The Easiest Crockpot Lasagna EVER!

O and I recently made the easiest and yummiest crockpot lasagna ever!  I love to cook with my crockpot, but I do not like recipes that require any preparation...I like to just throw everything in the crockpot, turn it on, and forget about it for a few hours. 

To make crockpot lasagna (veggie lasagna since we don't eat red meat), we used a jar of spaghetti sauce, uncooked whole grain lasagna noodles, cottage cheese, parmesan cheese, garlic powder (fresh would be even better), dried oregano, fresh basil, frozen and chopped spinach, and frozen and sliced carrots.

We spread a layer of spaghetti sauce on the bottom of the crockpot.  O covered the spaghetti sauce with uncooked noodles.   Which we then covered with more sauce, cheese, and frozen spinach. 



The next layer was noodles, sauce, cheese, frozen carrots, and a little more spinach.




Then more noodles, sauce, fresh basil, and cheese.



After we finished our layers, we topped it with more sauce, cottage cheese, fresh basil, and parmesan cheese.  I cooked it on high for about an hour and on low for about 3 hours.  Fun, easy, fast, and delicious!

Halloween Cookie Cutter Stencils

Cookie cutters make great stencils!  O was very excited about this activity, but she (surprisingly) lost interest fairly quickly.

All About Orange

I introduced the color orange to E this week.  She LOVES playing with our orange playsilk!  Playsilks are definitely the best "toy" that we own!!!

Halloween Greeting Card Puzzles

O was excited to see her Halloween greeting card puzzles last weekend! (they've been packed away in our Halloween bin since last year)

To make the puzzles I  cut the back off of a greeting card and then cut the front of the card into several pieces to make a puzzle.  Easy, cheap, and fun!

Egg Carton Art

O confiscates just about anything that I try to recycle or throw away and insists that I put it on her art shelf.  She even keeps the trash from bandaids!  She kept an egg carton on her art shelf for weeks before she finally started making art with it.  She worked on her egg carton art for more than a week.  I love all of her creative egg carton art, and I think these will look great in a shadow box one day!

Tearing Paper

I set up a bin full of fall colored construction paper for E to tear, pull, and crumple (this is a great activity for developing fine motor control).  She seems a little shocked by this activity...I guess she's used to her sister freaking out and removing her (O's) construction paper artwork from her hands as soon as she touches it.  We had fun tearing paper today, and I think she'll enjoy it even more when I add a few pieces of tissue paper to the bin.

A Halloween Storytelling Activity

Now that O is in Montessori school each morning, I don't usually set up trays of work for her.  However, I plan to continue setting up seasonal/holiday trays as inspiration strikes :) 

I love the printable paper toys at The Toymaker website, and these Teeny Tiny Halloweenies were too cute to ignore.  I printed them on photo paper, and set up a tray with scissors, a glue stick, and craft sticks.





We cut out the Halloweenies and glued them to the craft sticks to make Halloween puppets.





We acted out scenes with them after we finished making them.





They are now set up in our table centerpiece, and we've been using them as storytelling prompts during meals.  O LOVES this activity!  The only problem is that she won't take a turn telling a story...she only wants to listen to our stories!





We also made this Magic Pumpkin from The Toymaker website. 

Clothes Pins and an Ice Cube Tray

Since E enjoys putting popsicle sticks into small openings so much, I thought she might be ready for this clothes pin and ice cube activity.  She loves it!  She's recently started self-correcting when she puts the clothes pin in upside down.  I LOVE to watch her work!















So focused!

O's Bento Box Lunch

O eats lunch at school once a week (while waiting for her ballet class to begin), so we bought a cute pig bento box for her.  (We love her pig bento box, but we were both surprised by how small it is).  I'm not very creative when packing her bento box, but I'm getting better.

She had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut like a cat, a pirouette, and whole grain goldfish crackers.




The top layer was filled with petite baby carrots, snow peas, and raisins.




Here's her pig bento along with a pack of freeze dried bananas and strawberries.  Both girls LOVE freeze dried fruit!