Month: June 2016

Thank You Teachers!

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thanksthank youWhere would we all be without teachers? Some of us are blessed to be surrounded by teachers, not just at school but outside of school too. Regular people who take the time to stop and teach us something new, like cooking or sewing or how to play a game of chess. How to skip a rock or cut and paste a collage. We all have the opportunity to be great teachers, to make an impact on others.

Thank god for the teachers who chose to go to work in our schools everyday to teach our children. It takes great patience, preparation, love, dedication and great care to teach an entire classroom of children. A classroom filled with different backgrounds, ideas, rules, home foundations. Every year a teacher starts first by becoming familiar with new personalities, new challenges, and getting the attention of a classroom 25 plus kids. By the time the year ends they’ve created a new family only to have to say goodbye and start all over again. That’s got to be difficult!

At the end of the day, a  great teacher gets carried into our children’s hearts. They become the main discussion at the dinner table. They get introduced to siblings and families. A great teacher can influence a child to try Turkey at Thanksgiving dinner even if you tried convincing them for years.  A great teacher gently encourages a cautious child to stand in front of a classroom to do calendar until they finally get the courage to do it.  A great teacher creates a timeline of when mommy comes back for the preschool-er who cries everyday. A great teacher brings out the best in the restless child, courage in the shy child, and a voice in the quiet child. A great teacher does more than just teach our children math and reading skills, they inspire, they mold and help our children grow. They add layers to the sometimes bumpy foundation we’ve laid down for them at home. They become part of our life, our story, our family. They inspire us to be teachers.

To all of our teachers, past and present…Thank You!

Happy Father’s Day

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Fathers DayThanks to our dad, who made our house a home, built the beds we sleep on, the bathroom we bathe in, the patio we sit on, the nook we read in, the desks we study on, the floors we took our first steps on. Thank you dad, for building our foundation, for fixing our world when things start to break down, for being our pillar, our strength, our safety net, our man! Happy father’s day dad!

Strawberry Picking at Glover’s Farm

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       Glover’s Farm

strawberry fieldI love living on long Island, particularly because we are surrounded by plenty and plenty of farms. Berry farms, peach farms, tomato, pumpkin, Christmas tree, grapes, and sunflower farms. Everything farms! Animal farms! It’s so lovely to be able to drive a few minutes away and literally pick fresh strawberry’s! My kids eat so many strawberry’s, I literally bought containers of them this week and then my friend (who had recently taken her daughter)  reminded me that it was strawberry picking time so instead of making another trip to the store, Lia and I went to go pick them ourselves. This was the first time we went with out my other two girls so I have a great excuse to go back!

Our library hosted an hour of strawberry picking at Glover’s Farm this week where each family that registered got to pick one quart of strawberry’s for free, but unfortunately we missed it by a couple of days!

oooh strawberryberrys

Glover’s farm is definitely a fun place to pick Strawberry’s. There was so many to pick from. We filled a 2 Quart container a lot faster than I thought we would. We paid $1 for the container and $4 per quart. The strawberry’s were very sweet and Lia couldn’t resist eating them as she picked. One for Lia, one for the container, one for Lia, one for the container. There’s also a nice playground for the kids to play at and there’s a few animals that you can feed with purchased food. I always bring a lunch and we eat on one of their many picnic tables. It’s a great place to spend a couple of hours on a nice summers day!yum

Glover’s Farm is located at 633 Victory Ave. Brookhaven, NY. 631-286-7876, 631-332-2012. I believe they are open every day from 10 am- 6pm. They take credit cards! (I never carry cash so I was thrilled about that!)

DIY Flower Pressed Art

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Whether it’s a beautiful bloom from your garden, a special rose or sunflower from a certain someone, or a beautiful flower you found on a nature trail, flower pressing is such a great way to preserve that special flower. They also make great sentimental gifts!

Framed Cardinal RoseArt CardinalDried Flower ArtWe were each given roses to throw onto my fathers casket at his funeral. Something made me take an extra one. When we got home, my husband took the rose, separated the petals and pressed them in between a book, put a piece of wax paper over the petals and closed the book. He then placed a huge change jar over it and left it there for a couple of weeks. You can find exact instructions from here. The days after my fathers funeral I couldn’t help but notice a cardinal coming to visit my feeder every single day! They say that a visit from a Cardinal is a visitor from heaven. So whenever I see the Cardinal I yell out “Hi dad!.”

I wanted to make something special with the flower, at first I was just going to frame each petal, but then my daughter Melina said “mom you should cut them!” As soon as she said “cut”, it gave me the idea to cut them into the shape of little cardinals. Since my brother and sister have also experienced a cardinal visit as well, I thought this would be a great little gift to share with them. So, I carefully cut each rose into the shape of a cardinal and used a felt tip black marker to add little bird legs and a beak. I bought small little frames from Michael’s Craft store for like a dollar each and framed each little bird.SunflowerLast year, my husband noticed a sunflower in our garden with 14 petals. That number was his moms favorite number. So we took the flower, pressed it and framed it. It’s a beautiful reminder of his mom. This is also a great idea if you’re moving and you want to have a piece of your garden with you, or a family or friend is moving, this makes a great little gift!

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