Fabulous Models for Tween Girls: U.S. Women Win More Gold Medals at Olympics

Our family has been glued to the t.v. as we watched the Olympics this summer.. Our tweens have been enraptured by the spectacle of diverse sports and by seeing so many women's sporting events televised. HUGE thanks go to especially to Missy, Katie (a hometown heroine for us DC denizens!), Gabby, Ali, Jordan, Rebecca, Serena, Venus, and Allison - to name but a few - for inspiring our tween daughters like never before. We were further heartened to learn today that the U.S. Women earned 29 gold medals, besting by an even dozen the number won by the U.S. Men (at 17 - not too shabby either). We have Title IX to thank in part to this accomplishment, and boy, does it show. Congrats ladies!

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Tweens at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver

The Winter Olympics close today, and our tweens have enjoyed watching so much of it. Their favorites include Women's and Men's Snowboarding events, Ice Dancing, and the USA-Canada Hockey game going on right now. We have red-white-and-blue Jell-O stars chilling in the fridge now, and during the commercial breaks, we've been learning about how tweens have been involved in these Olympic games:

Sweeping up during Figure Skating: According to the Wall Street Journal, rarely has Vancouver seen such competition for litter collection: Vancouver chose 30 local children from among 135 who applied to be "flower sweepers." They dart onto the ice between performances, gracefully plucking up the debris in under two minutes, and then placing it into bags to hand over to the athletes.  Skaters competing here have been pelted with hundreds of items—plush hearts, framed photographs of fans and even plastic toy potatoes. In the audition, the kids had to prove they had sufficient speed, as well as the ability to stop on a dime. Most of the selected kids are tween-age, and it's not all hard work: the kids have witnessed the best skating in the world from an unparalleled vantage point: center ice - only judges and coaches have better seats. As an added benefit, they receive uniform/costumes with the Vancouver Olympics logo, and the girls outfits are bedazzled with over 8000 sequins.

Tween reporter covers the Games: Our tweens have been avidly following the Time For Kids reporter Brennan LaBrie's coverage of the Olympics. At eleven years of age, Brennan is the youngest reporter to cover the games. He's been working in news for several years before becoming a TFK reporter - he ran a kid newspaper in his hometown in Washington State. His updates on Twitter have been a lot of fun to read - you can follow him at www.twitter.com/kidreporter

Check out the wunderkid's interview with Gold Medalist Apolo Ohno:



Go USA!

Photo credit: European Pressphoto Agency

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Celebrating the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics!

Well, February has been a busy month already! We have a lot to celebrate, and it's not even Valentines' Day as yet.

The Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics are today, and our tweens are getting into the Team U.S.A. spirit by making confetti Jell-O stars. This treat is SO EASY and a great recipe to make on a snow day (which here in Washington is going on now for our 5th straight day - can we say "cabin fever"?).

Basically, all one needs is:

• One box of red Jell-O
• One box of blue Jell-O
• One can of sweetened condensed milk, and 
• Two packets of unflavored gelatin (Knox is the brand I've seen most; we also use this for making homemade marshmallows)
• Two 8' square pans (disposable foil brownie or loaf pans work great for this)
• One 9"x13" pan

Here's how:

• Dissolve each of the boxes of Jell-O in one cup of boiling water and pour them into the 8" square pans; chill for about 3 hours
• After the red and blue Jell-O's have set, cut them up into small pieces (any shape or size, really) and scatter them in the 9"x13" pan. Chill the entire pan.
• In a separate mixing bowl, soften the unflavored gelatin packets with a half cup of cold water. Then pour in one and a half cups of boiling water and stir until dissolved. Then mix in the can of condensed milk. When this mixture has cooled, pour it over the red and blue Jell-O cubes in the large pan.
• Chill the entire pan until set (about 3 hours), and cut into squares or into shapes using cookie cutters.

This fun idea for confetti Jell-O comes from the Food Librarian. She has many more ideas on how to work with Jell-O - I definitely recommend her blog.

Go Team U.S.A.!

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