Boys and Baseball

What is it about boys and baseball?

Pretty good except for the football!  Better watch a little closer Red Shoes! =)

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Menu Plan Monday * December 6-December 10*

Monday- Easy Chicken Fried Rice, Recipe from Southern Living Busy Moms Weeknight Favorites Great cookbook!

Tuesday- Crockpot Scalloped Potates with Ham

                Green Beans

Wednesday- Cream of Broccoli Soup and Sub-Sandwhiches.

                    Thursday- Cranberry Pork Roast, Baked Potatoes, Steamed Mixed 

                                    Vegetables

Friday- Baked Chicken Alfredo, Cranberry Spinach Salad, Garlic Bread

Be sure to check out other menu plans at the blog, I'm an Organizational Junkie.

Have a great week!

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Courtney's Velvet Peach Salad

This is a great, easy salad to make.  It requires few ingredients, and tastes refreshing. 
Here's what you need:

3 cups boiling water

2 (3oz.) packages of peach jello

1 box of vanilla pudding (not instant)

1 large can of sliced peaches (juice and all)

2 cups miniature marshmallows

Boil water. Add jello and pudding, and bring to boil again. Remove from heat and add marshmallows.  Stir until melted. Pour into a 9X13 inch pan and cool. Add peaches and chill. 

This would be really pretty in individual glasses. 

Like this..minus all the peach jello on the table. 

For a printable version of this recipe go HERE

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A Sleepover with Cousins

The night before Thanksgiving Red Shoes, Happy Feet & Swoosh's cousins spent the night with us.  We had so much fun with them!  Here's a look at what we did...

We ate meatballs and macaroni and corn casserole for supper.  The kids loved it!

After supper we got the table cleared off and we started making turkeys...not the kind you eat, the kind you look at. Got the idea from here.

These two really had fun making their turkeys.

Such intensity! Red Shoes is so lucky to have such a wonderful cousin.  Seriously, she has one of the kindest hearts. They are good buddies.

We lost the two younger ones...

After the turkeys were finished someone suggested that we play Candy Land.  Seemed like a good idea...

My niece is a much better teacher than I am. She was so patient in teaching the younger kids how to play. 

 They (Happy Feet) need a few more lessons.  She just wanted to slide her player all over the board.

 The part that I feared most was the sleeping (or not sleeping). It went really well. The kids went to sleep without much fuss (they were very tired) and stayed that way for the entire night. Yay!

We can't wait to do it again guys. We love you!



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A Weekly Calendar for Kids

I've been really busy lately working on all kinds of learning activities for Red Shoes.  This post is about a weekly calendar I made for him and his sister.  Whenever I mention let's say a visit from Nana & Papa or Grandpa & Grandma on Friday and it's only Monday, I know that I'm going to be questioned every hour of every day until it's Friday.  The concept of time for kids is complex.  This is a fun and educational visual tool that helps them grasp the concept.  Now when I get the question, "when are Nana & Papa coming? I just say, "go look at your calendar".  It works!

Here's what you need:

• 2 pieces card stock
• Velcro
• magnets (the kind that come on a roll)
• clip art

First, just take two pieces of card stock and tape them together. Once piece would look better, use what you have.  I wanted mine to be small enough to fit on the fridge, but big enough to really see.

 Second, print out all of your days of the week, etc.  If you want to use mine I posted them HERE. 

Next, you will want to print out your calendar clip art.  This is going to consist of your holidays, appointments, school days, therapies, playgroups, etc.  Mine can be found HERE.  You will need to personalize it for your child(ren).  For instance, add real pictures of grandparents, cousins, therapists...you get the idea.

Then, just cut everything out...I have a laminator that I bought from Sam's Club (this one).  I absolutely love it.  I use it a lot.  If you don't have one you could take your materials to a office supply store or print shop.  That can get costly though...if needed you could use Contact paper.

Here's what ours looked like:

After your calendar has been laminated, you need to break out the Velcro and magnets. I found them both at Wal-Mart.

You need to take the Velcro fasteners and put one side on the clip-art and the other on the calendar. Use the magnets and apply them to the back of the calendar if you are going to be placing it on the refrigerator.

Then, you are ready to plan out your week.  Do this with your kids...they will love to help. It's best if you can put this in a high traffic area in your home.  The refrigerator works very well.  As you are cooking, cleaning, etc. you are right there to answer questions and talk to your kids about their week, the weather and so on.

There are so many things you can teach your kids from this calendar. The weather, colors, numbers, days of the week, seasons, and on.  Oh, and so that the kids know what day of the week it is, you can use a clip and have them move it each day, or smiley face, whatever works for you/them.  That is a really important part of the calendar. 

I gotta tell you, my two year old looked at it and said, "school bus, school bus, school bus, then no school bus right?"  I think she's getting this down! 

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Natalie's Baked French Toast

I got this recipe from my friend Natalie years ago.  Here's a picture of us in all of our freshmen college glory. 

It's been forever since I've seen my good friend...and I miss her.  We both have three young kids and you should hear our phone conversations.  They would make you laugh, or maybe annoy you.  Probably depends on where you are at in your life.  Kids always need something, especially when their moms are on the phone. 

We've found that the best time for us to talk is when one of us is in our car with our kids strapped down in.  It's about the only time there is quiet in our lives.

Anyway, this recipe comes from Natalie and I think of her whenever I make it.  Which happens to be tonight.  Yes, breakfast for supper.  I do it at least once a week.  The kids like it and it's cheap. 

Here's what you need:
16 slices of regular bread, cubed (or 8 slices of heavy cottage bread, cubed
1 package of cream cheese, cubed
12 eggs
2 c. milk
1 1/3 cups syrup

1.  Cube up half of the bread and put it into a greased 9X13 dish. 

2.  Cut one package of cream cheese up into cubes.  Place on top of the bread.

3.  Cube up the other half of the bread and place on top of the cream cheese.

4.  Grab a carton of eggs from the refrigerator.  I got these beauties from my sister Jessie.  She's a great little chicken farmer.  Thanks Jessie!

5.  Crack the eggs into bowl.

6.  Add 2 cups of milk to the eggs

7.  Add 1 1/3 cups of syrup

8.  Mix it all up

9.  Pour the egg mixture on top of the bread and cream cheese mixture.  My original recipe says to refrigerate this overnight.  I've had it turn out great when I didn't have time to refrigerate it (like today for instance). Bake the french toast in a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes. 

*******************one of the best things about this recipe...*****************

This is all that has to be cleaned up!

Here's what your baked french toast will look like when it's done: It looks like I really burned it, but it tasted fine.  I probably just didn't get it mixed up as much as I should have. 

Thanks for the great recipe Natalie, and for your friendship.  Hope to see you before Swoosh goes to Kindergarten!

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Smiley Swoosh

Our little Swoosh is growing so fast!  He's smiling and really starting to "talk" to us.  Red Shoes and Happy Feet adore him.  He still seems a little nervous...probably due to his wild siblings running all around him.  He is getting closer to sleeping through the night, anytime soon would be really great!  He sits in his Bumbo seat and watches us eat our supper.  He seems pretty interested in that.  We're so happy to have our baby Swoosh. Pin It