Attempting to be a Super Mom

We've all been under the weather here and haven't really been cooking anything new.  I've got a few recipes though that I've been meaning to post. Apricot Crumble Squares Ingredients: Apricot pie filling (recipe below) 2 cups flour 1/4 tsp cinnamon 1/8 tsp nutmeg 1/8 tsp ginger 1/2 sugar 1/2 cup melted butter 1 tbsp milk Directions: Preheat your oven to 375. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.  Sift flour and spices into a bowl then stir in sugar. Add melted butter.  Mix together with a fork.  Set aside about 1/4 of the crumb mixture for the top.  Stir the milk into the remaining 3/4 of the mixture.  Press into the pan.  Prick all over with a fork.  Pour the pie filling over the first layer.  Crumble the remaining crumb mixture over the pie filling.  Bake at 375 for 45 minutes or until the topping is browned.  Serve warm with ice cream or whipped topping. Apricot Pie Filling Ingredie...

And what a vacation it was!  I love when you go on vacation and don't want to come back to real life.  Or, when you need a vacation after a vacation.  We had a great time out at Table Rock Lake. We go every summer, but this year was the best trip yet.  Ben is getting older and able to do more and enjoy more.  He's nervous around water, but I can tell you that at the lake, I was definitely more nervous than he was.  Ben was so cute in his new big boy life jacket and poor Sydney, her life jacket seemed to swallow her up.  They both looked cute in their swimming suits too. We went down Wednesday night with Shawn's sister, Kelly, and Thursday morning, the five of us were out swimming off the dock.  Shawn's parents came down later that morning and joined us in the swimming.  We spent most of our trip down swimming off the dock.  Saturday, we did get to go out i...

This was from last week.  This week, we have no letter of the week activities. This craft came from  No Time For Flash Cards  and it's super cute. W is for Watermelon What you'll need: pink, green, and black construction paper scissors glue hole punch 1.  Draw and cut out the letter W from both the pink and the green paper. 2.  Use the hole punch on the black paper to make a bunch of little black circles. 3.  Glue the pink W on top of the green W. 4.  Glue the little black dots onto the pink W. And you're done!

Please try to be patient with me.  As the kids get older, I become increasingly busy during the day and don't always have a lot of time to be on the computer.  Some days, I'm not on at all.  I promise I'll update when I can though. Last week was another fun, but busy week.  The weather has been incredibly hot.  One day we got up early, and went to the park.  It was so hot though, that Ben couldn't do anything that required your skin touching anything. Thursday was the sidewalk sale.  In the 5 1/2 years we've lived out here, we've never gone to the side walk sale, until this year of course.  Shawn and the kids bought me a really cute purse for my birthday.  It's big, like I love my purses and poor Ben could hardly carry it. We celebrated my birthday all weekend long.  My mom, her boyfriend, my sister, my brother, and my nephew all came out on Saturday.  We had a nice lunch, ate ...

I've been feeling very creative lately and decided to cook something new and totally crazy for dinner.  I made it up as I went along based on things in my fridge and cabinets.  Shawn was skeptical at first, but we all liked it. Tomato and Bacon Rotini Ingredients: 1/2 package of bacon (about 8 slices), chopped 1 onion, chopped 5 roma tomatoes, peeled and chopped 1 tsp dried thyme 1/4 tsp salt 1/4 tsp pepper 3 cloves garlic, minced 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped 1 pkg Rotini (about 16 oz) - I used whole wheat Rotini Directions: In a skillet, cook bacon, onion, garlic, and thyme over medium heat for about 5-7 minutes or until bacon is browned. Add the tomatoes, salt, and pepper.  Break down the tomatoes with the back of your spoon.  Cook for about 10-12 minutes. Add the parsley. Meanwhile, in a large pot of boiling water, cook pasta for 8-10 minutes or until tender.  Drain well and return to the pot. Add the sauce and coat...

This is the second V craft we did this week.  It came from  No Time For Flash Cards . V is for Vase What you'll need: construction paper glue scissors markers 1.  Draw and cut out the letter V. 2.  Cut out 4 big circles, 4 little circles and 4 green strips. 3.  Color the letter V. 4.  Color the big circles. 5.  Glue the little circles onto the big circles. 6.  Glue the green strips from the back of the V at the top.  Cut the strips so they are different lengths. 7.  Glue the V to another sheet of paper. 8.  Glue the circles to the ends of the green strips (stems). And you're done.