Gluten Free Sweet Potato Muffins et al

I posted a Gluten Free Sweet Potato Spice Muffin recipe over at the Natural Kids blog. The muffins freeze well. Here are some other yummy gluten-free* items I've made recently from Gluten Free on a Shoestring, by Nicole Hunn (blog link has her book link on the sidebar):

Popovers


I boiled the bagels...


...and then baked the bagels:


When a friend said that he wanted biscotti, I baked those, too:


I haven't yet attempted Hunn's newly-developed gluten-free pita bread recipe, but I've got my pizza crisper now, and I'm going to make it. Soon.

*My daughter is on a trial gluten-free diet. So far, so good.

Mary's Garden

I just posted a new song over at A Storytelling of Crows. It's called "Marie in the Garden," and it's a simple game that a Waldorf teacher taught me a few summers ago. She worked with my daughter for an afternoon, and in thanks, I made for her a little doll. She said the doll would be perfect for "Marie in the Garden" and sang it for me.

Recently, my daughter sang the song for me, and I posted it in a video here.

Here is the back of the doll I made to accompany the song:


The thinking behind the flowers on the cape:

The three different kinds of flowers are those one might find in a Mary Garden: rosebuds, forget-me-nots ("Mary's Eyes"), and grape hyacinths ("St. Joseph's Bells"). I had intended to stitch a lily on the back of the cloak, but shading is not in my repertoire as of yet. I decided to embroider rosemary instead, but my needle seemed to have its own mind, and grape hyacinths appeared instead.

Humor?

April Fools' Day of my fourth grade year was uneventful... until bedtime. When I was getting ready for bed, I tried to put on my pajamas, only to find that my mother had sewn my pajama bottoms together.

Today, my daughter asked, "Will you sew my pajama bottoms together for April Fools' Day?"

I replied that I couldn't even get done the sewing I had to do (i.e. the cherry blossom doll a friend commissioned, the green dress that once would have taken mere days to complete).

I reminded her to be aware of the other kids today. A few days ago when the class had a substitute, one of the tricksters in her class changed her behavior card from green to red.

He told her it was an early April Fool's joke.

She said, "It wasn't funny."

He replied, "I wasn't laughing."

Neither was she.

When my daughter was younger, her laughter was full-bodied and contageous. Maybe the loss of unrestrained laughter an inevitable part of growing up, but I don't like it. I want to bring it back.

My daughter wants an April Fools' Day joke that isn't mean. Do you have any ideas?