I've been doing a bit of blog catch up reading today and a recent post on Zooglobble was a review on John and Mark's Children's Album which looks like fun and must make a mental note to go back and check out again later.
Anyhoo, we've also gone colouring in page crazy here at the moment with a creative little preschooler who never stops doodling. We have a *massive* box of colouring in books at home, I like to find really old and vintage ones for the girls too, but then I sometimes can't bring myself to let them sabotage them. So problem solved, John and Mark have made a downloadable PDF colouring in book from the artwork on their album. They describe it as "16 pages of mildly disconcerting fun!" which sounds right up my alley :)
Over the summer I’ve had the pleasure of listening to a preview copy of Bari Koral’s Rock and Roll Garden in my search for funky new tunes to bring to the Monkeytail & Wellington library. It has been a hit from my two junior staff critics and is on popular request for car trips and chill out time, which for me rates as two thumbs up.
Hailed at the Sheryl Crow for kids and Norah Jones with a smidge of honkey tonk, Bari Koral herself is an acclaimed singer songwriter (and yoga instructor!), boasting a track record as a top grossing folk/pop singer on the college circuit. Bari grew tired of the constant travel after 8 yrs and new a change was neigh. So heading on back to her home town near Kindie Rock central NYC, Bari began performing at the Long Island Children’s Museum writing songs on the go with the kids in the audience. After suggestion from John Medeski of Medeski, Martin & Wood, who had just released their own children’s album, she began writing music specifically for children. Her first album for kids the Bari Koral Family Rock Band was released in 2007 and the song “Dad’s New car” was honoured as a Children’s Music Web Award Finalist.
Rock and Roll Garden is the Bari Koral Family Rock Band’s second album and it’s a heap of fun. I love that she has taken familiar ditties from childhood such as "three little ducks" and transformed it in to the catchy "Hey Ducky", which has become her signature track when performing live. I’d go as far to say it’s aimed at 3-6 yr olds with a couple of deeper tracks thrown in for the grown ups. Hey Ducky, the Backpack Song and Pop are big fav’s here, and Best Friends and Uh Oh make me reminisce about childhood and promises made.
Listening to the album, even driving around in the car, make me feel as though we are privy to a live performance. There are kids singing in the background featured widely on the album and prompts my own to joining in and should out and sing along with them. Real music from a real musician engaging with her audience is a refreshing change :)
Bari’s latest album Rock and Roll Garden was released on Jan 12 and is available at Amazon.com
Learn a Sun Salutation with Bari in her clip for the Sun Dance below, or visit her website for more info barikoral.com
I've been cooking up some yummy dishes at home lately, even if I do say so myself. This is an oldie, but a goodie and I pass on the recipe all the time. At least now i can say, just visit my blog and you'll find it there, HA! If you make it, try not to eat all the chorizo while your preparing the rest of the dish, I dare you!
Chicken and Chorizo Paella - Feeds 6
Ingredients...
1L stock 2 chicken breast fillets, diced 2 Spanish chorizo sausages, halved and sliced thickly 1 onion, chopped finely 1 clove garlic, crushed 1 red capsicum, deseeded and diced 1 teaspoon Spanish smoked paprika 1 x 400g can diced tomatoes 1 cups Arborio rice 1/2 cup frozen baby peas
Method...
In a non stick pan, cook chorizo pieces in a hot pan until browned on both sides, remove from pan leaving oil from the sausage in the pan.
Brown chicken in chorizo oil, remove from pan and set aside. Leave remaining oil from sausage in the pan.
Reduce heat and add garlic, onion and capsicum to the pan and saute for 2-3 minutes
Add paprika and stir well, cook for a few minutes until you can really smell the paprika
Add tomatoes and stir through, cook for another 3-4 minutes
Add rice and stir to combine, cook for a few minutes until rice turns clear
Add half of the chicken stock and stir well. Cook over a medium heat for 5-7 minutes without stirring
Add remaining stock, do not stir
Scatter chicken and chorizo pieces evenly over the rice and press down unto the rice. Don't stir through.
Scatter peas over rice
Cover pan and continue to cook on medium for 7-10 minutes until rice is cooked and liquid is nearly all absorbed
Remove from heat, cover and stand for 5 minutes before serving.
Continuing on from my new obsession of last week, I found an awesome reference for Origami diagrams via the Craftzine Blog.
The Origami Club has a fabulous catalogue of origami designs and easy to follow diagrams. I've downloaded the Water Bug as my first attempt today and I may just follow up with this cute as a button Cactus to decorate my desk.
If your really getting into the origami thing like me, Australian online store Japanese Paper and Origami Supplies can make it even more exciting with a colourful range of Origami papers, including some very kawaii Hello Kitty papers.
No promises, but here's is the first Hump Day Helper for 2010! Origami Boats.
Origami became my new obsession on the weekend when Monkeytail wanted some paper boats to float in the gutters during our flash flood. (It's Ok, she wore her safety knickers and gum boots and Dad supervised)
So here are some pretty nifty paper boats which are easy to make even for the twiddlypeeps. They do float, but obviously don't last too long, so if you're off to do some gutter sailboat racing, probably take a few back ups along
Here are the best links I found to origami boat building tutorials....
This You Tube video makes the best kind of paper boats, these are the ones I made! (same kind as in the first link if your not the video watching type!)
Happy New Year everyone! I'm finally back on the blogging bandwagon after a slight hiatus whilst full filling all those fairy door and sock monkeys orders Santa sent me to fill for Christmas. While it is wonderful to see my business grow and to receive such an enthusiastic response to something I create, it is overwhelming sometimes and I wonder who's bright idea it was to make my own products in the first place. But I'm back now after a nice little break, orders placed for more fairy door components and sock monkey skins and were off and running for 2010 :o)
As I probably say every year, I'm trying to make a concerted effort to blog more frequently from now on. My brain is full of bright ideas and things I can't wait to tell you, but my organisational skills quite often let me down and as my two girls are trying desperately to give up their day time naps, we'll not make any firm promises at this stage!
I do however have two wonderful kids albums to review and lots of books to talk about too! But first off let's talk movies.
Ben and I took the girls to see The Fantastic Mr Fox on Sunday and it was Fantastic indeed! Roald Dahl is arguably one of the best children's authors who has graced the planet and luckily most of his books which have made the transition to the silver screen have been well represented. I'm always a fan of the director who stays faithful to the original story and Wes Anderson (of the Darjeeling Limited and Royal Tenenbaums) does not fail. The stop motion puppet animation is delightful and fun to watch and is reminiscent of children's programs of old, think the Magic Roundabout before it went digital and was laced with french political innuendo and of course the Wombles before they had a make over too.
Of course the story is quite faithful, Roald Dahl's taunting rhymes are there but from a grown up point of view I could really see the actors behind the voices who were perfectly chosen for their parts, in particular George Clooney as Mr Fox and Jason Schwartzman as Ash. It's full of funny innuendo and jokes and the music is fantastic, we stayed back at the end to dance a jig in the isles (much to the amusement of the usher cleaning up the popcorn explosion).
Ben and I came away giving it a 4 star rating and it was high up the on the girls radar too as there were no overly scary scenes and the slap stick type humour was right up these toddlers alley.
Here's the trailer....
My only gripe is that here in Townsville it is receiving very little fan fare, only playing two sessions a day at one cinema. This often happens up here, I think we're still a big country town in a lot of respects and we miss out on a lot of small release movies, which is a killer for me cause I always want to see the small ones, but they never seem to make it this far north :o( We missed out on Ponyo last year as well as Coroline and the Tales of Despereaux to name a few. Ho hum :o(
Check out the official The Fantastic Mr Fox website here
Find at copy of the Roald Dahl original here at Fishpond
Anyhoo, we've also gone colouring in page crazy here at the moment with a creative little preschooler who never stops doodling. We have a *massive* box of colouring in books at home, I like to find really old and vintage ones for the girls too, but then I sometimes can't bring myself to let them sabotage them. So problem solved, John and Mark have made a downloadable PDF colouring in book from the artwork on their album. They describe it as "16 pages of mildly disconcerting fun!" which sounds right up my alley :)
was released on Jan 12 and is available at Amazon.com
