Morning Glory's Tunnel and Sunflowers

 Top pic is the Morning Glory Tunnel it is about 3ft tall. It looks alot smaller in the pic but its a really good size!
The bottom pic is where my sunflowers are planted, I ran out of fences and used the girls outside chairs to cover over the sunflowers so they would not get run over by children and dogs. My first round of sunflowers I set out and came back out in the morning and the rabbits ate every.single.one. So I had to start over and re-grow them.
                             

Recipe: Roasted Butternut and Bacon Pasta

I am going to start a weekly post on Recipes!I have one really picky eater so I am only going to do recipes that my children will eat! I hope  you enjoy!

Preheat oven to 400 Degrees. You will want to peel the butternut squash then cut it into halves and De-seed it( it is easiest to scoop out the seeds with a spoon) then to dice the squash. 

Then dice the onion. 

Toss the onion and squash together with oil and spread on a baking sheet. Cut 1 tablespoon of butter and dot the squash. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Roast the squash/onion mix for about 45 min. While roasting you will want to make sure it all roast evenly until it is a golden brown.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add pasta and cook until AL Dante. Drain. While the pasta is cooking you will get your bacon started.

While the above pasta is cooking, heat a large sauté pan on medium heat. Add the bacon and sauté till most of the fat is rendered and the bacon is crisp on the edges but still they in the center. About 4-5 min.

 Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of fat and return the pan to medium high heat. Add the sage and sauté for 30 seconds. Add in the Pin Nuts.

Add the squash and cook, stirring occasionally until heated through about 2 min. .

Add the hot pasta, the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and 1/3 cup of the hot past water and stir to combine. If the pasta seems dry, stir in a little more pasta water. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Transfer to a warmed serving dish and sprinkle with cheese over the top. Serve right away.

Ingredients:
* 1 Butternut squash. Peeled, halved, seeded and cut into bite sized cubes
* 1/2 cup diced yellow onion
* 1 Tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
* 3 Tablespoons unsalted butter
* Salt and pepper
* 1/2 lb Orecchiette pasta
* 4 Slices of thick cut Apple Wood Smoked bacon Chopped
* 1 Tablespoon Chopped fresh sage
* 1/4 Cup pin nuts lightly toasted
* 1/2 Freshly grated Parmesan

Lilly's Lalaloopsy Birthday!

Lillys 5th Birthday is coming up very soon and she could not be more excited!! She decided she wanted a Lalaloopsy Party! We were talking about what to do and she decided to a Activity for each doll... Sort of. Her four favorite are Blossom Flower Pot, Crumbs Sugar Cookie, Corral Sea Shells, Prairie Dusty Trails. So for Crumbs Sugar Cookie we hare having a Tea Party, For Blossom Flower Pot we are painting flower pots and Lilly picked out the seeds she wanted and planted them a grew them herself! She picked Morning Glory's. For Prairie Dusty Trails we are doing a pin the tail on Prairie and Coarl Sea Shells we will have the big pool set up in the backyard, I may get talked into pulling out the huge tarp and running the hose down the swing set slide (We did it last year a lot).. Its a crowd pleaser buuut it kills the grass.. Anyways Lilly has invited the kids from her class at school and all her neighborhood friends, She is so excited!! She even has the dress Sugar crumbs is wearing to wear for her party! I found a lady on Etsy that made the inventions and Table Cards and they turned out amazing! So amazing that when we went to pick up the inventions at Costco when I pulled them out and showed them to Lilly she screamed!! This is just the first of a ton of Lalaloopsy Birthday post. I just made a table cloth that matches Sugar Crumbs dress and all Lilly could do was hug it!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/LalaHeaven

Chalk Board Wall

We made a Chalk Board wall!! I bought a sheet of plywood. It was 4X8, then I used my circular saw and cut it to 3x7. Then I put two coats of "Bulls Eye 123 Primer" on front and back and the four sides. I was hoping it would help keep the water out. I Bought Martha Stewart Chalkboard paint in grey *It is not so "grey", but it matched the fence* I put two coats of the chalkboard paint on pretty thick, It used about a bottle in a half by the time I was done. My plan was to hang it over the two horizontal post across the back of the fence but when I got it up there it was so heavy I was worried about support so I sat it on the bottom horizontal bar to help hold it up. Then I drilled two holes on each side so they were above and below the horizontal bar on the backside and looped the rope threw two times and I was done! Lilly helped me with it all except the cutting with circular saw... For obvious reasons I hope... This board has been threw several big rain storms and held up great!! So I am pleased! We did this during our Garden unit week. It sits right behind the girls swing set and they have had the best time with all there friends playing school. Last week we were doing Fairy week and all the girls played "Fairy School" and made wands and got the fairy wings out, their was 8 or "Fairies" in my backyard! Cute!

Bits and Pieces

Pictures 1-5: Asparagus picking, they also had kale, and Swiss chard to pick
Pictures 6&7: Playing with the neighborhood kids
Pictures 8&9: Bubble walks
Picture10: Sunday night
 We did a tooooon this week but most of the pictures are going to be in the Garden Unit post and a lot of post coming up on the different things we made. We spent the past week studying plants and doing different garden activity's and making things for our backyard!

Our Earth Day

For our Earth Day we do a few things that are a tradition for us, we do a pick up trash walk  and make "Earth cupcakes". This year we also planted our sunflowers that we have been growing and painted reusable bags. We colored some Earth day coloring pages, played Earth day bingo, and wrote what we are going to do to take care of the earth and what we are going to stop doing that is hurting the earth, and read Earth day book.
A few of our favorites that we have are:
*"I can save the Earth" "The adventures of a plastic bottle: A story about Recycling both by alison inches
*Where Does the Garbage go?" By Paul Showers
* "Its Earth day!" by Mercer  Mayer 
* " Everyday is Earth day, Fancy Nancy" by Jane O' Conner

 Funny story, we were picking up trash at the top of our street ( because some ahole let a bunch of packing popcorn lose and it covered our street...) and Raley saw their friend mitch out and starting running towards him and Lilly took off with Bag for trash in her hand winging it around in the air yelling " GET BACK HERE, ITS EARTH DAY!!!!" over and over till they both got to to mitch! Kids are so funny It was a great day!