The "Big" Closet Move

Ever since we moved the boys into what used to be our room (thus what was considered the "master") I've wanted to switch the closet organizers.  To be honest, I thought it was a 3 day project and even considered buying another closet system for the boys room so that we wouldn't be without a closet for . . .a week or two.  Yes, I am an over thinker.  Yes, we tend to not tackle projects because we think they will take too long.  Generally we are surprised and this time, we were, once again surprised.  In a matter of, well, an hour (for real!) we had our closet system out, the boys closet system out, and then the boys closet system installed in our closet.  The next evening Darryl hung the organizer in the boys room from ours.  That's it.  Crazy. 

So, here is the "before" of the boys closet:

Ok, my "dirty" little secret:

When we redid the boys room awhile ago, I painted around the closet organizer.  Needless to say, when we took it down, I had to run to Menards and get some paint mixed up to match the wall.  The boys enjoyed it though because they got to help paint this little section with me. 

Finally, the "after":

Yes, that is my child playing a video game that he can play better than anyone in the house, including his dad.  So, by doing this switch, I was able to shift the dresser into the closet which opened some more floor space in their room.  It also makes their clothes more easily accessible.  Before, Nate had to literally climb behind book cases to get to his stuff.  Now, they each have a half a rod on the same level and it works perfectly. 




The before of our closet:

The after:

Ahhhh, my baby is back home (hahahaha).  See, about 8 years ago, after living with an awful closet for a few years, I bought this system with some birthday money so that we could have a nice closet.  Yes, that is all the closet space we have but, amazingly enough, it holds most of our clothes.  Darryl's out of season and his dress clothes hang downstairs in the laundry room but considering the fact that they are, well, one - out of season and, two - he only wears dress clothes once a week, it's ok.  I love having a place for our shoes again and also some more storage shelves. 

After Darryl finished hanging up the boys closet system on Friday evening, I spent all day Saturday organizing clothes, moving stuff around and cleaning up the playroom.  Now we are ready for some more pick changes coming later this week!  We can't wait!

Homeschool Corner

Our "homeschooling" right now is very liberal.  We look for opportunities to teach and help the boys learn. 

A Few things we are doing:

1) Math - one of the bests times we have with the boys throughout the day for hands on learning is from 7:30-8:00 aka bedtime.  After reading a book they each pick out, we usually have time to chat so we've started doing math problems.  Just simple stuff like 2 + 2 or 5+2 . . things we can use our fingers for as a visual.  The boys enjoy that and can now answer some problems without "fingers".  Like I've mentioned before, we also count to every night.  When their clocks turn to 7:59, we start counting until they turn to 8:00.  That is the time that Darryl and I leave their room so it is good practice of big counting. 

2) Reading - As mentioned above, the boys pick out a book each (often the same book for many nights in a row - right now it is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom which we ALL know by heart!  and "How to Babysit a Grandpa" which the boys can tell most of that one as well.

We find, as every one knows, that reading to the boys at night increasing their language and also helps them to sound out words.  Not to mention the memory skills

3)  Games - I've mentioned before that the boys love games.  Generally they get games of some sort out at least once a day.  On a side note, it makes me wonder how people sell games at garage sales that have all of their pieces, in their original boxes.  I swear, we lose a piece every day and then find random pieces weeks later.  Games are HUGE learning experiences especially when I play and explain the rules to which Nate replies, "Well, mom, that is not how Josh teaches us to play." hahahaha 

I've shared some photos of my boys playing with their Letter Construction kit that they got for Christmas.  Even just yesterday, Nate had it out and was playing with Darryl.  He showed Darryl how to build them and then would sound the letter out and  name words that started with that letter.  So then Darryl would help him build small words like "Gum" and "Cat". 

Chutes and Ladders is a new favorite.  I love it because it teaches counting to 100.  Getting the boys to go the right direction and follow the "Chutes and Ladders" has been a little tricky but we are getting there ;-)


4) Time - The boys love time.  They always ask me what time on the clock they can do something and are pretty good with telling the "hour" time. 

Now that our snow is starting to melt and, eventually, we won't have a lake in the yard, and I'm beginning to un-hibernate, I want to plan some activities to keep us busy over the coming months.  Some typical learning things with time, money, and writing letters and numbers and some fun stuff too.

Things my kids say

* Nate hit his hand on the table and tried to pretend it didn't hurt because it wasn't bleeding.  Then he said, "But mom, it really does hurt and when you hit your hand and it hurts, it makes the bone bleed so my bone is bleeding but you just can't see and when my stomach hurts it doesn't bleed because there are no bones in my stomach but my hand hurts because my bone is still bleeding.".  . . .WHAT??? LOL!

* So, as I've mentioned before, my boys like to talk about poop when they, well poop.  Nate is the most descriptive, naturally.  Well, he was getting into the bath, scratched his butt (cheek, actually), and looked at his hand.  Me, thinking I was being funny, said "That's gross . .. hahaha".  To which Nate replied, "What?  There was poop stuck in my poop slide, that's all".  A Poop Slide?  For real? That kid.

* While going through our normal bedtime routine, Josh asked to have a conversation with me and picked the topic of camping.  We chatted for a while when Darryl asked what we were doing to which Josh replied, "We are having a conservation!"  This made us all laugh as Josh continued to try to pronounce it correctly until he finally said, "this is just a ridunculess conservation!"  Needless to say, we laughed even harder!

* Josh was looking for his lost slipper the other night and stated that it had "whiskapeared"  . . . To which I added, it must have whiskapeared while he was whiskering (whispering). Hahahahaha

* Nate got out of the bath one night but was upset because,"there is still a hair bug in my hair because there wasn't enough water on my hair so how will I get it out and what about the my body bugs, mom, they crawled down my body and hid in my belly button! ". Then he used his towel to scrub them off.  Seriously, he comes up with this stuff all on his own!  

Tomato Basil Chicken

Tomato Basil Chicken 
adapted from Menu Musings of a Modern American Mom

Every once in a while, I see a recipe that looks good but as I make it, I seriously doubt that it will have any flavor.  Then, we taste it and it is a little slice of goodness.  THAT is this recipe.  Seriously, the chicken is perfectly flavored and the "sauce" is just butter, basil, tomatoes and salt and pepper.    This is now a family favorite and will frequent our table often.  I told my husband that I would like to grow some basil and tomatoes this summer for the sole purpose of making this dish "fresh from the garden".  For the sake of my husband, I used vegan butter instead of real butter and did not add the cheese "garnish" to his plate. 

This Tomato Basil Chicken will have you grabbing your fork at the 30 minute mark, which is great news when you need to have a nice, hot meal on the table quickly. 

Ingredients: (4 servings)

• 2 chicken breasts 
• kosher salt and black pepper
• 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
• 2 tsp minced fresh garlic
• 4 Tbsp cold butter
• 1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
• freshly grated Parmigiano reggiano cheese, for garnish

Written Directions:

Season chicken breasts with kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper.  Add a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil to your skillet.  This may seem like quite a bit, but it will form the base for the sauce. 

While waiting for the oil to heat up, go ahead and get your water going for the pasta. When the oil is HOT, add the chicken breasts.  After about 4-5 minutes, the chicken breasts should be ready to turn.   You'll want to cook them on the second side another 4-5 minutes,or until the juices run clear when you pierce them with a small sharp knife.  If you pounded yours out thinner, they will cook faster than this.

After the second side has been cooking for about 4 minutes, go ahead and add in the fresh tomatoes that you have chopped up.  Next, add the fresh basil that you have chopped into ribbons, the cold butter, the minced garlic, and you will probably want to add some more kosher salt and black pepper to season the sauce.  Now give it all a good stir so all those flavors will marry together.

When your chicken is "done," turn the sauce down on the lowest setting to keep it all warm until the pasta is cooked, which should be any minute now.  At this point, if still waiting for the pasta, you can remove the cooked chicken to a cutting board, and after resting just a couple of minutes, cut the chicken into slices on the bias.   Divide the pasta among individual bowls, and top each with half of a chicken breast, sliced into pieces, and equal portions of the tomato basil sauce.  Top with more fresh basil and freshly grated Parmigiana reggiano cheese.

Weekly Menu

Last week was pretty uneventful other than one awesome dinner I made!!  Not that the others weren't good but one was fantastic :-)  I'll share the recipe tomorrow!!  Do you know what else I found?  Strawberries that were the size of a baseball.  Seriously.  AND they were a buck a container.  Needless to say we are enjoying some strawberries!! I look forward to fresh fruit as the seasons change - I miss all of the containers of fruit in our fridge!

Here's the plan for the coming week:

Friday - Tacos.  The boys love them (Nate only has cheese in his but he ate THREE tacos last week!).

Saturday - The kids get Mac and Cheese while Darryl and I enjoy dinner ordered in after they go to bed.

Sunday - We are planning to go out for lunch after church and then do some family fun stuff after that :-)  We've found that now that Football is done, it's fun to head to town after church and do some stuff !!  For dinner we'll have Spaghetti using some of my left over homemade sauce I froze a few weeks ago.

Monday - Honey Onion Chicken, Fries and Applesauce

Tuesday - Lemon BBQ Meat Loaves, Savory Rice, Corn and Rolls

Wednesday - Crock Pot Pork Chops, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans, Rolls

Thursday - Roasted Pork Loin, Baked Potatoes, Carrots, and Rolls

Do you know something kinda funny?  Remember I was doing Thursdays as left over days?  Well, that wasn't working because we had zero left overs several weeks in a row.  So last week, I didn't plan left overs yet when we got to Thursday we had . . .Taco Meat, a Chicken Breasts, Stew, and Hot Dogs all left over!  I cooked up some carrots, made some salads, and made some Mac and Cheese to round it all out.  I guess I need to NOT plan left overs to actually HAVE leftovers!

Randomness

I've been lagging on my blogging.  No reason, just haven't typed anything up.  I stopped planning my posts for the month and then sit and stare at the computer at night or just forget to post all together!  Oops :-)

So here is some randomness for you:

1) I made a calendar in February to plan out accomplishing my goals.  I made it through February 4th before I got behind and once I got behind, I never looked at it again!!

2) We finally, after two years of planning and looking, bought new living room furniture.  We don't actually have it yet though because, well, they can't get it in!!!!  Our gate into our yard is frozen shut/snowed in!!  So this weekend we will be working on breaking up the ice and digging out the snow so it will open.  We are ready for that big delivery.

3) I haven't planned March goals yet but we will be working on redoing the rest of the living room. 

4) I made one of the best dinners ever on Tuesday night . . yes, the recipe will be coming up on Friday!

5) I made two not so great recipes this weekend. . . one was a knock-off of a Starbucks drink.  It wasn't so awful . . just not my taste . . too flowery.  The lemon pudding cake almost made me throw up though.  For real.

6)  I let my kids play their favorite video game during the day just so I can have a place to sit in the living room.  (Since they play in their bedroom)

7.)  That's all :-)

Here's what you can look forward to:
The weekly menu
A FANTASTIC recipe
A recap of Darryl's birthday (a little behind on that one!)
Things my kids say (You may want to skip this one . . .I have two boys and they like gross things)

Food Friday - Cook? What's that?

I'm slowly getting my "cooking" groove back so I actually have some new recipes in the works for this month - starting with some stuff this weekend. 

So for today . . well, that's all.  We are just trying to stay warm with air temps down to the low -20's . . .. and lots of wind and more snow!!!