Family
Fresh & Healthy: Fun Fall Fruit to Add to Your Kids Lunch
Are you are looking for a sweet and healthy Fall or Halloween treat to send in your kids school lunch? Grab an orange, draw a pumpkin face on it, and stick it in their lunch box. They will love it! It is a fun, sweet, and healthy food for them to eat. They will be excited to eat their fruit at lunch. Doing something as simple as adding a face to an orange can motivate the kids to eat more fruit!
Thankfully, our kids have always enjoyed eating their fruits and vegetables, but adding a little extra surprise (like a pumpkin face) during the various Holiday Seasons gets them even more excited. What are your favorite healthy Halloween snacks that you like to send in your kids lunches? Our kids get enough candy sweets around Halloween Holiday so offering more healthier food options is always something we want to encourage. Another bonus is the orange provides extra vitamin C which is perfect boost for the kids immune systems as we enter the seasons were colds seem to spread like wildfire through school.
Make 1 & Freeze 1 Meal: Taco Lasagna Recipe
Make 1 & Froze 2 Taco Lasagna Meals! Yay!
I have been trying to do at least one Make 1 and Freeze 1 meal a week for dinner. The idea is we can eat the one meal that night for dinner and the other one will go into the freezer to eat at a later date when we are a little more pushed for time. I started doing this a couple months ago as I was preparing for my two weeks away on a work trip. I wanted to make sure there was plenty in the freezer for my husband to pull out the night before and either put in the crockpot or oven after picking the kids up from school.
This particular recipe is a favorite with our family. I was able to Make 1 and Freeze 2 Taco Lasagnas for a later dinner! Since I was already making up a big batch I was able to do more which will be a blessing later when we pull them out of the freezer. I like being prepared and having a back up plan. Whether it is a crazy week or busy weekend we have some options if we need them!
Another solution that I had to come up with regarding our meals is how to keep some food ingredients separate because we have one family member that cannot have regular refried beans or dairy. Once I use up the refried beans that I have in the pantry I am going to try making my own from black beans or other beans that can be eaten, but for now though I have come up with a simple solution that seems to work well for our family. I put a barrier between the refried beans and dairy side which keeps the items separate when cooking and eating.
I cut one small soft flour tortilla in half to use a barrier between the two sides. As you can see the side with refried beans is larger than the side without it because 3 of us eat from that side and only one from the non-refried bean and non-cheese side of the Taco Lasagna. PLEASE NOTE that the person in our family that has the food allergy will not go into shock or needs hospitalized if they encounter or happen to eat the food so while this option works for our family it may not be the perfect solution if you have someone with severe food allergies because there still is a chance of the food cross over (usually when serving). The food allergy is real and we have seen the side effects to veering even a little off her diet, but thankfully we have come up with a solution where everyone can share the same meal with very little adjustments. The person with the food allergy gets a lot of extra meat for protein instead of the cheese and refried beans.
Taco Lasagna still divided this time with a layer of meat and cheese. The side without the cheese gets extra of the meat mixture! I have shared our Taco Lasagna recipe in the past, but will post it below again so it is easier to locate.
Taco Lasagna:
- 1 pound ground Beef or Turkey
- 1/2 cup chopped Green Pepper (optional)
- 1/2 cup chopped Onions
- 2/3 cup Water
- 1 package of Taco Seasoning
- 1 (15 oz) can Black Beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 (14.5 oz ) can Mexican Tomatoes, undrained
- 1 (16 oz) can Refried Beans
- 6 (8 inch) Flour Tortillas
- 3 cups shredded Mexican Cheese
In a large skillet, cook the meat, green pepper, and onion over medium heat until done. Add water and taco seasoning; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered 2 minutes. Stir in black beans and tomatoes. Simmer uncovered 10 minutes. Place 2 flour tortillas in a greased 13 x 9 pan. Spread half of the refried beans then half of the beef mixture. Sprinkle with 1 cup Mexican cheese. Repeat layers. Top with remaining tortillas and cheese (I try to add a little extra cheese if I have it and sliced olives if we have them in the pantry or fridge). Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until heated through and the cheese is melted. I usually take the foil off the last few minutes to let the cheese on top get a little crispy since our family likes it that way.
The top of our split Taco Lasagna! Everyone’s happy (those who want cheese and those who do not) and this is now ready to be put in the freezer for us to eat at a later time!
Our Wall Street Journal Has Been Shredded!
Our Wall Street Journal has been attacked by the furry critter that thinks she rules our yard!
Some days, for whatever reason, our dog decides to shred our Wall Street Journal before we have a chance to get it picked up and out of the driveway. It doesn’t happen every day and there really isn’t any rhyme or reason to it (that we can come up with). We think she tends to shred it more when it gets thrown a little further into the driveway. Maybe she doesn’t like the news that day or she’s just playing or she’s mad at us for who knows what. We did uncover three of her partially decaying squirrels this week when we were mowing so maybe this is her way of paying us back. Sometimes she just tears the plastic off the newspaper and other days she gets the plastic and the newspaper.
It’s some what readable. Hopefully, there wasn’t any important news in the sections that are missing, ha!
School Projects: The Eye Ball Donut Creation & Writing Assignment
A tray of “The Eye Ball” Donuts ready to take to school
The girls recently had a writing assignment that they had to do for school. Brina came up with The Eye Ball Donut creation. For extra credit they could make their creations and share them with their classmates and teachers at school. We came up with a cookie creation using all the ingredients she mentioned in her writing assignment and they turned out fairly well. Instead of using cookies for Brina’s we used a powdered doughnut or in this case a munchkin for Dunkin Donuts. The donuts were a perfect treat to share with her classmates instead of cupcakes on Halloween. Karlie also did a cookie creation and writing assignment called Inside Your Feet.
The Eye Ball was super easy to put together and a big hit with Brina’s classmates.
Her tray of eye balls ready to be wrapped and delivered to school.
The Eye Balls did exactly what we wanted them to do – overnight the blue frosting that we used to attach the pupil part of the eye spread a little giving The Eye Balls blue colored eyes!
The Eye Ball Items:
- White Powdered Donuts (Dunkin Donut sells white powdered munchkins which are perfect for this treat, but you can make homemade if you want)
- Blue Frosting (we used the blue writing frosting but you could use brown or green, etc…)
- Edible Eyes (you can pick these up at Hobby Lobby, Walmart, etc…)
- Red Sprinkles
Once you have your white powdered donuts add a small drop of blue frosting and attached the pupil of your eye to your eye ball. Dip the bottom of the donut into red sprinkles and place on a tray. Let set overnight so the blue frosting will spread a little bit giving you a blue eye color.
The donuts turned out well and were a big hit with Brina’s class. It was a lot of fun putting these together with her and they were super simple. These would be an easy Fall or Halloween treat to do for a party or for fun.
School Projects: Inside Your Feet Cookie Creation & Writing Assignment
A tray of “Inside Your Feet” Cookies ready to take to school
The girls recently had a writing assignment that they had to do for school. Karlie came up with an Inside Your Feet Cookie creation. For extra credit they could make their creations and share them with their classmates and teachers at school. We came up with a cookie creation using all the ingredients she mentioned in her writing assignment and they turned out fairly well. The cookies were a perfect treat to share with her classmates instead of cupcakes on Halloween. Brina also did a cookie creation and writing assignment called The Eye Ball.
A few days before the actual assignment due date we did a trial run and experimented to make sure we could make her “skin, blood, bones, and ankle joint” to reflect the Inside Your Feet cookie as accurately as possible. We tried white sparkle writing gel (bottom right) but is blended too much, we tried straight white sprinkles (bottom middle) it was a lot of work and hard to get straight, we tried round white sprinkles (bottom left) too difficult to get straight, we tried pearl balls (top left) wasn’t too bad and would have been a more do-able option, and the final attempt was our favorite and probably the easiest option too, we used white writing frosting.
We didn’t have any feet cookie cutters and the stores we checked didn’t carry any so Jake made a set we could use with his 3D printer. Once again it saves the day!
Up close of the Inside Your Feet Cookie
Inside Your Feet Items:
- Sugar Cookie Dough or Brownies(we did some of each)
- Red Frosting (or white frosting with red dye)
- White Writing Frosting
- Red and White Mint
Make your favorite sugar cookie dough or brownies (your can make from scratch or buy a mix). The sugar cookies seemed to look more like feet with toes, but the brown mix had less steps to put together. Make your sugar cookie dough, roll it out, cut out your feet, and bake. OR Make your brownies first and cut out your feet after they are baked and cooled.
Once the cookies are cooled you can decorate by putting red frosting on the cookie. We did not go to the edge of the cookie with the frosting because Karlie wanted to show the layers of the Inside Your Feet Cookie (bottom – skin, frosting – blood and muscles, white – bones, and mint – ankle joint). Next add your red and white mint. Draw your foot bones with the white writing frosting.
The cookies turned out well and were a big hit with Karlie’s class. It was a lot of fun putting together with her.
What the different parts of the cookies represent:
- Bottom Sugar Cookie or Brownies- skin
- Red Frosting – blood and muscles
- White Writing Frosting – bones
- Red & White Mint – ankle joint
3/4 with Dairy + 1/4 Non-Dairy = 1 Whole Family Pizza
We have a member of our household who does not eat dairy. It is not a go-to-the-hospital-or-stop-breathing-dairy-allergy, but it is one that we try to be careful with because it does have noticeable effects when dairy is eaten. Over the past few months we have experimented with ways we can make only one family pizza with both dairy and non-dairy toppings. Our dairy-free eater is not a big fan of the soy or vegan cheeses either so after several attempts to “get it right” we have come up with a pizza solution that makes the whole family happy (both those who want cheese and those who do not).
We make one whole pizza crust that is non-dairy (see recipe below), add the sauce, and put two lines of pepperoni’s separating about 1/4 of the pizza from the non-dairy part of the pizza. Approximately 3/4 of the pizza gets cheese and toppings while the remaining 1/4 of the pizza gets sauce and extra toppings. When we cut the pizza we cut the non-dairy part of the pizza first (being careful to stay within the pepperoni lines). Everyone is happy with their special type of pizza, the dairy is avoided for the family member who doesn’t eat it, and we still only have to make one family pizza for our evening meal. It may be hard to make out the exact pepperoni lines in the picture above, but you can see the part that has cheese and the section that is noticeably more red in color with extra toppings which is the non-dairy part of the pizza.
We have done this multiple times over the past few months and it has worked so well. The only thing that may change in the future as the kids get older is one pizza may not be big enough for our family of four. For now it is a simple solution to accommodate all family members diets yet still be able to enjoy the pizza together. The one who doesn’t eat dairy thinks it’s awesome she has her own special section of the pizza and has fun choosing her extra toppings! While some of the other family members who think it’s not really pizza without a good helping of cheese are happy to eat their section of the pizza.
Homemade Pizza Dough
- 1 cups warm water (105 to 115 degrees F.)
- 1 Tablespoons active dry yeast
- 1 teaspoons sugar
- 1 teaspoons salt
- 2 Tablespoons oil (vegetable, Canola, or olive oil)
- 2 1/2 cups flour (can use all whole-wheat, half white/half whole-wheat, or all white)
Pour the warm water into a bowl and sprinkle the yeast over it. Stir to dissolve.
Add the remaining ingredients and mix.
Dump onto a floured surface and knead dough for two to five minutes until smooth and no longer sticky.
Roll out and shape onto a greased pizza pan.
Add pizza toppings of your choice. Bake at 500 degrees for around 10 minutes (until the crust looks crispy and lightly browned).
Makes one pizza!
Most of the time I will double this pizza dough recipe. Once the dough is made split it in half. Roll out one half of the dough for your pizza meal that night and put the other half in a Ziploc bag in the freezer for a meal later when you don’t have as much time to prep for dinner.
School Projects: Southwest Region Native American Pueblo House
Southwestern Region Native American Pueblo House Project
Karlie recently did a Social Studies project for school. She was studying about the Native Americans and the different regions. Karlie picked the Southwest Region and the pueblo house for her project. She had to make a pueblo house and write a paragraph on how the lodging benefited them.
Even though the girls are both in the same grade and have similar projects they rarely chose do to the same thing with their projects! The great part about them being so different is we have more opportunities to learn while doing various school projects. For this particular Social Studies Project Brina did the Great Plains Region with Tepee housing and Karlie chose the Southwest Region with Pueblo housing.
Putting the final touches on the pueblo house!
Karlie‘s Southwest Region Pueblo Paragraph: Southwest Pueblo Native Americans used pueblo houses that were made of harden clay. They lived in a village and their houses resembled an apartment building on mesas. The pueblo housing was beneficial to their way of life because the mesas helped cool the houses and protect them from sand storms. You can fit a lot of families into a pueblo apartment building. It is easier to help each other out because they were all together during bad weather or other hard times. In their village they grew corn, beans, squash, and cotton to help feed their families. All the people in the village worked together hunting, farming, and raising their families.
Karlie putting her title and name on her project!
Jake and Karlie put together this neat Pueblo House with items we had in the garage!
Pueblo Construction:
- Flat Pieces of Scrap Wood
- Wood Glue
- Speckled Paint
- Wooden Dowels
- Cotton Balls
- Markers
They took flat pieces of scrap wood from various wood working projects and glued them together to create this Pueblo house. The house has three levels. Once all the pieces are glued together and the glue has dried they attached the house to a flat board with wood glue. After the structure was put together we sprayed the whole pueblo with speckled paint (you can get this at Home Depot or Lowe’s). It ended up taking two coats of spray paint in order to get it covered well. The ladders are made out of small wooden dowels. The top windows and doors are cut out, but the other ones are drawn on with marker. The cotton balls represent the cotton the Southwest Region Native Americans grew in their fields. Inside the house on the top level there is a fire and a mat for sleeping.
Pueblo house is finished and ready to go!
We didn’t paint the back of the Pueblo with two coats of paint, but this picture gives you a glimpse at the top inside which has the 3D fire and mat for sleeping. The little storage “cubby” (as Karlie called it) with the paper in it on the lower left is where Karlie stored her written paragraph and ladders during transport to and from school.
Karlie so proud of her project! It was a handful to carry into school!
School Projects: Great Plains Native American Tepee Home
Great Plains Tepee Project
Brina recently did a Social Studies project for school. She was studying about the Native Americans and the different regions. Brina picked the Great Plains Region and the tepee for her project. She had to make a tepee and write a paragraph on how the lodging benefited them. On this Social Studies project Brina did the Great Plains Region with Tepee housing and Karlie chose the Southwest Region with Pueblo housing.
Making her designs on the tepee!
She finished the Native American designs on her tepee! Looks good!
Tepee Construction:
- Cereal Box
- Old White T-Shirt
- Elmer’s Glue
- Wooden Dowels
- Hot Glue & Hot Glue Gun
- Markers
Cut a cereal box into a semi-circle. Use Elmer’s Glue and attach the T-Shirt to the non-print side of the cardboard from the cereal box. Once the glue dries use the markers to create your own special Native American designs on your tepee. Cut out the door to your tepee. Hot glue the wooden dowels to the inside of the tepee. Once the glue dries stand the tepee up and hot glue it to the poster board. To help your tepee maintain its shape you can use rubber bands around it as it dries in place.
Brina’s Great Plains Paragraph: The Great Plains Native Americans used tepees because they were very transportable. They used the tepees so they could follow the buffalo and other animals while hunting them. Their main source of food was buffalo meat. The tepees were light weight, transportable, could be folded up, and carried to the next spot. they also used the tepee poles to carry buffalo meat. The tepees were shelter during the nights for the families and transportable when they were trying to find food. The tepees were a valuable tool used to help feed their families.
Brina’s social studies project ready to go!
She was so excited to hot glue her horse and a folded up tepee on her poster board!
Her tepee turned out well!
Brina was super excited about the fire because Jake used his 3D printer to make it for her project!
Awesome learning lesson about the Great Plains Native Americans and their transportable home – the tepee! It was a great project!
Family Activities: Fall Pumpkin Carving Fun
The girls carved pumpkins glowing on the front porch! Can you guess who designed which one?
It has been a tradition for our family to carve pumpkins around Halloween. A lot of times we carve the pumpkins the weekend before Halloween, but with everything going on this year it was a little later this year. On Halloween afternoon our family went out to search for the perfect carving pumpkins. After stopping at three stores we started to wonder if we were even going to find any pumpkins to carve. Finally, we ended up at Publix and thankfully they still had a lot of pumpkins including some huge ones. All the pumpkins, not matter what size were $5! Of course the kids picked the biggest ones they could find. We came home with one 25 pound and one 26 pound pumpkin!
This year instead of dressing up and running around doing trick and treating the kids decided they would rather spend the evening as a family celebrating Halloween. So thankful that the girls wanted to hang out and spend a relaxing evening with us. We let each kid pick out their favorite bag of candy, a pumpkin to carve, some fun games, and family activities to do Halloween evening. For Halloween dinner we picked up Chinese take out as a special treat.
My brother and sister-in-law brought my nephews came by dressed up as the cutest little lion and minion! It was the first year we had trick or treaters because usually we are never home for Halloween! It was great getting to see them and spend some time hanging out with them on Halloween!
The pumpkin is fresh, washed, and ready to be carved!
Cleaning out their pumpkins! They did the majority of the cleaning, designing, and cutting on their own!
Brina saw a cat designed she liked online and used that as an example to draw one on her pumpkin! We used wet erase marker to draw on the pumpkin before carving it out.
Karlie couldn’t find a design she liked online so she drew a rough draft of what she wanted on a piece of paper than drew it again on the pumpkin! She really wanted a rocket, Saturn, and a star on her pumpkin so this is what she created!
Brina carving her cat pumpkin out!
Karlie carving her space pumpkin out!
We have a space and cat pumpkin glowing on our front porch!
The girls chose more non-traditional pumpkin designs. Brina got her cat idea from another pumpkin she saw. Karlie designed her rocket, Saturn, star, and space one completely on her own (and fit her personality and interests perfectly)!
The pumpkins! I am pleased with how well the girls pumpkins turned out and they really did most of the work on them!
Recipes: Worcestershire Flavored Pumpkin Seeds
Our kids love getting their pumpkins every Fall before Halloween so we can carve them and roast the pumpkin seeds. Due to traveling and other activities that have taken up our time we were a little later getting our pumpkins. Finally, on Halloween we got the girls pumpkins, after going to three other stores we found pumpkins at Publix! After cleaning out their pumpkins we had enough seeds to make two big patches of roasted pumpkins seeds, another favorite tradition of our family.
Every year we used at least one of our favorite pumpkin seed recipes and try to experiment with a new one. Some years the new pumpkin seed recipes are amazing and they become a new favorite while others are a flop. This year we made the Cinnamon Apple Cider Pumpkin Seeds and I tried a new pumpkin seed recipe using a touch of worcestershire sauce. The worcestershire flavored pumpkin seed recipe was a big hit with all my family members. They agreed it was one we could add to our collection of favorite pumpkin seeds recipes.
Worcestershire Flavored Pumpkin Seeds
- 2 cups fresh Pumpkin Seeds
- 2 tablespoons Butter or Margarine
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
- 1/8 teaspoon liquid Wood Smoke
- 1/4 teaspoon Seasoned Salt
- 1/4 teaspoon Garlic Salt
Rinse the fresh pumpkin seeds. Saute pumpkin seeds in the butter for about 5 minutes (until they start to turn brown). Add the worcestershire sauce and liquid wood smoke to the mix of pumpkin seeds. Saute and stir continually for about 2 minutes. Sprinkle the seasoned and garlic salt onto the pumpkin seeds and mix until evenly coated. Spread seeds into a shallow baking pan and baked at 250 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes or until crispy. Stirring every 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, allow to cool, and put in a dish to serve.
In our house if the pumpkin seed recipe is good about half the pumpkin seeds have disappeared before they have completely cooled and been put into the bowl to serve. The kids especially like to come by the stove as they are cooling and “taste test” the new recipe and provide their feedback! Some of the pumpkin seed recipes we have made are sweet while others are salty. The worchestershire flavored pumpkin seed recipe fits into the salty range. You can adjust the amount of seasoning based on your specific tastes. Enjoy!
