Reading aloud to your child (or children) -no matter the age-will help them to develop vocabulary, gain more of an understanding of their world through the medium of books both by visual language (pictures) and the written word, plus the final benefit: (and this is the best one!) they will want to continue reading!
What a sweetheart! Tasha is our matriarch pet right now. We ‘ve had her for 11 ½ years and she is still a sweet girl. The picture on the left shows Tasha in March 2003 when she was 6 ½ years. The picture down below on the left was taken today at the 11 ½ year mark with our cat, KyKay, who is just slightly younger in years but definitely not aging as fast as Tasha. When we took her in for a check-up when she turned 8 years old, our veterinarian (the wonderful Dr. Eric Foster of the Millcreek Veterinary Clinic) said she was doing really well for her age but she was getting up there and could go basically anytime since she’s a giant breed (half great Pyrenees and half golden retriever). Her fur is now mostly white with some gold and her eyes are cloudy. Her hearing is not the same but her tail still wags as happy as ever and she still has to go up to each and every person to sniff them and say hello. She’s much more content to sleep then play and she doesn’t jump up in excitement anymore. But through all her arthritis and aches and pains she still wants to be around people and still loves when little kids come over and want to play with her. Along with Tasha we have another dog, a cat, a guinea pig and 3 fish. More about them later.
One of our favorite staple dinners is fried rice. For the longest time I thought there was a special, magical recipe only to find out that fried rice is a leftover dish. To add to the commonality, it’s disputed that a famous Chinese chef, Tao Feng, initiated fried rice but rather peasants started the trend, using leftover rice with other leftover ingredients to use up food rather than throw it out. Anyway, it’s an old stand-by at our house and we always make a double batch. Here’s our recipe but feel free to add or subtract from the ingredients.
8 strips of bacon (or roughly ½ pound)
½ cup chopped green onions and tops
½ cup diced colored pepper (red, yellow, orange-just not green-green is too bitter for the recipe and detracts from the other flavors)
1/3 cup frozen green peas, thawed
1 egg, beaten
about 4 cups cold cooked rice
1 ½ to 2 tbsp soy sauce
Cook bacon until crisp and remove to drain but reserve grease in fry pan. Add green onions and pepper and stir fry for a few minutes in bacon grease. Add peas and stir fry for another minute. Move mixture to one half of the pan and scramble the egg on the empty half-then mix together when egg is barely set. Gently stir in rice, crumbled cook bacon and then soy sauce. Cook and stir gently until mixture is heated thoroughly. Serve immediately.
Swirled Milk Experiment also known as Marbled Milk. I obtain access to many books in my job and I bring a fair number home. Unfortunately, I have to return the books eventually and too often we never try anything from the books where we could do projects from them for talent building. Examples are cookbooks, crochet books, craft and hobby books, sewing books, hiking books, etc…. But finally we actually did one of the experiments from a cool little book called Lotions, Potions, and Slime Mudpies and More! By Nancy Blakey.
Pour milk (preferably 2%) into saucer, add 5-7 drops food coloring (use full amount or more-doesn't work as well with just a few drops of coloring), then add 1 drop of liquid detergent and watch what happens!