Lasagna is a family favorite that is usually on the menu once a month.  I like to make this dish in the summer by putting it in the crockpot to avoid heating up the house.  But for days when I am busy it is nice to have in the crockpot to enjoy a fuss free meal.

To make the sauce you will need the following:

• Maryons spaghetti sauce recipe
• 1-16 oz container of ricotta cheese
• 2 cups mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• 1 pkg lasagna noodles–cooked  and sitting in cold water to avoid sticking

To begin, make your spaghtetti sauce.  I like to do ours homemade with our frozen pureed diced tomatoes

In a small mixing bowl combine the ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, and parmesan cheese. Mix until combined. By now your sauce is good and hot and cooked thoroughly.  If you are using jarred spaghetti sauce,  I would recommend adding some tomato sauce, tomato juice, or some sort of extra liquid as jarred sauce is often quite thick and your lasagna will turn out mushy.   Layer in your crockpot the following:

• 1/3 sauce
• noodles
• 1/3 cheese mixture
• noodles
• 1/3 sauce
• noodles
• cheese mixtue
• noodles
• rest of sauce

It works out pretty nicely if you get a box of broken noodles, as you can just layer them to fit into your crockpot.

Your last layer will be the rest of your sauce mixture.
I like to sprinkle some parmesan cheese on the top of my lasagna.  I put this on low for about 2 hours.  If you really need to stretch it you can put on warm for 4 hours.

Having a large family especially with many little ones can get very long and overwhelmingly boring through the winter months.  Especially if you are the type that has to be cooped up because it is impossible to get out, or you might not want to go out to avoid sickness. I know that I am constantly thinking of ways to keep my children occupied and busy through the long winter months.  Sure we can do a million and one crafts and read umpteen number of books.  But the children really just want something different and fun to do.  Why not make a “corn” box.

When we went to our county fair this fall, we came across this sandbox filled with corn and my children played in that “corn” box for about an hour, while we rested from our day.  It kept them very occupied, I knew this was something that I needed to do in our home.

I know when I had just a few little ones, I tried the rice box.  But if you can imagine leaving a couple of preschoolers alone with a box of rice what type of mess you will encounter, I knew I would never want to do that again, it took way too long to pick that up everytime they played with it.

But having the “corn” box is fairly simple and not that big of a mess.  Now I do not recommend you putting this in a high traffic area of your home because you will have corn mess around it.  We put it in the basement where my eliptical machine is.  That way I can exercise each day and they can get about a half hours worth of play time in.  Yes they jump in and out and make corn get on the floor but that is okay.  We sweep it up when we are finished and just dump it back in with the rest of the corn.

I figured since we have chickens and ducks that we can always throw it out for them to eat later when we are finished with it.  I just used there swimming pool to keep it in.  They love it!  They play trucks in here, play dollhouse goes to the beach in here.  It is just a fun sensory thing to do. You can get bags of corn from Walmart.  I paid about $8 for a 50lb bag.  We got three of them for our pool and that works out perfectly.  I could get more to make it a deeper filled pool, but I think it would just end up on the floor more.  Fun, inexpensive and creative for the winter months.