Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

 

This is an easy recipe to make on a busy night!

Ingredients:

4 sweet potatoes

1/2 lb ground turkey

1 can black beans (drained and rinsed)

1 cup frozen corn

1 small jalepeno, seeded and diced

fresh cilantro and scallions for garnish

1 tbsp adobo seasonin

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp chili powder

shredded pepper jack

Directions:

1. First, bake the sweet potatoes in the oven at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes, until soft.
2. Heat some oil in a pan and brown the turkey. Drain
3. Return the turkey to the pan  and add the adobo seasoning.
4. Add the corn, black beans, jalepeno, cumin, chili powder and salt. Cook until heated through.
5. Slice the potatoes open and add the stuffing.
6. Sprinkle the pepper jack on top and back for about 5 minutes at 350 degrees until the cheese  is melted.

Enjoy!

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Menu Plan Monday 3/19/18

It is March and temperatures are pushing 90 degrees. And we really need some rain. This kind of weather makes me not want to use my oven at all. This is our menu for the week:

Monday: Tacos
Tuesday: Spaghetti
Wednesday: Grilled Citrus steak and veggies
Thursday: Crock Pot Pineapple Pork
Friday: Chicken and Rice
Thanks for stopping by for Menu Plan Monday! See you next week.

TOS Review: Parenting Made Practical

It’s funny to me how every stage of parenting presents its own challenges. When kids are little there are midnight feedings, endless diaper changes and the constant challenge of keeping them out of trouble. As they get older you face different struggles like teaching them to make good choices, dealing with friends, and peer pressure. Parenting older teenagers certainly isn’t any easier, though the methods change. Sometimes I feel like I am in a constant cycle of lecture my kids, see minor improvements, things go back to how they were and then I lecture again. So, I was very interested to check out the book Taming the Lecture Bug and Getting Your Kids to Think from Parenting Made Practical.

This short book offers many valuable pieces of advice to help you stop the lecture cycle and get your kids to start thinking for themselves about the choices they make. Written by Joey and Carla Link (the founders of Parenting Made Practical) it is based on their own experiences raising their three children. They intersperse the information in the book with highlights from their own lives, which I always appreciate. I hate when I read a book that offers advice, but doesn’t show you how the author has lived it out in their own life.

The book begins with descriptions of failed lecturing techniques with some real insights into why this doesn’t work and how kids think. This helped me to look at lectures from a kids perspective (believe it or not, it’s been a while since I was their age). I could see how, from my child’s perspective, lectures can easily go in one ear and at the other. I could also see how my constant lecturing was only feeding the cycle and in some ways, encouraging my kids to remain exactly where they were.

After the background information, Taming the Lecture Bug moves into describing real and practical ways you can change your own behavior (which should also lead to changes in your kids behavior). I found much of their advice easy to implement and I look forward to applying more of it in my life. This book also includes a lot of scriptural background for the techniques given, which is something else I appreciate.

At the end of the book is an appendix that includes the steps in the Repentance, Forgiveness, and Restoration process, helpful charts and book recommendations for teens that will encourage them to lead the life God has for them. I already have some on reserve at the library for my son.

So, what you really want to know is how did this affect my child? Well, at first he was pretty surprised at the lack of lectures he was receiving on a daily basis and I’m not sure he knew exactly how to react. He was skeptical to say the least. However, as time has progressed I have seen him taking more responsibility for himself and taking care of things on his own that I would have had to lecture him on before. Now, I am only human and I can’t say that I will never lecture my child again, but when I feel a lecture coming on I try to take a step back and review what I have learned. I expect that with time this will become easier.

If you feel like you spend more time lecturing your kids without seeing any results than I would definitely recommend checking Taming the Lecture Bug out. To learn more, connect with Parenting Made Practical on social media here:

Parenting Made Practical on Facebook

Parenting Made Practical on Twitter

Parenting Made Practical on Pinterest

To see what other members of the crew had to say about this book and the other products we received, click here:

 

Menu Plan Monday 3/11/18

 

Hello everybody! I hope you are having a great week. We have been enjoying lots of time outdoors lately, mainly working in the yard doing some landscaping and getting my garden set up. I am so excited to start growing my own vegetables and herbs again!! Here’s what’s on our menu for this week:

Monday: Chicken Tortilla Soup

Tuesday: Spaghetti

Wednesday: Chili Corn Casserole

Thursday: Chicken and Black Bean enchiladas

Friday: Beef Roast with Mashed cauliflower

Thanks for stopping by for Menu Plan Monday! Have a great week.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

I love a good chicken soup, and I’ve made a ton of variations. This is my favorite.

Ingredients:
2 lbs. boneless chicken thighs
1 small onion
1 red bell pepper
1 yellow squash
4 oz. green beans
1 can diced tomatoes
8 oz. tomato sauce
4 oz chopped green chiles
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp cumin
1 tbsp lime juice
1/4 cup cilantro
2 cups chicken stock

Directions:
1. Chop the vegetables. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Heat some oil in a pan and cook vegetables for 2-3 minutes until soft.
3. Combine the chicken, cooked vegetables, tomatoes, tomato sauce, chiles and chicken stock in a crock pot.
4. Stir in the cumin, oregano, lime juice and cilantro.
5. Cover and cook for 3-4 hours.
6. Serve garnished with chopped green onion, jalepeno, crushed tortilla chips, and sour cream as desired.

TOS Review: CursiveLogic

Many people would say that since the advent of the computer, cursive writing has slowly become a lost art, and they wouldn’t be wrong. However, I’ve always felt it was important for my children to learn to write (and read cursive) and at the very least, be able to sign their names on documents and forms. For my oldest, this was not a problem. However, my youngest struggles with writing in general and so far, we have had no luck with cursive. For this review, we got to try out the updated CursiveLogic Quick Start Pack and The Art of Cursive from CursiveLogic.

This program teaches cursive in a very systematic way and is appropriate for all ages. Basically, anyone who wants to learn cursive, from kids to adults, can use this. My son is a junior in high school but he didn’t feel like this was babyish in any way (most of the books I had gotten from the store had cartoon pictures etc. He hated that). The Quick Start Pack includes a webinar for parents that goes over how to teach the program, step by step. This is very helpful if you don’t know where to start.

The workbook itself includes information for teachers about the different parts of the program and how it is set up. I would highly recommend reading this information thoroughly before getting started. You begin with proper posture and instruction on how to hold the paper and pencil for both left and right-handed students. As a family of lefties I really appreciated this.

Exercises start with teaching simple shapes, that eventually help form letters. Students engage with CursiveLogic in multiple ways, not just through tracing forms on the page. The program encourages using their fingers to trace letters, reciting while learning and more that apply to different senses, making it an immersive learning experience. As they progress through the program, students learn more and more shapes and how they are connected and go on to forming strings of letters and eventually, words.

For my son, this approach seems to be very effective. I structure lessons for about 20 minutes per day, and he doesn’t seem to mind doing them, which is a big thing because he has found handwriting tedious in the past. The verbal cues he has learned help him to remember how to form the letters and it seems to be coming easier and easier to him.

As part of this program we also received the cursive coloring book, The Art of Cursive. I’ve noticed that coloring is kind of a big thing even for adults these days, and I have to admit I find coloring verses in my Bible very relaxing. This book includes gorgeous illustrations that incorporate many of the same movements from the workbook, accompanied by quotes from famous poets and people and Bible verses. You could easily use this yourself if you wanted, or you could allow your child to color pages one day a week (which is what I did). My son actually really liked this part the most I think.

Overall, we are very satisfied with how things are going so far. If you have a child who wants to learn cursive I would definitely recommend checking this out. To learn more, connect with CursiveLogic on social media here:

CursiveLogic on Facebook

To see what other crew members had to say about this program, click here: