Chicken Pear Salad

I don’t know what it is about the flavor combinations in this salad, but it is on point!  One evening last June I forgot that I needed to make dinner.  I know that it happens every evening, but sometimes I just forget.  Anyone else? Well it was hot and I didn’t want to heat up the kitchen with the range so I got creative.  I went through the fridge & pantry and this is what I ended up with.  I should call it the “Last Minute Salad” but that doesn’t sound too tasty, does it?
Ingredients:
chicken tenders
bacon fat
sea salt & pepper to taste
spinach
quinoa, uncooked
dried cherries
almonds, sliced (or chopped walnuts or pecans….they all work and taste good, so your choice!)
pears, thinly sliced
feta cheese
raspberry vinaigrette salad dressing (I like this one)

Directions:
1. Saute chicken in bacon fat and season with sea salt & pepper and cook quinoa according to package instructions.
2. Mix everything together and top with chicken and drizzle salad dressing.
3. Enjoy!

Road Rage....I Mean Humility

We watched this in church a couple Sundays ago when we were having a sermon on humility (1 Peter 5: 5-7), and I am still laughing. It's hilarious! Happy Monday

Chicken & Kale Shiitake Bowl

I no longer crave ordering out for Asian food.  After the first bite of this dish the first time I made it, I threw away ALL of my take-out menus.  Why order out when you can make this so quickly & deliciously?!  This is one of my favorite meals to cook on Friday nights.  I highly recommend you try it.  If you make some adjustments to this recipe, please let me know so I can try your version :-)

 
Ingredients :
Lo mien noodles
1 lb chicken tenders, chopped into 1 in pieces
1/2 cup dry quinoa
1/2 cup coconut milk
2 tbs EVOO
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 oz shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1 bunch kale, chopped
2 carrots, shredded
1/4 tsp ground thyme
black pepper
sea salt 

Dressing Ingredients:
1/4 cup EVOO
1 tsp raw honey
2 tbs rice wine vinegar
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp ground ginger (or 1 tbs fresh ginger)
1 tsp chili oil
1 tsp sriracha sauce

Directions:
1. Cook lo mien noodles according to their package instructions and put into a big bowl.
2. Grill or saute chicken tenders seasoned with salt & pepper.
3. Combine quinoa & coconut milk and bring to boil over high heat.  Then like you would make rice, reduce the heat to low, cover and gently simmer until quinoa is tender and all of the coconut milk is absorbed, about 5 minutes.  Remove quinoa from heat & put the bowl with the lo mien noodles.
4. Heat garlic & EVOO in a pan and then add the mushrooms and cook until tender.  Stir in the thyme & pepper.  Then put the mushroom mixture in the bowl with the quinoa & lo mien.
5. In the same pan that you cooked the mushrooms, saute kale & carrots until the kale is wilted but still a nice pretty green.  You might need to add another tbs of EVOO.  Then add the kale and carrots to the bowl with the lo mien, quinoa & mushrooms.
6. Top the bowl with the pieces of chopped chicken.
7. Mix all of the dressing ingredients together in a mason jar and pour over the bowl. Mix and serve!
8. Enjoy!

Parenting Advise from Long Island

I am 100% embarrassed that I’m admitting that I took parenting advise from the show Long Island Medium.  I don’t normally watch the show but a rerun came on following the show I was watching.  In the episode a mother was meeting with the medium to communicate with her deceased son. 

Apparently the mother accidentally ran her son over with her car.  She was coming home for the day with her son in the car and she stopped at the end of the driveway to get the mail.  The mother didn’t realize that the son had climbed out of the car and when she got back in the car she ran him over and he passed away.  Watching her recount the story gave me chills and my heart ached for her as buckets of tears rolled down my cheeks.  I don’t know how she continues living; I would be a mess and I can’t even begin the imagine the pain she must feel on a daily basis.  I had to turn the tv off because I just couldn’t handle it, but I couldn’t turn my brain off.

Earlier that same week, I was coming back from running an errand and backed into the driveway.  I always back into the garage, but because my windows are so deeply tinted, due to the Texas heat, it’s really hard to see as I back up even in the daylight.  That particular day, Dutch had opened the door in the house that leads into the garage and ran out with the puppies to greet me.  Had I not looked up and seen him as I was backing up, I could have also run over my child, just like the mother on the show.  So when I watched this woman I wept because it could have been me. I purposely never taught Dutch how to open door knobs.  I knew he would learn eventually but I just didn’t want to have him going anywhere he wanted this young.  Well that day when I was backing up, he figured it out.  Time to baby proof the doors to the outside.

I told the Mr. about it as soon as he got home from work and I told him that we needed something up that night.  I just couldn’t go another day where I knew I could prevent tragedy and do nothing.  He did some research and there were a ton of options that were clunky, pricey, or could destroy our walls or door frame.  And then we found this:

This is a super discreet door lock that you just flip to lock or unlock! 

You can safely lock your doors for $1.98!!!! 

It’s easy to install and wont mess up your walls, while keeping your kiddos safe inside. 

Also this comes in many colors so that you get one to match your hinges or hardware.

See it’s super easy!  

Please if you don’t have something on your doors, 

think about getting this affordable lock to keep your kiddos safe.

Obligatory Blogger Disclaimer: I was not paid for this post, I just really like the product.

A Montessori Approach

I've received many questions lately about the  Montessori approach & how we implement it in our home.  When Dutch was younger he attended a private Montessori school because I really appreciated the philosophy and thought it would work well for our family.  Now that he is home and we are doing homeschool, I still follow that approach because it just works for us.  The general theory of Montessori is to emphasize "independence, freedom with limits, and respect for a child's natural psychological, physical, and social development".  Within the classroom a child does not move to the next room, or level, until the previous set of objectives has been mastered, not when they turn a certain age.  The student has some say in what they are interested in learning that day, so providing choice is a HUGE application of the philosophy which encourages the development of the child's autonomy. There is freedom of physical movement, educational discovery, and lots of "work" with natural materials.  At first it was hard for me to switch over to using the word "work" instead of "school" because it seemed foreign to me initially, but it truly does add a new level of importance to what we do for learning everyday.  We are designed to "work" and giving children a task that they can work on fosters self-confidence and self-efficacy.  Here are some of the techniques that I try my best to implement in our home and classroom:

:: LESS IS MORE :: 

Children don't need a lot of toys.  As parents we tend to go way overboard with buying stuff.  If your children are like mine, they find their one favorite thing and spend the day (or week) with that item.  Children don't need a lot of things for entertainment.  The more things and stuff they have the more dependent they become on things for satisfaction which enables materialism.  I find that with too much stuff my kids are just over stimulated, so less is just better.

:: NATURAL FIBERS ::

I'm pretty stingy on what toys we have in our home. The toys have to be: safe, mostly educational, no noises or flashing lights, made from natural fibers, gender neutral (not so much a political statement so much as a financial one—don’t over read this lol), and enable exploration.  I know this is annoyingly crunchy to say (I’m rolling my eyes at myself as I write this, I promise), but in our home I try to have only natural fiber toys (mostly wood, and nothing with lights or songs).  I do this because I like to keep their toys as close to the earth as possible to leave enough room for the imagination.  It’s really important to note that when you’re looking for wooden toys that have been painted to make sure they were not painted with lead-based paint.  You would be SHOCKED how many wooden toys still have lead-based paint. Needless-to-say, make sure you check for toy safety. My favorite toys and educational tools come from Melissa & Doug and Green Toys.

:: NEVER ENOUGH BOOKS ::

Despite the fact that I now have books double-stacked & two rows deep on the bookshelves, I continue to buy books.  Of all the things to buy, books are always at the top of the list.  Right now I have over 80 books that I have saved in my Amazon cart so I can stalk them going on sale.  There is no such thing as too many books when you're trying hard to help your children develop a passion for reading and learning.  In this case, less is not more ;-)

:: ROTATING STATIONS ::

I like to have stations for learning and play set up all over the house.  I have stations set-up in almost every room (not my bedroom or the bathrooms.....also I don't really have a lot of rooms as I don't live in a mansion Ha!).  These stations have 2-4 items in baskets or some kind of container that the kids can pull off and work with.  The key for these stations is to make them kid level.  This promotes independence and autonomy for the kids to go over and select what they are interested in at that moment.  What I like about these stations being eye level, is that when it is time to "restore their environment" and clean up, they can put everything back into the basket and take it back to the shelf themselves.  About once every 2 weeks I rotate these stations.  I try to get the items to reflect a topic that we're studying (we work in 2 week units), but I also rotate items to keep them fresh.  Like I said before, kids don't need a lot of new things....sometimes if you just make something you already have new again they are excited and interested in it.  Here are some of the stations I set up in our home:

There are so many other things that are essential for this philosophy and I recommend these books if you're interested in more.

         

Montessori From the Start ~ Teaching Montessori in the Home

Obligatory Blogger Disclaimer: I was not paid for this post; I just really like these products.

Honestly Hawley {February 2017}

So in true Darby Fashion, we're almost done with March and I'm just now posting February.  My computer has been running a little slow at home so the Mr. got me a new one, the one I'm blogging with for the first time right now ahhhhhh!  It makes compiling these picture-heavy posts so much faster!  Thank you hubby! February was fast but also relaxing and really fun.  I'm loving these recap posts of pictures more and more.  I know one day I will appreciate them so much!

Here are the honest, unedited, unscripted

scenes of our February life :-)

2016: June ~ July ~ August ~ September ~ October ~ November ~ December

2017: January