Apple Cinnamon Muffins

We woke up to a brisk fall morning and decided to warm up with these DELICIOUS apple cinnamon muffins! 

We have a ton of apples from apple picking and I was wanting muffins this morning, so off to Pinterest I went!  I love photo recipe browsing on Pinterest.  If the picture catches my eye, then I check to see if I have all the ingredients.  Thankfully, I had all the ingredients this morning...these were the B.E.S.T muffins I have ever made. D.E.L.C.I.O.U.S!  

From our local trees to our mouths...

 

After a morning of apple picking, the girls enjoyed a fresh apple slushie!  

Corn Salad

Looking for a fast delicious side dish for summer?

This corn salad is super easy to make and very tasty! 

 My girl friends and I have decided to share recipes once a month...meaning, we're alternating houses and bringing a dish to share!  Last week, the theme was "salads".  I wanted to do something a little different, so I ended up bringing Corn Salad!   

Ingredients:
6 ears of corn, shucked or 1 bag frozen corn (dethawed)
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup finely diced red onion
1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
3 tablespoons cider or red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions:
1.  Cook corn...if using ears of corn, cut kernels off. 
2.  Place corn and all other ingredients in bowl, toss.
3.  Serve at room temperature or cold....I personally like it cold!  

That's it...quick, simple, and delicious!  

Enjoy!

Banana Pudding

If you're a Banana Pudding fan, you're going to LOVE this delicious recipe.  I found it last year and it's so good!  A must have for every cookout this summer!  

Is it crazy that I've already made 6 banana puddings this summer?

Mexican Stuffed Peppers = YUMMY!

We have given up red meat in our house...it's been at least 9 months and no one is missing it!  My husband and I really like stuffed peppers, but I needed to find a new recipe without beef.  

Thankfully, there's Pinterest!  

This was our first experience with Quinoa...not bad!  

Check out the recipe here! 

**The only change I would make next time would be to delete the cilantro.**

Enjoy!  

Wordless Wednesday

I can do it...by myself! Izzie's newest favorite phrase.

Easter Activities

I was able to find a ton of ideas for Easter shelf activities! The first morning that all the new Easter theme activities were on the shelf, the girls were so excited!

The sensory bin caught their attention, first. Inside the sensory bin: grass, eggs, rubber ducks, stretchy bunnies, shovel and scoop. They spent hours playing with these items (and, yes...I'm still finding grass).

I also included two baskets with several eggs in each. We hid and found numerous eggs throughout the week! Mac mastered opening the plastic eggs.

For fine motor skills, Izzie enjoyed matching the large Styrofoam eggs (Dollar Tree) to their correct color. I simply used markers to color on the circular Styrofoam (Dollor Tree).

In addition, I brought back out an activity that she completed last year...transferring eggs from a basket to a plate, using tongs. She didn't use the tongs in last year's picture. I found a cute pair of small bunny tongs at Michael's that she used and was successful in transferring the eggs. She enjoyed this activity the most, unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures!

Both girls enjoyed placing the hanging eggs (Dollar Tree) on the tree (Dollar Tree). Izzie is really excited about patterns, lately, and has been organizing everything into patterns...she really had fun creating patterns with the eggs on the tree.

I adapted an activity that Izzie did last year. Instead of matching up numbers, I made it a little more complicated. I kept the top portion of the egg as a number, then add the correct amount of stickers to the bottom portion of the egg. To keep from getting too frustrated, the eggs were only numbered 1-10. This was probably Izzie's least favorite shelf activity for the week...I think it was too time consuming and since the eggs are circular, some of the stickers went all the way around the egg, which made Izzie loose count and have to start over, again and again.

The musical eggs were also included on the shelf. Mac really enjoys just shaking the eggs and making music with them!

Another activity that Izzie completed last year was this matching shapes game. I really love having activities/games already created that I can bring back out! Even being a year older, she still really enjoyed matching the eggs to the correct shapes!

We traveled for a long Easter weekend to visit my in-laws. The girls had a blast playing and entertaining Grandma and Grandad. We took the girls to an Easter egg hunt, where 10,000 eggs were hidden...and it was super crowded, too crowded. Thankfully, it was sectioned off into age groups, but it was still way too crowed. The girls also had a great time coloring eggs with Grandma.

The girls received this adorable bunny Popsicle holder from their Great Aunt. I was super excited to put it to use! And, as you can tell...the girls were super excited too!

Okay...so, this post layout looks really weird! I tried a new layout...trying to use less space with more pictures and when I previewed the post, it looked like everything was where is was suppose to be. But, now that it's uploaded, everything is out of whack! I'm way too lazy to go back and rewrite this post...back to the old layout, next time!

Tot School

Izzie is 42 months old and Mac is 13 months old.

Our main themes for this week was Noah's Ark and Rainbows.

Each morning, we read Noah's story from the Bible and Izzie retold the story using her story cards and felt board pieces that she created. For more details, see original post.

She spent time completing several Letter U activities (U is for umbrella, Izzie loves using an umbrella when it's raining, so it kinda fit into our theme for the week).

For our stART project, Izzie read Duckie's Rainbow and completed a few rainbow activities.

New shelf activities included:

Creating a rainbow using pipe cleaners and styrofoam (I've seen this activity on numerous blogs). Izzie really enjoyed it and it was great for fine motor skills.

Leap Frog Dominoes game...matching up colors.

Just for fun...

Drawing family members on her easel. She informed me that the big circle in the middle of the body is the belly button!

Washing dishes, or possibly washing her clothes...that she's wearing!

She helped make Rice Krispies bunny treats for our playdate.

We spent one morning at a group playdate, where the hostess had planned a ton of great activities!

Izzie colored her Easter eggs, all by herself....as she kept reminding me. She did not want any help from me; she is becoming so independent.

Izzie hopped around with her bunny ears on that she made. She also made a bunny cupcake and another bunny craft.

We had a hoppin' good time!

Tiny Tot School

Mac concentrating on her rainbow stacker...you can tell by her tongue!

Playing with her rainbow stacking bowls.

I walked in the living room and found Mac reading a library book! We keep the weekly library books in the basket beside their little couch. The girls love to snuggle and read books together!

Coloring with Izzie in their super new coloring book. Mac is starting to mimic everything that Izzie does!

She learned how to climb on and off her Rocking Horse.

She really enjoys helping me do the laundry, putting in and taking out the clothes. Here she's taking a break for a quick game of Peek-a-Boo!

For more Tot School, please visit 1+1+1=1.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Izzie LOVES reading books by Dr. Seuss! One of her favorites is "Green Eggs and Ham".

To celebrate his birthday today, we had GREEN eggs and bacon! Unfortunately, Izzie's response to the eggs, "I do not like green eggs, I do not like them, Mama." I even offered them to her in a house, with a mouse, in a box, with a fox, in a car, in a tree, on a train, in the dark, in the rain, with a goat, in a boat, but...she would not eat them here or there, she would not eat them anywhere!

To celebrate, we played a phonics game. I printed off this adorable beginning sounds activity and turned it into a file folder game. Izzie matched up the sounds of each to the correct letter. This was a fun way to incorporate speech therapy!

Hope everyone enjoyed snuggling with your little ones and reading many Dr. Suess books today! I sure did!

Last fall, we did several activities with "Ten Apples Up On Top", click here to see!