The Christmas Story

I know I posted this week's theme on Saturday. But, I really wanted to do my Christmas Story theme this week instead (the pdf wasn't quite ready to post last Saturday, so I posted the Christmas theme instead).
The week leading up to Christmas, I like to focus on my family's religious beliefs about Christmas. I use this week to reinforce the values that are important to me. Faith, service to others, kindness etc. The weekly plan is a little different. I've added a Bible verse for each day, as well as a "Giving Project" for each day.
If you'd like to join us here is the link:

The Christmas Story

Of course if you have different religious beliefs or traditions, you can always substitute your own, or use the more generic "Christmas" theme that I posted earlier!

Today's projects focused on the Star of Bethlehem. Our favorite was, of course, making star cookies:

It's hard to see in the picture, but we decided to make our stars green! It was the only food coloring we had left!!

And of course the other kids wanted to help as well!

One plate was for us to enjoy, and the other plate went to Elder and Sister Chaimberlain (two missionaries who are serving in our congregation, and who we absolutely love!!!!) It was a bit difficult at first for my three-year-old to give away any of the cookies, but it was easier to give them to people he likes so much! And for me, that's just fine. Learning to give and being generous is important to me, but it's also important to me, that we do it in a way that is fun, and that gives lots of postive feedback at this age.

Next Week's Theme

So next week's theme is......Christmas!

Here's the link if you'd like to join in!! I'll post more details later.

Christmas

Kid Reviews

So here is a picture of dinner tonight. "Leek and Chicken Pasta," fruit salad and green beans. I promised that any one who tried each thing on their plate, could give me a star rating and I would post their review on the blog. (Turned out to be a terrific motivator!!) So, here we go!

From my eleven-year-old:
4.5 Stars (out of 5)
"The noodles tasted like lemon, the chicken tasted like chicken and there was green crunchy stuff in it!"

From my eight-year-old:
5 Stars
"I liked that it was a little spicey, and I liked the strawberries, and I liked the green thingies"

From my three-year-old:
5 Stars (and lots more!)

Here's the link to the menu:

Menu Leeks

Persimmons

I have to be honest with you, persimmons have always been a little intimidating to me! I guess I just never grew up eating them with the standard fruits in my house (apples, oranges & bananas). Persimmons always looked pretty, but I've just never been sure exactly how to eat them!

But, they are in season this month, and I am really trying to get my kids to try new fruits and veggies, so I'm up for trying something new next week! (And, also, we had a great persimmon salad at work a few days ago, and they tasted great!)

So, there are two kinds of persimmons, Fuya (round and firm - great for eating as is) and Haychiya (acorn shaped and really soft when ripe these are best for baking). They are both super healthy for you. They have lots of fiber, Vitamin C and Vitamin A and are really low in calories.

Next week's menu has persimmons as an ingredient in at least one dish per day, I tried to mix it up a bit. Whenever I'm trying something really new, I usually end up trying it in a bread or muffin recipe (these are easiest to get past my kidos) so I have several persimmon recipes that involve baking. Since many of them involve making persimon pulp, I thought I would add a link to a website with instructions on how to make persimmon pulp:

http://www.thegraciouspantry.com/clean-eating-persimmon-pulp/

And for those of you who want to follow along with next week's menu, here is a link to a pdf. The first page is the men (click on any item with a square around it and it will open up the recipe) The second page is the shopping list (it's long, but you probably already have a lot of the ingredients!)

Dec 17 Persimmons

Too Cool for Reindeer Hats

Today we worked on the science project that involved making igloos out of sugar cubes and frosting. As you can see all of my kidos wanted to get in on the science!

Our tallest igloo!



This project went really well, until Mom stepped away for a minute and World War III broke out over who was using the most sugar cubes and why.

(Some days I can look at this philisophically and see that what my children are really exploring, are aspects of social justice, the fair distribution of natural resources within a society and different methods of conflict resolution - today however, I chose to demonstrate the paticular form of government called a "dictatorship" and "instant incarceration" ie. go to your room; since in my kingdom it's never okay to dump sugar cubes on your sister's head!!)

And last, but not least, is the antler hat, that my three-year-old was waaaaay too cool to model for me. When I showed him the picture, his only comment was: "They just look funny when the antlers are flopping over like that"



Tueday's Meals

Breakfast, I just used refrigerated croissant dough and added chocolate chips to the croissants before I rolled them up. You can also sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar before baking!  The yogurt is just plain vanilla with cinnamon sprinkled on top.

 Lunch was easy to pack, we were out of cottage cheese, so I just substituted montery jack cheese cut into bite-size chunks.

 Carrots & Ranch

By the time dinner came around, the weather had turned cold. Warm soup was just the thing!

If you'd like to try any of the recipes they are on my "Menus" page!!



Flying Santa

Just playing around getting our Flying Santa to Fly!

Jay-Jay's been asking all day when it was time to "glue the puff-balls!"

If you'd like to try any of our actvities with us here's the link:

Santa & Reindeer

Christmas Through The Eyes of A Child

One of the most precious things about being a parent is the chance to re-live the wonder of childhood through my children. I distinctly remember my oldest daughter’s second Christmas. She was almost two years old and was finally aware enough of what was going on to have some definite opinions about our family traditions.

The first thing the adults did was to buy a tree. That’s right, they went out and bought a tree. Now, keep in mind that she was not allowed to bring sticks, leaves, dirt or pinecones into the house on the pretence that they would make the house dirty, but all of a sudden an entire tree gets brought into the house and placed in the middle of the living room. When my husband brought it in, she kept looking at me clearly waiting for me to reiterate the rules and make him “take that outside.” Not only did the tree stay inside our house, those adults actually looked pleased about it. Then we promptly got out a box of decorations, and hung shiny things all over that tree! Next came little lights that blink on and off. After setting up such an unexpected display, our next move was to invoke a “no touching” rule.

Within the next few days, pretty packages wrapped in bright paper and tied with sparkly bows started appearing under the tree. With strict warnings not to touch the presents!! This amazing phenomenon lasted a few weeks, and then one morning both parents got up plopped her down in front of the tree and handed her a package. She just stared at it, having been reminded several hundred times by now about that “no touching” rule. Then with smiling faces we encouraged her to rip open the paper! She was not about to be tricked into breaking that rule, what was the matter with everyone? Had everyone gone insane? The pictures from that Christmas morning are precious, and well, if you look at it from her point of view she’s right, we didn’t make much sense at all did we?

And let’s not even mention two months later, when we lit her dessert on fire, stood around singing and then expected her to put out the fire! Birthdays’ didn’t make much sense either.

Santa, Reindeer & Leeks

Hi Everyone! My appologies, but one of my fabulous kidos misplaced my data drive, so I wasn't able to post my menu and preschool theme earlier (I just found it this morning behind the chest freezer!!)

So, for anyone who's interested:

The preschool theme is Santa & Reindeer:

Santa and Reindeer

And the menu for next week:

Dec 10 Menu Leeks

As always, let me know if you try any of the ideas/recipes and how they work for you!!

Recipes

Hi Everyone!
I just realized that this week's menu is missing two of the dinner recipes (amateur mom!). The ingredients made it on the menu, just not the recipes.

So.... Here are the missing recipes!!

Mark's Favorite Chicken:
     1 Cup Bread Crumbs
     1 Envelope Ranch Dressing Mix
    6 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast

Combine crumbs and dressing mix.
Coat chicken pieces.
Bake in greased baking dish at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.

Barbeque Beef Patties
     1 Egg
     1/2 Cup BBQ Sauce
     3/4 Cup Bread Crumbs
     1 tsp. Salt
     1 lb. Ground Beef

Combine egg, 1/4 C. BBQ sauce, bread crumbs and salt.
Add ground beef and mix well.
Shape into four 3/4" patties.
Top with remaining BBQ sauce.
Place in greased pan and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until internal temperature is 160 degrees.