Cupcake Cuties

We made these cuties for Thanksgiving. I found some free cupcake printables online, so making the cupcake sticks was easy. I just printed them on card stock and cut them out with crimped scissors. Then we taped them on to sticks. We made the cake itself from the Betty Crocker gluten free yellow cake mix. I prefer the Namaste mixes, but the Betty Crocker mix is cheaper and kids love it. Betty Crocker also has gluten free icing options, so this makes cupcakes so much easier than back in the day, when I made everything from scratch to meet our allergen free baking needs. I still make most things the old fashioned way, but I am very grateful to Betty for allowing me to push the easy button at times. We used food coloring to make the cream cheese icing orange. The acorns on top were made from turning a Hershey's kiss upside down and using a dab of icing to secure a tiny gluten/nut free sugar cookie on top. Then, just dab a bit of icing on the top of the cookie to make a stem. The sugar cookies were made from a Namaste cookie mix. We just made them very tiny. We made a dozen cupcakes, but we made many more chocolate cookie acorns to have in a bowl to eat. They were a big hit with the cousins at our Thanksgiving gathering - both allergy eaters and non-allergy eaters consumed them with gusto.

Dollhouse Decor

Christmas is here - even in the dollhouse world. Check out the adorable world of my daughter's mouse-sized house and the way she has it all ready for the holidays.

Will Work for Peace

Tis the night before Thanksgiving and I am contemplating the deep thankfulness I feel for my children and the lessons they teach me along the journey together. I thought I would teach them, I didn't realize how much I would be learning FROM them. Peace starts at home. When I began the path to gentle, non-violent parenting, I had no idea how the seed of that ideal would take root and grow in our family. My socially conscience children are always surprising me with the ways they incorporate peace in our daily lives. They struggle with the hard work of it, just like I do, but they bring such an openness to the table. My twelve year old recently was sharing with me how she found it difficult to remember to be peaceful on the playground when her brother was being bullied. Her instinct was telling her to strike out and pay back insult for insult. I appreciate her protective instincts for her brother, but imagine my delight when she told me that she immediately thought of why the aggressor might be acting that way and what was going on with him to cause his behaviour. Over a period of several weeks, both of my children had many conversations about this child both together and with me and my husband. We put a lot of time into talking over scenarios and solutions that could be a win-win for both parties. The verbal bullying continued for a couple of weeks, but after my children went out of their way to make positive remarks, model good communication, and practiced some peace making strategies, things began to improve. Now the child in question is counted a friend. They play together and have a lot of fun. I am not trying to over-simplify the massive bullying problem we have these days, only feeling proud of a small inroad made by my two sweeties. Peace really does begin at home. When we model appropriate responses to injustice and problems in the world, the children will follow. They may even lead the way.

Revolution starts at home...