Our Pickle Jar

Do you follow my friend Amy's blog at

http://buildingtheblocks.blogspot.com/ ? I've told you about them. They were starting out with a pickle jar to start saving money for their next adoption, then someone donated all the money for their adoption. But Amy's so amazing she wanted to pass it forward and raise money to help someone else adopt. They've been eating beans and rice for dinner for the entire month of September to put the grocery savings towards the fund. I talked to Kristen about what she could do to help.

Kristen gets all my spare change and it goes into her piggy bank (and she hits Grandma and Grandpa up for their change, too). She decided she'd give all her spare change for the month of September and donate it to the Pass It Forward fund. So tonight we were going to count all the change she has saved up this month.

As we started to dump it out to count, she asked me to go get her piggy bank. I told her that what was in her piggy bank was already hers, and reminded her of what she had committed to. But you know what...she insisted that we dump all the money she already had in her piggy bank from the last few months into the pickle jar...she wanted to donate ALL of it!!

Oh yes, I am one proud mommy tonight :) And just throwing in another cute picture of her. She was in the posing mood tonight.

Recipe

I haven't shared a recipe in a while, so I thought I'd post one that I just recently tried. This came from a friend of mine who is a very good cook. And since it's football season, this is perfect. We had it a couple of weeks ago while watching our team, Oklahoma State.

Monday Night Hot Wing Dip

1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1 cup ranch salad dressing
1 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup hot pepper sauce
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Place the chicken breasts into a saucepan and fill with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, then simmer over medium heat until chicken is tender enough to be pulled apart with a fork. Drain and cool until cool enough to touch. Shred or chop chicken and place in a 1 to 2 quart casserole.
3. Mix the cream cheese into the chicken until well blended, then stir in the ranch dressing and hot sauce. Top with cheddar cheese.
4. Bake uncovered for 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until cheese is browned and the sauce is bubbly.

I thought this was pretty good the first day, but thought it was even better when I reheated it the next day. YUM!!

Time flies...

...when you're having fun!! Well, we've been very busy ever since school started, plus we've made two trips to Texas. We had a family reunion to attend, then two weeks later we made our annual trip to the outlet mall in Allen with Maria and Anna. School is keeping us busy with homework every night, but Kristen is loving 1st grade. They had pirate day for the 1st graders a couple of weeks ago, but she wasn't too happy about dressing up :)

We did take advantage of some beautiful weather to spend some time playing at the park.

Kristen and Anna showing off their green tongues after eating some laffy taffy. Those girls are so silly!

First day of 1st grade

Today was Kristen's first day of 1st grade and she had a great day! She loves her teacher, she was excited about having PE, recess, and eating lunch there. None of her classmates from Kindergarten are in her class, so I was a little sad for her about that. I asked her a million questions when I picked her up and when I asked who she sat by at lunch she said "Boys...I was boy trapped." Too funny :) The little girl who sits right in front of her has the same last name, it's just spelled different. I think she's going to have a great year!!

Last day of summer vacation

Tomorrow is the 1st day of school and Kristen has mixed emotions. She's excited, but she's had such a blast at her daycare this summer she doesn't want the fun to end. They went on field trips or swimming 2-3 times a week. They went to the Play Zone, the park, Little River Zoo, the Community Center gym, a RedHawks baseball game, Toy & Action Figure Museum, Stafford Space Center, Incredible Pizza, Sam Noble Museum, Science Museum, roller skating, to El Chico for a tour and lunch (little stinker got a hamburger), and the last day was to the park and to Braum's for ice cream.

Tomorrow will be a little hard for Mommy, because Kindergarten was only half a day and now she'll be there all day for 1st grade. She'll do fine and I know she's going to have a great year. She met her teacher at Open House last night and saw her classroom and her desk. Here we go!!

Newspaper article

Yesterday when I was taking Kristen to daycare I hit a bird. She said "you're probably going to be in the newspaper". Wow, she was right!! Who would've thought! Guess it was a slow news day.

I did contact the editor and let them know that the article had an error...the bird was killed. They did a follow-up article.


OK, really it's not THAT boring around here. My sister put these together on a website for doing fake newspaper articles. Shhh...we don't have to tell Kristen it's fake :)

Tonsillitis

Time for a little Kristen update. She's had tonsillitis this past week (for about the 3rd time and she's also had strep before). We almost took her tonsils out a couple of years ago when she was getting tubes, but decided against it at the time. I guess I'll need to talk to her ENT again about it and see what he thinks. She hates going to the doctor with a sore throat because they swab her throat to test for strep...she refers to it as a "strip test" :) So when I was on the phone calling the doctor she wrote a not so nice note for me and stuck it on the desk in front of me.

It says "Dot Wunu Go to the Dodr" - Translation is "Don't Wanna go to the Doctor"

Instead of taking ballet classes this year she decided on Cheer & Tumbling class and tonight was her first class. She LOVED it!! I'm loving the fact that I don't have to buy shoes for the class :)