I'm very excited about today's post because not only do I get to share a wonderful story with you, but I also have an interview with an amazing female in STEM to share as well! Let's check out the book first and then you can meet Ms. Valente!

After reading the "Around the World" section and finding out they have dragon boat races in Sydney, Australia, we just had to make a dragon boat! The benefit of having a GIANT Lego collection is you can build a dragon boat without needing to buy the set! Thank you Lego for having downloadable building instructions!

I don't know if we have enough specialty pieces to build another one, but we at least got one dragon boat! I love it and think it's so fun and the kids think it's hysterical that there's a croissant as the dragon's nose!

It is VERY cold here today, but if we're brave enough we'll go out on the patio under the full moon tonight and light a couple of sparklers!

I want to send Eugenia Chu another HUGE thank you for sharing her awesome book, "Celebrating Chinese New Year: History, Traditions, and Activities" with us. We loved learning all about the holiday and the different ways people celebrate in China and across the world!

Check out the rest of our Chinese New Year fun!

My kids are super into mysteries and anything involving escape-room like puzzles. So I decided to make them work for their Valentine's treats!

To start, I left a red envelope on the kitchen counter. But instead of finding a Valentine card, they discovered this letter. 

Lil C realized right away that some of the letters were underlined so she grabbed a pencil and began writing down everything that was underlined. The underlined letters spell "intheclosete2" or "in the closet e2." The e2 doesn't make much sense now, but it will soon. In hindsight, when 2 letters next to each other were both underlined it was easy to miss a letter. Next time I might capitalize the letters instead of underlining.

Anyway, so they went searching closets. Eventually they found this hanging inside the door of one of the closets.

Lil C realized it was backwards and luckily we have mirrored closet doors ALL over the house so she didn't have to go far to find a mirror.

I never made a big deal out of Valentine's Day...until I had kids. Kids seriously bring new meaning to every holiday - even the random silly ones like ice cream for breakfast day and silly sock day! It's become a tradition now that every year I make some fun Valentine-themed meals for everyone. 

Above you can see our I<3U breakfasts - sliced strawberries, heart shaped pancakes, and bacon or sausage U's. 

This year I made heart shaped cinnamon rolls - Squidgy actually asked me a few days ago if I could make bloody guts again so I figured I'd give the cinnamon rolls a Valentine twist instead. To make the hearts you unroll the bun halfway, then coil the loose end. Try to pinch the bottoms to get a sharp point because the rolls have a habit of curving in while they bake.

I served the heart rolls with bacon (that I attempted to shape into hearts!) and berry sauce. The berry sauce is super easy to make - all recipes are at the end of this post. 

If you want something a little more on the healthy side, this pink smoothie bowl is for you! Full of delicious fruits, it's naturally sweet and beautiful! Scroll down for the recipe.

Place 3 cups frozen berries* in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Cover and heat 5-10 minutes until the berries are thawed and softened. Mash the berries lightly. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 teaspoon of cornstarch and stir together. Bring to boil, simmer 1 minute, then turn off the heat. Add in a tiny splash of lemon juice and give it a final stir before pouring on top of your cinnamon rolls, pancakes, waffles, or French toast!

*Note: you can use a single type of berry or a mix.

In a food processor, combine the following:

- 2 frozen bananas, broken into chunks (if you want a thinner smoothie base, use 1 1/2 bananas - as is, this recipe has the consistency of ice cream)

- 1 cup raspberries

- 1/3 cup blueberries

- 1/4 cup walnuts

- 1-2 tablespoons maple syrup (optional)

- 1/2 cup milk

- topping ideas: chia seeds, shredded coconuts, mini chocolate chips, nut butter

Blend until everything you have a smooth uniform consistency. Top as desired.

I'm very excited to finally be able to share with you my new format for the Global Explorers series! After testing this summer's original format at home, I found the activity books were a little hit or miss with my kids. Sometimes they were interested and did some of the activities and other times they looked at the postcard and booklet and just left it off to the side. So I started brainstorming ways to make it a little more fun and exciting and ideally involve the whole family. That's when the idea for a family dinner emerged. I thought providing an idea or two for a full meal menu along with some fun fact conversation cards and an activity placemat would make for a more complete experience. But then, I had another brain spark...

My kids are SUPER into mystery books and they've enjoyed mystery puzzle games like Carmen Sandiego and Highlights Top Secret Adventures. They also had a lot of fun when I created a Wild Kratts-Carmen Sandiego hunt across Africa last year to introduce our African savannah unit study. I thought, what would be more fun than a themed dinner followed by crime mystery to solve! And so began the task of creating such a game...

Let me just say that it took a lot more time to prepare than I was expecting. I had to come up with a crime. I had to research various locations in Korea. I had to create a guide booklet with information about each location. The plan was to use the format of the Carmen Sandiego games and have the players follow the thief from place to place until they were caught and the stolen item was recovered. But I wanted it more fun and interactive than just reading clues about the next destination. So I had to come up with clues AND puzzles about the locations and clues about the thief. Then I had to figure out how to make the puzzles as easy to set up as possible without needing specialized items. That meant creating a lot of printables. Then I had to print everything out, set it up, and test the game. Daddy and the kids were more than happy to test it out for me and provide feedback on what needed a little tweaking. And after the test run I realized I needed to provide very detailed instructions on how to set up and guide the game. BUT...it is finally ready to share AND I learned a lot during the process and I'm confident the next go around will go much smoother and quicker. So, without further ado, here is everything you need to have your own Korean Family Dinner Adventure!!

When author Eugenia Chu sent me a copy of her new book, "Celebrating Chinese New Year" I knew it would be the perfect base for a mini unit on Chinese New Year! This is an all inclusive guide to Chinese New Year - it includes history, background, legends, and an introduction to common traditions and foods. At the end of the book, Eugenia also includes a bunch of activities like making your own paper lanterns, dragon puppets, as well as her mother's famous jiăozi recipe!