We have a new family member in our house.  He’s great because he doesn’t keep us up at night, he doesn’t need to be served three meals per day plus two snacks, he’s very quiet, and provides our family immense pleasure.

Say hello to Roku.  Isn’t he cute?

Courtesy of Roku website

I don’t really know how to pronounce his name, and I have to constantly ask my five-year-old son if his name is Roo-Ku or Row-Ku.    He looks at me like I’m crazy as he tells me for the 100^th time, “It’s Row-ku!” and then he rolls his eyes.  And then  my husband chimes in and says, “It doesn’t have two o’s in its name like a Kang-a-roo!”  Silly me!

Truthfully, I don’t know if they are correct, but I don’t care.  We still love "however you pronounce his name" just the same.

As I have stated in past posts, we aren’t known to have the latest electronics in our house.  Still no iPhone, iPad, iPod, Smartphone, Kindle, but I did finally join Twitter for the blog even though I don’t tweet much.   Poor little family!  We’re just slow to catch up with the Joneses, but I am pleased to say that Roku made its way into our family rather quickly.   I guess you could credit that to the fact that we are all couch potato, TV junkies.

In Christmas 2009, my husband told me that our new HDTV was our Christmas gift from Santa.  I didn’t complain because I did enjoy watching the last season of 24 and Lost on the clear screen.   Following a Thanksgiving trip last year, he told me he wanted to get this new device that streams Netflix from our computer.   He probably told me this while I was on the Internet which is when he does some of his best conversations.  I  said, “Uh-huh.  That’s nice!” and kept typing away without missing a beat.  Less than three days later,  Roku joined our family. 

And this is all that he does.

I don’t even know what half of those icons do because we mainly use our little friend for Netflix, and Pandora.  Oh, and let me just say that Pandora opened up a whole new world for us.  I’m now learning the names of musical artists that I have heard on the radio, but had no idea who they were.   We play children’s music, and occasionally, some pop will come into the mix.   Baby Girl has some rhythm!   Here she is dancing to Usher’s DJs Got us Falling In Love Again.  I think it’s her favorite!  Anytime, it comes on, she starts shaking to the beat.

Dancing Queen

We raise our sippy cups to Pink, jive to the Jackson Five, and melt our popsicles with Katy Perry.  We’re even Lady Ga Ga fans!   My son wants to know why she has the same name as one of his imaginary monster friends though.   Goo Goo and Ga Ga have raised havoc in our house since he was about three, and like the artist, I think our Ga Ga is quite colorful as well.

I do try to limit my son’s TV because he would rather do nothing else.  It must be in his genes!  He’s already talking about going to California because that is where movies are made.   I do have to admit to you that I am probably the type of parent that gave the American Academy of Pediatrics the reason to write the recommended guidelines for TV watching in children.   The older my son gets, the more I max out their recommended time limit, and go over about 30 minutes extra.   I wish I was a better parent and could entertain my child every waking minute he is awake, but I like to keep it real, and am going to admit my faults to all of you.  At times, he would rather watch TV than do something with me, and I feel the same way.   He’s up at 7 am, only in pre-school for three hours, and bedtime is at 8:30 pm.   That’s a long day especially if TV is not part of the equation.  Go ahead!  I know what you are thinking.   Say, “Shame on Me!”   Before you are quick to judge,  in daycare where parents pay for their children to stay while they work even have movie time on their schedules during the week.   So,  I don’t feel too guilty (most of the time).

My 15 month-old daughter does not watch TV yet, but she has been exposed to Elmo and that curious monkey who I’m so glad does not live with me.  She has also dropped her morning nap this month, and I’m in MOURNING.   This morning, she pulled a lamp off the table, dragged a picture frame into a room, hid our alarm clock, and knocked the windowpanes out of our bedroom window.  That was all in the 15 minutes I was trying to dry my hair.   Let’s just say that this 42-year-old mama is exhausted by the time she goes down for a nap after everyone eats lunch.

Naptime is a joyous time!

I have declared this afternoon time while the baby naps as my new  “Tea-V” time, and Roku takes center stage.  My son gets to be a couch potato after pre-school; I sit down with a cup of tea, and get on my computer.  I need to do this to recharge or else my broomstick comes out of the closet, and watch out, world!   At first, we didn’t let my son do too much with the Roku remote except he was allowed to hit pause if he needed to go to the bathroom.  However, he started testing the waters recently and  one day I heard all these clicking sounds coming from the other room.   I jumped up, and ran into the family room, and sternly said, “What are you doing?” I looked at the Roku screen and he had conducted a Netflix movie search and the TV screen was far, far away from our little Netflix Queue that my husband taught me how to operate.  

Frustrated, I took the remote out of his hand.   I didn’t know what to do to get it back to familiar territory, and I started getting mad.  I yelled at the remote, “I don’t know what to do?”   I then heard this little voice coming from the couch, “You have to scroll up with the little arrow keys”.   The expert spoke.

Now my son operates the remote all the time under guidance, and is teaching his little sister how to use it, too.

Little TV Remote Apprentice

I tell my kids, “Don't you just love, Roku?”  And my son says, “Yes, but not as much as you do.”

Until next time, it’s tea-V time so let me enjoy a few more minutes of quiet.

Lech, Austria defines the term “quintessential Austrian ski resort.”  It’s a traditional Austrian village with buckets full of charm, beautiful chalets and hotels, stunning scenery and the famous ‘Austrian’ hospitality.   Mark Gibbons, Director of Sales for Oxford Ski tells me,  “People are just so friendly and polite, the food is to die for both local specialities and some exceptional international haute cuisine. The skiing in Lech is phenomenal for all levels of skiers from beginner children to nervous intermediates to advanced skiers. For those coming from the US that are restricted to where they can ski ‘powder’, Lech is an open playing field for back country skiing and we recommend all of our clients to take a guide for at least one day to get the very best experience.”

This looks like just the perfect spot to me.

Kristiania Lech is a luxury, boutique style hotel, located within easy reach of the Lech’s city center, and a five-minute walk to the ski slopes.  The hotel has 29 rooms, each uniquely decorated.

The hotel is also equipped with a ski butler, boot butler, ski concierge, ski nanny, and even though I’m the most inexperienced skier in the world, I know those services are much desired.   The ski nanny sounds fabulous especially to a stay-at-home mom like me.  It would be like having a real day off from work!  The Ski Nanny takes your children to ski school, helps them with their gear, takes them back to the hotel and gives them hot chocolate and munchies.  My favorite amenity is the private babysitter who will take them sledding, snowman building, or play games with them while you want to have a romantic lunch, dinner...




or just sit and stare at this view.

As much as I would love to be able to sing, I’m not very good at it, and as my daddy would often say, “She can’t carry a tune in a bucket!”, but that didn’t stop me from popping in a cassette tape in  my parent’s car radio in the early 80's, and belting out Barbara Mandrell’s version of “Hey, Good Lookin, Whatcha Got Cookin? How’s about Cookin Somethin Up with Me?"  Whether it was a five-hour car ride or just five minutes down the road, there was a good chance I would be singing those lyrics in my parent’s backseat.

Flash forward thirty years, and you may just hear those same lyrics in my kitchen these days.  I’m really making an effort to get my five-year-old son involved in cooking.  It helps him learn math through measuring, teaches him about healthy eating, promotes better eating habits, teaches him some valuable life skills plus it allows him to spend some quality time with me.   My goal is to send him off to college in hopes that he won’t just eat nachos with cheese, boxed, processed macaroni and cheese, and frozen pizza.

Homemade pizza is his favorite meal to make.  I try to include it our meal rotation often, and he does everything from painting olive oil on the crust to decorating his own pizza pie with pepperoni, cheese, and veggies.

I make one as well so that the pepperoni and mushrooms are evenly spaced.  I have to admit that it bothers me just a little that all the mushrooms are in one big circle on his pizza, but I let him do his thing. We eat both versions then we always declare his pizza the BEST.

He’s also learning his dad’s secret chili recipe, and jokes with me by saying, “I can’t tell you what is in it.”  One day, I opened a can of Rotel tomatoes for a casserole I was making for dinner that evening, and my son blurted out, “That’s dad’s secret ingredient!  How did you know?”

I asked the Hines-Sight Blog Facebook fans if they cooked with their children.  Many of them do especially when it comes to baking sweets.  Some children even cook in their own pre-school these days.  One mom has her children help her with dinner nightly because she says it cuts down on what we moms call the “witching hour” chaos and turmoil.   If you don’t know what a “witching hour” is then my advice is to walk into a home with kids around 5 P.M.   In some homes, it can be earlier or later. Kids are bored, hungry, and tired and parents are occupied with trying to get dinner on the table.   My husband gets a phone call around 5:00 P.M. or 5:15 P.M. almost daily.  I speak in a fast, exasperated voice, and there is usually crying or yelling in the background.  He answers, and before he can finish saying hello,  I say,  “What time are you going to be home?  I can’t start dinner.   She is on my pant leg, and she keeps getting in the spice rack.   She’s tired.  She didn’t nap long so we need to eat dinner early.  Hurry up!  Bye”.  He usually doesn’t get a word in the conversation, and that call is his cue to wrap things up at the office.  As he makes his ten minute ride home, I’m sure he hopes that the house is still standing when he pulls in the drive-way.   Miraculously, when he walks in the house from the garage, the scene has changed drastically from when I called him earlier, and even though it’s not as serene as a family TV show from the 50’s, we somehow appear that we have our act together.  My son is playing, the baby is eating puffs, and dinner is in the making.

I wish that I had my act together more often to get my son to help with nightly dinner preps so I will make that a future goal in our household.  I think as my 15-month old daughter gets older that can be a realistic goal.   Several years ago, I bought this cookbook by Southern Living.  It’s great, and has some good, wholesome meals in it along with some cute cooking projects.

I highly recommend this book.  This colorful cookbook has 124 recipes for you to enjoy.  I’ve actually cooked several recipes found in here by myself and without the help of my children for dinner.  I hate to admit that especially when I’m talking about the benefits of cooking with your children in this post, but I try to keep it real, and sometimes, you don’t have enough time.  You need to cook something quick, alone in peace, and with a glass of wine in your hand.    The great thing about Southern Living is that I think you can really count on them for delicious recipes.  I know I have through the years once I started cooking, and when I see their name on a recipe, I’m more likely to try it.

Here are two recipes in the book that I thought would be perfect to share with you as we end dog week on the blog today.   These recipes would be great to cook with your kids or grandkids one afternoon.

Click Here to Print Recipe courtesy of Oxmoor House

These peanut butter based, no-bake cookies look not only cute, but will satisfy your sweet tooth.  

1 cup creamy peanut butter. (We use Jif Natural)

3 tablespoons honey

1 cup instant nonfat dry milk

Decorations: colored sugar candy, sprinkles, raisins even M and Ms.

Stir together peanut butter and honey in a big bowl.  Add dry milk, stirring until blended.  Spoon a small amount onto a plate.  Shape and decorate it anyway you wish.

Stir remaining putty in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to one week.

**You can make any shape you want and be as creative as your hands will let you. 

The cookbook also has a wholesome recipe that you can make with your children for your furry, four-legged friends.  There is a dog version and a cat version.  I’ll share both.  This would be a great activity to do with your child especially if you have a pet.

Ingredients

½ cup of quick cooking oats

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

¾ cup very hot water

1 (2.5 ounce) jar beef baby food (recommend Gerber)

1 large egg

¼ cup instant nonfat dry milk

¼ cup (1 ounce) shredded Cheddar cheese

1/1/2 cups whole wheat flour

½ cup yellow cornmeal

½ cup wheat germ

1/8 teaspoon of salt

1. Preheat over to 350 degrees

2. Stir together first 3 ingredients in a big bowl and let stand 10 minutes.  Add baby food and next 3 ingredients, stirring until blended.  Add remaining ingredients; stir mixture until a stiff dough forms.  Roll dough to ½ inch thickness on a lightly floured surface.  Cut with a 2 to 4 inch cookie cutter.  Place on lightly greased baking sheets.

3. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 to 16 minutes or until lightly browned and firm.  Remove from baking sheets from oven using oven mitts.  Cool treats completely on a wire rack.  Makes 1 ½ dozen.

To Make Kitty treats:  Stir in 2 Tablespoons dried catnip with flour mixture in Step 2.  Continue as directed.

I want to thank everyone for entering their dogs in the Hines-Sight Blog Facebook Page Dog Photo Contest.  Your dogs are so cute.  Voting ends Monday, February 28^th at 8 pm EST.  The winning dog will be featured right here in the blog, and I bet he or she would love to have these doggie treats.

Until next time, I’m grabbing a cup of tea and asking you, “Whatcha got cookin in your kitchen tonight?