Rainbow Craft

This fall I've been doing a homeschool/preschool group with some moms in my area.  It's been a ton of fun and we've made some new friends, too.  Two of this week's themes are rainbows and the number 6.  For those who were unable to attend, here is my project in case you want to do it at home.

This is how I did it.  Of course, you can do it however you want!
Materials:
paper plate (I used yellow from the Dollar Tree.)
paper streamers (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple)
glue bottle (not glue stick)
Raindrops w/dots (I printed on blue paper.)
number 6
Scissors
Ribbon or string if you want to hang it when finished

1. Cut paper plate in half.  If you don't want to cut the plate, that's fine, too.

2.  Glue the streamers (6 rainbow colors) along the bottom of the plate.  They have to be close together or else they won't all fit.

3.  Cut out and glue the raindrops to the plate where the streamers meet the plate.  I created numbers 1-6 so your child can practice counting.

6.  Glue the colorful polka dot 6 to the front or back of the plate.  I stuck it on the back since I'm going to hang mine rather than put it on a wall/refrigerator.
7.  Punch hole and tie string/ribbon if you're going to hang it.

Here are the parts.  You can print them right from here, but it will work best if you right click, save the file, then open and print that way.

Slow Cooker Caribbean Jerk Chicken

Slow Cooker Caribbean Jerk Chicken

I wanted to use this new McCormick Caribbean Jerk Seasoning in a slow cooker recipe. I put together the following recipe and it was delicious! My husband was a HUGE fan of Red Robin’s Jamaican Jerk’d Chicken Sandwich, but they took it off the menu some time ago.  (He is forever disappointed about this.)  I was going to try to come up with a variation using some of the same ingredients.  This is what I came up with.

Ingredients

4 chicken breasts (I used frozen.)

3 Tbsp. McCormick® Caribbean Jerk Chicken Seasoning

1 can chunk pineapple (drain, but save juice 4-5 Tbsp.)

Juice from 1 lime

3 tsp. garlic, minced

This is super easy!

Put frozen, yes frozen, chicken in bottom of slow cooker. Rub with Caribbean Jerk Seasoning. Squeeze lime juice over chicken. Spread garlic over chicken. Drain pineapple saving 4-5 Tbsp. of juice. Pour pineapple chunks over chicken. Pour reserved pineapple juice over everything. Cook on high 4-5 hours, low 6-8 hours.  I served this with red beans and rice and green beans.

Make At-Home Salsa

Tastefully Simple Salsa

Salsa is pretty much a staple in our house.  When we have something simple like sandwiches or hot dogs and don’t want to go to the store for something “extra” as a side, we just have chips and salsa.  It’s also great for an afternoon or after dinner snack.  J

We ran out of salsa today!  What a travesty!  I remembered we had a jar of Tastefully Simple Simply Salsa™ Mix in the pantry so that’s what we did.  I used two cans of diced tomatoes and approximately 1/3 cup of the Salsa seasoning.  The seasoning mix does have a bit of a bite to it, so I didn’t quite double the seasoning. 

It worked out perfectly to use the salsa jar we’d just finished and now we’re fully stocked again. 

If you're not familiar with Tastefully Simple products click on the "Tastefully Simple" label on the left side of my blog to see other posts where I used Tastefully Simple products.  I highly recommend them!

Book List

I’m not exactly a bookworm, but having a good book to read is a great way to fill time when you’re trying to fall asleep at night, waiting at the doctor’s office, looking to have a quiet time, or…ummm, when you’re procrastinating the boring parts of life, i.e. Cleaning. J

I get book recommendations from so many places:  my sisters, other family, friends, Facebook, Pinterest, and more.  I usually save the book’s Amazon link somewhere in my digital mess of an email account or pin it to my Pinterest wall.  I also pin to a board of what library patrons are reading at the library where my sister works.  Lately people have asked ME for recommendations and I’ve found myself giving away a recommendation or two. 

Because of this, I’ve decided to keep a running list, of sorts.  I’ll add to this list and try to keep them somewhat categorized.  Most times I get my books from the library since hoarding books is one of my downfalls.  We have so many books in this house that I actually get excite to buy a new bookshelf.  We’re running out of space for shelves, so the public library has been awesome.  We are fortunate to have a library system with an extremely extensive collection of books, music, and movies.  In case you need to know, you can have up to 75 books checked out at any one time at our local library.  Although it was when I was teaching, yes, I’ve reached that limit.  More than once.

Here goes…

(My categorization system is imperfect.  If something sounds interesting, ask me about it or look up Amazon’s description.  Many of these fall under more than one category, too.)

Life

(parenthood, motherhood, inspiration, etc.)

Sparkly Green Earrings by Melanie Shankle

A little Salty to Cut the Sweet by Sophie Hudson

Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist

Raising Happiness by Catherine Carter

Adopted for Life by Russell D. Moore

One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

Choosing to See:  A Journey of Struggle and Hope by Mary Beth Chapman

The Noticer by Andy Andrews

Marriage

(Marriage specifically, not generally speaking like the previous category)

Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs

Beyond Ordinary:  When a Good Marriage Just isn’t Good Enough by Justin & Trisha Davis

Mended:  Pieces of a life made whole by Angie Smith

Faith

Feminine Appeal by Carolyn Mahaney

Unglued by Lysa TerKeurst
Dangerous Wonder by Mike Yaconelli
Making Life Work by Bill Hybels

Parenting & Children

Grace-Based Parenting by Tim Kimmel

On Becoming Baby Wise by Gary Izzo (We didn’t read the whole book and used it as a guideline for getting baby on a schedule.  You’ll find big opinions on this book, but what we did worked for us.)

What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Heidi Murkoff (Again, we loosely used this book.)

Adopted for Life by Russell D. Moore

Adoption

Adopted for Life by Russell D. Moore

Choosing to See:  A Journey of Struggle and Hope by Mary Beth Chapman

Miscellaneous & Oldies But Goodies

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee