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Birthdays: To Be Surprised or Not To Be Surprised?

June 28, 2011 by Jules 1 Comment

Sopping wet hair. Barely dressed for school. Ushered into the dinning room to eat a wholesome breakfast of adorable smiley face birthday cake accompanied by gifts wrapped in smiley face paper. Ugg! Camera snapping shots of the unprepared, make-upless high schooler during this 'party'. That evening, after a birthday full of school, she is greeted at home by her high school boyfriend, and a few girl friends for yet another surprise birthday party complete with Veggie Tale gift wrap and cake to be followed by a long-awaited trip to the 1st football game of the year.

When I was growing up, I never knew what kind of cake I was going to have for my birthday, what thoughtful gift my family had picked out for me based on random conversations before that day, or on some years, if and when there would be a celebration. My mom, especially, LOVED surprising me!

Years down the road that same Veggie Tale love'n girl has children of her own with the love of her life who grew up in a state miles away and in a totally different family (duh, other wise gross!). We are learning to melt and mold one another's family traditions and make some new ones of our own for our beautifully growing family.

Birthdays...?

Our eldest has just turned 3. As a youth pastoring family we skillfully planned her arrival to come in the middle of the annual mega summer camp, Super Summer AR. bahahaha Poor girl. Out of necessity, one of our yearly traditions has been to travel to see daddy at camp for Father's Day and then again for Maggie's birthday. We eat cupcakes in the cafeteria with our students and the past couple years we also celebrate with a dear family of friends who live in the same town the camp is hosted. The second part of her birthday tradition has been to have a party on the 4th of July weekend so family is able to be off work and able to come celebrate with us.

The past 2 years I've snuck around, according to my family custom, trying to hide cupcakes, cakes, decorations, gifts, and simple plans from our birthday girl (not hard seeing as she was only 1 and 2 years old). This years I went out on a limb and let my quickly maturing 3-year-old help make and decorate her own birthday cupcakes as well as point-blank ask her what 'kind' of party she'd like to have. She often helps me in the kitchen but icing in a new-found skill of hers. She has also changed her mind once over the past month but we have settled on...maybe you guessed it- Veggie Tales. YEP; Train up a child!

I haven't decided which tradition we'll stick with in years to come but both have their pros and cons. Whacha think?

Now, pics of the process, of course! More of the VT party to come in a future post

just a few of our creations

~~~

What are your family customs you adhere to (maybe without even knowing it)? Do share; I love sifting through advise!
I avoided the endless Jesus jukes that where oh so readily available in this but those are welcome, too ;o)

Filed Under: Baking and Cooking, Parenting

Baked Ziti and Green Beans

June 16, 2011 by Jules 3 Comments

These 2 recipes were given to me when our Amazing church family provided an abundance of scrumdiddlyumptious meals after having my 3rd c-section this past January! The ziti takes a while but is WELL worth the time, makes 2 batches at a time, and freezes/reheats great! The green beans are quick and delicious! Both have become staples in our house!!!

*Baked Ziti

1 lb lean ground beef
2 tbl onion pwd
3 tbl garlic pwd
1 jar (28 oz) meatless spag. sauce
1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes undrained (I used a 10 oz can with green peppers)
1 can (12 oz) tomato paste
3/4 cut water
2 tbl parsley
1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp basil
1-1/2 tsp oregano
1 lb uncooked ziti noodles
1 carton (15 oz) reduced -fat ricotta cheese
2 cups (8 oz) shredded part skim mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup egg substitute (I used 1 large egg)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Brown beef with onions and garlic then stir in spag sauce, tomatoes, tom. paste, water, parsley, Worcestershire sauce, basil, and oregano. Cover and simmer for 3 hours stirring occasionally. Cook pasta according to box then drain. Combine cheeses, egg, salt, and pepper in a bowl. In 2 greased baking dishes, layer meat sauce, pasta, and cheese evenly until gone. (I just mixed all together in a huge bowl until evenly coated and divided evenly in the dishes. Cover 1 for freezing and refrigerate or bake the other right then) Bake 1 hr @ 350' or until heated through. Makes 2 casseroles (~6 servings each).

**Green Beans

1 large 'family size' can of green beans (your desired cut)
1 cup sugar (more or less as desired)
1 tsp Tony's original seasoning

Cook on stove top until boiling slightly while stirring or nuke in microwave until heated well then stir well.

BONUS!

My kids chow down with no fuss!

*Ziti via Melting Pot pg 65 via Ms Terri Tucker
**Green Beans via Nicole Harrod

Do you have any fav dishes you'd like to share? Comment to share or leave a link!

Filed Under: Baking and Cooking Tagged With: bake, baked ziti, church family, green beans, sugar, tony's seasoning, yum, ziti

Chicken Casserole

June 9, 2011 by Jules 3 Comments

This is more than a staple at our house! My husband would eat this at leastevery other day. As a matter of fact, when I told him I was gonna start recipe posts on thuRsdays, he said, "so...when ya make'n Chicken Casserole!?!" The original recipe comes from Katie Williamson; THANK YOU, you helped me make a happy hubby! We first made this dish together to take to a friend who had just had surgery back in ~2008.

2 cups cooked chx
1 can chx noodle soup
1 cup mayo (we use miricle whip)
1 jar pomintos (we omit)
1 cup diced celary (we omit)
1 tbs minced onion (we use pwd)
1 tsp lemon juice
2 cups cooked rice
1 sleeve crushed crackers (we use Ritz)

Mix all (-crackers) in a bowl or just in the casserole dish you'll bake it in the top with crackers after in cass. dish, cook ~30 min or until bubbly @ 350' then EAT!

This works great with several of these things made a head. I like to cook an entire bag of boneless skinless chx breast for ~1 hr @350'. Then I dice all of it (why dice? faster meals with preKs) and refrigerate so they're ready for up coming meals (i.e. chx cass, mex chx, crunchy garlic chx- recipes coming soon). I also use my handy-dandy chopper to crush several sleeves of crackers at once. I put 1 sleeve of crushed crackers in a plastic bag in the pantry (labeled) for later. I also make big batches of rice to store left overs in fridge and use for lots of dishes later (i.e. chx cass, stir fry, breakfast rice- recipes coming soon)

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Filed Under: Baking and Cooking Tagged With: chicken casserole, crackers, fast, favorite, freezer, meals, yummy

Oster 3-in-1 Hand Blender

June 6, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

The Oster 3-in-1 Hand Blender is amazing and I use it at least 2 times a month. We originally bought this tool from Wal-Mart when looking for something cheap to make homemade baby food (uping the usage to more than 2x a week) for our 2nd child (after burning up our 1st one), ~2010. I now use this to chop/crush crackers, nuts, and cereal. I do big batches of these and store them in my pantry to make meal prep faster! It also assist in making baby food a snap!

*Note: I am not being paid for these recommendations/reviews but if you know how I can- bring it!

Filed Under: Hand-Dandies Tagged With: amazing, baby food, big batch, crackers, Hand Blender, homemade baby food, nuts, Oster 3-in-1 Hand Blender, pantry, snap, wal-mart

I have to sacrifice WHAT?

June 5, 2011 by Jules 2 Comments

It's important for us to teach our children at a young age responsibility. Maggie, my 3-year-old, in 17 days tear :'O( LOVES "chores" or "jobs" that are hers. We've gone through spells of bossiness between her and my younger daughter (18 months apart) so we had several lessons on what her "job" was as a big sister and what my job was as the mamma. Every time I reminded her that something wasn't her "job" she'd ask with a smirk, "what IS my job?" to which I'd respond with her list again or I'd ask her to tell me.

Maggie also has many "chores" throughout the day.

*Lunch and dinner she always sets the table: place mats for all, her and Izzie's (and any added little guests) plastic plates, little forks, sippy cups, as well as my prized fiestaware for adults, big silverware, and canned drinks. Izzie is starting to help with this one and LOVES it. She needs a bit more guidance for placement but getting better and Maggie thinks it's great to help her, since she's sooo experience ya know.

*Sorting laundry is something she helps with as well. Then she puts away things down stairs (i.e. kichen towels, her panties, burp clothes, and bibs) as well as upstairs items (i.e. clothes and big towels), if she happens to be up there with me (usually a chore I do myself).

*Unloading the dishwasher one of the 1st "chores" she was given. She was thrilled to be such a big help to me. Her job? Put away the silverware. She was meticulous at this. Originally sorting by type and size alone until we got new silverware which added the benefit of color sorting, Sweet! Just like any other person, this got boring...I guess. Now she often cons her sister into helping her which leads to mixed types/sizes/colors and sometime just up-side-down. Not a big deal, right? To you non-OCD types.

This was just one hurdle I had to overcome in able to allow my children to assist me as well as for me to be able to teach them valuable lessons on stewardship, service, and plain-ole responsibility.

What are you sacrificing in order to train your children? Leave a comment- lets chat about it.