Grandma Ideas

Valentine’s Day always sneaks up on me and catches me unaware. But I have a good reason.

When my children were growing up, my state-of-Valentine’s-Day-unawareness started with Halloween, ramped up at Thanksgiving, and kicked into a frenzy because of Christmas. Just a mere two weeks after Christmas, I had to put on a birthday extravaganza for our youngest son and then in a couple of weeks do a birthday bash for our daughter. And Valentine’s Day was 5 short days after her birthday.

So what’s your excuse now, bucko? Your kids are grown and married and you don’t throw them birthday parties anymore?

Hush yo’ mouth!

I decided this year that I would be ready for Valentine’s Day much sooner than 5 days before.  So, here it is — 20 whopping days before!  Aren’t you impressed? I thought you would be.

Two things.  As I was going through old V-Day posts, I realized that I didn’t post the Valentine’s Day bingo sheets under my free resources.  I made them three years ago — and had good intentions of putting them on my resource page.  Somehow, they didn’t arrive there.  Shame, shame, shame on me.  I’ve repented and have put it there now.  Or, you can get the Valentine’s Day Bingo here.

Second, since I have lots of new readers, I want to make sure they see this idea that Gramma Kathy had for Valentine’s Day mailboxes for her grandchildren. If you want to do something similar, you need to be looking for the items NOW! And that is the reason that I tried so hard this year to think about Valentine’s Day before February 10th.

Do any of you have fun Valentine’s Day activities you have done with your grandchildren? Please feel free to comment and share your ideas.

World Nutella Day is coming right up.  It is February 5th.

Now, imagine.  This isn’t a mere national celebration.  This is big. Real Big. World-wide Big.

Wowzers.

This made me reminisce about the first time that my husband and I were in Tahiti. Our favorite lunch was getting a long, skinny baguette, a can o’ pop, and a jar of Nutella.  We’d smear a thick swath of Nutella on a slice of bread. It would stick to our teeth in thick gobs.  We’d wash it off with a swig of pop. Not a very nutritional meal but it made my taste buds kick up their heels in delight.

When I learned that February 5 was World Nutella Day, I immediately imagined celebrating it with grandchildren.  Nutella over waffles for breakfast. Yum. Nutella sandwiches for lunch. Nutella spread on apple slices for an afternoon snack. Nutella straight-from-the-jar for supper. It would be a wonderful time. I’d be my grandchildren’s favorite grandmother. (At least for the moment. . .)

I happened upon the World Nutella Day web site — and the l-o-n-g page of recipes.  Oh my! They had Nutella recipes for breakfast: pancakes, French toast, muffins, monkey breads, tarts, and cinnamon rolls.

They had 43 recipes alone for brownies. Holy cow!

They had recipes for truffles, candy, fudge, cheesecake, biscotti, macaroons, Crème Brulée, bar cookies, cakes, frosting, cocktails, coffee, ice cream, gelato, mousse, pudding, and semifreddo, panna cotta, and tiramisu. There were recipes for pastries, pies doughnuts, sweet breads, crepes, and bread. I scrolled down and down and down the page.

You can see their Nutella recipes here.

Four recipes caught my eye: Nutella Cheesecake, Nutella Brownies, Chocolate Nutella Cookies, and Nutella Hot Chocolate.

There’s only 12 more days until World Nutella Day.  Make sure you stock up on plenty of Nutella. Then, invite a grandchild over for a time of decadence and make one of the bazillion recipes from their site.  And, let me know how it turns out. Seriously. I’m way interested to know which of the Nutella recipes are good.

It is snowing as I write this. I want to make some Nutella Hot Chocolate. There isn’t one ounce of Nutella in the house. Do I dash out in what is becoming one of the season’s major snowstorms? In the dark? On slick roads?

What do you think I should do?

A while back, I wrote about the series of books My Grandma Could Do Anything.

The author, Ric Dilz, contacted me with a special offer that I can share with you, Dear Readers.  You can get a FREE ePub or PDF copy of the book. Woo hoo!

All you have to do is ‘like’ their Facebook page.  It’s that simple.

If that link won’t work for you, go to their website, Jibber Jabbers Books. Click on their Facebook link on the right-hand side of their page. After you like their page, you will see a link at the top where you can download your free ePub or PDF copy of the book. Sweet.

(While you are on the Jibber Jabbers page, check out their toddler t-shirts. Way fun.  I love the one that says “Don’t make me call grandma” and “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”)

This is a wonderful gift from Ric!  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

If you get the ePub version, you can read it on a Nook, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, the Sony Reader, Android, and Blackberry phones. If you select the PDF file, you can read it on those devices in addition to computers.

Well, pardon me.  I’m off to download the ePub version and install it on our iPad.

Toot-a-loo!

I just found out that today, January 19, is National Popcorn Day.  Huzzah!  What a great activity to celebrate with grandchildren.

Did you know that Americans consume 16 billion quarts a year?  That equals about 51 quarts per person.  (I know that I eat my fair share. It’s a rough job but somebody’s got to do it . . . )

When our daughter was in grade school, she did a science project about which popped better — popcorn kept in the fridge or popcorn at room temperature.  In her highly scientific research, she found that popcorn kept in the fridge popped best.  Since, then, we have kept our popcorn in the fridge.

I have since learned that popcorn needs about 14% moisture to pop.  Maybe condensation in the fridge gave it more moisture than just sitting on the pantry shelf.

Popcorn.org has some terrific popcorn recipes:

• English Toffee Popcorn Bars
• Nutty Chocolate Caramel Corn Clusters
• Poppy Chow
• Popcorn S’mores
• Peanut Butter Popcorn Squares
• Caramel Almond Popcorn Clusters
• Caramel Nut Popcorn Crunch
• Sweet and Smokey Almond Popcorn

In fact, they have a 142-page recipe book stuffed with wonderful recipes.  You might want to download it.

So, grab a grandchild. Make some yummy popcorn. And watch a movie — even if it is a school night!