(Photo by sheri silver on Unsplash)

When it comes to feeding hungry families, pasta never goes out of style or favor. I think kids eat more when summer is in full swing, than other seasons. As families with full lives, keeping the dinner rotation fresh can be hard–especially on a budget. Beyond that, balancing nutritional needs can be challenging.

Fortunately, pasta is one of the most versatile dishes you can cook up and serve to loved ones. Mix and match different shapes of noodles, add meat, veggies, and various cheeses into the rotation and voila–you have dinner. Today, I’m going to share some of our favorite pasta dishes that will make your kids’ tummies happy, and your weekly grocery budget.

Ramen noodles with miso pesto

Who knew that a college kid staple would ever make it your dinner table? Despite the exotic name, this dish is simple to make and approved by my family’s tummies. Here’s what you’ll need:

• 4 cups of baby spinach
• 2 cups of cilantro (I skip cilantro because I’m a super taster)
• 1 tbsp. White miso (I sometimes don’t have this on hand and it still turns our wonderfully)
• 1-2 garlic cloves
• ½ cup of sunflower, grapeseed, or olive oil
• 1 tsp. Toasted sesame oil
• 1 tsp. Fresh lemon juice
• Dash of kosher salt
• 2 (5 oz.) packages of ramen noodles- I like to use konjac noodles because they’re low in carbs, full of protein, and easy to make. Plus they’re gluten free for our family’s needs
• 1 tbsp. Unsalted butter, diced
• (bone broth to stretch)

While bringing a medium pot of water to a boil, blend the garlic, cilantro, spinach, oils, miso and lemon juice until uniformly smooth and very, very green—season with salt after blending. Once the noodles are done, drain them and add the pesto sauce. Mix in the butter and gently toss until smooth and melted. After that, serve up the noodles and sprinkle some sesame seeds on top to taste.  Add some italian chicken meatballs to give this dish a protein boost.

If you need to stretch this meal for a large family like ours, add in some bone broth to thin the sauce/make a soup.

Pizza pasta salad

The best of three worlds come together in this easy-to-make summer dish. Their portability makes them perfect for barbecues and picnics, and the recipe is a lovely nutritional upgrade of the traditional pasta salad (despite having ‘pizza’ in the title).  Here’s what you’ll need:

• 9 oz. uncooked pasta- we go gluten free
• ½ cup of cherry tomatoes
• 2 oz. of cheese- we use goat cheese due to allergies
• 2 oz. of pepperoni or salami- salami is our fav
• 20 oz. of pitted kalamata olives
• 1 green onion
• ½ tbsp. of olive oil (more to taste)
• ½ tbsp. of red wine vinegar (more to taste)
• 1 tsp. Oregano
• salt and pepper to taste

Cook and drain the pasta as usual-chill in the fridge so the pasta doesn’t absorb all the dressing. once chilled (about 2 hours) toss in the oil, white wine vinegar, and oregano for a nice punch of flavor. After that, you can pretty much “decorate” your pizza pasta salad however you want. While the ingredients listed above are the standard measurements, you can add, omit, or adjust certain ingredients to create the pizza pasta salad of your dreams. Opt for local summer veggies, like zucchini and cucumber, for added nutritional value.

Pool season is the perfect time to give these kid-approved pasta recipes a try–they’re guaranteed home runs.

Thanks for reading and bon appetit!

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Whether we homeschool, public school, online school, or private school, we all want our children to succeed in education- that means more than just checking the boxes.

It means exposing them to some of the best thinkers, artists, writers, and all that nature has to offer. It means academics, building a love for learning, and a love for each other. But sometimes they need more help than parents or teachers can offer, alone. When a learning difference comes into play, or a struggle with certain subjects, we may need to support our kids through occupational and physical therapies, find online resources that support their needs, or even a tutor that can help both our kids, and us better understand what they’re learning.

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Ensure They Have All They Need

Part of a successful education, whether homeschooling or public/private schooling, is making sure our children have everything they need to succeed-or they are able to find what they need. They will need the obvious papers, pencils, are rulers. As they get older we have to think about the fancy calculator, science/lab equipment, and maybe ACT/SAT/ GED prep books.

Hire Special Tutors

Sometimes students struggle in a classroom setting because they need more support than a teacher is able to give them. Some of use need more help and 1:1 time, and there is nothing wrong with that! So hiring a special tutor for a child that needs more support than the teacher or working parents are able to give, is one of the best things we can do. It will allow them to get that extra help from someone who knows what they are doing and help them to concentrate on the areas where they struggle. These tutors can also be utilize to help parents along side their children, to better understand. This way we as parents can continue helping our children.

Talk to your child to explain what is happening, and allow them to have a voice in setting goals. We don’t want them to think they aren’t doing enough, thus punishing them with more work; we want them to know the decision comes from a place of love and encouragement.

Be There To Support Them

Finally, the best thing we can do to support our child’s education is to be there for them, offer lots of play time when they are young, and lots of of our  undivided attention. Knowing they can go to their parents for help is important to children of all ages. When we can make time to foster our child’s education, it boosts their confidence, and helps them learn to have empathy and time for others.

Disclaimer: Some links on this blog are affiliate links; when you use those links you help support my family, at no additional cost to you.  Thank you!

Kids grow up so fast, so it’s vital to make the most of those early months and years before they’re a thing of the past. These are some of our favorite ways to make memories while the kids are little. These bonding experiences are a lot of fun for you and for them.

Cook Together

Cooking together is something that’s a lot of fun, even when they’re just old enough to sit on the counter and watch (an taste!). They enjoy the tactile nature of handling food and baking cakes. It can be a lot of fun, while also taking the first steps towards passing on a skill that’ll be vital for them later in life. It is sooo nice when they are old enou0gh to really help work and clean up in the kitchen, too 😉

Travel as a Family

If you get the opportunity to, exploring the world with children is so healthy for everyone. Getting out there as a family and seeing new things and doing activities that are outside the norm can be very rewarding. It doesn’t have to involve going far, or spending a lot of money, but having these experiences as a family while children are young is worth it!

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Get Creative

Being creative with your kids might be messy but it’s also fun. There’s nothing quite like the unrestrained creative energy of a child, and as a parent. As a parent I try to encourage that creativity, even though it isn’t always my favorite thing. It’s enjoyable for them, so finding lots of ways to be creative, including with nature, music and dance, art, and getting dirty is proven to be healthy for our kids.

Have Group Portraits Taken

It’s important to do things that will remain meaningful for your family for a long time to come. That’s why taking photos is a great option, because it gives you something to look back on later; it immortalizes those early years with your child. We found a great local photographer for our family last year. We missed portraits with her this year but plan to do it again! Independent photographers like Michael Kormos can help you with getting family portraits made professionally. You won’t regret having these kinds of photos taken. Im sad we didn’t do them this year.

Read Together Consistently

If you want to establish good habits that will benefit your kids for a long time to come, it’s definitely a good idea to read together often. You can read to them from a very early age, we start as babies, and then gradually encourage them to take part in the reading as they become old enough to do so. It is proven children that being read to as a child is a marker for college readiness, (ehum, not test scores).

Listen to the Read Aloud Revival Podcast, for more info on the benefits of reading aloud as a family!

While children are young, making the most of each day and being intentional with time as a family is what will determine relationships and future success in life. There are so many things to do to show love to, and make memories with our kids.  

What are your family’s favorite ways to have fun together?

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Gardening can be a great hobby for children, as it’s a great way for them to relax and learn about nature. When the weather is bad though, it can be difficult to find time for the children to get out into the garden (insert snow in October).

If you want to keep encouraging their green thumbs even when the weather won’t cooperate, you can find some fun indoor gardening projects that can be enjoyed by children of all ages regardless of the weather outside.

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Grow Plants From Seeds In The Kitchen

This project can be a great way for children to start experimenting with new foods, and an interesting way to learn about where their food comes from. You can start by testing out plants like lentils, peas, and brown rice, or mustard and pumpkins seeds.

Put all the seeds on some moist kitchen towels on the window sill and see which ones sprout. When the seeds start to grow, move them to a jam jar or small pot so they can carry on growing. Make sure you cover the roots well in soil.

Put the kids in charge of keeping their plants alive. They’ll need to regularly check for dry soil to see about watering. The challenge of having to keep them alive is great for kids, as it helps them to feel responsible. To keep their windowsill garden thriving, try an LED grow light bulb on the plants. These lamps mimic the light the plants would receive if they were outside.

Create A Cactus Garden

Cacti are great plants for kids, as they’re small and cute, come in lots of different shapes and colors, and are relatively easy to care for. Making a cactus garden is a fun project that will help them learn how plants adapt to different climates. A cacti garden will look pretty, even if neglected for a few days.

Give the children a large pot, or a few small pots. Fill the bottom with a layer of coarse sand, which will aid good drainage. For the rest of the pot, buy specialist cacti soil or mix sand and compost together. Fill the pot almost all the way to the top. The kids can arrange their cacti into the pots in any way they think looks nice. Make sure they wear gloves when they do this, to avoid pricked fingers. Once planted, decorate the top with sand and small rocks.

Decorate Plant Pots

For smaller children who might not yet be ready to care for a plant, there are some fun ways for them to get involved. Ask them to decorate some pots, ready to go in the garden when the weather improves, or to be used for indoor projects of any older siblings.

Give them some weatherproof paints, an empty plant pot, and let them get creative! Paint the pots with a layer of emulsion first, so their paints will show up properly and look bright and colorful.

These are a few simple ways to get your kids involved with gardening, even when the weather doesn’t allow for an outside garden.

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You can now find a link to our very own list of products we use and love; right at the top of the blog is a link for “Our Products Shop.”  

I will be updating the shop with book lists, curriculum, and other categories as I am able.  Now my readers can find our tried and true tools and favs all in one place.

Disclaimer: Some links on this blog are affiliate links; when you use those links you help support my family, at no additional cost to you.  Thank you!

There are so many things I want to say about this barn door, but it all can be summed up with- I love it. Please ignore the fact that the trim isn’t up yet, and we still have to poly the door … and the floor is currently being completed. I couldn’t wait to share a pic of my favorite thing in this space!

Disclaimer: Some links on this blog are affiliate links; when you use those links you help support my family, at no additional cost to you.  Thank you!

There is something about the debate over abortion that so many of us want to avoid. Is it the “right to choose” argument or the “when does life begin?” argument? Or the “who is going to adopt all the unwanted babies?” argument …

Regardless, there is a nagging feeling of “everyone has a right to their opinion,” and “some people aren’t ready to have children,” (man, I have so many arguments to those statements-but this isn’t about my view on abortion) but at the same time, NO ONE has the right to take an innocent life.

No one.

That is where the book Other Bodies by Joel Ohman comes in- taking on the picture of abortion from the view of a young girl suffering through many emotional trials, Hattie makes the most gut wrenching decision a young woman can make, to abort her baby.

But the story doesn’t stop there; it only just begins. This story is set in the future, in a world where everyone has been emotionally programmed via the media, desensitization, and PR coverups to simply not feel about abortion.

Through the use of TEDs (computers that are to be treated as people … oddly, much like our society today, the living child being aborted has no rights) young women are “programmed” via computer enhanced virtual realities so there is no feeling during the procedure of abortion. This, as we see through several characters, doesn’t change the emotional devastation that comes after choosing abortion.

This is a fiction novel consisting of 258 pages, written in such a way you won’t want to put it down! I loved the double story lines, the surprises along the way (which I am trying really hard not to give away to my readers), and the matter of fact approach to the Pro Life stance–

The body inside your body is NOT your body, and we don’t harm other bodies.

Period.

There is an answer to the abortion industry problem in our country-but it is a foundational one. It isn’t something adoption can fix, or the government can fix. It starts with morals, it starts with prevention, and it starts with a revamping of our system. It isn’t something we can put a bandaid over and call it done.

Other Bodies is a glimpse of where our culture is headed regarding abortion and the murder of life. I can’t say enough good things about Joel Ohman’s approach on this topic, and how much our society needs to hear this perspective on abortion! If you do nothing else, please read his bio, and author notes-pick up a copy of this book. Yes, it is disturbing on some level, but it is so profound!

This is a wonderful young adult book for young girls and boys (14+? maybe even younger, depending on maturity) to read, after their parents have read it as well; this way it can be discussed between the child and parent. It would also be a good bookclub read, as there is lots of room for discussion.

(disclaimer: there are some parts that may be hard for some to read, it will depend on your personality. It didn’t bother me, as I knew I was reading a book, but the fact that so many of the details are things that happen similar in abortions today may be a trigger for some.)

• Author Notes
• Tell a story
• Author Bio  
• Book Link

Disclosure: Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway.  Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation.  I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post.

Disclaimer: Some links on this blog are affiliate links; when you use those links you help support my family, at no additional cost to you.  Thank you!

Disclaimer: Some links on this blog are affiliate links; when you use those links you help support my family, at no additional cost to you.  Thank you!

My children and I have been enjoying The Captain Sun Adventures Book 1, Rescue Me! What Superheroes Can Teach Us About the Power of Faith for the last few weeks now. I can honestly say, this has become a favorite book in our home.

This sat on the counter all of 10 minutes before my 8 year old daughter grabbed it up, snuggled her 6 year old brother on the couch, and read it aloud to him. From then on- being a super hero, admiring our superhero, Christ, and many other conversations have become ongoing themes in our home.

Book 1, Rescue Me! What Superheroes Can Teach Us About the Power of Faith is a 38 page graphic novel showing the parallels between the hero of the book (Captain Sun), the villain, and Biblical truths. I love that this book points straight to the Gospel, to Jesus, and that it does so in such a lovely, natural way. The story is smooth, the writing is enjoyable, and illustrations are just what you would expect from the very best graphic novels on the market.

I also appreciate that it gives the “background” of how super heroes came to be- this is something my children aren’t very familiar with, so the creative explanation through illustration and “news story” prints really helped in the development of their understanding. The author also brought this origin back to Christ and God’s love for his people.

How We Used It and What We Think

I have an 8yo girl and 6yo boy that have loved this book to death- we need to get the others in the series! The illustrations in this graphic novel are wonderful, the story line points straight to Jesus every time, without being pushy or trying to try very hard. It is a “safe” book that didn’t require proof reading on my end, or need any explanation from me to my children-the text very is compelling and easy to comprehend. Yet, it is captivating for all ages!

The parallels in the themes to Biblical truths and the Gospel are truly done so well. I can also tell the author & illustrator have either really enjoyed graphic novels themselves or understand deeply what makes them attractive to children because the storyline is so well done and full of adventure.

Here’s what I know- When an adult can enjoy reading a children’s book, AND enjoy reading it aloud, you can bet it is a book worth reading. That is exactly how I feel about this one.

I asked my children, “If you could ask the author and illustrator anything at all, what would it be?”

My 6 year old replied, “How did he know what to name his characters, and what illustrations to use to make them fun?”

My 8 year old wanted to say how much she enjoyed the book, and went on to explain the parallels between the Narnia heros, Captain Sun, and each villain. haha

I would say- Thank you SO much for writing an inspiring children’s graphic novel for children of all ages (did I mention my 4 and 2yo listen as well?) that isn’t just another “twaddle” book to for the sake of having a book on the shelf. Captain Sun has been a joy in our home.

This is a unique, yet familiar … comfortable book we all enjoy! My son has asked me all about

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Disclaimer: Some links on this blog are affiliate links; when you use those links you help support my family, at no additional cost to you.  Thank you!