Some dinner recipes

Braegger Shepherd's Pie

1 lb. hamburger
sprinkle of onion flakes
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can French style green beans, drained
2 cups mashed potatoes (we make up instant), seasoned with salt and pepper
shredded cheese, optional

Brown hamburger in skillet. Add onion flakes, soup and beans and mix well. Spread mashed potatoes in a layer on top of hamburger mixture and heat through. If desired (but we don't usually do this), top with grated cheese and cover skillet until melted.



Hamburger Gravy over Noodles

1 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 medium onion, diced
1 lb. hamburger
sprinkle of garlic powder
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup sour cream
egg noodles, cooked, drained and buttered

Saute onion in olive oil until translucent. Add hamburger and break up while browning thoroughly. Sprinkle with garlic powder and add soup, milk and sour cream. Heat until bubbly. Serve over buttered egg noodles.

Christian has still been revelling in his obsession with the Lego Indiana Jones game which, by the way, he now pronounces "Hone-ya Jone-yez" for reasons which escape me. On March 24th he decided that he wanted to draw Indy and asked me how to do it. I told him to start with a circle and draw his face. "But he face not a circle," he countered, "he face is a square!" I looked at the front of the game box and, sure enough, two-dimensionally it does look like a square.

I told Buddy that I'm certain that he knows enough about Indiana Jones to draw a great picture, and this is what he produced:

Square head, check! Hat, check! Squiggly whip, check! Intense expression, check! It's an exact replica!

I took a picture of our front door with the Easter egg wreath I made last year because the irridescent Easter grass was glittering so prettily in the sun, but in this photo you can't see it very well :(

Christian took some pretty cool pictures of Dusty that day

even an extreme close up of his bunny-fur tummy!

He didn't totally leave Crumpet out, but you can tell that her picture was a bit of an afterthought.

That evening we went to the school to see Faith's opera! Here is the scenery that the kids painted,

and the sign that faith did all the lettering for.

Doesn't Christian look excited to see it?

Here is the opening scene,

and the end, all lined up for picture taking.

Here is Faith's costume that she came up with herself, I just did a bit of hot glueing and sewing.

She wanted to be a hawk even though all the other girls but one (who was a bunny) wanted to be flowers. Way to not follow the pack! I took video with our old camcorder, but it will take me forever to get that on the computer or disc. I did get some segments with my camera the next week when they performed at Apple Village, and I'll be putting those in that post. It was wonderful!! It was so amazing that they wrote the words and music by themselves.

After we got home, we had a late dinner of spaghetti and Buddy got a little wild!

On the 25th Joy invited us to the Treehouse Children's Museum with her since she had a free pass for Christian and Faith had gotten a free pass from Weber State Credit Union. The kids had a blast!

This new bucking bull was a lot of fun.

We made lion and lamb sack puppets for the craft.

Faith did a great job on the states quiz (and Buddy copied her).

Joy wanted to bring her kids to the Treehouse because she was doing "X week" and could teach them about x-rays and xylophones there. Here she's showing Sierra a person picture (which you color to look like yourself) that you hold up to the light to see the skeleton inside. If you want to print this activity that I made for my preschool a while ago, see this post. Joy also did a few of animals, the frog one was really neat!

I think Christian could have played on this for an hour, at least.

We had such a fun time and the kids were sad to leave. And when I say leave, I mean get drug out of the building after it closed and I was getting scuzzed by all the employees.

That evening we stopped by the library. It's one of our favorite places to visit!

The kids slept over at Braegger's on the 26th (and Tony & I went out to Olive Garden!) but we picked them and Zach up the next morning to take them to Lowe's craft. The kaleidoscopes turned out really cool, but they were the most difficult project we'd done!

We took the kids straight back to grandma's because that afternoon was their egg hunt and early Easter dinner.

They got candy, money, bubbles, stuffed animal bunnies and outfits!

I brought Snickers Salad to the dinner and it was a big hit, so I thought I'd post the recipe:

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Snickers Salad

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4 apples (I used all Granny Smith, but it's also good with 2 green & 2 red)

4 or 5 regular size Snickers candy bars (I got the almond ones--yum!)

1 - 8 oz. tub Cool Whip, thawed

small box vanilla instant pudding

1 & 1/2 cups of milk

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Core and dice apples (with skin on) and immediately put into a bowl with a few cups of water and a squirt of lemon juice (to prevent browning). Drain and put in large bowl. In a separate bowl, stir together pudding mix with milk (or what I used instead was four cups [one pack] of the already prepared vanilla Snack Pack Pudding--it was cheaper!). Mix in Cool Whip and then add to apples. Stir. Cut each candy bar into three long strips and then cut pieces directly onto the apple mixture, stirring every so often (otherwise the caramel makes all the candy bar pieces stick together).

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I'm not sure how much in advance you can prepare this and have it look and taste its best, but mine was refrigerated for several hours and it was great. There weren't any leftovers to tell if it's just as good the next day!

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After dinner, grandma went out to blow bubbles with the kids. It was such a fun Easter activity day!

Sunday, the 28th was Joy's birthday and Faith got this shot of her and also a very unflattering one of her blowing out the candles. Unfortunately, I promised not to share that one on the blog!

some March happenings

A tiny wooden basketball hoop? Sounds weird, but the kids loved this Lowe's project on March 13th. Christian even figured out all the directions himself by looking at the pictures!

Faith continues to love drawing temporary tatoos on herself. How can I be mad when she does such an amazing job?

On the 17th Faith got her top braces on and a soft pallette expander (the metal bar across the roof of her mouth). Every morning and night I had to twist the screw in the middle to slowly break apart her soft pallette and expand the room she has for teeth in her mouth (giant eeek!). Luckily, Faith didn't find it too painful, but hated the twisting tool because it pressed down on the back of her tongue and made her gag. My brave little baby! After two weeks of expanding, the orthodontist is going to lock it in place and it will act as a cast as her pallette grows back and heals.

We were fortunate that my mom brought us corned beef and cabbage on that Monday night, so I made green crepes for dinner. Happy St. Patrick's day!

On the 18th Buddy was extra wild and crazy while I tried to help in Faith's classroom.

The next day we went with them on a field trip to Apple Village where they sang and played ukeleles after reading to the grandparents. Here's "Skip to my Lou"



and "The Doughnut Song".



Next we went to Kaysville Theater. Here we are upstairs in the projection room learning all about film.

We even got to watch some cartoons on the big screen!

After that, we walked a few doors down to a shoe repair shop. We got to see the owner use his giant industrial sewing machine to fix Mrs. Bertram's purse.

Just a few doors down from that is the Clytie Adams Ballet Studio. Faith's classmate's mom is a teacher there and we got to check it out inside.

Later that day I had Faith open a gift my mom had left for when her braces were hurting her. My mom's so cute, she drew braces on some smilie face stickers to decorate the box! It was a mama and baby horse charm for her charm bracelet.

On the 20th the kids helped me make a special breakfast of pop up pancakes. They were so easy, fun and delicious!! I got the recipe here.

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Pop Up Pancakes – makes 24

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1 cup milk
1 cup flour
6 eggs
1/4 cup melted butter
dash salt

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Preheat oven at 400° and grease muffin tins. Put all ingredients in a blender and blend well. Pour batter into muffin tins evenly (only fill each one a centimeter or so full). Bake for 15 minutes, or until puffy and golden on top. Let cool for a few minutes and they will shrink down in the middle. Use a knife to pry them out and enjoy with fruit or syrup.

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I also made mushroom cheese omelets to go with them.

The pancakes make perfect little cups for fruit. Faith put syrup on her second one and said that was the best because it could hold a lot more than regular pancakes (ick)!

Best. Stuffing. Ever.

Mom's Stuffing

2 loaves of bread, cubed and dried all day & night
1 ½ large white onions, diced
1 pt. Chicken broth
½ lb. Butter, melted
½ c. celery, diced
2 c. craisins
2 c. pecans, roughly chopped
½ T. salt
1 T. sage
2 t. poultry seasoning
½ t. pepper
2 lbs. Sausage, browned and drained
2 eggs

Put half of the onions in a blender and blend with the eggs and most of the broth. Mix this and rest of ingredients, add rest of broth if it needs to be more moist. Stuff turkey. Put remainder in covered casserole dish and bake with the turkey for the last hour.

Saltwater Taffy

Saltwater Taffy

2 cups sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup water
1 & 1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbs. margerine or butter
1/4 tsp. vanilla, peppermint extract, or other flavoring
few drops food coloring (optional)

Butter a 9x13 baking dish and set aside. Butter the sides of a heavy 2-quart saucepan. In saucepan combine sugar, corn syrup, water and salt. Cook and stir over medium-high heat to boiling. Clip on candy thermometer and cook over medium heat without stirring to 265 degrees (about 40 min.). Remove from heat and stir in margerine, flavoring and coloring. Pour into prepared pan and cool for about 15 minutes or till easy to handle.

Butter hands. Divide candy into 6-8 pieces, then twist and pull each piece until it turns a lighter, creamy color (about 10 min.). Stretch into a rope shape and, with buttered scissors, snip taffy into bite size pieces. Wrap in clear plastic wrap or waxed paper.

farmers market

On July 30th, we decided to check out the Kaysville farmers market. The kids got cute balloon animals and made an egg carton flower craft,


and I bought a apricots, raspberries, corn, tomatoes, and zuchini!
The kids tore into that fresh produce right away.








They got so crazy in their gluttony that they shared this tomato.


Then they helped me make my favorite zuchini side dish. Here, Christian's using my new Slice Wizard that we got on sale at the kitchen store in Park City.



Just put a layer of sliced zuchini, top with a sprinkle of salt Kraft powdered parmesan cheese,




then repeat to fill a square baking dish. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave on high for 6-7 minutes. Delicious!




My kids can't get enough corn on the cob this summer. Our favorite corn comes from Day farms in Layton, but this was good, too.

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Next, we made fresh salsa with the vegetable chopper (similar to the Vidalia Chop Wizard, but seemed a little sturdier) that we also got in Park City. We just chopped some tomatoes and onions with it, then added fresh cilantro, a bit of lemon juice and garlic, a few pinches of kosher salt and just a tiny bit of chopped jalapeño.




Everyone loved it! (Although Tony added nearly the rest of the can of jalapeño to his portion.)

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Friday the 30th I took the kids to eat at McDonald's because I had coupons for a free premium salad and two free apple dippers that expired the next day. The kids have been obsessed with the beanie babies that came in the happy meals for June & July! They love the little stuffed animals and also how you can play online games with them.






I love this picture, you can almost taste the joy!

Tony actually got home a little earlier than normal that night, but it was hard pulling the kids away from the playland.

The next morning we did the woodworking project at Home Depot.

Christian had his tongue out-in full concentration most of the time he was putting in the screws!

This project was the cutest yet, they're little memo boards with a white board side and a cork side.

After that, we drove to Day Farms to get even more produce. Faith's snapping beans in this picture. I was surprised how much my kids loved them.

And here are the little monkeys demonstrating how fun and dangerous my bed is. They're always treating it like a playland/monkey bars/fort!