Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

My friend Marci gave me this pizza recipe, and I LOVE IT!  It is simple, fast, and delicious.  What more can you ask for?! The crust has a grainy texture without feeling too heavy, and it is tasty too.  This is the fastest pizza recipe I have ever made, and it has quickly become a family favorite.

Mix together:

1 1/2 cups warm water

1 1/2 Tbsp yeast

1 1/2 tsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

3 Tbs oil

3 3/4 cups whole wheat flour (add a bit more if your dough is too sticky)

Mix all the ingredients until a ball forms.  Knead in the bowl just a bit, then immediately press into a large cookie sheet, or into two cake pans.  No rising required!  Add toppings (I like to use canned spaghetti sauce and a variety of veggies and cheese) and bake at 460 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 min. 

Marci said this recipe tastes great for taco pizza as well. Just use refried beans mixed with salsa on the crust, add cheese, onions, and olives.  Bake, then sprinkle with lettuce and even taco sauce if you want. 

Silverware Hooks

One day while shopping at the DI (I could start so many stories with this line), my husband found a set of hooks made out of bent spoons.  He showed me, knowing I would LOVE the idea.  The four "hooks" were screwed onto a piece of wood, and the hanger cost $2.  I knew I had scrap pieces of wood at home, and old silverware only costs $0.25 a piece, so I opted to make my own for a lower cost.  One of my AWESOME sister-in-laws (I have the greatest sister-in-laws ever!) cut me a saying out of vinyl that she had found on the Internet.  It was so me, because I do not love washing dishes!  I thought the saying, coupled with the old silverware bent into hooks, made a darling kitchen decoration.  You could do so many different things with bent silverware hooks!  My husband helped me bend the thicker pieces of silverware (I'm a bit wimpy), and then he screwed them on from me with his drill, my hero! :o)  It's a fun little craft, and it would even make a nice, inexpensive gift.  The other thing I love about it--you can actually hang things from the hooks!  Not only are they cute, but they are utilitarian as well.  I love it!

Vintage Window Family Tree

My cousin gave me a beautiful six-pane window from an old house.  I had been wanting to try doing something with an old window, so I was really excited.  After toying with a lot of ideas, I decided to make a family tree to hold old family photos on.  After sanding off all the the old paint that was flaking, I painted the frame (including the little pieces between the glass panes) with magnetic paint.  I had never used magnetic paint before, but it was simple and I liked the results.  The paint has metal shavings mixed into it, thus magnets will stick to whatever it is painted on.  I also painted the trunk and branches of my tree with magnetic paint.  After that dried, I painted over the magnetic paint with brown paint for the frame, and black for the tree.  I used a dry brush technique for the distressing (use hardly any paint on your brush at all, wiping most of it off before you touch your surface), and then I randomly added leaves.  I really love how it turned out, and I think the old window makes an awesome background for a family tree and photos! 

Hair Clips?

Here's a little hair do I did for fun.  I found a package of multi-colored mini binder clips in my crafting drawer.  I think my mom gave them to me for some reason.  They were so cute I thought maybe I could come up with something zany to use them for.  Well, you see the results.  I took sections of hair, twisted, then clipped.  I ended up with a whole bunch of clips in my hair, and it looked fancy, fun, and whimsical all at the same time.  So, if you have any binder clips lying around, here is one possibility.

Vinyl Hair Bows

I can't wait to get started!

Here is a throw-back craft from my childhood.  In elementary school I had some friends that came to school with the CUTEST little bows in their hair.  Their moms had made them, and lucky for me and all of you, they told me how to make them.  They are made with curling irons/straighteners and vinyl from bags that comforters, blankets, etc. come in.  Vinyl is also sold on rolls at fabric stores, so you could just buy some or use scraps left from a different project.  I love the thought of turning trash to treasure, as it were, so I always just use what I have around.  In addition to the vinyl and straightener, you will need scissors, a thin gauged wire, a button or large bead for the middle of the bow, small things to put in the bow, and a hair clip.  The fillings for the bows are endless.  You can make them to match specific outfits or seasons, or go for multicolored bows.  So far I have used glitter, sequins, seed beads, assorted plastic beads, pony beads, colored salt, confetti, and colored rice in the bows that I have made.  As soon as I buy some, I am going to try out cake sprinkles in the bows.  I think the sprinkles would be super cute!  Now let's get crafting...





Cute two pieces of vinyl into rectangles of the same size.  You can choose whatever size you want to make your bows.  Around three inches by 1 1/2 inches makes a cute little bow.  I never measure mine.  I just eyeball it.  I'm not one to take time to be exact, and this craft doesn't require exactness (thank goodness!).  Put your two pieces of vinyl together, and use a curling iron or straightener to seal three of the four edges, leaving one edge open for filling.  Be fast when you seal!  If you hesitate at all, you will burn a hole through the vinyl.  Just do a quick pinch and release.  If your edge doesn't look sealed enough, pinch it quickly with the straightener again.  You can also press the edge while it is still warm to further help the seal.  If you do melt a hole all the way through, no worries, just cut more vinyl.  It is easier than trying to make a patch (which I did try, and found was not worth the effort).





See how I cleverly model the sealed edges with my scissors inside...

Add whatever you want to fill your bow with.  Leave a little space at the top so you can adequately seal the bow, and so there will be enough space to pinch your rectangle into a bow.  Quickly and carefully seal the open edge.  You can trim your edges a bit if you feel the sealed portions are too wide for your bow.

Pinch the edges of the bow together in the center along the two long sides to form a bow.  Thread a piece of wire through your large button/bead, and twist in the back like a bread tie.  Trim off the excess wire, then slide a hair clip between the wire and vinyl. 

There you have it! Your very own (and very cool 80's fashion) vinyl hair bow.  My girls love wearing their bows, and it makes even a simple ponytail look fancy.

Good Night Gorilla Unit Study

Well, hello!  I decided to actually start posting again.  It's only been ten months(!) since my last post.  I've been working on all kinds of fun crafts, money saving strategies, and preschool/homeschool lessons and activities.  Now I just have to try to get it all onto my blog...

I was shopping at the D.I. (Deseret Industries, a second-hand thrift store run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and I found an AWESOME book!  I was so excited!  Children's books at the D.I. are usually $0.50-$1.00, but larger books can cost more.  This book was $4.00, but it was worth every penny. The book is The 20th Century Children's Book Treasury, and it is a compilation of favorite modern children's books selected by Janet Schulman.  This treasury is chock full of my favorite children's stories:  Madeline, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Goodnight Moon, Guess How Much I Love You, Where the Wild Things Are, and many, many more.  The pictures are smaller than in the regular books, so if you really want the full effect of a story you may want to buy it separately, but for us this is a great way to have 30 or 40 favorite kid books in one volume.  I love it!!!!

One of the stories in the treasury is Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann.  This is an adorable story that is perfect for preschoolers through around second grade.  It has very few words, and the words that are used are repetitive and simple, and the majority of the story is told through the colorful and entertaining illustrations.  I found a printable preschool unit study on http://www.homeschoolshare.com/ to use with this book here.  Click on the blue hyperlink for the printable lapbook activities.  You can pick and choose what activities and things work best for your little ones.  I printed the activity with the different colored cages and the coordinating colors of keys for my preschooler and two-year old to practice matching with.  They loved putting the correct key with each paper cage and opening it to find which animal was hiding inside.  Before doing the activity, we looked at the illustrations and saw how each cage opened with the matching colored key.  Then the kids got to try their cages. 

Another fun activity to do with the book is to read it through, then point at the different animals and see how many your toddler/preschooler knows the names of and what sounds each makes.  There are well known animals like an elephant, a gorilla, and a lion, but there are also a couple of less familiar animals, like a hyena and an armadillo.  You can then play charades and take turns acting like an animal and guessing what kind of animal it is.  Animal cookies would be the perfect snack for this activity, or different foods that animals eat, such as bananas, nuts, berries, meat (not raw, hee, hee), or you could even get animal cookie cutters and decorate animal sugar cookies.

With my older child, we used Good Night Gorilla for a science unit study about animals.  My daughter got to pretend she was a zookeeper.  We read about different kinds of animals in our encyclopedias and online, and then Jasmine drew pictures of animals in a habitat she designed for each animal at her zoo.  For example, one animal Jasmine learned about was a hippopotamus.  She learned what kinds of foods they eat in the wild and in captivity.  The San Diego Zoo has a really fun interactive website that allows kids to learn about animals in the zoo http://kids.sandiegozoo.org/animals.  Then she drew a picture with water and land for the hippo, and she wrote notes about what foods and activities she would provide to keep the hippos happy and healthy.  This can be expanded as much as you want, and you can put the drawings and/or notes in a folder together at the end to make a nice little book for your little zookeeper (and don't forget to let your kiddo name their zoo!). :o)

You can make the week's spelling list the names of the animals in the books, and any more advanced animal terms you wish to include (reptile, habitat, etc.).  You could also work on journal entries/fiction writing with animal story prompts such as:

• Write a story about what you think animals do when no one is around.
• If you could be any animal, what animal would you be, and why?
• Write about an experience you have had at a zoo or national park.
• If the animals in a zoo could talk to you, what would they say, and what would you say to them?
• Write a story about a giraffe who wanted to roller blade.

Feel free to post any other activity suggestions you have to go along with this book in the comments!  I love outside input!

Blue and Letter Bb

Opening songs: "Here We are Together," "Days of the Week" (to the tune of "Clementine," not "Oh Susannah as I think I previously posted, sorry) Pledge of Allegiance

Blue show and tell-- We have been having a wonderful time with our color show and tells. The kids have a great time unzipping their backpacks to reveal their items, and it is fun to see what each child chooses each week. Last week one little boy brought a blue bear, so he had two b's. It was cute.

Review past colors and color of the day using blocks or a container of small toys of various colors. Say a color and have each child select something out of the container of that color.

Have each child find their blue crayon and pass out a coloring sheet. We did the cobbler bear coloring page at http://www.tlsbooks.com/preschoolcoloringpages.htm under the people and community section. I used the worksheet to help the children practice colors and following directions. First I asked the children to color the cobbler bear's pants blue. Then the children colored his shoes black and his fur brown. You could practice colors from the previous weeks. I just decided to have them follow instructions for all of the colors that started with "B." The children then colored the rest of the page however they wanted.

Letter of the day time! Sing the ABCs together while pointing to each letter as you sing its name. Review previous letters and letter sounds. Introduce capital B and small b and the "b" sound. Words that start with Bb: bubbles, ball, bear, baby, bounce, bellybutton. You can hold up and example of each. Practice writing Bb http://www.dltk-teach.com/alphabuddies/trace.htm.

Stories of the day: "Let's Take the Bus" by Chris Economos and "Blueberries for Sal" by Robert McCloskey. "Dr. Seuss's ABCs" is a fun book that covers every letter of the alphabet. The kids really enjoyed this book, and it was a good review and preview of all the letters.

Snack: Bread and butter, bananas, and for a fun treat--bubble gum!

Song: "The Bear Went Over the Mountain"

Activity: Draw a grid on a piece of card stock, breaking it up into 10 rectangles. Number each rectangle at the top 1-10. Draw the correct number of circles in each box, ie: 1 circle in the box with number one, 8 circles in the box with number 8, all the way to ten. Have the children glue beans in each circle. When the children are done gluing, they will have a visual representation of each number 1-10, and they can take the page home and practice counting.

Pink and Purple Letter Pp

Here is the lesson I have been looking forward to--pink, purple, letter Pp!!! Why am I so excited about this lesson? Well friends, it is because I have the perfect (nice P word) books, worksheet, song, snack and activity for this one. Here we go....

Welcome songs: Here We Are Together, Days of the Week (tune of "Oh, Susanna") and the Pledge of Allegiance

Introduce the color of the day with color show-and-tell, review previous colors, select colored items out of a bag, find the right colored block, etc. Are you ready for this? There is a worksheet at http://www.tlsbooks.com/preschoolcolors.htm called Pretty Pink and Purple Pigs. Awesome, I know. So let the kiddos color one of those very awesome worksheets.

Letter of the day time! Pp!!!! Sing ABC's with children while pointing to each letter on a chart (this is especially helpful for children to see each letter during LMNO). Review previous letters and sounds, and introduce Pp with "p" sound (NOT "puh"). It's just a puff of air, no uh at the end. To see if you are pronouncing "p" correctly, put your fingers on your throat while you say it. You shouldn't feel any vibrations because it's not created with the vocal cords. Introduce words that start with Pp: pink, purple, pig, popcorn, pancake, princess, party. Practice writing letter Pp http://www.dltk-teach.com/alphabuddies/trace.htm .

Here is the part I am absolutely excited about--THE STORIES OF THE DAY!!! I have the perfect book!!! "If You Give a Pig a Pancake" and "If you Give a Pig a Party," both by Laura Numeroff. Very fun.

Snack: POPCORN!!!! I love it!

Song: "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree"

Activity: Make a paper bag puppet. There is a wide selection at http://www.dltk-kids.com/type/paper_bag.htm . We will be making the pig paper bag puppet, and then using them to act out "This Little Piggy Went to Market." It's going to be so much fun! Making pig noses with paper cups would also be an awesome craft for this lesson.

Color Red and Letter Rr Lesson Ideas

Welcome songs: "Here We Are Together" and the Days of the Week (sing days of the week to the tune of "Oh Susannah"

Color of the day show-and-tell or pick items out of a bag that are the color of the day. Children can also show off their color of the day outfits if they dressed in the color of the day. As you add more colors, you can review each week by having each child pick a certain color of block out of a box of building blocks or similar items for each color you review.

Have each child find their red crayon and hold it up, then pass out the color of the day worksheet. For our lesson we did the What Do Animals Eat worksheet at http://www.tlsbooks.com/preschoolthinkingskills.htm . While the worksheet doesn't go with the color of the day specifically, it does have a rabbit, which does go with the letter of the day. The kids had a great time matching the animals to the food they eat. You could find a worksheet that goes specifically with red, I just thought this was a fun worksheet.

Letter of the day: Rr. Sing ABC's with children while pointing to each letter on a poster, or let the children point to each letter as they sing. Discuss the "r" sound. One important thing to note when teaching letter sounds is to not add "uh" at the end of letter sounds. Don't teach "r" as "ruh". We don't read "ruh"abbit for rabbit nor "ruh"ed for red. It's simply rabbit and red. Adding the "uh" will confuse children when they begin reading. Teaching proper letter pronunciation is key. Here's a website link that explains this as well http://www.succeedtoread.com/improve.html . Remember, the goal of teaching letter sounds is to prepare your child to read! Introduce words that start with Rr: rabbit, red, run, raccoon, rainbow, rock. Books: "The Runaway Bunny" by Margret Wise Brown and "The Big Red Barn" by Margret Wise Brown.

Song: "Old McDonald Had a Farm" to go with "The Big Red Barn." You can either point at animals in the book and make the sounds for the song, or hold up animals. I used a magnetic farm scene and let the children place animals on the scene as we sang the animal sounds.

Letter Practice: Print the letter Rr worksheet from http://www.dltk-teach.com/alphabuddies/trace.htm . Place it in a sheet protector and let children practice with crayons or dry erase markers.

Snack: I would have served red licorice, but I forgot to pick some up. Red apples or watermelon would also have been great. We ate rainbow colored popsicles (okay, a bit of a stretch, but it's what I had on hand). They were delicious and the kids were happy. Improvising is great.

Activity: Paint rocks red, add black spots and googly eyes to create a lady bug rock pet! This was so much fun. The kids loved it. They ended up preferring black smears over spots, but hey, that's why it's their creation.

Have a happy Red Rr lesson! By the way, if anyone wants to post some of their own ideas in comments, other favorite books, craft suggestions, etc., please go for it! The more free ideas we can gather, the more fun we can have (just make sure you don't infringe on any copy write laws please!).

Green Letter Gg Lesson Ideas

Each child brings something green for show and tell, and dresses in the color of the day if they want to. You can also provide a bag of things that are the color of the day and let the children choose things out of the bag to place on a table. Have each child select their green crayon and color an activity page. I used the Match the Frogs worksheet in the Preschool Thinking Skills worksheets at http://www.tlsbooks.com/preschoolthinkingskills.htm . The kids matched the frogs with their green crayons, and then they colored their frogs whatever color they wanted.

After colors move on to the letter Gg. Show the capital letter G and the small letter g. I have letter strips with the letters written out on handwriting lines from Dollar Tree. You can find some great posters and things at Honks and Dollar Tree. Sing the alphabet song together and point at each letter while singing. Talk about words that start with Gg, and hold up examples of each if you want to. We talked about green, goat, grass, girl. Read a couple of books to go along with the color and/or letter of the day. We read "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" and "Green Eggs and Ham."

Snack time: Green Apples

Handwriting practice--print the tracing page for Gg http://www.dltk-teach.com/alphabuddies/trace.htm and put it in a page protector. The kids can use crayons, washable markers, or dry erase markers to practice writing over and over.

Song and activity: I taught the kids the song "Five Little Speckled Frogs" (you can refresh yourself on the words at http://www.diglyrics.com/en/lyrics/Tweenies/-/Speckled+frogs.html
For the activity I found a frog I liked on clip art and pasted five of the frog onto a Word document. I then printed the frogs, let each child color the frogs, and then I helped them cut our the frogs and glue them onto craft sticks. Viola! Five speckled frog puppets to go along with the song. Lots of fun!

Preschool!

I've heard a lot about preschool for little ones, and some people think you have to spend a lot of money to do preschool. There is no need to spend more than a few dollars on supplies and you can have a really great time teaching your own child preschool. The first time I did preschool with my oldest daughter, I taught with other moms. The kids met each Wednesday at one of the houses of the kids in the class, and that class member's mom would teach the lesson. At the beginning of the semester we each picked which week and which letter we wanted to teach, and then we created our own lessons based on the letter and any upcoming holidays. It was a lot of fun, little stress, and very inexpensive.

This year I am teaching preschool to one of my girls and a few friends and cousins. It's an hour and a half each Wednesday, and we do a color and letter themed lesson each week. I get most of my resources for free online. I thought I'd share some of my favorite resources as well as lesson ideas on my blog. Then anyone who wants to replicate my preschool can. Remember, you don't have to spend a lot to teach. You just have to be creative (or find good free online resources!)

Just a couple of links to get you started: http://www.tlsbooks.com/ http://www.abcteach.com/
http://www.dltk-kids.com/

Fairy Dust

I looked up a recipe for homemade glitter at http://www.theideabox.com/Homemade_Glitter.html. It turns out you can add a few drops of food coloring to salt, and then bake at 350 degrees for about ten minutes. The glitter doesn't smell very good, but it is pretty (just not as shiny as real glitter). I gave each of my girls a small container of glitter and sent them outside to play with it like fairy dust. My three year old loved sprinkling it on grass, flower beds, trees, and even herself. She loved being a "fairy," and the older girls enjoyed it too. The salt dissolves, so it doesn't matter where it gets sprinkled. It also vaccuums up well, which we discovered after my three year old fairy used it to spruce up a bit of her room. :o) The world can never have too many little girls with fairy dust!

Spring Nest

Here's an idea that I got from Country Living Magazine. To make the nest, simply turn a bowl upside down and cover it with plastic wrap. Cover the bowl with shredded paper (a great way to reuse shredded documents)that has been dipped in paper mache paste. You can make the paste by mixing school glue with water, or you can mix flour and water (and you can throw in some glue for good measure with that mixture if you want to). You can look up exact measurements for the paste online, or you can do what I did, simply mix until you like the consistency. Allow the paper to dry overnight, then remove the nest and plastic wrap from the bowl. Carefully peel the plastic wrap away from the nest. Tadah! A homemade nest! My girls loved making these nests with me. They liked the squishy paste. You can put candy, plastic grass, plastic eggs, etc. in the nests. Emily came up with the idea to paint real egg shells for ours. She carefully cracked the shells at the top for our scrambled eggs. We then rinsed the shells, allowed them to dry, and painted them with acrylic paints. I positioned them upside down in my nest so they look whole, but you could also leave them with the cracked side up and make a little bird to put in it. There's lots of potential with this fun craft!

More Spring Crafts

I made these wall hangings by using a dry brush technique (putting a small amount of paint on your dry brush, then getting almost all of that paint off before painting your surface) on a piece of old cardboard. The creases in the cardboard make the board look old and worn, and the dry brush technique makes the cardboard look like a distressed piece of wood. I then put a variety of things in the center of my boards, and added stickers to spell Spring. I used wire coiled on the top for one hanger, and just used ribbon in the other three. You could glue a big flower in the center of one, real or dried. You could add anything springy that you have laying around your house! This is a simple "free" craft to make. Just use things lying around!

Spring Wreath

I've been in a crafting mood since last week, so I decided to make some simple and inexpensive crafts to celebrate SPRING!!! Today's craft--a super fun foam flower wreath. I bought the foam flowers at Dollar Tree. They had the same type of foam flowers at Micheal's for five or six dollars (there may have been more flowers in the pack, but not five times more!). I also bought the foam flower/leaf stickers at Dollar Tree. The foam letters were in my craft drawer, but I'm sure you can buy them at Dollar Tree as well. I simply folded a piece of paper and stapled it to hold the SPRING letters. I stapled the wreath together, put flower stickers over the staples, and then used school glue to put Spring on. It took about ten minutes to throw together, and it was super fun. This would be a great kid craft too. It's light enough to hang with wall tack or tape (you may notice my tacky tape job on my wreath, which I'll be hiding in the back of the wreath soon... What was I thinking?) Foamy and fun! Cheap to boot! I have some other fun spring crafts coming soon...

Toilet Paper Roll Wreaths

My sister-in-law sent me a link to the blog "Creative Jewish Mom" where a woman had posted an idea for making flower shapes out of slices of toilet paper rolls and then gluing them into a wreath http://www.creativejewishmom.com/2010/06/recycled-toilet-paper-roll-wall-decor.html. Some friends and I got together and made wreaths. My friend Kimberly's wreath is the wreath with the big, bright buttons on it. They all turned out super cute, and each one was different. We found that using 9 petals on the flowers made the wreaths sturdier than fewer petals. You can embellish the wreaths with paint, buttons, scrapbook paper, glitter, and even put glue on the edges of the flowers and dip them in seed beads to make the wreath look sparkly. All you need is scissors, hot glue, white glue, embellishments, and your imagination!

Christ-centered Christmas Tree

I was trying to think of a way to incorporate the true meaning of Christmas into our Christmas tree yesterday, and I made some little ornaments that were super easy, fast, and cheap. I went to the LDS bookstore and bought a variety of small pictures of Christ. They were $.25-$.50 each. I punched a hole at the top of each one and tied a loop of ribbon and a bow. I then looked up a scripture to go with each picture, typed them up, then cut them out. For FHE we took turns pulling a scripture out of a container, reading it, then picking the ornament that went with the scripture. Then we hung the ornaments on the tree. It was super fun, and I really like how the pictures of the Savior add to our tree. We put a larger picture of Baby Jesus ($2.00) near the center of our tree, and it is gorgeous! I think I'll add more scriptures and ornaments next year. I just wanted to pass the idea along in case anyone else wanted to try it!

Thanksgiving Worksheets

Here is a link to some fun worksheets for Thanksgiving! There are pages for all ages in elementary school. There are fractions, cursive, crosswords, coloring pages, color by number, etc. http://www.tlsbooks.com/holidaypages.htm This website has lots of fun worksheets, so you can browse around while you are there. Below the Thanksgiving worksheets are Christmas worksheets. Enjoy!

Fun Websites

We're always looking for fun and educational (and sometimes just fun without the educational) websites for the girls to enjoy. I like to pass them along in case anyone else wants to check them out. We've found some fun ones this year for school....

www.nga.gov/kids/zone/zone.htm This is an AWESOME art website. Kids can make virtual collages, swirl art, and even add and remove elements from existing famous art. This is a really cool website. I tried it out to make sure it was okay for the girls, and I had a difficult time pulling myself away.

www.sciencekids.co.nz/ This website has some great science info. This is mostly for 2nd graders and up, but Jasmine (my kindergartner) enjoyed learning about the skeletal system of different animals. This is a great interactive science website. The only thing I don't like about it is the ads along the sides. Emily accidentally clicked on a link and was taken to a new website. This is a great website as long as you are close to help them see which links are ads and which are within the site.

http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/ We were given this link today to go along with Emily's science lesson on amphibians and reptiles. It has movie clips of animals in the zoo, as well as all kinds of photos and info on animals. Emily really enjoyed watching the animal movie clips.

http:/boowakwala.uptoten.com/kids/boowakwala-home.html This is Jasmine's latest favorite website. We were looking for a website with music for Jazzy, and this website has fun little songs that she loves to sing along with. There are also games and cartoon clips. The animals have a French and British accent, so Jasmine sings the songs with the accents, which is rather funny. She also goes around saying "La" all of the time.

Artisan Bread

My mom and sister gave me a recipe to make artisan bread. It is from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The recipe allows you to make a batch of bread dough that can be stored in the fridge for up to two weeks! You can have a fresh loaf of bread anytime you choose, and it seriously does only take around five minutes to whip up a batch.. I'll give you the simplified recipe version, so if you want further instructions, check out the book or the website http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/ .

3 cups lukewarm water

1 1/2 TBS Coarse Salt (Kosher salt works well, but plain old table salt works fine too)

1 1/2 TBS Granulated Yeast

6 1/2 cups flour (unbleached all purpose flour is what the recipe calls for, but I made it with

whole wheat flour plus wheat gluten and it was great)

In a very large bowl mix the ingredients with dough hooks and an electric mixer or stir by hand. The dough will be moist. Do NOT add extra flour. No kneading, either. I know, that's your favorite part, right? Simply mix until all the ingredients become a moist dough. Allow to rise uncovered for two hours. Push down the dough from sides of bowl, cover loosely with a lid (don't seal the lid or the gasses will build up and blow the lid off) to keep dough from drying out and keep it clean. You can now store your bread dough for up to TWO WEEKS!! in the refrigerator.

When you want to bake a loaf (you can do this on the same day you make a batch as long as you have finished letting it rise first) simply pull up a grapefruit-sized piece of dough and cut it off using a knife. Sprinkle with a bit of flour so it won't stick to your hands, and quickly pull the edges under to make a round shape. Sprinkle cornmeal or wheat germ on a cutting board and put the dough on it. Dust a bit more flour on top of the dough, then cut three slashes in the dough. These will allow the free-form loaf to shape nicely while rising and baking. Let dough rest for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven during this time to 450 degrees, and put water in a broiler pan or cookie sheet to create steam. Make sure this water doesn't run dry while you are baking, because the steam is what bakes the bread and makes an awesome chewy crust. After 30 minutes put the dough on a cookie sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes. You can make a larger loaf by cutting off more dough, but then you should increase your baking time to around 30-35 minutes. Even if the crust becomes very dark, it will not burn the middle.

This recipe will make four 1 lb loaves (made with the grapefruit-sized piece of dough). You can double the recipe, which is what I usually do because we love this bread. It slices well for sandwiches and toast, and I have used it for a chewy pizza crust as well. I'm sure you could also use it for breadsticks. This recipe is super easy, and you can have fresh bread anytime you want. As soon as you finish using the last of your dough, don't wash the bowl. Simply mix the next batch in the same bowl, and mix in the old bits from the sides and bottom of the bowl. This will help improve the taste of your bread by adding to the aged flavor.

I know this looks like a lot of instructions, but it's really simple once you make it a couple of times. Let me know if you have questions. Happy baking!