Wordless Wednesday: Walkin'

What's For Dinner? Week 9: Crispy Chicken & Pasta

 The official name of this dish is Crispy Chicken With Creamy Italian Sauce and Bowtie Pasta.  That's quite a mouthful-of-a-name!  I don't typically fry chicken on the stove top....I am much more of a bake chicken or grill chicken kind of girl. So, I was a little afraid that I would either burn the chicken or serve it raw (not that I would actually serve it that way...).  Thankfully, I did neither and it turned out pretty good.  The flavor of the sauce is quite yummy, although there was way too much (in my opinion), so I had to drain it a bit. 

 Click here for the recipe!

Nana & Papa are in town from Florida, and we topped off the meal with brownies and ice cream to celebrate Nana's birthday (which was this past Saturday!)

Fun With Dr. Seuss

 It is Read Across America Week, which purposely coincides with Dr. Seuss' birthday (March 2).  

 

 

The former elementary school teacher in me can't seem to let this week go by without some fun Dr. Seuss-y activities.  In addition to reading lots of Dr. Seuss books, we made a few crafts that go along with some of the Seuss favorites.

Of course, we can't celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday without recognizing The Cat in the Hat.  Our craft was inspired by this one, though we made ours a bit differently.  The kids painted a large paper plate black.  They used a small paper plate to make the face.  Instead of painting the stripes on the hat, they glued strips of red onto a white paper hat, and then we cut them out.

 As an afterthought, I added large Popsicle sticks to the bottom so the kids could play with them as masks.

 

 

 Thing 1 and Thing 2 hand prints...craft idea found here.  These guys are just so cute! 

And, to go with One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish,  we made these fishies.  Directions found here.

 Caleb's preschool class is also doing some fun Dr. Seuss related things this week.  Today was Silly Hat Day.  We didn't have any silly hats laying around the house, and I suggested he just wear one of his baseball caps.    He insisted that such a hat was not silly enough (what was I thinking?!), and that we could just make a silly one.  He told me he wanted a cone-shaped hat with poles sticking out the sides (not sure where his inspiration came from).  Well, we happened to have a cone-shaped party hat and a dowel rod.  And as a bonus, we added some tissue paper streamers for some extra silliness...

Happy (and Silly!) Reading to you!

Cold & Hot

 Cold is fun...

 ...but hot can be really nice, too!

What's For Dinner? Weeks 7 & 8 - Turkey, Bacon, Avocado Wrap & Honey Sesame Chicken

Here are my 2 latest new dinner recipe efforts....

Week 7 - Turkey, Bacon, Avocado Wrap....recipe found here.

I originally made this with Kris in mind.  He is a big fan of the turkey-bacon-avocado combination.  The recipe calls for the bacon to go into the crock pot with the turkey, but I actually made a few extra slices of bacon separately so that we would have some crispy bacon to put in the wrap.  I think that next time, I'll just put a little bit of the bacon into the crock pot but make most of it separately.  Big fan of crispy bacon.  Oh, and we also left out the red pepper.  

The flavors turned out pretty good, and while the kids didn't eat everything all wrapped up, they each enjoyed different parts of the meal.  It works.

Week 8 - Crock Pot Honey Sesame Chicken...recipe found here.

This was really easy, and really tasty!  I actually didn't have enough soy sauce (we usually have multiple bottles of Silver Swan in the house, but apparently I was running low...oops).  So, the chicken ended up being a bit sweeter than it probably would have if I had enough soy sauce, but it was still really good!

The Solar System

Caleb is really into the solar system these days.  He loves to look at pictures and videos of the sun, moon, planets, and anything else outer-space-related.  He is also a big fan of rockets.  Oh, and he is going to be an astronaut when he gets bigger...more specifically, he and Bryce (a buddy from school) are going to be space rangers.

So, today, we made the solar system.  We have been talking about doing this project for days (weeks?) and we finally did it.

I had put together a list of how many Styrofoam balls and dowel rods we would need, and what size they would all have to be and was prepared to do some math and measuring when I got to the store.  But, to my pleasant surprise, when we got to the appropriate aisle, I found a solar system set...appropriately sized Styrofoam balls & dowel rods all ready to go.  Who would have thought? =)

First up: figuring out which ball is which planet.

Next up, painting.  Caleb had recently helped me make cake pops, and this was not too unlike that.  He applied our "cake-pop-making-strategy" for some of the smaller planets, and it worked well.  Although, this was way messier!

 

Mommy had to help a bit....

 The painted planets, drying...

Caleb could hardly wait for morning to come.  It took a while for some of the extra-gloppy planets to dry, but by this morning, they were ready to be assembled.

He loves it!

 We did another, more simple, little solar system craft this morning.  Meredith got in on the action as well.

 

All You Need Is Love....

Happy Valentine's Day!

Opening gifts from Mom & Dad...

Fun with hearts...

 

 

Earlier today, we picked up lunch to bring to Dad at work.  The kids always love going to seem him at his office!

They were also really excited to give him the gift we put together for him.  I had taken pictures of each of the kids holding a roll of white wrapping paper, printed the photos, matted them on card stock, and then added the hearts to make it look like they were holding signs.  This is a spin-off of the ever popular kids-holding-giant-suckers Valentine idea that is circulating the web via Pinterest, blogs, etc.  Lastly, I placed them into clear plastic frames.  They now sit on one of the bookshelves in Daddy's office!

The day has taken a bit of a turn, as Caleb is now lying on the couch with stomach issues (bug? flu? something he ate, or has been eating?  I wish I knew, sigh....).  I'll still make heart-shaped pancakes and bacon for dinner, though our biggest pancake-eater will probably not partake.  Poor little guy.

Oh, and I also wanted to share the cute Valentine's gift that the kiddos made for all of their grandparents.  Lisa and her girls came over a couple of weeks ago so we could make these together.  We used homemade clay to make the discs, and our kids' thumb prints to make the hearts.  We glued a magnet to the back of each, so not only are they cute, but they're functional as well! =)

Hope that you are showing love and feeling loved today!