Toddler Preschool and some singing too...

Here's a little video I took of Elizabeth learning her shapes and colors today.




and here's a video from this past Sunday, the boys singing in Children's Choir at church for the Mission's Conference

Something different for dinner?

Looking for something different for dinner?

We made Madagascar chicken this weekend and it was great! It's sort of like a chicken curry - but not spicey, more of one of those sweet curries. You make this up and eat it over a bed of rice. Yum! Give it a try!

The recipe says to marinate the chicken for 30min. I changed that bit and marinated it in lemon juice, coconut milk and olive oil over night.... the chicken has a great citrus taste to it and the milk and oil kept it from getting too tough from the citrus. Make sure you fully drain the chicken from the marinade before cooking though or it wont brown properly. ;)

Madagascar Chicken

2 boneless chicken breast halves, cut in bite size chunks
2/3 cup canned coconut milk
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper or tomato, sliced and chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp grated lemon rind
1/3 tsp (or to taste) cayenne powder
salt
pepper
lemon juice
oil

Marinate chicken in lemon juice 30 min, drain and season with salt
and pepper to taste Saute over medium heat until cooked on outside but slightly pink inside. Drain oil and place chicken in a container and set aside Saute onions, stirring constantly, until slightly browned. Add bell peppers and garlic and saute 3-4 min, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to simmer, add coconut milk, ginger, cayenne powder, and lemon rind. Add chicken back to stew.

Cover and simmer 30 min or until in thick stew consistency. If mixture is too thin simmer with lid removed until desired consistency is reached. Serve over a bed of steamed white rice.

NOTE: One pound shelled and deveined shrimp can be added to or
substituted for the chicken.

Mission's Week

We have a Mission's Conference going on at church this week. Missionaries will be speaking all week, talking about their mission and what wonderful work God has been doing. It's really a great and inspirational week.

At the end of the week, we celebrate by having a big International banquet. Everyone brings in a dish from around the world. The Pastor's wife tasked all of the children to make a display from a country of their choice. The boys chose Madagascar. We did some research and made a big display board that is set up at church. There are some really neat displays up: Israel, Libya, Ethiopia, I think there are more coming through the week.

The boys did a great job on their project, I'm proud of them!


All the children at church have also been practicing some songs that they will be singing through the week.

Today, we were practicing singing them at home for school, Elizabeth joined in (she loves these songs). I caught one of the songs on video for you to enjoy!

It's morning so they're all still in pajamas (Elizabeth sporting Sean's Webelos hat for good fashion).

Playing dollies

Today I dusted off some old boxes that have been storing my doll collection and decided to play dollies with Elizabeth.

She loved the "babies"!!

This one in particular was her favorite. Dennis had surprised me one year for Christmas with this one, it's really chunky and a good "handful" to hold. I know exactly why Elizabeth like it so much!

Here she is carrying it around. I think she feels like she's holding a real baby. haha!

She had fun taking turns holding all of the "babies".

Here's an action shot of her giving the baby a "change".
She said that it had a "pookie" (dirty diaper).

Everytime she would pick a doll up, she would say, "the baby's heavy!"