A weekend away

I spent last weekend in Atlanta with my old friends Julie and Missy. We had a wonderful time together. It felt like no time had passed and yet we were all so different than we were 15 years ago. It was great to catch up with these lovely ladies!

We woke up every morning to this lovely view of Midtown.

We had fun at a local brewery tasting lots of types of beer.

My favorite Sweetwater Beer was the Sch'Wheat Beer

We enjoyed a lot of coffee

And a lot of good conversation

We ate well...really really well. This is eggs benedict with braised short ribs and hash browns at Serpas brunch

We got to enjoy lots of beautiful flowers thanks to the warmer weather in the south

I am super thankful for a husband who didn't complain about me being away for 3 nights and took great care of our girls.

Chicka Chicka

I have decided that once a week I will post about a book we have been reading and an activity that we did along with the book. I figured if I post about it here then I will be more accountable to doing these things with the girls.

Today we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr., John Archambault and Illustrated Lois Ehlert

We have read this book a million times but today we did a few different things with it. I had Ruby point to all the letters as I read them...she really liked doing this. We also took a "field trip" to the store and bought a tropical fruit- Pineapple! She could not stop talking about how "prickly" it was. We talked about other tropical fruits like coconuts (from the book) and that mama doesn't like coconuts so we don't buy them :)
---quick side note. I usually pretend like I like all the foods that I don't really like in front of Ruby (i.e. green, yellow, and red peppers and onions). I just figured this was one I could care less if she ate or not.
I really wanted to make a coconut tree out of construction paper, put it on the fridge and use fridge letters as we read the book too. We don't have all of the letters in the alphabet anymore though so that will be for another day.

I got some of these ideas from Homeschool Share.

Our first ever prickly pineapple

Ruby showing Telia the book

We used this pineapple to make a smoothie along with
mandarin oranges, bananas, and almond milk.

Ruby didn't like the smoothie but Telia drank some of it.

The Zoo

The weather has been great here lately so we have made a few trips to the zoo. Last weekend we took Ruby's friend Lilly along with us and had a blast.

Lilly seeing how she measure up to the size of a gorilla

Ruby and the gorilla

Brian is bigger than an adult gorilla but I think the gorilla weighs more

Me and the gorilla

Taking a break

Telia was pretty content in her stroller...she was getting over being sick plus she busted up her face pretty good the day before

Romans 8

I didn't give up anything for lent...instead I (along with many many others at Sojourn Community Church) are memorizing the whole book of Romans. I haven't ever memorized that much at one time. I am slow but working on it. I am up to verse 6 now I think. It has been great to have something specific to focus on in the bible and to have friends that are doing it with me.

EDIT: Oops, not the whole book...Only Romans Chapter 8!

New Recipes

We have been cooking a lot more this month and have tried out some pretty good recipes that we can share with ya'll.

Chicken salad Dijon with grapes and apples- This was a healthy alternative to mayonnaise based chicken salad. I didn't add the celery and used Greek yogurt and it was great.

If you haven't tried Taco Soup you should go make it today. Delish! I kind of followed this recipe but instead of white beans I used chili beans cause that is what I had. I didn't have the ranch packet either so I didn't put it in and it still worked. I actually made this in the crock pot but I don't remember where I got the recipe so this link will do.

I love cooking with my crock pot and here are some of the crock pot recipes I have tried this month:

I made this Crockpot Pasta Fagioli recipe a couple of times and it turned out great too. I used tortellini as the pasta once and ditalini as the pasta once and both were tasty. I made it vegetarian one time and the other time I added ground turkey. I preferred adding the ground turkey.

We tried this loose meat sandwich recipe in the crock pot and it wasn't our favorite. It tasted okay but we probably won't make it again.

These Pepperoncini Beef Sandwiches were super easy and delicious. We used the leftover meat on our nachos a few days later.

This week I am going to try Zucchini Enchiladas and Slow Cooked Sweet Barbacoa Pork. Let me know if you try any of these recipes and what you think.

Oops

That birthday post popped up a day too early! Her birthday isn't until tomorrow but oh well.

Happy Birthday!

Today is my mom's 60th Birthday!!! We celebrated over the weekend with friends and family and pizza and cake! Here are some highlights.