Posts filed under 'Food'
Photo taken March 2011.
Clearly this is not an ice cream stand, at least not to those who are older than 8 years old. This is part of a playground near our house. We went during Spring Break, and our usually very quiet playground was overrun with older school-aged kids. My kids were trying to play with the big slides and things but it was getting harder and harder, with more people around.
So, Kennedy walked up to this window and said, “Who wants ice cream?” And Carlee ran over to her and said, “Me!” And we played a game with lots of questions. .What kind do you want? .How much is the ice cream? .Do you want a cup or a cone? Eventually, the other [older] kids decided these little ones were okay to play with, and they started asking for ice cream too. Colby took the money.
I love imaginations.
June 6th, 2011
I started this post way back in February. My good intentions really are being finished! (now to catch up with 3+ months of pics!)
I have a confession to make. I am not good at taking “before” pictures of my messes. This isn’t because I don’t want to show you what the messes look like! It’s only this – when I see a mess, I have tunnel vision to clean it up before it somehow multiplies. So, I only have pictures of one kitchen drawer but you can see the general progress of what’s been going on in my kitchen.
If you want lots of pictures of what step-by-step organization looks like, I’ll refer you to iheartorganizing & her 3-part kitchen drawer organization series… there’s a girl who knows her stuff!
But, here’s what I am able to show you. This is just one of my kitchen drawers [actually the smallest one], with lots and lots of stuff in it. I sorted through all of my drawers and found things I had forgotten about, things I haven’t used in awhile, things that were taking up space in my drawers. (Proof that you can have a big kitchen and still have too much stuff in it, if you’re not careful.)
I knew there was no way I’d be able to find those items without some sort of organization. I found this clear acrylic [is that redundant?] bathroom organizer at Target, which worked perfectly for this drawer. I bought more for another drawer which needed major organizing help.
And, for eye candy, I removed all items and inserted super pretty drawer liners [which were pretty expensive at Target, but this print seriously makes me happy every time I open my drawers. So, my happiness = more cooking in the kitchen = Kevin's happiness.]
Voila! Finished product.
I spent about 10 minutes on this drawer and 10 minutes on the other big clean-out drawer. Plus, I put liners in 4 other drawers in the kitchen. Budget-wise, I spent $15 on shelf liner paper and $20 on the acrylic organizers. Not the cheapest fix, but I really do like the way it turned out for these drawers I use every day.
June 5th, 2011
One of the best things about Colby going to the KOR school is that he is finished at 12:30 every day and we get to eat lunch together every day. (I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I still love it.) So, this is just an ordinary day for us, before we clean up the kitchen and go take a nap.
February 18th, 2011
In honor of my third (and final) foot surgery tomorrow, I took the kids and met Alicia and Amanda for lunch at Rosa’s today. Rosa’s tacos are super yummy. And, they serve tortillas and honey with every order. Colby asked Amanda to use honey and draw a picture of a car on his tortilla. I’d say she gets an A for her Tortilla and Honey Art Project.
December 29th, 2010
Merry Christmas, from Alicia’s face.
Kennedy took that pic and unfortunately it’s the only picture I have from my phone of that day. [sorry, Leesh.] I know Kevin took some with his camera. We spent the day at various gatherings. Breakfast was just the 5 of us at home; we opened our presents, played with our presents, and ate Butter Braids – yum! (Colby’s school fundraiser) Lunch was a Christmas feast at my uncle Philip’s house with my dad’s extended family, and then dinner was [by request] spaghetti and meatballs at my parents’ house with my parents and sisters.
The weather turned a little cooler today, so it was nice to sit by the fire and enjoy Christmas in a sweater instead of in shorts, which was what we had been wearing since last week. Although, it was nice to let the kids go outside and play on the trampoline every day instead of worrying about having to pick up their toys inside. Plus, now they have new toys to play with, since it’s Christmas!
December 25th, 2010
I love driving around to look at Christmas lights. Kevin and I took the kids in their pajamas after dinner tonight. I also took a cup of my favorite fruit wassail. Here’s the recipe, I got from a friend at MOPS.
1 can frozen orange juice
1 bottle (64 oz.) cranberry juice
1 large can pineapple juice
12 whole cloves
Heat together on the stove.
December 24th, 2010
What’s in those margarine & sour cream containers, you ask?
Well, you might have guessed from reading what I wrote on the top that they hold our snacks for the day. I needed something for the car ride around town. So I eventually found these containers, which were the perfect size for the goldfish and cheez-its.
Might not be revolutionary for some, but I do love reusing and repurposing things I might ordinarily have thrown away.
December 22nd, 2010
A friend from church was so kind to invite us over for some Christmas cookie decorating. I know the kids enjoyed playing in the icing, eating the icing, and then dousing the cookies with sprinkles. And I enjoyed eating.
December 21st, 2010
Colby’s Kindergarten teacher gave him a copy of The Gingerbread Man on Thursday. He brought it home, read it, and then began asking when we could make gingerbread cookies. So, today was the day. [I'm always happy to oblige when it comes to baking, especially cookies and also especially at Christmastime.]
Here’s Colby reading the story while the cookies are in the oven.
Here’s Kennedy’s finished product – she made a few mini-houses (with the help of a cookie cutter but Carlee tried to rip them apart anyway) and a Gingerbread Girl, complete with bow, that took up 1/2 of the cookie sheet! [We watched the Girl to make sure she didn't run away!]
And, Kennedy is on a picture-taking streak… here’s a great one she took of her funny Daddy.
December 19th, 2010
Two very random and completely unrelated things happened today.
[I suppose that's the true definition of random, right?]
Anyway, Amanda came over and borrowed my wireless internet. Don’t worry, she gave it back. Then I made the casserole pictured below out of pretty much everything in my freezer. I called it Leftover Casserole. (I wasn’t feeling too imaginative.) It had: frozen peas, frozen carrots, cooked pork + carrots, frozen corn, frozen black beans, frozen bell peppers, and frozen orange peppers; layered with tortillas, sour cream & cheese. I thoroughly enjoyed the casserole and it was such a nice way to use up ingredients that I had lingering in my freezer, that would never make a whole recipe of anything else.
Also, Kennedy took this pic of Amanda. Kennedy actually took a couple of pics of Amanda but most were blurry. This was the best one and of course, Amanda’s eyes are closed!
December 17th, 2010
Today Colby’s Kindergarten had a party. His teacher gave each of them a small milk carton or a butter box and some icing and graham crackers; it was instant “gingerbread house” – worthy. The girls got to help a little but mostly they wanted to eat all the decorations.
Then, his class had a book swap, which to Kindergarteners means you pick a number and then take the book with the coordinating number on it. I was impressed that all the kids did so well – they were so focused in getting those houses decorated!
December 16th, 2010
Kevin made a dessert for his company’s yearly dessert bake-off. He had 3 sous chefs this year.
December 7th, 2010
Here’s the last pic I took of our [picked] swiss chard. And here’s today’s pickins. (not a before and after; 1/2 is in the sink and 1/2 is on the cabinet).
I cooked all of this in a tiny bit of olive oil and then added some brown sugar and butter. I sauteed the stems separate from the leaves, to make sure the stems weren’t still crunchy. It tastes a lot like spinach but not quite so spicy, more like turnip greens. Next time I’ll add more sugar and more butter for Kevin’s tastes, but I really enjoyed it.
December 6th, 2010
I took a picture of Kevin reading The Jesus Storybook Bible. I very much enjoy this version of the Bible – the subtitle is “every story whispers His Name”, and I love love LOVE that on so many different levels.
This pic was taken during dinner, but I’ve been trying to read them a Bible story during lunch. I have had a hard time with lunch lately – we come home after picking up Colby from school [he's done at 12:30], and no matter how many snacks we eat in the morning, everyone is tired and starving (including me). It also seemed like once I got everyone’s lunches ready, the kids were ready to get down from the table and I hadn’t eaten a bite of food. And that left me frustrated and even more hungry, so here’s my solution:
- kids decide what they want to eat – I will give them 2 options but they cannot change their minds once they’ve picked.
- kids get out the accessible ingredients (ex. PBJ, fruit, chips).
- Mom gets out ingredients/food that needs to be heated in the microwave; kids punch in the numbers.
- Mom finishes assembly and plates food.
- kids wash hands (or go to the sink so I can wash their hands).
- kids set the table (plates, cups + water, napkins and silverware if necessary).
- kids get out the Bible and decide which story to read. One kid gets the Bible, one kid picks the story, and one kid gets to turn the pages or see the pics first (didn’t think we’d need this rule, but everyone wanted to do the same job, so I had to split it all up.)
We sit down, we pray, the kids talk to each other while I eat, and then I read from the Bible after the first 5-7 minutes of eating. It has helped us be more on the same page, so to speak, and eat lunch together, not in shifts.
And, notice how many of those things are the responsibility of the kids? And I haven’t had many arguments about who got more food or got to pray first or whatever else they might choose to complain about; plus, I get to actually eat food with my kids before they need to sleep! Now, I need to figure out how to get them to make their own PBJ…
November 29th, 2010
It has been said that the busiest time of the year at Walt Disney World is the week of Thanksgiving. We can personally vouch for that statement. Crowd levels on my iPhone app (touringplans.com) were 10 out of a possible 10, and it was strongly encouraged that we avoid Magic Kingdom on this day because all Saturdays at the Magic Kingdom are absolutely crazy. However, it was our last day at Disney and dad & Alicia’s only full day to go to MK, so we bit the bullet. It was very nice that I was in a scooter, because I got to bypass most of the lines and bring 8 people with me on the ride. Otherwise we would have spent all day in lines.
I still love the lights on Cinderella’s castle. It was worth all the lines to see that again. Took this pic while waiting for the parades to start. I also love the Main Street Electrical Parade. An oldie but a goodie. And, the fireworks show with Tinkerbell flying through the air down Main Street.
We managed to ride every ride we wanted to hit (we hit all the kids’ rides the first day), and we even got to take Colby on a few more roller coasters – Splash Mountain (twice!), Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Space Mountain, to name a few. He did great and it was a lot of fun to get to share that with him. Kennedy, on the other hand, was ONE INCH too short to ride all the rides. (The minimum is 40 inches and she rests at 39.) However, other Disney pluses are their rider swap program and the availability of kiddie playgrounds close to the ride’s entrance. It made things a lot less stressful.
Kevin also got to see one of his friends from high school who now lives in Orlando. Ryan and Kristan were really nice and hung out with us, even though the crowds were crazy. They tell us they live about 15 minutes away from Disney World, they have season passes and they visit about once a week. I think I would too. And, I think another trip is soon in order so we can stay with them the next time we visit – but NOT during Thanksgiving week.
The last ride we rode was Aladdin’s Magic Carpet ride (during the fireworks show, Adventureland & Frontierland is empty, so we took advantage). Here’s Kevin & Kennedy waiting for our turn to ride.
While waiting, we also met a cast member [employee] who was from Texas A&M. It really is a small world after all.
Here’s Colby, wearing the glow necklaces I brought from home. Also a good idea I had – the kids liked wearing them and I could find them easily in the big crowds we experienced. (Sorry these are so dark – it was like 11:30 pm.)
The very last thing we did, before waving goodbye to Main Street and the train station at the Magic Kingdom, was to redeem all of our snack credits on our meal plan. We chose a Disney Dining Plan so we could do some of the character experiences without having to pay an arm and a leg for each one. We pre-paid for all our meals, park tickets, and our room, and we showed our room key to the wait staff and they’d take credits off our meal plan. So, we paid for one sit-down type meal, one fast-food type meal, and one snack per day. But we hadn’t used all the snacks every day – we just got a few as we needed them and then packed our own snacks. And there’s no redemption back – you use them or you lose them. So, we had to find room in our suitcases for about 9 bottles of water, 5 bags of chips, and 5 bottles of orange & apple juice.
We left the park close to midnight to catch a bus back to our resort. Then-
12:30 am – back to resort
1:30 am – pack up everything for flight back home in the morning (er, a few hours…)
2 am – sleep
3:45 am – wake up!
4 am – have suitcases ready and “wake up the kids” (they actually slept on our shoulders until the airport)
4:15 am – bell services comes to take our luggage back to the main lobby
4:45 am – Disney’s Magical Express comes to take us to the Orlando airport
5:15 am – check in with skycap
6 am – go through security (in a wheelchair for the last time)
6:45 am – Airport McDonald’s breakfast
7:15 am – check in at the gate, Belle change Carlee’s diaper while we save them a seat on the plane
8 am – flight home!
We got to Houston at 10:30 am, even after a quick stop in Panama City, FL. Even though the flight was super early, I was glad to be back home before the craziness of Thanskgiving weekend travel hit. We didn’t have much traffic going back home from Houston, even after stopping for some Mexican food for lunch (well, Tex-Mex, but what else is there?). I was also glad we checked in early with skycap, because everyone who checked in later didn’t get their luggage when we arrived in Houston. There was an entire cart of luggage missing.
All in all, I can’t complain about our trip; I mean, we went to DISNEY WORLD!!! The happiest place on earth! :) There are definitely things I would change, such as not being in a walking boot (although it had some definite advantages). I had an incredible time. I’m blessed that we were able to go with my parents and my sisters. It was a great family experience that truly engaged every single one of us. I don’t care if it is “mainstream”, Disney does it big and does it right. I loved loved the trip and had a lot of fun planning it. All that time was well worth the effort. The kids also can’t stop talking about it and I can’t wait til we can do it again.
November 27th, 2010
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