The Holiday Concert

Today the girls had their Christmas concert at school.  I had to work so Richard made sure to record it.  Both of the girls are pretty easy to see. 

A little Air Hockey at Mickey D's

Because the girls have been behaving so well, I decided to surprise them with McDonald's for dinner.  We had to go to Target anyhow so I took them to a McDonald's that had a Playland.  They have been asking to go there ever since they went to a kids birthday party there last year.

We left our house right at 4:30.  They really behaved well in Target so after they finished eating I let them play for a while.  They played a while with some other kids and then the air hockey opened up.  I helped them play for a bit and then they had fun trying to beat each other all on their own.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I rarely leave the house without my camera, so I was able to get some pictures of them playing.

By the time we got home, we had to rush to finish homework and get to bed.  They crashed the minute their heads hit the pillow.  That worked out great for me. LOL!      

Hey! What time is it?

J's homework today had us on a hunt for as many clocks and watches we could find in our house.  The girls were both surprised to find out how many watches I have. 

This is most of the watches I have had and saved over the years.  Many of them were gifts from my Mom for birthdays or holidays.  Most of them need a new battery to function.  Maybe some day I will get around to it.  I have a few favorites amongst these so maybe I'll get batteries for those and start wearing them again.  Obviously, they don't do much good sitting in a drawer.  Come on now...I have some classics in there...Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Bugs Bunny...

J had to draw a picture of her favorite and write why she thought it was interesting.  She picked the Bugs Bunny watch because it talks.  I was surprised to find that it still talked even though the watch part wasn't working.

Puddin' Parfaits

Like most kids, the girls really like to have desert as often as possible.  While we were out shopping the other day we picked up some pudding so they could have parfaits.  They really got a kick out of being able to "help" make the pudding since it was instant.  As you can see, they really enjoyed the parfaits.

Yummy breakfast

Normally on Sunday's R makes us a big breakfast with pancakes, bacon and eggs.  Today I decided to give him a break.  We had french toast sticks with hashbrowns and fruit.  It looked so yummy that I had to share.

Someone was really enjoying the strawberries.

Easy Peasy Pot Roast

I really like just about anything made in a crock pot but I think I really loved this one because I made it all by myself.

2 to 2 1/2 pound boneless bee bottom round or chuck pot roast
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 medium potatoes each cut into 6 wedges
3 cups fresh or frozen baby carrots
1 medium onion, thickly sliced
2 teaspoons dried basil leaves, crushed
2 cans (10 1/4 ounces each) Campbell's Beef Gravy

1. Sprinkle all sides of the roast with the garlic powder.  Heat the oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the roast and cook until browned on all sides.
2. Put the potatoes, carrots, onion in a 3 1/2 quart slow cooker.  Sprinkle with the basil.  Top with the roast.  Pour the gravy over the roast and vegetables.
3. Cover and cook on LOW for 10 to 12 hours or HUGH for 5 to 6 hours, until the meat is fork tender.
4. Remove the roast to a cutting board and let stand for 10 minutes before slicing.  Serve the roast with the vegetables and gravy.

Pizza, pickles, p...

Since R started work, I have tried to make our nights as fun as possible.  There's not always a lot of time Monday through Thursday but Friday's we have a new little tradition.  We have pizza, pickles, popcorn and and try to incorporate other "P" things.  The idea started because we wanted an easy dinner to start off the fun weekend.  The girls love pizza and think of pickles like a treat.  Anytime they can have pickles with their dinner they get really excited.  The popcorn was an added treat because we try to fit in a movie to wind down for the night. 

The first night we did this we really made it fun.  We went to the park, made a picnic on the floor with the pizza.  We had the popcorn while we watched King Fu Panda.  The girls thought it was really fun so I guess I pulled it off pretty well. 

Today we didn't go as far.  We had the pizza and pickles.  (The girls thought it was really funny that I put the pickles on the pizza.)  We watched a movie but we didn't make it to the popcorn.

A's art

A absolutely could not love school any more than she does.  She loves to come home and share about her day.  A few days ago I decided that I have to document some of her favorite things.  On this particular day she had a lot to share.

First she had this little puzzle she had to put together for us.

Then she had this elephant that she made with sticky tape.

 

The elephant reminds me of when J was in JK.  I had signed up to help the class with small cutting projects.  One day she came home with a stack of gray construction paper and a template.  I had to cut out 30+ elephants.  That didn't seem like a "small" project to me.

Then there was this beautiful collage:

 

And her favorite thing was a class book.  There was a self portrait from each of the kids in her class.

She couldn't wait to show me the boy with pink hair but we never did find him in the book.  I wonder if his page was missing.

J's day

We are starting a new daily activity.  J is going to share with us every day what she did in school for the day.

These are mostly J's words.

• Calendar helper - I get to say what day of the week it is and tell what temperature it is outside.
• Social Studies - We watched a movie about communities.  A community is people and where they live.
• Gym - I played color tag.  We put on colored smocks and run around the gym and when someone catches us we sit down wherever you were caught.  We also played Pat-man.  To play this you take a ball and run around the gym and when you get hit with a ball you have to stop where you are and jump up and down doing 5 jumping jacks.  We get to do a lot of stuff for gym.  We played ghost in the graveyard.  A bunch of people lay down and when the teacher calls your name you can get up and walk around the gym and if you are laying down and get caught moving you sit up.
• Writers workshop - I wrote a story.  My story was about when we went to the Brewer's game.
• Math - We counted by 10's.  10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100!  110, 120, 130, 140, 150, 160, 170, 180, 190 and a billion bagillion!
• We got an extra recess today!  The other 1st grade class got an extra recess too.  We all played together.

After school, Mommy took me to the library to get my very own library card.  It was fun.  I got a cool pink button that says "I got my LIBRARY CARD Today!"  It was exciting. 

We are going to have lots of fun tonight.  We had rainbow ice cream and now Mommy is going to read us a story.

Homework

It's been an adjustment because J has homework every day.  I don't know who has a harder time with it, J or me.  It's pretty simple but I am not teacher and I have a hard time getting her to understand what she is supposed to do.  We finally have a routine down to do it as soon as I get home from work but I think it will still take us a few more weeks before either of us get used to it.

Beef & Vegetables

This might not sound very good, but this dish taste much better than it looks.  As it was cooking I thought I might not like it.  After all, I am not a big green bean fan and I really do not care for frozen peas.  I don't know if we will have this one again because the kids really didn't care for it but I thought it was pretty good.  I am sure the kids were turned off when they saw all of the veggies.  They don't like cooked carrots but I love them.  They just couldn't get past the carrots.  If they would have given it a chance they may have realized that you really couldn't taste much of the vegetables.

Country Beef & Vegetables

1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 can (26 ounces) Campbell's condensed tomato soup
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 bag (16 ounces) frozen mixed vegetables
Hot cooked rice
Shredded cheddar cheese

1. Cook the beef in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat until it;s well browned, stirring frequently to break up the meat.  Pour off any fat.
2. Stir the soup, Worcestershire sauce and vegetables into the skillet.  Heat to a boil.  Reduce heat to low.  Cover and cook for 5 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.  Serve over the rice and top with the cheese.

Side note - I didn't have any Worcestershire sauce.  I read on the web that you could possibly replace it with soy sauce so that is what I used instead.

Momma's cooking now

Since R started a new job working in the evenings, K has had to pick up most of the cooking duties.  It really hasn't been all that bad.  In fact, I have been so proud of my cooking that I thought I would feature some of it here.  No, I won't bore you with every hamburger helper meal that I prepare, but if I try a recipe and it turns out well, I will put it up here so that if you want to give it a try you can have the recipe too.

Today's meal was called Beef Taco Bake.  It was really each to make and it was a hit all around.

Beef Taco Bake
1 pound ground beef
1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup
1 cup Pace Picante Sauce (you could also use salsa if you want it a little spicier)
1/2 cup milk
6 (8-inch) flour tortillas cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup shredded Cheddar Cheese (4 ounces)

1. Cook the beef in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat until the beef is well browned, stirring frequently to break up the meat.  Pour off any fat.
2. Stir the soup, picante sauce, milk, tortillas and 1/2 cup of the cheese into the skillet.  Spoon into a 9 x 13 baking dish.  Cover the dish with foil.
3. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or until hot.  Sprinkle with the remaining cheese.

This would be great serves with tomatoes and sour cream and a side of rice.

A beautiful day for geocaching

I was going to be a gorgeous day to be outside.  J and A asked to go for a bike ride.  I offered to take them down to the lakefront for a picnic lunch followed by a bike ride along the path by the lake.  A asked if we could go treasure hunting there and asked if we could call their cousin S to go along.  She said that S is really go at treasure hunting so we had to bring her along.  After a call to S and gathering what we needed we headed out for a long afternoon of geocaching.  I had picked about 12 caches that were all down by the lakefront including Lake park and the South Shore park area.

We started at Lake park.

 

S had been on the hunt the last few times that we went out for these mushrooms that you could write on with a stick.  There were quite a few around this area.

Then we headed to the Bradford Beach area:
    

Then we headed to the South Shore park area: 

We didn't end up finding any caches but we had a lot of fun looking.  The only problem was that J ended up getting a really swollen eye.  Either she got bit by something or she has allergies.  We had already been thinking she may have allergies but I think this outing confirmed it.

The Back to School BBQ

Isn't this a look of love?  This was one of the rare moments that they were willing to let me take a picture of them together without some sort of goofy faces or pose.

Tonight was the Back to School BBQ.  The girls were very excited because we had asked Grandma to go along with us.  When we got there, Grandma got to see a little of how hard it is to handle J.  J was everywhere but where she was supposed to be.  I know it was because she felt comfortable on her school turf.  After all, it's not very often that I am able to go to the school so I am not really an authority figure for her there.   I didn't get a lot of pictures simply because I was just trying to keep up with them.  They played a lot of games and won tickets each time.  At the end they were able to pick out prizes to buy with their tickets.  I'd say their favorite part was the dunk tank.  First J was really excited to see the principal in the tank.

But she really got happy when she saw her very own teacher in the tank.

This was him in the bottom of the tank after another girl got to take him down:

He was such a good sport about it and it was really funny to hear him heckling the kids.

Here was J trying to hit the target and getting her sister in on the action: