MOMS Club Retreat

I joined our local MOMS Club a few years ago. It's been invaluable to me and my girls! We have made so many friends and we keep pretty busy with activities & play dates.

Our chapter just returned from our first MOMS Club Retreat! We got several ladies together and rented a house in the NC mountains for the weekend.

It was a great trip... full of laughter, eating and exploring the area. Hopefully, this will be the first of many. We're already talking about doing a Fall retreat at the beach!

 

One of the things we munched on all weekend was this Sombrero Pasta Salad that Kelly made. It was really good!

"Gingerbread" Houses and Salt Dough Ornaments

I've spent the past couple of days just hanging out with my girls. The house is a mess and I haven't really cooked dinner in awhile... but none of that seems to matter recently.

We made salt dough ornaments a couple of days ago and painted them today. I was pretty impressed with Lea's painting skills. Believe it or not, she isn't really into arts & crafts (Gasp!). Her preschool teacher said she is always the first to finish a project and run off to play when they do crafts. She didn't get that from me! Anyhow... like I said, she actually took her time and painted the ornaments very well. I was so proud!!

Cutting out the ornaments.

Concentrating on our paintings (while Emma watches!).

Painting

I also assembled two "gingerbread" houses for us to decorate. I used graham crackers and homemade royal icing. I made them the night before so they would be hardened and ready to decorate the next day. Lea LOVED all the candy I had gotten. She wasn't that into decorating her house, though... she just wanted to eat the candy! We still had a good time. I had Teddy Grahams, too. She thought it was hilarious to make her house look like bears were climbing all over it. ;)

"I'm going to pretend to take a bite, mom!"
(I am pretty sure she actually did take a bite.)

Tasting her work.

I also managed to make peppermint bark today and actually, I got a couple loads of laundry done, too. :)

What's for dinner?

I dread the late afternoon rush... after the kids naps, just before my husband gets home, when toys are everywhere, laundry needs to be folded (and put away!), the dishwasher needs to be emptied and everything needs to be done all at once. Out of all that, though, the thing I hate most is trying to think of what we will have for dinner...a mere hour before it is time to eat. Inevitably, once I finally decide on something, there is always an ingredient or two missing and only about 30 minutes to whip something together.

I've always wanted to be a "meal planner". You know... the kind of mom who actually spends some time planning out what the family will have for dinner each night of the week ahead.

I've tried. I really have. But for some reason, I just can't keep it up. Perhaps it's just motivation that I am lacking?

I made this nifty meal-planning-template today in hopes that it will motivate me to stick to it this time!

 

 

It was really, really easy to make. I created the "design" (if that's what you want to call it) in Word. Printed it out and stuck it in a $3 picture frame from Walmart. Ta-da! ;)

 



Preschool!

My baby big girl has her first day of preschool tomorrow!

I'm feeling a mixture of excitement, nostalgia and proudness. As I nurse baby Emma, I can't help but think about Lea when she was a tiny baby... and now she's an opinionated, energetic preschooler!

I've explained to her that we will leave and come back later to pick her up. We've met her teacher and spent some time in her classroom. Her dress and hair bow is picked out. Her lunch is packed. Daddy is even working from home tomorrow so he can come with us when she gets dropped off.  I don't think we could be any more prepared.

We spent a fun, family day today at a local kids museum. Then we went out for a celebratory dinner. It was a lot of fun!

And, here's my very first attempt at packing a school lunch. I think I did a pretty good job but we'll have to see what comes back after school tomorrow!

Whole wheat rotini with peas, lima beans and home-grown cherry tomatoes, sliced carrots, baby grapes and yogurt covered raisins.

 

We're proud of you, Lea! Good luck on your new adventure!

We're Excited!

Lea starts preschool next week (GASP!) and we are getting very excited. She will go Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:15am to 1:15pm. That means she'll have lunch there. So, I ordered a bunch of fun bento lunch items. Bento basically means a creatively packed lunch...just Google "bento lunch ideas" and you'll get a ton of awesome pictures. Here are a few examples:

I am so inspired and can't wait to start packing cool lunches! You can get as elaborate as you like or just keep it simple. Either way, I think it's a great idea to encourage healthy eating while away from home (and away from mom's watchful eyes!).

So, here's what we got...

Two food containers, silicone cups, food picks and hard boiled egg forms.

Food container with the lid on.

Lid off (there are three compartments inside).

One compartment removed,
revealing the lower compartment.

Both compartments removed.

Cool silicone cups for smaller food items.

Adorable food picks.

 

Hard boiled egg forms...

Put the hard boiled egg inside and leave it for a few hours.
It will come out shaped like the form. How cool!?

It looks like I'm supposed to put it in a bowl of water?
Everything is written in Japanese so I'm really not sure! lol

Lea is excited about her new lunch "toys"!

All of these items were ordered from Bento USA by AllThingsForSale.com.

Tacos!

Found this little gem of a picture today and thought I'd share. You're welcome!

(This is one of my favorite signs that we saw while in New Mexico!)

And, I found this awesome shirt online & thought it went very well with the sign:

Homemade Granola

Who knew how easy it was to make delicious homemade granola? Ok...maybe you did but I had no clue. To tell you the truth, I didn't even know store bought granola started with "old fashioned" oats. Now that I have made some myself, it seems pretty obvious.

We always have old fashioned oatmeal on hand (that's my favorite) and I love granola cereal so when I found this recipe I just had to try it! I whipped it up in just a few minutes and then it baked for less than an hour.

Shall I dare say I will never buy prepared granola again??? (Seriously, it was that easy to make. Try it!)

Here's what I used:

2 generous cups old-fashioned oats
½ cup Wheat Germ
2 Tbsp Dark Brown Sugar
¼ tsp Salt
1/8 cup Maple Syrup
1 Tbsp Agave nectar
1 tsp Vanilla extract
3 Tbsp flavorless cooking oil (I used Canola)
1 Tbsp Water
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup walnuts
1/4 cup shredded, sweetened coconut

Basically, you just mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl (oats, wheat germ, brown sugar, salt nuts and coconut) and simmer the wet ingredients on the stove (syrup, agave, vanilla, oil and water). Then just drizzle the syrup mixture over the oat mixture and stir really well to coat it all. Spread it out on a large backing pan/dish and bake at about 250 for 30 minutes... stir and bake a little longer, if needed (you want it to be a nice golden brown color). When you take it out, let it sit to cool completely before storing it (or eating it!).

ENJOY!!!

Cookies!

Lea had fun baking cookies with her Gaga and Gramma today...

Pumpkin Seeds!

I LOVE toasted pumpkin seeds. My mom used to make them all the time when I was growing up and I had no idea it was so easy. So, I enlisted my little Lea to help me make some this year.


"Scooping" out the seeds... well, Lea picked them out one at a time!



"Ew! Messy, mommy!!"

 

Like I said, it's super easy. Once you harvest all the seeds from the pumpkin, spread them out on a cookie sheet (lined w/ foil). Then pick out all the big chunks of goop. I like to leave some of the goopy stuff b/c that's what gets krispie when you bake them. It adds a lot of flavor!

Then, just add a table spoon or two of melted butter and a table spoon or two of Worcestershire sauce. This time, all I had was the new, thick Worcestershire sauce, but I think that might actually work better! I sprinkled a little garlic salt on them, too.

Bake them at about 275 degrees for about an hour. Make sure to stir them around a lot while they are baking.


YUM!!!!



Yummy Food

The past week or so we have tried some new and very yummy recipes. I thought I would share so you guys can try them, too!

Cajun Chicken Pasta (this one was so good, I have made it twice in less than two weeks!)

4 ounces linguine pasta
2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, sliced into thin strips
2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
2 tablespoons butter
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
4 fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 green onion, minced
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon lemon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add linguine pasta, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until al dente; drain.

2. Meanwhile, place chicken and Cajun seasoning in a zip-lock bag and toss to coat.

3. In a large skillet over medium heat, saute chicken in butter until no longer pink and juices run clear, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add green and red bell peppers, sliced mushrooms and green onions; cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce heat, and stir in heavy cream. Season the sauce with basil, lemon pepper, salt, garlic powder and ground black pepper, and heat through.

4. In a large bowl, toss linguine with sauce. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.
 

Chocolate Mint Cookies (I have made these before. They are SO easy and SO yummy!)

3/4 cup butter

1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar

2 tablespoons water

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

36 Andes Mints

Directions:

1. In a large pan over low heat, cook butter, sugar and water until butter is melted. Add chocolate chips and stir until partially melted. Remove from heat and continue to stir until chocolate is completely melted. Pour into a large bowl and let stand 10 minutes to cool off slightly.

2. At high speed, beat in eggs, one at a time into chocolate mixture. Reduce speed to low and add dry ingredients, beating until blended. Chill dough about 1 hour.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

4. Roll dough into balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake 8-10 minutes. While cookies are baking unwrap mints and divide each in half. When cookies are brought out of the oven, put 1/2 mint on top of each cookie. Let the mint sit for up to 5 minutes until melted, then spread the mint on top of the cookie. Eat and enjoy!


Orange Creamsicle Pops (I really like making homemade popsicles for Lea. The possibilities are endless!)
 

1 cup of milk (I used organic, whole milk)

6 oz of vanilla yogurt

2/3 cup of orange juice

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

handful of ice cubes

 

Directions:

1. Blend first 4 ingredients together in a blender until well blended.

 

2. Add ice and blend more.
 
3. At this point, you can either drink immediately as a smoothie or pour into popsicle molds and freeze.
 
I hope you'll try these easy and delicious recipes. Enjoy!

Eat Your Spinich!

After the kids had a yummy Avocado-Banana smoothie at my friend Jennifer's, I am inspired to try making more smoothies for Lea. When Lea was a baby, I used to make smoothies for myself every morning. It was fast, easy and nutritious. Not sure why, but I haven't made them in awhile.... unitl today!

Feeling expiramental, I made a Blueberry-Spinich smoothie.

• about a cup of frozen blueberries
• about half a cup of spinich
• 4 or 5 random pieces of pineapple
• two 1 oz cubes of frozen apple juice
• about a cup of V8 v-fusion juice

I know, I know... TOTALLY random! But I wanted to use what I already had... and that's what I had. :P

Believe it or not, it turned out pretty yummy. And Lea thought so, too!

Rosemary-Garlic Chicken

Made this for dinner tonight and just had to share! It was so yummy and super easy...

From RealSimple.com
Rosemary-Garlic Chicken
Serves 4, Hands-On Time: 25m, Total Time: 30m

Ingredients

4 boneless, skinless chicken-breast halves
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and cut in half lengthwise
salt and black pepper
1/2 cup sherry vinegar
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves or 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Directions

1.Using a rolling pin, pound the chicken-breast halves between 2 sheets of wax paper until they are the same thickness.
2.Heat the oil and garlic in a large skillet over medium-high heat until the oil shimmers and the garlic browns. (Don’t burn the garlic.)
3.Add the chicken and cook until golden, 3 to 5 minutes on each side.
4.Add 1 teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, the vinegar, chicken broth, and rosemary.
5.Cover skillet, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook 3 minutes more or until the chicken is fork-tender. Transfer the chicken to a platter and keep warm.
6.Increase heat to high and boil sauce until it is thickened or syrupy, 3 to 5 minutes. Whisk in the butter and pour the sauce over the chicken.
I made honey carrots to go along side. We all loved it... including Lea!

To Cook or Not to Cook...

I don't like to cook.

There, I said it! It's one of those things that I wish I did like, but I really don't.  I can make some great cookies (and actually made delicous cheesecake brownies from scratch on Sunday!), but cooking a meal is another story. I love to eat and I actually like to eat healthy foods, but it's so much faster & easier to grab a frozen pizza and a handful of baby carrots chips.

I'm trying to make an effort to cook more, though... especially now that I am a stay-at-home mom. I found this cool site called Super Cook where you can enter items that you have in your kitchen and they will give you a list of recipes that you can make with those items. Last night I tried a chicken recipe (it was just ok) and tonight I'm doing pork chops. If it's not easy, I won't make it. I think tomorrow I'll make vegetable beef soup... from scratch, not from a can. How hard can that be? Beef, frozen veggies, beef broth, a little pasta and some seasoning. I can do that! (right?)

Currently, Lea eats the best in our family. If we have McDonald's, she has homemade chicken nuggets, peas and baked sweet potatoes. I want to change that. I want us ALL to eat well & healthy. We deserve it, right!?

I need some encouragement and inspiration to keep going. What are some of your favorite (easy) recipes and what are your time saving tips when making dinner?

Lea enjoying (not-so-healthy) conch fritters in FL.