On the Menu :: Overnight Crockpot Blueberry French Toast

We tried this recipe out on Saturday night and it's a keeper. Not one of my better attempts as a faux food blogger because it was (a) winter/dinnertime lighting and (b) not much in the way of leftovers so I could take a better picture in the daylight. We are big fans of breakfast-for-dinner and I seem to go in spurts of keeping it in the rotation and then forgetting about it for a while - probably because I feed the kids waffles for breakfast fairly regularly. However, Travis doesn't get them as often so whenever I pull a full-on breakfast for dinner, I get rave reviews from him.

Anyway, you can view the recipe here - I made it as is with no changes (unless you count leaving out the vanilla because I forgot about it). I even used leftover french bread that we didn't eat with dinner and just threw it in all haphazard. You definitely don't want to cook it longer than the suggested 3-4 hours. We pulled it out at 3 1/2 hours and it was starting to get crispy on the bottom (but I liked the crispy sweet pieces of bread. Yum yum.)

PS. This post from Flower Patch Farmgirl on surviving motherhood by way of food spoke to me. Worth a read.

Crockpot Macaroni and Cheese Success

(Food blogger wanna-be strikes again.)

Homemade macaroni and cheese has been my nemesis for lo these many years. I can't count how many times I have tried to make it only to be met with a burnt or lumpy mess or something that really didn't taste very good.

One of my CC mama friends to the rescue! She sent me her recipe for crockpot mac and cheese so with trepidation I mixed up a batch and surprise! My kids loved it! The husband loved it! I made it a second time and doubled it and it still was a huge hit! Another sign of success was that my Dad asked for the recipe! (Lots of explanation points because this recipe is really, really good!)

I'm sure the secret is the Velveeta, but I'm not complaining. I wouldn't cook it more than 3 1/2-4 hours in the crockpot, even on low, because it will start to stick, but for something you want to throw in the crockpot late afternoon to have ready for dinner time, this is perfect.

Stephanie's Crockpot Mac and Cheese (not me, another Stephanie) : )

3 Tbsp. margarine, melted, put in crock pot

2 1/2 cups elbow macaroni, uncooked

salt and pepper to taste

8 oz. cheddar cheese, grated

1 cup Velveeta, cut in cubes

4 cups milk

 

Mix all ingredients lightly.  Cover and turn on high.  Do not remove lid or stir for three hours.

 

Note: you could mix in all sorts of stuff and make it a meal. Precooked ham, peas, taco seasoned meat, etc. I served it above with the Pioneer Woman's Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork for a recent Sunday lunch with family (cooked in my cast iron dutch oven), green beans in one crockpot, and mac and cheese in another crockpot. We ate well.

All the Merry Making

This Christmas season has been one where many normal things, those that I would have considered traditional, haven't happened. Though today was quite chaotic, it was important to me that we squeeze in one cousin day before Christmas on Thursday. There was mass cookie baking and decorating, some playing in our cul-de-sac in between the rain showers, and catching up over a cup of coffee (say what?) with my 17-year old niece.

The introvert in me is ready to curl up in a hole and hibernate for about 72 hours, but overall, the chaos of today was well worth it.

Crockpot Potato Soup ... or What We are Eating on Christmas Eve

It's never too late to start a new tradition for your family ... last year marked the first year that we hosted my side of the family for Christmas Eve. For many, many years, we had spent the evening with friends and it was a much anticipated time of visiting and snacking. However, as children have grown and more and more grandchildren arrived (ourselves included!), the crowd got to be a bit much for a huge Christmas Eve get-together, and so we started our own tradition.



This recipe is courtesy of a fellow CC mom. She brought this to a recent potluck and it was delicious! Once she emailed us all the recipe, I knew this was going to be part of our Christmas dinner menu. My favorite potato soup of all is my mom's recipe which isn't quite so heavy; however, it isn't a crockpot recipe and since we'll be coming home to eat from the Christmas Eve service, I need something that doesn't take as much babying.

Kate's Crockpot Potato Soup

30 oz frozen hash brown potatoes (I diced up a bunch of potatoes since I didn't have hashbrowns and it worked just fine.)

32 oz chicken broth

1 can cream of chicken soup

8 oz cream cheese

Bacon bits (or turkey bacon)

1 c. shredded cheese

Salt, Pepper, and Granulated Garlic to taste

 

In the crock pot, put the hash brown potatoes, broth, cream of chicken soup, half of the bacon bits and salt, pepper and garlic. Cook on low for 8 hours. One hour before serving, add the cream cheese and bacon bits. If you take the cream cheese out of the refrigerator earlier than that to warm up a little bit, it will incorporate better with the soup - I also gave it a whirl with an immersion blender to smooth it out some. Serve with cheddar cheese on top.

 

Again, the verdict by the six kids in our house was that it was GOOD. I was hoping for quite a bit leftover and I had to scrape out the crockpot to get enough for one more serving the following day.

 

Another crockpot potato soup we love is here which is quite a bit cheesier and super good as well.

Grace and Peace

We are slowly and surely moving into a new season in our family ... in a family of seven. We are now the parents of a 14yo girl and while things are settling in smoothly(-ish), it has just been busy on so many levels. (Busy isn't even the right word to use, I'm sure, but it's what I've got right now).

I've pared myself down to the bare minimum of outside responsibilities for me right now and I'm finding that is still stretching me to my limit daily with three to educate at home, one to keep busy, and one to get back and forth to public high school and help with 9th grade work. (Thank goodness for husbands that get - and enjoy! - algebra). I'm still working a little for our church and tutoring for our Classical Conversation group, but anything else beyond those two responsibilities (one of which I do with one of my own child in the class) is just not happening this year. I miss writing about the read alouds that we are discovering and writing "around here" type posts as a hodgepodge of notes about our days. For now, the daily pictures I manage to get to Instagram will have to do and as I can flesh out a detail or two about a photo there, I'll do so.

Like this one:



My tried and true banana bread recipe, multiplied times four to feed all the eaters in this house.

Banana Bread

1 egg
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk (or 1 cup milk plus 1 T white vinegar)
3/4 t. baking soda
3/4 c. raisins (I almost always leave these out and sub chocolate chips)
2 t. unsweetened applesauce or vegetable oil
2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 t. salt
4 ripe bananas, peeled and mashed

Beat the egg and the brown sugar together until foamy and the sugar is somewhat dissolved. Stir in the applesauce, bananas and buttermilk, mixing well between each addition. Sift the dry ingredients (I never do!) and stir into the liquids along with the raisins (or chocolate chips). Spray a 9" load pan with nonstick spray and spoon in the batter, smoothing the top out with a spatula. Bake at 350 on the middle rack of a preheated oven until deep golden, the center bounces back to your touch and a toothpick comes out clean. I check it at about 45 minutes but in my oven it takes 50-55 for it to be done all the way through.

Grace and peace.

Around Here

Around here ... we had a great VBS week last week. It was the boy's first year to participate so all four kids were able to involved this year. The weather was great and we had a great group of kids turn out each night. I taught the 3-5 year old Bible study portion and had a blast ... and was wiped by Friday night. But so worth it.



Around here ... we have had a couple of munchkins down with what I've affectionately dubbed the VBS virus. Ergo, there have been quite a few Star Wars movies the last few days.



Around here ... so many legos.



Around here ... I'm pulling the next book off my summer stack and getting ready to dive in. If the book is as good as the two page preface that I read this afternoon, it will be fabulous.



Around here ... we have driven around like crazy people this week running errands. They have been troupers and earned a donut stop one morning.



Around here ... I'm finishing up the study of the book of Ruth along with #shereadstruth. Such as good study on waiting on the Lord and then waiting some more.



Around here ... filling out lots o' paperwork for our homestudy. Slowly and steadily making progress.



Around here ... summer is slipping by way too fast. So thankful for these sunny days.

Day in the Life :: May 8, 2014

Danger, danger. Photo overload. : )

I absolutely love Ali's Day in the Life (and Week in the Life projects) that she has posted about on her blog. I love the reminder to capture the little stuff that makes up our day - what we're eating, what toys are strewn about on the floor while I read, what the kids are up to when I can covertly capture them. This was our Thursday and it was a good one.

I was up a little after 6am and the first of the kids got up around 7:30a. Several of them had a hard time going to sleep last night so it was a slower start to our day than normal. It worked our well because this is the first day in I-don't-know-how-long where we never left the house. Lovely.

7:30am - crafting.



8:30am - sleepy breakfast face. With her nose in a book all the time right now.




9:00a - music practice. Our recital is in a little over a week!



9:30-ish: caught reading while one of the other girls is practicing and I'm getting laundry going.



9:45a: starting our table school work for the day. (I've been asked to post a better picture of my planner and I will soon).



11:00a: mid-math.



A small break to admire his plane.



More math. Y'all, the fact that none of these numbers is backwards ... big stuff.



12:30p: Lunch. Sandwiches for kids (though the boy requested a cut up hotdog) and a salad for me. Little things I want to remember: N1 only wants turkey and provolone and typically only want bread if we have these kinds of sub buns; N2 likes provolone and isn't as picky about her meat - today it was this really good salami that T bought; B wants turkey and American with "that white stuff on it" (she has recently discovered mayo on her sandwich and is obsessed).



2p: Afternoon read-aloud. Lunch break doesn't usually last as long, but there was a Frozen sing-along going on downstairs while I finished up lunch (and the book that I was reading - just a few! pages! left!) and I let them have a few extra minutes.



2:45p: exercise while the kids have a rare afternoon treat of watching Carmen Sandiego.



4p: afternoon chores - picking up the upstairs, laundry finishing, cleaning the glass on the mirrors and front door.




6p: dinner. Taco salad tonight.



6:45p: the kitchen is tidy and its time for outside. Bike riding and ball playing and running around.



This is where my photos stop for the day. We came in a little before 8p and popped some popcorn for a before-bed snack and watched one episode of Little House on the Prairie (someone got Season 2 for her birthday). Then everyone was in bed with lights out by 9p, after stories all-round. The boy and I read Goodnight Moon (and something else that is escaping me), I read an Elephant and Piggie book with N2 and B (all ages in this house love E&P), and N1 and I are reading through Anne of Green Gables at bedtime when it's not too late. Then I went downstairs and collapsed hung out with T for a bit before I crawled into bed.

Really, this was a very normal day for us at home. The fact that we didn't have anywhere we needed to go was so nice for a change; no hustle and fussing from me to "finish your math before we have to leave!" Dinner around the table with no rushing to eat quickly so we can head out the door. I'm looking forward to many more of these days this summer.

You can read more about the Day-in-the-Life project on Ali's blog here. All photos today were shot with my iPhone 5 and most were processed through PicTapGo.

February Slump

Considering that we only have two more days of February, I think I've done pretty well on making it through the month without my annual slump. The one that I get when we haven't been able to go outside and burn off energy. The thing is, I love winter. I love the cold and being bundled in my sweatshirts. I love the chance of flurries and the possibility of slick roads so we have to stay home. But living where we do, we don't typically have months of this kind of cold. Tennessee is good for a 60 degree day to pop in every few weeks for a bit of a reprieve that helps one endure winter with a bit more ease.



When I feel the slump coming on, it's time for an easy day.

• We did lessons this morning and I switched them up so I lots of time to work individually with everyone first thing (getting any schoolwork battles out of the way instead of saving them until later when I would be tired and might give in too easy).
• We saved our favorite things until after lunch - reading aloud from Story of the World (volume 2) and These Happy Golden Years ("are Almonzo and Laura going to get married or not in this book?!?" ... and I won't answer the question). : )
• We delivered a meal to a friend this afternoon and the boy and I took a small detour to swing by Grandpa and Grandma's where he got to deliver some cookies to them. So fun to be able to surprise your grandparents when you are a 3 year old boy.
• We came home and since it was way too cold to play outside, we got a snack, curled up under blankets and watched the first Toy Story movie.

Tonight's Awana so while the kids spend time with other adults that love them and they get a hearty dose of God's word, I'm going to go shop for a one of the girls' little friend's birthday and quite possibly pick up something warm to drink. Back home with kids in jammies, maybe a little more Laura and Almonzo to read if we're lucky, and then everyone tucked into bed with me not far behind after a little hanging out with my favorite person in the world.

A slow day is sometimes the best antidote to the winter slump no matter what the reason on when the season.



PS. One of my favorite homeschooling books of all time is Real Learning by Elizabeth Foss. This book is out of print, but this winter, she has taken the time to turn a few of my favorite chapters into a six week workshop on both avoiding as well as battling back from burnout for the homeschool mom. I'm very much hoping to participate in this!

2013 Family Movie Night, Listed

For the past two years, I've tucked a sheet of notebook paper inside my planner and have kept a list of what we have watched for our Friday family movie night. This event (FMN for short) is a Big Deal. Each child (and adult) gets a turn picking the movie of choice and everyone else watches with (very little) complaint. (Though I admit to a quiet sigh at the second viewing of a certain American Girl movie). : ) 

We try to keep movies and video to a minimum during the school week and for the most part I stick to my guns on this. We won't discuss my laxness during our recent Christmas break. Ahem. This makes our Friday night fun something that we all look forward to. Anyway, our routine is to have pizza and some kind of sweet treat on Friday night and we rotate who gets to pick our movie. There is plotting, planning and much secrecy as your movie night approaches! The guessing of someone's pick is half the fun. And it's always fun to go back over the list and remember how we spent our Friday nights the last year. In our pjs, eating pizza, hanging out under afghans and blankets and relaxing together at the end of the week.

Here's what we watched in 2013. Please note: this is just the list. I'm not going to give any kind of rating (although if you want an opinion on something you are welcome to ask). There are always a few duds that we come across in our viewing. (And by duds, I mean they are generally - in our opinion - just not worth rewatching. We're pretty careful about what we put on to start with as far as it being appropriate for all the kids).

Where the Red Fern Grows
The Lorax
Finding Nemo
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaur
McKenna, American Girl Movie
The Last Airbender
Megamind
The Odd Life of Timothy Green
The Princess Bride
Wreck-It Ralph
Despicable Me
Spy Kids 3: Game Over
Home Alone
Avengers
Pirates of the Carribean
Winnie the Pooh
Journey to the Center of the Earth 2: The Mysterious Island
Wild Stallions
The Fellowship of the Ring
Ratatoille
How to Train Your Dragon
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Sky High
Prince Caspian
Kung Fu Panda 2
Cars 2
Disney's Robin Hood (cartoon)
Evan Almighty
Hook
Legends of Ga'Hoole
The Croods
Turbo
Cars
Cats and Dogs
Despicable Me 2

I've already started our list for 2014. Any good movies that you would suggest for Family Movie Night? 



This post is part of a list-making project called Lists With Friends 2014, an effort to document the year in lists of all types. I love lists and am excited to be taking part of this fun project. : )

Merry Christmas!

Project Life Update // Thanksgiving Week!

It's Thanksgiving! (Or it was). : )

With the exception of one picture at the beginning and two pictures at the end, this entire layout (+ inserts) is all Thanksgiving, all the time. I had too many that I wanted to include and so I did!





On the left:

• a pretty leaf picture became my date card. I love using all the random nature shots as my date cards with a label slapped on them. Not that I need to justify taking the picture, but I love that I'm using them in my albums.
• The morning that we headed out for Thanksgiving a certain girl had to have a couple teeth pulled. Little teeth that didn't want to come out on their own and big teeth that wanted to make their presence known were not getting along. This was a slightly traumatic experience for all involved - the girl was NERVOUS. The mama had to have two of her other kids with her at the appointment instead of being 100% focused on calming the patient. But. We survived and there was ice cream. And happy gas.
• The giant table where we took our meals at the cabin we stayed at with my side of the family. There were twelve of us there and you could have sat another six comfortably at this table - no joke. I want a table like this in my house someday!
• T relaxing. 

On the right:

• getting the kids out of the cabin for a hike. It was cooooold this day (I think it was Wednesday?) Flurries the whole day long though nothing really accumulated.
• A lake we walked past near our cabin.
• T and B singing/working on one of the Christmas songs for the church program. A little impromptu music after we put up our tree...
• which is here! This is our first year for a LIVE tree and I am so enjoying it. This was not a great picture by any stretch of the imagination. I actually used my point and shoot for this shot and it gave the picture a funny orange tint but it's the only one we had. 

Insert #1:

On Friday, we went on a horseback / trail ride with everyone thanks to Grandpa's generosity. The kids had a blast!!! Even the boy got to ride the whole time with T and he kept turning around and telling me he was riding a black horse! This was such a thrill for them all.

The back of Insert #1:

More pictures from outside around our cabin that we stayed at, minus the selfie with the horse that I took. His name was Smokey, but it should have been Pokey. He was soooo slow.

Insert #2:

A cut down PL page to hold just a few more shots.

B put away that whole turkey leg. Pretty impressive.

A fun getaway that is DONE and in the books. 

Questions? As you can see I've had a bit more time for blogging now that we are on break and am hoping to do more in the coming weeks. I'm curious who all out there is a Project Lifer or has interest in that? Anyone taking this on for 2014? 

Supplies used in this layout:

• journaling cards from In a Creative Bubble
• I Love stamp from Elise Joy
• PL 3x4 grid cards
• blue 4x6 journaling card is from the Cobalt edition.
• red 4x6 journaling card is from a Studio Calico PL kit.
• Tracy Larson white spaces templates

Project Life is a product and a system created by Becky Higgins and available on Amazon.com, DigitalProjectLife.com, and many major craft retailers. It can be anything you want it to be. You can view all my posts about Project Life here. I'm always happy to answer questions about how Project Life works for me, if you have any. Affiliate links used where available.