Recipe Stash - Savory Sweet Potato Kugel

I've been bookmarking online recipes for a long time.  Some of them I have tried, but many of them just sounded good and I have never tried them.  This year one of my goals is to try at least one recipe from my bookmarked list each month.

Earlier this month I had two very large garnet yams in my pantry that I wanted to use.  I found this recipe that I had bookmarked and we tried it.

Savory Sweet Potato Kugel :  I used 2 very large garnet yams, 1 cup ground beef, 1/3 cup chopped onion, 1 cup corn, 2 eggs, and about 1 and 1/2 cups cheddar cheese.  It completely filled my 9X13 pan.  Click the recipe title to see the actual recipe.

It was good.  Most of the kids liked it and Jeff even said he would eat it again if I served it.  This is one recipe that will stay in my list, since we get a couple sweet potatoes a year and I like to serve them to my family members at least once, but several of them don't like plain sweet potatoes like I do.  The Savory Sweet Potato Kugel leftovers were good reheated in a frying pan with some butter.  I also saved the sweet potato water like the author of the recipe suggested and cooked rice with a few raisins for my breakfast the next day.  It was very good and didn't need any sweetening.

Quinn's 1st Birthday

Wow!  Wow!!  Wow!!!
Can you believe it has been a whole year since Quinn was born?

Yesterday he had his usual breakfast of cheerios.

Happy 1st Birthday, Quinn!

 We went to church in the morning and Quinn took a nap in the afternoon, waking up in time to go outside and enjoy the warm weather.  It was over 70 degrees and we wanted to make the most of the nice day before another cold front came through overnight.  For supper Quinn had winter squash and crackers, while the rest of us had chicken nuggets and fresh tropical fruit salad.

 

Fresh Tropical Fruit Salad

After supper we sang happy birthday and ate cake.  We had a choice of cupcakes or gluten free brownies with strawberries and whipped cream.  The kids chose cupcakes and Jeff and I ate the brownies.

Quinn decided cake is good.

I ate it all, Mom.

 After we had cake and Quinn had a bath it was time for presents.  Quinn wasn't interested.  He wanted to play with a ball that he found on the floor instead, even though Jeff tried to entice him to check out his presents by rattling them and making them make noise.

 He finally came over to check out his presents and he thought maybe they would taste good.

He was ready for bed by the time he finished getting his presents.

A Child's Love

I just love it when my children come up to me and want to give me a hug and kiss just because they love me.  The sweetness of their love warms my heart and helps make my day.

Coming up K5 Learning Review

K5 learning has an online reading and math program for kindergarten to grade 5 students.  I've been given a six week free trial to test and write a review of their program.  If you are a blogger, you may want to check into their open invitation to write an online learning review of their program.


*This post is one of the requirements for doing the review.

K5 Learning has an online reading and math program for kindergarten to grade 5 students.  I've been given a 6 week free trial to test and write a review of their program.  If you are a blogger, you may want to check out their  open invitation to write an online learning review of their program. - See more at: http://www.k5learning.com/review-k5?sid=23462#sthash.rLk6U5Zv.dpu

K5 Learning has an online reading and math program for kindergarten to grade 5 students.  I've been given a 6 week free trial to test and write a review of their program.  If you are a blogger, you may want to check out their  open invitation to write an online learning review of their program. - See more at: http://www.k5learning.com/review-k5?sid=23462#sthash.rLk6U5Zv.dpuf

K5 Learning has an online reading and math program for kindergarten to grade 5 students.  I've been given a 6 week free trial to test and write a review of their program.  If you are a blogger, you may want to check out their  open invitation to write an online learning review of their program. - See more at: http://www.k5learning.com/review-k5?sid=23462#sthash.rLk6U5Zv.dpuf

Pictures From Christmas -2013

Christmas Eve:  Jeff and Quinn with some last minute wrapping, which led to:

 The stockings were stretched from one side of the room to the other.  That was fun.  My brother and his family joined us so we had 15 stockings.

Christmas Morning:  I think we got everyone while opening stockings.

Football Helmets

Kent has a football helmet that he made out of paper plates.  It has been a source of contention lately, because Clark thinks it is cool and he wants to play with it.  Clark will go to Kent's room and take it and Kent will get mad.  They are both wrong, but trying to get Clark to leave it alone and Kent to stop getting mad at him wasn't working out very well.  I suggested that Kent should make a football helmet for Clark and maybe that would solve part of the problem.  He set to work with Clark making a helmet.  Clark was very excited and helped color the paper plates with blue and orange crayons.  He likes the Denver Broncos.  The result was a very excited Clark and now he has been wearing his helmet around the house for all kinds of play.  Clark having his own helmet hasn't stopped him from liking Kent's helmet and trying to play with it, but the incidences have greatly decreased.

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Shelf Space

We decided to re-purpose our very useful shelf that we have had in our kitchen area.

We thought we would put all the kids on display.  That didn't work very well though since they have trouble standing still for a long time, so we continued on with the original plan.


I wanted a better school shelf for the things we use most days.  Since most of our instruction time takes place at the kitchen table or in the living room I wanted to keep everything close, but organized neatly.  My system last fall wasn't seeming to work the best for us and still look orderly.

We moved the shelf to the half wall by our kitchen table.  Then I put our school books and binders on the shelves.  The white basket holds some stickers and our camera.  Behind the door are coloring books and crayons.  The shelf above the white basket has a few cookbooks and feltboards.  The top two shelves are at the ceiling so they will probably only be used for decoration purposes.  The blue basket is where the kids put their completed lessons and after I correct them I return them to the basket for them to correct or put them in my drop-box for them to put away.  Kent and Katy each have their own space upstairs for the books that only they use and all our curriculum for the year that we aren't currently using takes up a shelf in the gameroom.
This was our first week back to school since Thanksgiving and so far this system is working well for us.

Now, I need to come up with a new resting place for our library books.  I'm thinking their new home will be in the front dining room, which is seldomly used for dining.


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Highlights from Last Year -2013

The top viewed posts from 2013:

1.  The series about Toddler & Preschool Box Ideas
2.  Thoughts I had about Motherhood
3.  38 Weeks
4.  I took a day and sewed November Skirts
5.  Quinn's Birth Story



A Quick Look back from the year:

1.  I wrote about my childhood memories from Maple Syrup Season.
2.  I wrote about Clark in Don't Blink
3.  I interviewed my children and added to my Knowing My Children category
4.  During the ice storm I wrote about Peace in the Storm
5.  We spent much of December working on Handmade Christmas