My little miss loves blueberries. She always has and used to eat them like candy when she was a wee one. I loved it because they are one of nature's super fruits and are so incredibly good for you. It was a win-win for this mom!
In honor of Miss N's favorite fruit, we developed this amazing blueberry smoothie recipe. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
Blueberry Bliss Super Smoothie
1 cup frozen blueberries
1/3 banana
1/2 cup vanilla low-fat yogurt
1/2 cup water
1 tsp honey
Place all ingredients in your blender and give it a whirl. Add more water if you'd like it to be a little thinner. Pour, add a fun straw, and enjoy!
Hi Everyone... TGIF! It has been a hectic week and I am looking forward to getting some R+R in this weekend. It's supposed to be nice out so fingers crossed that we'll get outside for a little bit too. This week's Five on Friday is all about Easter... We've been doing quite a bit of prep around here and I am getting excited to share this holiday with my little ones in a few weeks.
ONE.
I made this adorable Burlap Bunny earlier in the week and it's been a cute addition to our Easter decor. I wasn't sure how it would turn out but I am very pleased with the result. Isn't it cute?
And here it is hanging out on my mantel...
TWO.
Miss N is obsessed with umbrellas and rain boots and who wouldn't be with all of the cute options they have around?! I think the Easter Bunny may be bringing her a new set of rainy day items so that she can go puddle jumping in style. Aren't these just too cute?!?!
THREE.
We did a really fun activity this week and made Marshmallow Chicks on a Stick after reading the book Owen's Marshmallow Chick. Miss N loved it and it was fun to experiment with Rice Krispie treats.
FOUR.
I love to give my kids books and luckily they really enjoy reading. I have a feeling someone will be getting this little gem this Easter...
FIVE.
Ok, so seriously.. how cute does this little game look? I found this on Pinterest earlier this week and cannot wait to play this with Miss N - she's going to get the biggest kick out of it. How fun!
If you're familiar with the book Owen by Kevin Henkes then you'll enjoy this Easter themed book about Owen's adventure with candy in his Easter basket. It's a sweet story about a little mouse that discovers a "friend" in his Easter basket.
Miss N and I read it together and I did a little interview with her about the book as we read it (I love the simplicity of a 3 year old's mind!)...plus, it gave me some ideas on what she'd like in her Easter basket this year:-)
Me: Do you like the candy that was in Owen's basket? Miss N: I like chocolate bunnies A LOT! I don't really like gumdrops.
Me: Why doesn't Owen eat the chick like the other candy? Miss N: Because he's full :-)
Me: Why do you like this book? Miss N: I like the chick - he's cute, especially his tail and butter cream eggs are yummy.
Me: What do you think will be in your Easter basket? Miss N: Cars, little stuffed bunny, a chocolate bunny and a pink bucket
After we finished our little chat, we hit the kitchen to mix up some funny Marshmallow Chicks on a Stick (recipe adapted from the Marshmallow treat recipe on Allrecipes.com).
Add the marshmallows and stir until melted and well blended.
Add yellow food coloring to tint the marshmallow mixture. We added a good amount of food coloring since we wanted our chicks to be pretty bright.
Add the Rice Krispies to the marshmallow mixture and stir until well combined.
Form the cereal mixture into egg shapes (like little chicks).
Put a stick in the bottom of the egg.
Add the chocolate chips for eggs and a flower sprinkle for the beak.
Let the chicks firm up and enjoy!
I hope you enjoyed doing this Easter themed activity with your child. I know we did! Happy Easter! Stop by in a few weeks for the next edition of lil bookworms where we'll read Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter.
Have you fallen in love with burlap as much as I have? I seriously love it and have found some great ways to incorporate it into my seasonal decor. For spring, I made this adorable bunny wall hanging that was so simple to make and didn't require a ton of materials.
If you'd like to make one yourself, follow these simple instructions:
Step 1 - Gather Materials : For this project I used burlap covered art boards, pencil, scissors, Martha Stewart's satin finish paint in "wedding cake", oatmeal colored yarn, a few different sized paint brushes and a glue gun with glue sticks.
Step 2 - Draw/Trace a Bunny Shape : I drew a simple shape of the back of a bunny. If you cannot draw very well, print out a bunny shaped image like the ones found on Creative Kristi and enlarge the bunny to the desired shape to fit the canvas. Trace the image onto the canvas using a pencil.
Step 3 - Paint in the Bunny Shape : Using Martha Stewart's paint, paint the outline of your bunny shape and then fill in the rest of the bunny. You may need to do a few coats (I used 2) to get the desired look and let dry.
Step 4 - Add a Cottontail : For the final touch, make a pom pom (instructions on McLaughlin Design's Website) out of yarn and glue the pom pom to the bunny's bottom using a hot glue gun.
Here is my burlap bunny wall art proudly displayed on my Spring mantel.. isn't it cute?!?
Now, you're ready to hang your adorable burlap bunny and enjoy! Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed today's Easter and spring inspired craft.
Hi Everyone! Welcome to the first edition of the weekly menu planner with FREE Printable Menu and Grocery List. This week's menu features some wonderful spring flavors, easy leftover meals and a little variety too. We try to keep things healthy and kid-friendly around here and I hope you enjoy this week's menu!
Menu Recipes
Sunday : Pork Tenderloin, Steamed Artichokes, and Roasted Potatoes
For the pork tenderloin make sure you get a piece of meat that is large enough to feed your family for two meals. For us, I'll get between 3-4 pounds so that we have leftovers for lunch and for dinner later that week. You will need to DOUBLE the pork recipe to make this much meat.
Artichokes : Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the artichokes. Simmer the artichokes in a large pot of water for 25-45 minutes until the large leaves on the outside peal off easily. Serve warm (optional: melt some butter in a dish and dip the leaves in the butter - not the healthiest but definitely yummy!)
Roasted Potatoes : Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Quarter red potatoes and place in an oven proof baking dish. Drizzle the potatoes with olive oil (about 1-2 Tbsp) and sprinkle with salt and pepper (sometimes I'll also add a little dried or fresh rosemary). Roast in the oven for 30-45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes until the potatoes are done.
Monday : Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup and Spring Salad
The Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup is new to us this week and fingers crossed that it's yummy! The Spring Salad is one of my favorites as it incorporates some wonderful flavors of the season. Serve with a crusty baguette and enjoy.
This is one of our go-tos because it's easy and healthy. Miss N loves it and so does my husband. PLUS, it usually makes enough so that my hubby can bring it for lunch later in the week. Don't you just love meals that make great leftovers?!?
By mid-week I am usually tired of cooking and getting ready for the weekend so I try to do something nice and easy on Wednesday night to give us a bit of a break. This week we're using the leftover pork from Sunday to make some delicious pork sandwiches and pairing them with cole slaw for a little southern flair. NOTE: I use half of the cole slaw recipe since we usually only eat the cole slaw for this meal and don't need a ton. Then I can use the remaining cole slaw mix for the fish taco topping as well.
BBQ Pork Sandwiches : Nothing fancy here... Slice the remaining pork into pieces. Put the pork in a pot on the stove and add enough BBQ sauce to make you happy and heat the pork until warm. We love Sweet Baby Ray's Classic BBQ sauce and it works really well with the pork. Serve hot on kaiser rolls.
Thursday night is our tex-mex night. We started this tradition a little while ago and it's probably my favorite night of the week. My husband whips up some skinny margaritas (yum!) and we indulge in chips and guacamole. Plus, I also love that it's healthy and pretty low cal.
So, here's the scoop on our twist on tilapia tacos.. Make the Fish Tacos with Cabbage Slaw and top the tacos with the Lime-Cilantro Crema. NOTE: Rather than using a head of cabbage we just use the leftover cole slaw mix from the night before.. saves us a little more on prep time.
Take out and my favorite night of the week because I get a break from cooking and dishes! Hit your local pizza joint, make a Boboli or just pop your favorite freezer pizza in the oven and enjoy the night.
Saturday : Roasted Chicken with Spring Risotto
Roasted chicken is such an easy meal - we love them! Pair the roasted chicken with a nice spring risotto and you have a gourmet dinner at home for a Saturday night. This also goes great with a nice crisp glass of white wine - I personally like a dry Riesling but a Sauvignon Blanc would work well too. Bon Appetit!
I hope you enjoy the menu this week. Please let me know if you have any questions / comments or suggestions for future menus by commenting on this post. Have a great week!
I am delighted to kick off the lil bookworms book club with the sweet book, The Rainbow Fish, by Marcus Pfister. This book tells a story about a beautiful fish who learns how to share. It's a colorful book with great imagery and a nice message for young ones. We adore this book and I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
For our story time, we read The Rainbow Fish a few times (Miss N likes to do things on repeat these days!) and created a picture of one of the final scenes in the book. I wanted to be able to discuss sharing with Miss N so we created the scene where the rainbow fish shares his scales. We had a nice discussion about sharing and then had a lot of fun decorating the fish with their new scales.
What I love about this activity is that you can tailor it to your child's skill level. For young kids you can cut out the images and help your child paste the images to create the scene. For older kids you can let them practice cutting and pasting as well. It teaches them about some basic skills and lets them express their own creativity too!
Our project is now proudly hanging on our fridge - it's super cute! I hope yours turns out great too!
1. Use the Activity Template to cut out the images needed to create the picture. Use a variety of colors for the fish to make your scene more visibly interesting.
2. Glue the fish onto a piece of white paper (our piece of paper is 11 x 14)
3. Cut out the scales. I used a one inch hole punch to cut out the scales from the silver glitter paper. Then I cut the circles in half to create the scales. If you don't have a hole punch, you can use the circle shape on the template to create the circles for the scales out of either shiny/sparkly paper or aluminum foil.
4. Glue the scales to the fish. Add one scale to each fish and add a few to the Rainbow Fish.
5. Glue the googly eyes to the fish (if you don't have googly eyes you can always use markers to draw the eyes). Glue the coral and bubbles to your paper and your scene from the Rainbow Fish is fridge ready ;-). Isn't it cute?!?
I love reading to my kids and now that Miss N is getting older it's so much more fun to read to her than when she was little – she interacts more with the book versus just looking at pictures. She asks a million questions per page (sometimes it's exhausting!) and is so curious about the plot and characters. I love it! To help her learn some of the lessons and enhance our story time, we do activities that relate to the stories. Sometimes we’ll do a craft, other times we’ll cook up a crazy meal based on the book. It’s fun and has been a nice bonding activity for us.
We’ve had so much fun doing these reading/activity sessions that I thought it would be fun to share them with you in my new series called, lil bookworms.
I hope you’ll join me by doing the activities and enjoy spending this special time with your kiddos. The first book will be The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister and I’ll be posting the activity in a couple days. Hope to see you soon!
As you know, we ADORE smoothies! Well, every Sunday I'll be sharing my latest concoctions or some of our favorites that we've found on Pinterest and the web.
We call this week's drink the RAINBOWSMOOTHIE and it was inspired by our last trip to the pediatrician's office. While we were waiting for our appointment, we noticed a poster in the exam room titled "Eat your Colors". Many of you have likely heard about the importance of getting a broad array of colors into your diet on a given day. Well, have you ever tried to get every color of the rainbow into one smoothie? We were curious and decided to give it a try. Luckily the combination was delish! What I loved about this experiment is that it exposed my kids to the concept of eating your colors and incorporated both fruits and veggies into their daily drink. Miss N was the primary mixologist on this one and I think she did a pretty good job.
What would you put in a rainbow smoothie? Try to make your own concoction and report back with the recipe [in the comments or message me]... we'd love to try something that you've made too (and who knows.. we may even feature it as one of our Sunday Smoothies - giving you credit, of course!).
Recipe:RAINBOWSMOOTHIE
3 strawberries (we used frozen since that's what we had at home)
1 sliced and peeled carrot
4 big pineapple chunks (about 1" by 1/2" in size)
1/2 banana (we really like yellow fruits!)
1-2 handfuls of spinach
1/2 cup of wild blueberries
3/4 cup of water
1/3 cup of lowfat vanilla yogurt
Place everything in the blender, give it a whirl until completely blended and enjoy!
I hope you enjoyed February's menu and tried out a few of the recipes. Here's the March Menu which includes the FREE MARCH PRINTABLE MENU and links to all of the recipes. As you can see on the meal plan, the recipes are starting to get a little lighter as we transition from winter foods to spring foods. We try really hard to eat healthy, seasonal food as much as we can - it's better for our bodies and our budget!
Also starting in March, I'll be posting the "Recipe of the Day" so you can easily hop on the site and print out the daily recipe. I hope you enjoy this month's menu! Happy Cooking (and Eating)!
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