Food Friday - Chicken Tacos (In the Crock Pot!)

Chicken Tacos
Adapted from Confessions of a Homeschooler

This is such a great, easy dinner!  There really isn't much else to say about it: 

Ingredients:

• 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, or 6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 16 oz. jar of your favorite salsa
• Crockpot/Slow Cooker
• Tortillas & toppings of your choice (I used light sour cream, cheese, guacamole, and tomato)

Directions:
Place thawed chicken into your slow cooker, and cover with 1 whole jar of salsa. Cook on high for 4-6 hours, or low for 7-8. About 6 hours in, use a fork to shred chicken and stir it around to coat in the salsa. Keep on warm until you are ready to serve!
For tacos, I just put all of the toppings out in little bowls and let everyone make their own! You can also use this mixture for burritos, just wrap in tortillas, cover with green chili and bake 30 minutes @ 350 degrees. Top with cheese, sour cream, and guacamole!
 

A great post

Every once in awhile I read a post that is too good not to share.  This post is from a friend of mine on her blog called Our Beautiful Mess.

The post is titled "Why my kids and I need TV".  It's something I've been thinking about writing but, why write it when my friend hit the nail on the head.  Yes, my kids watch TV -they have actually learned a lot from "Preschool On TV".  In the heat of summer, it is our life saver and, since my kids don't take naps, it is a great way to take a rest in the afternoon.  We turn it off during preschool and it often stays off until late afternoon when we are all ready for a break! Kudo's to those parents who never turn on the TV - but I need my sanity (and about 2 hours in the morning to be awake enough to play HA) so we enjoy fun cartoons.

Enjoy!

St Patrick's Day

The green holiday is done and gone so I thought I would share what we did to celebrate.  I don't know why but St. Patrick's Day is the first holiday after Christmas that I get excited about.  I try to do something for Valentine's but I always seem to miss it - I guess I'm still recovering from all of the Christmas/New Year Celebrations NOT to mention the Superbowl! HA!

I shared on Monday what we did in Preschool for St. Patrick's Day.  You can check those ideas out HERE.

This year, St Patrick's Day fell on a Sunday so we altered a normal plans slightly.  We really started our festivities after we got home from church but the boys DID wear their St. Patrick's Day shirts to church :-)  We got new shirts this year since they had worn out the shirts I got two years ago !!  Here are my little Leprechauns!!

I'll be honest, originally, I had a few activities planned but, our Sunday's are kinda laid back and relaxed.  The boys (mostly Josh and Darryl HA) get to play video games, Nate actually gets to play the Bible game by himself on the computer and I . .. just relax :-)  The ideas I planned I'm going to tuck away in our holiday binder to use next year.

We did do a few fun things.  One, I found a cute idea over at Once Upon a Dream and made 3 leaf clovers for a special treat.

Yes, I ran out of green M and M's :-)  So, these were fun and are super rich but they are a little tedious to make. Next year, I'll have the boys each make a small tray themselves - they can do the work!! :-)

Unlike people who make Corned Beef and Cabbage, we Cabbage and . . Beef with Crash Potaotes (AKA Stuffed Cabbage and Potatoes) and Layered Jell-0.  For the record, Josh was quick to point that my Rainbow Jell-o was not in the right order!!.  For dessert we had Green Pudding with treasures in the bottom.

 Nate did not like the pudding so he just dug for his treat (A Rolo!)

 Josh ate some of his pudding until he found his treat- then he stopped!!!

After dinner the boys took the annual Green Bath (A drop of food coloring does wonders!). Sorry, no photos, they were in the bath before I could snap any of the water.

Our last activity of the day was a treasure hunt.  I hid Rolo's around the house (we don't like the gold, chocolate coins) and the boys had fun finding them (and eating some!).

(Excuse the Christmas PJ's HA - Note to Self - buy some green PJ's next year!!)

Hope your day was as fun as ours :-)

Too Cute not to Toot

So I really love this art idea from I am momma- hear me roar that shows blown up, black and white photos of your child's favorite toys.  Great idea for the play room!

I've seen several Flip-Flop wreaths but this is by far my favorite.  This idea comes from Dollar Store Crafts

Just Sew Sassy shares a great tutorial for a book holder for the car.  I love it - storage solutions for the car are always a plus. 

Finally, check out this great looking recipe from Yelton Manor Tour 
Raspberries + Chocolate = YUM! 

Happy Crafting!
 
 

March Preschool

We had another fun week with Preschool!  Check out these fun activities.

 I had a brainstorm last week.  I was tired of handing out papers every day so I bought each of the boys a 3 ring binder.  Now, I put our daily work in their binders and just add to it each day. This makes it easy for review and the boys are much more involved in their daily work now.  We still need to make covers for their binders sometime in the next few weeks.

 Don't you love this Easel?  I do - it was free!  Someone in the Homeschool group I'm a member off offered this up last week for the first taker.  The boys love it and play with it every single day.  Eventually, when the newness wears off, we'll use it more for school but right now, they just love to draw all day.

 One of our creative Projects for St Patrick's Day.  I found the idea over at Our Small-Town Idaho Life.  As you might notice - we were very "free" with our rainbow concept HA  Josh only wanted on streamer on his but he actually drew a rainbow whereas Nate like streamers but just colored in black.  I plan on sticking this idea in our "Holiday" binder to come back to next year.

 Sometimes the boys like to clean.  They wanted to clean the sink and spent about 30 minutes working together on that project.

 We colored a "In like a Lamb, Out like a Lion" page from Twisty Noodle.

 We also did some pepper painting to make shamrocks with an idea from Train up a Child - Learn as we go.  The boys did really well until they decided they liked finger painting instead :-)

 I have to share this - one of my goals for this "semester" is for the boys to write their names.  Josh wrote his name by himself - once he was done, he came to find me and show me what he did - he was so proud!

 Play time with daddy counts as learning too!  They are expert train builders.

Remember that one of my February Too Cute  was to put up a quote for my kids artwork?  Well, I ordered it and put it on the fridge where we hang our best artwork.  Right now we have our two St Patrick's Day crafts and the butterflies they made in Kid's Korner at church. I purchased the Vinyl from Sassy Sites.  She is great to work with and gets projects in the mail quickly!

 This week we worked on the song "I am a C"  - Josh loved reading the letters so we had to sing it REALLY slow!

A few last photos of our paint project.  :-)

Linking up over at:

Luck O' the Irish, to Ya!

Weekly Menu

We have another week of fun things coming up!   First, the kids are going to be with Papa and Nana for a few days.  I'm taking advantage of not babysitting right now and instead of my mom coming here for the day while I scrapbook, I'm sending my kids to her house for a few days so I can get some things done around here and have a "kid break" :-)  Second, this coming weekend is our annual trip to Metro Beach to celebrate the anniversary of when we got engaged.

Here's our food plan for the week:

Monday:  Time to get the grill going!  Hamburgers and  Sweet potatoes (in the crock pot!).

Tuesday:  Duke's :-)  This is a favorite restaurant of ours; it isn't super kid friendly so we tend to only go when the kids are gone!

Wednesday: We have a Red Lobster gift card to finish up so I plan to do some shopping in town, meet Darryl for dinner and actually go to practice with him - it isn't something I get to do often :-)

Thursday: Steak on the Grill YUM!  Baked Potatoes, and garlic bread

Friday: Heading to my parents for dinner

Saturday: Our annual trip to Metro Beach - we eat lunch at National Coney Island (per tradition) and will eat dinner somewhere out.

Sunday: At the parents for the day :-)

Monday: I think I'll plan Tacos - easy to make after a busy weekend and after grocery shopping during the day.

Hard to believe that Easter comes next!!  I guess I had better start thinking about what's for Easter dinner :-)