4th of July Baby Footprints Craft

Baby's first craft!

I did so many little foot and handprint crafts with Connor, so I wanted to make sure I do some with little Caylee before I get too busy.  This super easy painting project turned into a huge mess, but at least it came out cute!

The mess: I usually do painting crafts in the bathtub to make clean up easier with a kid.  However, I forgot that I usually leave their diaper ON until we're done and ready to turn the water on.  So right after I painted her foot, we had a big "code brown" all over the tub.  And then to add to the chaos, Connor put liquid soap all over his hands to help clean up, but rubbed it all over the carpet!  So my plans to do a bunch of versions and use both feet didn't work so well, but at least I got one foot!

Hope you all have a happy 4th with your families and friends!

Introducing the newest addition to Team T!

Meet Caylee!

She was born on June 10th and we're so happy to have her to complete our family.

As some of you know, I had a somewhat difficult pregnancy with some health issues, so I've been kinda MIA.  Now that I'm on maternity leave, I have a little more time to get back to blogging.  Hopefully, I can try to keep up a little better...at least for the summer while I'm off work!

I have kept up with my baby blog that I update every few days with way too many pics of my two little ones.  Feel free to check it out here if you're interested...

So anyway, I wanted to say, "Hello!" to all my old blog friends out there! ::waving:: 

Hope to catch up with you soon!

Veggie Mac & Cheese

I think I've made over a dozen different kinds of veggie mac and cheese in the past couple of years.  It's a favorite of my family and I like having those hidden veggies in there!

Adapted from Around the Plate
Ingredients:
• 10 oz. package frozen spinach, thawed
• 1 3/4 cup skim milk
• 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 10 oz. package of frozen squash, thawed
• 2 cups pasta (the kind with veggies mixed in works great too!)
• 1/3 cup plain Greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• salt & pepper
• 1/4 cup breadcrumbs

1. Boil your water for the pasta. While waiting for the water to boil, preheat the oven to 450 and spray a 9" x 13" baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.

2.  Squeeze the excess water out of the thawed spinach.  I usually take it in handfuls and squeeze it in the sink.

3.  Heat the milk and squash in a small pot until warm. Stir occasionally until the sauce starts to thicken.

4. Remove the sauce from the heat and add in the cheddar cheese. After the cheese melts, add in the Greek yogurt and a little salt & pepper.

5.  When the pasta water is boiling, add the pasta and cook for only about  4 minutes.  The rest will get cooked in the oven.

6. Drain the water from the pasta and combine with the cheese sauce and spinach.  

7. Spread the mixture into the baking dish and top with breadcrumbs.

8. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top is golden brown and crispy.

9. Remove from the oven and top with Parmesan cheese.

 

Toddler Straw Valentines

Nothing like a last minute craft project!  I'm not a procrastinator at all, but when daycare told us on Monday night that Connor's class was having a Valentine's Day party, I only had a few days to prepare.  Connor had tubes surgery on Tuesday morning (second set) so we had some extra time in the afternoon to do some crafting.  

I decided on a simple Valentine's note with a non-food gift for each child since daycare is nut-free and it's hard to find snacks that all the kids can eat.  I printed out sheets of Valentines and then had Connor color on them with pink, red and purple crayons.

 Each circle is 2.5 inches and I used a hole punch to make hole on the top and bottom of each one.  It looked really complicated to get the paper on the straw without ripping it, but it ended up being pretty easy to do.

I ended up grabbing a little box of sticker for each child, so I just tied those on with a ribbon.


Happy Valentine's Day!