Easy Roasted Veggies

Hey friends!  I hope you had a great weekend.  Our teams won and we enjoyed a quiet weekend at home.  I'm going to try out a new schedule for Fall.  I will be blogging Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays.  I hope that this will give me more time to reply to your comments and get into a good blog routine.  Thanks for being here and reading my blog every week.

My very favorite side dish to make is roasted veggies.

They are so easy, healthy and simple.

You just need 3 ingredients - veggies, olive oil and your favorite seasoning.

I roast everything at 400 for about 30 minutes.  

It requires no prep time.  Just grocery shopping to buy veggies and then they roast while I pull the rest of the meal together.  

I have yet to try a vegetable that doesn't taste good roasted.

We love these little potatoes!  They are called Little Duos and they come in a bag from Sams.  They are so yummy.  I make these and call them potato fries.  My kids dip them in ketchup and they are so much better for you than a bag of french fries.

Roasted to perfection.  I don't usually turn the veggies when they roast.  Just pop them in the oven and check on them 30 minutes later.  I serve these with burgers and pulled pork.  They are great with toppings like cheese, sour cream and green onions or delicious dipped in ketchup.

Roasted sweet potatoes are a family favorite.  They are more labor intensive to peel and chop, but the effort is woth it.  They are the yummiest side.  I peel the potatoes, slice them into circles and dice.

Roasted fresh asapargus.  Our house is a little divided about this veggie, but 3/5 of us love it.

This is the bag of The Little Potato Co Little Duos.  They are so good!

We grab this package of asparagus at Sams most weeks.  It's in the cold section with the berries and lettuce.  I trim off the bottom 2 inches and roast.

These are my favorite two seasonings.  They are both delicious.  I've been on a Kinder kick lately so I put that on everything I cook.

Bonus:
Roasted veggies reheat so well for really yummy lunches!

We love roasted broccoli and cauliflower (tastes better if you roast from frozen), roasted onions, roasted peppers, carrots, any kind of potato and more.

Let me know if you have any roasted vegetable questions.

Sign Them Up for Nothing

In a world that says, Sign them up for everything!

I'm going to advocate that you should sign your kids up for nothing.

Well, maybe not nothing.  But be sure to protect your family time and protect their childhood.  

Give your kids lots of time to just enjoy being home and playing together.  Give them lots of chances to be bored and make up their own games.  Make sure your schedule has gaps and free time.  That'll give you opportunities to say yes to birthday parties, yes to adventures when the weather is nice, yes to trips, yes to waulity time and fun things on the weekends.  Most importantly, it'll give you free time to enjoy being home together and finding favorite things to do at home.

My kids are currently signed up for nothing and we are thrilled about it.

We are adjusting to life at three different schools, working on finding our groove at home with two working parents, going to church/youth group on Sundays and I haven't signed anyone up for anything extra.  We all look forward to zooming home from work/school to just hang out together.

The kids are signed up for nothing, but we are working on:

1. Making your own rice krispie treats

2. Folding laundry together

3. Improving volleyball skills

4. Tennis in the street 

5. Riding bikes

6. Playing in the backyard

7. Inviting neighbors over to play and making play date plans with friends

8. Playing games together

9. Doing homework

10. Grocery shopping and errands together 

Our days are very full, but they are very full of the things we LOVE.

I'm sure busier seasons will come where the kids are eager to sign up for extras.  Right now, we are just enjoying life together with kids ages 11, 8 and 4 and not having to run people a million different directions on the evenings and weekends.

Favorite moment of the week: We got a surprise rain storm after school yesterday.  The kids were playing with a neighbor and instead of coming in when it started raining, they invented rain games in the driveway.  It was the highlight of my week to watch them be little and just play together.

I know every family is different, but in case you needed a friend to tell you that it was okay to skip all the sign ups for your kids, I'll be that friend!  Enjoy time your kids and let them be little :)

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Fall Snack Mix

Happy Fall!  Are you a fan of candy corn?  Or maybe the candy corn pumpkins?  I like a little candy corn every fall and my kids LOVE both of them.

My mom started making this snack mix years ago and it just tastes like Fall.

I added the 2 ingredients to my grocery pick up list this week - candy corn and roasted, salted peanuts.

Layer them in a container and enjoy!

I like 2/3 peanuts and 1/3 candy corn.

My kids love the candy corn so it starts out more half and half of each and then ends up peanut heavy after they eat the candy.  It's the perfect snack mix of Fall or for tailgates.

Enjoy the easiest Fall snack!

Wisconsin in July Favorites

You all know that we love going to Wisconsin.  We have yet to visit at a bad time, but Summer time in Wisconsin is perfection.  It's warm, but not hot.  The weather is pretty perfect in July.  You can swim inside or outside at all the water parks and there are tons of things to do.  We had tons of sun, warm water and time outside which is about as perfect as you can hope for.

Let me show you the highlights of our Wisconsin trip.  I tried to get this post done before school started back in July, but it just did not happen.  So I'm squeezing it in at the very tail end of Summer.  We all love going to Wilderness Resort in Wisconsin Dells so much!

1. The outdoor water parks are so much fun!  The weather was perfection, the food trucks had such yummy food options and the kids swam and played all day.  Leo could play very independently this trip and the older two are great swimmers.  We actually found ourselves sitting and watching the kids play this trip.

2. Olive tried the giant water slides with Kevin and LOVED them.  They scared me half to death, but look at those big smiles.

3. Kevin rented a cabana for us one day and it was so nice!  We loved having a shady place to rest and hang out.  They delivered food to your cabana and it made it so comfortable to be at the water park most of the day.  We will definitely do this again!

4. Anytime we'd see a bench, Leo would sit down and pose for a picture.  What a cutie!

5. We visited the Wisconsin Deer Park and had a great time! They have changed things a bit.  My new advice is still to go early, but don't buy the crackers at the admission spot.  Save your cash and buy the cones of corn/seed once you get into the park.  The deer LOVE it and they much prefer it over the crackers.  They will scoff at your Triscuit like crackers and find a friend with a seed cone :)

6. Arcades, Ropes course, climbing zone and more.  The kids love doing all of those things.  I love watching and Kevin is always a good sport to go and and do all the adventures with them.

7. Leo is at the age where he rarely needs a stroller, but this resort requires so much walking.  We improvised a time or two and grabbed a luggage cart to get him back to the room.  He was so pleased with his wheels.

8. Matching Mom + Olive pjs!

9. Kevin loves to Door Dash us Dunkin Donuts to the room!  We all love the treat!

10. The flowers are stunning!  I try not to snap a picture of every single flower bed, but it's hard.

11. See those giant slides behind us, Olive loved them.  I much prefered the tiny, barely qualifies as a slide slide on the lazy river.

12. Heading out to dinner or an adventure :)

13. I try to get as many cheese curds as possible any time we are in Wisconsin.

and Kevin does the thing with Wisconsin beer.  He loves to find new local beers to try while we are in The Beer State.

14. We ate on a patio on the river and watched the birds/boats go by.  The food was a little too authentic for all of the kids to love, but we enjoyed trying something new.

All this to say, WE LOVE WISCONSIN!

We have been going a couple times a year since before Leo was born and we have yet to run out of new and fun things to do.

Easiest Chicken Salad

You all know I love a good chicken salad, but somehow my family doesn't appreciate chicken salad.  Rude!  I made chicken salad and delivered it to several people over the Summer.  It felt like the perfect Summer meal to share.  I delivered it with crackers and crusty bread.  I was thrilled when they all gave me rave reviews!  I have been making this same recipe on the weekends to take for an easy school lunch.  I always have the ingredients on hand and it tastes better after everything chills together for a day or so.

Whitney's Chicken Salad:

1 can of chicken drained and shredded (I love to buy this from Sams)

1 big scoop of Duke's Mayo

2 T Spicy brown mustard

a sprinkle of Kinder's The Blend seasoning

1 chopped Honeycrisp apple

1 cup of grapes cut in half

1/2 cup pecans

Stir until well combined and eat with crackers.

Feel free to switch up the grapes - both green and red are great.  Add in pineapple or strawberries and swap out the pecans for walnuts.  Swap the spicy brown mustard for dijon.  Make it work for you!

Friday Faves

Happy Friday, Friends!  I hope you've had a good week.  

Life is busy over here still taking things one day at a time and we are all ready for the weekend.  

The best parts of our week were:

1. This PRETTYGARDEN dress from Amazon.  It needs a moment.  It's gorgeous, lined, such pretty patterns and details and it is HALF OFF right now.  I own it in this pretty navy floral colorway and the purple colorway.  I'm tempted to add the orange to my wardrobe for Fall.  The quality is so good.  Wouldn't it be so pretty for all of your Fall events or family pictures or tailgates??  I wore it for picture day at school and church and it always draws tons of compliments.  It runs true to size and comes in size XS-XXL.  The material is so soft and comfy and looks way more expensive than it is.  RUN and grab this dress for yourself ASAP!

PRETTYGARDEN Boho Dresses - Navy floral

PRETTYGARDEN Boho Dresses - Purple floral

PRETTYGARDEN Boho Dresses - Orange floral

PRETTYGARDEN Boho Dresses - Wine red floral

2. Topher.  He hasn't been feeling 100% lately.  Life is hard when you are 15.  We have been trying to give him extra love and pampering.  I'm still his favorite person and his favorite time of day is still when everyone goes to bed and he has my full attention.

3. Fall treats!  I grabbed all the Fall treats for school lunches this week.  The kids went crazy for the candy pumpkins and Reese's pumpkins.

4. One of my students broke his armt his week so I had my mom dig through her photo album archives and send me this gem.  Kindergarten Whitney with a broken arm.  We bonded over our kindergarten broken arms.  I didn't tell him that I followed this broken arm up with two more in the following years! Yikes.  I still remember this like it just happened.

5. Bundt cakes.  My kids finally love cake.  Hooray!  They love anything I bake in a bundt pan.  Who can blame them?!  Bundt cakes really are superior cakes.  My favorite combo is homemade buttercream with a jazzed up box cake mix.  The kids picked Funfetti + vanilla buttercream.

6. Mommy train.  That's what we call it when I'm in charge of getting the boys to school.  Everyone ride the Mommy train!  It leaves earlier than we'd like, but we try to make the drive fun.  They love to roll down the windows, watch the tractors work in the fields as we drive and pick the songs we listen to.  It's sweet to get to go to school together.  Here is us waiting at a stoplight heading to school for Western Day.

7. Mr. Mittens is very proud to announce that he can now jump up on the counters.  Darn it.  I was hoping we'd have more time before he figured this out.  His cute little furry face is my favorite.  Don't tell my family, but he's been sleeping with me at night so I think that means I'm his favorite.

8. Back to school dinner.  We joined Kevin's department for their annual back to school dinner at a local pizza spot.  The Slice was yummy and the kids loved trying a variety of pizza slices.  We won a Fall candle from the prizes which delighted the kids.  I rarely buy candles or anything scented so it was a treat.

9. I don't want to forget this face.  Leo makes it when he's asking for something that he knows should be a no.  Like can I have another PBJ?  One more Hawaiian roll?  A few more gummy bears??  He raises his eye brows, sits up extra tall and hopes that you'll be hypnotized into saying yes to his request.  It's my favorite.

10. Our okra stash.  Our freezer is packed with okra and it makes me so happy.  Our okra plants and seeds did so well in our garden this year.  A year of composting really helped.  We have been harvesting like crazy and have all this okra to enjoy in soups and as side dishes this Fall.

11. Bougie nap.  I found Mr. Mittens napping on one of my favorite pillows this week.  We both squeezed in a Saturday nap.  I like his style!

12. The weather has been so nice in the evenings.  We're playing outside after dinner and soaking up the cool temps before the time changes for Fall.

13. Nana turned 88 this week!  We got to celebrate with her on Sunday.  We're so thankful to have her in our lives.  She's the best host, the sweetest lady, she always wants to hear about you and is always thrilled to see you.  Nana is the best.

14. Road trip dinner with friends.  I drive an hour north and they drive an hour south and we have the best evening together every quarter.  We work in a little shopping, dinner and drive thru dessert.  It's one of my favorite nights to catch up with some of my favorite mom friends.  I'm so thankful that despite our busy lives we are still able to make time to see each other.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!  Thanks for being here.

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