Muffin Tin Monday

We find ourselves at yet another Muffin Tin Monday! There was no theme today, so I just put a few of Laural's faves in a tin and let her have at it. I don't think it really matters if it's just a plain lunch or a themed lunch - she just adores it.

Top: Green & Red Pepper Strips, Nestle Crunch, Milk

Bottom: Pretzel Sticks, Hot Dog, Ketchup

She loves posing for MTM pics! She was quite excited today as it was her first time trying the red peppers. She loved them! When she was younger, she didn't like her hot dog on a bun, so I started slicing the hot dogs and putting pretzel sticks in them. She was quite pleased with this and we have continued to do that. She got to skewer her own dogs today. She loved that too since it made her feel grown up. Very cute.

Micah missed out on Muffin Tin Monday today. He seems to prefer to nap around lunch time. If I try to feed him first, he gets quite grumpy and really doesn't eat anything anyway. He gets to eat after he wakes up, but I don't put it in a tin since he really doesn't have much of a clue. I probably should, but today, I was lazy. Ah, well. Next week.

Peanut Butter Fudge Pie Recipe

This is the recipe for the pie I made for Thanksgiving. I didn't really follow a recipe. I looked at a couple recipes and put together something that sounded good to me. I actually do this sort of thing a lot.  Anyhow, this is how I made the pie. It turned out very good but very rich. Just the way I like it.

You will need:

~ Chocolate Graham Cracker Crust or Oreo Cookie Pie Crust

~ Hot Fudge Sauce

~ 8 oz Brick of Cream Cheese (brought to room temperature)

~ 1/2 cup Sugar

~ 1 cup Creamy Peanut Butter

~ 12 oz tub of Cool Whip

Prepare graham cracker crust (either make your favorite or buy one). Spread about 3/4 of a cup of hot fudge topping on the bottom of the crust.and set aside.

Whip the cream cheese, sugar and peanut butter together until smooth and creamy. Fold in cool whip. One mixed thoroughly, fill up the pie crust. Warm a little hot fudge and drizzle over top of pie. Refrigerate about 2 hours before serving. Yum!

Thanksgiving Lapbook

We've been working on a Thanksgiving Lapbook this past week. I'm not sure if we are going to get it done before the end of the week or not. We have a lot to do this week. We have to go to both families for Thanksgiving dinners tomorrow and then we are going to try to hit some Black Friday sales the day after. We might have to finish it up next week. Here are some pics of what we've done so far:

The cover that Laural colored. She decided to have a magenta turkey. LOL

Left side has 2 round mini books from Enchanted Learning. The rectangle minibook is from www.TeacherVision.com. The middle is an activity book from Enchanted Learning and the Thankful Pumpkin is from www.christianpreschoolprintables.com. The right flap has a minibook from DLTK.

The inner right flap has Thanksgiving facts I collected at National Geographic and Count Your Blessing match game cards that I found at  www.christianpreschoolprintables.com.

 

 The inner left flap has Bible verses and examples of people of the Bible who were thankful. If you lift the center flap that the pumpkin is on, there is the Turkey Feathers game that I got from www.filefolderfun.com.

Laural really likes the Turkey Feathers. She has to do the math and then put the feather in the turkey with the correct answer.

We still have to finish the minibooks and we were going to add Thanksgiving stickers to dress it up a bit but I haven't been able to find any! Imagine! This is only our 2nd lapbook. Laural really likes them though, so I think we might try to do one each month. I suppose I'd better get started on the December pretty soon!

Getting Ready for Thanksgiving, pt. 2

We finally had a chance to get Laural's hat done and get her picture taken. She's a cutie! I love that little face! She did a pretty good job on her turkey hat.

I see from the picture that we need to wash her glasses again today. Glasses on a preschooler is not an easy thing. We have to clean them constantly and we need to take them to be straightened out at least once every other week. Thank God it's free to have them adjusted and tightened.

Getting Ready for Thanksgiving

We have been doing Thanksgiving activities lately as we prepare for Thursday's festivities and one of the things we did today was make turkey hats! This is a cute craft found on the Family Fun website. Laural hasn't had the chance to make hers yet because her cousins arrived just as we were starting. I "helped" Micah make his. Ok, I made Micah's but he helped a little with making the dots in the eyes. He had fun watching and playing with a pen and drawing (scribbling) furiously on a piece of paper I gave him.

I wanted to get the binky out of his mouth before the picture was taken, but we were quite close to naptime and removing the plug could have resulted in some serious rioting which may have delayed naptime significantly. I didn't want to chance it.

We made a couple changes to the turkey hat. We stapled several items in place rather than gluing them - the band, the feathers and the cardboard that attaches the head to the band. I figured it would be quicker and the kids could enjoy the fruits of their labor sooner. Also, I traced the kids' hands for the side wings. I thought it would be neat to have a little personal touch to their hats. We also used paper circles rather than pompoms for the eyes. I just don't have pompoms laying around. I don't think our changes made a big difference in the quality of the craft.

We are also working on a Thanksgiving lapbook. I am hoping to have it finished by the end of the week but we have a lot of cooking and baking to do. Even though we will be eating at my in-laws' and my parent's places, I still have to cook. I'm making green bean casserole (all from scratch) and a loaf of bread for the in-laws' and peanut butter cream pie for my parent's dinner. Yum. I. Can't. Wait.

I'll post Laural's turkey hat pics once we get it done.

Menu Plan Monday

One of my guilty pleasures is spending (too much) time online flipping through various blogs. About a month or so ago, I stumbled across I'm An Organizing Junkie while reading another blog. Now, anybody who really knows me, knows that I am about the least organized person on this planet. I'm not "Hoarders" disorganized but let's just say that there are times when I am looking for something and the search will entail shuffling through a pile of odd papers, magazines, coupons and coloring books, among other things. I doubt there will come a time when I am what sane people will call organized, but there might be hope. The main reason I clicked on over to I'm An Organizing Junkie was for Meal Plan Monday. Since I like to have meals planned out for the week, this seemed like a good place to start organizing. Who knows? Maybe after this, I can get the rest of my house in order. Doubtful, but one can hope! So here is my first Menu Plan Monday blog post.

Monday: Dinner out since I have to take the kids with me to try to fix the newsletter printing issues at the Historical Society.

Tuesday: Soft Tacos (using homemade tortillas)

Wednesday: Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, Garlic Toast, Side Salads

Thursday: Thanksgiving Dinner (once with each side of the family - we are going to be stuffed!)

Friday: Leftover Surprise (Probably: Hot turkey sandwiches served over mashed potatoes)

Saturday: Sweet & Sour Chicken, rice and pineapple

Sunday: Crock Pot Pork Roast with Potatoes and Carrots

I will post my recipe for Sweet & Sour Chicken later. It is one of our family favorites.

Muffin Tin Monday!

Today was another fun Muffin Tin Monday! The theme was Thanksgiving so we had an almost traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

 

Top Row for each: Sweet Potato Flowers, Mashed Potatoes & Gravy (vanilla yogurt & caramel sauce), Craisins

Bottom Row for each: Broccoli, Turkey Slices in the shape of oak leaves and acorns, Mini Apple Pie Slices (from the deli)

For beverage, they had fruit and veggie juice in bug shaped sippers.

Laural loves Muffin Tin Mondays and is now remembering to remind me that it is Monday and thus time for Muffin Tin Monday. LOL I think she saw that it was Movie Time Monday on Disney Channel which is what reminded her about Muffin Tin Monday. It sure is fun to see how excited she gets over it though.

 

Micah, well, I don't think that he really understands that there is a real difference when we serve lunch in a tin, he just gets excited at the fact that there is food in front of him. He always tends to go for the sweets first. Here, he is saying cheese as he poses for the picture with a mouth full of apple pie.

An Awesome Giveaway! From Today's Mama & Provo Craft

This is an awesome giveaway and one I really, really hope I might win! Click on the link below (TodaysMama) for info on how to enter.

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme

TodaysMama and Provo Craft are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What 5 items are on your holiday wish list this year? 
*a new laptop
*a new baby (not something we can feasibly have by Christmas LOL)
*a clean house (how is it that 2 small children make such a huge mess - daily??)
*some kitchen stuff (silicone muffin tins, tortilla press, sushi making stuff)
*maid service to keep the magically clean house from wish number 3 clean for longer than a day

2. What is your favorite handmade gift you have received? 
*anything my daughter makes me - it means she has thought about me and about making something that she thinks will make me happy. it doesn't matter what it ends up being, I love it! She made me an adorable card for Mother's Day this year. I treasure it because I know the love that went into it.
 
3. What handmade gift have you always wanted to tackle? 
*I would love to make scrapbooks for each of my children for the grandmas but the task seems daunting.

4. What was the best Christmas gift you received as a child?
*My powder blue "cloud" bike. LOVED IT! I also remember really loving a Candy doll my Grandparents got me - you could color her hair and put makeup on her.

5. What items are on your kid’s wish list this year? 
*Laural asks for Chixos every time we go near a toy department in any store. She also wants Barbie dolls, Geo Trax and a Crayola Glow Dome. Micah really doesn't have a wishlist but I want to get him some Tonka trucks and a Tag Jr.

6. What is your favorite holiday food? 
*Turkey! I love turkey dinner and then having turkey sandwiches for the next 3 days!

7. What will you be hand-crafting for the holidays? 
*Scrapbook style calendars

8. What is your favorite holiday movie? 
*I always look forward to the comedies: The Santa Clause, Scrooged and Jingle All the Way

9. Favorite holiday song? 
*Carol of the Bells with Trans Siberian Orchestra's Wizards of Winter in a very, very close 2nd

10. Favorite holiday pastime?
*On Christmas Eve, we fill up thermal mugs with hot cocoa, grab the Christmas cookies and pile into the car to go driving around to see all the Christmas lights. We listen to Christmas music (Trans Siberian Orchestra mostly) and ooh and ahh over all the light displays. I love how excited my kiddos get over it.

I Hate Spending Money!

OK, that's not completely true, but I do hate spending large amounts of money on mundane things like tires. I had no choice though. I had to buy two new tires for the Pacifica today. I replaced the front tires about four months ago and have been trying to put off replacing the rear tires as long as possible. But last week, I took a look at them and realized they were much, much worse than I thought. I was actually afraid to take the kids out with the way they looked. As of this afternoon, all is well in the world of wheels (well our little family's world of wheels anyhow).

Today was a very busy day. We started with story time, followed by our trip to get new tires. While waiting for our car to be finished, we wandered around Walmart and got lunch from the deli. Then we headed to the dollar store to get stuff to fill up our Operation Christmas Child boxes. Micah fell asleep in the car on the way home, and slept a bit longer once we got home. After he woke up, we had a quick dinner and were off to my folks' house for Travis' 18th birthday party. Once we got home, it was bedtime routines, wake Steve up for work and now, finally, time to just sit, enjoy a coke and some whole wheat crackers with Laughing Cow cheese. Tomorrow should be a little slower day though I do need to grab a few groceries. I was going to do it today while I was in town, but by the time the car was done and we got the stuff from the dollar store, we had to head back home before Kali and Austin got off the bus. It's funny - we have always planned to be homeschoolers but now we find ourselves (albeit temporarily) slaves to the schedule of the school bus.

Muffin Tin Monday

Today we had another Muffin Tin Monday. Today's theme: Foods your child is thankful for, so it was Laural's choice. Here is what she picked.

Top Row: Apple Bunnies, Cheezits, Milk

Bottom Row: Carrot Flowers on a bed of Green Peppers, PB&J Star, Sandies Cookies

She was quite happy with her choices.

Perhaps we will try having dinner in the muffin tin tonight since this seems to be the best way to get her to eat. Whatever works, right?

Kind of a Boring Day

The title says it all. Today was pretty boring, which really isn't a bad thing. We started with story time but the little girl who regularly attends was sick today so it was just Laural. We didn't stay since we needed to get to the library to work a bit more on the computers there. We got the one working correctly but it looks like the other one will need formatted again. We can't seem to get it to do anything! We still have some software to load on the working one though. We will be going back tomorrow since the kids were getting pretty cranky and hungry and we decided to leave. After we got home, Steve headed to bed. He had training tonight, so he needed to get some sleep. We had peanut butter pancakes for dinner because I had a nasty headache and really didn't feel like doing much of anything. Steve left at 7pm. I missed a Ministry Council meeting because I had no car. We watched a little tv, I played with the kids and then I got them ready for bed. Pretty boring day. LOL But it was good boring.

After getting some work done on the library computers, I need to make a Giant Eagle run. Need to nab a few good deals before this weeks sale is over. I also hope to get a trip to Kmart in this week since they have a few good deals on some toys that Laural wants for Christmas.

I am going to make onigiri tomorrow. I have had my salmon salting for almost 2 days. I need to make the sushi rice and buy some Nori at the organic store. I'm also thinking about making tamagoyaki. I've also been wanting to try my hand at falafel and lentil-hazelnut balls. I've been wanting to do bento so I've been spending time following a couple of bento blogs and flickr streams that have such yummy looking bento meals! I don't have any boxes or cute accessories though. I'll just have to serve the goodies on a plate.

I need to go order tires before bed. I took a good look at our two back tires and was shocked to see how bad they are. I could feel how rough the ride was getting but I never thought they would look that bad. I hope the tires come in fast!

Critters

It seems that a day doesn't go by that we don't have some sort of critter in our house. Right now it's mostly just lady beetles, but today, there were two new uninvited guests. The first wasn't so unusual, a large wolf spider was hanging out in the kitchen. I had to wake Steve up to take care of it. Bleh! The second was this guy:

I put him in a cup. Where else would I put him?

I found him in the basement when I went down to do the laundry. He was just sitting there in the middle of the basement floor. After I brought him upstairs, I realized that he was missing half of a front leg. After Laural had the chance to look him over, I set him free in the swamp. We don't even have to go outside to have wildlife adventures!

Muffin Tin Monday!

It's another Muffin Tin Monday in our house! And on an actual Monday! Laural gets so excited when she sees the muffin tins. When she came out to the kitchen and saw the tins, she said, "You're so nice to make lunch in the muffin tins!" She's too cute.

Today there was no set theme so I just did a typical lunch, but everyone knows it tastes SO much better in a muffin tin!

Milk to drink.
Top row: gummies, pb&j triangles, edamame
Bottom row: pb&j triangles, frozen strawberries, vanilla yogurt with sprinkles

Laural LOVES frozen strawberries. These were yummy local strawberries that I froze. Most of the 8 quarts of berries I got this year went into jam, but we saved some of the real beauties to snack on throughout the rest of the year.

Micah seemed very interested in and pleased with the sprinkled yogurt. A second after this pic was taken, the little fingers went into the yogurt. LOL He was pretty tired so he only had about half his lunch before he got too grumpy to go on. Laural was happy to finish his off. That girl is such a mystery sometimes. One day she hardly eats anything before she is just too full to have another bite and days like today she finishes her lunch and half of Micah's. She's too much. LOL

Muffin Tin Monday (on Tuesday)

We had a lot of errands to run yesterday, so we delayed Muffin Tin Monday for a day. Laural was thrilled with her space themed munchies.
Top Row: whole wheat Ritz planets with provolone rings, rocket pb&j, milky way milk
Bottom Row: apple stars, alien egg, meteor grapes

Laural posing with her alien.

This was only our 2nd Muffin Tin Monday. I had planned to do it more often, but we always seem to be so busy that I don't have time to get it done. Laural loves it so much, I hope I can keep up with it in the coming weeks.