Getting Organized Challenge

Day #12 over at A Bowl Full of Lemons 21 days of organization was the Spice Cabinet.  Surprise!  I have one :-)  Actually, I call it my "Spice, Open, and Need this week cabinet".  It is one of only two food cabinets so it gets messy a lot!! 

The Before Mess!

And The After

The bottom shelf holds my little used spices as well as all of the packets of things like taco seasoning.  This is also where I store Salt and Pepper for cooking.  The second shelf keeps any items I need for recipes this week so I don't have to constantly go downstairs to the pantry plus it also is where I keep things that are open like bread crumbs, peanut butter and Crystal Light.  Than the top shelf holds pasta boxes and pancake mix.   My true spice holder is on my counter (you can just see the silver knob on the top of it)  I actually took this out in July thinking I would get rid of it to free up counter space but I found, over the next few months, that I missed the ease of it!  I brought it back in, cleaned it up, took off the old labels, added new labels with the help of my label maker and have not regretted it for an instant! 

Day # 13 was the Medicine Cabinet.  and, guess what?  I have one of those too!  I've only had one for about 9 months though!  When we did our minor bathroom re-do, instead of putting up just a mirror, we added a medicine cabinet and have not regretted it for a moment!

The before - it really isn't that bad - just needed to be cleaned.

The after - I wiped it all done and put the stuff back in :-)

I'm linking up to:

The Eensy Weensy Spider - Craft

YEAH!  I'm finally getting some time to craft!  I saw this adorable idea over at Oopsey Daisy and thought it looked so fun!  We sing a lot of songs in this house and the Eensy Weensy Spider is a true favorite!  This is such an easy craft and so much fun!  I only made one but I think I might need to whip up a second one so each boy has one (and will need to make one for my friends munchkin too!)

Supplies
Black felt
Red Felt (or scraps)
White felt (or scraps)
Pipe cleaner
black thread
rice

 First, I made a template by tracing a large bowl on a white piece of paper.  Than I stapled the paper to the black felt and cut around my circle.  I did not worry about perfection in my cutting since I'll be sewing it together.

Than, I just free hand cut out the eyes, mouth and tongue.  I thought the tongue really did make it cute.

I sewed the "legs" into the circle while leaving enough open to be able to put a bag of rice inside

Than I hot glued the eyes and mouth on the spider and let it sit for awhile (Partly because I had no rice to finish it up until later in the day!)

Once I got the rice, I filled a Ziploc bag and stuffed it inside; than finished sewing up the circle.  Isn't he cute???

I can't wait to use this when we see "The Eensy Weensy Spider" this next week.

Things I learned:  I need to make sure my circles are exactly the same size since you don't sew this inside out.  My circles don't line up but that's ok.  Also, I would stick the legs inside further and hot glue them on one circle prior to sewing it all closed to make them more secure. (Also, if it was smaller, you could use only 4 pipe cleaners and have them stick out on each side too!)   One of the legs pulled out and I had to re-sew it (I actually re-sewed over all of the legs about 5 times to secure them) .  Also, I think if I make another one, I'll make it a little smaller, this guy is huge! Otherwise - this really is a super easy super fun project.

Happenings in this House

One of the things I love about other blogs I follow are the pictures; real life, every day pictures.  That is something I haven't done a whole lot of more because I focus on other topics than my family on this blog.  I saw an idea on one blog about doing "A Year in the Life . .. " and she posted one picture from each day (or almost every day) from the past week.  It's a great concept.  So, my warped view of this is just doing one post a week (or almost every week) with some of the happenings in this house.  I know that many people use their blog as their scrapbook but I scrapbook so I don't need the blog to do that!  But I do think that this is a great memory to keep ;-)  Who knows, one of these years I might get a "Blog Book" of all of my articles from the past year! 

So enjoy - Happenings from this House!

On January 1st, we just enjoyed the day at home.  Josh loves playing with his new train set and Nate enjoyed the bean bags :-)  We also went outside and took down the lights before winter really hit!

My three boys - Darryl, Josh and Nate!

Nate enjoys posing - but this look?  I don't even recognize this little guy!  He looks so much like Josh did at this age but, honestly, we never see this.  Love how the camera catches these looks!

Josh LOVES to hang in the kitchen.  You can't really see it  but there are sprinkles all over the floor.  He's attempting to pick them up, one at a time, and throw them away before China eats them LOL



Yep, he is a state fan (or at least his mom is!) and notice the hair?  People pay alot of money for hair like that!



We had the finally Christmas party on Jan 8th (post poned due to illness).  The boys were awesome!  They enjoyed getting gifts and they loved playing with their older cousins!

Josh's new favorite past time is watching cartoons while laying on our bed.  He no longer takes naps (I know . . ) so after lunch he will usually ask to get up on the bed and just chill out.  Some days, he falls asleep.  I guess he needed some extra shut eye!





Yep, he LOVES his trains.  Notice the neat train track, the puzzle all put together, and all of the extra trains lined up neatly?  That describes this little guy to a tee!

Today, January 15th, we finally were able to take the boys outside in the snow.  It has either been way too cold or muddy with no snow.  After several small snows this past week we have about 6-8 inches so it was perfect.  We bundled everyone up (which takes a good 20 minutes!) and headed outside to have some fun.

Josh enjoying the snow and figuring out how to walk with all of that stuff on!

Nate was like a bulldozer through the snow.  He chose not to walk and just crawled through every drift.  He kept his mittens on and only cried when his face hit the snow first!

Having some fun on the sleds .

My Three Boys in the snow :-)  (Notice Josh's face - he HATE's mittens.  H.A.T.E.S them and was trying to get them off! . . Darryl's face? He's just cold LOL)



Hope you enjoyed this little walk through our week :-)

Mommy Time - Winter Unit

Welcome back to Mommy Time!  If you haven't checked out the Winter Units make sure and check out this Post - awesome ideas!

One of neat ideas I've seen in blogland for awhile is something called a sensory bin.  I decided to create one for this unit and this is what it looks like!

It is filled with all kinds of things for winter - cotton balls, a big letter W and S (for winter and snow), some diamond shaped beads (for ice), snowman playing cards, and I took a garland that had sparkly fuzzy white balls on it and cut it up - keeping both the fuzzy balls and the metal beading that connected it.  You can get as creative as you want and than, let the fun begin!

Testing it out for the first time.

Starting to pull stuff out.

Unloading the box.

He loved the "crystals"

Notice it is all on the floor?  Don't worry, when he was done, he picked almost all of it up on his own.

I really didn't see what the hype was about the Sensory Bin until I tried it today.  Josh loved all the textures and items in the tub.  I saw him putting just the cotton balls back in, than he would lay the metal beading along the side of the tub in rows and when we finished cleaning up, he liked to grab the things that looked alike at one time.  This bin only comes out when Nate is napping because, right now, he would eat some of those items.  I look forward to when they can both play with the bins in a few more months.  It will be a great treat for them to be able to play with each week.  I hope to be able to pull it out 2-3 times a week and later be able to use it for sorting games and activities.  Right now, I'm just letting him play with the things in his own creative way!

As far as storage - I dont' have a ton of space to store this stuff so I think I'm going to have one tub and than, store the "stuff" in a bag instead of having 12 boxes or more stored somewhere. The bags I can squish down into one box. 

Have fun! And let me know if you try out a sensory bin - I'd love to see pictures.  (And yes, I'm already picking up stuff for my February box - not sure yet what the "main" stuffer will be - to replace the cotton balls - I think a trip to Hobby Lobby is in order!!!!)

Chicken Scaloppini

I made this for dinner tonight and we really loved it alot.  It is really easy and so tasty. 

Chicken Scaloppini
(6 servings)

6 thinly sliced chicken breasts
2 Tbsp butter
2Tbsp oil
2 cups flour plus 2tsp
2 cups chicken broth
2 Tbsp lemon juice (from 1 lemon)
1Tbsp basil
1Tbsp parsley

Chicken:
Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. In a dish add 2 cups of flour- coat each chicken breast with flour. Melt butter and oil in a large pan on med-high heat. Add chicken and cook on each side until lightly browned and cooked through. Take chicken out of pan and set aside on dish.
Sauce:
Leave the remains in the pan you cooked your chicken in. Add 2 tsp of flour to make a paste, then add 2 cups of chicken broth. Let simmer for 5 mins or until it begins to thicken. Add lemon juice, basil and parsley.

Pour sauce over chicken and enjoy.  Serve with rice, noodles, or risotto.

This recipe came from Comfy in the Kitchen

My Notes:
* I really only have one note.  Due to my first batch of rice not cooking (not sure what happened!) my sauce had to sit for 20 minutes while I cooked a second batch of rice.  When I had first tasted the sauce I thought it was very "lemony" but letting it sit for that time allowed the flavors to blend and it was soooo good!  So, make the sauce and let it sit for a few before serving. 

Getting Organized Challenged.

Today is Day 11 over at A bowl Full of Lemons 21 day organizational challenge.  You can check out this post to see my other 10 days of organization.

So, Day 11 on A Bowl Full of Lemons is the Freezer, but honestly, my Freezer is clean.  For one, I don't have alot of food and secondly, I clean it out every week before shopping so I know what I have :-)  So for me, Day 11 was going back to the dresser drawer.  So check out the before and after:

The before - Darryl's shorts and t-shirts.  Always a jumbled mess!

Now it houses his white t-shirts, jeans and shorts.  So much neater!

The old jean and t-shirt drawer.

Which now houses his t-shirts all sorted by color!

Sadly this is my one and only drawer.  Everything is crammed in here.

Now, all my shirts are organized, shorts are folded and jeans fit in nicely.

And the PJ drawer.

All nice and neat!

I"ll be linking up over at:

Brunswick Stew

Last week I made a Taco Soup that was really good so that has me on a little bit of a Soup/Stew Kick.  I went searching for something to make this week and came across this recipe for Brunswick Stew - I had never heard of it or tasted it but it sound good PLUS it is a slow cooker recipe!  (I do not have a recipe for the Taco Soup because it was from a packet that I bought at a Craft Show this summer - it was very yummy!)

Amelia's Slow Cooker Brunswick Stew

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 pound country style pork ribs
1 onion, chopped
1 roasted chicken, deboned and shredded
1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes
3/4 cup ketchup
1/2 (10 fluid ounce) bottle steak sauce
1/2 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon hot sauce
1 lemon, juiced
2 cubes chicken bouillon
1/2 tablespoon ground black pepper
1 (15 ounce) can whole kernel corn, undrained
1 cup frozen Lima beans, thawed

Directions

Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet over medium heat and brown the ribs on all sides.  Transfer to a slow cooker.  Place onion in the skillet, cook until tender, and transfer to the slow cooker.   Place the chicken in the slow cooker and mix in tomatoes, ketchup, steak sauce, cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, lemon, chicken bouillon and pepper.  Cover and cook 6 hours on high.  Remove ribs, discard bones, and shred.  Return meat to slow cooker.  Mix in corn and Lima beans, cover and continue cooking 2 hours on high.

This was SOOOOO good!  I was very happy with this recipe :-)

Now with that said, here are the things I did differently - more than usual, actually, but it was still basically the same:
1) I did not buy ribs - instead I found what pork was on sale which was a package of thin cut boneless chops.  They worked perfectly - I browned them and put them in whole; after a few hours, they were tender enough to shred.
2) I did not buy a whole chicken - again, I price shopped and bought a package of chicken thighs instead.  I actually put those in the crock pot first thing in the morning to cook for a few hours; than emptied the crock pot, shredded the chicken to use in the recipe.
3) I did not have any lemons so I used 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice instead
4.) I mis-read the size of the tomato can needed so I only had a small can of tomatoes but it was still really good.
5) I did not use hot sauce - Darryl isn't a huge fan of hot sauce in recipes.

When I make it again my husband asked that I cut back on either the steak sauce or the vinegar because he felt it was too tangy but still really good.  I liked it the way it was but it was tangy too!