Preschool

 Melanie had her first day of preschool on August 24th.  She was very excited to start going to school and get to know her teacher and classmates, or "new friends" as she likes to call them.

 The day started with Claire going in to wake Melanie up, which Claire has now adopted as part of her morning routine.  (Wake up too early, lay down with mom for another hour or so, wake up for real this time, get mom's cell phone and water, wake up Melanie, change diaper, eat breakfast, get dressed and continue on with your day.)

 To show how truly excited Melanie was about preschool, that morning while I was still washing Claire up and clearing the table from breakfast Melanie proceeded to go upstairs so she could get ready.  I assumed she would just take off her pajamas and wait for me like usual, insisting that she needed my help (even though she's been capable of dressing herself with very little help for quite some time now).  I turn around to find Melanie sitting on the stairs wearing her shorts and Claire's shirt (a 6-12 month shirt no less!) and diligently working on getting her socks on with her shoes and backpack at the ready right behind her.  I had laid the girls' clothes out the night before so I would have one less thing to think about in the morning and Melanie took it upon herself to start getting ready since I was obviously taking too long clearing the table.  I had to laugh at her and snap a picture before heading up back upstairs to put on her shirt and get her hair ready.  Excited indeed!

 My big girl with the jar of blackberry jam she gave to her teacher as a first day of school gift.

 I asked Melanie if she was excited to go to preschool and she enthusiastically said "Yeah!" so I told her to make an excited face and this is what she gave me :D

 Melanie and her teacher, Miss Ginger

No tears from our Miss Melanie.  The five kids in front of her were all crying when their moms dropped them off and Melanie got a rather confused look on her face as we waited for her turn to go in the room. We had done lots of talking about how she would get to stay with Miss Ginger and her new friends and Claire and I would leave so she could stay and learn and have fun and then Claire and I would come back to get her.  The crying kids seemed to confuse her a bit so I squatted down next to her and  said "I think those kids might be a little sad and miss their moms.  Do you think you could be their friend and help make them happy?"  to which she simply replied "Yeah."  When her turn came to greet the teacher she handed Miss Ginger the jar of jam we had brought, gave her a hug, turned so I could take their picture and walked right past the crying kids in to the room and started looking around, ready to start the day.

And no, I didn't cry either.  That's not to say I didn't have a good sized lump in my throat, but I held it together.  I did however take Claire to Target after we left and indulged in some retail therapy in the form of a few cute fall outfits for the girls (despite the fact it was still in the 90s outside).  Claire did very well during her first significant amount of time without her older sister as well.  I figured my having some time devoted to just Claire would be good for her on several levels, one of which being language (she obviously knows words and such, she just doesn't talk much since Melanie does all the talking for her).  I had no idea how quickly she would take advantage of the silence left by Melanie's temporary absence though.  Claire jabbered the entire 2 1/2 hours Melanie was gone!  I'm talking non-stop.  It was quite impressive, to say the least!

 To celebrate her first day of preschool Matt came to pick Melanie up from school with us and we all went to have pizza at Talliano's as a special treat.

Happy pizza face

Proudly showing off the hand prints she made on the first day.
(Displayed with some of the magnets I bought while attending my "retail therapy" session that morning)

She's been going to school for a month now and she's just as excited as when school first started, telling us what she learned each day and singing songs she learns in class.  Now if we could just guarantee that kind of excitement for the rest of her school career we'd be all set! ;D

Peaches

Last month I took the girls to pick peaches for the first time and their grandmas came along.  There's an orchard just over 30 minutes from our house so we took a picnic lunch and had a "girls only" peach picking party.  It was a very warm August day, but it was still a very enjoyable experience and I'm sure it will become a tradition that the girls will look forward to each year. 

The girls all ready to pick peaches with Grandma and Grams

I'm not too sure what inspired Melanie's pose, but it is what it is

The only variety of peaches they had left were Crest Havens, which are a smaller variety that is ideal for canning and freezing (according to what the orchard owner told me, that is).  Hopefully I'll be more on the ball next year and we might get out there earlier to have a larger variety to choose from.

The trees were just the right height for the girls to get in on the picking action, which I was really grateful for.  It wouldn't be much fun going to pick peaches if you can't reach any of them!

Claire was much more interested in the peach picking than Melanie was.  Melanie preferred to run from tree to tree to talk to us and check on our picking progress.

Claire took full advantage of taste testing the fresh produce

We canned most of the peaches we picked and I made peach butter and jelly with the rest

Claire found the pots I had used for the jelly sitting in the sink and scooted a chair over to help herself to the leftovers.  If that isn't a look of pure orneriness then I don't know what is!

She dubbed the jelly to be chin lickin' good!

Taquitos

I've recently started doing more freezer cooking, preparing meals ahead of time to store in the freezer to be thawed and baked at a later time.  Let me tell you, we are loving the convenience it provides for us!  One of the meals we've tried out and been very happy with was homemade taquitos.  (Ok, so they aren't really a meal so much as a homemade convenience food, but it's better for you than the overpriced box of them you get at the store!)  I've had a couple friends ask how we did ours, so I figured I'd share the process here so you could try it yourself if you'd like.
You will need
one roast, cut (arm, rump, etc.) and weight of your choosing
taco seasoning
corn tortillas
oil
shredded cheese
crock pot
skillet
bowls
preferred method for shredding roast (either forks or food processor)
strainer
foil lined cookie sheets
freezer bags

First, cook a roast in the crock pot on low for 6-8 hours with a couple packets of taco seasoning (or make your own) and 1-1 1/2 cups of water.  I cooked mine the day before assembling the taquitos and then let it cool in the refrigerator overnight.  This has the added benefit of the fat separating to the top of the cooking juices and solidifying, so it was easy to skim off the top.  Shred the roast with two forks or in your food processor, removing excess fat as you go.  Return meat to cooking juices to soak until you are ready to assemble the taquitos.

Soften your corn tortillas on a hot skillet (I like cast iron) in batches with a bit of oil.  I'm sure you can use whatever oil you'd like, but I used canola oil since I didn't want the distinct flavor of olive oil for this particular recipe. Remember, you just want the tortillas soft and warm - don't let them get crisp on the edges or they won't roll nicely.

I use my Pampered Chef Kitchen Spritzer for the oiling of the tortillas.  It gives you just enough oil to soften the tortillas without making things greasy.  I probably used 1 1/2 tablespoons of oil total  to get around 50 taquitos, which will cut down on the fat of your final product considerably compared to the store-bought version, especially considering those are deep fried before they are frozen.

I usually do 4-6 tortillas at a time if I'm doing this recipe alone.  Having a stack larger than that waiting for assembly can lead to dried out and cracked tortillas when you go to roll them up.  If you have an assembly line then just have one person in charge of tortillas and the other can handle the rest of the assembly on their own.

Lightly drain the juices from the shredded meat.  

I don't press all the cooking liquid out of the meat to maintain some of the juiciness, but if you were to just take the meat straight from the juices it would be too wet and soak through your tortillas.  Just putting the meat in a strainer placed over a bowl and letting it rest for a bit seems to work just fine.

Sprinkle some cheese on the softened tortillas and top with drained meat.

Tightly roll up taquitos and place seam side down on a foil lined cookie sheet, making sure they aren't touching.  Freeze for an hour or so until they hold their shape and filling doesn't come out when you pick them up.

Load frozen taquitos in labeled freezer bags, removing as much air as possible to help guard against freezer burn.  You can use a drinking straw to suck out the extra air if you want to be really thorough about this.  Store in freezer until you're ready to enjoy your tasty treats!

To Cook

Place frozen taquitos on a foil lined cookie sheet, bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, flip taquitos to opposite side for even crisping and bake an additional 5 minutes.

or

Warm in microwave for 30-45 seconds to take the chill off, place in a skillet over med/high heat and crisp them on all sides.

I may try making these with shredded chicken or even ground beef next time to see if we like those quite as well as the shredded beef ones.  Also, don't feel like you have to do an entire roast just for this.  This would be a great way to reinvent leftovers for a new meal (That's actually how I started making shredded beef tacos when we first got married since Matt and I could never finish an entire roast on our own.  Roast one night, add taco seasoning to the leftover meat and have tacos the next night.)

I hope this inspires you to try out some freezer cooking for yourself.  If you've already ventured into freezer cooking, what are some of your favorite recipes that you've tried?  I'd love to hear about them!

Protein Bars

I made these protein bars to have available as a snack after seeing the recipe on the MoneySavingMom.com and after a friend made them and said they were quite tasty.  They were quite good, but I can't just leave things well enough alone, and Matt requested more peanut butter flavor, so I played with the recipe a bit.  Here's what I ended up doing.

 1 mashed banana
3 cups dried oatmeal
4 Tbs. flax seed, ground
4 scoops vanilla protein powder
3/4 c. peanut butter (approximately, I just kept globing it in there after doubling the original amount.  Matt really likes his peanut butter!)
1/3 c. coconut, toasted (I don't like the taste or texture of regular shredded coconut, but toasted doesn't bother me)
1/2 c. coconut oil
1/3 c. water
1/4 c. dried blueberries
1/4 c. dried cranberries
1/4 cup chocolate chips (I used a half semi-sweet, half milk chocolate this time around.  No dark chocolate in the house right now.)

Mix everything except dried fruit and chocolate in stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment until well combined.  Divide mixture in half and add cranberries to one half and blueberries to the other half, mixing well.  Press firmly in to a foil lined 9x9 pan, blueberries on one half and cranberries on the other.  Melt chocolate in double boiler (or glass bowl set over a small sauce pan) over hot but not boiling water. (Don't let water touch the bottom of the double boiler instert/glass bowl.  This can scald your chocolate.)  Spread melted chocolate over bars, freeze until firm enough to cut, at least one hour.  Score chocolate with a sharp knife before cutting, otherwise your chocolate may crack and come off the bars.  Wrap individual bars in plastic wrap and store in the freezer.

I eat them straight from the freezer, but you could let a bar sit for a few minutes to soften up a bit if you prefer.  They don't take long to soften up.

So basically I doubled the stuff in the bar we liked and left the chocolate on top the same so Matt would like the chocolate-to-bar ratio better.  The girls think the bars are very tasty as well.  I'm sure I'll tinker with the recipe a bit more in the future for fun (I'm contemplating using drained applesauce instead of the mashed banana just to see how that goes), so if anything else super tasty results I'll be sure to let you all know!