Tasty Thursday {Poppy Seed Chicken Casserole}

This is my go to meal. I've made this meal for just about every one of my friends who've had a baby. When I had Pinky, a friend made this casserole for us and I've been hooked since then! It's so easy and oh so delicious! Not gonna lie...it's not the healthiest, but really who cares :)

AHH, I can just smell the yumminess! This particular one was for 

a friend who just adopted two sweet sisters from Kazakhstan.

Ingredients

1 lb Cooked Chicken chunked

1 pkg Egg Noodles {any size}

1 can Cream of Chicken {I use fat free}

8oz Sour Cream {I use fat free}

1 C Butter

2 C Cheddar Cheese

1-2 Sleeves of Ritz Crackers

Poppy Seeds

Boil your chicken in water till fully cooked. Also, go ahead and boil your egg noodles till tender. When the chicken is done turn the oven on to 350 degrees. In a greased 9X13 pan combine the first four ingredients and mix thoroughly. Melt the butter. Then layer the cheese, the crackers and poppy seeds. Pour the melted butter over the entire casserole. Put in the oven for 45-60 minutes or until golden brown on top. Serve with a salad and French bread and you've got one heck of a meal!

Hope you enjoy

Wordless Wednesday {sorta}

 Pinky at 19 weeks old

Pinky at 269 weeks old

Pinky's Science Fair Project

We are involved in a homeschool co-op called Ignite! We LOVE our co-op, the families are amazing and I just love all the kids in my classes. Back in November we had a Science Fair. I'm not a Science person, but we wanted Pinky to do something, so I put Warrior in charge. They did a great job, her project was The Diffusion of Food Coloring in Different Liquids. She had a blast and it was super easy!

Her hypothesis was "I believe that the food coloring will make the liquid change colors at different speeds" She used hot water, cold water and vegetable oil to test this belief. She put each liquid in separate bowls and her Daddy helped her squeeze some food coloring into each one.

The supplies

 The results of food coloring in cold water...diffuses fast

 The results of food coloring in hot water... diffuses a lot slower

The results of food coloring in oil...diffuses REALLY slow

Pinky had a blast working on this project. We bought a tri-fold board, printed out some pictures and then Pinky put everything together for the fair. It looked really good. She did awesome!

putting it together

Final product!

All the kids in co-op did a great job! They all worked really hard and it showed. Each of the kids got a certificate...Pinky was super pumped about that!

What are some other fun science projects that you have done?

Pinky's Pillowcase

I remember as a kid going to my Grannies house all the time. I have great memories of her and all the wonderful things she did! She was amazing at sewing, she made me lots of dresses and made the flower girls dresses and candle-lighter dresses for my wedding. She would let me play around with fabric scraps and she helped me make my first pillow when I was very young. Today, I'm not that good at sewing...I try but it's not perfect! I thought Pinky was a good age to start practicing sewing by hand, so a couple of months ago she did.

I had some scrap fabric that I knew she would love. I called this day our "home-ec" school time. I gave her a needle and showed her how to thread it. I then let her go to town on the fabric. She did great and here are some pics of the project!

She has a rather LARGE pillow so the pillowcase didn't fit it but she didn't care...look how happy she is!

Our Homeschool Co-op IGNITE

We are super lucky to be involved in our local co-op. I'm not sure I would have made it through my first year of homeschooling with all my hair without my co-op.

At our co-op each mom either teaches or assists in a class. I personally teach 3 classes, a Pre-K Recreation class, a 1st-2nd grade Art Class and 3rd-5th grade Art Class. Each child is enrolled in 3 classes of their choice, some cost and some don't. I LOVE my classes, all the kids are super cool and such a joy. Pinky is taking my rec class, a gardening class and a science class and she LOVES them all.

We meet in a church that has several classrooms for us to use. We start our day at 9:30am with announcements, talent or show and tell, birthdays and prayer. We then go to our classes which are 50 minutes each, 2 classes then lunch. Lunch is picnic style, we all bring our own lunches and blankets and gobble up our food. We end at 1pm and we can leave when our chores are done. Most families go play at the park after co-op, we haven't been yet, it's hard when Cobalt is so tired after missing his morning nap, maybe in the Fall.

We have theme days at co-op and the kids just eat those days up. Every month we do something as a group, either a field trip or a family fun night. We also meet once a month at Panera with just the Mama's! We love our Ladies of Ignite night, great time to get re-energized, ask questions, learn new things, and laugh till it hurts.

If you have a co-op close and you are not involved I highly suggest you join it. My kids have met so many wonderful people and I enjoy everyone I am around. Such a great environment. If you are involved in one, tell me about it...I like to read other ideas.

I will be posting later about some of our fun nights and other events that we do...stay tuned!

Tasty Thursday {Grannie's Spaghetti}

This is by far my favorite Spaghetti recipe. My Grannie made this recipe all the time. She was the best cook around. If you wanted comfort food, her house was the place to be. I remember as a kid watching her in her {hot} kitchen cook. I truly believe that I got my cooking "skills" from her and my Dad who got his skills from her.

She passed away in 2004 and all of us miss her dearly. I was blessed with receiving all her cook books and recipes, even some of her frying pans {that still smell like her house}. This Spaghetti recipe is the one I will forever treasure. When I look at it {which I don't have to when cooking...I know it by hear} I can see her cooking in her apron and I can still smell her...oh how I miss her.

Here's a picture of the recipe

I love that it has grease stains on it and the edges of the paper are frayed. It screams Grannie.

Grannies Spaghetti {she titled it Italian Spaghetti}

1-Onion {Chopped}

2 TB Vegetable Oil

1 lb Ground Beef or Turkey

1 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Chili Powder

1/2 tsp Tabasco Sauce

1/4 tsp Black Pepper

Dash of Red Pepper

1 {10 1/2oz} can of Cream of Mushroom

1 {10 1/2oz} can of Tomato Soup

1 {8oz} package of Long Spaghetti Noodles

1/2 C grated Parmesan Cheese

Cook onion in oil till golden, add meat and seasonings, brown lightly. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Add soups, and simmer for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, cook noodles in boiling water till tender. Drain and rinse noodles with hot water.

I like to put shredded cheddar cheese over my spaghetti pile on my plate. Oh so good!

Wordless Wednesday

Zebra School Day 1 {re-post}

Well the first week of Zebra School went great. We learned everyone's name, so that's good :) Briley did amazingly well. She woke up the second day begging to start school right then. Every day we started our lessons at a different time, hopefully we can get on a better consistent schedule. I want to get most of our lessons done before Briggs wakes up from his naps, that's been really hard because he hasn't been sleeping very good at all.

I thought I would post about our week and let you know what works and what doesn't work for us. I will have pics along the way too.

We start our school day out by Briley checking her "Ready for School" chart. She is incharge of making sure all her boxes are checked before we start school.

Her chart consists of: Eating Breakfast, Putting Dishes Away, Getting Dressed, Putting Clothes in Hamper, Brushing her Hair, Taking her Vitamin, and Brushing her Teeth. She enjoys checking things off her list...I wonder where she gets that from.

After her chart is done, we do our calendar. We say the date and look at future days of the week and write them on our days of the week writing section. We then check the weather outside and set our weather chart.

After the calendar is done we do Bible. We are working through an activity book I bought at Mardel, it's pretty good so far. Chapter 1 was about Zacchaeus and our Memory Verse was "Let....Christ rule in your hearts." Colossians 3:15. We had a lot fun making crafts along with reading the story. The first day I read the story of Zacchaeus and then asked her some questions about the story. One question was "Did Zacchaeus' size matter to Jesus?" She said "No", and then she said "I'll be right back". She got up and ran into her room and brought back her Bible that she has been reading, turned to the last page and read "But Jesus loved everyone, big and small." I nearly cried like a baby. I couldn't believe it here is my 4 year old, understanding the Bible that she just started reading by herself. What a blessing for her to be able to comprehend what the Bible is saying.

Once we are done with Bible we work on Language Arts. I've been using a Heavenly Helpers workbook that we got from the Dollar Tree or Dollar General I can't remember which one. Anyway, It's going pretty good...I started over her head and have decided that this workbook will have to wait. She gets what we are doing but I want to make sure she masters some other lessons first. That's the beauty of HSing...I can change it up whenever I want to. Our math was also in the Heavenly Helpers workbook and it is also a little over her head not by much but again I want to master other lessons first.

I also have her practice her handwriting every day. I can already see a difference in how her letters are from this past Spring.

I have also found some websites that have handwriting worksheets that I will be printing off soon. Briley is getting bored just writing the same stuff over and over. Let's change it up Momma!

After Math we did some PE. I showed her different ways to stretch before we do any exercising...she thought that was really funny.

After stretching we jogged around the house and she decided that she wanted to crawl around our kitchen...Briggs' started following her...it was really funny, he thought she was playing with him.

All in all we had a great first week. I know I have missed some other fun things that we did. When they come to me I will share them then!

How was your first week of school?

School/Dining Room Curtains

Alert the press! I started a project and finished it within the same week. Check me out I may have fever...nope I'm good, I guess I'm just motivated. 

I've been thinking that my window wall looked a little lonely. What do you think?

 I went to Hancock Fabrics well over a year ago and found this colorful fabric and just had to have it.

Then I had the brilliant idea of making window mistreatments like The Nester does and I love how she says "it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful". That phrase is right up my alley. Nothing in my house is perfect {besides my kids and husband} but it is beautiful to my family!

So I married the window wall to the fabric. You can call me the match-maker, if you want. I actually hemmed the fabric. I did it ALL by myself with my sewing machine and all. I only broke one needle and ran out of thread once, but I did it.

Here are the two happily married and ready for company!

2011 Goals

Goals for 2011

Finish our dining room

Finish our master bath

Buy a new kitchen sink {We bought a new fancy faucet instead}

Lose more weight

Run a 5k {May 1st}

Read more parenting books

Knock my Warriors socks off with how much I love him

Treasure my kids more

Play more games

Go outside at least once a day {I'm not an outdoor person}

Become a better friend

Prove to myself that I am who God wants me to be

Love GOD more

Read God's word more

Pray with faith

Start a homeschooling blog

Lose track of time while talking with my daughter

Have a date night once a month

Take more pictures

LIVE LIFE to the FULLEST!

Have no regrets

Surround myself with more Godly women

Many of these I cannot mark off, they will be never ending goals. Trust me when I say, I am working on every single one of these. How are your goals going so far? Have you met any?

Tasty Thursday {Baked Beef Taquitos}

We love taquitos in our house {at least my husband and I do}. We use to buy the frozen kind and make cheese dip and that would be our dinner...that was several years ago when we were poorer. It was easy and oh so yummy! I decided that I wanted Taquitos for dinner a while back, so I went on the search for a recipe. My first stop is always Tasty Kitchen but I didn't see exactly what I wanted. So I decided, I'm cool, I'm a good cook, I can make up my own recipe. So I did. Let me tell you, it was DELISH! I praised Jesus...it was that good. So I thought this is for sure going on my blog. I hope you all enjoy it and add your own ingredients to it. Let me know what you think.

Ingredients
1lb Ground Beef or Turkey
1/2 Onion chopped
1T Chicken Fajita Seasoning {trust me, it works}
1/2 T Chili Powder
Shredded Cheddar Cheese
Flour Tortillas
1T Melted Butter
Sour Cream
Cookie Sheet
Pan Spray

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cook your onions in a pan till translucent. Remove onions and brown your meat. Just before all the meat is browned add your seasonings and onions. Finish browning the meat then drain if needed. Heat the tortillas for just about 15 seconds in the microwave just to soften them up. Put some of the meat mixture close to the edge of the tortillas, add shredded cheese then roll tightly and put on a cookie sheet. brush the melted butter on the top of each Taquito and then pop them in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Top with sour cream if you want.

I also made up a bowl of cheese dip to dip the Taquitos in and made a side salad too. I am so pleased how these came out.

Wordless Wednesday

I LOVE my kids!

Spring Break

We are having a wonderful Spring Break! Warrior normally gets Thursday and Friday off but he was super sweet and asked for the entire week off! He never takes vacation, so this has been a wonderful treat!

Some things we are doing this week:

Warrior and Pinky went to a University of Central Oklahoma {UCO} basketball game.
Cobalt and I went shopping
Warrior and Pinky are going on a breakfast date to IHOP
We are going to the park with our Lifegroup friends
We are cleaning out our flowerbeds
Playing outside a lot
Going to the zoo
All of us are going to Lifegroup {normally our kids go to childcare at the church}
Friends from Tulsa are coming down for lunch
Dance Party
Game Night
Blogging
Buying our curriculum for the Fall
Warrior is going to another UCO b-ball game if they win they are headed to the Elite Eight for Div. II
Date Night
Cleaning out rooms in the house to get ready for a garage sale in April.

How about you, what does your break look like?

Menu Monday

I've been making a menu for my family for several years now and I love it. My husband makes fun of how I have to know what we are having for dinner a week from now. My rebuttal is...I'm the cook and if I waited till 4:30 on the day of...we would either have cereal or be completely broke because we would have to eat out. I'm a planner what can I say. Anyway, I came across this blog called OrgJunkie.com awhile ago but never linked up to her Menu Monday's. I thought I would start now. I've been looking over all the menus out there and there are some amazing ideas, if you struggle with getting a menu together check this blog out it will HELP a ton!

Monday: B- Cereal
              L- Fruit Salad
              D- Broiled Garlic Chicken {I still haven't been able to make this} and Sweet Potato Fries

Tuesday: B- Cinnamon Rolls {see recipe below}
              L- Cheese Roll ups, Applesauce and Carrots

              D- Leftovers

Wednesday: B- Pumpkin Muffins

                    L- Chicken Nuggets, Fries and Grapes {I'm eating out with some girlfriends!}

                    D- Potluck at Lifegroup

Thursday: B- Oatmeal

                L- PB&J, Apples, Cheese Sticks and Carrots

                D- Kids at Momo's and we are going out for my husbands birthday

Friday: B- Pancakes

            L- Mini Corn Dogs and Cuties

            D- Homemade Pizza

Saturday: B-Egg Burritos

               L- Grilled Cheese and Chips

               D- Spinach Alfredo Fettuccine and Garlic Bread

Sunday: B-Pop Tarts

             L- Birthday Party

             D- Burgers and Dogs, Baked Beans and Chips

Cinnamon Rolls

1 tube of Grands Buttermilk Biscuits

1/2C of Melted Butter

Cinnamon

White Sugar

Milk

Powered Sugar

Vanilla

Turn oven on to the degree that the tube says for the biscuits. Grease the bottom of a circle pan. Open the tube of biscuits, flatten out each biscuit {longer than wide}spread some butter on the flattened biscuit, sprinkle cinnamon and then sugar on top. Roll up the biscuit, pinch the sides to seal then shmush them a bit to make fat rolls and then place in the pan. Pour leftover butter on top of the rolls before putting them in the oven. Meanwhile make your icing, powdered sugar, milk and a dash of vanilla...add the ingredients to your thickness desire. Once the rolls are done, pour the yummy icing over all the rolls let them sit for a bit and then serve warm! YUM!

So what's on your menu this week?

FAMiLY-iD

I wanted to take a few minutes to tell you about a local ministry called Family-iD. This is a wonderful ministry to help produce strong families and bonds that will last forever.

The purpose and vision of Family-iD is

"To see each successive generation, of every family, live more fully for God."


Can you imagine doing something today to impact your family for each generation after you?

This is directly from their website:

At Family-iD, that is our purpose and vision. We want everyone to build the great family that they desire. However, great families don't happen by accident! It takes an intentional approach and hard work to create a great family. Our Family-iD workshops proved the motivation, methods, and tools to make this happen.


Our goal is to teach and train more than one million families worldwide to "stir it up" and draw out the God-given purpose for their family, to lead them to "write it down", to equip them to "live it out", and inspire them to "pass it on" to future generations.


We believe that if you will "write it down" and "live it out", you will lay the foundation for many Godly generations to follow. The time is now for you to develop your personal Family-iD that will resonate for eternity. Let's "pass it on" and change the world!


Several years ago my husband and I went through one of their workshops, and the way we do life with our kids has been forever changed. One thing you do during the workshop is come up with a Family Vision and Mission statement. Our short and to the point statement is Know. Love. Serve. Impact Eternity. This is something our family is passionate about, knowing God, loving God and serving God will with out a doubt IMPACT ETERNITY. In fact at that very workshop is where we felt the call of God to home school our kids. We didn't want to be "normal", of this world, we wanted to be of God's world which he calls us to not be "normal". It's working so far!

Family-iD has changed our lives and I challenge you to take a look at their website and use their resources to impact your family and maybe they will have a workshop in your area soon! Let me know if you have any questions, I would love to help you in any way.

Menu Monday

Here is our menu for the week

Monday
             B-Cereal Bars
             L-Nachos and cuties
             D- Pizza for kids and Dinner for us at a Family-iD Event

Tuesday
            B-Oatmeal
            L-Chicken Nuggets, Fries and Grapes
            D- BBQ for Warriors birthday dinner

Wednesday
           B-Cereal
           L-Grilled Cheese
           D-Spaghetti and Garlic Bread

Thursday
          B-French Toast Sticks
          L-PB&J, Cheese Sticks and Apples
          D-Sausage, Egg and Cheese in French Bread

Friday
         B-Pop Tarts
         L-Fruit Salad
         D-Homemade Pizza

Saturday
         B-Cereal
         L-Cheese Roll-ups
         D-Garlic Broiled Chicken

Sunday
         D-Tacos

Enjoy your week!