Recipe: Fruit Salsa with Cinnamon Chips

You are probably going to want to read this and then you're probably going to want to run to the grocery store and hit the kitchen. This recipe had a long journey to find our kitchen! It started out at Pampered Chef, found it's way onto Allrecipes.com, was shared at The Girl Who Ate Everything, and then journeyed onto my dear friend's food board on Pinterest! And now, here it is on Give Them Roots! Any recipe that has a map course like that is usually divine, this recipe is no exception.




Annie's Fruit Salsa & Cinnamon Chips (ahem, or Pampered Chef's)

Ingredients
2 kiwis, peeled and diced
2 Golden Delicious apples - peeled, cored and diced
8 ounces raspberries
1 pound strawberries
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
3 tablespoons fruit preserves, any flavor
10 (10 inch) flour tortillas
butter flavored cooking spray
2 tablespoons cinnamon sugar

1.In a large bowl, thoroughly mix kiwis, Golden Delicious apples, raspberries, strawberries, white sugar, brown sugar and fruit preserves. Cover and chill in the refrigerator at least 15 minutes.

2.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

3.Coat one side of each flour tortilla with butter flavored cooking spray. Cut into wedges and arrange in a single layer on a large baking sheet. Sprinkle wedges with desired amount of cinnamon sugar. Spray again with cooking spray.

4.Bake in the preheated oven 8 to 10 minutes. Repeat with any remaining tortilla wedges. Allow to cool approximately 15 minutes. Serve with chilled fruit mixture.

If you go to the link for The Girl Who Ate Everything above, she changed the sugar measurements some and I think it's a much healthier way to make it!

The 365 Family Challenge

Instead of a New Year's resolution this year, our family is choosing a 365 day challenge. I'd love for each of you to join me on this challenge (Our challenge will run slightly over into 2013 because we're starting today!). There are only two rules to participate in this challenge:

1. Choose one thing you would like for your family to do together for a solid year. (reading, outdoor quality time, cooking together, meditation, exercise, etc.)

2. Do it every single day. No exceptions. No excuses.

This can be anything! It can be something you always said you would do when you had a family, something you need to work on together, something just for fun, or absolutely ANYTHING. The sky is the limit. And, you don't have to have human babies to do this challenge, fur babies count too! It could be taking a family (you, your partner, & your furry friend) walk every evening, rain or shine!

Our family is going to have 30 minutes of family reading together every single night before bed. No exceptions. No excuses. Everyone will get a chance to read aloud (minus the baby and the 4 year old will just be telling us about the pictures). We read to our boys a lot and always at bedtime but not frequently TOGETHER, all six of us, in one room. I think there will be a lot of benefits to doing this challenge for our entire family. Our twins have learned to read and this will encourage them and help them excel. Hudson, our 4 year old, is still working on letter sounds, this will help him learn what letters make the sounds as his older brothers are sounding out words. Evan, the baby, just wants to be with his big brothers every.waking.second.of.the.day. , so this will give him a chance to take part without them telling him no, or saying that he's wrecking everything. :) For Ryan and I, this challenge is most important. It means that we're BOTH stopping everything for 30 minutes and spending quality time with our boys, all of them. 30 minutes probably sounds like nothing to a lot of you, but when you have four "stair step" children, someone requires your attention constantly. There's always something to do, packing lunches, helping with homework, after school activities (ex. sports for our family), changing diapers, doing laundry, cooking meals, cleaning up, bath time (Mommy included), snuggle time for each kid, playtime, and just general self preservation a.k.a personal time! It's a lot to pack into one day, especially when most of that has to happen between the hours of 3:00pm and 7:30pm... when the twins get out of school and when the boys go to bed. 4.5 hours and we're taking 30 minutes of that for reading. I truly hope this is a challenge that we see through to the end and carry into the years to come!

Your challenge doesn't have to be 30 minutes, it could be 5 minutes! The idea is that you're spending quality time together so, it just has to be something you do together as a family.

What challenge will you complete with your family this year?

(Don't be shy, chances are if it's in writing for the world to see you'll really do it!!)

Potty Training: The 7 Day Method

A few months ago I posted the following message on Facebook: “No more baby cribs at the Peed Casa!!! Evan's officially in a toddler bed. Pack your bags, diapers. You're up!!!”, that's right Give Them Roots' readers, our little family is at the end of an era. An era run by the tiniest tyrants, plagued with stinky diapers and dirty crib bumpers (Why are those so incredibly hard to wash & dry?!). I can hardly believe that after 6 straight years of diapers, breastfeeding, and baby food making we are almost done! I wish I could be one of those mother's who tell you it's bittersweet or that I cried taking the crib down but I won't lie to you. I may or may not have done some fist pumping outside of Evan's door when he fell asleep in his toddler bed without any issues. I'm even prouder to say today that my now two year old is happily sleeping on the bottom of a bunk bed. Adios toddler bed!

So what's next? PT work, and no I don't mean part-time. I mean full-time, hands on, boot camp style POTTY TRAINING. Evan's almost 25 months old now and we're ready to begin. Santa brought a new potty and big boy underwear so we introduced our littlest man to his new best friend. Our older 3 boys we trained the same way with great success. It's the same way my Mom trained me and the same way we plan to train our youngest. Today, I'm sharing the family secret. (You should patent this, Mom!)

Potty Training: The 7 Day Method.
This is so incredibly simple that you won't believe it will work, but it will. The key to success is sticking to it! You can't slack off, you can't do it half-***, and you have to go full throttle with both guns blazing! Let's begin...

Day 1: Put on big kid underwear! Make the biggest deal you've ever made about something your child has gotten. Go to the potty (big or little potty), sit on it and talk about what you do when you're in the bathroom! Hop up and begin the fun. Set a timer for 10 minutes. Don't put on pants! Pick out some “reading material” and play or do what you want until the timer goes off. Stay with your child! When the timer goes off go back to the potty for 5 minutes or less if your child goes potty before that. IF they do go potty make a huge fuss, (bigger than the underwear!) and reward them. We used a jar of M&Ms. 1 for sitting without crying, 2 for pee, 3 for poo. Repeat... all... day... long. (I didn't say it was easy, just simple.) The only time your child should be using pull-ups or diapers is during sleep or if you must leave. Works best to stay home this week, like REALLY stay home.

Day 2: Continue where you left off but today add 10 minutes. Your timer is now 20 minutes.

Day 3: Continue. Your timer is now 30 minutes.

Day 4: Continue. Your timer is now 40 minutes.

Day 5: Continue. Your timer is now 50 minutes.

Day 6: Continue. Your timer is now... ready... ONE WHOLE HOUR!!! Woot! Woot!

Day 7: Potty party!!!! Hopefully, if you stayed on top of your kid like white on rice then your child is now going a full hour dry! If you are training an older child (3+) then they can probably go longer but it's best for the first few weeks to be in the habit of saying “Evan, do you need to go potty?” every hour on the hour!

Just remember what Elmo says "Accidents happen." because they do, and It. Is. OK! Good luck to my potty training friends, more details on our progress soon!

Homemade Holiday: Update

I'm embarrassed to say but, here goes. 26 hrs to go before showtime and I have not made 1/8th of what I had hoped. Maybe next year I should start this challenge in OCTOBER! I did make a few awesome gifts (that couldn't be shared because my family reads this. Hi!) but I was really hoping to make them all. That was probably my first mistake. I have four kids. Correction, I have four boisterous boys. Boys that can make a clean and organized room look like a crime scene in 5 minutes flat and to top it off the 4 year old changes his clothes more than Princess Kate will during Christmas at the Buckingham Palace (Did anyone else see that? Kate has something crazy like 20 outfits that she will wear on Christmas day!).

Instead, I leaned on my crutch, http://www.craigslist.org/! We scored big with some of our gifts. We were able to reduce, reuse and recycle and we saved a small fortune in the process! Take a peek at part of our gift stash...

-Bubble mower, new in the box for $10. Saved $19.99
-80/800mm Telescope with a pro guide to constellations and the original box $25. Saved $195
-Tech Deck Skate board lot (4 ramps and 16 boards) $20. Saved ~$80
-Groovy Girls doll house with accessories and 6 dolls $25. Saved $150
-Jr. Golf Clubs (two sets) with bags $60. Saved $180

Total savings: $625

$$ CHA-CHING!!!!!! $$

The gifts that I did make could have been purchased on Etsy at $150 each. Thanks to an awesome friend with a Cricut and some extra frames that we had around the house, we didn't spend a dime! I'm not going to lie though, I spent endless hours making them, neglecting my kids, and there were multiple remakes. But, I love the end product and hope the recipients do too! Savings on three: $450.

Do you have some last minute shopping to do? Check your local http://www.craigslist.org/, you never know what you might find!

Merry Christmas to my favorite GTRooties!

Homemade Holiday: Recycled Tire Seesaw

If you're not following me on Pinterest (you can use the link to the left) then you probably missed the most awesome pin... a DIY tire seesaw! This tutorial comes from Lorren over at Barefoot in Paradise. This is her "semi-finished" project; personally, I love the rustic look that it has in the picture below but if you go to Lorren's blog then you'll find the fabric covered finished version.

What's not to love? It's a homemade seesaw made from recycled tires! I adore this project and it just got bumped to the very top of my to-do list. The only problem... who should I give it to?!?