Park with Friends

Yesterday was the perfect day for a play date at the park with some great church friends! I must say that I was totally shocked and so proud of how Ben navigated all of the playground equipment! We have only been to the park a couple of times since he has been old enough to really play. He just took off in true boy fashion, and before I knew it, I looked over and he was half way up the climbing wall! Who is this kid, and where did he come from? Ben used to be very timid, so he has really come out of his shell, and I LOVE it! Soon after this picture, however, he proceeded to skid all
the way down, but he dusted himself off and tried again! Go Ben! The kids played until they were all sweaty and exhausted, and we had a great time! The other mothers (who are obviously smarter than I) packed lunches for their kids, so my kid walked around and grazed off of everyone else's plate. Those of you who know Ben know that my boy likes to eat..and eat..and eat.
So, when we got home, I made one of his favorite lunches, peanut butter and jelly sushi...just a cutsie name and a different way of making lunch fun. I saw this "recipe" in a magazine years ago before I had a child, and I always thought about making it for my kids.
Here are some pics and simple instructions, and you could obviously change up the type of sandwich too.
Step 1: Cut the edges from 2 slices of wheat bread; roll the bread until completely flat using a drinking glass or a rolling pin.
Step 2:Add whatever yummy ingredients your child likes. These two are obviously peanut butter and homemade strawberry freezer jam and peanut butter and banana. I have also added a little honey before.
Step 3: Roll them up tightly; if you overfill, the good stuff will ooze out.
Step 4: Cut into slices like slice and bake cookies. I do smaller bites, but when he gets older, about 4 slices from each sandwich will work.
Step 5: Watch them eat and enjoy!
I am finally finished with all of the paintings due before our cruise, so now it is time to get the house cleaned from top to bottom and get all of my clothes (and Ben's clothes) ready to go. Packing is one of my least favorite things, but I am blessed to be able to go somewhere cool, so I think I can handle it! If you have time, let me know of some fun lunch ideas you use with your kids; I'm always looking for new things to make, so any advice is welcome! Happy Friday, friends!

Sticky Fingers?

Chocolate, Marshmallows, and Golden Grahams; what could possibly go wrong? Nothing! Yesterday, Ben and I prepared a little treat for (ourselves) our van ride to the Predators game with friends. I had a coupon a while ago for Golden Grahams; I can't say I have ever really eaten them, and I have two boxes, so I thought I'd look up a recipe for something sweet. Boy, did we find one. I can't keep my hands off of these things! Ben was a great help in the kitchen as we made these S'mores Bars yesterday. As you can see, he is quite the little chef:) Pictured are all of the ingredients needed to make these awesome treats (I didn't have any choc. chips, so I chopped up the giant Hershey's kiss Brad gave me for Valentine's Day:). The only tough part is the stirring, but they are worth the effort! Ben's school bake sale, here I come! (O.k., maybe getting a little ahead of myself:)
I wanted to share a couple of other food items today. This one is a no-brainer, but if you have a picky eater, you know it can be tough to get them to consider new foods. Ben is not so much a picky eater, but I always think it is tough to fit in all the needed fruits/veggies needed in a day. I definitely have a pizza lover! He will scarf (is that a word?) the stuff at any opportunity, so for an easy lunch idea, I came up with "Sneaky Pizza." I start with a Natures Own bagel thin (I had a coupon one time, and they are great!) I take apart the halves and spread about a tablespoon of pizza sauce on each. Then, I layer fresh spinach leaves, grated carrots, and any other veggies I may have handy that won't alter the flavor too much. Then, I hide it all under a small layer of yummy cheese! Ben eats both of the mini pizzas and has no clue what is in them. You could obviously use those sandwich flats or English muffins; whatever you can come up with is fine.
This morning, I poached my chicken for the chicken and spinach lasagna (recipe on yesterday's blog) I am going to make Friday night. I wanted to make my FAVORITE soup to eat on the rest of the week. It calls for chicken broth, and instead of buying the (loaded with salt) canned/boxed version, I thought I would use the broth from poaching my chicken. All I do is strain the veggies/fat from the cooking broth and then season it a little more (add a little salt/pepper or whatever else you like). This Spinach Tortellini Tomato soup is perfect for any day, and it makes a large amount, so you can eat it for days. It is definitely a husband-pleaser in my house as well (that is a difficult feat for a soup). Ok, I better get busy because I know my boy is ready to get outside and play! May break out the new water table today; I'll post pics soon! Have a blessed day!

Lights Out!

This is what my house looked like for much of yesterday afternoon...dark! Although I am very thankful no one I know was injured by the storms, they came through pretty hard, so I did a lot of painting and drawing with no lights! I must say, it was pretty nice to have limited tasks I could get accomplished with no electricity; Ben slept through the whole storm, so I just hung out in the dark by myself!
Finally, the lights came back on just in time for me to cook dinner; I have been wanting grilled food so bad, and I had already put the meat out to thaw, so I decided to go ahead and grill..indoors! Thanks to our little Cuisinart Griddler, (LOVE this thing!) I was able to surprise Brad with yummy, summertime chicken shish kabobs. I was thumbing through my new Southern Living Sunday while meal planning, and I just thought these sounded healthy and great, so I changed up the recipe just a bit, and they really hit the spot! The recipe is called Rosemary Chicken Kabobs, but we don't really care for rosemary, so I switched it out for Mrs. Dash's lemon pepper seasoning, and I took the salt out of the recipe too since I used Mrs. Dash. Give them a try or change them up to how your family likes them; the red wine vinegar helped make a great marinade.
Tonight, Lord willing, we are off the a Predators' game, tomorrow night is church (so we always eat afterward with friends), Thursday night, we are eating at the Boundary in Nashville for Brad's work (amazing), so Friday night is the next night I will hopefully cook again! This was an easy week for grocery shopping:) My parents are coming down Friday, so I thought I would make something big and extra yummy, so I am going to make one of Ben's favorites, Chicken and Spinach Lasagna. This, of course, is another Southern Living recipe. I use a lot of recipes from Cooking Light and other healthier places, but I have found that I hardly ever go wrong using a Southern Living recipe.
Hope you make some great meals this week and spend a lot of quality time with the ones you love! God has given us an absolutely beautiful day outside, so I am truly thankful today.

Home again!

Yep. This is it! Mule Day 2011 at its finest! What a perfect day we were able to spend outside with friends and family! If you aren't from around Columbia and you weren't able to make it this year, you missed a great one, and you should definitely check it out next year! Mule Day is one of those great American festivals that sounds completely red-neck (and let's admit it, it kind of is), but it brings back so many happy memories of watching the animals and floats go by with my grandfather Pap to walking around trying to spot cute boys with my girlfriends:) Now, I think Ben will love it as much as I do, and he fit the part perfectly in his little cowboy boots! We arrived at the parade around 10, it doesn't start until 11, so Ben had a blast walking up and down the street looking at all the people and flirting with pretty little girls (too cute!) In addition to all the fun, Uncle Brent was able to be here for the weekend, so he and Ben spent some quality bonding time as shown. This is the two of them reading a Christmas book on the ipad. Ben has a slight obsession with fireplaces, (strange I know) so Brent had a hard time turning the page from the fireplace with the moving fire. We hated to say goodbye to Uncle Brent this morning as he headed back to D.C., but Mule Day weekend in Columbia was definitely a success!
Today, we attended church at Graymere church (which was great as always). I love seeing and talking with the adults I grew up admiring now that I am a mother. It is fun sharing Ben with them for a little while. Tonight, however, it was great to be back home in the burg. We headed to Pizza Hut for a little post-church pig out with our friends and their twins (boy and girl, melt my heart). This busy week, we are heading to a Preds game with friends, eating at Stoney River for Brad's work, (yum.) packing for our big cruise, and, meanwhile, I am trying to finish up some last-minute painting projects. I'll leave you with a great picture from home tonight. This is Brad quizzing Ben on his ABC's while Ben is "pooping" (he really just likes to sit and be read to) on the potty. Every time Ben said a letter, he got a high five. I love these two boys, and might I add how blessed I am to have such an amazing, godly husband and father. Life is good today.

One before the weekend.

This is what Brad wishes our dining room table did not look like...but it usually does! Today was a very productive day; it could have been because Ben and I did not leave the house all day long! These cold, rainy days have actually been perfect days for playing inside and painting! Ben "helped" me paint for a little while. He now loves to climb up into our tall pub-style chairs, grab a paintbrush, dip it in water, and "paint" all over the newspaper. This is all fine until he pours the entire cup of water all over the floor/table...fun stuff! He is definitely getting closer to 2 every single day:) He has gotten to where he now says "no, no" if he does something he knows he shouldn't do; it is a mixture of a whole lot of cute and a whole lot of trouble. I will miss my baby being a baby, but time marches on!
Ben's Gram, Papa, and Amma stopped in for a short visit today which was awesome because I was able to finish 6 paintings on which I was working! He worked his puzzles with them for a while and had a nice little surprise visit!
Tomorrow, we are headed to Columbia for the Mule Day festivities; Ben's uncle Brent will be coming to visit. Brent is a hunter and lives in Washington, D.C.; he has some sort of horned animal skull hanging in his house that Ben just has to see every time we are on Skype. "Bull" is one of Ben's favorite words, and he calls all cows/horned creatures bulls. So, Ben now calls Brent uncle Bull. We'll see if it sticks (it's kind of cute). I'll be sure to post some pics from M.D. early next week!
I'll leave you with a picture of a patterned monogram painting I did for my cousin; I think it turned out pretty! Also couponers, tomorrow from 3-8, go pick up your free bag of sun chips from your local store...if you feel like making a special trip for a bag of chips (I probably won't). Have a safe and blessed weekend!

Mid-Week Shopping

This is one of those days when I know I really shouldn't be stopping to blog, but Ben just went down for a nap, so I thought I would sneak one in. The picture above is a bunny (obviously) that I painting earlier today; it is part of an Easter painting for a friend. It made me smile, so I figured I would include him for a little Springy touch! I hope everyone had a great weekend and beginning of the week. We have been in Columbia, so I haven't had my camera or computer to blog. Sunday, we had a 90th birthday party for my dear grandmother Edna! So many people turned out to wish her a happy day, and if you know my grandmother, you know why! She is such a people-loving person; I think she received over 100 cards! It was so great to see her so happy around all of the people who mean so much to her! I hope I can have half as many friends as her when I am that age. I will post a picture from the party when my mom sends me one.
Yesterday, on the other hand, I attended the funeral of a high school friend's father. This is one of the first parent deaths of people my age; I am constantly reminded we are getting older. My thoughts and prayers are with The McAdams family on the loss of a father, grandfather, and husband.
Now that we are back in Lawrenceburg (it is good to be home, by the way), I had to do my shopping today. This week was kind of fun because I really don't need any groceries since we are headed back to Columbia for Mule Day (yay) this weekend. I was able to score some really good savings at Walgreens this week, and I only did a little coupon/sale shopping at Kroger. I'll include my weekly pics as if anyone cares along with amount saved. I am trying to keep my receipts to show Brad just how much money I save him each month:) To the right is my Kroger haul for today. I used coupons on almost everything except the apples, bananas, the Oscar Mayer deli meat, and the whole chicken, and the Tyson frozen chicken breasts (the deli meat was 1/2 off this week, the whole chicken was $2.91 with a red clearance sticker, and the frozen breasts were $5.99 and are usually $8.99). I always buy my frozen chicken when it is $5.99, so I don't get caught without any and have to pay full price. Anyway, I spent $47.76 and saved $34.36 (44%).
At Walgreens, I had a $10 register reward from buying Brad's expensive Mach 3 razor blades last week, so I was able to use that towards the first half of my purchase. I used coupons and the $10 rr to buy the items with register rewards attached first. I paid $30.72, saved $34.97, and earned $16 is register rewards. I shopped a little more, but Ben was getting exhausted, so I checked out with some of the other items I went to buy; I used $12 of my register rewards and paid $1.87. In all, I bought $92.08 in health and beauty products for $32.59, and I still have $4 is rr to use next time. There was a register reward special on travel size products, so I stocked up for our cruise!
I guess that's it! The only cooking blurb I have today is the fact that I did the old switcheroo last night with our pasta for spaghetti. At first, Brad called me out and thought he was going to hate it, but, as I suspected, we couldn't even tell the difference. I won't use it every time, but it certainly is a good way to get a little whole grain in Ben's diet since he shoves it in by the bowl-full! *One more thing, I wanted to make a correction in my crock-pot roast recipe. I accidentally wrote 8 hours on low in the crock-pot. I really only think it needs about 6 hours or so. Just make sure you check it with a meat thermometer to make sure it is done. Hope everyone has a great night; let me know if you try any of the recipes I have put on so far! I'd love to hear from you!

Better late...

Happy Sunday everyone! I am up early this morning with no baby to care for (he is at mom and dad's),so I thought I would fit in a little blog about our Friday and weekend! I previously wrote that Friday would be a day of painting, and it was! Ben is SO unbelievably good while I paint that I can usually get quite a bit accomplished! He loves to "do laundry." If I leave a load accidentally (as we all do I'm sure) in the dryer, he will spend an hour moving the laundry from the dryer to the washer and back to the dryer; thank you, front-loading machines! He makes me laugh because I will hear him bump his little head on the dryer or washer door; he immediately comes to the laundry room door with his hand on his head saying "Oh." I ask him, "Did you hit your head?" He replies, "Uh-huh." I say, "Are you o.k.?" He says, "Uh-huh" and goes right back to playing. He just wants me to feel his pain I guess! Another great and random activity that keeps him busy for a while is playing with dried beans. He is a little too young to fully comprehend keeping them all in the container, but he does a fairly good job! Try it with yours if you dare!

Thursday, we had roast with carrots, potatoes, and onions with roasted broccoli for dinner. I make this about once a month like many mothers do. It is the easiest recipe because all you do it peel and chop and throw it all in the crock pot in the morning, and the house proceeds to smell amazing all day long! Brad said, for some reason, that this one was his favorite yet, and to "do whatever you did on this one next time." Husbands are brutally honest. Not that I am a great cook, but I did want to share that simple "recipe" and the recipe for the broccoli, I stole off of another girl's blog, so I am including that. It is my FAVORITE broccoli dish, and I love broccoli!Crock pot Roast

1. Buy or thaw your roast (I always buy them on clearance or sale at Kroger and freeze them)
2. Peel a bag of carrots (I prefer the long ones not baby) and 2-3 large potatoes; chop
3. Chop onion in large chunks
4. Place onions and potatoes in bottom of crock pot and season with a little salt and pepper.
5. Place roast on top and add carrots around; sprinkle with a little more salt and pepper.
6. Pour 1 cup of water (I add a beef bullion cube to boiling water for more flavor) over the top
7. Add seasoning to your meat (I use Montreal steak seasoning and a little garlic powder).
8. Set crock-pot on 8 hours low, eat, and enjoy!