Madeline Snack for Kids

This month for Virtual Book Club for Kids we read the book Madeline. Our kids created a snack to go with the story, too. They loved making and eating Madeline hat cookies! 

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Lemon Ginger Ice Cubes for Refreshing Infused Water

Do you and your kids drink enough water to stay hydrated through out the day? We've started making lemon ginger ice cubes to flavor our water, increase health benefits, and remind us to drink up!

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Super Simple Microwave Strawberry Jam

This microwave strawberry jam recipe is super simple! You only need berries, lemon juice, sugar, and a bit of salt. No pectin or fancy canning equipment required so it's the perfect recipe to try when cooking with kids.

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Grape Sparklers

This may be our favorite Cooking with Kids recipe yet! We almost couldn't stop snacking on these delicious treats to take a picture. This recipe gives grapes a bit of crunchy sweetness from a secret ingredient: Jello!

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Sand Castle Puffy Paint Art

We made lovely puffy paint sand castle art with a new recipe we created. It's the perfect summer sensory craft!

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Chocolate Chip Cookie Activities and Ideas for Kids

Everyone loves chocolate chip cookies! We read, learn, and count with them. We also bake and eat them of course! Enjoy this yummy collection of chocolate chip cookie themed activities and crafts for kids!

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Duck Snack for Kids

This adorable duck themed snack is perfect after reading Make Way for Ducklings! The best part of all is that our kids made it completely independently, too!

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How to Freeze Your Own Cookie Dough

There is nothing better than freshly baked cookies but you don't always have the time or energy to make them from scratch. Instead of store bought frozen cookie dough we'll show you how to freeze your own cookie dough for homemade delicious treats anytime!

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Banana Pudding Cookie Cups

We're back with our Cooking with Kids series to share a no cook dessert recipe that is perfect for kids to create! B is for banana so we are making Banana Pudding Cookie Cups!

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LMNO Peas Soup for Kids

We made a delicious alphabet vegetable soup to go with the book LMNO Peas by Keith Baker. Our preschooler loved cooking this soup all by herself.

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Leftover Cloud Dough No Cook Play Dough Recipe

We had leftover cloud dough from our Go Away, Big Green Monster retelling activity and it was time to create a no cook play dough recipe for the 12 Months of Sensory Dough Series. We turned out cloud dough into playdough and recreated an apple themed literacy activity as well.

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What We Ate at the Beach

We just returned from our 5th annual week long vacation to Avalon, New Jersey.  We share an adorable little cottage with my husband's mother, sister, and her husband.

As always, we ate very well!  We cook at home for the majority of our meals, but we go out a few times.  This year we visited The Mad Batter, Bobby Dee's Rock N Chair, Kudos American Grille, and Springer's for ice cream, of course!   We all unanimously loved their Almond Amaretto flavor (well, except for E who stuck to her cotton candy ice cream).  We ate at the Ocean City, NJ boardwalk one evening, too.  E had some actual cotton candy there!

My sister-in-law had a brilliant idea to create a Google Drive spreadsheet of the foods (and other household supplies) that we would be bringing.  We divided the shopping and accessed the list as we packed to check items off.  She now wants us to add a few lines of summary regarding what changes we should make for next year.  If you travel with other families, I highly recommend this!  It really appeals to my organizational side, so it made me fall in love my sister-in-law all over again!

For breakfasts, my mother-in-law bakes crumb buns and blueberry coffee cake.  I added our favorite peanut butter coconut oil cookies into the mix this year.  My sister-in-law frequently travels for her (awesome) career as a marketing manager for a chocolate company, so she had a plethora of Pepperidge Farm cookies for us to taste test.  We also had scrambled eggs, fruit smoothies, and coffee, of course. (D continued his 5 am wake up time even on vacation!)

My brother-in-law is in charge of the grill.  Being Turkish, he always makes the most amazing meatballs, grilled veggies, pineapple, and rice for one evening's dinner.  This year for various meals he also grilled steaks, vegetables, hot dogs, sausages, and veggie burgers.

One night we had a spread of crackers, toasted baguette, cheeses, my favorite hummus, and several Trader Joe's antipasto dips.  E helped prep the caprese salad!

She had her first s'more...

and shared a tropical drink served in a pineapple with Cowie!

I made guacamole, a southwestern inspired black bean quinoa salad, but the winner was this tomato and zucchini "pasta" salad.  I'm not usually a fan of zucchini, but I LOVED this recipe.  I am certain that I will have this salad on stand by all summer long!  I may need a kitchen gadget to streamline the slicing prep.

What have you been eating lately?  How do you plan meals when you travel?

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This Week's Meals: March 25 - 31, 2013

First of all, a bit of an update. I adapted this recipe here to make the most delicious pizza ever.

In our version, I used a store bought (shut up) whole wheat crust.  I made the sauce with 1/2 cup real fruit strawberry jam and 1/4 cup balsamic glace which skipped another step since I didn't have to reduce vinegar myself.  I topped the pizza with cheese, bacon, and red onion (the recipe called for sweet onion), then baked.  Once it was out of the oven, I added sliced strawberries and cilantro.  We were all very happy that I made two of these.

So on to this week.

Monday - Marlboro Man Sandwiches, steamed veggies (E's choice)
Tuesday - Leftovers, Quinoa Avocado Chickpea Salad
Wednesday - Sweet and Sour Chicken, with extra sauce, broccoli, water chestnuts, carrots, brown rice
Thursday - Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup (sans chicken)
Friday - Leftovers and/or crock pot Vegetable Stew (from the freezer)
Saturday - MIL's birthday dinner
Sunday - Easter

Lunches - Leftovers, sandwiches, apples, bananas
Desserts - Quinoa fruit salad, Coffee cake muffins

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Green Eggs Sensory Play

Are you looking for ideas to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday? Have your kids always loved the book Green Eggs and Ham? We've got the perfect sensory play recipe for Read Across America Day!

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Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie Recipe

I have great news!  I don't have gestational diabetes!  I had it with V, so they tested me 3 times this pregnancy and I am in the clear.  I can have fall desserts and birthday cake for several family birthdays in the next few months and lovely, lovely caffeine occasionally.  Starbuck's salted caramel mocha is a huge craving right now.

To celebrate, here is one of my favorite cookie recipes that my mother-in-law makes.  They are just crunchy enough and great with milk.

Washington Cookies (We aren't sure why they are called that.) or Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 cup margarine

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup chopped walnuts

2 cups oats

1 pkg. chocolate chips

Whisk flour, soda and salt together. Cream margarine and sugar in mixer. Add vanilla, then eggs and mix well. Stir in dry ingredients. Add oats. You might want to mix in the chocolate chips and walnuts by hand at the end so they don't get broken up. Drop by tablespoon onto cookie sheet. Bake 12-15 minutes at 350.

Makes about 6 dozen.

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Meal Planning

Meal planning ensures that we eat well, use the ingredients we have, and get a variety of foods in our diet. We use magnets to organize our meal plans.

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15 Facts about Me

My friend Heather started blogging.  We talked a few months ago about working together to write through our grief so I am thrilled to have her beside me in the blogging world as she is one of the most inspirational people I know.

I am going to participate in the blog challenge with her and I'd love it if you would, too.  I'm even looking at you, Jamie.  I'm going to do the challenge on days when I have no topic materializing.

Day 1: A recent picture and 15 interesting facts about yourself.

1. I'm obsessed with Abraham Lincoln.  I've always loved him, but several years ago we used his birthday as an celebratory excuse to go out for dinner with my in-laws.  We had such a ridiculously fun time that we made this an annual event.  Now, Lincoln is also an inspiration as a bereaved parent.   "Since Willie's death, I catch myself every day, involuntarily talking with him, as if he were with me".

2.  When I was a child, I would spend summers reading in a hammock and winters curled up on my dad's recliner with a book.  It's my favorite hobby.

3.  I love where I live.  I grew up in western Pennsylvania and I now live in south central PA but even that small move placed me in a different planting zone.  When I moved to this part of the state, I immediately fell in love with the town we reside in now.  Our neighborhood is perfect for us, with a great mix of people, two of whom I've gotten closer to recently.   One of which is probably reading this right now and needs to use this blog challenge to start blogging herself (Hi, Julia!).  Our back yard has a beautiful creek running through it with a walking trail along it.  

4.  I garden, but I am only really inspired to grow things we can eat.

5.  My husband took my daughter out for the day today.  Being home alone right now seems ridiculously indulgent.

6.  My friendships have been either solidified or broken because of what we've gone through this past year.  It's a welcomed side effect of the grief.  Friends become acquaintances and acquaintances become friends.

7.  I have recently thought about making friendship bracelets for those who have really stood by me.  I want to make them with clasps so I can take mine on and off (I'll make matching ones for myself and the person I give them to) and I don't even care if the other person wears his/hers.  It's just a way for me to feel connected daily to the people in my life who have amazed me with their support.

8.  Jewelry has been a huge way for me to deal with my grief.  Wearing something that represents V allows me to silently, yet physically carry her with me and put evidence of her out there in a way that people might inquire if interested.  E knows which pieces I wear for V and touches them gently while saying, "baby Vi." She got her own "baby Vi" bracelet the other day when our fundraising wristbands arrived!  

9.  I love asian inspired cooking and sushi.  I've started trying to make more of the recipes I love here at home.  Sesame noodles have been a weekly meal lately.  

10.  My favorite blogs are Swistle, Amalah, Mamapundit, and The Spohrs are Multiplying.  Leave me a comment with your favorites.

11.  I'm trying to figure out Twitter.  I don't really like it so far.

12.  I love reality tv.  The more mindless, the better.

13.  My husband is truly my best friend.  He is hilarious, smart, resourceful, loving, kind, quirky, totally handsome, and all mine.  I don't understand how I got so fortunate when it comes to him.

14.  We are currently doing home improvements.  We recently converted 2/3 of our finished basement into a play room for E after we replaced the flooring and painted.  We got new blinds for the living room.  I started this project in the kitchen.  Can't stop!

15.  I miss my family.  I'm glad we are going to see them next weekend.

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Tutu's Super Crispy Sugar Cookies

My sister-in-law made Grandma Tutu's Super Crispy Sugar Cookies last weekend.  We all agreed they were one of the most delicious cookies we've ever had.  I would even say they are in my top 3 best cookies of all time, with the almond cookies from the Greek Fest and the orange cookies my mom makes.

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