Sharing Small Meals

Do you have an elderly neighbor?  Single friends?  Parents?  Friends who live alone? Or small families nearby that could use a meal or two this winter?  I've got an easy meal sharing idea for you that will make taking someone a meal not so intimidating.

Kevin has two grandmas that live nearby and we used to have 90 year old neighbors that rarely left their house.  Both of these examples worked so well for my small meal strategy.  I buy sturdy bowls, plates and these black containers with clear lids so that I can easily share food with others. 

Step 1: Make a big meal for your own family.

Step 2: Divide up the leftovers to share.  Your family might appreciate not having to eat leftovers and your friends/family would be thrilled to get a homecooked meal that just needs to be warmed up.  It really doesn't add much to your grocery budget to share small meals.

If you follow Amy Hannon on social media @eunamaes or read her book Love, Welcome, Serve - she's always talking about having take out containers on hand at all times so that you are ready to share food with the people you love.  She will send home leftovers at the end of a dinner party or she'll cook and then drop off food to all of her neighbors.  It's wonderful and so inspiring.

I made a big 9x13 pan of lasagna and then divided it up to share earlier this month.  I dropped it off just like this - 2 servings of lasagna, side salad, I grabbed fresh fruits and veggies from our stash and then made a few cookies fresh to drop off with the meal.  It was so appreciated and not much more work since I was already cooking for my family.

Leo loves delivering food with me!  I try to put as much of it in a bag as possible so he can help and then label anything that is covered in foil.  Sometimes I schedule these dinner deliveries and sometimes it's a surprise meal drop off.  I always package it ready to eat whenever it is convenient for the person receiving the food.

If you're not up to cooking for a big family, think about the people who live alone or the couples in your life that would love a home cooked meal from you.  I've done this same formula with a big batch of chili, tacos, lasagna, baked spaghetti and more and it is always appreciated!

Icy Snowy Days

We had a great weekend!  It was freezing cold and so much fun.  

The kids were really hoping for lots of snow, but it turns out that you can have so much fun with barely an inch of snow.  There's a good life lesson there.  Find joy in your days even when they don't go as you had hoped.

We are always fully stocked with hats, gloves, snow gear, sleds and shovels.  We are still hopeful that more snow will come our way this winter.

The lakes in our neighborhood froze.

The kids got to walk on the edges with very close supervision.

The creek next to our house was filled with icicles and perfect ice rink puddles.

The snow was just enough to shovel and play in on the patio.

The kids bundled up again and again to go out and play in the winter wonderland.

I love the cold so it was fun to bundle up and go outside with them.  They were so excited when I climbed down into the creek with them.  That's much more enticing to mom in the dead of winter when all the creepy critters are nowhere to be found!

We have a 2 hour delay this morning and likely will have a couple more in the coming week.  I'm thankful that in this season of life that I'm home and that a change in our schedule isn't that big of a deal right now.  Kevin's got a really busy work week with not much wiggle room in his days.  It's a win-win for everyone that my schedule is so flexible.

We made rice krispie treats, hot chocolate, got take out, did extra laundry, watched movies and NFL playoff games.  Great times!

Is it icy and cold where you live?

Friday Favorites

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

This week felt kind of long so we're excited for a three day weekend to rest and relax.  We had some fun highlights.  Olive got named Student of the Month for her class.  She goes to a big school so anytime she gets a special shout out feels really special.  Fletcher has been working on improving his air soft gun skills with Kevin in the evenings.  And Leo was thrilled that our Bible Study resumed this week so he could get back to seeing his favorite friends and teachers.

Did you catch my blog posts this week?

Preteen Parenting: Episode 6 Host Their Friends

Building Kid's Kitchen Confidence

S'more Treats

Now onto the favorite moments of the week:

1. Fall/Winter clothes are my favorite.  Give me all the layers, scarves, good hoops and jewel tones.  I reorganized my scarf collection and am eager to show you more outfit ideas with scarves this year.

2. Trash Day Helper.  Leo decided that he's big enough and strong enough to help me pull in the trash cans on trash day.  He's a good helper.  He loves to stop and talk to anyone that might be walking by while taking care of the trash.  He tells them that their puppies are so cute, tells them he's taking care of the trash and tells anyone that will listen about his fast new shoes.

3. Winter Storm Prepping.  We're expecting some really cold temps and winter weather in Indiana starting today so we headed to Sams to stock up on all the things.  We grabbed extra snacks, fruits, veggies, easy dinners and my favorite bag of Dark Chocolate Crunch pretzels.  They're so good!

4. New semester!  I baked Kevin his favorite cake to celebrate the kick off of a new semester for him.  Homemade Buttermilk Cake with loads of icing is his favorite way to celebrate.

5. Cat guy.  As Leo is approaching his 4th birthday, the cats are warming up to him.  I kept finding them snuggling together all week long.  Hooray!

6. Sick day.  Olive was home from school for a day this week and I'm not sure who loved the extra snuggles more - Leo or Olive.

7. Find mom.  Sit on mom. is back!  Leo has been asking to snuggle in the mornings and I'm thrilled about it.

8. Thrifting finds.  I hit one of my favorite local thrift shops to shop this week and found some treasures.  I grabbed these shoes and flannel for Olive.  They seemed quirky and cute and right up her alley.  Then I grabbed this vintage vegetable basket for my pantry.  I tried on some clothes for myself and am so glad I did - I didn't like either item once I had it on.  I spent $13 and came away with 3 treasures!

It's the perfect happy container to hold our bread.

9. Flamingo Leo.  He's been doing a flamingo pose any time he finds anything he can perch himself on.  It cracks me up.  I'm not sure what has sparked his interest in flamingos, but I love it.  I also look forward to having lunch at the counter with him each day.

10. Kitty snuggles.  Penny loves to be cuddled and she's especially excited when she gets held like a baby.  It's my favorite.  Now that it's winter you'll find her napping on heating vents and sleeping in stacks of blankets to stay warm.

11. My kids love these egg carton meals.  I save egg cartons and then surprise them with lunch in an egg carton from time to time.  It's a great way to use up all the last bits of food in your fridge and pantry.  Then I just toss the egg cartons after we use them once.  My 3, 7 and 10 year old all really enjoy these meals.

12. Frosty sunrises.  The kids haven't been sleeping great and keep ending up sleeping in various spots all over the house.  That means I'm not sleeping great.  I spent the night on the couch one night and woke up to the prettiest sunrise.  I wouldn't have seen it from my room.

Have a great weekend!  I'll see you back here on Tuesday!

Linking up with Momfessionals

S'Mores Treats

S'mores are always a good idea at our house.  I keep s'mores ingredients for the firepit at all times.  My crew loves Golden Grahams with marshmallows and chocolate chips.  And these S'mores Treats are delicious!  It's the best combo - a rice krispie treat and a s'more mixed together.

Recipe:

6 cups Golden Grahams cereal

1 bag mini marshmallows

1/4 cup chocolate chips

3 T butter

Melt butter, mini marshmallows (minus one handful of mini marshmallows) and a spoonful of chocolate chips.  Stir together until well combined.  Stir in the cereal until well coated.  Pour out into a buttered 9x13 pan.  Sprinkle remaining chocolate chips and mini marshmallows on top. Let the bars set, slice and serve.

Would your crew love these?  We do!

Building Kid's Kitchen Confidence

As my kids are getting older, they are looking cook more.  They help me with kitchen tasks and chores, but they really want to build their kitchen confidence by COOKING.  They want to learn new skills and become more independent in the kitchen.  I'm ready to teach them!

We started with a basic food that can work for any meal of the day - EGGS!

Look at these cute cooking kids!  They were so proud of themselves.

Fletcher is 7 and Olive is 10.  They both expressed interest in learning how to make their favorite eggs.  Fletcher wanted to master scrambled eggs with cheese and Olive wanted to make flat eggs.  They'd helped me make eggs many times, but that's different than being in charge of the stove.  We talked through the steps, the ingredients and the utensils needed.  They asked lots of questions.  They got better at cracking eggs, getting out all of the supplies at the beginning and cleaning up after themselves after we did this a few different days.

They gave each other tips and reminders to be safe.

And now both kids can make their own favorite eggs!  Yay!  Sometimes we make it to the weekend and I'm tired of cooking.  Olive will offer to make eggs for everyone.  She's super proud of her new skill.  She asks about salt preferences and if you'd like your eggs on bread.  It's so helpful.

Next up - Olive is eager to learn to make some desserts and Fletcher enjoys helping me chop, stir and prepare dinners.  I hope they they both have a list of things they feel confident in making by the time they are ready to head off to college.

What things could you teach your kids to make in the kitchen??

Here are a few food items that I know my kids would like to make on their own:

Grilled cheese

Ramen

Heating up canned soup

Lo Mein

Microwave popcorn

& maybe packing their own lunches from time to time.

Preteen Parenting: Episode 6 Host Their Friends

I'm excited to continue my preteen parenting series in 2024.  I am learning a lot as our kids are getting older and I'm looking forward to sharing things that our preteen loves.

I win points with our preteen anytime I say yes to hosting friends at our house.

Olive talked about different options for hosting friends over Christmas break.  She mentioned an ornament exchange, a Christmas craft party, gift exchange or hot cocoa bar.  Christmas was a busy work week for me baking cookies so we opted for a hot cocoa bar at the end of Christmas break.

She made plans with her friends, I confirmed plans with the moms and then they got dropped off at our house.  They exchanged gifts, hung out and I prepped this hot cocoa bar for the girls.  They loved adding mix ins to their cups of cocoa.  It was the easy food to host!

I took their picture with Olive's new polaroid camera and they had a great couple of hours together during their break from school.  It wasn't expensive - we had all the hot cocoa bar ingredients so we just had to buy a gift for the gift exchange.

Olive loved it and is already talking about plans for a cookie decorating party, a trip to Starbucks with her friends, cooking something together, crafting and more.

I'm keeping my eyes peeling and ears open for ways to help HOST THEIR FRIENDS!

Do you have any suggestions for preteen activities we could host?

Friday Favorites

Hi Friends!  I ended up taking a longer blog break than I was expecting because we all got sick.  So sick.

1 stomach bug

4 fevers

canceled plans

1 trip to the ER

1 with strep and the flu

a few with the flu, aches, coughs and headaches

We've been limping along into the new year and are ready to be healthy again!

Our Christmas break wasn't as fun and exciting as we hoped, but we still had a good time together.  I did a lot of organizing and decluttering around the house.  It always feels so good to kick off the new year with a fresh, clean house.  We watched a lot of movies and snuggled a lot.  The best parts of our week were:

1. Smile

Poor Fletch.  He started feeling bad one morning.  That escalated to a fever and his face swelling.  Just his upper lip at first and then the swelling got way worse.  He took some naps.  Kevin ended up rushing in to the children's ER when we couldn't really get him to wake up from his nap.  It was terrifying.  I was so relieved to see him smiling in this picture and we got some answer to his day of crazy symptoms.  He had a combo of strep and the flu.  He had zero symptoms of strep - it was just an all around scary experience.  Thankfully, he's feeling much better now.

We kept a really close eye on him and he got the best care from everyone.

2. Cream Puffs

Olive wanted to make a dessert with me and she decided on my mom's cream puffs.  They turned out so pretty and so yummy!

3. Super Pretzels

I grabbed these for an easy lunch option over break and they're delicious!  They only need to bake for 4-5 minutes and we all liked them.

4. Bubble Rocket

Olive asked for a Bubble Rocket for Christmas.  It was amazing!  They've had a great time playing with it all break.

5. Cat Guy

Penny has always loved Fletcher and Pearl is warming up to him, too.

6. Find Mom.  Sit on Mom. has returned.

Almost every morning Leo would find me and sit on me.  I'd share "Find mom.  Sit on mom." pictures.  He just kind of quit doing it.  But he surprised me with some extra snuggles this week.

7. Smoothies

The kids love smoothies!  They'll eat them with anything in them as long as they are some shade of pink or red.  Two kids like berry smoothies and one prefers a peanut butter + banana + chocolate chip smoothie.

8. Safety first

Fletcher got a couple of new knives for Christmas.  One had his name engraved on it and had a special glass cutter tool.  He couldn't wait to try it out.

9. Cancelled Plans

We had to cancel our fun NYE plans with friends due to sickness.  My cute friend dropped off a party in a bag for us to make sure that we didn't miss out on the festivities.  It was so thoughtful of her because I didn't have anything for NYE because we weren't going to be home.  The kids loved all of the party gear.

10. Bonfire

Kevin killed two birds with one stone when he burned up our real Christmas tree and then put together a bonfire for the kids.  We always have s'more supplies so we roasted the tree and toasted some treats.

We didn't get to do all the things we wanted to do - lunch plans, errands, spending Christmas gift cards and seeing family and friends.  But we made the most of our days together.  The kids are all feeling better and Kevin and I are working on feeling better.

I hope to be back to my normal blog schedule next week!  Happy New Year!

Linking up with Momfessionals

2023 Elf Recap

I'm sneaking in one last post for 2023!  I realized I never finished up elf series for the year.  My kids love our elves so much.  It's become one of their favorite holiday traditions.  I always ask them after Christmas if they think the elves should return next year and without any hesitation they say YES!  So I'll be collecting elf activities all year to use next December.

The kids loved having elf pets to take care of for a few days!  I found these Barbie pets at Dollar Tree for $1.25 and was so glad I didn't buy the elf on the shelf pets for $20 each.

Elf kisses!  This one was really fun to set up.  

Elf Story Time.  I grabbed some Christmas stuffed animals and Christmas books that we already owned and set this up in Olive's room.  The kids loved it.

Surprise Christmas Road Trip to Santa Claus, Indiana.  We had the best day with my parents and the kids have already asked to do this again next year.

Jesus is the reason for the season.  My friend was selling paintable sugar cookies for Christmas so I grabbed some nativity cookies for the kids.  They really enjoyed painting them and said they preferred mom's cookies over the royal icing cookies.

Mini rubber duck hunt!  This was a huge hit!!  Everyone was so excited to hunt for these tiny ducks.  I kept them all downstairs to keep things a little simpler and they loved it.  They found and rehid ducks all day long.  Then they played with the ducks, sorted the ducks and counted the ducks.  I'll be repeating this next year and maybe will hide them upstairs :)

Naughty or Nice?  While we don't really focus much on the idea of the naughty or nice list from Santa, these naughty and nice candies were fun.  The sour patch coal was delicious and my kids love tic tacs.  Five Below candy for the win.

Let's have some FUN and craft today!  We made ornaments and played with stickers.

My Croc loving kids LOVED finding this in their bath tub!  We made plans to go to the zoo with friends and had a blast.  The animals were busy on the cold day.

It's MOVIE NIGHT - Let's go see WONKA!  The big kids got invited to a birthday party so I used the elves to remind them of our fun plans.  I used candy we already had for Christmas and plans we'd already made.  We had a great time and loved Wonka.

It's COOKIE DAY!  Help Mom make Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve.  I rarely make cut out sugar cookies and this was such a treat.  It was a tiny bit stressful baking with so many little hands, but it was worth it.  The kids were so proud of their cookie creations.  I think this might just stick around as a Christmas Eve tradition.  I was done baking for Jordan Bakery Box so the timing was perfect for the 24th.

And then our elves left a note thanking the kids for a fun Christmas season - reminded them to be kind, be helpful, be good listeners and be generous.  They said they were headed back to The North Pole and would be back next year.

2023 was another great elf year!