The day in a Nut {Tortilla} Shell

8.25.10-

Fall is in the air & another school year is beginning-yeah! I love getting back to having a schedule & set routines but not all the homework that comes home each & every day. All of this means we are up early around here now, 6:00 a.m. to be exact for Miss Mace to ready. She has to be on the bus at 6:50 a.m. {early} but I only remember too well riding the bus from Lewiston to Smithfield & picking up everyone in between, it was a looong bus ride.

So off to 7th grade for Miss Mace but not before our traditional Quigley 1st day of school breakfast. Yummy homemade whole-wheat pancakes, bacon & OJ to start the day. {I shared the recipe for the pancakes in an older post if you're interested.

Next up the "Turtle Twins" A&E. They are as opposite as opposite can be. One was jumping at the bit to go back to school & the other one was wondering why Summer isn't as long as the school year & wishing the school year was only 3 months long like Summer :) We actually almost missed the bus- they had to run for it! But they made it on just in time for me to take a couple of quick pictures on the bus before they were off to start the 3rd grade.

While they were all gone to school & I got an idea from here & wanted to start our own kind of tradition to celebrate the start of a new school year. So I planned out the 1st day of Back to School dinner. I have been wanting to make some of the delicious food from one of our Gourmet Clubs for a while now & thought this would be a good time to do it. So I decorated the table with some school themed items & started cooking.
-The 1st day of Back to School Menu-

Rib-eye Steak with Cilantro Pesto {this was a HIT, my kids LOVED it!}

Pasta Mexican

Cantaloupe

Corn on the cob {fresh from Lewiston}

and for dessert.....

Fiesta Coconut Sundae w/ Mexican Chocolate sauce

{Scrumptious!}

you can get all of the recipes from the Delish my Dish blog

When you cook like this it does take a little bit more preparation & effort {not to mention the clean-up after but it's all worth it} So we did get sat down to eat a little late, which means tired & hungry girls, but they loved the meal. I even put little notes under each of their chairs with some scripture references to look up that talk about learning, understanding & gaining wisdom. It was a nice way to end the meal {although I wish the girls would have paid a little bit more attention than they did, but oh, well I tried}

Then we made the dessert, which is amazing by the way! The chocolate sauce is a great sweet, spicy & cinnamony {is that even a word?} concoction. Miss Mace, our little Top Chef, was bound & determined to make us all fried tortilla bowls to put the ice cream in & they turned out great.

So there you go, our day in a nut {tortilla} shell. I love having traditions in our family. It was nice to start the day off with an established one & ending it with a new one & something to look forward to every year.

{M}