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In honor of National Library Week

16 Apr
open book with glasses

Reading has always been a favorite past time of mine.

Did you know that this week is National Library Week?

Well, if you didn’t know before, now you do!

I love my public libraries, I always have. It saddens me as each year our city’s library budgets are cut more and more, closing them oftentimes for more hours than they are open.

My kids love to read. We have big book shelves in almost every room in the house. They love to listen to audio books. They even, sometimes “play” library.

On rainy days my kids have been known to set up a "library" in their rooms. This photo shows the "children's section" of their "library," complete with a check out desk.

As a kid, I spent a lot of time at my local library. My mom took us to “story hour” and we always participated in the summer reading programs at the library, contests which encouraged us to read as much as we could over the summer, writing a brief summary of each book we’d read. I can still picture those reading forms in my head.

My parents are readers, Grandma Rose at 90 still reads a book a day. I come from a long line of people who love books.

We still have actual “books on tape” as our car is old enough to still have a tape player. We’ve listened to story books where they’ve been able to read along, as well as chapter books on long rides, even on short rides.

When my oldest daughter was about three, I left my job to be home full time. The very first thing I did now that I had my freedom, was sign her up for story hour at our local library.

I brought her that first day and I still have a photo somewhere of her on her last day, standing with all of the kids she had met from years and years of story hour through her kindergarten year.

As the years went by, all of my children participated in story hour. They all participate in the summer reading challenges. We love all of our librarians SO MUCH.

To me, our library is a magical place full of happy memories. I often drive by my local library and it makes me sad sometimes, as I think of all those story hour years we won’t get back. I met some of my closest friends through story hour. We went from going downstairs with the kids when they were littler, to sitting at the tiny kid tables upstairs, waiting for them to come up as they got older.

In honor of National Library Week this week, make a visit to your library. If you have spring break this week, check out their schedule and see if they have any special activities planned.If you’re not in the middle of a book, consider starting one.

This week I’ll be updating my “What I’m Reading Right Now” section on my blog. I’ve been reading a ton but haven’t taken the time to put the books I’ve read up on the blog.

Make a visit to your local library this week!

I think National Library Week is the perfect week to do so, don’t you?

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A book for your kids: “Is Your Hair Made of Donuts?”

12 Apr

Joy Feldman wears a wig when she reads to students that really does look like it's made of donuts!

There are so many reasons I love my job at the newspaper, but one of my favorite things is all of the amazing people I get to meet, all of the things I get to learn about through my interviews.

Today’s children’s book is one that I found out about through my work at the paper. Local author Joy Feldman spoke at one of the schools in our city and I covered her visit. What an amazing woman! You can read my full article about her here.

Feldman’s book, “Is Your Hair Made of Donuts” is her second book, but her first book geared towards children. Her goal is to encourage children and families to eat healthier foods, and to remember that you truly are what you eat.

The story revolves around the two main characters, Maddie and Matt and their quest for healthy eating. It even includes some of Matt and Maddie’s favorite recipes in the back of the book. The book also comes with a free downloadable teachers’ guide to coordinates with the book.

You can order Feldman’s books on her website and you can take a look at all she has to offer, including her adult book, “Joyful Cooking: In Pursuit of Good Health,” which Feldman says is more than a cookbook, it’s a resource for pursuing a healthy lifestyle.

I’m thrilled to have my own copy of “Is Your Hair Made of Donuts” for my family, thanks to Joy, and the title does make me think quite a bit about my own eating habits.

I believe my hair might just be made of chocolate chips!

Your kids will love reading about Matt and Maddie and learning about how your eating habits really do make a difference! Teachers will love the guide that goes along with the book.

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Giveaway Announcement: Unnaturally Green

18 Jan
Unnaturally Green by Felicia Ricci

Felicia's book is an honest and funny memoir that will take you behind the scenes of the megahit musical, "Wicked."

For the past two weeks I have been running a contest to give away Felicia Ricci’s book, “Unnaturally Green.” Using a Random Name Generator, I have drawn a name from all of the entries from the past two weeks. The winner is…..

Will I-Am!

Will, email me your mailing address please, so that I can pass it along to Felicia and she will mail you an autographed copy of the book.

Thanks to everyone for entering!

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New year, new giveaway!

30 Dec
Scrabble Library Classic

I was so excited when Winning Solutions asked me to review their Library Classic version of Scrabble!

My family *loves* Scrabble. We love it so much that there is a running joke in our family that you can’t marry into the family without playing the game first. My husband jokes that he snuck in and married me without anyone knowing that he never played. We have the big deluxe version of the game, which we kept out in our living room all the time in case we wanted to play, but it wasn’t the most attractive looking big box to have in our “formal” living room.

That’s why I was thrilled when Winning Solutions asked me to review their new Library Classic version of Scrabble.

“For game fans who like nostalgia and style, Winning Solutionsʼ Library Classic Collection, made under license from Hasbro, includes special editions of MONOPOLY, SCRABBLE and CLUE board games, packaged within a luxe faux-leather “book” that makes a decorative addition to any bookshelf.”

I loved the look of the game as well as the easy, compact storage that it provides for people who want easy access to their game without having a huge box out in the middle of the living room.

You don't sacrifice quality for convenience.

Although the game is easily stored, the quality of the components is not lost.

“The SCRABBLE Library Classic game features a fabric tile pouch, wooden tile racks and score pad with vintage design. Each game board is designed for easy fold-up storage within the foil stamped
“book” package along with all other game pieces.”

Everything stores easily inside of the "book."

Everything stores easily inside of the "book."

The Library Classic version of Scrabble is recommended for ages 8 and up, and retails for $40. It’s available as of this fall at Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and Calendar Club and other specialty retailers.

I am excited to announce that Winning Solutions has also allowed me to give away a copy of their Scrabble Library Classic game. I will run this giveaway for two weeks, until January 15.

HOW TO WIN

To enter, “like” The Whole Bag of Chips on Facebook and leave me a comment there telling me why you’d like to win the Scrabble Library Classic game. If you are already a fan, leave me a comment telling me so, and let me know why you’d like to win the game.

For a second entry, leave me a comment on the blog here, telling me what your favorite board game is!

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Bonus Post: Story time, a cookie recipe and a craft

23 Dec
The Night Before The Night Before Christmas

A very funny story to read tonight!

It’s Friday night!! Even though we’re not doing Family Movie Night tonight, I do have a story for you: “The Night Before The Night Before Christmas,” a funny story by Natasha Wing, illustrated by Mike Lester.

This is a great story to read on Christmas Eve-Eve, different than your typical actual Night Before Christmas stories, which you can read tomorrow night.

In addition to reading, here’s a cookie recipe for you as well:

OATMEAL SCOTCHIES

INGREDIENTS

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp grd. cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cups packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups quick or oldfashioned oats
1 2/3 cup (or one 11 ounce bag) butterscotch chips

Oatmeal Scotchie Cookies

These use butterscotch chips and oatmeal. They're a yummy, crunchy cookie!

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl.

Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla in large mixing bowl.

Gradually beat in flour mixture.

Stir in oats and chips.

Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 7-8 minutes for chewier cookies, 9-10 for crispier cookies.

Cool on cookie sheet 2 minutes, transfer to rack to cool completely.

AND FINALLY……

If you’re looking for some fun, homemade ornament ideas to do during the day on Christmas Eve to help the kids pass the time on what can be a very long day, waiting for the “big event,” here is a collection of photos of some of my favorites from this year and years past. These make great last minute gifts or “tags” to add onto a gift package, or…to add to your tree!

handmade ornament using a container cover

My sister-in-law always makes a handmade ornament each year. This year she collected all kinds of covers, all year long, to create the ornaments.

Popsicle stick ornament

Here is the ornament Elizabeth brought home today, made out of popsicle sticks and paint.

Photo ornament

Caroline's second grade photo ornament using her school photo and a painted frame.

glitter ornament

A fun, easy ornament for young kids to make using glue, glitter and tissue paper.

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Where do you get your recipes?

10 Dec

I often get asked where I get my recipes from. So many of them are passed down to me from my mom, but even she had to get them from somewhere! Today, I thought I’d show you a few of the cookbooks that I’ve gotten these delicious dessert recipes from.

My dad's favorite, the Glazed Pineapple Cookies come from this cookbook.

This is an old cookbook that my mom has gotten some of her recipes from, including the Glazed Pineapple Cookies (coming up later this month.)

Lots of our recipes come from this cookbook!

You can see the Chocolate Krinkles right on the cover of the “Betty Crocker’s Cooky Book” cookbook. We get several of our recipes from here.

For Christmas a few years ago my mom gave me this copy, which is the “new” version.

Then for my birthday this past summer, my cousin Val gave me a “vintage” copy that she’d found in her travels, which made her think of me. So now I have both, with the vintage one being the exact same one my mom has.

I have had this one since before I was married. Not saying that's eon's ago, but still, a long time!

When I was teaching middle school one year, I got this “Favorite Brand Name Cookie Collection” cookbook from the “Book Man” who used to leave books in the faculty room for us to purchase. I then used it for a math lesson where we doubled a selection of the recipes (fractions) and made enough of them (measuring) for everyone to take some home. Hands on math…

I received this cookbook from a Stampin' Up! customer one Christmas and I've gotten one of my favorite recipes from it!

My Creamy Hot Chocolate recipe came out of the “Old Fashioned Holiday Recipes” cookbook! I make it at least once a week, so often that I keep the recipe right on my cabinet at all times (even though I could probably make it with my eyes shut by now.)

Strawberry Shortcake Holiday Treats Cookbook

Our Snickerdoodle Cookies recipe is out of this cookbook!

Our favorite recipe for Snickerdoodles comes from the girls’ cookbook, “Strawberry Shortcake Holiday Treats” and it’s super easy and delicious! They’ve tabbed a whole bunch of other recipes for us to try out in the future!

I’m sure there are several others to share so I’ll keep adding to this post as I go along with my recipe sharing, but for now, this will get you started in case you come across any of these cookbooks in your travels too!

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Crafts for Kids: Story for the day today: You Can Do It, Sam

7 Dec

Today I posted a recipe for my brother’s favorite cookies, Brown Eyed Susans and I talked about how each of us in our family has a favorite cookie on the trays so that you can’t ever think of leaving one out or someone will be disappointed.

As a kid, we lived on a “country road” where the houses were kind of spread apart and our neighbors were sometimes down a long and winding road, or in a house we couldn’t see, even though they were nearby. On Christmas Eve each year, my brother and I would walk up and down the road, up and down the long, winding driveways for hours, delivering our trays of cookies to our neighbors. Some of these people we wouldn’t see very often during the year, even though we were neighbors, but everyone knew that on Christmas Eve Chris and I would be coming around with the cookie trays.

Elephant Ears were always Mr. Lussier's favorite.

It would take us hours because it wasn’t just a drop and run, it was a stop, stay and chat, and watch as the neighbors would exclaim over the cookie trays because they’d been waiting all year for their favorite cookie. I remember our one neighbor, Mr. Lussier, his favorites were Elephant Ears, and my mom only made just so many of those so each tray would get ONE Elephant Ear. The Lussiers knew that one cookie belonged to Mr. Lussier. As labor-intensive as those were, we could never leave them out or Mr. Lussier would be disappointed.

These memories of delivering the cookies are so, so special to me, I almost get choked up as I type this. Many of those people are now long gone, and my parents have since moved as well, but the memories…they stay forever and every single year when I make my cookies, I think of them fondly. It gets me through those moments at midnight the week before Christmas when I think to myself, “Why the heck am I doing this again?” Then I remember how much these cookies mean to the people we give them to, and how much the memories mean to me as well.

Today’s story is one that was given to my kids for Christmas in 2008 by my brother Chris and his wife, Nina, so I thought it was only appropriate to share today. It’s called “You Can Do It, Sam,” by Amy Hest and illustrated by Anita Jeram. Ours even came with a plush of the main character, courtesy of the Kohl’s Cares for Kids program that year. It’s about a mother bear and her baby bear, Sam. Together they make many cakes for their neighbors on Plum Street. Together they bake and together they wait as the cakes finish. And then, together, they put the cakes into bags for their neighbors. Sam is now old enough to deliver the cakes to the neighbors himself, as his mom waits in the truck for him as he delivers all twelve cakes to his neighbors.

It’s such a special story and it is so special that it was given to us by my brother and his wife, because whether they knew it at the time or not, it invokes such special memories for me of our days together, delivering our cookies to our neighbors. It’s a book to teach my kids about the special meaning behind baking for others, behind giving a piece of yourself to others, and creating memories of our own as a family during a crazy holiday season.

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Crafts for Kids: Snowball Snowmen

6 Dec

Yesterday’s post was a recipe for Chocolate Chip Butterballs, oftentimes known as Chocolate Chip Snowballs. It was a recipe that the kids could help out with, by rolling the batter or even by doing some of the measuring of the ingredients or by dumping in the ENTIRE BAG of chocolate chips for the batter. When I bake with my kids I try to find at least one thing for each of the three of them to do.

For today’s kid’s activities, I thought I’d capitalize on the “snowball” aspect of these cookies. Last year another mom, Theresa and I ran the “Brown Baggers” book club for our daughters’ second grade classes. It was a group that met during lunch and recess once a month to hear a story and do a craft related to that story.

This is a great story that leads to endless hours of building "snowmen" inside your home!

We used to alternate planning the activities, each taking a month. One of the months the book that my friend chose was called “Snowballs” by Lois Ehlert. You can find it here on Amazon.com if you’d like to purchase it. (And no, in case you are wondering, I have no connection to Amazon.com at all.) I had actually not seen the book before, but she had it at her house, her kids loved it and it was perfect for the season. She came up with a simple, fun activity for the kids to do to go along with it and they loved it. That’s the activity I’m sharing with you today.

Alexandra and her friend Graycee recently made some snowmen at our house, reminiscent of the ones in "Snowballs."

The storyline in the book will encourage your children to find ordinary objects around your house to turn their “snowballs” into snowmen. They can use paper plates for their snowballs or you can cut white circles (or if they’re old enough, they can.) Some of the items you might want to provide for them for decorations (depending on their ages for choking hazards): buttons, popping corn, stickers, pom poms, sunflower seeds, scraps of paper, rubber stamps and inks, pipe cleaners, feathers, artificial flower petals bottle caps…the possibilities are endless! Your children can make a snowman or woman or an entire snow family, depending on how long you want them to be crafting.

The second graders that we worked with had tons of fun with this story and the super-easy snowman craft that went with it. I hope your children will too! And thanks again to Theresa, for coming up with this activity last year!

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Crafts for Kids: Thumbprint Art

2 Dec

Yesterday I posted my first “Your Tray or Mine? Cookie Tray Recipe of the Day” and it was for Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies.

I mentioned several ways your kids could help out with the cookie baking if you wanted them to. But, I figure that all that cookie rolling and thumbprinting might get kids into the mood for…..thumbprint art!

Many of you know that for eleven years, until this past August 2011 I was a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator, teaching adults and kids how to work with stamps and inks for paper crafting. In fact, in 2004 and 2005 I was one o the top 100 demonstrators in the country! It was a job I loved very much and it combined a lot of the things I love, including teaching and kids. This project today reminds me of my SU days!

A fun thing for kids to do with ink is to use their fingerprints to turn them into drawings. I actually own a whole book about it: Ed Emberley’s Fingerprint Drawing Book and it’s a book I’ve had since I was little.

This is the Ed Emberley book I have at my house.

You can find Ed Emberley’s book as well as several of his others, here on Amazon.com if you’re interested in buying it for your kids.

The cool thing about it is that besides teaching the basics of thumbprint art, it also has seasonal and holiday thumbprint art pages as well! It gives kids hours of fun thumbprint art to keep them busy. I also find with my kids, once you get them going, their own innate creativity keeps them going on their own for hours (which gives you time to mix up more cookie batter!)

a Christmas page from Ed Emberley's book

If you don't want to do Christmas thumbprint art, you can do winter instead!

My personal recommendations when choosing ink pads is: be sure to use water-based ink (if you see Pigment Ink, think PERMANENT INK!!) Water-based ink washes off easily with soap and water or with baby wipes. I also always recommend using a paper tablecloth (Chinette makes them and you can reuse them as long as they’re dry and not ripped too badly.) Paper absorbs the ink that gets on the table, where plastic doesn’t and once it gets on the plastic tablecloth it stays wet and gets on arms, elbows, clothes etc.

Dress for mess when your kids work with ink, and the kids could even wear an apron if you’re nervous about clothing.

You can have your kids make scenes using their fingerprints or they can make Christmas cards, pictures for family members, teachers, friends, etc. My daughter Alex could make an entire book of her artwork. For her everything is made into a book. Your kids could do that as well, make a book, write a story to go along with their fingerprint characters.

Well there you have it, my first cookie and crafts double feature for you! What do you think??

I bet you’re wondering what I will come up with next, right?!

Just wait and see…

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Big Announcement for December Cookie and Craft Lovers

30 Nov

December is coming!

Christmas is coming!!!

Holidays are coming!!!!

Family is coming!!!!!

Stressed yet? Don’t be!

This time of year can either be really awful or really special. For most of us, myself included, it’s a little bit of both. I love to bake and I’m always so proud of my cookies for my trays, but it’s hard to find time to carve out to make them all when you have little kids running around. Therefore, many of the recipes I will be posting will be recipes your kids can help you with (aka rolled cookies) so that it keeps them occupied when you’re baking and it cuts your prep time in half. No, all the rolled cookies may not be exactly the same size or shape, but really does that matter? (And if it does, just kind of re-roll them a little bit when you take them to put them on the tray. I’ve done that!)

However, so often you don’t just want them to be occupied, but you want what they are doing to be something they enjoy too, something meaningful for them. Therefore, I’m going to alternate my recipe postings with seasonal activities for the kids as well. They will be things like crafts, special stories to read, gifts to make, things like that which often coordinate somehow with the cookie recipes I’m posting (okay, once a teacher, always a teacher, clearly!) Some of the crafts will be things I’ve done with my kids in the past or things they’ve done at school and brought home that I loved, or even gifts I’ve received that were handmade that I loved. Times are tight for all of us, so any handmade gifts they can make is one less thing we need to buy! The stories I post are just the ones we have at our house, but my kid always love when I pull out the seasonal stories each December. (I always wish I did that every season, but I don’t ever think of it any other time of year!)

So are you ready? If so, be sure to check out the first recipe on December 1! The coordinating book and craft will be featured on December 2! And no…no hints!

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