High Five Friday

I have been a little negligent, but I've been so busy! Here is are my Top Five from this past week:

#1: All our dinners have been super-easy because I actually had a free Saturday last weekend, and I spent much time that Saturday roasting meats, chopping veggies, making biscuits, and preparing our seriously lacking snack bin. I ended up freezing tons of meat, which have made great dinners, I tried some new recipes, and I haven't worked very hard on any dinners (well, I worked hard on them on Saturday, but that was fun because I had the time and I wasn't stressed). Oh, and a little side note here--I was inspired by a post on Pinterest to do the freezer meals, but after pinning the link, then actually looking at it, I decided against using any of those ideas because it was sort of a disappointing link. Great idea, but I used my own recipes for the most part, that I already know we love!

#2: Also related to food--I made 7-up biscuits for the first time--best biscuits ever. They were gone that day.

#3. Dinner out with some friends on Sunday--friends who we haven't seen in a long time! Always nice.

#4. The blessing of having so many involved parents in my classroom at school--such amazing, caring and helpful parents! We got a great start on my "remodel" project this past week.

#5: The fact that my parents watch our kids while we are at work--the second best thing to actually being home with them myself! Here is a small glimpse of what they were able to do at Nana's this week:

* Finger paint

* Build a box mansion, yard, and neighbor's house ;-)

* Play outside for hours!!!!

* School (Nana does at least one school activity per day with Jackson)

* Help Papa with the remodel (not sure exactly how much help Lilly was)

Happy Friday and enjoy your Super Bowl weekend! (Yayyyy...even though neither of our teams made it. )

Random--January 2012

Some random fun times at our house lately:

Lilly being cute after her bath

A new science project (I had never tried this, even when teaching preschool!). We added vegetable oil to the top of a jar almost full of oil, then dropped food coloring into it. The food coloring moves really slowly through the oil, of course, then sort of explodes when it hits the water. Jackson proceeded to use up two entire bottles of food coloring playing with this. (This was a Pinterest idea, might I add.)

Love how excited he gets over this kind of stuff

Lilly loves her cereal (most of the time she has it with berries, which is even messier!)

We love it when Grandma Jones visits!

"Fishing" for snacks (I saw this somewhere recently, but can't remember where...not my idea, but Jackson loved it!)

Playdough Fun!

Fun with Boxes!

Jackson has always had a hay day with boxes and is always confiscating Lilly's diaper boxes (which I intend to make into fabric-covered, cute storage containers--it isn't looking likely it will happen anytime soon, I guess I will have to get sneaky about keeping the boxes!). Here are some of the recent projects he has completed (and all ideas are his own!):

Cutting away with his plastic pocket knife (thankfully his real leatherman was conveniently missing)

I was slacking in the picture-taking department, but before the robot, the box was one of those claw machines with stuffed animals (coin operated and all, he was actually dropping coins into a slot he cut and he had a bunch of his stuffed animals crammed in there--very clever!) After the claw machine and the robot, the box became a house with Mickey Mouse stickers everywhere because they were having a party. It kept him busy for like three evenings. Awesome.

The house/robot/claw machine got tossed, but he quickly moved on! I was making biscuits and he wanted to "help". As he was helping, he goes, "Mom, you ever have one of those toy ovens?" Well, after chatting about Easy Bake ovens and how maybe someday Lilly will have one, Jackson asked if he could just make one. I had no idea what he had in mind until...he asked for a box! The fruit snacks box was quickly made into his own little oven, which kept him busy through Lilly's entire nap, my biscuit-making, and the making of like three freezer meals!

And, finally, the lucky dude made a HAUL in the box department at Nana and Papa's this week. They are remodeling and guess what came in this past week? That's right...all the kitchen cabinets, complete with massive boxes. When I arrived the first afternoon to pick him up, there was a box-house with an upstairs! Today the whole playroom was a maze of intricately designed boxes. Parents, if your children are driving you crazy or bored, just give them boxes! Trust me. And, by the way--Mom, if you're reading this, I hope you are taking pictures of the box projects at your house!