Coronado Bound

Tomorrow we leave for Coronado Island right in San Diego & I can't wait!!  When soldier man came home & reported that he was headed to Texas for 5 weeks it immediately came to my head to leave town. That is one of the joys of of not having the crazies in school yet -- we are bound to any type of obligation of staying here for school.  And this Southern girl misses the beach badly so I knew I wanted to go to the shore where the days are long & the fun is endless.  So, tomorrow we are headed off of the desert island & into civilization for 5 days.  And the best part -- there is grass there.  And better, we only have 2 days until soldier man returns home once we get back!

Curry Chicken Salad

I hosted a lunchtime playdate this week & fixed one of my favorite dishes for the adults in the crowd -- my curry chicken salad.  During the summer months I keep this in my refrigerator pretty steadily so I thought I would share.  It is divine!


Recipe:
2 cups cooked chicken cubed or shredded
1 cup mayo
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp curry
1/2 cup celery cut finely
1/2 cup grapes quartered
1/4 cup pecans (optional)
salt & pepper to taste


Mix all ingredients together & refrigerate for at least 2 hours to allow it to season.

A bowl full of yumminess!!

 

It can be served on a croissant, but it is equally delish on a cracker or just licked off the spoon!

Kool-Aid Play Dough Day

While perusing around a community yard-sale on post this past Saturday, I came across a gently used Melissa & Doug Play Dough Tool set & it was a score.  My crazies could play with play dough for hours, so I certainly picked it up!  So, today seemed like the perfect day (another 3 digit day) to make a Kool-Aid Play Dough recipe I ran across online so that we could all get in the kitchen, have the crazies help whip it up, & let them play with their new set.


The recipe I followed was:


1 C Flour
1 C Water
1/4 C Salt
1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
2 Tsp Cream of Tarter
A Kool-Aid Packet of Your Choice
Combine all ingredients & stir over medium heat until it forms

The Playdough Set we scored, with unopened play dough even included!

Abunch of household ingredients & you are set!

The crazies picked out the colors they wanted to mix

Pour all of the ingredients in a pot, in no particular order, as long as they all make it in.

 Stir, stir, stir until it is no longer lumpy but smooth.  Kids can do this part too!

It should look mostly smooth.  You put it over medium heat & stir.

It will become thick & lumpy.  Keep stirring.

And then it'll turn thick like play dough should.  Place it on the counter to knead.

After it cools, knead it.  Again, kids can do this, as long as it's cooled off.  D preferred to do it with the wheel.

And you are set!  It makes a good-size portion so I just split each color in-between my 2 crazies.

And they went to town with the tools... making shapes, rolling, cutting...

 These guys were "behind the mountain in the field"... love my Army brats!

When they were done, I placed all of the dough in a container & we shall see if it keeps.  They had fun & certainly played with it over an hour!

Lettin' It Hang Out...

So, today I quit.  I gave up.  I lost the battle.  It's not like me to throw the towel in or be defeated, but today I had to fall out of the race.  I let the straps hang out.

There are many sacrifices that military wives make -- surviving months without a spouse, doing bath duty for the kids solo many nights in a row, picking up & starting a new life every few years, in a new house. New city.  New state.  And then there are the little things.  Like not having someone there to fasten your bracelet before you head into church.  Or hang with the kids in the car while you run in for a gallon of milk real quick.  Or tie your shoes for you when you are too preggo to bend over any more.  Or hide your bra straps with the attachment so they don't stick out of your sundress.  This morning I was missing my soldier man over the little things.

It is heating up in the Mojave -- like into the 3 digits -- so it is sundress weather.  The one I picked out this morning is a halter & I couldn't find the right bra.  So, I pulled out the little attachment that I bought to help "tuck" my straps together & conceal them on my regular bra.  Well, it might as well have been a WWF match right there in my bedroom.  I'm not sure if I wasn't reading the step-by-step instructions right or if I just got in a hurry, but I started really wanting my soldier man desperately to be here & clip that attachment for me right in the center of my upper-back.  It was a losing battle & I just wanted help.

After going round & round, me versus my bra, I threw in the towel & thought it couldn't be that bad if I just let 'em hang out.  I can sort of tuck them nicely behind my dress straps, until I bend over to help my crazies.  It's probably a tell-tell sign that I'm a military wife riding it solo these days.  So the straps won, I went out with my bra showing (gasp!!) & I threw that attachment to the floor.  By the way, I couldn't get my bracelet of choice on either.  

My handy-dandy strap attachments that did not come through today.

Ugh.

Unconcealed...

Looking kinda bad

Went with the old & not preferred tuck-n-go.

It's Sizzling Mom!!

The other morning I was trying to buy some time to get some things together in the kitchen for a cookout after I'd finished learning with the crazies but before we were headed to the pool.  I remembered a tiny experiment I'd seen on Pintrest & decided to pull the ingredients out & see if the crazies liked it.  That was a HUGE understatement.  They sat at the table for about an hour & I had to refill their ingredients TWICE!  All you need is a little baking soda, vinegar, food coloring, droppers, & a pan & you are set!  The bubbling chemical reaction thrills them.  The various color combinations entice them.  And the fine motor skills in using the droppers challenges them.  It was a fun morning AND I was able to finish up my prep work for entertaining later in the day!

Just 3 standard kitchen items: 

Pour enough baking soda in a pan to cover the bottom.  Combine vinegar & food coloring in bowls.  

After teaching them to use the dropper, they can go to town.  The vinegar & baking soda have some sort of chemical reaction creating a bubbling mess & the colors are of course entertaining.

Kennedy sort of did it opposite until she got the dropper technique down, but she loved seeing it bubble up the coloring bowl too.

Kennedy's red bowl bubbling.

They sat here doing this for about an hour.  AMAZING!

When we were done I just let them pour them remaining colored vinegar in for one sloppy, wet finale!

Mother's Day Reveal

A few posts ago I mentioned that I'd been crafting up our Mother's Day gifts for the grandmothers in our family & today I thought I would share what we'd been working on.  

We designed table runners using the crazies handprints down the center with either side reading "With These Hands We Give Thanks".  I was super pleased with how they turned out & was a little irritated that I did not make one for our table.  Maybe later.  I used bright colors to make it look more kid-friendly, but you can choose whatever palate suits your subject or color area.  Here's what we did:

All you need is a runner, paint in your choice of colors, & a paintbrush.

Paint their hand in a thick coat.

Place it on the runner.

Repeat several times in several colors until you have it as full as you'd like. I think I was able to do each child's hand about 7 times making 14 handprints.

Occasionally, they'd get a dab of paint some place unintended so I used a circle brush to cover it up with dots.  It wasn't the original plan, but it covered up any stray paint & gave it a more colorful look!

To paint the wording, I found it easiest to put a glue top on the paint bottle to help the letters look their best.  It was super easy in helping the paint to come out uniformly for the wording to look good.

And Ta-Dah!  Our final product...

Look What Arrived Today...

I ordered a new summer purse.  Something BIG.  Something fun.  Something that helped me meet a shopping minimum on an online order in order to qualify for some shipping deal.  So, since I was Christmas shopping for lots of other people, why NOT throw something in the shopping basket for me?!?  So, then I went all out & got it monogrammed -- what else is a Southern gal to do? 
It came today & I am over the moon.  I LOVE it & already switched my purse stuff over.  Yeah, it might not fit into the shopping cart at the grocery store, but it is my BIG, carry-it-all, summer-looking bag.

Ahhhh, I'm in looooove.

The monogram

Chocolate wooden handle

Ready for summer...