The World of Fairies

Over the last year and a half, Ella has slowly been introduced to TinkerBell. Although she's never seen the movie Peter Pan, she has seen the image of TinkerBell. Shortly after Lucie was born, Auntie Jamie gave Ella a TinkerBell gift bag full of "potty presents" to encourage her to potty-train. Last November, her cousin Cana got a beautiful TinkerBell snow globe that she was just enthralled with (and now Auntie Jess has to hide it in the closet when we come visit to save it from sure destruction.) In January, Auntie Aimee sent her a beautiful TinkerBell costume because she knows how much Ella loves dress-up. 

Despite all this exposure to TinkerBell, Ella didn't really know much about the character until she spotted the new Disney movie "TinkerBell" at the library. The movie tells the story of how TinkerBell came to be, and I confess, even I enjoy watching it. We've probably seen it at least ten times. In fact, Tinker Bell has largely replace Sleeping Beauty in Ella's imaginary play! 

In case you're not familiar with the world of fairies (as told in the TinkerBell movie), let me give you a brief overview. Fairies are "born" from the first laugh of a newborn baby and are brought by the winds to Pixie Hollow, a part of Neverland.  When a fairy arrives in Pixie Hollow, she discovers that she has a special gift, or talent and it becomes her job to use her talent for the benefit of the other fairies and the world. There are several different talent groups of fairies.

Of course, there's TinkerBell. She's a Tinker fairy. They fix things and create inventions to solve problems.

And of course, TinkerBell has her friends...as well as her nemesis. From left to right...

• There's Silvermist...one of Ella's favorite fairies. She is a Water-Talent fairy. She can create rain and place dew drops on spiderwebs. 
  
• Rosetta is a Garden-Talent fairy. She helps create beautiful flowers and gardens.
  
• Iridessa is a Light-Talent fairy. She can create rainbows (with the help of Water-Talent fairies), give lightening bugs their light, etc.
  
• Fawn is an Animal-Talent fairy. She does things like making sure that animals coming out of hibernation have food and she helps teach baby birds how to fly.
• And of course, TinkerBell's nemesis is Vidia, the Fast-Flying fairy. She creates the winds and can pollinate flowers. Because her talent is rare, she thinks that she is better than everyone else and looks down on Tink for being a "tinker".

Because Ella loves dress-up so much, I'm thinking about trying out my sewing skills and making some other fairy outfits. Simplicity has a pretty cute pattern for other fairy costumes (#2872). Plus, I think it would be fun to have some extra fairy costumes for when friends come to play. Maybe it will be a summer project for me.

Over the next couple of days, I will hopefully get time to post some TinkerBell related pics and some funny stories about my girls and the world of fairies.

(If you want to learn more about Disney fairies - or have a little girl who does - you can go here to the Disney Fairies website. It's got games and activities for kids.)

Tri-Tip Rub

Today at Life As Mom, the recipe theme is Grilled Foods! So, today I thought I'd share a recipe for tri-tip! In case you're not familiar with tri-tip, it is "a cut of beef from the bottom sirloin primal cut". It is a small triangular muscle, usually 1.5 - 2.5 pounds per side of beef. (Thanks wikipedia!) Because there is only one tri-tip per side of beef, this cut was typically turned into ground beef until the folks in Santa Maria, California started rubbing it with salt, pepper and other seasonings and grilling it. Thank you Santa Marians for saving this superb cut from an destiny of ground beef! Oh my, is it good!

In our area, tri-tip costs about $5/pound untrimmed normally but goes on sale frequently for about $2.50/pound (untrimmed). Even at regular price, it can still be a decently priced meal for a crowd. It's at least a lot cheaper than going out, and makes for a quick and easy meal. Around our house, it is a go-to meal when we're entertaining friends and family. When we have it, my hubby grills it up and then I make some rice pilaf, veggies and a caesar salad. Thankfully there is very little clean-up afterwards so we can enjoy visiting with our guests! If we don't have guests, we usually have enough left over to reheat for tri-tip burritos. We just slice the tri-tip into strips and wrap in a tortilla along with Mexican rice, cheese, salsa and sour cream. Yum!

Today I'm including our family's basic method of grilling tri-tip as well as a dry rub that you can use to season the beef. I got the rub recipe from my Mothers of Preschoolers group. I don't know how "authentic" the rub is as far as Santa Maria style goes, but we enjoyed it. We only used two scoops for one tri-tip, but next time we'll use more! I don't know that it is possible to overseason a tri-tip.


Brett's Tri-Tip

one untrimmed tri-tip
granulated garlic (or garlic powder)
seasoned salt

1. Trim the white fat and any gristle off of the tri-tip. This is important - if there is too much fat left on it, it will flare up and burn the tri-tip. You don't want that...so trim it well.


2. Sprinkle the entire tri-tip generously with granulated garlic (or garlic powder) and seasoned salt.


3. Grill until desired doneness. We like ours medium-rare.
   

Spicy Tri-Tip Dry Rub

4 Tablespoons granulated garlic
2 Tablespoons salt
1 Tablespoon black pepper
1 Tablespoon dried parsley
1 Tablespoon dried onion flakes
1 Tablespoon chili powder

1. Mix ingredients together. If storing, put in an airtight jar.


2. Sprinkle trimmed tri-tip liberally with mix and rub into the meat.


3. If you wish, you can allow it to marinate in the fridge or grill it right away.

Chili Stacks

In preparation for Mother's Day, Ella wrote about me for a school project. Not all of her answers were true, but it was cute nevertheless. In it, she wrote "One day she made a creation with cheese on it -- it was so yummy." Although I was flattered that she thought something I made was yummy, I was curious as to what it was. I figured it out last night at dinner. Apparently, my mom's recipe for "Chili Stacks" is the "creation with cheese on it". Both of my girls love it. So, since this is an inexpensive and easy meal, I'm putting it in the rotation regularly. It's a yummy way to use ground beef. I've made slight changes to it from my mom's recipe, but that was more out of necessity than anything else...and the changes have stuck.

1/2 to 1 pound ground beef (depending on if you want it more saucy or more meaty)

1 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon dried basil

1/4 cup chopped onions

1 (14 oz) can diced tomatoes

1 to 2 Tablespoons tomato paste

5 corn tortillas

1 cup grated Jack or Cheddar cheese

1. In a large skillet, brown ground beef. Drain off the grease. 
   
2. Add salt, chili powder, oregano, basil, onions, tomatoes and tomato paste. Simmer 10 minutes.
   
3. In a shallow baking dish, layer tortilla, meat sauce and cheese. Continue layers using all ingredients and end with sauce and cheese.
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes until hot and the cheese is melted. Cut into wedges and serve.

Mother's Day Tea

Yesterday was a special day for me. It was my first-ever Mother's Day Tea at Ella's preschool! Maggie, a friend's mom, graciously agreed to watch Lucie so that I could attend this special event at school with Ella. So, while Lucie happily played with her friend Fiona at Maggie's house, I got to spend some time with Ella.

When the tea began, the children performed two songs -- "Skinamarinkadink" and a "Aloha Oe" -- for our Aloha-themed tea. Well, most of the children performed the songs. Ella did not. Despite the fact that she LOVES to sing "her" songs (like "Once Upon A Dream" from Sleeping Beauty), she does not like performing songs that other people teach her. I think she is a bit of a perfectionist, and if she is at all unsure of the song, she just won't sing it. For the first song, she sat on the floor with a grumpy face. For the second song, she did stand up (with some encouragement from her teacher) and then proceeded to try and distract her friend Vera. 

After the performance, each child got to stand in front of the group as the teacher shared what the child had written about his/her mom. Mrs. van der Linden had Ella go first.  This is what Ella said about me:

My mom's name is Janel. I don't know how old she is. My mom's favorite color is pink. My mom likes to watch my videos with me on TV. Cow* are my mom's favorite foods. My mom never like to eat - nothing, she likes everything. One day she made a creation with cheese on it - it was so yummy. My mom's best friend is Joanne. When I am at school my mom goes home and does work typing on the computer. I like to go for a walk with my mom.

* Cow = tri-tip

 

After all of the children shared their papers, they served us a snack of pineapple upside-down cake, strawberries and tea. Ella was also very excited to share a handmade gift with me -- a very cute tissue-papered vase with "handprint" flowers. It was a very special day!

A big thank you to Joanne who took most of these pictures. I totally spaced and forgot my camera at home!

Flowers!

When Brett and I first got married, we had a tiny one-bedroom apartment in Santa Barbara. Since we lived upstairs, we didn't even have a patch of dirt for flowers. Oh, we tried some container planting to beautify the stark concrete patio-like space outside our front door, but it was a far cry from having a real garden.

A few years later, we moved closer to Brett's school and bought a condo. Not only did we get much more space (two bedrooms!)...but we got a much better view from our bedroom window. We traded a garbage dumpster (along with the lovely noise of seagulls and homeless people digging through the trash) for a quaint little garden. Finally, we had space to plant things! The previous owner had planted some purple irises as well several rose bushes. And, I just LOVE it when everything starts to bloom!

After a barren winter, the colorful blooms are such a nice sight! Our roses have just begun to bloom (yeah, we're usually a little behind in that whole pruning thing) and they are a beautiful sight to behold.

I don't know what kind of flower this is...but I was surprised by its return. Brett planted some flowers for me last year as a Mother's Day gift and these have just come back. I guess it was a gift that keeps on giving.

Giveaway Alert - WomenHeart's All Heart Family Cookbook

The giveaways keep coming at Life As Mom this week! Sara Lee is sponsoring the giveaway of three copies of the WomenHeart's All Heart Family Cookbook to LifeAsMom readers. This cookbook teaches you how to improve your eating habits AND gives you very do-able recipes. To read FishMama's review of the book, go here. To find out how to enter the giveaway, go here. The contest is open until midnight on Sunday, May 10th.

Giveaway Alert - Peace Love Mom

It's Jessica's blog-iversary at Life As Mom this week. To celebrate, she's having giveaways throughout the week! You can enter to win a cool t-shirt and notepad from PeaceLoveMom. The t-shirts they have are really cute and Jessica says that they are really comfortable. Since t-shirts are my standard uniform, I'm definitely entering! You can too...just go here for details.