Project 365 is turning my blog into a diary of sorts. I have found that I am taking way more photos throughout the day, to make sure that I have one with a semi-interesting story behind it to share with you. So, I am going to do a little photo dump of the last few days.

This picture is actually from Friday night, but it was so funny that I have to share. I made fajitas in the crockpot. I am a vegetarian, so I am obviously not going to eat beef and chicken fajitas. Well, the kids each got a fajita, ate it, saw that I had a bowl of cherrios and decided that they wanted one too.  I gave them new spoons with their cherrios, because the idea of mixing fajitas and cherrios sounds downright disgusting to me. Lena decided to use BOTH spoons to eat her cherrios. She may have even tried to put both spoons in her mouth at once!

Saturday was a low-key day. I had a lot that I needed to get done around the house and Aaron had to work. So, the kids got to watch a couple of movies. I thought this moment was so cute… one of our dogs climbed up on the couch between the kids. Reed moved over so he was practically laying on her. This boy loves dogs a lot and he is developing a healthy knowledge of how to act around dogs. He has come so far.

This was our dinner on Saturday night. The porkchops are nothing special… everyone said they were good, but the recipe was not extraordinary.  But, the casserole dishes. Wow! I made Broccoli Quinoa casserole for the first time earlier in the week and HAD to make it again. For the record, all of the blue pan got eaten and the other pan was dipped into, as well. That is a lot for two grown-ups and two preschoolers to eat! It is pretty healthy and it’s easy to cook extra broccoli and quinoa to make it a couple of times, which is what I did. This is a double batch, because it is really yummy the next day, too.

This happened after dinner. I think he’s being a ninja soldier? Something like that.

I had a moment of parenting genius last well. We got home from somewhere?… maybe the day we lost our key, and Reed told me he was hungry. It was late, I couldn’t come up with something easy to eat, so I asked him what he wanted. We opened up the fridge together. No ideas. Then I had a moment of parenting genius… “Who wants pizza roll-ups?!” We had leftover pizza sauce, ground beef and sausage mix we use on pizza, mozzarella cheese and a ton of tortillas. I just dumped everything in a tortilla together, folded it like a burrito and microwaved it for a minute and a half. Lena ate two, Reed ate 3. Actually, these are all my kids have eaten for lunch every day since. Reed eats 2-3. Lena eats 1-2. They are fantastic because they’re easy to make and are as healthy or unhealthy as you want them to be. Don’t tell me someone else already invented them… I don’t care.

We had dinner with Danae and Kyle tonight. It is always a great time with them. My kids love both of them. Kyle was playing hide and seek with them, and Reed ran up to Danae and asked her “Where’s your Aaron?” Then, a couple minutes later, he said “where’s your dad?”

Kyle plays with Reed and Lena… not just tolerates them or entertains them for a minute, but actually spends time with them. I think Kyle and Danae are going to be really awesome parents.

Of course, I should acknowledge that my own husband is a rockstar and took the kids out to a playground and geocaching for 5 hours today. And took the dogs out for a walk. And ran to the grocery store twice. And helped set-up/tear down for church. Love that man! Just had to make sure he didn’t feel left out.

After dinner, we played Monopoly Deal. I am grateful for friends who tolerate me when I feel the need to tell them that “Reading” in “Reading Railroad” is pronounced like “Redding”. I only know this because I grew up going to the outlet malls in Reading, Pennsylvania.

So, these cookies. You see how the one looks like a normal CCC, and the other looks like baby poop? I made regular chocolate chip cookies and mint chocolate chip cookies. Don’t make mint CCCs. Just don’t. Unless you want to gain weight. They are SO good. They taste like thin mints with the texture of chocolate chip cookies. I saw this recipe on pinterest, but dough from a tube isn’t really my thing. So, instead, I took my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe(I use this one halved) and add 1/4tsp mint extract and substitute half of the chocolate chips for mint chips. Mint chips can be a bit of a pain to find, but I made my husband go to Walmart. You can see if your Walmart has them on Walmart.com, before you make the trip. I also added green food coloring, thinking it would add to the novelty of the mint chocolate chip cookies, but I wouldn’t recommend that!