Test one, two, three!

You know what I'm doing right now? Can you guess? I am "typing" my blog post by speaking into my phone! That is crazy! Technology has come so far. Hopefully this will help me get thoughts out of my head when it's at a time that I cannot blog because I can't type. This happens to me a lot in the car. We shall see....

Busy Bag Swap!

(Photo from Planet of the Apels here)

Busy Bag Swap

I have seen so many "busy bag" activities come up on my Pinterest feed in the last year and wanted to try them out. So I finally took initiative and organized a "busy bag swap". I wanted to keep it small and simple, so I picked 3 other friends who have kids around Griffin's age. We each picked 2 activities to make, which would give our kids 8 total. Here are the activities we ended up with:

Lacing activity: I made this one and Griffin loves it. It doesnt keep his attention for very long though. And he cannot lace it on his own yet, but he can do it well if I hold the ribbon out for him. 

Felt Cupcake: An extra one I added in just cause. 

I Spy Bottles: I made this one too, and it did not turn out the way I had hoped. Number one the rice is apparently dusty and coated everything I put in it white. Number two I put everything in at once then poured the rice, which just made it hard to hide everything. So I would suggest somehow making your rice not powdery and adding a few things then rice then a few things etc. Also, you really need to make sure you have the stronger bottles, not the thin water bottles. Ours are very crinkly :-(

Pom Pom Stuff In: Griffin loves this one and it keeps his attention for long periods of time. 

Color Wheel: Griffin likes the clothes pins but cant quite get them on the wheel yet. But its really good practice for him and I think he will get pretty soon. 

Pipe Cleaner Stuff In: He loves to pull them out, but cant put them in yet. Pipe cleaners bend too easy. 

Egg Matchup: He loves to take the eggs out and put them back in. 

Tong Pick Up: Griffin loves tongs but does not want to pick things up yet. He gets mad at me when I do! haha! 

Fishing Game:  This one is sooo cool! Griffin only wants to play with the fish so far, but He will like fishing soon I think.

Here are some more great ideas and explanations about how to put on a swap: 

- Planet of the Apels Busy Bag Swap (great ideas!)

- Second Story Window

- On Money Saving Mom

- On Motherhood on a Dime 

Meal Plan Monday

• Monday: Chicken and Dumplings in the Crockpot
• Tuesday: Zero Point Soup and Salad 
• Wednesday: Dinner at Church
• Thursday: Leftovers
• Friday: Ranch Burgers and Steamed Veggies
• Saturday:Homecoming! 
• Sunday: Bonfire with Community Group

Meal Plan Monday!

We didnt do so great eating at home this past week. In fact, we ate at home on Monday and Tuesday, and thats it! Oops. We did make the meatloves, the Parmesan Chicken Bake, and the Breakfast casserole. The Parmesan Chicken was super yummy, but looked weird and had lots of liquid. The Breakfast casserole was good also.

This week:

• Monday: Bacon Ranch Chicken (one of my freezer meals)
• Tuesday: Soup and Salad
• Wednesday: Dinner at Church
• Thursday: Italian Chicken in the Crockpot (since we didnt do it last week)

Thats all we got this week :) What are you having?? 

Pinterest Hoarding

Most are guilty of it, Pinterest hoarding that is. We pin and pin and pin, but rarely make the time to try out any of the great ideas we "save for later". I am trying to make a point of trying out or "doing" at least one of my pins a month (and hoping to do much more!). So here is a summary of all the Pinterest ideas I have attempted thus far:

Tub Cleaner: For starters, I did exactly what this pin said and heated this before mixing. I wouldnt do that next time. It then made the mixture very very frothy and hard to squirt. Once I let it cool down (like a day or two later), it worked great. It really did take soap scum off pretty easily and kept it at bay for quite awhile. I did not love the smell (very vinegary). 

# 1: For Griffin's Bday I took a cue from this pin and made two #1's from pictures of his first year. Super simple and soooo cute! We still have them up on our mantle because we just hated to only use them for a day. 

Busy Bags: I am going to do a whole post on this soon, but wanted to just say Pinterest has great ideas for kid learning activities. 

Recipes:

Sausage wheels: These were yummy but messy and harder to do than they look. I used pizza crust dough and not crescent dough, so that could have been the problem. They were hard to roll tightly, and then came apart after I cut them. But once they baked they were yummy and stayed together. 

Ranch Greek Yogurt: I have seen a few versions of this one. I did the one linked here, which involved greek yogurt, milk and ranch seasoning. Verdict- it tasted good but was pretty liquidly.  I would just do the yogurt and seasoning next time. 

Ranch Pork Chops: Loved them. Easy, quick to put together, and yummy. 

Balsamic Pork Loin: I did this one according to the instructions, but next time I would just mix it all together and throw it in at the beginning. 

Nutella No Bake Cookies: SOOOO yummy. And really easy too. 

Shredded Chicken: This one was easy and yummy too. 

Breakfast Casserole