A Day with Dad

So Marc has Fridays off. He has had Fridays off for about 4 weeks now. Every Friday him and Jacq have their very own daddy and me adventure. One week it was the zoo, the next week toy town. Every morning starts with breakfast at Five and Diner and then continues on from there. Yesterday they visited dad's work and then dad decided to get sweet and bake cupcakes! Him and Jacq went and bought their supplies and came home and spent the afternoon making valentine's day cupcakes for me and the grandparents. They are so cute! Here are the pics.

The Supplies!










The finished product!


It was so cool to come home from work and see that they had such a fun, productive day together. Thank you Marc and Jacq, I love my cupcakes!

Veggie Art

Jacq thought this was silly and fun!

What you need:
Paper plate (for your paint)
Paint
Construction paper
Fruit & Veggies cut in half

You can use whatever foods you have. We used an apple, orange, cucumber and broccoli. Potatoes and fun too because you can cut shapes into them.

Use a plate to pour your paint onto.

Pretty basic instructions here. Use your food as your 'paintbrush'. Show your child how to do a sponge paint-like motion with the food so they are 'stamping' it and not painting. Jacq had fun doing this. And after we used the other halves of the fruit to make smoothes!

Watercolor Art

I have been doing crafts and cooking a lot lately. I just haven't been blogging them. So I am taking advantage of this rainy Sunday and Jacq taking a nap, to get caught up.

I can't find the link to where I saw the idea for this. I'll look for it some more and try to post it later.

What you need:

Watercolor paper
Watercolors
Cups (for water)
Paintbrushes
Contact paper
Frame (optional)

With your contact paper cut out a letter (we used ''J" for Jacqueline) and adhere it to the paper. Make sure you press really hard to eliminate bleeding of the watercolors.



Next, let your child watercolor all over the paper. Set aside to let dry completely.







When it is done peel the contact paper from the paper. Now you have a beautiful piece of art! I went to Michael's and found a frame for $8. We put this up in the living room and Jacq shows it to everyone who comes over.



As you can see it did bleed a little under the contact paper but it still looks great.
Here is a portrait of the artist.

Recipe: Parmigiano-Reggiano Crusted Chicken

This recipe is fantastic. I got it from Rachel Ray magazine. Whenever I make it I have to make a double batch because Marc always wants seconds.

What you need:
1/4 c flour
2 eggs
1 1/4 c grated parm-reggiano cheese
3 tbl olive oil
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast, pounded to about 1/4 inch thick

Jacq always likes to help me cook dinner. There really wasn't much for her to do here since this dish is so easy. So I let her pour the dry ingredients onto plates for me while I pounded the chicken.

Pour your flour onto one plate and your cheese onto another.
*TIP: For easy clean up, use paper plates!






Get a medium skillet and add your evoo to the pan and turn to medium heat. Next crack your eggs into a bowl and lightly beat it. Make your assembly line. Flour first, then egg then the cheese.



Take each chicken breast and coat with egg then the flour. Then coat with the cheese. Give the cheese some firm presses so it sticks. Add to the skillet and cook each side until golden, about 7 mins per side.



Delish! Here is what it looked like right before I plated it.



Enjoy!

Make a: Robot Magnet

This isn't a craft or project for the kiddos. It's something mom can make during naptime and the kiddos can enjoy when they wake up.

What you need:
Several pieces of foam. 2 or 3 different colors.
Googly eyes
Pipe cleaner
Embellishments (optional)
Magnet strips
Scissors
Glue

Cut out your robot body. I cut out one big square for the body, a smaller one for the head. 2 arms and 2 legs.



I used a pencil to wind some black pipe cleaner around. These will be antennae.



I glued on googly eyes, used some star embellishments that I had and 2 pieces of foam. One for the mouth and one on the body. I set it all aside to dry.



After it was dried, I put the magnetic strips on. I bought the self adhesive ones to make it easier on myself.


I love, love, love this idea! I saw it here.

Here is the finished product. It dried and I put it on the fridge. Jacq noticed it as soon as she woke up and has been playing with it all afternoon!

Bzzzz-y Bee!

I'm back in the crafting spirit! I wasn't sure what theme I wanted to use for our craft yesterday. It's winter and I found a ton of cute snowflakes, snowmen, and cold weather crafts. But we live in Arizona and it was 77 degrees yesterday! So none for those seem fitting. I gave Jacq some options and she picked this adorable paper plate bee to make.

What you need:
Paper plate
Yellow paint
Black foam board (can also use black paper or paint)
Glue
Scissors
Wax paper
Googly eyes (optional)

Have your child paint the plate yellow. Set aside to dry.




I didn't get any pics while we were assembling our bee but here is Jacq with the finished product.



While the plate is drying, cut of the bees stripes using foam board. If you don't have foam you can use black paper or paint the stripes on.

When the plate is dry, glue your stripes on. Cut out a little triangle with the foam and glue it on as the tail. Glue on your eyes as well. If you don't have googly eyes, you can draw some on. Also, draw on a mouth. Allow all this to dry.

While the glue is drying, use the wax paper to cut out wings. Then apply them as well. Now, you're done!

This turned out so cute! I am going to add a cardboard strip to the inside of the plate. That way Jacq can slip her hand in there and flap the bee around to make it fly! The glue hadn't dried all the way on the wings yet, but you get the idea.

Just for fun

I realized I haven't been posting any pictures of Jacq lately. I am using my flickr mainly for clients now so I am sure you all are going through Jacq withdrawal. Here are a few I took today.







And I'll throw one of Cooper in just for fun!

Display it!

Children love to see their artwork displayed. It gives them a great sense of pride and accomplishment. I have seen several ways to display your kid's art. Once Jacq starts actually drawing pictures I plan to frame them every so often. In the meantime, I found this neat idea. The best part is you only need 3 supplies!

For this I used a wired ribbon, some thumb tacks and clothespins. Just cut the ribbon to whatever length you desire, tack it up on the wall and use clothespins to hang your child's art. I hung this over Jacq's bed and she loves to show people when they come over to our house.

Recipe: Chicken & Biscuits

So here it is, Saturday night and I am blogging. Normal for a working mom of a 2 year old. What else do we have to do on Saturday nights? Only tonight my mom has Jacq for the entire night. But I have an hour to kill before Marc and I head out to dinner so why not share a recipe with you?

For this recipe you will need:
1 can (10oz) cream of chicken soup
3/4c sour cream, divided
2c cooked chicken, chopped or shredded
1 pkg frozen mixed veggies, thawed ( you can use canned)
1c shredded cheddar cheese
1c bisquick
3 tbsp milk

1. Heat your oven to 375 degrees. In an 8 inch baking dish mix soup, 1/2c sour cream, chicken, veggies and cheese.
I let Jacq help with dinner anyway she can. For this dish she sprinkled in the cheese and stirred all the ingredients together.





2. Place bisquick in a medium bowl. Add remaining 1/4c sour cream and milk. Stir until stiff dough forms.
*note: I found this only made enough for about 4 biscuits so I doubled the recipe for the dough and it was perfect.





3. Drop by heaping tablespoons into 6 mounds to form biscuits onto of your chicken mixture. Bake 35 mins or until biscuits are golden brown.

Here is the end result.



As a side dish this night we had a red potato and green been saute that was delicious! I don't have time to write out the whole recipe but you can find it right here.

I omitted the basil and used bacon instead. It's now a regular dish in our house.

Here is Jacq helping me wash the green beans.


Here is what the dish looked liked.



Ok, I'm off to dinner with my honey. Yeah for date nights! And yeah for Grandma's who babysit so mom and dad can have a date night!