Elf on the Shelf 2013

Well, Chubby Cheeks and Zeke are back and up to more mischief.  They must swap stories with all the other elves at the north pole, because according to Pinterest, a lot of them are up to the same tricks.  ;-)

They got into the Halloween candy again this year.  (Am I the only parent whose kids don't finish their Halloween candy?  It sits for months and months.  And look what happens.  The elves get into it.)

 

Pretty creative.  Making Christmas paper chain cutouts.

 

Counting down the days.

 

They came up with a GREAT after school activity.

 

Making copies.  There was a naughty one of elf butts too.

 

Thinking of changing their names to Snap! and Pop!

 

Riding the reindeer.  (Is this how they get back to the north pole every night?)

 

Super wrappers.  Sure hope they're going to help me tackle wrapping all the presents.

 

Checking out the tree we chopped down.

 

Decorating their felt tree.

 

Can't wait to see where they show up tomorrow!

 

(From my board "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas)

Letters from Santa

"Santa Claus is Coming To Town" -- John Frederick Coots

 

W & B have just finished writing their letters to Santa.  Let me rephrase that.  They had "verbally" written their letters to Santa, maybe even jotted down a few notes here and there, but had not officially written THE letter.  As I've told them in years past, they had to write it down and get it mailed.  Because if they wait too long, Santa may have trouble finding the gifts they wanted.  (And once they've mailed it, they are committed to those gifts and can't keep changing their minds so that I can go and purchase said Santa gifts.)

So, they wrote the letters tonight.  Correction.  W printed the letters out on the computer.  (Kids and technology these days.  Seriously.  They're going to be e-mailing the lists soon.)  Surprisingly, nothing has changed in the past 3 weeks, which is a good thing as a couple of the items were already purchased and are hidden in the attic.  (I am so excited that we have an attic, if for no other reason than hiding Christmas gifts.)  Suddenly, W says "Do you think the elves will deliver the letters for us?" Huh.  Good question.  Then ever so smart he says, "It will save us money to not have to buy stamps for them."  A kid after my own heart.  So I said, "Why not.  If they don't take them, we can mail them tomorrow."  I'm not stupid.  Of course the elves are going to take them.

(I'm so happy he actually used the word please.)

Fast forward a couple of hours.  Hubby gets into bed and says, "You know you're going to have to write a reply from Santa."  Darn him!  I hate when he's right.  So here I was looking for ideas for letters from Santa.  Oh, I've paid to have letters sent in the past.  But I know they aren't going to want to wait for that.  So I found some online sites where you can personalize AND print free letters from Santa.  And I found this nice one from Noella Designs.  Noella Designs Santa Letters  Not only can you personalize the letter, you can also choose from different backgrounds.  And it had cute personalizations.  Like he heard from the teacher, or a relative told him something.  Pretty cool. 

 

W is 10, so I don't know how much longer he's going to believe, or even if he does anymore.  I feel like some of the magic will be gone once he stops believing, or I know he has stopped believing.  Maybe we're both pretending at this point.  But, I'm going to do whatever I  can to make it last a little bit longer.

 

 

From my board "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas"

Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie

"Keep your fork, Duke, there's pie."

By now you have probably realized that I am horrible about taking pictures while I am attempting something from Pinterest.  Well, there are two reasons for that.  Firstly, usually the link I include has several pictures of the steps, so why repeat what I've already included.  Secondly, I am not coordinated enough to stop what I'm doing, mid-project to take a picture.  And thirdly, I'm not a great photographer.  I don't have the patience to set up something for the best picture.  So accept the fact that I will at the very least take an end photo picture and be happy with that.

So tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  I have designated myself to be the baker of desserts for this holiday.  I feel strongly that they should be homemade and not bought in the frozen food section of Costco.  That's the way I was raised and I am not going to apologize for that.  Last year, I made an amazing Candy and Caramel Apple Pie.  It's a little bit cheesecake, a little bit apple pie, and a whole LOT of delicious!!!!!  The recipe is from Doughmesstic and can be found here: Candy & Caramel Apple Pie

My AWESOME cousin-in-law actually requested it for a repeat this year, and so I did.  (Now of course you need to disregard what I said above about an end photo, because I thought I took one and posted it last year, so of course I didn't pull out the camera earlier, and now it is all packed away for the trip tomorrow.  So just deal with it.  Besides, it doesn't look as delicious as the one from the website.)

But why stop with one pie?  Desserts are the fun part of Thanksgiving dinner.  So that was pie number one.  Then I decided to try a pecan pie.  I've never been a huge fan of pecan pie.  We don't eat it as much up north as they seem to down here in the south.  And it's just WAY too sweet for my taste.  But I thought I would give it a go.  And I found this recipe for a delicious sounding chocolate bourbon pecan pie!  C'mon, if it's got chocolate in it, I am game.  And of course it's from the wonderful Pioneer Woman.  Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie

Then of course I tried to get all fancy with the pie crust after pinning the following link from Buzzfeed. Fancy Pie Crusts

(I probably could have made it a bit bigger as you can see in the top photo that it kind of fell inside the bottom crust at one spot.  But nevermind because it was delicious!)

Now I hear you all saying, "But wait!  Where is the pumpkin pie!"  Chillax people!  I'm getting to that part.  So we have two pies.  And honestly, the best part of pumpkin pie is the filling.  So why not just make a Pumpkin Trifle found by my baking addiction.Honestly, the best part about these is going to be the Biscoff cookie crumbles for the crust.  Yum!

Honestly, the best part about these is going to be the Biscoff cookie crumbles for the crust.  Yum!

(From my board "Eat Dessert First")

Thanksgiving Bingo (and other fun activities)

So once in every year we throng

Upon a day apart,

To praise the Lord with feast and song

In thankfulness of heart.

~Arthur Guiterman, The First Thanksgiving

The best part about having to work the night before Thanksgiving?  Not having to host it, and no one expects me to do much.  All right, in all honesty, we're not hosting it because we are the ones who moved away and will be returning home to celebrate with the rest of the family.

So not having to think about planning out Thanksgiving, I can focus more on the fun stuff.  Well, I did offer to bring desserts because desserts are fun and everybody likes them.  But more than that, I can focus on the FUN stuff.  There are going to be 7 little cousins there, varying in age from 3 to 12. 

Why didn't I do these things when my kids were little?  Well, that is exactly the reason.  My kids were little.  When you're having to worry about the holiday and entertaining young children, you don't have the time, or let's face it, the energy to do all the extra fun stuff!  So thanks to Pinterest, we are going to have a blast this Thanksgiving. 

Firstly, for my cousin-in-law (is that even a relative?  It should be because she is AWESOME!), we are going to keep this in mind.  I found this fun Thanksgiving Bingo from Bit Rebels which looks like it will be a blast.  I already know I will be able to check of the existance of a "kids table," someone will be thankful for their family, and there will DEFINITELY be someone complaining they don't like that type of food (Spoiler alert:  It will be one of my kids.)

Next I put together a trivia quiz for the grown-ups and older kids.  I mixed and matched questions from different sites to make my own, but I looked at Prettie Parties, Turnstyle Vogue, and Funsational.  They all had fun little trivia quizzes, but I wanted to make one of my own.

And I can't forget the little ones.  Crazy Little Projects has a cute Thanksgiving Bingo that I think they are going to love!

Found on my board "Give thanks for unknown blessings."

Did you ever have one of those days?

I recently started a new job and feel a bit like I'm floundering.  Okay, more like I'm drowning.  There is a lot of new stuff I'm learning, but even basic things like where to find supplies leaves me a bit discombobulated.  This e-card about sums up how I've been feeling lately.

(From my board "Without Music, Life Would Be A Mistake")

Bubble Pizza

"When the moon hits you eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore." -- Dean Martin

I've been holding on to this recipe for a while.  I'm feel like although I eat a lot of pizza, I am pretty picky about it.  I don't like Papa John's, Vocelli's, Little Ceasar's, Domino's.......well, you get the idea.  (And don't even get me started about Cici's.)  I guess really that if it's not from South Main Pizza or Park Lane Pizza in West Hartford, Connecticut, or Paul's Deli Restaurant in Williamsburg, Virginia, then I probably don't like it. 

(Here's a plug.  Paul's has the most amazing Moussaka pizza.  I would drive the 2 hours just to go eat that pizza.  Just beware on Sundays during football season.  It fills up, but I can guarantee that YOUR game will be on a TV there......they all are!)

And while I'm on the subject of pizzas, weren't they invented by the Italians?  At least that is what the general concensus is.  So how come my favorite pizza places are owned by Greeks?  All three of the ones listed above?  Greek!

Anyway, this looked like a fun recipe and easy to make.  So I finally made this Bubble Pizza by The Two Bite Club. 

(Again, a series of pictures serves as a great reference that I'm doing it right.)

Will definitely be making this again. There were a lot of comments under the original post about how the biscuits didn't cook through all the way.  I did not have that problem at all.  I followed the directions exactly and in fact, the biscuits on the edges almost cooked too much.  I probably would add more sauce and cheese.  The biscuits baked up so large, that you need more to balance it out nicely.

My kids were amazed to eat pizza out of a bowl.  (Maybe the novelty of this is what made it so appealing.  Who knows?)  Anyway, this is a great dish to serve to a group of hungry boys.

(From the board "Food is essential to life.")

Smothered Chicken

 "A chicken in every pot"
-- 1928 Republican Party campaign slogan

OK.  First off, how can you NOT love something from a blog entitled "Bacon, Butter, Cheese & Garlic"?  As it says under their title, "The four new food groups!" I have to agree.  I mean, how horrible would the rest of food taste if we did not have these 4 things?!?!?!  Although as far as I'm concerned, they should be 4 of the 5 new food groups, the fifth being chocolate. **

Anyway, this recipe was way down on my board.  I don't know why I waited so long to make it.  Maybe our move interferred.  Maybe I was waiting for the perfect opportunity.  Whatever it was, when I was scrolling through the other day, I knew the time had come.  And I looked forward all day to making this.

I know that I have said earlier that the fewer steps, the better (for me).  But this recipe was so easy, it was worth the extra steps.  And I love the way it was written.  She said that the "spinich will shrink ridiculously."  Gotta love that terminology!  (I used an 8 oz package of baby spinich.  I would probably add some more, because I LOVED the spinich in this.)  I also used Neuchatel Cream cheese.   A little less fat, but it didn't seem to affect the consistency or taste at all.) 

Although my boys cringed when they saw spinich and (gasp!) mushrooms on their chicken, once I scraped it off, they gobbled it right down.  This chicken was moist and delicious. 

My ONLY complaint was that these portion sizes were HUGE!  I couldn't even finish a whole breast.  I will definitely try breast tenderloins the next time I make this.  (And yes.  There will definitely be a next time.)

The horrible thing?  I didn't even take a picture when I was done!  I threw this together after soccer practice, and we were just too hungry to wait any longer.  But I can assure you, it looked just a delicious as the picture from the blog.


**The other day, hubby brought me out for Thai food, which I haven't had in a while.  As I bit into a Nam-Viet roll which was sitting on a basil leaf, I thought that that must be the problem with American food.  There's no flavor to our food.  We don't use herbs and spices the way the rest of the world does, and I am convinced that the more flavorful food it, the more quickly you become satisfied and therefor eat less.  Not a sermon, just a thought!

From the board "Food is Essential to Life"

Giving a Fu@&

"A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business." -- Henry Ford

 

 

Yeah.  That's been pretty obvious.

 

 

(From the board Humor is Mankind's Greatest blessing.)

End of the Year Teacher Gift

"No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks"

-- Peter Chbosky

One of my favorite finds on Pinterest  are gifts you can give to teachers and coaches, etc.  I never know what to get them.  My teacher friends all assure me that anything knick-knacks with apples or teaching quotes are really not appreciated.  They want something useful.  And food/gift cards are always appreciated.  I hate just giving gift cards out though.  I feel like absolutely no thought goes into that.  So I try to find fun, yet useful things that the teachers may like and appreciate.

I found this cute idea from Sisters, Sisters.  It's an End of the Year Teacher Gift Idea and you can find it here.

The really nice thing is that it has a free printable tag.  This is awesome for me, because I am not paint or photoshop savvy at all.  So if it's already done, and available, I see no reason to reinvent the wheel.

This is the cute tag.

They were super easy to put together and not expensive.  I got everything at WalMart.  The towels were under $5.00.  Probably the most expensive things were the travel-size sunscreen.  I added a bag of candy to each, and tied them up with matching ribbon that I already had at home.  Less than $10.00 per teacher.  Totally worth it for everything they do for my kids.  And hopefully something that they can use over the summer.

Mr. M (B's teacher) is from New England, so his towel had lobsters on it, as well as his favorite candy, York Peppermint Patties.  Mrs. Y (W's teacher) had a fun tropical floral towel.  As you can see, you can completely personalize these for whomever you give them to.  This one is definitely a keeper for another year!

(From my board "To Teach is to learn twice.")

Eating the Alphabet - E Week

"The Energy of the Mind is the Essence of Life" -- Aristotle

I really had to use my brain this week to come up with E foods.  But what happens when you tell one of your best friends that you are eating the alphabet and are stuck on E week?  And that friend happens to be one of the most creative people you know, and used to work in a preschool?  You get more E foods that you thought possible!  Thank you Lorena for helping us out this week.

Empanadas was on here list, but I already tried those, and although delicious, were not pretty enough that my kids would eat them.  And it's the wrong season for Eggnog.

Eclaires --  B wouldn't touch these the first day.  OMG!  Are you kidding me?  This is a child who asks for, no actually demands, dessert every night.  He passed these up for some ice cream?  W actually ate 2 and then the next night B was willing to try it.  It definitely passed muster for both kids.

Edamame -- My manager actually suggested this one.  None of us liked this.  It tasted......bad.  Can Edamame go bad? Maybe I'll try a different brand in the future.

 

Eggo Waffles - Leggo my Eggo.  These are a breakfast staple in our house.  So even though it's nothing new to us, we ate it a couple of times this week, so thought we would add it to the list.  (They have new seasonal Eggos - S'mores for the summertime!)

Elbow Macaroni -- Well as usual, we had pasta on Wednesday (notice the Price brand pasta for Prince Spaghetti Day - you'll know what I'm talking about if you're from New England.)  Nice simple macaroni and meatballs.  No one came up with this idea - it's amazing what you can find just walking around the grocery store.

Enchiladas - Okay, I had to kind of lie to my kids when they asked what an enchilada is.  I told them that it was a rolled up quesadilla with cheese on top and baked in the over.  (It was a lie of omission - I neglected to mention that they have enchilada sauce on them as well.  Does that count as a lie?)  One look from them and they knew this was not something they would eat.  Once picked apart though, they actually liked the seasoned chicken inside the tortilla.  Yay!  I have a new way I can prepare chicken now!  (And yes, I used a boxed set.  I'm busy and hate cooking.  Don't judge me.)

English Breakfast Tea - A few weeks ago, B saw someone helping themselves to a cup of tea somewhere.  So he decided he was going to try some.  Of course W had to get on board, and now they enjoy a cup of tea a couple of times a week.  English Breakfast sounded perfect for this week.

Eating the Alphabet - D week

"D is such a nice letter.  Each day I like it better."

-- Ernie (from Sesame Street)

Who would have thought that D week would have been so dang difficult.  I have to admit, we started off the week by wimping out.  Hubby brought home Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast.

Delicious!  Delightful!  But not exactly what I had in mind when I said I wanted to introduce my kids to new foods. 

I wracked my brain.  I looked at websites.  I looked through cookbooks.  I came up with "dinner," "dips," and "dessert."  Again, not really what I had in mind.  So from my measly pickings, here is what we ended up with.

(I wanted to try a Daikon radish, but had no time to try to get to the Asian market, because I have no idea where else I could possibly come across that. Certainly not at the Giant down the street.)

Dates - Yeah, I don't really like them either, but everyone bravely tried one.

Deviled Eggs - They don't like mustard, so this was a no go.  Of course B who only likes the whites, scooped out the inside so he could eat them plain.

Dolmades - Luckily, my church's annual Greek festival was going on this week, and hubby always gets dolmades. You can get them two different ways. Usually as an appetizer they are stuffed with rice and herbs and served room temperature. As an entree, they can be stuffed with meat and rice and then served hot with an egg-lemon sauce over them. As I mentioned, my kids don't do sauces so we had them try the cold ones. After unwrapping the grape leaf from the rice, they each sampled one grain of rice. Are you kidding me?

Chicken and "Dumplings" -  I cheated and bought a can and then doctored it up with some more chicken and veggies.  However, this one did not go over well.  My kids don't eat anything with a sauce or gravy, so unless it was washed off of the dumplings, they were going to have no part of it.  So I did.  And guess what?  They hated them.  Yeah, because they're horrible!  It's just dough.  Of course it's not going to have any flavor on its own.

I am very sorry to say that the highlight of the week was the Dunkin' Donuts.  And if that wasn't bad enough, the boys got to go to Dairy Queen at the end of the week.  Hopefully we'll have better luck with the Es.

Magic Carpet Cleaner

"Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing."

-- Phyllis Diller

Now, I am not the world's best housekeeper.   It's not that I don't like cleaning.  I really don't mind it.  It's the picking up everybody's *stuff* in order to clean that really gets me.  So things get stained or dirty, and it kind of disappears in a mess of . . . stuff.*  Like some stains on the basement carpet.  The Wii Fit board fit nicely over them, so they've kind of been hidden and hence out of mind.

So, I pinned this a few weeks ago with exactly these stains in mind.  Of course, I completely forgot about it until I was looking for another pin. 

lizzy writes: magical carpet cleaner



I decided to give it a try.  In reading the directions, I couldn't really see the point of sprinkling on the baking soda, especially if this is a worked-in, old, dried-up stain like mine was.  If you're vacuuming it up, it's not going to react with the vinegar anyway.  But, to be fair, I did sprinkle it on some stains and didn't sprinkle it on others.  It made no difference.  ALL the stains came out.  See for yourself. 

I didn't have to scrub like I do when I use commercial carpet cleaners.  I dabbed.  Gently.  And these stains had been here a while.  Maybe a year or more. 

 

The extra nice part?  The carpets did not smell of vinegar at all. They have a nice citrusy, clean smell to them. So, finally another use for that HUGE bottle of white vinegar that sits in my pantry all year until easter comes along!

Eating the Alphabet - "C" Week

"C is for Cookie.  That's good enough for me." -- Cookie Monster

Wow!  Were the kids ever excited about "C" week.  Who would have guessed.  Until they listed all the c foods they could:  cookies, candy, chips, chocolate chips, cocoa, cream (as in whipped), corn dogs, cheese.......They went on forever!  And sure, I threw some of those in there as well.  Corn dogs are a nice easy dinner on those nights we have to run out for sports.

Cantaloupe - This is not a new food for us, but one I know everyone will eat if they have to.  W actually requested it in his lunch box (since the cherries made his lips itch).  We cut into one and it was so ripe and juicy that the juice spilled all over the counter and down the cabinets.  (I have never had that happen to me before.)  This was the sweetest most delicious cantaloupe I have ever eaten.

Carrots -  Made a fun salad for the boys with carrots, cucumbers and dried cranberries. 

Cauliflower - I've seen this for weeks in the store and now I had a reason to buy it.  As far as I have known my entire life, cauliflower has always been white.  I had now idea it came in a myriad of colors.  Sauteed with some olive oil and garlic, it was delicious.  (And pretty.)  They boys tried but didn't like. 

Cherries - Yum!  We've tried cherries before and W has tried and eaten them.  Now, however, both B and W eat them and B even asked for them in his lunch box.  (Unfortunately W seemed to have an allergic reaction to them.  He is staying away from them for a while.)  And again, these were highly endorsed by the guinea pig.  He's not that into fruits, so even he surprised me.

Coconut Water - This got a big thumbs down by everyone.  I mean, water shouldn't be sweet.  I don't know what I was expecting.  Plain water that was maybe fortified by coconuts somehow.  We won't be spending money on this one anymore.

Cous cous - Here was a big surprise.  Neither of the boys liked the cous cous.  They both eat rice so I thought they would enjoy this.  I even sprinkled it with some parmesan cheese to give it a little added flavor.  No go.  My friends said next time I should try the pasta-like pearl cous cous.

Cranberries (we ate Craisins) - A huge hit.  They LOVE them on salad.

Cucumber -W is into these mini cucumbers that we found at the store.  So he gets those in his lunchbox.

And for fun, as a family, we hit up one of our favorite fast-food restaurants as well.  Chick-fil-A.  Gotta keep that theme going.

And I even had my own special C week treat.  A chocolate chip frappe from McDonalds.

 

Bacon and Egg Stuffed Avocados

"...the avocado is a food without rival among the fruits, the veritable fruit of paradise" -- David Fairchild

Oh, how I love avocados.  That smooth, creamy texture.  The beautiful green color.  Although technically a fruit, I always have thought of it as a vegetable.  And how strange, to me, to just want to pick up a vegetable and eat it buy itself.

Now, as mentioned before, I am not an adventurous cook, and and loathe to try to combine different foods.  Avocados in my mind are good for eating, by themselves, or being made into guacamole.  Or when you find one of those HUGE ones at the Asian market, filling the middle with chicken salad.  (I already told you he's amazing with food!)  So I was shocked to see recipes on Pinterest where you actually cooked the avocado.  What?  That seems SO wrong.  But, since I love them so much, I had to try to see if they could be even better.  And they can be. 

Not too long ago, I found a breakfast recipe using avocados.  For real?  It comes from Recipe by Photo and you can see it here.  Bacon & Egg Stuffed Avocados

(I love step by step pictures.  It lets me know I am going in the right direction with my recipe.)

Man, I was so excited to try this.  And it is quite good.  Maybe I overcooked it a little, because the egg was a little drier than I would have liked.  And despite the bacon, it lacked a salt flavor, so maybe next time I would sprinkle some cheese on as well?  But overall, quite a great breakfast dish.  Packed with protein.  I was not at all hungry until lunch.

 

 

(From my board "What's for Breakfast?)