Trying Out New Recipes

I've been trying out lots of new recipes lately. A few recipes have been sitting in my recipe binder for a while, and others I have recently found via Pinterest. Here are the links to the recipes and the rundown...

Easy Brunswick Stew
from Everyday with Rachael Ray

I saw this recipe in Rachael Ray's magazine. It ended up tasting delicious. I have made two batches of it and I froze several servings so that I could pull it out and thaw it for an easy lunch. I used pulled pork (that I frequently make in the crockpot), but I think it would also taste great with chicken.

Roasted Lemon Garlic Herb Shrimp
by Cinnamon Spice and Everything Nice
I love shrimp and lemon and garlic. So it made sense that I would like this dish.
It was so easy to make and it tasted very yummy.

Broccoli Salad
by Brown Eyed Baker

This broccoli salad was tasty and it was actually my first time ever making broccoli salad. I used shredded cheese and shallots instead of cubed cheese and onion because that's what I already had at home. I might leave the onion out all together next time though because it was a little overwhelming.

Pork Roast with Apples and Onions

by The Pioneer Woman
I had high hopes for this meal. But as you can see my photo looks nothing like The Pioneer Woman's photo of this same dish. My photo depicts how this dish tasted. It was bland. Maybe I will try it again some day and see if it turns out differently, but I doubt it. I followed the directions exactly, and it just wasn't that tasty.

Homemade Granola Bars
by The Creative Mama
These didn't last long in our house. They were gone after just a few days.
Try them. They are easy to make and very yummy.

Roasted Squash Soup

from Everyday with Rachael Ray
If you like sweet and spicy, then try this soup. It has the perfect amount of heat from the serrano peppers and the brown sugar brings out the butternut squash flavor. It was mighty fine with some toasted, crusty bread.

I have also tried, but didn't snap a photo of it...

Broiled Grapefruit
by Running Foodie

It made me a believer that anything can taste better with brown sugar and butter.

Peach-Whiskey Barbecue Chicken
by The Pioneer Woman
This recipe by The Pioneer Woman was delicious.
It was especially good on sandwiches the next day.

Nutella Cookies with Sea Salt
by Sugar Crafter
I made these for a cookie exchange and they could be one of my new favorite cookies. I love chocolate and salt together so I am a big fan of these. After munching on them for a few days, I have decided they taste the best right out of the oven.

DIY Nativity Finger Puppets

When I spotted some adorable felt nativity stickers a while back at Hobby Lobby, I knew exactly what I was going to do with them. They needed to be turned into nativity finger puppets. Since they already had a very strong adhesive on the back of them, I just hot glued two pieces of felt together (leaving room for a finger to fit inside), stuck on the sticker, and then cut around them.

They seriously only took about 10 minutes to make and they seem to be pretty durable.
They are a nice toddler-friendly way to retell the birth of our Savior.

Weekly Highlights

This little guy rolled over for the first time this week.

He hates being on his belly so his solution is to just roll
over as soon as we put him on his belly.

Silas has also taken quite the interest in books.

He absolutely loves being read to and a book can calm him down
almost immediately if he gets upset.

We went to eat at Cracker Barrel one night this week. While we were there I spotted this little wooden train set marked down to $14.99.

Seth is really into trains right now so we knew he would love it.
It's been pretty much all he has played with for the last few days.

Tillery Tot School- Christmas Edition

This week we did lots of Christmas crafty things during our learning time. Here's a look at some of our fun.

We decorated a pine cone using pom poms so that it looked like a little Christmas tree.

We made a Christmas tree using different lengths of paper.
We talked about longest to shortest and glued the strips on in that order.

We played with nativity stamps (found at Hobby Lobby for 50% off).

We made a manger craft.

We used two popscicle sticks for the manger and some bits of raffia as the straw.
Then we just made baby Jesus out of two circles.

I printed out this gift printable and we colored and cut it out.

We played with foam nativity stickers.

We decorated a tree using pom poms and we counted
each row of circles as we were gluing them onto the tree.

We made a Christmas tree out of popscicle sticks.

We sorted mini ornaments. We focused only on colors this particular time,
but we might try it again and talk about color and texture next time.

We played with a mini nativity set (also found at Hobby Lobby for 50% off).

We have more fun activities planned for this week, too!

Gingerbread Nativity

Last night we raided the cabinets, turned on the Christmas music, and sat down to make a gingerbread nativity. I saw the idea floating around on Pinterest (of course) a while back and thought it was such a cute alternative to making a traditional gingerbread house.

Seth loved munching on all the candy, marshmallows, and graham crackers.

Silas either cried or stayed completely freaked out
by flying sprinkles that Seth kept throwing everywhere.

But in the end, after some dedicated work...

and the help of some super cute food...

we had a decent looking nativity.

It resembled a nativity enough that Seth was able to name every part
which melted our hearts.

Silas Eating Cereal

Silas was 4 months old on December 3rd. At his well baby check-up, that ended up becoming a sick baby appointment, he weighed over 13 lbs. and was over 24 inches long. Our typically smiley baby has had the croup for the last week and has been taking steroids to treat it. Now that his croupy cough is going away, we thought we could try some rice cereal since the boy loves to eat. Our feeding went a little something like this...

scream, scream, scream

spit, spit, spit.

I think it might take a few more tries before Silas becomes a fan of this new method of eating.

On the Mend

Sickness invaded our home last week just a few hours after I posted about all of our upcoming Advent activities. We didn't get to go to BG Lights Up! We opted to keep our sick boys home, pop some popcorn, and watch a movie. If you haven't seen The First Noel, it is adorable. (I found our copy on the $5 Doorbuster table at the Family Christian Store.) It's short and sweet and just what our two year old needed when he wasn't feeling too well. Plus it ended up being a great kick-off to Advent.
We haven't been able to do all of the crafts that I had planned, but we have the rest of the month to enjoy them.

We ended up making our Christmas cards a few days later than I wanted,
but at least they will be delivered to their recipients way earlier than last year.

Seth thought they were super fun to make!

We have also played with nativity magnets.

(This set was bought at Hobby Lobby and was 50% off.)

I found a nativity puzzle book at one of the local consignment stores,
so we read it and worked a couple of the puzzles.
(Next year, I think the puzzles will be easier to do, but I'm still glad we tried them.)

I think Seth enjoyed decorating his own felt tree most of all. He was so proud of it. He couldn't wait to show Bryan when he came home from work. It's on the back of one of his bedroom doors and he takes the "ornaments" off and puts them back on several times throughout the day.

Now that we are on the mend,
we can't wait to do more activities!