This & That

A smorgasbord of randomness. :)

I haven't been that inspired to take pictures lately because of the camera that I'm working with. With the exception of my regular food and book posts (read: STILL subjects), I'm only taking out the camera for necessities or special occasions. Guess I'll have some making up to do when we finally get our new one.

Actually, these first few pictures are from late January when our Canon was still working. But I'm sure I won't have to tell you where the switch takes place in this series of photos. The ones taken with our little Nikon are terribly grainy and some of them fuzzy.

Here are my adorable nieces on the evening we went to take pictures with Nana & Papa.

Stella Grace

And Mya Alyse
Love them to pieces!
Also love this one of Stella and Will pouring over Papa's iPad with such intense focus. How is it that ALL little children these days are born with an innate knowledge on how to use technology? I guess it will serve them well given the way the world has changed from when I was a child, but it's also kinda' scary.

Craig thoughtfully waited until after our little photo session with Nana & Papa to give Will a mohawk. ;-)

Aaaand from here on, the pictures go downhill...

This was a play date at the Rethman house with our cousin Molly and her kids Cora & Lincoln. Casey made all sorts of fun food for the kids' lunch: apple-pb-granola sammies, snowmen sammies, raw veggie flowers. And they had a blast singing and dancing and riding tricycles around the big living room floor. :)

Another play date - this one on a week night - with our friend Charlize! This is a terrible picture of both my kids but their self-put-together ensembles were cracking me up. They were playing firemen... holding cupcakes... and wearing, um, a coat I don't recognize (on Will) and Will's Ohio State jacket (on Charli). Makes total sense, right? As always, I am amazed at the manners of the Magnone children. Any time they've come to play (and also at their birthday party), they are so polite and always saying "please", "thank you", "no, thank you", etc.

Show and tell day for Will at preschool. He was supposed to take something that started with the first letter of his name and, just like last year, he reeeeally stretched that criteria. Last year he wanted to take his frisbee and told me he could just call it a "wisbee". This year he insisted on bringing his giraffe and told me that he'd named it "Willie". That's news to me. We tried to convince him otherwise, but in the end, he took "Willie" the giraffe. Gotta' give him a little credit for his creativity I guess.

This past Sunday was Will's school music program. It was held during the regular church service since his school is in a church and we had to be there at 8:20 in the morning. Ouch! Here's Craig and Soph waiting for the service to begin. We got front row seats!

This program was a compilation of the Tuesday/Thursday (3-4 year old) class and the M/W/F (4-5 year old) class. They sang songs about peace in our land and they were all so cute up there. Will barely sang at all. He is clearly not a performer. Haha!

This was a song where the kids held instruments. Will's job was to hit the wood blocks together.

And finally, they ended with a mini "bell choir" performance and invited other children of the church up to participate. It was cute. You can see their faces are focused on the lady leading them with the colored cards.

Sophie giving Nana a smooch after the service. We gathered for donuts and other refreshments in the hall after the program.

I wanted to get a picture of them looking at me, but Sophie just wanted to keep smooching. ;)

Handsome boys.

Karate night this week... Craig took Will while Sophie and I did some baking. It was my favorite kitchen experience with my daughter to date. I still have to be pretty hands-on with her so I don't have a ton of pictures, but we both really enjoyed it and I felt like she was actually learning something. She's pretty adept at using the stand mixer and actually pours/dumps ingredients pretty well, but I still crack the eggs. ;) I also told her the name of every ingredient we were using.

And gosh she's cute!

One new task that Sophie got to try was zesting a lemon. And then she wanted to keep tasting little bits of the zest. :)

Tasting the fruits of her labor. After the second mini sweet potato muffin, she did have a mini meltdown that I wouldn't let her have a third. But I told her she could have one on her dinner plate since we hadn't yet eaten and she was okay with that.

Whisking the dry ingredients for our bread dough.

And finally, licking the sweet bread batter from the spatula after we put the loaf in the oven.

Oh, I just LOVE this recipe! I've made it once before and it is deeeelicious!!!

Coconut lemon loaf with coconut lemon glaze on top.

It's sweet and tangy and tastes like a lemon danish to me. It has been my breakfast the past two mornings paired with some strawberries and raw almonds. Perfect!

And here are the sweet potato mini muffins. Also (lightly) sweet and tasty. We love these too!

Happy Leap Day!

We should have a new baby in the family any minute now! My cousin, Brittany, is TWO weeks past her due date with Baby Wittman and was induced last night. Can't wait to hear the great news and her name choice! Yay!!

Let's Pack Lunch!

I think I can! I think I can! I think I can!...

...make it to the end of the school year, that is. ;)

Ha! And next year is only going to get harder.

I'm going to have to study up on my list of creative ideas and get myself super-hyped for that every-day-of-the-week challenge that awaits me.

Nichole, are you still hanging in there?

It's not that bad, really. Just begs a bit of advance planning to include a little creativity...

And when you don't have time for advance planning?

Well, then you have this:

Contents: pretzels, carrot sticks, half of a whole wheat waffle with a smear of cream cheese and strawberry jam between, apple slices and a heart marshmallow.

Contents: more apple slices, graham crackers and chocolate chips, lunchmeat and cheese heart sammies, carrot sticks and red pepper strips, heart marshmallow.

Contents: peas (weird, I know... I was getting desperate for speediness and we had leftovers from dinner), pretzels, half of a pb&j, apple slices, 2 Hersheys kisses.

Contents: plum slices, pretzel crisps and a mini Twix (from V-day treats at school), whole wheat mini bagel with pb & banana slices, sliced yellow pepper and cucumber.

Contents: angel food cake cubes with strawberries, grapes, halved apple sammies with pb, granola and mini chocolate chips between (YUM!!!), grape tomatoes and raw broccoli.
Close up of the sammie:

Contents: orange segments, grape tomatoes, green peppers and cucumbers, crackers with cheese slices and honey ham, frosted sugar cookie (a heart cut in half to fit).

Contents: orange bell pepper and grape tomatoes, M&M minis (from V-day), half of a pb&j, pretzels and apple slices.

Contents: Catalina dressing (for raw veggies), cheese cubes, two mini-cookies (from V-day) and graham crackers, grapes, strawberries and peach slices, broccoli and red pepper, peanuts.

What's For Dinner? Weeks 3&4

{Week of February 11-17}

Bow ties with chicken and sun dried tomato pesto (and roasted red pepper, mushrooms and peas). This recipe is somewhere on my blog. I'm sorry... I'm too lazy to find it today.

Valentine's Day dinner: favorite tomato bisque with grilled cheese.
Also, not pictured:
-chicken fettucini alfredo (I saute chicken strips to add)
-cheeseburgers on the grill

{Week of February 18-24}
Lasagna Soup - recipe found on Pinterest - took to my grandparents house along with some store-bought focaccia and a plate of fruit for dinner Sunday night. It is deeeelicious!! Loved the "cheesy yum" surprise at the bottom of the bowls. :)
Leftovers on karate night. Soph wearing the t-shirt sleeve on her head again (to keep hair out of her face) that makes her ears stick out. ;-)

Also attempted from Pinterest: buttermilk parmesan pork chops. I hate to bad mouth, but these were absolutely awful. Not sure how I didn't see the results coming... What's the purpose of browning a piece of meat in a pan to crisp and color the outside if you're just going to pour liquid over them to finish baking in the oven. The stock just turned all the Panko coating to mush and made the whole thing soggy and unappetizing. The taste wasn't horrible but the mouthfeel and appearance were completely lacking. I won't make this again and I didn't even take a picture. :(

One final Pinterest recipe this week: Mexican stuffed shells. These were tasty! A lot of high sodium, processed ingredients like the seasoning packet and taco sauce... but we did like them and they were something different.

Pinterest has been highly useful in the cooking department lately! I've made several dessert recipes too.

Valentine's Day Books

The kids' Valentine's Day "treats" from mom and dad were... SURPRISE!... a couple of books. We didn't wrap them up. We just read them at the dinner table while the kids were having dessert and told them these were for keeps. :)

I love these "God Gave Us..." books. We bought God Gave Us You when Will was just 7-ish weeks old while on vacation in Grand Haven and I noted on the inside cover that it was a gift for his baptism in September. So sweet. I love that story.

Anyway, God Gave Us Love seemed like an appropriate title for Valentine's Day so this was one of the books.

The second was a Ladybug Girl book about what she "loves". This is our first Ladybug Girl book and I think they seem so cute. Both books are really for both kids, but Sophie has been keeping this one in her room and Will doesn't mind.
And here are some others that we borrowed from the library as well:

One last thing, only because I didn't know where else to put this...

Here's a cute little "puzzle" Will brought home for me from the babysitter's around Valentine's Day. I've actually seen this type of "puzzle" before and thought it was such a cute/clever idea but haven't gotten around to trying it.

Will gave me an envelope... don't ask me what it says. :) I think it's supposed to be "To: Mommy" and "Love: Will". :)

...and Daddy.

Then inside were a bunch of craft sticks that were numbered at the bottom and a message/picture across them. You have to line up the numbers to read the message. (I think the #8 stick is upside down though.) When I saw this idea, the sticks weren't numbered... but that definitely helps! Isn't it cute?

And that's a wrap on my Valentine's posts!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine Craftin' With Sophie

On Monday night before Valentine's Day, Will and Craig went off to karate while Sophie and I stayed home and did a few, fun, crafty activities. I saw this super easy idea on Pinterest (linked from this blog): heart stamping with a toilet paper tube. Flatten the tube lengthwise and then bend one crease inward to create a heart shape. Wrap a piece of tape (any kind) around the tube to hold the shape and let child "stamp" paint onto paper with it. I gave her a large pink heart to stamp on and some red and white paint.

Fun!

Next, I gave her a strip of paper with the letters of her name written inside of traced hearts. I also gave her some foam, heart stickers wrapped inside of a paper pouch like a present. Each of the stickers had a letter of her name on them and she had to match up the letters and stick them down. We've always taught her to spell her name in a sort of sing-song voice so it's easier to remember and she's got it down now.

Peeling paper backing... good fine motor work.

Spelling her name to me... She loved this and carried it all around. Now it hangs on her bedroom door like a sign.

And finally, I've been meaning to try making melted crayon molds for literally YEARS. Don't know why I never got around to it, but finally we did. There are about a bazillion recipes out there to follow, but they're all basically the same. Peel the crayons (I found the paper of off-brand crayons - NOT CRAYOLA - comes off much easier), chop into pieces, place in a mold and bake.

Sophie helped me peel paper briefly. Then I chopped and gave her the tray back like this. Tons of people were claiming to find silicone heart trays in the Target dollar bins, but I never did. So I ordered mine from Amazon for like $7.99 and it's good for freezer or oven. Probably a rip-off, but serves me right for being last minute. The size of hearts was smaller than I anticipated but in the end, it was perfect for our project.

Dividing up the pieces. I wasn't sure how many crayons to use and it didn't initially seem like that much, but I ended up making three trays worth of hearts - 30 total. I'm saving them for next Valentine's Day. :)

Into the 200 degree oven, on a foil-lined cookie sheet, for 10 minutes.

When they come out, the tops look totally blended and not what you expect. But once they cool and you pop them out of the tray, the bottom sides look really neat.

I found a template for a Valentine with the Earth background and a message so I just printed them on regular paper and glued them to a bigger card stock circle. Then I used "Zots" (glue dots" - lots of them - to stick the crayon to the center of the paper.

Sophie only gives Valentine's to her friends at the sitter's so we only needed to make five cards.

On Valentine's Day, I sent a tray of cookies along with both kids Valentine's cards to the babysitter's house.