Cynthia Kinnunenblogs about sharing stuff from your childhood with your kids
Normally, seeing things on your plate wobbling to and fro doesn’t send your pulse racing, unless it’s in fear of having to consume said wobbly food product. However, there’s one jiggly food-type thing that I used to adore as a child and my kids now go crazy for: put on your best Bill Cosby voice and give a hollah for JELL-O!
Now I know some parents give this the finger wag because, well, it’s made of nothing except food colouring and jiggly gelatin (and maybe a few other things but I’m not checking the ingredient list!). Really though, there’s something that’s just too much fun about a wiggly bowl of the colourful stuff when you’re a kid. My favourite colour/flavour is green/lime, by the way. Read more...
Cookie mogul Eden Hertzogshares recipes she enjoys with her family
This blog, if you haven’t noticed, is called Cravings. The way I see it, there are two kinds of cooking: the food you make because you have to eat, and the food you make because you were inspired and had a craving for something. In a perfect world, yes, it would be great if everything we made were inspired and out of craving. But let’s be real – sometimes you just have to boil oats or fry an egg.
I had a craving for tacos. Now, I know how to make really good tacos with authentic fillings using soft corn tortillas, but what I was really craving last week were the ones we used to eat at my dad’s house on the weekends, the ones from the Old El Paso taco kit. These are what we considered junk food. Read more...
Cool ways you and your family can enjoy the Fab Four even more
The Beatles’ timeless tunes are good for everyone, so introduce your kids to the Beatles and they’ll be hooked for life. We’ve come up with such a crazy-exhaustive list of fun things for your Beatles-loving family to enjoy, it’ll keep you busy eight days a week.
The Beatles Rarity has done a fantastic job collecting clips from the Beatles’ animated TV series. Follow the mop-topped heart breakers as they gallivant around London and tour around the world to a soundtrack of Beatles songs. Your kids will be imitating the accents after the first few minutes.
Cynthia Kinnunen blogs about sharing stuff from your childhood with your kids
He’s not Darth Vader, but he did oversee the recent construction of the Death Star. That’s my hubby I’m talking about. Actually, he prefers to go by Obi Wan, but that’s a story for another time.
Last weekend, on our way back from a few days up north, we stopped at my in-laws’ place and somehow, during our short visit, some of my husband’s old toys were unearthed in the basement. During those discoveries, the kids often pose questions like what the heck is that, Dad? or is that all it does? or my personal favourite, meh.
I am officially old now that my response to those comments is “Oh, you kids don’t have any idea how cool this stuff is! Back when I was a kid…” {ahem} Read more...
3. The fertility class divide: “The rates of unplanned pregnancies and births among poor women now dwarf the fertility rates of wealthier women, and finds that the gap between the two groups has widened significantly over the past five years.”
A must-see for anyone visiting New York between now and January
What would you give to get a “peek into the imagination of this brilliant innovator and creator of Kermit, Big Bird, and other beloved characters”? Jim Henson’s Fantastic World has been hanging out in Atlanta, Seattle, Chicago, Washington and now it’s made its way to New York.
What will you find at this exhibit? Fifteen puppets including Kermit himself (and Miss Piggy and Bert and Ernie and Rowlf), early drawings, objects from The Dark Crystal, photos of Henson working with his creations and excerpts from his films.
You’ve seen his Wilkins Coffee commercials right?
Need a better idea as to what sort of stuff you can find in Jim Henson’s Fantastic World? Check out this preview at Flavorwire: Read more...
AndyTDesigns likes animation, is obviously good with animation, and likes Pee-Wee. He’d like to see the Pee-Wee Herman Show come back, so he made this intro and submitted it to BoingBoing.
AndyTDesigns says, “it would be great to see a Pee Wee show based more on Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, and more episodic in nature, with P.W. solving mysteries, finding missing things, and having adventures, but along the way his playhouse friends help him as well.”
Cynthia Kinnunen blogs about sharing stuff from your childhood with your kids
When I think about time spent with my grandparents during my childhood, I remember some pretty interesting things. Things that at the time meant nothing more than the regular stuff I’d get to do or see or hear when I visited them. Playing particular card games or music-related activities or sauna party nights. Your grandparents had wild sauna parties, too, right?
I find when I think back, many memories seem to be food-related. You know, those memories that you can smell and taste.
I think back to those particular – and often very, very simple – foods that were part of that connection with the family elders. They make me nostalgic and even a little {ahem} weepy sometimes. I’m not the only person who cries about food, am I? Read more...
Welcome to summer! It’s June 21st and all we can think about is, “How fast can we get to the beach?” Days are long and it’s a perfect time to be out swimming, grilling hamburgers and riding our bikes to the ice cream parlour. Here are five movies that deal with all that is awesome (and a couple things that are scary) about summer.
Frances isn’t into the idea of just sunbathing in a bikini in hopes of attracting some surfer dudes. After an incident with some kelp, she becomes interested in surfing and is given the name Gidget since the surfer dudes consider her a girl midget. Yes, it deals with some mature themes towards the end, when Moondoggie thinks that Big Kahuna is into Gidget, but mainly it’s about surfing and Gidget having the best summer ever. Read more...
A rapid-fire list of Easter memories from the mind who designed the following:
We asked illustrator Frank Viva, whose first picture book we are eagerly anticipating, what he remembered from Easters past. He doesn’t even need pencil crayons or the Adobe Creative Suite to paint a vivid picture:Read more...
1. Mom Carmen submitted her 6-year-old son’s school journal entry to PassiveAggressiveNotes.com after he wrote that she’d been drunk one weekend. She said she hadn’t even had a drink! At least the teacher’s OK with it. Via Jezebel.
2. After giving birth, did you go into quarantine? Did you wash your hair? Why won’t some Chinese moms eat turnips for the first month post-partum? Check out all these new-mom traditions from around the world on Slate.
3. We’re big kindie rock fans around here, but we’re also pretty intrigued by these old kids records from 1948 on BoingBoing. Warning: from the comments we’ve learned that there’s definitely some antiquated racist terms in there. We imagine “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” is PC though. Read more...
If you were a girl who came of age in the 80s, you will have fallen into one of two camps: you were either a Babysitters Club fan, or a Sweet Valley Twins fan. The series was started in 1983 by Francine Pascal and resulted in 181 books. The Sweet Valley Twins series introduced us to the glamorous 16-year-old Wakefield twins, Jessica and Elizabeth, who lived equally glamorous Sweet Valley, California. The were blond. They were popular. They. Were. COOL. Loyal readers followed the girls through junior high, highschool, and onto University. We loved to hate their horse-owning rich-girl snob frenemy Lila Fowler and we constantly wondered whether Elizabeth and Todd would ever actually hook up, like, for real. Maybe most of all, we longed to be a member of the Unicorn Club. Read more...
