Everyday Moments

Life...unedited. 

These random iPhone photos are dark, blurry, and untouched,

but they capture everyday moments from this week.

The girls and I are enjoying our winter break from school this week. We're having a staycation. We've planned some activities that are simple, meaningful, and inexpensive. Our goal is to spend less than $5 each day or $25 total for the week. On Christmas Eve, the girls and I had "Recipe Day," where we made three easy, kid-friendly recipes. Savannah practiced reading each recipe, measuring the ingredients, setting the oven temperature and timer, and taking the food in and out of the oven. First, we made pizza muffins:

To make the pizza muffins, we used this recipe. We made biscuits with some sauce, cheese, and pepperoni:

Savannah put the biscuits in the muffin tins:

Then, she added a spoonful of pizza sauce to each biscuit:

The pizza muffins were yummy!

Next, the girls and I made M&M cookie bars:

To make the cookie bars, we used this recipe that included only five ingredients:

Hadley and Savannah mixed the cookie dough:

Last, the girls and I made salted chocolate pretzel toffee with this recipe. However, we added some leftover pecans and white chocolate chips. Next time, we will use dark chocolate chips for a richer chocolate flavor:

The girls took turns breaking the pretzels into smaller pieces for the bottom layer:

  

While we waited for our pizza muffins, M&M cookie bars, and chocolate pretzel toffee to cool, we headed to McDonald's to eat lunch and play before naptime. To stay within our $5 budget, the girls drank water and each ordered one item only (double cheeseburger for Savannah and chicken nuggets for Hadley)...but Savannah used her chore money to get French fries:

After Tal got home from work on Christmas Eve, our family ate dinner at the new Cajun restaurant in our neighborhood that served delicious, authentic food from Louisiana.  Hadley got chicken fingers to avoid an allergic reaction to shellfish. I ordered the voodoo pasta:

Tal ate the crawfish etoufee:

Savannah got a cup of seafood gumbo:

For dessert, we got beignets...fried dough that tasted like a funnel cake:

After dinner at the Cajun restaurant, we enjoyed going to Piper's Lights. It is a free, local, family-run, drive-through display with awesome Christmas lights: