Productivity

We had a very productive day. We finished our schoolwork. I did the laundry and cleaned up the house. (The kids used to do all of our laundry & housework, but I have discovered this year that I have more time than they, so I have taken over).

My favorite part was that we all spent about an hour playing with Lil Yoda's Disney karaoke machine. Well, it's not really a full-blown machine. It's actually a souped-up microphone that has all the karaoke stuff programmed into it. You can just plug it into your regular tv and go!

Daddy was home trying to work but came to join in the fun when he heard (and couldn't escape) our singing and laughter. We have a regular karaoke machine as well, but this Disney one allows you to change your voice. It does a deep & scratchy "dragon" voice that sounds like Ursula the Sea Witch, a deep horse voice that sounds like Barry White, a medium but-still-not-yours voice, and a tiny mouse voice. We had such a great time; I'm glad Lil Yoda dug this out of the garage.

Lil Yoda and I fixed a wonderful dinner together using one of the recipes she learned in her cooking class: Tex Mex Tarts. Padme saw us bustling about the kitchen and came to help out as well. We love to cook together! I have posted the recipe below.

After dinner we watched tv (this is an out of the ordinary Treat) and read The Last Battle, the final installment of the Narnia books. This was a very tense episode, when Tash comes to Narnia and Cair Paravel has been taken by the Carlormenes. I could have kept reading until I came to a more warm-and-fuzzy part of the story, but I know the doubt and tension of the delay will only add to their enjoyment when the story comes to its victorious conclusion!

I put the girls to bed and we sang and laughed and prayed. Their spirits lightened again by the power of the Almighty God, they sang themselves to sleep.

I didn't accomplish many of the things on my List today. I have much work to do still, and it is midnight already. I have papers to grade and lessons to prepare for co-op. I have research to do for the coming week. I'd like to take a bath.

But I had a very productive day.

I hope you all enjoyed an equally wonderful day. I love my job.

Here's the recipe:

TEX MEX TARTS

1 Roll of Fillo Bread (2 come in a pack but we only used one)
Taco Meat
Beans
Rice
Sour Cream
Shredded Cheese
Salsa
And Whatever Else You Want As Garnish!

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare taco meat and rice according to package directions. Warm beans over the stove.

Unroll the Fillo bread onto a cutting board. Carefully peel off 5 layers of Fillo & set the rest aside. Using a pizza cutter, cut the Fillo bread into 8 pieces (Lil Yoda says the are supposed to be Pop-Tart sized).

Get out a muffin tin. Each of the 8 sections of 5 Fillo bread pieces will be placed in a muffin tin to make a cup, but Lil Yoda says you can't just lay them in all together. You have to separate the pieces and lay each of the 5 pieces into the muffin tin individually, overlapping one another in sort of a star pattern, so that it will look prettier.

Once you have 8 cups of your muffin tin filled (with 5 pieces of Fillo each) you can peel off 5 more Fillo sheets and repeat the process. We filled 4 muffin tins with just that one roll of Fillo.

Sidenote: We don't have four muffin tins. However we have 2 muffin tins and 2 heart-shaped muffin tins so we used those. The heart shaped ones really ended up being too small but oh well...

Another Sidenote: At this point, Mom apparently did not look very busy, as the girls were doing the Fillo work. Lil Yoda therefore informed Mom that, "We are supposed to be cleaning the kitchen as we go, so you can go ahead and sweep the floor, wipe the counters and wash out the sink...stuff like that." Apparently this is what they do in her Cooking Class, so I dutifully begin to clean up.

Once you have all of your muffin tins filled, bake them at 350 for 5 minutes. When they are finished, take them out and display them on a pretty platter. Or, in our case, a cutesy beach platter because that's the one the girls picked.

Yell for everyone else to come eat dinner. After no response, yell again. If still no response, send the short people to get the others and tell them it is Dinner Time. As you wait for everyone else to come, let the Littluns put a pretty tablecloth on the table. And candles, if you have time.

When they arrive (at our house this is at least five minutes later and the food threatens to be too cold) let everyone fill their own Fillo cups with Taco meat, beans, cheese, sour cream, salsa and rice.

Enjoy!!!