Project 52 - Week 45

Week 45 ~ November 6-12

We decided to make snow ice cream this week!  So much fun!

Getting the snow!

Measuring the ingredients.

Mixing it up.

We were going for green, but the boys decided they liked the swirly look better.

Taste testing!

Project 52 - Week 42

Week 42 ~ October 16-22

Fall is here and Halloween is around the corner!  We roasted some pumpkin pie pumpkins today.  The boys enjoyed helping even though they don't like roasted pumpkin.  Unfortunately, the pumpkins this year turned out awful!  And I mean truly awful!  One tasted like perfume and the other was just dry and not very flavorful.  I was VERY disappointed!  I had been looking forward to eating roasted pumpkin for a few weeks.  I ate almost all of the roasted pumpkin we made last year straight out of the oven and almost didn't leave any to make recipes with!  Pumpkins are shipped up to Alaska, so we must have gotten some old one this year.

Earlier in the day the older boys watched a movie that was in 3D.  Eli watched about 3 minutes of it, but it was long enough for me to get this cute shot.

Showing off his missing teeth!

Scooping out the seeds

Showing me what he wants his pumpkin too look like when we carve them.

10 on the 10th - Late Again

Late again, but here it is!

1. This is my last ten on the tenth for the year to say the days are getting longer. June 21st is the longest day of the year and then we will start heading back into the dark days of winter. We still have many more long days of light to enjoy before then though! This morning the official sunrise time was 4:24 am and sunset time will be 11:35 pm. 19 hours and ten minutes of sun! So today will have 13 hours and 5 minutes more of sun than my first ten on the tenth in January! The 21st will have 19 hours and 22 minutes of sun. What this means is that it never truly gets dark here. In the middle of the night we have dark twilight type of light, but I can still clearly see the neighbors house if I look out the window.

2. Eli has been fighting ear infections for over a month now and after 3 rounds of antibiotics he no longer has an infection, but there is still fluid both ears. The fluid is a breeding grounds for bacteria and could cause him to develop another infection, so we have an appointment with the ENT next week. Pray that the doctor can help him or his ears have cleared up by then!

3. Ben's soccer is in full swing now! He really loves it! His age group plays 3 on 3 with no goalie, so there are only six kids on his team.

4. We are planning to have a big first birthday celebration for Eli when we travel to San Antonio next month. I have been consumed with the party planning lately. I'm finding all kinds of cute stuff! Like these adorable milk bottles from Shop Sweet Lulu!



5. Wild Animal Sighting Count: Moose-4, Bears-1, Beavers-1

6. We have been doing a lot of fishing lately. We spent an entire Saturday recently driving to several lakes nearby. Still haven't caught anything, but the salmon are starting to come in so we are excited to try salmon fishing!

7. Only a few weeks until we will meet our niece! I'm so excited that we will get to be in San Antonio when she arrives (unless she decides to come more than a week early)! Annie and I are planning a shower for her and I having a lot of fun planning that too!

8. We had to take Eli to the emergency room last week. He was running a fever and had a febrile seizure. It was quite scary for mommy! I have since learned that they are more common than I knew. You can read about them from the Mayo Clinic. It seems to have been a virus that caused the fever since Eli's ears are currently infection free (but not fluid free).

9. My current favorite snack is the Larabar. So good and with healthy ingredients! I have tried 8 of the flavors and loved all but one. Wish I could find the other flavors for sale somewhere!

10. I heading to bed now. I'm going to watch the movie "Taken" with James. Although I do like the movie, I wish FX would stop playing it. It is all we have watched all week!

Monday Meals - Creamy Mushroom Crockpot Chicken

You may notice that I am all about trying crockpot recipes. I love my crockpot! It makes evenings so much easier! I have had this week's recipe scribbled down for awhile on a scrap of paper. I can no longer remember where I found it, so whoever invented this one THANK YOU! We all liked this recipe.

Creamy Mushroom Crockpot Chicken

4-6 boneless skinless chicken breasts (or however many)

1 jar mushroom gravy

1 pkg dry Italian seasoning

1 small can diced green chilis

1 cup milk

8oz cream cheese

Cook the first four ingredients on Low 6 hours. The last 30minutes to an hour add in the milk and cream cheese.

I wasn't sure what a package of dry Italian seasoning was, so I went with one of those packs to make Italian dressing that are found with the salad dressings. I'm still not sure if this was right but since we liked it so much, I don't care! (Although, if someone wants to correct me I would be glad to try this recipe again with the correct ingredient)

The chicken looked and smelled really good before I added the milk and cream cheese. Next time we might try it without and end up with two different dishes in our rotation!

Monday Meals - Herb and Garlic Tuna Burgers

This week's recipe came off the back of an Herb and Garlic Starkist Tuna Creations pouch. James likes to eat them sometimes for lunch when he is flying. I was surprised that he suggested we try the recipe. It really didn't look good to me! I sure am glad we tried it anyway! These were delicious!

Picture taken from the Starkist website.


Herb and Garlic Tuna Burgers

2 pouches (4.5 oz. each) StarKist Tuna Creations®, Herb and Garlic
1 cup bread crumbs, divided
1 cup (4 oz.) shredded Cheddar cheese
½ cup non-fat ranch salad dressing
¼ cup sliced green onion
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 Tbsp. olive oil

1. Combine tuna, ½ cup bread crumbs, cheese, salad dressing, green onion and egg in medium bowl; mix well.

2. Form into four patties; Place remaining ½ cup bread crumbs on a plate. Coat each side of tuna patties with bread crumbs.

3. Heat oil in non-stick skillet over medium heat. Cook patties 3 to 5 minutes on each side until golden brown.

Monday Meals - Vanilla Almond Sugar Cookies

So, I haven't done a Monday Meal in a while and this isn't a meal but this is my blog and I can do what I want. :) This week I am sharing a recipe for Vanilla Almond Sugar Cookies. I used this recipe to make cookies, decorated with royal icing, for William's class on Valentine's Day. Best sugar cookies I've ever had! The recipe comes from Bake at 350.

Vanilla-Almond Sugar Cookies

3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 c sugar
2 sticks (salted) butter, cold
1 egg
3/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp pure almond extract

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine the flour and baking powder, set aside. Cream the sugar and butter. Add the egg and extracts and mix. Gradually add the flour mixture and beat just until combined, scraping down the bowl, especially the bottom.

The dough will be crumbly, so knead it together with your hands as you scoop it out of the bowl for rolling.

Roll onto a floured surface and cut into shapes. Place on parchment lined baking sheets (I recommend freezing the cut out shape on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before baking) and bake for 10-12 minutes. Let sit a few minutes on the sheet, then transfer to a cooling rack.

Monday Meals - Cranberry Orange Muffins

These muffins are super healthy and yummy! They come from Super Healthy Kids. They are a bit more like a scone and not a super sugary type of muffin.

Orange Cranberry Muffins Recipe

1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup low-fat milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1 TBL grated orange peel
2 egg whites

Mix wet ingredients. In separate bowl mix:

1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 TBL baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup fresh cranberries, chopped.

Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Scoop into prepared muffin tin. Sprinkle top of muffin with sugar. Bake at 400 for 15-25 minutes or until cooked through. Makes 12 muffins.

We used Ocean's Spray dried cranberries because fresh are hard to find up here and they turned out just fine. I made them a second time and added ground flax seed. Still yummy and even more healthy!

Baby Led Weaning

Have you ever heard of baby led weaning? I hadn’t until a couple of months ago. It is a method of introducing solid foods to babies. It comes from the book, Baby Led Weaning by Gill Rapley and Tacey Murkett. Basically, it says that there is no need to start with pureed baby food. With this method you go straight to soft table foods. I haven’t read the book, but I did read quite a bit (pages and pages) of it off the preview on Amazon.com. Here is some of what the book says.

- Eating table foods develops chewing skills, manual dexterity, and eye-hand coordination.

- By feeding himself, he will only eat what he needs and is less likely to be overfed by coercing more bites in

- The book promotes waiting to introduce solids until six months. This is the same as the guideline given by the World Health Organization (WHO).

-Also promotes Breastmilk (or formula) as primary source of nutrients for first year b/c solids are less nutrient dense.

-Babies are programmed to explore with their hands and mouths. Why not with food too?

The book claims that skipping pureed food will actually make your child a better, more adventurous eater because they go at their own pace and are allowed to explore food on their own. (As opposed to my picking out what he will eat and having it shoved in by a spoon) Now again I didn’t read the entire book, but really how can you prove that?

So when I heard about this concept, I didn’t think too much about it. With Will and Ben we transitioned to table foods pretty quickly anyway and starting with pureed foods work just fine for us. But then I tried to feed Eli pureed food …

As you can see it was not easy. He insists on putting the spoon in his mouth on his own.



So I remembered this BLW concept. I thought to myself … well if he wants to do it himself, then why not give him some soft table foods to try? The results?



LOL! To be fair, he actually chewed up a bite of carrot before this picture, so I have no idea why he reacted to the second bite this way. I think we will continue with both pureed food and table foods.