St. Patty's Day

The jury is still out on how much Irish we are - there is a smattering of ancestors from the Emerald Isle on all sides - but I'm all for playing up holidays; if only because it breaks up what can be a monotonous search for "what should we do today?" and "what should we eat today?"

We didn't actually do anything too terribly Irish, I would have loved to go to the parade, or maybe an Irish festival, but we weren't that organized. . . plus Ox had choir practice.

It was a gorgeous day. The kind of day that sets your green thumb to itching so we decided to take a trip to Linder's. I love Linder's, if only to browse and smell and soak in the colors.

We let each kid pick out a cactus. Ox named his David Bowie (he has been very impressed with the movie Labyrinth - both of them are, actually).

Little Frog named her succulent "Debbie."

Ox is so funny, he loves his cactus.

I'm just glad it's a cactus and requires very little attention.

What was especially cool about this trip to Linder's was their new line of Fairy Houses. My kids each have a fairy house that they decorate and redecorate every so often, so they were pretty impressed, too.

I would have bought a couple, but they were crazy expensive. I took pictures instead.

English Cottage

Seaside Cottage, maybe?

Do you see the elf?

My favorite - I love the giant plant!

I'm glad my imagination isn't dried up yet - I can picture myself living in every one of these little houses. I entertained a brief thought of buying them all and creating a fairy mecca in our back yard. But then I looked at the prices. 

I think we'll stick to wood chips and seashells for our fairy decorations. 

Sunday is for. . .

I don't know what it is, the upcoming work week maybe, that makes me want to cook on Sundays. Two Sundays ago I made 10 batches of White Chicken Chili for my meal club:

Step 1: onions, garlic, and cilantro

Little Frog was very entertained, she "helped" a lot:

Yes, she is "stirring" that burner. It's not on.

I cooked it in 5 double-batches, Little Frog tasted every batch:

And then I made 10 half-batches of cheesy potatoes (a few days later):

Frozen Cheesy Potatoes ready to go to Meal Club

Our downstairs freezer is now fully stocked. Not only is it fantastic to have a wealth of meals to pull out but it got me in a mood. To cook a lot on Sundays. 

Today I sauteed up a bunch of chicken with garlic and onions. Shredded it all and froze half. 

not my picture. stolen from website

I made a creamed avocado pasta salad recipe that I found on Pinterest for the kids' thermoses tomorrow. I used cheese tortellini and added some chicken. I am so thankful that my kids have more-than-pbj palates because it is so much more fun to make their lunches (even though I then burn out and "let" them get hot lunch. I can't do good lunches every day). 

The picture at the right is the one from the original recipe website. My picture turned out like (really tasty) green gloop, especially not pretty in a thermos. Luckily Ox's school served Green Eggs and Ham for lunch on Friday so he is still excited by green food. Yes, especially when he found out it was from avocado. 

The other half of the chicken went in to THIS recipe that I also found on Pinterest and was so fantastic. Especially when I used sour cream instead of yogurt and none of the low-fat crap it called for. Low-fat cheese? There is NO point. Gross. I froze half of that to wrap up in tortillas for burritos in the future. 

While I was cooking the kids played Sneaky Snacky Squirrel with Masermind. This is pretty much their most favorite game in the entire universe.

Then I got tired and we watched Labyrinth. Kinda scary but still PG, Ox was mostly concerned because David Bowie had bad teeth. 

This may be my last post in awhile because Game of Thrones comes out on DVD on Tuesday and I'm so excited I could cry. I do not know if I've ever, ever been this excited for anything to come out on DVD. Ever. As in I just googled for a Game of Thrones picture to add here and got too excited and had to close the tab. 

Anyway. 

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