3/24/2010

A couple of things:

I made these yummy ginger muffins this week.
Thanks Mom & Molly!

My favorite way to make a roast is to fill a crock pot with:
-quartered potaoes (uncooked, with skins left on)
-carrots (I just dump a bag of the baby carrots, already peeled kind)
-place the meat (about 2.5  lbs. feeds my family of 6, with not much leftover) on top of the potatoes and carrots
-sprinkle the lipton(or use generic) dry onion mix on top of meat
-open 2-3 cans of cream of mushroom soup, dump on top of everything (# of cans depends on how much gravy you like)
-optional add 1/2 c. of water if you like thin gravy.
-cover with lid, crock on low for about 5-7 hours. Sometimes you can put it on high for an 1 hour in the beginning then cook on low for the rest of the time.

Delicious, perfect every time!
You can double this recipe too.

To survive a long afternoon with the boys -

I had them do this:

  1. play with play doh or clay for 10 min. (they played longer, but I put the timer on because they whined at first.)
  2. go outside swing 10 times
  3. move, dig, shovel dirt in garden area (they were out there for a long time, digging to China they explained.)
  4. build block towers (there was a little fighting here)
  5. empty a garbage somewhere in the house
  6. do a color by number coloring page
  7. earn/eat some candy. (The incentive to have them follow the list!)
It worked like a charm, they were outside, creating, playing, getting along, and did a chore, every mother's dream! 

4 comments:

Heidi said...

I love all your great ideas! I've been using your idea of different stations with Sunday activities and other days too.

I love this idea of a list of things for the kids to do with a snack at the end. I think that would definitely help with my long afternoons. For some reason having a time limit seems to make things more fun.

I also clicked on the Ginger Muffins and got to Molly's food blog. I thought I had missed a big announcement when your comment said you liked the muffins during "this pregnancy". I started doing some research and then saw it was dated 2008. So I assume I haven't missed any announcements.

Karen said...

I love this idea. Would it work for a two year old? Most times a very very cranky tired two year old by the end of the afternoon. The playdough works well

Katie said...

I draw a picture of each thing on the list for the boys, they take their list around the house to help them complete each task. That helps them too, or I use simple words for the early readers.

Amanda said...

So kids are still digging to China? I think I did that as well. Great ideas! I don't have many great ideas of my own, so I like to use yours!