Toddler Talk

I'm sure you'll find these as amusing as I do

Peanut has a reoccurring conversation about her and her cousin and daddy, that goes like this; "Marie says can I try that and my daddy says oops she already put it in her mouth" then Peanut laughs hysterically. We have no idea where it came from. 

SP crying to get my attention while I'm cleaning up P

Peanut: it's ok SP I'll read to you in a little bit

Sweet Pea: keeps crying

P: it's ookay child! (said like a true southern woman - even though we don't live in the south)

At a friends house on Labor Day, Peanut & I walk into the bathroom

P: oh look there's a bathtub in here, how did that get here?

Me: we're going to the apple orchard

P: yeah! the apple porch

Later she called it - the apple porchard

SP: baulkie baulkie (aka blankie) and made a song of it in the car one day

Peanut : how do you make....?

House, eye, tree, sun, buckle, etc

Hope you enjoyed

No recipe, no problem

I have a confession, I don't have a recipe for tonight's dinner. Oh I'm sure their is probably a recipe out there somewhere in Pinterest land. Most likely with 20+ ingredients. And we all know to well I do with making sure I have all my ingredients. It's safe to say that the shorter the list of ingredients-the more likely I am to make the recipe. 

So here we are...

Warm up pre-cooked chicken (I used southwestern chicken from Oscar) with diced onion. (In hindsight, red onion would be tastier). And your favorite BBQ sauce & seasonings

I suppose you could also sautée your chicken, onions & BBQ - but I'm a big fan of semi-homemade philosophy by Sandra Lee - whatever makes my life easier. 

Next you butter one side of sourdough slices, then double stacked them

Layer...

BBQ

Cheese (cheddar would be better, but I use what I got)

Bacon

Add to you panini press, or in my case, a grill pan that doubles as a panini maker with an heavy metal plate that sits on top.  I Much prefer double duty appliances as it takes up less square footage 

Don't forget to add mayo on the dry top slice (as I almost did), it's like the glue that holds it together.

Flip (if needed)

Enjoy!

Then take your post dinner walk through the neighborhood to work off those calories. Peanut said it was bright but mostly kept her sunglasses on the top of her forehead-much like her daddy. 

😘 The Housewife

Family Prayer WHAT!

I am excited to share this new book, "The Little Oratory" by David Clayton & Leila Lawler.  It is one of Amazons best sellers. This weekend I had the great opportunity to listen to Leila speak at our local Catholic Church. She was so delightful!  She also blogs over at Like Mother, Like Daughter http://www.likemotherlikedaughter.org

And she inspired me that even in the mess of my life via 2 toddlers, 1dog, work and being a wife, I can add more prayer and devotions into our family without it making it feel dreadful or boring. Instead it can be something meaningful and (gasp!) also what we look forward to. 

Want to know how to add prayer table into your home?

Want to know how start praying the Liturgy of Hours?

How to start praying/teaching the rosary to your children?

How to add sacred art to your house?

And above all, PRACTICAL advice to add prayer life and devotions to your home, with children and your workplace!

This is the How To Book

(It even comes with 8 full page color icons that you can frame)

You can get information about the book here http://www.sophiainstitute.com/landing/little-oratory/

Perfect timing, because...Couple months back we got new den furniture and I decided we needed a new end table that I wanted to double as our prayer table. This is also the place I sit when Peanut and I start her homeschool

But I wasn't sure if it was right, (and possibly doesn't need the tube of butt paste either!). As you can see we have our rosaries, bible, some devotion books, & Holy Water. I am excited to read the book and find what more we can do to make this table what it needs to be, along with othe prayers and devotions we can add to our daily prayer.  Don't worry , I plan on sharing how it all goes down. 

(This is not paid advertisement, my opinions are my own)

Onward...

Here is this weeks menu

I'm totally bummed that's grocer didn't have cilantro, so I'm sub Italian parsley-can it work???  We'll find out

😘 The Housewife 

Home Preschool

Today was Peanut's First Day of home Preschool!  She was so excited and I was excited for her. Technically her official preschool learning is done at her daycare on Thursday and Friday, as it is an accredited early education school. But DH and I felt she could use more than 2 days. Therefore our home preschool idea was born. 

I'm a nurse not a teacher - where on earth do I begin to create a lesson plan/curriculum?  Insert Lacy from Catholic Icing blog http://www.catholicicing.com/catholic-preschool-curriculum/

I love her blog - she offers practical crafts and catholic teaching advice to average catholic mom like myself. She also has "Catholic ABC's - hands on preschool curriculum" - brilliant!  

It's all spelled out for me and I can change some things as I see fit. She does help support her blog and Family with the profits from her book, therefore I will not be posting exact information from her book. However anything she does post on her blog you can view at no cost. Please be a gem and hop on over to her blog and check her out. 

First day went better than I thought, way better. I really just need to work on my flow, so that she doesn't get bored and then I loose her altogether. Such as - I had to make copies of some coloring pages so I had her work on tracing. Then I heard her fall off the kitchen chair - I'm not sure how this happened, but I think I'll make sure all my copies are made the day before; least I have another mommy failure to file away.  This is a post fall pic

Here she is working on her craft (from the website)

And the final project - which will be her home school bag

Here she is working on her coloring pages & counting - which also doubled as her snack 

Pray for us as we go down the home school journey. I will sure to keep you in the loop on how it all goes down

😘 The Housewife

LLR - large local reaction

That's the reaction I'm having from a bee sting. I'm mid-30's and I've never been sting by a bee. I was pulling weeds Sunday afternoon (my first problem) when I came across a nest. Apparently they liked the weeds and got mad I was removing them. 

Itching didn't really start until Monday and then I woke up this morning and it sorta doubled in size. 

I consulted my fellow nurses and we have concluded that if not better by tomorrow I may be looking at infection. 

Since I'm so busy tomorrow, I don't have time to wait. So visited a urgent case to have it looked at.

No surprise that while I was waited to be seen, it started to look better. Oh well I still waited it out and found that it was not a problem, take some Benadryl and hydrocortisone cream. 

Good thing, because I have no time to be sick - how about you?!

😘 The Housewife

Monday Funday!?

"Does someone have a case of the Mondays?"  This is the last day the DH is off from work, & my usual day off. I got some energy from -I don't know where -and vacuumed the upstairs along with pulling old clothes out of my closet to either 1.  Send to consignment or 2.  Donate to the Mission. Topping on the cake was the girls played nicely in Peanuts room. 

Later I got to go to the gym, grocery shopping and to target without little ones in tow - heavenly!

When I got home Peanut helped make dinner. I found two recipes in the recent Taste of Home - tonight it's the Chicken & Broccoli Casserole, with some changes like I added onion and dollop of sour cream.  (I even remembered to bring the recipe to the store).  I have to say I was a little nervous about this. She likes broccoli but I wasn't sure about the onion or the stuffing mix on top.  I was thinking if she helped make it, then she more likely will eat it - yes, no, maybe?

Here she is placing one by one the broccoli I diced up

Here she is eating the broccoli

Here she is eating the cheese. 

Everytime I added an ingredient she told me which ones she doesn't like - onion, butter, stuffing. I told that it would taste good all together, to which she replied "I'm just telling you"

Color me shocked! She ate it all!

Here is the rest of the weeks menu...

The beef enchiladas is the second recipe from the magazine. 

I started this a couple of months ago. And although I'm not very good at doing this every week - it's very helpful. DH often gets home before I do on my work days, when it's not obvious what's for dinner, he simply pulls out a frozen pizza. Not good. So this helps him at least get things started and I pick up when I get home. 

All went well for a Monday....I would even call it a Funday!

😘 The Houewife

Mini-Vaca Day 4

It's go home day 😢. But before we take off - we have a stack of pancakes to get through at Hotcakes Emporium off Ditch road in Indy

Delicious with a side of fast. I got the 2x2x2 - that's 2 eggs, 2 pancakes (or waffles) and 2 sausage (or bacon). 

The girls got pancakes with sausage. 

DH got biscuits & gravy with eggs & sausage

The best part was when our server asked if we wanted our coffees to go...and then topped off the cups with more coffee - Alleluia & Amen!

We then sped our way to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Museum. This was all for daddy!  He was so excited, he could hardly contain himself. (Gear-heads)

We started off taking a tour around the track then walking through the museum. 

I recommend going even if your not a racing fan like myself. You can truly appreciate what it's all about. 

(If I let him, DH would spend all day in our garage)

Peanut thought this looked like our double stroller at home - close, very close

Every winner of the Indy500 gets their name inscribed on this trophy along with a replica of their head - I found this very disturbing, no?

We made it home without incident. Then dropped off the kiddos at my parents house along with their cousins, so that we plus my brothers and their wives could all go out on a triple date.  My parents are saints and slightly crazing for suggesting caring for 5 very young children for the evening. Not that we gave them a chance to take back their offering!

😘 The Housewife

Mini-Vaca Day 3

I feel it one of the essentials to traveling - taking in some of the local eateries. I would like to say that the whole trip is done this way, but when you have picky eaters that get hungry fast - leaves little room for adventure. But we do try. When we arrived wed evening we dined at Upland Brewery Co in Carmel. The brewing co is based out of Bloomington IN. The girls could have easily shared a meal. DH has had their beer before, so he was well versed on their selection. He's somewhat of a beer aficionado. We took home a 6pk for later that night

Thursday evening we went to Mudbugs Cajun Cafe in Carmel IN. It was goooood (said with a southern drawl).  They had pbj for the kiddos with hush puppies. I got the shrimp po'boy & DH got pick 3 combo - shrimp po'boy, chick sausage jambalaya, crawfish casserole. I wish I had remember to take pictures. 😣

Tomorrow morning, we plan on going to Hotcakes Emporium - looking forward to it and this I promise to get pictures. 

We all loved the zoo today. Boy am I glad I got the "last minute" new stroller. When Sweet Pea came around, I traded in the single stroller for the double stroller. Which is great especially when we go for walks with our dog. But, I don't like taking it out in crowded places. Peanut prefers to walk anyways so I've been putting SP in the umbrella stroller. They are light and fold small, but I really hate that they have no storage and when you lift out a child...down goes the stroller. So I sought out a stroller from the lightweight group. It was the cheapest on the shelf. It's taller which is ideal for the hubby. It's got a nice storage basket. It has 2 cup holders & has a detachable tray. The only wish it didn't have, was to fold as small as the umbrella stroller 

Back to the zoo...Every time SP saw an animal she said "mooooo". We had to teach her some new noises like "ooh ooh ah ah" & "roar". Which she gladly practiced the rest of the day, at the mall & at dinner

Have a great night

😘The Housewife

Mini-Vaca Day 2

I'm not sure how, but I failed to remember that we change time zones when we go to Indianapolis. When you have kids you suddenly loathed time changes!  We actually have been trying to stay on our own time zone. To sum it up...kids went to bed at 830 which is actually 730 and we went to bed at midnight which is actually 11, Sweet Pea woke up at 500 which is really 4 and didn't go back down until 5?? No wait 6😒 and then we slept in until 830 - awesome 😃 but wait that's still 730 - which is no different from home 😞. So we got to the museum at 1045 but really 945 so we got to eat late at 1 which is 12, but Sweet Pea got tired fast after that and so we left at 2 which is really 1. (Are you keeping up?). But only slept 45 min which is 1 hour too short...so are we still on central time or Eastern? Oh how I hate you "time change"

Peanut says:  Every time we get to the elevator at the hotel, Peanut asks is we are going to use the "ups elator". I love it

We went down to Carmel's Art & Design District. On our way, this butterfly came over. I can't believe it let her touch it...multiple times

Then we pass this piece of art

She shoved her hand up his nose each time - classy toddler appreciating the arts 

Throughout the district, were different statues. 

Immediately they became friends

The children's museum was awesome. Very family and young kid oriented. You think this is inherent all things considering, but this put most kid tourist attractions to shame. 

Bathrooms with some stalls that are child size & lower hand washing stations, multiple (not just one) family restrooms, food court with toddler, child and adult portion choices (brilliant!) and breast feeding rooms if moms want privacy option.

Here are some highlights

😘 The Housewife