Menu Board

Once again, I need to state that I am in love with Pinterest. I know it has the potential to be an even bigger time-suck thank Facebook, but it has SO many redeeming qualities. I have gotten oodles of wonderful ideas there that I've actually been able to USE...ideas that make life EASIER. Hooray! One such idea is this incredible menu board to help plan meals for my family. The idea comes from THIS nifty blog, and Robin does an amazing job of walking her readers through the process of creating it. You can purchase the templates from her for a couple bucks, and then it's just a matter of collecting the materials she lists. Here's a look at the one I made:

I appologize for the hideous photo quality...that's what I get for doing this once the littles are in bed for the night...

As you can see, I'm able to plan out an entire month worth of meals at one time. Each "genre" of meals is color coded so I can make sure there is variety in what we eat each week. I also made some blank cards in each color so I could write in new or experimental meals with a dry erase marker (I like to try a few new recipes each month...)

This part is a work-in-progress for me. Robin provides a template for recipe cards. You can type (copy and paste) your family's favorite recipes into the template, print them out, and hang them all on your nifty board so when dinner time rolls around, you grab the color coded ring (pink =chicken, lime green =Mexican, etc) and your recipes are all in one place. AMAZING time saver. I can't tell you how much time I waste trying to remember where I saved the recipe I'm supposed to make for dinner.

I just put my menu pieces in a couple of little baggies (one for favorite recipes and one for blanks), and I hung the month strips there too. This way all the parts and pieces are in one place ready to go when I need them. I am LOVING this tool. I am so thankful for Robin's blog.

If you live in Las Vegas and would like to make one of these, there will be a one time workshop at Pinkpeas to help you make it happen. Sometimes projects like this are more fun with friends and snacks. Keep checking the calender for details (We are aiming for the end of March). So how do you plan your family's meals? Would a menu board help streamline your planning and shopping?

Crock Pot Freezer Meals Round 1

Today was the day. I've wanted to try prepping a bunch of freezer meals for a long time, but today I actually made it happen. My neighbor Evelyn and I worked together to assemble a giant mountain of food with the intent to give half of the finished product to a couple good friends who are expecting babies in the next month. With a new baby in the house there is NOTHING more valuable than a freezer stocked with meals to make mom's job a little easier.

The really awesome part of the meals we put together today is they are all crock pot meals. So on the day we decide to cook one, we just literally dump it in the crock pot, turn it on, and come back 6-8 hours later to a delish dinner. What could be better??

I must digress for a moment and express my extreme love of pinterest. My neighbor found a website there with the most DETAILED instructions for 5 crock pot freezer meals ever. The website is right HERE in case you are so inclined to try this on your own. In 4 hours, we prepped 4 bags of 5 different dinners. That's 20 bags of food....completely ready to go. In case you're not sold, check out this pic:

And this isn't even all of them.

Here's a list of the recipes included:

Savory Vegetable Beef Soup

Teriyaki Chicken

Balsamic & Onion Pot Roast

Healthy BBQ Chicken

Stephanie's Goulash

We pretty much followed the instructions on her blog exactly as written except that Ev and I doubled everything so we would have 4 bags of each meal instead of 2 (One for Ev, one for me, and one for each of our pregnant friends :) This blog post is so amazing...she even included a shopping list. So for $90, I was able to prep 10 meals (4 servings each at least...some of the bags are literally bulging). Seems pretty economcal to me. The only things we didn't have to purchase were the spices.

Take another look at this goodness...

And Evelyn created these cute recipe cards that we tucked inside the bags (We double bagged everything...and kept the meat and veggies seperate) so the mamas could make these again if their families like it. I have no idea how the recipes taste yet, but the idea of a night off from cooking sounds lovely to me. And I'm thinking that this might be a great way to serve "real food" through the summer without heating up my whole house (those who will be suffering through the Vegas heat with me can certainly relate). If these turn out as great as I think they will, I will be having freezer meal prep days often. What do you think? Do you prep meals like this for your freezer? If so, I'd love for you to share some favorite recipes in the comments!

Square Foot Gardening 101

It's that time again! Spring is in the air (well, at least it was a couple days ago. Today I'm not so sure...). It's been ages since I wrote a blog post. Adjusting to two kiddos, keeping up with chores, and managing two Etsy shops (Dewey Street and Homespun Sprout has kept me pretty busy. But alas, Spring is here, so it's time to talk garden talk.

My seeds arrived a few weeks ago from Baker Creek, and I've been itching to get them in the ground. But before jumping in to planting this year, I decided to conduct a little experiment in my garden. I recently finished a fantastic book called Square Foor Gardening by Mel Bartholomew.

This book in inspiring! I've heard about the square foot gardening method before, but in reading the book, I realized how USEFUL and EASY this method of growing food is, especially if you are just starting out. Here are the basics:

• A typical square foot garden is 4'x4'.
• The beds are raised...meaning they sit on TOP of the existing soil. No more digging desert rock!
• Beds are constructed out of 1x6 lumber (found at any home improvement store). Did you read that?!?! Your bed only needs to be SIX INCHES deep! Mr. Bartholomew guarantees this is plenty!
• The bed is filled with a special mix of soil components - 1/3 compost, 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 peat moss.
• The compost feeds the plants, the vermiculite adds air pockets so the roots can spread, and the peat moss holds in water.
• Each 4'x4' bed is then divided into 1' squares (hence the name square foot garden...) using wood lath (cheap, thin pieces of wood...like the stuff latice is made from).
• A different crop is planted inside each one foot square. The size of the full-grown crop determines the number of seeds that will be sown in each space.

Here is a sample guide...

As you can see, large plants, such as a pepper, will take up the whole square. But small plants like carrots, will be planted much closer together. Why does this matter? Think of all the seeds that will be saved! If I only plant 16 carrot seeds, they will all grow! Normally, you sprinkle them on the soil and then thin them out once they sprout. What a waste! This also helps from planting things too close together (which I am totally guilty of...)

So back to my experiment. I decided to convert two of my already existing raised beds into square foot beds. My existing beds measure 3 feet x 10 feet. So I headed to Lowes to get some wood lath. (The nice people at the store will cut the pieces for you in case you don't have a hubby with a saw.) I attached the wood at each foot using a power drill and a screw. Here's what I ended up with:

Irrigating this sucker required a bit of thought. Those of you who live here in Vegas know how important water is once summer rolls around. So I wanted to make sure I got it right (I'm still not sure it's perfect. Only time and heat will tell.)

I'll walk you through my irrigation system:

The manifold I already had in my bed uses 1/4 inch tubing. Rather than switch to something else, I just decided to continue using this size. I attached 1/4 inch tube and ran it around the perimiter of the bed (the two on the right are connected to the same piece and the two on the left are connected to the same piece). They basically just make a giant loop around the outer edge of the bed.

I cut into the 1/4 inch tubing and inserted "Ts" (2 per square foot). I did this along the front of the bed and along the back of the bed.

Then I ran 1/4 inch drip hose perpendicular to the solid tubing and attached it at each T. This hose is so cool. It's got little drippers built in every 6 inches. I think this is going to work much better than the drip hose that is porous all over. This hose has little emmitters built right in, and they don't clog very easily. I have high hopes. Oh, and they spit out quite a bit of water too. Anyway, I ran two 3 foot sections of this through each of the 10 horizonal feet of my garden, and I appear to have great coverage so far. And I was able to plant seeds right along the hose so I'm sure the will get plenty to drink.

No sprouts yet, but it's still early.

Here's a peek at some of the other stuff:

Bunching onions (I bought the starts at Star Nursery. Couldn't resist...)

Lettuce: I transplanted these from another spot. I grew them from seed in the fall, and these are the only ones that survived the pesky cat who decided to use my garden as his litter box. Ick.

Garlic. These should be ready to harvest in May.

Addison picked out some pansies.

My carrot patch is ROCKIN'! I planted these back in the fall. Addison has been picking a few a week (ok, she ate 3 this morning...). They are still on the small side, but they taste great. Here I planted purple cosmic carrots from Baker Creek, and a yellow variety (I forget the name). So fun!

I'm trying my herbs in pots this year. I plan to run bubblers to each pot to keep them watered. My herbs usually turn into trees. I'm hoping this will keep them a bit more manageable.

For fun, Addison and I built a pole bean teepee. I planted 2 seeds at each pole, and in theory, they should grow up and make a little hiding space inside for her. Hope it works!

My composter!! I've been begging for one of these for 4 years. My mom bought it for me for Christmas. YAY!

And here is my silly little seed starting operation. See the huge sprout on the left? That's a pumpkin. My mom gave Addison a fairy garden kit for Christmas...it was just some little seeds in an egg. Well, that particular one didn't sprout, so she chose a "Cinderella pumpkin seed" to grow instead. And grow it has! I think I need to transplant it soon. It would be so cool if we actually got pumpkins from it! And don't ya love the recycled Starbucks cups? They are working great for keeping the soil steamy.

That just about wraps up the garden tour for now. I'll post again when we get some sprouts!

Apple Stock

I found this recipe in the October issue of Mother Earth News...one of my FAVORITE magazines. I am a big fan of making my own chicken stock, so I thought this one sounded interesting. The recipe says that it makes a delicious base for butternut squash soup. And I have been quite unmotivated to use the two butternut squash that have been hanging out in my kitchen for *ahem* about two months. So it all seemed to come together today when I set out to make a big batch of this stock. I'm going to list the recipe as it was originally written, but I didn't follow it (of course...). My notes are in italics :)

Apple Stock

Ingredients:
8 medium apples, cut into quarters, seeds removed
2 large onions, cut into quarters
4 stalks celery, cut into 1-inch pieces
4 medium carrots, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/4 cup oil
6 sprigs parsley (I didn't have it. Left it out)
1 small bunch thyme
10 peppercorns
5 corriander seeds (Left this out too.)
2 pieces of cinnamon stick, about 2-inches each (I used 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon)
3 cups apple cider (this was recalled at my local store so I couldn't get any. Instead I used about 1 1/2 cups orange juice and used water for the rest)

Method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a roasting pan, toss apples, onions, celery, and carrots with oil.
Roast 1-1 1/2 hours stirring every 20 minutes until the veggies are well browned.

Remove the veggies from the oven to a stock pot. Add a cup of water to the roasting pan and loosen all the yummy bits from the bottom. Add that liquid to the stock pot. Add the remaining ingredients, plus about a gallon of water.

Bring the stock to a simmer over medium heat. Adjust heat to keep the stock at a simmer, partially covered. Simmer for 6-8 hours - don't allow it to boil.

Strain and discard the veggies. Cool and either refrigerate or freeze for later use. Makes about a gallon.

**My house gets EXTREMELY hot with the stove going for this long. So I threw everything in the crock pot and set it to low for 6 hours. The results were delish!

After I strained the stock, I used it in this Butternut Squash Soup recipe in place of the chicken stock. It was so yummy! Serve it with a salad and some crusty bread, and you've got a perfect fall meal!

B-Week

Having a plan is half the battle. It's amazing how much smoother this week went because I was prepared. This is not to say that we accomplished everything I thought we would, but we certainly had a lot of fun learning about the letter B! Here's what our week looked like:

We made a nifty little Butterfly magnet:

First she used her dot stampers and water to decorate a coffee filter.

While it was drying, she glued some pom-poms (these nifty ones came from the dollar bin at target!) and some googly eyes on to a clothes pin.

Then we just scrunched up the coffee filter and pinned it in the clothes pin. I stuck some adhesive magnet on the back and the masterpiece was complete. This little beauty now lives on the fridge.

Then, Addison and I baked some Brownies (from scratch!) to bring to her friends Blake and Brice. The boys were pretty excited to see us with these yummy treats in hand!

And here is a picture of the B-week sensory bin. It contains buttons, blocks, bunnies, beads, balls, beans, butterflies, beads, and a bowl.

And lastly, we made this cute bird out of milk and juice tops and some craft foam. I cut the pieces and Addison glued them all on herself :)

Here are the books we read this week:

Jamberry

Henry and Pawl and the Round Yellow Ball

Round Like a Ball

Corduroy

A-Week

I'm a little behind on my posts. Imagine that. It seems I'm a little behind on most things these days. Doc is already 6 weeks old, and the days are flying by. He's attempting to smile these days which is a lovely change from the usual crying :)

To keep Addison busy, I decided to jump right in and start teaching her letters. We've been doing a letter each week. Now, let me clarify a bit. We're not really spending all that much time dealing with the letter itself. After all, she's only 2, and there is plenty of time for that. But talking about one letter each week gives ME some focus when I'm coming up with activities and books to keep her busy and happy. Here's what our A-week looked like.

We started by going to the Gilcrease Apple Orchard.

Then we did some Apple printing with some of the apples we picked.

And Addison did some activites from this great website. I followed this blogger's post pretty closely to see how Addison would do. And she was happy to complete all the activities. But when we got to B-week, she seemed bored witht them. So I've decided to hold off on printing any more of this stuff (it takes a TON of ink) until she seems a little more excited about "worksheet" typed activities. For now I want to keep our letter-of-the-week stuff as play-based as I can. After all, when will she ever have a time in her life again when it's ok to just play?

And here are the books we used this week:

Apples by Jacqueline Farmer

Apples, Apples, Apples 

After just jumping right in and trying to make this letter of the week thing happen, it became very clear to me that we needed a plan. So I came up with a little planning sheet to help me get myself organized. There is space for me to identify a craft, songs, books, outside activities, sensory activities, and "tot school" activities for each day. Now, does this mean that we are actually accomplishing all those things every day of the week? No way. But it's nice to have an idea of things we COULD be doing if  time permits and Addison is up for it. If she is happy playing by herself, that's fine with me too. Stay tuned for highlights from B-week :)

Montessori Shelves and Some Other Stuff

It's been a while since I've posted. Needless to say, I've been a bit busy. Our new baby arrived on July 13th. Doc William weighed in at 7lbs 4 oz and was 20 inches long. He was born at home, and it was lovely.  So we've been adjusting to having him around :) Addison is in love...

Now that he's been here a couple weeks, Addison is starting to get a little stir crazy. I'm still not crazy about being out and about for more than an hour or two at a time with Doc in tow, so I've been spending nap time trying to come up with some ways to add a little more structure and interest to Addison's day at home. Today I put together some activities to keep her busy.

I've been reading up a bit more on Montessori learning activities. Today I set up the bookshelf in her play room to fit in with the Montessori philosophy a bit more. Each activity is in its own container, and they are all kept on the low shelves so she can access them when she wants. They are not all Montessori in nature, but I think allowing her to choose what she wants to do will be a nice change for her.

On the bottom is her dot markers and a couple of coloring books, and next to it is the space for a fun open-ended activity pictured below. Above that is a transfer activity using pom-poms and a spoon or chopsticks (she still hasn't figured out how to use the chopsticks :), and her Fisher Price barn set for a little imaginitve play. Above that is her play-doh set, a shape stacker, and our first-ever sensory bin (more about that in a minute). Books are on the top shelf.

Today Addison learned that the activities in these containers must be played with on her green mat, and that they go back into the same containers when she's done. So far, she's done great.

Here's the open-ended activity I just mentioned. It contains a half an egg carton, 6 plastic Easter eggs, and a bunch of "pretties" otherwise known as glass jems from the craft store. She had a blast filling the eggs with the "pretties" and then filling the egg carton.

When she was done, she promptly told me they needed to go in the refrigerator. So that's where we put them..for a minute anyway.

Here's a picture of the sensory bin I put together today.

There is no rhyme or reason to the items I included. I just tried to make it interesting. I pulled this out this evening and it was a TOTAL hit. She scooped and sorted for a good 40 minutes. Her concentration was pretty amazing. I will definitely continue to make these for her. I'm thinking I will change it out once a week or so.

This week we've been talking a lot about colors. Addison knows her colors pretty well at this point. I got a bunch of books from the library all about colors. This one is her favorite.












We made some ballons in each color to hang in her play room. I got the idea for the balloons from one of my favorite blogs. She had a ball decorating the balloons. I set up the activity ahead of time by putting all the materials for each one in its own container. She could then grab the decorations she wanted to add by herself. It took us two days to complete the set.

Here's a close-up.

It's been a bit of a challenge keeping a busy two year-old happy while I'm also trying to care for a sometimes difficult newborn, but I think we're finding our groove. Hopefully if I can stay on the ball with activities for Addison that will help a bit.