that I used to read all the time with my preschoolers and then with Lil C and Squidgy! And it's the perfect book to read before you head outside on your own nature hunt!

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Easter is one week away and so it is the perfect time to read "The Birds' Gift: A Ukrainian Easter Story" by Eric Kimmel and Katya Krenina. This story is a folktale explaining the origin of the beautiful Ukrainian Easter eggs, pysanky. In the tale, winter comes early and a flock of golden birds nearly freezes in the snow until a little girl discovers them and recruits help to rescue them. The entire village shelters the birds in their houses and church all winter. Then on Easter, the villagers are astonished to find beautifully decorated eggs everywhere - it is a gift from the birds! Ever since that spring, people have made pysanky to honor the birds' gift.

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Unless you're new to this blog, you know that I love making holiday themed foods for my kids. So for St. Patrick's Day we love green foods! But since I also try to make pretty healthy recipes most of the time, we turn everything green naturally!

Today I have a healthy remake of the Shamrock Shake without any vanilla ice cream or food coloring. And while my kids would probably enjoy the ice cream version, they love this one enough that I've never made them the sugar-loaded one.

I have two versions of the recipe for you today, a regular smoothie and a thicker version for smoothie bowls. Try them both ways, either way it'll be delicious!

Shamrock Smoothie

Makes 2 small and 1 large glass of smoothie

In the pitcher of a high powered blender combine 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk, 1 frozen banana, 1/2 cup frozen mango, 2 cups baby spinach, and 10 fresh mint leaves*. Pour into glasses and top with whipped cream and gold sprinkles if you want to be a little extra festive!

*Since there are always way more than 10 mint leaves in the bunch you buy from the store, I freeze the extra. Simply give 10 leaves a rough chop before tossing them into the cup in an ice cube tray then fill with water. Repeat with however many mint leaves you have. Once they're frozen, I keep the cubes in a bag in the freezer and if I want to make the Shamrock Smoothie I can just throw one cube into the blender with everything else!

Shamrock Smoothie Bowl

In the bowl of a food processor combine 1/2-2/3 cup vanilla Greek yogurt (I use Oikos triple zero), 1/4 cup water, 1 frozen banana, 1 cup frozen mango, 2 cups baby spinach, and 10 fresh mint leaves. Blend until smooth.

We topped ours with chia seeds, chopped cashews, gold coin sprinkles, and mini chocolate chips.

Note: If your kids - or you - want it extra smooth without any tiny bits of spinach, blend the liquid and spinach by themselves before adding everything else. That will help it have a more uniform look.

For another delicious green recipe, check out Naturally Green Spinach Crepes.

Today is the last day of Chinese New Year, the day of the Lantern Festival! We've finished reading "Celebrating Chinese New Year" by Eugenia Chu and Javiera Mac-lean and used it for inspiration to end this 15 day celebration with a bang!

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We made paper bag dragon puppets for the Dragon Dance. The dragon printouts we used came from Pink Stripey Socks.

We also made some paper lanterns to decorate our school area even more. Lil C turned her lantern into a tiger lantern - I think it came out adorable!

After reading the "Around the World" section and finding out they have dragon boat races in Sydney, Australia, we just had to make a dragon boat! The benefit of having a GIANT Lego collection is you can build a dragon boat without needing to buy the set! Thank you Lego for having downloadable building instructions!

I don't know if we have enough specialty pieces to build another one, but we at least got one dragon boat! I love it and think it's so fun and the kids think it's hysterical that there's a croissant as the dragon's nose!

It is VERY cold here today, but if we're brave enough we'll go out on the patio under the full moon tonight and light a couple of sparklers!

I want to send Eugenia Chu another HUGE thank you for sharing her awesome book, "Celebrating Chinese New Year: History, Traditions, and Activities" with us. We loved learning all about the holiday and the different ways people celebrate in China and across the world!

Check out the rest of our Chinese New Year fun!

Chinese New Year Mini Unit Day 1

Chinese New Year Mini Unit Day 2

My kids are super into mysteries and anything involving escape-room like puzzles. So I decided to make them work for their Valentine's treats!

To start, I left a red envelope on the kitchen counter. But instead of finding a Valentine card, they discovered this letter.

Lil C realized right away that some of the letters were underlined so she grabbed a pencil and began writing down everything that was underlined. The underlined letters spell "intheclosete2" or "in the closet e2." The e2 doesn't make much sense now, but it will soon. In hindsight, when 2 letters next to each other were both underlined it was easy to miss a letter. Next time I might capitalize the letters instead of underlining.

Anyway, so they went searching closets. Eventually they found this hanging inside the door of one of the closets.

This is where the "e2" comes in. You have to spin the inner wheel until the 2 lines up with the letter E. Then you can figure out the message below: DUPLOS.

Inside the box of Duplos, the kids found a magnifying glass and a small piece of paper with pictures on it.

After close inspection, Lil C and Squidgy eventually realized that there were pink ovals around all the teddy bears. So they ran off to search through their immense collection of stuffed animals.

There was a piece of paper tucked behind a teddy bear in Squidgy's closet. And if you look closely, you'll see the end of a spy pen sticking out next to the pelican's head. The paper appeared blank, but Lil C quickly caught on that there was probably an invisible message on it! And she was right!

My drawing leaves a little to be desired, but after debating if they were stockings, socks, or boots, they agreed that boots sounded like the most likely option. So off they ran to find some boots.

Near the front door were several pairs of shoes, including a pair of my boots. Inside Lil C found a key with a note attached. Only the note was a little hard to read...

Lil C realized it was backwards and luckily we have mirrored closet doors ALL over the house so she didn't have to go far to find a mirror.

On the kitchen table they found this piece of paper and a bowl of M&Ms. Squidgy tried to eat the M&Ms but Lil C made him stop because she realized the number of M&Ms must be key to cracking this clue. They counted 12 orange M&Ms, 15 yellow M&Ms, and 14 red M&Ms which spelled out "BED." Back upstairs we go! But whose bed is it??

Hmm...there's a suitcase on Mommy and Daddy's bed. And it's locked! Where's that key?

Finally! Success and Valentine treasures!

To set up your own Valentine treasure hunt, grab the printables here:

Valentine Treasure Hunt

In addition to the printables you will need: a magnifying glass, spy pen, white paper with drawing of boots in invisible ink (if you don't have a spy pen you can always use a white crayon and leave some watercolors nearby), colored candies, a small lock with a key, and something to be locked like a suitcase. Happy hunting!

I never made a big deal out of Valentine's Day...until I had kids. Kids seriously bring new meaning to every holiday - even the random silly ones like ice cream for breakfast day and silly sock day! It's become a tradition now that every year I make some fun Valentine-themed meals for everyone.

Above you can see our I<3U breakfasts - sliced strawberries, heart shaped pancakes, and bacon or sausage U's.

This year I made heart shaped cinnamon rolls - Squidgy actually asked me a few days ago if I could make bloody guts again so I figured I'd give the cinnamon rolls a Valentine twist instead. To make the hearts you unroll the bun halfway, then coil the loose end. Try to pinch the bottoms to get a sharp point because the rolls have a habit of curving in while they bake.

I served the heart rolls with bacon (that I attempted to shape into hearts!) and berry sauce. The berry sauce is super easy to make - all recipes are at the end of this post.

If you want something a little more on the healthy side, this pink smoothie bowl is for you! Full of delicious fruits, it's naturally sweet and beautiful! Scroll down for the recipe.

Easy Berry Sauce

Place 3 cups frozen berries* in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Cover and heat 5-10 minutes until the berries are thawed and softened. Mash the berries lightly. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 teaspoon of cornstarch and stir together. Bring to boil, simmer 1 minute, then turn off the heat. Add in a tiny splash of lemon juice and give it a final stir before pouring on top of your cinnamon rolls, pancakes, waffles, or French toast!

*Note: you can use a single type of berry or a mix.

Pretty in Pink Smoothie Bowl

In a food processor, combine the following:

- 2 frozen bananas, broken into chunks (if you want a thinner smoothie base, use 1 1/2 bananas - as is, this recipe has the consistency of ice cream)

- 1 cup raspberries

- 1/3 cup blueberries

- 1/4 cup walnuts

- 1-2 tablespoons maple syrup (optional)

- 1/2 cup milk

- topping ideas: chia seeds, shredded coconuts, mini chocolate chips, nut butter

Blend until everything you have a smooth uniform consistency. Top as desired.

We continued with our Chinese New Year mini unit study today, reading the section on how people prepare for the Lunar New Year and common foods that are made in "Celebrating Chinese New Year" by Eugenia Chu.

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When author Eugenia Chu sent me a copy of her new book, "Celebrating Chinese New Year" I knew it would be the perfect base for a mini unit on Chinese New Year! This is an all inclusive guide to Chinese New Year - it includes history, background, legends, and an introduction to common traditions and foods. At the end of the book, Eugenia also includes a bunch of activities like making your own paper lanterns, dragon puppets, as well as her mother's famous jiăozi recipe!

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I'm sharing this one a day early because tomorrow is our first every virtual art show!! Come back tomorrow at 6pm EST to see the amazing art our little ocean protectors have created!

Note: You can download a calendar with all the books for the month at the bottom of this page. I looked for books that were awesome and also easily accessible - I'm pretty sure I found all but one as read alouds on YouTube and, all books are available for purchase on Amazon and other book retailers, and I was able to find most of them at my public library.

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1. "The Wild Christmas Reindeer" by Jan Brett

This is the last Jan Brett book on this list, promise! I can't help it! "The Wild Christmas Reindeer" tells the story of little Teeka who is trying to get the reindeer ready for Christmas. She tries being firm and bossy, but her yelling only gets the reindeer into a tangled mess! Will she find a better method before Christmas Eve? (This is a great reminder to all us parents out there who sometimes forget and think that being firm and bossy is the best way to raise our children...but those strategies don't usually tend to work so well in the end.)

"The Wild Christmas Reindeer" read aloud video

2. "A Christmas Spider's Miracle" by Trinka Hakes Noble and Stephen Costanza

This story is based on a beautiful Ukrainian folktale that I grew up hearing - and why there is always a spiderweb ornament on our Christmas tree! A poor peasant mother wants to give her children a magical Christmas, but she has very little. She goes to the forest to get a small tree and doesn't realize there's a family living in it! The mother spider sees a kindred soul just trying to provide for and love her family and spends the night spinning beautiful web decorations for the tree. In the morning the tree sparkles and shines!

"A Christmas Spider's Miracle" read aloud video

3. "La Noche Buena: A Christmas Story" by Antonio Sacre and Angela Dominguez

This story is about a little girl who is accustomed to spending Christmas in snowy New England with her mom's family but is going down to hot Miami to spend Christmas with her Cuban father and his family. At first she's very disappointed that Christmas won't be like normal, but as she starts getting involved with preparations and celebrations, she learns that different does not have to be bad.

"La Noche Buena" read aloud video

4. "Room for a Little One" by Martin Waddell and Jason Cockcroft

This is our favorite nativity story! This story is told from the animals' perspective who, unlike all the people living in Bethlehem, gladly make room for Mary and Joseph and welcome little Jesus into the world. For me, it's not only a sweet story about the birth of Jesus, but a nice reminder that all the amazing animals in this world deserve our care and respect.

"Room for a Little One" read aloud video

5. "Together for Kwanzaa" by Juwanda G. Ford and Shelly Hehenberger

This is a great story to introduce you to the African-American holiday of Kwanzaa and the seven principles which are celebrated during the 7-days of festivities.

"Together for Kwanzaa" read aloud video and activity

6. "My First Kwanzaa" by Karen Katz

This is another cute story which introduces you to the holiday and traditions of Kwanzaa. This story is better suited for younger children as it explains things simply and clearly.

"My First Kwanzaa" read aloud video

7. "Seven Spools of Thread" by Angela Shelf Medearis and Daniel Minter

This book waves the seven principles of Kwanzaa into a story that reads like an old African folktale. There are seven brothers whose fighting makes life miserable! When their father dies, his will states that they have until sundown to turn 7 spools of thread into gold or they will be denied their inheritance. Will the brothers figure out how to work together?

"Seven Spools of Thread" read aloud video

If you want to keep track of which books you've read and look ahead to the rest of the month, download our printable Holiday Read Aloud Calendar - December 2021. And if you're looking for some fun activities to do as a family this month, check out the Holiday Activity Calendar.

I hope you and your family have lots of cozy cuddly story time this holiday season!

31 Days of Holiday Read Alouds:

Winter will be here in a week and so will our Virtual Art Show to benefit Team Seas! I can't wait to share all the amazing artwork with you all! But first, books for week 3!

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1. "Snowflake Bentley" by Jacqueline Briggs Martin and Mary Azarian

"Snowflake Bentley" tells the story of Wilson Bentley, a man who lived over 100 years ago and whose passion it was to observe and learn about snowflakes. He was the first person to ever photograph a single snow crystal! He was a pioneer in the field of photomicrography and photographed over 5000 snowflakes during his life - and never found two that looked the same!

"Snowflake Bentley" read aloud video

2. "The Night of Las Posadas" by Tomie dePaola

Las Posadas are a Mexican celebration of the Christmas story taking place the evenings of December 16-24. The celebrations commemorate the journey of Mary and Joseph and their search for an inn (the word posada means inn) and involves people reenacting the search and finally being admitted - there are also food and drinks and music and piñatas involved!

"The Night of Las Posadas" read aloud video

3. "The Tomten" by Astrid Lindgren

The tomte (singular of tomten) is a character in Scandanavian folklore. He is a little gnome-like creature who looks after the animals of a farm during the winter. He does his work at night and is unseen by people. "The Tomten" is a beautiful story introducing us all to this adorable little guy.

"The Tomten" read aloud video

4. "Gingerbread Christmas" by Jan Brett

Jan Brett has so many wonderful holiday and wintery I just had to include a few on this list! In "Gingerbread Baby," we are introduced to Matti and the gingerbread baby he saves from getting eaten by hungry townsfolk and animals. In "Gingerbread Friends" Matti creates a special surprise for Gingerbread Baby, who is longing for some friends. And finally, in "Gingerbread Christmas," Matti brings all the gingerbread friends - who have now formed a band - to perform at the Christmas festival. But what will happen once all the children start smelling the delicious gingerbread and their tummies begin to rumble??

"Gingerbread Christmas" read aloud video

5. "Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve?" by Jan Brett

I told you! Jan Brett has so many cute books! This is a Scandanavian tale about a family whose house was plagued with trolls every Christmas Eve. They would find their way into the house and eat up their feast! But this year, a boy and his ice bear are traveling to Oslo and stop by the house, looking for a warm place to stop. What will happen when the trolls show up and find an ice bear waiting??

"Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve?" read aloud video

6. "Night Tree" by Eve Bunting and Ted Rand

We LOVE this story! Read along as a family takes a moonlit trip into the woods to find a tree to decorate with popcorn, fruits, and seeds for the wildlife. It has inspired us to make our own edible ornaments for trees in our yard for our backyard friends.

Read aloud video and ideas for edible ornaments

7. "A Coyote Solstice Tale" by Thomas King and Gary Clement

"A Coyote Solstice Tale" is a Native American story about trickster Coyote who is having his friends over for a solstice party and is surprised to find a girl knocking on his door! She leads the animals to where she came from - a mall! See what happens when this group of forest animals discovers experiences the overwhelming store full of people and noise and...stuff!

"A Coyote Solstice Tale" read aloud video

I hope you and your family have lots of cozy cuddly story time this holiday season!

31 Days of Holiday Read Alouds:

Welcome to week 2 of our 31 days of holiday read alouds! If you missed the books for week 1, you can find them here!

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1. "The Wish Tree" by Kyo Maclear and Chris Turnham

This book is just too cute! It tells the story of Charles, who is searching for a wish tree - which his brother and sister don't think exists. He brings along his trusty friend Boggan (which is really his sled). I absolutely love when Boggan adds to Charles's conversation with a little "wisssssh" here and there. Charles and Boggan meet many woodland friends along the way and it's simply a sweet and magical story.

Read aloud video

2. "Annual Toy Drive: The Underground Toy Society" by Jessica D. Adams

The Underground Toy Society helps toys find new homes. When they discover a holiday toy donation bin in a toy store, they think they have the perfect solution! But the bin says new toys only! Will the Society figure out a way to help the forgotten toys find new homes for Christmas?

The Kindle version is free to purchase right now so make sure to grab a copy!

Read aloud video

3. "Too Many Tamales" by Gary Soto and Ed Martinez

This is a silly story that will make kids giggle as Maria tries on her mom's ring while making tamales for Christmas Eve and then discovers the ring missing! Could it be in one of the tamales?? How will she ever find it? Read along and find out how Maria and her cousins search for the missing ring.

"Too Many Tamales" read aloud video

4. "Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter" by Kenard Park

"Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter" is a simple and sweet story about the changes in nature that occur at the change of the seasons.

"Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter" read aloud video

5. "Sun Bread" by Elisa Kleven

This is one of my favorite books for the winter solstice. In response to the dreary winter grayness, the town baker makes a sun bread. The hot, delicious bread brings all the townspeople out of their homes and even brings the sun out, brightening everyone's winter! The book includes a recipe for sun bread.

Read aloud video and recipe

6. "Lucia Morning in Sweden" by Ewa Rydaker and Carina Stahlberg

This book takes you through the traditions surrounding Saint Lucia Day in Sweden. Saint Lucia Day is celebrated in Scandanavian countries on December 13th - the old date of the winter solstice according to the Julian calendar. The festival marks the beginning of the Christmas season and brings light during the darkest time of the year.

"Lucia Morning in Sweden" read aloud video

7. "A World of Cookies for Santa" by M.E. Furman and Susan Gal

This book makes me so hungry! Follow along Santa's route and find out what kinds of treats await him in different countries! There are a lot of recipes included in the back of the book for you to try as well!

"A World of Cookies for Santa" read aloud video

31 Days of Holiday Read Alouds: