Dinosaur Craft Using Toilet Paper Rolls

Our two favorite things; dinosaurs and recycling!

We found the templates for these dinosaurs over at DLTK. All we had to do was print, color and glue. Though now that I look at the page again I see that I glued them together completely 'wrong'. Oh well, P certainly doesn't care!

And why not make a volcano while you're at it? We ended up drawing a pond, grass and trees on the sheet of brown paper and had a good old time playing with our new dinosaur friends!

Fall Garden Preparation!

I finally started prepping our beds for our fall and winter veggies. I had been putting it off because our tomato plants were roughly 8 feet tall by this point and getting rid of them didn't seem like much fun. We cleared everything out this morning though, turned the soil, added some compost and fish meal and got a couple flowers to attract some more bees too!

The only plants from the summer planting we kept were our two eggplants. Can you see why?

P and I started our seedlings earlier this week. He loved watching the little pellets absorb the water and grow taller. He had been playing in the water and was shocked when he came back to find a dry tray!

For the fall we have a few more zucchini, beans, peas, cherry and roma tomatoes since the warm weather will continue for another couple months. I guess that's about the only benefit of living in Texas... brocolli, butternut squash, spinach, romaine lettuce, swiss chard and eventually some cauliflower and pumpkins are going into the beds too!

I Gotta Tell Someone...

Now, I swear I'm not bragging, or maybe I am... last night I got my husband to agree to go to Italy next year! His condition was that we spend some time in England first visiting my family and then take the train across Europe. We don't know if we're taking the kiddo with us yet, or if we'll have the one child (or maybe two? hopefully!) to drag along with us. But for now, I am squirreling my pennies away!!

It would be more responsible to put it towards debt. Yes, I acknowledge that. BUT so long as we're not adding to our debt, pay in cash and budget; we agree, life is much too short to only focus on boring stuff. We gotta have some fun too! You never know when your pancreas might start acting up again! Or one day we might be living in Australia with 6 kids and it'll be a little difficult to travel then, so we better do it now! I am super excited! Can you tell?

Icecream for Breakfast!

"What's for breakfast mama?"

"Icecream!"

*P's eyes open really wide* "Icecream? ICECREAM? We can't eat icecream for breakfast!"

"Sure we can..."

Homemade icecream of course ;)

Banana Strawberry Icecream

4 ripe bananas

Handful of strawberries

Milk

Maple syrup or honey

~ Peel, wash and slice fruit into 1 inch chunks then place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper
~ Freeze for 3-4 hours or overnight if you need it for breakfast
~ Once frozen throw all the fruit into a food processor along with a little milk and 1-3t of maple syrup, depending on the tartness of the strawberries and how ripe the bananas are
~ Blend until smooth then serve immediately

We had ours wrapped in crepes like an icecream burrito! Also goes wonderfully with pancakes, waffles or any kind of baked good (we especially love it with crumbles and cobblers!)

When was done with his he asked for more. But he didn't want another crepe. I said sure! And again, his eyes bugged out of his head. Icecream for breakfast??

Yep!

Blueberry Breakfast Cake

Once again, inspired by Pinterest! Anyone else an addict?

I started with a recipe for Buttermilk Blueberry Breakfast Cake from Alexandra's Kitchen and cut the fat and sugar by at least half to make it a little healthier, we're not into overly sweet things for breakfast. Plus then I can eat more of it...

Blueberry Breakfast Cake

1/4C unsalted butter, room temperature

1/4C applesauce
Zest of 1 large lemon
1/2C sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla
2C flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2C blueberries fresh or frozen
½ cup yoghurt or 1/4 milk, 1/4 yoghurt

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Cream butter, applesauce, lemon zest and sugar
3. Add the vanilla and egg and mix until combined
4. Mix flour, baking powder and salt together
5. Add half the flour mixture to the batter alternating with the yoghurt. Mix in between additions
6. Fold in the blueberries
7. Grease a 9 inch squake baking pan with coconut oil and pour batter in, spread evenly. At this point you may sprinkle a little sugar or sugar/cinnamon on top of the batter
8. Bake for 45 minutes or so, checking for doneness with a toothpick. Let cool before serving

Foodie Friday - Food for Thought

Today's Foodie post is a little different from normal where I usually post a recipe we've used this past week. I haven't done much exciting cooking this week though so I thought I would share some documentaries I have watched recently on Netflix and loved

Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution is a documentary about a little french town that starts serving organic, locally grown food in their school cafeterias, community meals and to elderly participating in the meals on wheels program. Their small town (and similar towns in France) have high levels of cancers, leukemia, fertility issues and other problems linked to pesticide use in vineyards and farms. It does have subtitles but it was a fascinating look into another country and the way they do things - the meals they are serving their kids make me drool!

Ingredients was a wonderful documentary about the local food movement; the rise of local sustainable farms and food, why it's important to support them and the benefits of doing so. It also showcases a few different restaurants that focus on local, in season produce and encourages us to know what's in our food and where it's coming from!

Next on my list is Deconstructing Super; a documentary largely about food safety and genetically modified foods and why we shouldn't eat them. That's my kind of movie!

Go watch these, now! You'll never want to eat processed food again. And if you still need more reasons not to support agribusiness check out Food Inc., Food Matters and Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead

Easy Swagbucks Special Offers!

If you haven't checked out the special offer boards on Swagbucks lately, you should! The SponsorPay board to be specific (but don't forget to check the others!). To find it look under the 'Earn' tab on the Swagbucks home page and click on 'Special Offers'

The SponsorPay board is the tab on the far right. Click on it and then under 'More' choose 'Trial', this will show all free trial offers currently available.

This week I did the UseNext, Jo-Games and FunPass Free trials for a total of 895 Swagbucks! I would have done the Netflix one too but we are already members.

I also signed up for a few things using my junk email for another 310 Swagbucks giving me enough points for nearly THREE FREE $5 Amazon Gift Cards

How do I complete these offers?

First, make sure you have a junk email you don't mind filling up.

For the free trials use a credit card that you can log into online to see transactions immediately. I have a PayPal debit card that allows me to do this. Almost all trials will charge $1 to the card to make sure it is a real number but the charge will always fall of/be refunded.

After signing up for anything take a screenshot of the confirmation page just in case the points don't come through. The screenshot will serve as proof that you completed the offer and support will manually credit your points when you send it in. To take a screenshot use CTRL + PrtSc, open Paint and paste CTRL + V the image. Save with a file name that will help you remember which offer it was for i.e. UseNextSBSP231 - offer name, swagbucks, sponsor pay, number of points

For things like quizzes or sign ups they will often have pages of offers for you before final confirmation. Scroll to the bottom of the page, or look at the top and find the 'skip' button. Keep hitting that until you reach the final page. Take a screenshot!

If something requires sign up, like a free trial, set your Windows Works Calendar to pop up and remind you to cancel the trial before you're charged for membership. I generally set it for the day after I sign up and then dismiss the item once I have looked around the site, taken advantage of what they have to offer or decided it's not for me. Make sure you set a reminder and not just an appointment. Some can be canceled online by logging into your account, some you have to call an 800 number to cancel. They will try talk you into staying with them, just say no, unless they offer you more months free (and then cancel), I have had a few companies do this!

If your points are NOT awarded within the time frame given find the support for the offer wall and send in your screenshot and/or copy of confirmation email. I have not had a single offer not awarded after sending in a screenshot

Holiday in the Texas Hill Country

We spent the last week at the Hyatt Hill Country Resort in San Antonio and had a blast! We were so impressed with their property and the different activities they had going on for kids that I had to share!

They had bikes (and helmets!) to explore the resort on

We found a hammock in the woods on our first exploration trip!

A sandy beach beside a lazy river along with a bunch of sand toys and trucks for the kids to use!

(unlimited) S'more making around the fire pit by the beach every night

Lots of different activities; water balloon games, jump rope competitions, ice cream making and educational exotic animal shows! We loved the Macaw and the Sloth! We weren't expecting to see a Sloth at our hotel...

Movies on the lawn every night. We watched Peter Pan and Wall-E. They even had rugs for us to sit on and free popcorn! I loved watching the bats flying at dusk while we sat on the lawn

Even the hotel food was good! And the servers were so impressed when Mr. 3 recited our room number when asked. We taught P the number since his dad can never remember it! HA

We did venture outside the resort a couple times. We met up with Jamie and her kiddo and spent a little time in downtown San Antonio too!

We visited the Alamo for the first time!

Spent some time on the River Walk

And rode trolleys around town. This may have been the highlight of P's trip! 

And at the end of it all we had a very tired little boy

 

We are happy to be home but looking back over the photos I'm kind of sad too, we really had such a great time, it was nice to spend time together as a family without work to worry about! I miss my husband already...

This post was not sponsored by Hyatt or anyone else. I just wanted to share with everyone. If you ever have a chance to visit San Antonio, go!

Dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural Science!

We took P downtown a couple Saturdays ago for an afternoon at the Museum of Natural Science. He loved every.single.second of it. Every second!

They had a lot more dinosaur fossils than I was expecting!

Tyrannosaurus and Hadrosaurus

A Diplodocus and Quetzalcoatl (on the ceiling)

 

Various smaller fossils - this was an Ichthyosaurus I believe

The jaw of what scientists call 'Sea Rex', we watched a great 3D IMAX movie about prehistoric sea reptiles while we were there!

And of course; Big Al  II, an Allosaurus. We know Big Al I from BBC's Walking With Dinosaurs!

We all had a great time and are so happy we ended up going with the 16 month membership, we're going to visit Big Al again soon!

Easy Tot Workbook

We try to work learning into every day life and play but sometimes P actually asks to do 'school work'. This usually meant I'd have to hop online to print something or go sifting through my draws and cupboards trying to find a workbook for him, not anymore!

Using a binder we already had and some leftover page protectors from my home management binder project (more on that later) I created a folder full of activities for him to do with or without supervision.

Some of the pages are printed from blogs like 1+1+1=1 or Homeschool Creations 

 Others are pulled from Kumon books or workbooks from the Target dollar section!

I love that he can count the dinosaurs, circle the number or the odd one out, clean it off and do it again if he wants to (saves me printing another!). The sleeves also keep all the pieces to matching and sorting games in one place. Perfect.

Taco Zucchini Boats

Easy

Yummy

Uses up garden veggies that tend to go a little wild

Awesome

Taco Zucchini Boats

1 zucchini per person

fillings; we used taco meat/beans and spanish rice

cheese

Cut zucchinis in half lengthwise and hollow out. Put the zucchini pieces in a bowl to mix with your other fillings

Fill zucchini halfs with filling squishing it in as you go. I found this to be a bit messy so hold each half over the bowl of filling while you stuff, saved me a lot of trouble! Sprinkle with cheese

Bake at 425F for 20 minutes or until heated through and cheese is melted

Like I said, these were REALLY good. I don't know where they have been all my life! We have plans for all kinds of zucchini boats; lasagna, carbonara, fajita, pizza, mac n' cheese (with the zucchini chunks as the pasta!), chili... the possibilities are endless!

And I apologize (again) for the crummy photos, a family member has the card to my DSLR so I'm stuck with my annoying little camera that takes horrible photos! They don't do this yumminess justice!

Homemade Cereal Bars

We tried our hand at making fruit filled cereal bars this week and were fairly impressed with how they turned out.

We adjusted the recipe to use 1/2 whole wheat flour and 1/2 all purpose, coconut oil instead of butter and maple syrup as the sweetener because I am hoarding my New Zealand honey...

They taste great overall! The filling is PERFECT! The dough is a bit heavy for my liking though; I don't think I rolled it thin enough. Next time I will roll the dough thinner and will also use white whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour to fluff the crust up a little instead of the standard whole wheat flour we used. Or I might just follow the revised recipe from Food and Whine. Doh. Probably should have checked the blog before we made them!

Chocolate Pudding Ice cream

My husband came home with an icecream maker one day a month or so ago. I was happy. And very angry. What had he started!?! Definitely opened a very fattening can of worms...

So far we've made a chocolate and vanilla ice cream, both recipes from Alton Brown. They're REALLY good but they require a LOT of egg yolks and it takes time to make the custard. When you pay almost $5 a dozen for eggs like I do, using 8 egg yolks on a batch of ice cream isn't exactly cost effective!

Enter Dr. Oetker's Organic Chocolate Pudding And Pie Filling Mix! 

The ingredients are Organic Cane Sugar, Organic Cornstarch, Organic Cocoa, Salt. Each box requires 2 cups of milk.

I used 2 boxes of pudding and 4 cups of half and half and milk (I had some about to expire so this was perfect) and made the pudding as directed. Once made you let the pudding cool in or out of the fridge and then throw it in your ice cream maker for 25-35 minutes. Straight out of the ice cream maker it has a soft serve consistency and can be put in the freezer to firm up a bit if desired.

It made the most delicious, thick, creamy chocolate ice cream!

I can't wait to have my DSLR card back!

This is great if you don't have time to go through the whole custard mixture shebang. Each box of pudding cost roughly $1.50 and the milk was roughly $2, but I think less. So, for $5 I made enough organic chocolate ice cream to feed the three of us dessert for two nights. It costs nearly that much for just the eggs of the other recipes and is also a great option for people with egg allergies!

It probably would have gone even further if somebody (me) didn't sit on the couch after bed and stuff their face...

Cheesy Pepperoni Eggplant or Eggplant Crust Pizza?

or Eggplant Pizza. We thought that was kind of misleading though. Eggplant Crust Pizza? Either way, this was yummy! P ate all of his and asked for more. Even my husband, who looked at me like I was crazy when I told him my plan loved it!

Cut eggplant into 1/2 inch thick slices. I use the mandolin hubby got me for Christmas. That thing has paid for itself 100 times over...

Brush the eggplant with a little olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Repeat for the other side (little helpers are great at 'painting' eggplant with oil!)

Bake for 6-8 minutes at 425 degrees turning once

Add your pizza toppings. We went with marinara sauce, pepperoni, grated cheese and pineapple for P and I

Bake for another 5 minutes or until cheese is browned to your liking

Serve and enjoy. 

Linking up with Tatertots and Jello Weekend Wrap up

Non-toxic, reusable straws!

This is a great deal for anyone who loves smoothies but hates buying (and throwing away) plastic straws!

We have a glass straw co-op going on over at The Mamas. All straws, all sizes; regular, smoothie or thicker! All colors and styles are $4 thanks to Strawsbycarli on Etsy! that's 66% off retail, the best deal we could find on glass straws!

You will need to sign up for an account over at The Mamas and then head to the co-op board. Tell me you're from the blog and let me know if you have feedback on any other sites; diaperswappers, ebay or another buying/selling website and we'll get you sorted! The co-op officially closes on 8/15 :)

Q-tip Dinosaurs

Inspired by a post on Pinterest (once again), we started with dinosaurs made of 'bones' (q-tips) and I thought we were done. Did you notice my mad dinosaur drawing skills?

Nope! When he finished gluing all his bones on P looked at his stegosaurus, looked at me and said, but they have no skin mama!

OK, problem solved! I cut up strips of paper and had him cut them into squares (good scissor practice!) then we glued them on our naked dinosaurs...

 

Much better!

Linking up with Mama Dani's Musings