I think today is the perfect day. The kids and I got the grocery shopping done first thing this morning while Jeff mowed the lawn. ( The grocery store is empty at 730AM on Saturday. Who knew?) The house is clean and the laundry is done. So the kids and I have spent most of the day so far at the park. It wasn't too hot, or too cold out. Ant spent at least an hour digging in the dirt and bringing me "presents", mostly leaves and such. Amelia has been practicing riding her bike without training wheels. She's not very good yet, but she is determined. She won't let me help her, she just sits on the seat and pushes with her feet working on balancing. Only a little over a week until school starts. I love the summer.

I'm trying to post more often, but I'm realizing I stopped posting because I don't have much to say. Today is like most days here. It's sunny and warm. I know the weather lately has been awful at the beach, and they're probably not enjoying the clouds, but I'm loving that we're only in the 80's and low 90's instead of hitting 100 every day like last summer. The kids just had a shower (yes my two and five year old take showers now, Amelia decided she doesn't like baths anymore and Ant wants whatever Amelia wants) which means I got my second shower of the day because trying to wash them from outside the shower means I got soaked too, along with half the kids' bathroom. I wonder if that counts for cleaning the bathroom this week?

Now the kids are fighting over an empty jug of grape juice and eating frozen gogurts(much less messy that way), which means they will probably need another shower in the near future. I'm in the office hiding from the children (I can still see them, I swear) printing out menus and the grocery list for next week. The printer is taking forever, I think it hates me.

After I'm done in here, I have about 37 loads of laundry that need to be put away, but they can probably sit on the guest bed for one more day. And I really should go clean the master bathroom. Have I ever mentioned how much the term master bathroom cracks me up? I hear that and think of some grand bathroom. Um no. Our bathroom is a mix between a hodgepodge of newer pieces and the awesome 70's stuff that was put in when the house was built, gold flecked counters anyone? And it's tiny. The guest bathroom in the hallway by the other bedrooms is way bigger. But after the gut the kitchen fiasco, I've sworn to never remodel again, so I don't expect the master bathroom to get any better any time soon.

So, instead of putting the laundry away or cleaning the bathroom, we're going to go out for a walk/bike ride. Amelia rides her bike, I walk, and Ant goes back and forth between the stroller and walking. This will take at least an hour and a half because when you live next door to a park, you can't go out for a walk without stopping at the park before you come home, (or at least, that's what my children have convinced me of). We'll also have to go by the high school so my kids can say hello to the "stinky sheep", we can thank my husband for that lovely nickname for the sheep.

After our super exciting walk, we're going to get Amelia's hair cut. Yes, her hair got cut last weekend, but she decided to touch it up yesterday and took a huge hunk out of it. This is the 3rd or 4th time she's cut her hair, starting at around age 2. It's been a really long time since she did it though. I'm not sure how to proceed, the girl is starting kindergarten in a week, and has to use scissors. And it's not like she's using them unsupervised, I was only a few feet away when she cut her hair. She was cutting paper, then just reached up and went for her hair. Her explanation was she wanted to have curly hair when she got her hair cut and it's still not curly so she thought cutting it would make it curly.

The printer is finally done, so I guess this post is too. This may be the most boring blog post ever, but hey, no one can say I'm ignoring my blog.

I think I need a vacation.

That post where I ramble about pretty much nothing...

A few years ago, I saw a picture of S'mores cupcakes in a blog (it was Sarah's blog NaptimeMusings) and it had a link to the recipe. At some point I decided they looked yummy, and I made some myself. They turned out pretty good I thought, but Jeff doesn't remember eating them. Well the other day Jeff and I were watching some show on TV, yes it's a miracle we agreed on a show, and it showed some S'mores cupcakes, but no recipe. He mentioned that he'd like to try something like that, so I went on a hunt for the recipe. After going through pages and pages of the blog where I thought I'd seen it, I finally got smart and googled the name of the blog and what I wanted to find. It brought up the post immediately. I wish I'd thought to do that sooner, I'm always spending forever looking through blogs and pages for things I remember seeing but can't quite remember where or when it was. So the point of this whole long post is, I found it. And I want to save the link to the S'mores cupcakes. I was thinking I might make them for Jeff's birthday, but I think he really wants a chocolate cake with custard filling and white icing on top, which is what I usually make for him. Anyway.

Menu plan Monday: July 26th 2010

It's Monday again, which means it's time for Menu Plan Monday, hosted by Laura over at orgjunkie.com. I think I mentioned before that my menus lately are from savingdinner.com. If you're familiar with The Flylady, then you've probably heard of Leeanne at Saving Dinner. Anyway it's really simple to use, I signed up for 3 months worth of menus. The way it works is once a week I get a link for the new menus. Then I just log in and pick out which menu I want (some of the menus available are regular , heart healthy, low carb, etc.) for the week. It's got a shopping list as well which is organized by section of the grocery store.

Monday: Crock Cooker Lemon Chicken, Salad, brown rice
Tuesday: Chicken Ratatouille Pasta, Salad
Wednesday: Leftovers/Fend for yourself night
Thursday: Turkey Broccoli Salad,
Friday: Tomato-Herb Scallops
Saturday: Turkey burgers
Sunday: Grilled Creole Pork Chops, sweet potatoes, salad

I wanted to share today's recipe with you, it's one we haven't tried before, we'll see how it turns out.

Crock Cooker Lemon Chicken

INGREDIENTS:
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
6 (6-oz.) boneless skinless chicken breast halves
1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 1/2 cups low fat sour cream
2 teaspoons chopped parsley
COOKING INSTRUCTIONS:
In a small bowl or cup, combine oregano, seasoned salt and black pepper; rub over chicken then place in a slow cooker. In a small bowl, combine chicken broth, lemon juice and garlic; pour over chicken. Cover and cook on LOW for 4 to 6 hours or until chicken is cooked through. Remove chicken from slow cooker and keep warm. Add a little of the cooking liquid to the sour cream, then add sour cream and parsley to slow cooker; cover and cook for 15 minutes or until heated through. Serve sauce with chicken.
NUTRITION per serving: 214 Calories; 3g Fat; 41g Protein; 4g Carbohydrate; trace Dietary Fiber; 103mg Cholesterol; 261mg Sodium. Exchanges: 0 Grain (Starch); 5 1/2 Lean Meat. Points: 5
SERVING SUGGESTION: Steamed red skin potatoes and steamed green beans.

To do list

I know it's probably silly, but for whatever reason posting my to do list really helps motivate me. So, here's today's list.

1. Clean Amelia's room. It's turned into a pit again. Is it bad that in some ways I can't wait for her to start school because it will be easier to get her to let go of some of her toys? Then I can sneak them out while she is out of the house. The girl holds onto every broken toy, each piece of paper and any random thing she can hide away in her room. And they are all treasures to her and it's like WWIII to get them away from her. However, if the stuff leaves while she isn't here, she almost never even notices.
   
2. Clean out the van
3. Vacuum and wash the van
4. Go to home depot and figure out which shelves I need to buy for the hall closet.
   
5. Get at least one flower bed weeded.
6. Take the kids for a walk/bike ride.
7. Put away the 37 loads of clean laundry that are currently covering the bed in the office.

What's on your to do list today?

Wordless Wednesday: Mt. St. Helens Edition

Yummy basil..

**Picture isn't working, I'll put one up later.**

I bought a sad little basil plant at the grocery store the other night. It's living on my window now. If I'm successful with this one, I might move on to a few other plants and have an indoor garden. For now, I'm just trying to keep the basil alive.

Saving this for later.

Tall boy, short girl

I am amused every time I see this picture. Anthony is two and Dorothy is seven and there isn't that much of a height difference.

I think it's officially summer....

I took this photo last night when I ran to the store. It was around 9 PM or so, it was already most of the way dark out.

It's hot outside. Just a week or two ago, the temperatures were way below average, and it was really nice out. Overcast in the morning, the clouds would burn off in the afternoon and we'd hit a high of 75 degrees. Well that's all gone and now it's just flipping hot. I think we're supposed to hit 103 today. It's 10 AM and we've already been chased into the house. This is what we spent the morning doing.





In the kiddie pool, in the shade. Summer has officially arrived, and we'll be doing a lot of indoor activities or going to OC where it's cooler until school starts. And speaking of school, what were they thinking? Amelia starts school the first week of August when it's often over 100 every day. Poor kids, I hope they have AC in kindergarten.

Menu Plan Monday:

The menus for this week are all from savingdinner.com I love that it includes a few different weekly menus, so I can pick and choose what we're going to eat. The menu also includes the shopping list organize by aisle. Love it. The recipes this week are mostly from the heart healthy menu. I'm excited to try Friday's dinner, it's got a bunch of stuff Jeff doesn't like, mushrooms, tomatoes, etc, so I'm making it on a night he won't be here. :-)

Monday: Veggie Stuffed Shells, add a big salad and some bread sticks
Tuesday: Turkey Paprikash, with steamed broccoli
Wednesday: Zesty Ginger Chicken, add a big spinach salad
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Angel Chicken, add steamed asparagus
Saturday: Garden Burgers, with steamed new potatoes and steamed green and yellow (wax) beans
Sunday: Carolina Pulled Pork Sandwiches, with a relish tray

I'll let you know next week how everything was. Go to orgjunkie.com for more menu ideas, and if you played this week leave me a comment!

Making the wine!

Last night I went to my friend's house and we had a little party. Everyone in the group is a nanny, or was at one time, even though half of us are "retired" and home with our own children, or have moved on to other careers. Anyway, for the last year or so we've been making wine. We've done a lot of fruit wine which is really simple to make, and it's pretty cheap too, and well it's like drinking juice with a kick! ha. This time though we tried a wine kit, to make a red wine. Fourteen weeks ago, the first stage was completed and it was left to sit in my friend's pantry.

Last night we moved on phase two, which may have involved the consumption of a lot of wine and then having to follow the directions on the wine kit for the batch currently being made. Next time we should do the wine making first, then the drinking. Ha. (Not that I personally was in any way intoxicated at this point, but I can only speak for myself.)This was the first time I've really been involved in this stage of the process, so it was fun to see what all had to be done. Trying to siphon the wine from the bucket to the bottle for the next stage was pretty entertaining. Next time I'll take pictures.

So eventually we got the wine stirred and siphoned and some ingredients added and it should be ready around Christmastime. I'll let you all know how it turned out.

The only downside to the night was after we made the wine, we watched a movie (the Blindside, it was really good! I hadn't seen it before) and my foot fell asleep while sitting on the couch. So when I stood up, I managed to trip and hurt myself. I spent the rest of the night with my foot up and an ice pack. It's great to be in a room full of nannies when you hurt yourself. They took good care of me. :-) So I'm sore today, and my foot is swollen and a little bit purple. I should probably go to urgent care, but I really don't want to deal with the hospital and waiting forever today. I think I'm hoping it will just get better on it's own. Hopefully I didn't hurt it too badly, I'm supposed to do a 5k in San Francisco in a couple of weeks.

More Pictures

One of the few nice days while Jeff was with us in Oregon was spent at Bonneville Dam and Fish hatchery. I love this place. The kids can run around, it's beautiful and it wasn't crowded.


Jeff and Christian with the kids (minus Dorothy and Chloe, they were at school that day.)




The kids are holding up one of the Turbines.

Vacation!

I know, I know. You're all shocked that I'm posting again. Me too! :-)

We just got back from a visit to Portland to see my family. It was so nice to see everyone, but it was kinda sad that my sister wasn't around. It was weird to see my brother in law and the girls on their own, but it seems that they are mostly doing pretty well. I think in the long run they'll be so much better off. Sad. Okay the point of this was not to be sad. The point was to post some pics of the trip. Jeff went up with us for the first week. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great for the time he was there, so we didn't get to do a lot of outdoor stuff, but we still had fun! :-)


It's hard to get five kids to sit still and look at the camera simultaneously!


Having lunch at Grandma's office

The End.

I know it looks like I've abandoned blogging except for my weekly menus, and honestly, I kind of have. Other than menus and pictures, I think I've had 2 posts this year. I am not even reading blogs much anymore, I do try and check in with people I know in real life now and then but even those are few and far between. I started blogging when I was pregnant with Amelia. At that point I was on bed rest, and scared and I felt awfully alone. I didn't really have any friends within about 500 miles. After I had Amelia, I used this as a place to post pictures and vent about being a new mother, in a pretty new marriage, and living in a new area.(If you really want to have an adventure you should get married, move away from everyone you know and then get pregnant right away. Things will not be dull! :-) ) Then as Amelia got older, I had Anthony and continued on blogging, here and there; again I was using it to have someone to talk to at 3 AM while I was up nursing a baby back to sleep. (Loved the boppy for being able to nurse and play on the computer at the same time. I never did figure out how to breastfeed while laying down. Anywho.)

I guess I'm just at a point in my life where I don't have the downtime to sit and blog anymore. I've got a super busy two year old and a spirited five year old and they take up most of my time. I keep up with people on facebook and twitter on my iPhone and really, I've lost interest. I don't even live in the OC anymore. I almost deleted it all this morning. I pay a fee each year to have the domain name (it's not much, but it does cost money) and I'm not sure I need it anymore. And my kids are getting older and at some point they probably won't want me babbling about them for the whole world to see.

So yeah. If you've been wondering where I am, I'm around and everything's good. (Maybe that's the problem, I don't need this blog anymore because I don't have anything to complain about. LOL.) Maybe someday I'll come back to it, I won't say never again, but I'm probably done. Who knows, maybe I'll start another blog somewhere else and not tell anyone about it. It was a little easier writing when no one who knew me read it.

The end.

Menu Plan Monday:

Monday: Meatball sandwiches
Tuesday: Tacos
Wednesday Creamy Pasta Bake
Thursday: Crockpot Cowboy Stew
Friday: Fend for yourself night (leftovers)
Saturday: Baked Chicken
Sunday: Soup and sandwiches

Menu Plan Monday:

Monday: Chicken Parmigiana, broccoli, salad (From Fix Freeze Feast book)
Tuesday: Cheesy Turkey meatloaf (Jeff loved this when I made it last, it was a bit much cheese in a meatloaf for me but he and the kids liked it so we're making it again. )
Wednesday: Slow Cooker Chicken and Dumplings
Thursday: Fend for yourself night (leftovers)
Friday: Chicken Broccoli Casserole
Saturday: Turkey Burgers, sweet potatoes, salad
Sunday: Soup and sandwiches

Baking: Pumpkin Bread to mail to Mom

Wordless Wednesday: Snow in SoCal

These pictures were taken down the road from my house. Who says it doesn't snow in SoCal?? That thing at the bottom is a power pole I think, didn't realize it was there till after I took the pictures.

Giveaways!

I have a few giveaways coming up in the next couple of weeks, so make sure you check back for a chance to win some free stuff. The first one should be up Friday.

Menu Plan Monday:

Monday: BBQ Pork Chops
Tuesday: Home made Chicken noodle soup
Wednesday: Out
Thursday: Quick Lasagna
Friday:Light Chicken And Dumplings
Saturday:Leftovers
Sunday Soup and Sandwiches

Decisions decisions...

I'm trying to decide if I'm going to have Amelia go to the next session of preschool or not. If not, she'll be done the end of March, which would give her 4 months until kindergarten. (It's so weird to me that kids start school the first week of August here. Growing up we always started the Wednesday after Labor day. ) If she does attend the next session of preschool, she'd finish out the year and have her PreK graduation the end of June. The problem is that only leaves us 4 weeks of summer! We're usually in Oregon for that long, and I think she's got a ballet recital the end of July so we couldn't be gone in July unless we miss her recital.

And I have to decide if Anthony is going to start preschool in the fall or not too. He'll be almost three, (his bday is in October) but he'll still have 3 years until he starts school, so that seems like a long time for preschool. But he's already asking to go to school, he wants to stay in Amelia's class every day, we have to pack his backpack every morning too.

I just called the school district to ask a couple of questions, and they were so rude. Don't get mad at me for taking two minutes of your time to ask a question about registering for kindergarten. It's not my fault that your website is awful and has info from 2008 instead of up to date info.