It seems a little late in the year to be talking about calendars but I just love my wall calendar this year! In December, I found this kids art calendar at Michaels for $2. The style is great because the top part is just a blank space for kids to draw a picture. What I am doing with that blank space is a different handprint or footprint craft each month! So far it is turning out so cute! 

January Penguins:

February Butterflies:

I've created a Pinterest board with all of my plans for the following months!  

When the year is over I plan to cut the calendar apart and place the pages in a 12x12 scrapbook. It will be a fun way for me to watch their hands and feet grow through 2013! 

It's My Birthday!

It has been an awesome day! Brian out did himself this year! I'll post more pictures soon! 

BBQ and Caramelized Onion Grilled Cheese

I tend to go through food phases, I find a combination that I like and then I eat it over and over until something else catches my fancy. A month ago it was plain Greek yogurt with honey, then homemade peppermint hot cocoa, then I moved on to brie and water crackers, and now I am all about this sandwich! 

You guys, this sandwich is out of this world good! 

{I got the idea for this sandwich from pinterest, but the original blog contains lots of crude language so I'm not linking to that post. My version of the sandwich is a bit different than their version as well.}

BBQ and Caramelized Onion Grilled Cheese

Ingredients:

Sliced Sourdough Bread

Cheddar Cheese (Sliced) 

Onion (about 1/4 of a large onion per person)

BBQ Sauce (I prefer Bullseye) 

1 T Butter + More for spreading on bread

Directions:

1. In a large saute pan over medium heat add onions and 1 T butter. Stir often and cook until caramelized. 
2. Preheat the griddle or pan that you will use to cook your grilled cheese. 
3. Spread a layer of BBQ sauce on one of your bread pieces, top with caramelized onions, a layer of cheese and then remaining piece of bread. 
4. Spread top piece of bread with butter and then place sandwich buttered side down on your griddle.
5. Spread butter on the now top side of your bread. 
6. Loosely cover sandwich with foil to help cheese melt. 
7. Flip once bottom side is golden brown and continue to cook until other side is golden brown. 
8. Enjoy! 

Yay!

Craft of the Week

Claire has been battling the stomach flu so thinking up fun crafts hasn't been high on my priority list this week. It was mostly just crayons and paper for Kenley. One day I gave her a box of plain thank you notes and envelopes and let her draw whatever she wanted on them. She loved making mail for her friends! 

Claire took a good nap today so Kenley and I were able to make Valentines decorations! I cut card stock hearts with my Silhouette machine and then we did melting crayon drawing on the hearts. 

They look super cute taped up in our kitchen windows! 

Crafts for Shepherd's Baby Shower

Last Saturday was my friend April's baby shower to celebrate the arrival of baby Shepherd! 

His "colors" are gray, blue and lime green so that is the theme we went with for the shower decorations. I cut his name out with my Silhouette using Doctor Soos font in gray card stock. I also made a tassel garland following this tutorial. It was a quick project and surprisingly only 1 piece of tissue paper makes 4 tassels. I will definitely do this project for more parties in the future! 

I made his pennant banner with my Silhouette as well! 

Isaiah 40:11 He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.

February Meal Plan

Last month's meal plan seemed to go smoothly so I am going to stick with it again for February!

Monday the 4th- Leftovers
Tuesday the 5th- Black Bean and Sweet Potato Burritos
Wednesday the 6th- Tortellini Soup (without the sausage)
Thursday the 7th- Crockpot Chicken Tacos
Friday the 8th- Paleo Waffles with Strawberries and Coconut Whipped Cream

Monday the 11th- Bacon and Egg Breakfast Chili
Tuesday the 12th- Salmon and Sauteed Carrots
Wednesday the 13th- Brown Butter Sage Chicken with Sweet Potatoes
Thursday the 14th- MY BIRTHDAY DINNER OUT!!
Friday the 15th- Pizza Night

Monday the 18th- Chicken Chili
Tuesday the 19th- Chicken Tetrazzini with Steamed Carrots
Wednesday the 20th- Crockpot Teriyaki Chicken with Green Beans
Thursday the 21st- Salmon with Broccoli
Friday the 22nd- Tacos

Monday the 25th- Lasagna Soup
Tuesday the 26th- Roast Chicken with Veggies
Wednesday the 27th- Rosemary Honey Chicken with Quinoa and Green Beans
Thursday the 28th- Salmon with Roast Potatoes
Friday the 1st- Paula Deen's White Calzones and Caesar Salads

Crafts of Last Week!

We had so much fun with last Monday's craft! I absolutely loved doing it and I think it is something that I would just do on my own without a kiddo too! We will definitely do this one again soon! My recommendation would be to peel the wrappers off the crayons before starting because the crayons melt down quickly! 

Melted Crayon Drawing

Kenley's finished drawing...

The rainbow we did together...

The melted crayon wax kind of has a stained glass effect when held up to light! We thought that was pretty neat! 

 Tuesday was a free for all with stickers, crayons, and scissors...

I found these scissors at the Dollar Tree and we LOVE them. They have a little clip that pops out so that the scissors will pop back open once they are snipped. Great for teaching little hands how to use scissors! 

Wednesday the girls drew cards to give to their Great-Grandparents for their 60th wedding anniversary! 

They also played around with the ring crayons that I scored for a penny! 

Thursday, Kenley painted with Watercolor Wands that I found at Staples. I wasn't super impressed with the wands because I expected the colors to be more concentrated but after a little while Kenley got the hang of it and really enjoyed painting with them. 

Since I hadn't put the Hama beads upstairs yet I decided to try them out again on Friday. This time I only gave her one plastic grid and one tray with pink beads and worked on the heart with her. Those small beads are still tough for her little fingers but she did really well this time and completed about half of it! 

Our finished heart... 

 We also made Valentines for Grandpa and Grandma Ronk but they are a surprise so I will have to post pictures after Valentines day! 

New Blog Name!

We have changed our blog name! Our blog address is now SchoolhouseRonk.com! KeriandBrian.blogspot.com should redirect you to our new domain! 

We have some fun things in store for this lil ol' blog! 

Bonus points if you still remember the words to Conjunction Junction! :)

Sprucing Up

I have been on a big reorganizing and redecorating kick lately! We just finished painting the walls and trim in our bedroom in addition to rearranging everything in the room and purchasing new bedding and night stands. I really like our new bedroom now! One thing always leads to another with me and painting the trim in our bedroom now has me working my way through repainting all of the trim and doors in the house! I'll show pictures of our room another day but today I want to show what we worked on to spruce up the girls room this weekend! 

The girls had this big blank wall above their beds that I didn't really know what to do with.

 (The humidifier was hanging out in their room because I did this project while we were all still under quarantine) 

Originally I intended to hang their pottery monograms like I had hanging in Kenley's nursery but it made me nervous to have such heavy things hanging above their beds. Then I wanted to use this wall as a place to hang all of the girls artwork and projects. This would have been a nice place to store artwork but I think that the cluttered look of it might have been too much for above their beds. My next plan was to order some big vinyl monograms for above their beds on Etsy. 

While I was looking up vinyl monograms, I remembered the monogram printables from For Chic Sake!

I went to Target in search of frames and found these big ones that were exactly what I wanted on clearance for only $11! It was meant to be! 

I thought it would look best if there was something in between the frames. We used this tutorial from Dear Lillie to make a big black and white picture for our room and it turned out great so we made one for the girls room too! 

The girl working at Staples actually thought that the picture didn't look good enough on the engineer print paper so she printed it for me on photo paper! That was so nice of her! The quality really is much better on this picture than the one we did in our room! I'm so thankful that she did that! 

Staples was out of white foam board so I just used this poster board. It worked just as well! 

This picture of the girls has been the wallpaper on my laptop for a while. I just love it. It is from when they first started hugging and playing with each other on their own. 

 Here is what their wall looks like now! 

Total Spruce-Up cost: 

Frames: $11 each = $22

For Chic Sake Printable: Free

Poster Board and Engineer Print: $9

Total: $31

The room looks so much more finished! Now I just need to get my sewing machine out and make their duvet covers! 

Ordinary Life - Sickness Version

Super grainy iPhone picture time!! 

I caught the girls snuggled up together while watching The Rescuer's Down Under on Netflix. I love the older Disney movies so much more than the new ones! 

A little while ago, Amy mentioned in a blog post that someone had told her that they take their kids outside to play every day rain or shine to burn off some energy. Being cooped up and not feeling well was driving us all crazy so we bundled the sick girlies up and went outside for a walk around the property.

They randomly found their horseshoes set and insisted on playing... which really means gently placing your horseshoe around the pin and then cheering for yourself. 

I think I might be running low on glitter glue...  

At the doctor Kenley weighed in at a whopping 26.6 pounds...

Claire weighed in at 22.6 pounds... 

After we were home from the doctor they both fell asleep on the ground while watching another movie. 

I have been trying to clean up my eats recently. One of my bad habits is that I like to add crushed tortilla chips to my scrambled eggs. It is delicious but it isn't the healthiest choice. This week I tried a new concoction and it is fabulous! I didn't miss my chips at all! 

4 eggs scrambled with a handful of spinach, then topped with cheese, shredded carrots, and salsa. The carrots totally have that crunch that I love and used to get from the chips! 

 Brian's to-do list...

 I really like the YouVersion app. I'm going through the Soul Detox study with SheReadsTruth. I like to read the passages through once or twice in ESV and then I also like to read it in The Message Version before I read the devotional part... The wording is so vibrant that it really sticks the concepts in my mind! 

This is my tutorial on how to clean you kitchen floor....

Step one: Tell the girls that they should ask Daddy to help them build a fort... 

He used our kitchen table and chairs in addition to our comforter and almost every blanket that we own... 

Step two: Mop your kitchen floor! All the space in the kitchen made me not want him to bring the table and chairs back in! But then there is that pesky problem of where to eat... 

Grandpa brought the girls each a powdered mini donut... I texted this picture to him so that he could see what he did :) Her hands aren't showing in the picture but they were the worst offenders! 

Gymnastics Round #2

 We are still loving gymnastics and we are excited that this will be something that we can continue with for the girls! 

We are all starting to feel better and I am definitely ready for that! This week is the week to get caught back up on everything... It is also my week to wean the girls off of constant movies and snacks!