Cream of Broccoli Soup For One

The Llama likes broccoli. No, wait, he LOVES broccoli. He requests it almost every day for lunch. We buy at least two bags of frozen broccoli a week to feed his habit. I don't mind, I love broccoli too. At the bottom of every bag, even if you get just 'florets' there are always a handful of bits that are more stem than floret, and I save those until I have enough to make a small batch of cream of broccoli soup for myself. Yum!

Cream of Broccoli Soup For One

2 C skim milk

1/4 C dry milk powder (optional, but makes for a richer more protein rich soup)

1/2 to 1 tsp vegetable bullion (I love Better than Bullion brand vegetable stock)

1/4 tsp onion powder

1/4 tsp Mrs Dash onion & herb (optional, if you don't use it increase onion powder to 1/2 tsp)

1/8-1/4 tsp garlic powder (I like a lot of garlic, but most people don't)

pinch Thyme

salt and pepper to taste

1 Tbsp flour

4 C frozen broccoli florets, defrosted (approximately)

3 slices American cheese (or the equivalent amount of a mild cheddar, but all I regularly have on hand is American slices. For the love of food, don't use the stuff that comes individually wrapped, if you use American cheese make sure it is the real stuff that isn't 'processed cheese food'.)

take broccoli and cut off the stems as close to the florets as possible, chopping the florets into small bite sized pieces. Set florets aside and microwave the stems, with a touch of water, covered, until soft.

in a blender (or medium pot if you plan on using a stick blender) combine milks, bullion, spices, flour and broccoli stems. Blend until everything is smooth and there are no remaining bits of stem.

In a medium pot bring the soup to a slow simmer, whisking often to prevent the milk from burning to the bottom of the pan as it thickens slightly, let simmer for about a minute or slightly more. (to make sure the flour is cooked and the soup doesn't taste gummy or chalky).

Remove the pan from the heat, add the cheese and whisk until it is all melted and incorporated, add the broccoli florets, pour into a large bowl and Enjoy!

Chocolate syrup

I have a ton of recipes I need to type up but just haven't gotten around to yet. But until then, there is a recipe for an amazing chocolate syrup:

Chocolate Syrup

1/2 C Cocoa Powder
1 C Sugar
1 C Water
1/8 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract

Combine cocoa, sugar, salt and water in a saucepan over med heat. stir/whisk until the cocoa powder dissolves.

Bring to a slow simmer and simmer for about 2-3 minutes.

Remove from the heat and let cool a moment before whisking in vanilla.

Pour into a bottle and refrigerate for up to a month. (But it never lasts that long)

for a thicker syrup, simple simmer for longer, it will thicken considerably as it cools.

Llama Reads

Man, I've been sitting on this post forever. At first I thought we weren't really far enough along to warrant a full post, then I had a bunch of other things I wanted to post about, but it had been so long since my last post, and I wanted my next post to be all about the Llama, and then it just became a matter of overcoming inertia and getting the darned thing written so the blog will stop staring at me so accusingly.

SO...

The Llama is reading.

OMG

He's not even 3 1/2 yet, I'm not sure if I’m ready for this!

Here is how our reading journey has progressed:

We started watching the They Might be Giants DVD Here Come the ABCs when The Llama was a little over 1 1/2. he didn't really get it, but we loved the music. Then a short while later we got Signing Time Volume 5: ABC Signs. I had already put a couple of posters behind the couch with the alphabet and ASL signs.

Time went on and The Llama began to memorize the alphabet. By 2 1/2 he had it pretty well down. He seemed to know that there was more to it than that, but I wasn't really sure if he was ready. To see, we started introducing letter sounds. I think the analogy we used for him was "you know how different animals make different sounds? Well different letters make different sounds too!"

Then we started poking around Starfall. The alphabet section really helped him solidify the letter sounds, and he loved the little videos and interactions. (He isn't allowed to touch or use the computers, but he could very easily tell me what needed to be clicked and where to put things.)

Eventually, right around the beginning of winter, he started getting bored with just the alphabet but still wanted more, so I began poking around the learn to read section. He did really well at the little preparatory games and could easily identify a letter by its sound in the beginning of a word, so we stated reading “Zac the Rat.” He could sound out the letters perfectly but at just barely 3 years old he just wasn't really getting how to string the sounds together to make words.

We continued to poke around the beginning books, but didn't really get very far because while Starfall would read the words for him, he wasn't making the leap to sounding them out for himself. He just did not grok the whole "smoosh the sounds together to make a word" thing no matter how much we modeled it for him. He would just keep saying the sounds with long pauses in between (or worse, “and” – like "c and a and t") and staring at us blankly if we asked him what word that makes, or to say them closer together, or faster, or to smoosh the sounds. (If we modeled sounding it out/smooshing the sounds, he'd say the word, but couldn't seem to do it himself.) He was starting to memorize the stories, and in some cases could recognize words outside of the Starfall books. But he had also started trying to guess what a word was if it looked similar to one he knew, almost always getting it wrong, and I didn't want him to get into that bad habit. So I decided to take a break from Starfall for a bit. I went to the homeschooling community for advice. They all agreed with me that he was just too young to get it yet, but gave me a lot of suggestions of where to go and what to do in the meantime.

A little while ago, I began poking around Progressive Phonics and downloaded their beginner phonics PDFs. I figured I would give them a try and see how The Llama did with them, they seemed simple enough, and I liked the co-reading aspect as well as the way they grouped words with the same ending to help with recognition.

So now we've been working on the "a" book on and off for a few months, and just started the "e" book this week, and I think it really is helping, The Llama is starting to string the sounds together without prompting, and isn't guessing as much. Awesome! I think we are well and truly on our way to reading! At Christmas time we bought him the first set of BOB books and we may pull those out soon. Up until now it's all been words and pictures on the computer and I think it will really cement reading in his mind when we transition to actual paper books, and it will be awesome that he will be able to read a whole book all by himself! It's a little scary to think of my little baby growing up so quickly, but I’m just so incredibly proud of him and all the hard work he is putting into this. Even when I’m a bit reluctant or don't feel like 'doing reading' he will still pester me until we do it. I love my little reader!

catching up after the holidays

Wow! It sure has been a while eh? Things have been a bit wild around here, back in September The Llama Pappa started his new job (YAY!) but his training/work schedule was all over the place and it was hard for The Llama to adjust. Then, just when everything started to even out, the holidays arrived. We usually try to take Thanksgiving easy, we get a Tofurkey or Quorn roast, make homemade stuffing and mushroom gravy, cranberry orange relish, and sweet potato fries and that’s about it (this year we got a Tofurkey roast that came with its own gravy, but it wasn't nearly as good as home made). We live too far from family to be able to visit, but my parents came down to visit for a couple of days the week before and that was really nice. And then of course, we had to watch the parade. We don't do a lot of TV, so The Llama didn't recognize a lot of the pop culture stuff, but he really enjoyed the dance numbers, and the big balloons.

Because The Llama Pappa was so new at his job we knew he wouldn't be able to get time off to go visit family for Christmas, but then one of his coworkers took some vacation time at the beginning of December, so The Llama Pappa covered for her. The best part was that her schedule was set up so that three were three very long days but then The Llama Pappa would end up with four days off in a row! It was kind of grueling while he worked because they were such long days, but we were able to get back up north to visit our families, which was really awesome. Everybody spoiled The Llama rotten of course, he was the star of the show! But he had a great time, and handled the trip and visiting really well and made a new friend with my parent's Basset hound, Sam. But I do have to admit that we were all very glad to get home afterwords.

I think my favorite part of this Christmas was taking The Llama out on a ride to see all the lights, he loved it! He got especially excited whenever anybody had a train in their yard, it was so cute! And we started a new holiday tradition: home made Christmas Pizza! (The Llama Pappa and I were talking and we thought it was rather silly to have another big feast right after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is pretty much all about the food, (and parade) but for us Christmas is about spending time with family and friends, which is kind of hard to do when you are stuck in the kitchen all day.) Then New years was right around the corner, but we didn't really do anything special for that, besides go to bed early, because we are old fuddy duddies.

And now we are finally starting to come back to some semblance of normal. The Llama Pappa finished training before the holidays hit, and now he has a regular schedule, so The Llama and I can get back into a routine. The weather has been quite frigid here.

We got a little snow so I got to take The Llama out to play, whereupon we learned that The Llama doesn't really like snow all that much. Especially walking in it or when it gets on his mittens.

He was very cute, but I guess we'll just stick to our usual walks around the neighborhood. The last week or so it has been too cold and windy to go out (and I was a bit worried about the people who never clear their sidewalks), but now that it has warmed up a bit and we are back to our route! It almost felt springlike the other day with the snow starting to melt and the birds all out and singing!

{Edit}
this was written a few days ago, and sat waiting for me to get around to adding pictures.  Since then the snow has returned and it is once again cold and dreary :(

NY Sheep and Wool 2012

Well, it's been almost a month since we were there, so I guess I should get around to posting about the NY Sheep and Wool festival, eh?

The drive down was gorgeous as usual, and uneventful after I once again over prepared. The Llama was an awesome passenger and sang along with the songs and looked at the sights. We didn't have the spare cash to buy anything fiber-y but we still had a great time wandering through the animal barns and checking out all the sheep, llamas, alpacas and goats.

But the real fun began when we got to the petting zoo. For the last several months the Llama has been obsessed with Lemurs and has seen tons of videos with the Llama Papa on You Tube, so we were all a bit excited to see them. But first there was a full grown turtle and it's size matched bunny friend:

And then the petting goats:

And a really neat kangaroo:

(And a baby alligator, which The Llama also really liked, but we couldn't get a good photo of.)

And finally, the Lemurs!

(We were quite fond of the one sunning itself.)

After a brief break to play in the leaves and have lunch, The Llama insisted that we make the rounds through the barns and then we headed home.

All in all we had a great day, and I'm so glad that we live so near by and can spend the day having so much fun with all the animals. The Lama seemed interested by the few spinners we passed along the way, and I think as he grows he will become more and more interested in the fiber side of things as well, which makes me all sorts of giddy.

Ginger scones

It's getting towards that time of year for treats and holiday spice.

So here is my recipe gift to you:

Ginger Scones

2 C flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
3 Tbsp Sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 C chopped crystallized ginger
5 Tbsp cold butter
1 C Heavy cream
2 Tbsp milk
2 Tbsp raw sugar

Whisk together the dry ingredients. Cut in butter (or use a food processor) until it resembles a fine crumb.

Stir in the heavy cream with a fork until it just starts to come together. Turn everything out onto the counter top and gently knead until you have a rough, sticky ball. Be careful not to overwork the dough or the scones will be tough.

Pat the dough into a greased 9" spring form pan, cover with cling film, and refrigerate over night. (if you don’t have a spring form pan, you can form the dough on a 9” plate; also if you absolutely have to have scones now, simply put the dough in the freezer for about 15-20 minutes to firm everything up before slicing)

Preheat the oven to 400º F, remove the sides of the pan and cut the round into 8 equal wedges. Place the wedges on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, leaving plenty of room between each wedge; lightly brush with milk and sprinkle with raw sugar. Bake for 15- 18 minutes, or until just golden around the edges.

As Summer Comes to an End

The summer draws to a close, The Llama Pappa is preparing to start a new job, and the Llama and I are hunkering down to enjoy our days together. I have batches of play dough made, and all the ingredients for homemade paints in our kitchen, and I've pulled Teaching Montessori in the Home: Pre-School Years from the bookshelf to read and gather supplies.

We have had a wonderful time this summer. Despite the heat we have managed to get out for hikes and walks regularly, often in the mornings right after breakfast, before the heat arrived. We have mostly stuck close to home, but did make it farther afield occasionally.

The Llama has had a blast walking and hiking. He is really great at staying on the trail, loves inspecting flowers and bugs, and is particularly fond of poking at an especially scummy part of a nearby pond, delighting at the decaying leaves and disgusting smells he dredges up. We have seen countless wildflowers and many frogs and small fishes, and thankfully have been bitten by very few bugs.

I need to give a shout out to Abbi at Greening Sam and Avery who has given us the confidence that The Llama could handle running free on the nature trails, given advice on how to make our hikes smoother, and made it so that we all could get more out of our adventures. Without her blog we never would have thought to take the Llama out so young, and probably would have had a much less enriching summer. To anyone with small children, I highly suggest you read her post here.

In a few more years I hope that The Llama will be more copacetic about me stopping to draw in my nature journal, and I hope to someday make him one of his own so that he can stop and observe with me. I already have the Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock and Keeping a Nature Journal by Clare Walker Leslie on my Amazon wishlist to get ideas from.

Counting Sheep

The Lama has a favorite book called Can't Sleep Without Sheep by Susanna Leonard Hill about a little girl who can't get to sleep, so her mother suggest counting sheep, but it still takes a long time for her to fall asleep, and the sheep get tired and quit, then all sorts of hijinks ensue when they try to find replacements. Also about sheep, one of the episodes of Signing Time we have has a story, once again about counting sheep and the silly things a girl imagines would happen.

Add these two stories to the Llama's love of numbers and he has been insisting on 'counting sheep' with us lately, but he only has one little sheep Lego figure, so there wasn't much actual counting going on. I added a new poster to our wall, with the numbers 1-20 to extend his counting range. He loves the poster, but it just wasn’t sheep.

So I made some counting sheep for him. I took some sheep doodles I had made for another project, cleaned them up, and printed them out in card stock. Then I glued them to Popsicle sticks and now we have bunches of counting sheep!

I’ll hold up a random number of sheep, and he'll count them off. Or I'll ask him to hand me a number of sheep. He is loving them. And, as a bonus, they make great little puppets for farm/sheep imaginative play too!

If you would like to make your own counting sheep, you can download the PDF here

Done early yet still out late.

Weeks, I mean WEEKS ago, I made three Father's day cards; it took me several days to finish the component parts and put everything together, and I patted myself on the back for thinking ahead since I was barely on time with my Mother's day cards.

Here they are:

Books for my father who loves to read and is always sending us interesting books, beer for the Llama Papa’s dad who is very manly (and got a John Wayne quote on the inside), and a buck for my uncle who is an avid hunter (deer are very hard to draw).

But then I put off looking for good quotes to write inside of them and forgot that we had a trip planned for the week before Father's day, and now here I am sending them out the Friday before, and they totally won't get there in time.

*Sigh. Someday I will learn.

Anyways, here are the (very alliterative) digis I made if anybody else would like them (just click on them to go to my flickr account for larger sizes):

Books:

Beer:

Buck:

Half-birthday fun

Last week the Llama Papa and I packed everything up and took the Llama back up north to visit family for the Llama's 2 1/2 birthday.

We were a little worried because last year the Llama had trouble staying still for so long in the car (3 1/2 hr drive) and had trouble adjusting to being away from home, but this year he was a total rock star. We burned our They Might Be Giants children's CDs and some Signing Time songs for the car and packed lots of snacks, and the drive was a breeze! When we got there we just chilled out in the hotel room and relaxed.

The Llama is too big for the hotel-provided crib, and they didn't have cots, so my mom lent us a small air mattress. It was a good thing we had him on the floor and not the spare bed. The Llama rolls around A LOT at night, and we found him cuddled in the corner by the door in the morning.

(reading with daddy)

The next day, we were going to go to the Zoo with the Llama Papa's parents before the party, but it ended raining all day, so we just hung out at their house while the Llama charmed their socks off. He ran around and played, played with their cat Jake, and gave them cuddles and was just amazing. After that we headed to my parent's for the party. My mom had a fruit plate and a veggie plate and even cheese and veggie meats for us. The Llama promptly polished off all the strawberries before moving on to the black olives and cherry tomatoes. The party was really fun and low key; we got to see my cousin who lives in SC and her brand new son, Grayson. The Llama got lots of new crayons, a bunch of colored pencils, some drawing pads, some new dinosaurs, new books, and Duplo! He even got some new clothes, but he didn't seem as excited about those. By the end of the party the Llama was VERY tired but he still behaved very well and was sweet with everybody. We headed back to the hotel and, after playing with his new dinosaurs for a while, he asked to go to bed early.

The next day (this morning we found the Llama in the bathroom doorway), we decided to try the zoo again, and it was a beautiful day! Both grandmothers came along as well as my Aunt and cousin with her new little one. We had a wonderful time; the Llama loved the big cats, we saw wolf pups and eagles, and he got down on his hand and knees to pace with the fisher. The wolverines were hiding, but the otters loved him and did all sorts of tricks. The Llama wanted to stay and watch the bear all day (even though it smelled strongly of skunk). He had a blast going through the "bear cave" with cousin Tasha. The Llama was fascinated by the chickens, donkeys, and goats at the petting zoo, but was a bit scared of the pigs. Then we got him to pose on the Dolphin Statue (both the Llama papa and I have pictures of us as children on the same statue).

After the Zoo, we headed back to my parents house and visited with my friend Monica and her new little one, Valerie. The Llama had skipped his nap and was very snoozy, but it was so late in the day that if he napped he wouldn't go to bed, so he cuddled with my mom as she read him stories from old books my grandmother has saved from when my dad was little. Eventually, it was time for us to all say goodbye and head back to the hotel. The Llama once again was VERY tired and had trouble keeping his eyes open, so we had another very early night.

The next morning, it was time to head home (in the night the Llama went from the mattress to the foot of the bed, back to the mattress, and finally in front of the door again--the boy certainly can roll!). We packed everything up, and my parents stopped by to say goodbye before we headed out. The night before, our rear driver's side window had gotten stuck down, but my Uncle Terry came and helped the Llama Papa pull it up. My dad brought duct tape and we secured it closed before we left. Otherwise, the drive home was uneventful, but full of Signing Time sing-alongs. We were all glad to be home. We quickly unpacked and sat back and relaxed.

The Llama is definitely glad to be home and back to his normal routine, but he has already asked if we could go visit cousin Tasha today and recounted many stories of adventures with his grandparents and Jake the orange cat.