Hawaiian Chicken and Rice

Soooo, life has been so super busy lately and I'm trying to use my crock pot more and more so that at the end of the day I don't have to try and plan dinner.

Tonight we had Hawaiian Chicken and Rice and I had to share because it was so simple and yummy {and healthy!}.

Cut up chicken breast into bite sized pieces {you could also add the pieces whole and chop it after it's cooked, but I happen to like to chop ahead of time.}
I used about 4 large chicken breasts.


Add the chicken to the crock pot.
Cut up 1 med. sized green pepper into large chunks and throw them into the crock pot too.
Drain a large can of pineapple chunks, then toss the pineapple in the crock.
Add 1/2 cup of soy sauce.


Put the lid on and let cook for about 4 hours on low. If using frozen chicken you may need to add a little time. Keep an eye on it though because all crock pots cook at different rates and when you cut the chicken into bite sized pieces they tend to cook quicker.

When it's almost dinner time cook some brown rice according to package directions. Serve the rice with the chicken mixture over top {add some of the liquid too, it's yummy!}

I'm only a tiny fan of spicy things but I think this would also be great with a little crushed red pepper added to it.


PS. Some people don't like the taste of cooked pineapple {my daughters included}, but I would still add it for flavor and just let each person choose if they would rather not eat it.

Enjoy!
***hey - who wants to share some easy, healthy, crock pot recipes with me??!! Pretty, pretty please?????***

Lunch Time!

Recently my friend Shawna posted about how lunchtime can often be a nightmare with everyone trying to figure out what they want. And even though I'm a stay at home Mom who homeschools, I still feel like lunchtime is always a battle.

Taking Shawna's idea and running with it I decided to buy these cool ziploc containers to help inspire some creative lunches.

The first day we tried them out this is what the girls came up with ...

Shawna also gave me some awesome websites full of creative lunch ideas - You have to check these out!

Here is one of the coolest sites for lunch box ideas. After looking through this site I totally want to buy some cute cookie cutters and make every lunch this fun!

And here is another.

You know what else? I fully believe that kids will enjoy fruits and veggies more when they have them in this fun way!

I hope to share more of our fun lunches in the months to come ...

HomeMade Crockpot Applesauce

OK first you have to know that I don't have a real recipe for this ... but you'll see that it's soooo easy, you really don't even need instructions!

Go to a local orchard and pick fresh apples - this is the best part!

Peel and chop apples and dump them into your crockpot. It took about 10-14 apples to fill my crockpot - it all depends on how big your crock is and how big your apples are.


Then dump in about 1/2 cup to one cup of liquid {either water or apple juice}, and add about 1/2 cup of brown sugar and a large TBSP of cinnamon.

Let it simmer in the pot for about 6-8 hours on low. You can stir periodically if you wish.

When your apples are all nice and mushy you can decide if you like your sauce chunky or smooth. If you like it chunky, simply spoon into jars as is. If you like it smooth pour it into a blender or food processor and pulse for a quick second or two, then pour into jars.

I DO NOT do the whole water bath canning method - although I have done it before - but honestly it's just too much work for me. I let the jars sit on the counter overnight and then put them in the freezer until we're ready to eat them.

And let me tell you it is Y U M M Y ! ! !

Wellspring Academy Week Four!

Have we really been in school for 4 weeks already?!

This week we ... learned a new method for the 3, 6 and 9 times tables ...

Multiplication is here and is in full force this year and I gotta admit ... we're struggling! So we're trying to learn them any way we can - and yes when I say WE, I do mean that I too am relearning them right along with my daughter!

We also tried something new for lunch time and I will be posting more about this very soon ...

We took some breaks to go outdoors and enjoy 'recess' ... jumping rope is great for getting your heart pumping!

AND, we played some hand-clap games ... 'Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack ... all dressed in black, black, black ...'

This is what Trouble was up to at the time ...

We are still working on studying the Sun in science class. Yes, we're taking a bit longer than the suggested 2 weeks per chapter but hey, it's our school we can do what we want, right?!

These are the girls Sun collages ... I love how they both added Sun Flares!

Then, just to prove how hot the sun can be ... we took a magnifying glass outside and tried to see how long it would take to melt some frozen Hershey's bars ... it took less than 2 minutes!

Ummmmm ... then we ate the melted chocolate! That's my kind of science!

Later in the week we made homemade applesauce from all of those apples we had picked on Monday ...

There isn't much to do since it's a simple method - but the girls helped peel apples, I chopped them and then we threw it all in the crock pot ... {with brown sugar and cinnamon of course!} Recipe and instructions coming soon ...

And there ya go ... another fun and educational week here at Wellspring Academy!

Field Trip #2

This week we took another field trip - this time to the Apple Orchard! I love fall and everything about it and going to pick apples and pumpkins is definitely a yearly tradition for us.

It took all of 10 minutes for us to fill 3 large bagfuls and I finally had to tell the girls to stop picking or we'd end up with too many!

Nothin' better than a freshly picked, tart, sweet apple!

I love the color of all the fallen apples on the ground ...

We also took a walk through the pumpkin patch, although we decided to wait on buying them - they had some great, big, huge ones though!

Love it when they pose willingly for me!

LOVE the bright orange pumpkins!

We browsed the gourds and squashes too .... Hope like that this one was shaped like a giant acorn!

I'm always enthralled by the beautiful swirl of colors on the indian corn ... forgive me if this is a dumb question but how exactly do you make indian corn? Is it just dried out corn cobs? If so, how does it get all those gorgeous, marble-y colors?

Big, bright, beautiful Mums! Gotta get some for my yard SOON! My summer garden and flowers look terrible now and we need some color.

It was a great field trip ... coming soon I'll post about making homemade applesauce with all of those apples!

Hope's birthday weekend

On Friday it was Hope's 9th birthday - she awoke in the morning to streamers covering her door {a family tradition}...

We covered the table with a green tablecloth {her fave color}, the birthday queen crown, and lots of frogs {also her fave}... we also had a large banner across the dining room that say Happy Birthday!!

She requested Chocolate Chip pancakes for breakfast ... and I happened to have a little leftover cake frosting to make some cute smiles on the pancakes ...

That afternoon the girls and I went to see Nanny McPhee - oh my goodness, what a great movie! {I only shed a few tears!} but otherwise it was fantastic! We enjoyed yummy popcorn, soda and candy ...

That evening we had the Grandparents over for birthday dinner - the birthday girl requested meatball grinders which were yummy! Grinders are another name for sub sandwiches for those who don't live in New England! haha!

We had some gifts for Hope, then had angel food cake with pineapple - one of our family faves and seriously the EASIEST cake you will ever make!

We are so grateful for amazing grandparents who are very involved in our daughter's lives .... these are Bob's parents ...

And my Mom ...

Here is the cake I made for her party on Saturday - she wanted a frog cake {of course!} and her two fave colors are bright green and hot pink. So I made a frog and a lily pad with hot pink flowers on it ...

Another angle ...

She had her party at the roller rink - it was so much fun and so easy for me - all I had to bring was the cake and they took care of the rest! Sorry for the lack of roller rink pics - the lighting was terrible and I didn't get any good pictures there!

And that night she picked two friends to sleep over ... they had a blast staying up late and watching movies on Netflix ...

Hope is such a tremendous blessing in our lives - we couldn't imagine our lives without her! We had a really fun weekend celebrating her young life!

Wellspring Academy Week Three!

Last week we had a fantastic week of school! Mondays are usually my hubby's day off so we try to get school work done in the morning so that we can go on field trips {with him} in the afternoon.

Last Monday we went to a local nature center and it was awesome, we will definitely be going back there again! We walked through the nature center, went through the butterfly house, then walked and hiked the wooded trails for over an hour. It was a cool, crisp, fall day - perfect for hiking!

At the end we checked out the very cool owls and hawks they had - they were gorgeous creatures!

Isn't the beauty of God's creation just breathtaking?!

After leaving the nature center we stopped at a favorite fall place - a local cider mill that has THE BEST apple cider EVER! It's a yearly tradition to go there and we were all happy to enjoy some cool apple cider after our long hike.

This week we have been studying the Inuits of the Arctic in our history lessons. Here the girls were checking out the globe to see exactly where the Inuits were from.

My father in law came over and painted the words I had wanted on our library buckets - don't they look awesome??!!

In Geography we're learning about maps and the parts of a map.

It's always good to greet your work with smiles ...

AND in science we started putting together our model of the solar system. This week we're learning about the sun so we got a large foam sphere and painted it to look like the sun. We will be hanging the whole solar system in our school room. The girls had SO much fun painting the sun!

After the yellow paint we used orange paint and sponged it on ...

And since we had the paint stuff out already and since I wanted to do a fall-ish craft with the girls ... we found some plain, scented pinecones that I had laying around and we painted them fall colors - they came out SUPER cute!

On Thursday we met with my friend who is going to teach the girls music class. It was great to get some things decided and have a plan. They will be beginning that in a couple of weeks.

All in all it was a great week.