Babyccino "Spring!" Curriculum

Hey Ladies!

Babyccino has some fresh new material! The Spring 2014 curriculum has just landed last week, and the theme is "Spring!" - featuring the elements of the nature around us via plants, bugs, water, and earth. This growth-themed series will encourage young children to explore our world with their senses, communicate with creative art, and express themselves through music and movement. Due to popular demand, this particular 8-class curriculum includes classes and activities for the holidays of Lag Baomer and Shavuos. Join the Babyccino team and watch your community of little sprouts blossom!!

Buy-in will include this complete package:

• The rights to use the name “Babyccino”
• The Babyccino promotional material – text altered to your needs
• The philosophy behind Babyccino
• The method to promote the classes
• The complete classroom layout (including links for furniture purchases)
• The Circle Time “how-to” (including song playlist and links for props)
• The fully descriptive Fall 2013 Curriculum (including links for supplies)

The Curriculum consists of a “theme”/unit, the music playlist for that theme, and 8 detailed classes. (We will be selling 3 different curriculums throughout the year –  8 fall classes, 8 winter classes, 8 spring classes.) It basically lays it all out for you – you can practically spend one Sunday getting things together off the list of items detailed here, set them aside all ready-to-go, and never have to plan another mommy & me again. Seriously.

You should hit up the Babyccino facebook page to get an idea of what I’m talking about. There you can view full photo-documentation of all our previous classes and you’ll see what it’s all about.

Click here for a more detailed blog post about Babyccino and here to see what buyers are saying about it.

Happy Spring and Chag Sameach to you all!!

Lemon + Wild Blueberry Hamantaschen

Well. I haven't been on this thing in quite a few months. But there's nothing like a holiday recipe for a quick comeback!

I made a big batch of hamantasch dough for Babyccino, and have been getting recipe requests that I've been responding to via text message. Here's a much easier way for ya'll to get in on the easiest most fool-proof hamantasch recipe ever! And it's all thanks to The Shiksa (I adapted her recipe a bit, but more importantly I used her folding method)!

Over the course of the last two months the girls and I have moved into a new apartment, and while unpacking was taken care of immediately, and nesting done all along the way, we are only just getting settled enough to really call it home. And home means holidays. And holidays usually means food... Hence, this post.

This dough was so easy to whip together - you definitely have all the ingredients on hand. And there's none of that waiting or refrigerating bullocks. Just dump your ingredients into a mixer (or a bowl :)) and start mixing it to incorporate it all. It will look shockingly crumbly before it takes on the form of nice good sugar-cookie-like dough. Just keep mixing past the crumbliness, and it'll morph to perfection before your very eyes.

Flour a work surface (these are the very best and worth every damn cent!!), and use a rolling pin to spread out your dough to about 1/8 inches thick. Use a 3" (or larger!) cookie cutter, or a glass with that sized rim, to cut out your cookies circles. Use less than 1 teaspoon of filling per cookie! I think this is where I used to always mess up: overstuffing. Also key factor, using a filling that won't be too runny and seep out the edges. Thicker jams and fruit preserves work much better good ol' American generic jelly. Reserve that stuff for the PB&Js. Pick up a jar of serious jam and you'll be much better off. I love using Bonne Maman for hamantaschen (and for Sunday eggs and soldiers). The flavor is off the charts! Plus once we've done one dry, I remove the labels and put those cute french jars to use throughout the house. This year I used Wild Blueberry, and I can personally vouch for the consistency being perfect for Purim cookies.

Once you've jammed all your circles, it's folding time. This is the utmost important part in any successful hamantasch. Folding, as opposed to just pinching corners, is what keeps your little packages nice and neat. Much like wontons. You can even set out a little bowl of water to use as a "seal" if you're having trouble. But you shouldn't have trouble. Follow The Shiksa's guide to How to Make Perfect Hamantaschen, and you'll be sitting pretty. Bake for about 23 minutes on 350. And that's a wrap!

Here is the recipe:

• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• zest of one lemon
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

Easy as pie, right? Enjoy!!

P.S. Check out "Stomp Stomp Stomp (the Cookie Song)" by Karen Daniel for an adorably refreshing Purim song!

PogoMix

Recently, we've all kind of been obsessing with Pogo Music Productions around here. It all started with Mary Poppins. Freida heard some kids talking about the movie at camp one day, and came home asking to watch Mary Poppins "the funny babysitter". I didn't really have any interest in letting her watch that film yet (she's not really up to feature length films, she's seen maybe two Disney classics and didn't even make it through those without getting bored halfway in), so I thought I'd show her some clips of "the funny babysitter". While searching around a bit online for a good clip, what jumped out at me immediately was this Mary Poppins "remix". It kept coming up, so I realized it must be some kind of new fad or internet phenomenon, and I was totally blown by the creativity! PogoMix is basically some dude who is a downright genius when it comes to capturing and mixing sounds, and we've been moving to his music all month long! We turn them up in the afternoon after Freida comes home from camp, and we all go nuts dancing to the beats and laughing from the "mix" sounds. It was particularly awesome to show Freida how the mixing is done - she's such a little sponge, and her creativity radar is spot-on. She loved the concept of capturing sounds (perhaps this will be her newest career choice - after Tattoo Designer, and Grove Performer :)), and was fascinated by the fact that you can make music using anything! She asked a bajillion questions about it, so I let her watch the video About Pogo. If you and your brood are into music, or you have a son or daughter interested in DJ/mixing/producing definitely introduce them to the sounds of Pogo.

Here's the Mary Poppins mix:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5w6XI5lfdg]

Here's another one of my favorites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVxe5NIABsI

And here's About Pogo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l99AyQBKH0k

Enjoy!!

Sweatheart Art

While we're on the subject of good music, last week when Freida was heading out the door ahead of me I told her I just had to grab my coffee from the kitchen and she ever-unexpectedly belted out "I will wait, I will wait for youuu!" on perfect key as if on cue. :) Therefore, I think she definitely needs (read: I really want) one of these darling Lumineers prints from The Little Illustrator. How cute?

Stop Motion Magic

I've been sitting for hours at the computer these past few days, catching up on boring work mostly, but I've been working on some fun projects as well. In any case, music is always the only way I get through work days. And good music is even better. But! When the good music comes along with an insanely mind-blowing music video? Well, that's just the kicker.

I've had a few songs on repeat for a while (I'm totally one of those annoying people who can listen to the same track for eons of time before moving on), and when I finally went looking for some creative inspiration and checked out their official music videos - well, I literally have no words for these artistic animated stop-motion magical creations. Prepare to be blown.

(The Shins, The Rifle's Spiral - created by Jamie Caliri)

https://vimeo.com/41266095#

(Liz Green, Bad Medicine - created by Joseph Brett)

https://vimeo.com/38983159