Roasted Chicken in a CrockPot

This past week's challenge was for an entree. I wanted a recipe for something that was easy and that would be used over & over again. How about roasting a chicken in the CrockPot? It turned out beautifully; the meat fell off the bones as I was lifting the chicken out! If you're interested, click here for more info.


Using this recipe has inspired me to challenge myself in a new way. I've really been missing my Monthly Menus but have been wanting to do something different. And since our CrockPot does take up a bit of room in our little kitchen...

I'm going to use the slow cooker for one meal a week until the end of 2011. Hopefully I'll end up with some delicious easy meals. If you have any recipes to share, I'd love them. Check back in if you are interested in using your own CrockPot more too!

The Village of St. Jacobs

With our days of owning a car dwindling down to just a few, a fellow mom & I decided to take a road trip to a town that is heavily Amish and that has an amazing market.


So we packed up the girls and drove an hour and a half to St. Jacobs County. As soon as we drove into the village, we saw two horse-drawn carriages with Amish families inside. Now I love my life but sometimes a life like that does look quite appealing.


Anyways, the market was SO impressive. Stand after stand had beautiful products that I wanted to buy.


Since we're only two adults, I limited my purchases to peaches, corn on the cob, cantaloupe, cabbage, green onions (that were a foot-and-a-half long), and bread. I wish I could have bought tomatoes, nectarines, cherries, homemade caramel rolls, green beans, watermelon, yellow plums (anybody had them before?), patty pan squash, and about a gazillion other things. Sometimes I just wish I could eat all day long!

French Toast Waffles

Looking for a new twist on breakfast for dinner? How about French Toast Waffles? I found the idea in the JOY of Cooking and it was delicious and easy. Mix up your french toast mix as usual, dip your bread, and then put it in the waffle maker rather than on the griddle!

This is definitely going into my new recipe file for simple family meals!

Presqu'ile Provincial Park

This past weekend we went camping with friends from church. The campground was very unlike what John & I typically go for. Instead of hiking trails that rise and fall with the landscape, we had the sandy beaches of Lake Ontario.


Earlier this summer I was amazed with the beach of Lake Michigan. There was a good ten feet of nice sand before you got to the lake. But check this out!


Unfortunately, we had a sick little babe with us. So, laying on the beach consisted of this:


Despite Helena being sick for some of the time, we had a really nice weekend. Helena had a playmate for when she was feeling good:


And we had nice conversations with friends. A campfire is usually good for that, isn't it?

Spinach-and-Artichoke Dip

Another week has gone by, and this week's challenge was an appetizer. We had Spinach-and-Artichoke Dip. I wouldn't really recommend the recipe I used, but still wanted to put the post on this blog for my own record-keeping sake.

Room

I've found that the Toronto library has LONG wait lists for books. So, instead of reading I've been listening to the book "Room". It's a fun activity - makes me think of the days when listening to the radio was an evening event. Plus, the book is really good. It's a story of a boy who spent the first five years of his life held captive in a 11x11 foot room with his mom. Sad but good. I recommend it!

Sitting & Smiling

Can you tell from our comments that this is a new activity of hers?

Toronto IS on the way!

Since we're a 16-20 hour drive away from our immediate extended family (What are we supposed to call our siblings and parents now? What does that make our aunts, uncles and cousins?), one would think we don't get many just-passing-through visitors. Which is true, kind of. However, we are blessed with a large international airport and friends & family that travel! So we saw friends last August & December, my sister Katie in June while she was on a layover to Rome and on Saturday we saw my cousin Rev on his way back from Germany.


Isn't he TALL? He was the youngest cousin for a long time, so when you haven't seen him for 4 1/2 years, you just don't expect to need to stand on your tippie toes in order to give him a hug! We had a nice afternoon together - it was fun to teach him how to hold a baby and then to hear him talking to Helena in German.

Rev, you kept thanking us for spending our Saturday with you. There's no other way we would have rather spent it! If you ever fly through again - or if any of you blog readers fly through - please let us know. We'll show you around or at least feed you meal!

Monthly Challenges

A few friends of mine & I have been having monthly challenges for the last three months. It's been really fun to have a project going on with other people while I'm a stay-at-home mom life. Provides a strange sense of community.

The first month required us to take 30 photographs, one each day, of our children. The type of photograph was specified, such as a close-up, one featuring the eyes, one using bokeh, etc. It helped me to learn more about our camera, as well as get some good (and some bad) photos of Helena. Oh, and the grandparents LOVED seeing a new photo of her everyday.

Memorizing Philippians 3 was the challenge for July. I made it through verse 6.

August's challenge is right up my alley - trying four new recipes and then sharing our thoughts on them. It's great! If anyone is interested, the category for this week was a beverage and we tried Luscious Slush Punch.


Click here if you want to read the blog post about it. Also, let me know if any of you moms want to join us in the challenges!

Half a Year???

This little girl is 6 months old.


Let me tell you, she's letting us know she's 6 months too! She's curiously scooting all over the place. Today she discovered cords - which I immediately took away from her, told her "No", and moved her away from - then printer paper - which I took away and then moved her to the other side of the rug - and then the VCR - which I moved her away from and put a pillow in front of to hide it. The funny thing is that the entire scenario above took place in less than 2 minutes.

As a mother, I was feeling quite pleased that I had escaped vomit in the first 6 months. Well, wouldn't you know, on the day she turned 6 months we go to a wedding. We're walking into the wedding, which happens to be the wedding of my closest university friend, and which also happens to be starting in 4 minutes, and suddenly I am covered. Inside my dress, outside my dress, all over Helena's dress, everywhere. So, my perfume for the wedding was rice cereal with a trace of avocado. Ah, a mother's true scent.

Since then avocado has been out. Helena gets upset if it comes close to her face. But peas are good in small quantities. Pears, bananas, sweet potatoes, rice cereal - bring them on!

John & I are thrilled to see Helena feeling the different textures in "read & feel" books. We've been trying for months to get her to feel them with our help but she wanted no part of it. Today she was reaching for the dog's and rabbit's fur with no prompting, and she definitely didn't want the page turned. For some reason this seems like a really big jump in development to us. Her favorite book is "The Fire Engine Book." She grins through the entire thing and has twice started to cry when it was over but she could still see it.

It sure feels like she's growing up fast but we're enjoying every minute of it.

The Rest of SV 2011

So three days of vacation blogged so far. I've come to the conclusion that it would take me weeks to keep doing blogs for parts of our trip, so here are the rest of our events in one large picture-filled blog.

The humid heat was effectively fought off one afternoon in the kiddie pool!

Fun with Uncle Rob

Helena was introduced to Indy racing. You've got to start early, right?

Check out those muscles!

My mom may not have those huge muscles, but she can lift 90 pounds!

Helena was babysat by Kayla, who I babysat for starting when she was 2 months old.

Papa got to take his little Smooch'ems (yes, that's his nickname for Helena!) on a few bike rides.

Her chariot was so comfortable she fell asleep!

We don't have a rocking chair at home. It didn't take me long to learn how wonderful it is to rock my baby to sleep. Plus, Helena was having a hard time falling asleep in all the new places. So we changed her sleep routine so that we put her down already asleep. By the time we were visiting John's family, it was taking a very long time to get her down for naps or for bed. So, lesson learned.

Picking flowers with Grandma

Learning about Bubba Sam the Cat

A wonderful part of seeing John's family was spending time with our nephew Jack. He's been sick during our last few visits but this time he was a spunky little boy!

Swimming with the cousins is definitely going to be a tradition.

We were fortunate to be in MN for two important weddings, the first being that of John's cousin Rachael.

Four generations! Helena has now met her three living great-grandmothers.

The other wedding we attended was our good friend Sonia's. I still can't believe she's married!

Last stop was at my Fufu's. Fufu is Bengali for paternal aunt, and since Aunt Connie came to Bangladesh when we were there, it has become an appropriate nickname.

All in all we had a great trip. Helena is more than ready to be out of her car seat for a LONG LONG time, and we're glad to be home.