Dana Burland

My kids stopped eating my go-to oat waffles. No reason why, but one day they were in, the next day they were very mas o menos or 6-7 about them (reader translation: more or less, uncertain), and the day after that a solid nope... where they have remained. Then I broke the waffle iron.  Cool! Never one to quickly learn from the most obvious mistakes, I Amazon'd a new waffle iron over and sought to find a new recipe.  I'm really not interested in crap waffles. If it's a white flour/quarter cup of sugar waffle recipe, I might as well buy Eggos, buckle my seatbelt for a hunger induced fit (from the boys OR myself) 30 min after breakfast and call it a day. But, my last recipe (which was good! Here if you want it!) got rejected. I wasn't easily finding something that still had protein and felt good, so I turned my effort to ChatGPT. Give me a kid-friendly, oat-flour, waffle recipe And oat-flour and kid-friendly... ish it is. I now have one kid (actually my more challenging ...

This is a perfect Thursday dinner. An in office work day, immediately home and back on the go for kid's piano and drum lessons. When everyone reconvenes at home they're hungry--RIGHT THEN.  Look, there are so many crockpot meals out there. A lot are just solidly fine, few are truly good, and if they're truly good they have 47 ingredients and wow, when some call for cooking ahead of items going in the pot... that's just so ugh.  I'm not going to tell you this is the best recipe in the world, but I am going to tell you it's tasty, stupidly easy, probably could be made from items in your kitchen right now, and it's filling too. I'm making this one again and again. Crockpot Chicken Pasta Sauce Ingredients 2-3 chicken breasts onion powder, garlic powder, Italian seasonings, salt & pepper 24-28oz jar of marinara sauce about 3/4 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes (optional) Optional stir-ins: 3/4 cup cottage cheese, chopped spinach, a glug of half and half or h...

...and what a year it was. Both boys were ninjas. C and his friend Theo SPRINTED through the entire neighborhood, ping ponging across the street while the Dads strolled down the middle. Their night wrapped up after two solid hours, a full pillow case of candy, and a sweaty ninja costume. They hit the entire neighborhood, a new PR, and as C proudly displayed on his watch--17K steps. Whoa.  Meanwhile the Moms took A and friend Benny out together. What started as a sprint quickly turned into a walk/run combo. The boys also PR'd, down our long street, around the full corner and cul-de-sac, and back home again. A real highlight was trick-or-treating at our own house, where Uncle E was on duty handing out candy... Trick or treat at your own house?! HILARIOUS! They loved racing to the door to help in handing out candy, too. While the boys' stamina is always new and improved year over year, so many traditions stay the same: Our family friends, former neighbors, with boys similar ages, ...