Any Prego people out there?

When it comes to spaghetti sauce, we are 100% Prego lovin' people.  I've tried Ragu and even tried to like Ragu, especially since it's generally cheaper.  But it just doesn't work.  So I try to buy Prego whenever it's on sale, but it doesn't seem to go on sale often enough (and I really don't run across many coupons for it, either) to keep up with our usage.  A few months ago I tried a homemade recipe for spaghetti sauce in the crock pot.  Yuck.  So the other day I looked for a "Copycat Prego Recipe" and this is what I found.  It was easy and tasted EXACTLY like Prego, in my opinion!!  And when I figured it up, using the tomato sauce and paste I bought from Aldi (for about $.25 a piece) and the crushed tomatoes I bought on sale with coupons, I got about 3 1/2 times the sauce for the cost of Prego!  

This comes from http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf248558.tip.html, but I copied and pasted because there are several other things on the website.

RE: Prego Spaghetti Receipe

By Ted Williams (Guest Post)

Copycat Prego Spaghetti Sauce

4 T olive oil
2 large minced garlic clove
1 onion, very finely chopped
2 t dried basil
2 t dried parsley
1 t ground black pepper
1 t dried oregano
2 t salt
2 (28 ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
1 (28 ounce) cans tomato paste
1 (28 ounce) cans tomato sauce
1/4 c granulated sugar

Heat oil over medium low heat. Add garlic. Stir and cook until golden brown. Be careful not to burn the garlic. Add onion and cook until soft and golden, stirring frequently. Add seasonings and tomato products. Slowly bring to the boil at a medium high heat. Let boil for 10 minutes, covered. Reduce to lowest heat. Cover and simmer 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Yield: 12 cups

Letter L

Here are some ideas for the letter L:

• Leaf ideas - jump in a leaf pile (if it's fall), gather leaves and glue on a piece of paper, put a leaf underneath a piece of white paper and use the side of a crayon to rub over the paper, make a leaf placemat by putting leaves on a piece of paper and putting the paper between two pieces of contact paper (this takes careful work!), gather leaves and sort by size or color.
• Print off a picture of a lamb (find some at http://www.coloring.ws/coloring.html) and glue cotton balls on it.
• Make a ladybug with two paper plates.  Cut one plate in half (good time to practice scissors skills with your toddler/preschooler!).  Color the halves red and the whole one black.  Use a brad to attach the tops of the halves to the top of the black plate to give the ladybug wings.  Add a head with black construction paper and antenna with black pipe cleaner.  Cut out (or punch out if you have a fancy scrapbooking circle puncher) black circles from construction paper and let your child glue them on.  Or, if you don't have black paper, draw circles on the wings and let your child color them (or let your child draw them if they're ready!).

 

• Have your child help with the laundry!  My kids like to help put the clothes in the washer or dryer.  They're not so helpful with the folding...
• Read stories about lions.  Then roar like lions!
• Make lilies with paper and pipe cleaner.  Trace your child's hand on several pieces of construction paper.  Cut out the hands and curl the palms of 1 or 2 hands tightly around a piece of pipe cleaner so that you can staple once through the paper and pipe cleaner (stem).  Then curl the fingers out.

Letter K

I do wish it would have been spring for K week because I haven't flown a kite for a very long time.  I think the last time was at my grandparents' farm in a field.  Brings back many fond memories!  Needless to say, we will most definitely be flying a kite the first warm windy day that comes this year!  Here are some of the activities we did for K week and some additional ideas:

•  Fly a kite :) Or make a kite out of a large sheet of paper and either dowel rods, craft sticks, straws, etc. for the cross section.  Let your kids decorate the paper however they want and with whatever you can think of!
• Kick some balls around the yard.
• Make a kaleidoscope with a toilet paper or paper towel tube.  We didn't do this because after looking at several instructions online, I felt it was too difficult for Asher.  But they looked really cool!  Just do a search for a homemade kaleidoscope on Google and you will get lots of ideas!
• Make a kangaroo. Again, lots of ideas online for ways to make a craft kangaroo, but I used a simple one with a pattern to cut out and glue.  Asher got practice using stick glue and had so much fun that he wanted to make three.  We sent them to Aunt Kristy and Aunt Katie :)  Here's the link to the one we made: http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/mpaperkangaroo.htm.

 

• Watch videos of kangaroos on YouTube.  Then hop like them!
• Continuing with the kangaroo theme, you can make an easy "pouch" with 2 paper plates.  Cut one in half and staple it on the whole one (around the circle part) so that you have an opening.  Staple the ends of a piece of string to the paper plate and put it around your child's neck like a necklace.  Make sure it hangs so that the "pouch" is on their stomach.  Now they can carry things in their "pouch"!  Don't forget to let them decorate it :)
• Make a crown with paper.  Let your child decorate it and tape or staple it together around your child's head and declare them a king!  If you want, you can put a blanket around their shoulders for their robe and give them a scepter :)  Tell a grand tale about your kingly child!
• Kittens - play with kittens, pretend to be kittens, watch "Kittens Inspired by Kittens" on YouTube, whatever you want!
• This isn't specific to the letter K, but whenever we learn a letter, I always connect the sound to the visual of the letter.  So we always talk about what the letter says.  There are a million ways to practice letters, but one thing I did this week was get a large piece of paper and write a huge bubble K on it.  Asher painted inside the K and around it.  You could get pictures of things that start with K and have them stick them inside the K or trace it with their finger or a marker.

Letters I and J

Okay, so the letter "i" was really difficult for me to think of activities, partly because from letter "i" to now, we have been really busy and I didn't have much time to think!  That is why I am joining letters I and J!

Letter I activities:

•  Insects - look at insects with a magnifying glass.  Capture them and put them in a bug catcher (look online for instructions on how to make a bug catcher! - the easiest one that I used to do as a kid is a clear jar with holes punched in the lid).  Make an insect out of paper - I got this pattern from http://www.first-school.ws/theme/animals/insects.htm and used the "B is for Bee" link.
• Inside/outside - we have a turkey blind that is somewhat broken (or at least unable to use while hunting, according to my husband, who had to buy another one).  It's huge and like a really big and fun tent.  It just pops up!  So we popped it up in the kitchen and went inside the tent, then outside the tent!  Asher had a blast!
• Ice - do lots of ice experiments - put an ice cube in warm water and one in cold water.  Which melts faster?  Put an ice cube outside on a warm day and time how long it takes to melt.  Freeze some colored ice cubes with food coloring (use primary colors - red, blue and yellow).  Melt the red and yellow together and predict what color the water will be.  Do the same with red and blue, and blue and yellow.
• Make some ice cream - there are tons of homemade ice cream recipes.  Use an ice cream maker, an old crank ice cream maker, or just some easy ice cream in a ziplock bag.  Look online for lots of ideas!  Look at my other blog post for a snow ice cream recipe!
• Igloo - make an igloo with sugar cubes and frosting.  Just build with brick (sugar cubes) and mortar (frosting)!

Letter J activities:

• Make a jellyfish - I found this idea in Family Fun magazine.  Just take an old fruit cup (the clear plastic kind) and poke a hole in the top.  I used a small nail and gently hammered it in.  This was kind of hard for me, so my hole looked more like a broken top.  But it still worked.  I would probably suggest putting the cup right side up so the bottom is against a piece of wood before hammering a hole.  Then it might not break as much.  Anyway, then you take pieces of blue tissue paper and modpodge it around the inside of the cup.  Then take several shades of blue yarn and ribbon, all cut to relatively the same length, and tie a large knot at the top.  Put the knot in the cup and pull one string through the hole.  Hang up with that string!
• Jump in various places.  Discuss how it feels different to jump on the bed or couch versus the floor or grass.
• Jump in the leaves - if it's fall!
• Make Jello Jigglers
• Eat jelly on something
• Teach your child a knock-knock joke

Letter H

Activities for H week!

• Cut out hearts (you know, do the folded paper thing) - this is good for practicing scissor skills! A little more difficult than straight lines, but still good practice - and decorate them with heart stickers, markers, paint, whatever. We gave a decorated heart to a girl named Haley at church.
• Hats - pull out all the hats in your house (or if you're like us and have a bazillion, just get the kids' play hats) and sort them by size, color, etc. Wear them and have a parade of hats.  If you have one you can decorate, do it!  Asher actually hates wearing hats, so this activity wasn't very exciting to him, which saddened me, because I think it's so fun!
• Dig holes in the sandbox or dirt.
• Give lots of hugs!
• Play with a toy hippo.
• Draw a house, talk about your house/home, play with a dollhouse.
• Sing "If You're Happy and You Know It"
• Make a newspaper hat - we did this, decorated it, and gave it to Asher's friend Hayden at church.
• Make handprints with paint on a large piece of paper.

• Cut out some additional hearts from colored paper and a few from newspaper print.  Then glue them onto another piece of newspaper.  Have your child see if they can find all the hearts and discuss camouflage.  You can tailor this to your child's age - I only used 2 colored ones and 2 newspaper ones because Asher is so young. I numbered them after he found them.

Letter G

Activities for G week!

• Green - you can do tons with the color green!  Paint with green paint, go on a hunt to spy green things, sort M&Ms and eat the green ones first, etc.
• Make some green frosting and put it on graham crackers for a snack. Asher asked for this one nearly everyday for the next 2 weeks.
• Read "Green Eggs and Ham" and use green food coloring to make scrambled eggs for breakfast.  Asher was excited, yet skeptical about this.  But he eventually tried it and loved it!
• Pan for gold in a sandbox.  We painted some really small rocks with gold spray paint for an activity at church.  When that was over, we just put them in our sandbox and pretended to pan for gold!
• Color a picture of a giraffe.
• Watch a video of giraffes on YouTube.
• Go to the grocery store.
• Teach your child a new game or play an old favorite.  Like golf!
• Play in the grass.
• Look at things you've grown in the garden (during G week, our garden still had some produce).
• Eat some gum (if your kids are old enough.  Mine wasn't.)
• Most importantly, talk about God!!

Modern Slavery

My husband surprised me with tickets to a Tenth Avenue North concert last night.  It was awesome!!  I really like their authenticity and genuine spirit.  They truly make their concerts into a time of worship and put all the spotlight on God rather than themselves.  

Their tour is called "The Light Meets the Dark" and is used to highlight the heinous issue of modern slavery.  I have heard many times about this problem and it has always been a heavy weight in my heart.  But two things were said last night that really hit hard.  They have partnered up with Compassion International, which is a child sponsorship organization.  A Compassion video was shown where 3 adults from other countries spoke about their lives before Compassion intervened and they were sponsored by someone.  One man said that he remembers his mother holding his 10 month old sister as she died of starvation.  I have an almost 10 month old.  Wow.  I don't even want to imagine what it is like to hold your baby as they die of something so simple, yet something you can't provide.  Not only that, but the days and weeks prior to that when they cry out in hunger.  

Then the lead singer of Tenth Avenue North began to talk about slavery and he said he'd always wondered how it actually happens, how a child becomes a slave.  And he began to paint a picture of a common scenario.  A man is working in a field for many hours.  Perhaps a coffee bean field, plucking the beans by hand.  At the end of the day, he brings the pile of beans to his boss and receives $1 for his day of work.  He feels the stress of not being able to provide enough for his family to eat.  Then a stranger comes along and says something like "I have work for your child.  If you let her come with me, I'll pay her $300 a month."  And the man, out of desperation, gives his daughter to the stranger, maybe not having the slightest idea what she will be doing or what will be done to her.  Now, I know that thousands of other children are kidnapped or get into the sex slave industry by more forceful means, but as I sat there and thought about my two babies sleeping peacefully at home, I tried to put myself in that mother or father's shoes and felt heart-wrenching pain.


The singer went on to say that when you sponsor a child through Compassion International, you actually stop that cycle right where it starts.  You literally pluck a child out of a desperate situation in poverty and give them a new start in life.  Instead of a stranger coming to that family's house to offer "work" for a child, a Compassion worker comes and brings wonderful news in the form of food, education, clothing, and most importantly, the Gospel for the child.  What amazing news that must be to a family who wonders how their dollar will feed and clothe their children, let alone give them any education!


He went on to give the typical speech about how it's about the cost of 3 or so lattes a week, but not being a huge coffee drinker (thought I love it, opportunity and cost deter me), that kind of talk never resonates much with me.  What does is realizing that I have and most of the world has not.  It doesn't matter that most of our clothes are second-hand and our TV is old and I have to watch almost every penny I spend.  I have clothes and a TV and pennies to spend.  I spent this morning folding clothes and thanking God that I have clothes to put on, a washing machine to clean them in, a clean floor to fold them on, a warm bed to sleep in, food to eat for breakfast, and many other things.


But even more than God taking care of me on a daily basis with my physical needs, He has taken care of a deep spiritual need that all of us have.  He sent His son Jesus to die on that old rugged cross to take our place.  He literally plucked me out when I was drowning in sin and saved me.  And I thank Him all the time for what He did for me.  He can pluck you out, too, if you just trust Him.  Believe that He died for your sins.  Tell Him that you need Him.  And don't forget to thank Him :)


Our sponsored child is Joan and he lives in Peru.  He's 15 now, which is hard to believe.  He was only 8 or 9 when we began sponsoring him.  It's like watching your own child grow up too fast :)



http://www.compassion.com/