Festa bake potato

I love using left overs because it saves money. But this is honestly amazing and I would be willing to cook it just to cook it. The topping would be amazing in Nachos or soup. Since the weather has not really warmed up yet, I have been all about soups and comfort food. Hence the baked potato. Also baked potatoes have a million different ways you can prepare it. Now there is a million and one.
Then again you may want to eat this by the spoonful and not care about the potato.

So for the potato, this will take the longest. I wash my potatoes and toss it with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. I cook it at 375 until I remember I am cooking potatoes it can be anywhere from 30 mins to an hour. Once I completely forgot about the potatoes and made charcoal and only remembered it because of the smoke pouring out of the oven.

About 30 minutes in I start preparing my mixture. I had left over roasted chicken and diced it all up with Soyrizo ( I buy this from Trader Joe's and it is amazing). If you want it to be real meat use chorizo. I blanched some leeks a few weeks ago so I pulled out a handful and tossed that in with onions and garlic. Season with salt and pepper to taste. When everything was warmed up I added about half a brick of cream cheese. If you want to add some cheddar or pepper jack it was just add to the amazingness of this mix.

Now we remember about the potato and start layering it. I start with the cheese because every potato needs cheese no matter what kind of filling is in it.

Then we toss on the mixture. 

Add some sour cream and a touch of seasoned salt with pepper. Now to sever some mouth watering food. 

Gill-G's travel case

Gill- G has high functioning Autism. We never had an issue accepting it because it helps define who he is. We do not feel sorry for ourselves and we do not regret anything. I love him dearly and accepted it long before we knew he was Autistic. Gill-G was going on  27 months before we started testing and it would be another 3 or 4 months with speech therapy before he would even start talking. He would occasionally have melt downs and bite himself until he bleed.  There is a never ending curve of learning because he is learning and developing too.
Just because you know one kid with Autism does not mean you know Autism because Autism has many faces and no two are a like.

But this article is not about living with Autism, it is about living with allergies. Autism just plays a minor part because it affects the way he thinks. 

We have a special baggie in my purse to carry things for Gill-G. 

Inside we have some important thing in case of emergency for when we go out with Gill-G.

This case is easy enough you can get into it but difficult enough that it should slow the children down. 

One side contains an all natural sunscreen because he burns easily and a lotion balm I found on Avon.  The lotion balm is great for the extreme itchy days and we can't get to the lotion or coconut oil and it does not make a huge mess. Normally we also have a small supply of band aids but someone has not replaced it.

The other side contains epi pens and a letter. I also plan on adding Children's Benadryl Liquid Allergy Relief - NEW Larger Size (8 Fl Oz X 2) We had some in there but with allergy season we grabbed it and forgot to refill it. The letter was written for us by our developmental Doctor. This give us the protection if someone hears Gill-G screaming" stop hitting me or you are hurting me" and calls the cops. You would be surprised at the things that can happen. 

Left over Ramen soup

I have been working towards simple whole foods that do not cost a lot. This was more of a left over meal recreated to something delicious.

Start with a broth.
I started with chicken stock and infused it with garlic, cilantro, and ginger. You can even add lemon grass stalks and star anise turn it into anything you want. Use beef broth or veg broth. Try mixing it up. This dish is very versatile and the broth is the base.

I used left over rice noodles from my Vietnamese meals. But Ramen noodles are amazing in this dish. Feel free to try udon or soba noodles.

Next are the toppings. I love baby bok choy with onions, garlic and ginger. I plan on adding more veggies next time. We added a small amount of our left over Ropa Vieja and a touch of soy sauce.( I plan on showing a step by step guide to my Ropa Vieja so keep an eye out because that meal can feed a small army and still have left overs. ) Serve with lime wedges, sprouts and Thai Basil for an extra WOW factor. This is my left over version of Pho.

A lesson in paper air planes

I can not take full credit for the air plane launcher. I saw a picture on pintrest and thought it would be so much fun to do with our Cub Scout Pack. But I am not good at keeping things simple and went all out, it is a normal thing around here. After making the launcher and realizing I am not good at making paper airplanes I ended up looking for patterns and decided this would be an amazing lesson for our classroom. So we looked up aerodynamics of paper airplanes. Who knew there was such a science to it all.  This turned into hours of fun. We did not color our airplanes because we were way to busy testing our planes to see if they would fly.

Let us start with the launcher
First you need a piece of scrap wood. (We used a small piece of pallet wood because I am obsessed with pallet projects.) 2 screws and a rubber band and tape. I choose to paint ours so I needed paint.

Just screw the screws in evenly in a straight line. 

We used screws because the nail did not want to go in the pallet.
If you do that you are going to want to tape it really well. 

I painted it blue since this was for Cubscouts. 

Then I painted a runway. 

After our Launcher was completed we took a giant cardboard and cut out openings. But we decided we want to redo it using wood so it really last. (I will post pictures after we make it.)

Standing the cardboard up was tricky but it was worth it in the end. I did not take pictures of our folding because I was folding. 

 This turned into an all day project. Our neighbors even joined in on the fun. 

Gems in the Finger Lakes

Creek
Clifton Springs, NY

The Finger Lakes region is known for it's many wineries and beautiful scenery.  In this series we will be looking at the scenery aspect and hopefully show some things that people may not know about.

 Lagoon Park
Canandaigua, NY

From natural wonders to museums we explore anything in the Finger Lakes that is even remotely interesting.  It does not matter how big or small our goal is to show everything that the Finger Lake has to offer.

Paleontological Research Institution and Museum of the Earth
Ithaca, NY

 Please join us on our journey and feel free to suggest any places you would like us to explore.

Paleontological Research Institution and Museum of the Earth
Ithaca, NY

Lessons in chalk

 Sitting around the table doing lessons get boring after awhile. With my ADHD and Hulk Man's never ending energy we need to come up with new ways to learn. Besides who does not like playing with chalk? Depending on the day will really determine what we do in chalk, some lessons just does not work outside. 

I think our favorite lesson was trying to draw the solar system and then realizing we needed more space. Next time we will search for a massive parking lot to try that. After that first solar system project I realized how excited the kids were to do their work with chalk. At our next trip to Hulk Man's speech group Yasser, Gill-G, and I practiced our writing.

                                                                   

Gill-G was actually thrilled to trace this way, not that school work has ever been a struggle with him. Some days he fights with us because he does not want to go to sleep because he is doing school work. Yasser is the really stubborn one and will fight. But for 40 mins she happily sat sounding out words and writing in chalk.  

Honestly the hippy in me was screaming for joy because this was a never ending supply for writing. The next rain storm or the next spraying of water gives us new writing space. It is a win win either way we look at it. 

It has been way to long...

Things were all over the place for awhile and it got overwhelming but we are back and we are more organized and in a better place. 

                                                     

I want to start with we completed our first year homeschooling with Yasser and it was a long crazy year. We combined first grade with kindergarden because she was comfortable with kindergarden before the year even started. We are starting second grade this year. She is also bridging into Brownies with our girl scout troop. I am very proud of my little lady because she worked hard to earn all of the pins and patches she could. We are also in to works of losing our first two teeth!!! I really have no clue how I feel because it does not feel that long ago she was depending on me for everything.

                                                                        

Gill-G had huge changes in his life. For starters we have the official Autism diagnose but he also has apraxia with anxiety and horrible allergies. The good news to it all we were able to start putting together plans to help him work around stuff. Now we are in a much better place and starting to see the unusual child emerging. It is honestly nice to see. We finally got rid of our gross green blanket and don't spend day and night upset. We are starting Kindergarden this year after catching him doing his sisters school work for her ( he just turned 4 so I didn't want to push but he can do math in his head and basic reading). Lessons were learned and now we are in for a really great year. 

                                                                          

Hulk man well he is just Hulk man with more mysteries than answers but we have either been learning how to accept and deal with more or he is getting better. I really have no clue anymore. But we love him and plan on another great year except this time we with be keeping up with our blog. Even Justin agreed to start typing and writing more. My weekly schedule has a blog typing section blocked off every week :) Thank you everyone for not giving up on me and checking every so often.