Pictures...

The bathrooms...

Last year, we remodeled the kitchen. It was not a small job, the room was gutted, and we had no kitchen for around six weeks, (I've tried to forget and so I'm not completely sure on the amount of time we went without a kitchen.) After that fiasco, I have sworn we will never remodel again. However, it's looking like the kids bathroom might need a minor overhaul sooner, rather than later. They don't need a huge new bathroom suite or anything, just a new cabinet and counters, and some towel racks would be nice too. We've already redone the floor in there and the tub/shower is pretty new as well.

If I had unlimited time, space and budget, I'd probably enjoy the remodeling process more. I'd love to have a kid's bathroom with big clawfoot tub, a seperate shower, a linen closet and double sinks. Realistically though, that's probably not going to happen in this house. I think there's room in there for double sinks, but that's about it.

If you could have your dream bathroom, what would it have?h

Happenings

Lots of things have been happening around here lately. Amelia is officially a kindergartener. She was hesitant at first, and there were some tears the first week, but eventually she calmed down and now she loves going to school. We had a little hiccup when they moved her to a new class two weeks in, but she seems to be doing well. She was upset at first as she doesn't have her lunch and recess with the other kindergarteners anymore, they are out with the first and second graders. This class is supposed to be a bit more advanced, it's a K/1 blend and they are moving a bit faster than the other kindergarten classes. So far, she loves it, and I'm really happy with her teacher.

While Amelia is in school, Anthony and I are trying to do more activities so he gets some one on one time too. The picture above is Ant making an apple wreathe. We never got around to making the wreath part, he had too much fun making a mess painting with the apple pieces. He had a great time though! I'm trying to do at least two crafts a week with him, right now just working on having fun with the activites, although I want to start focusing more on things like shapes and colors (he knows most of them pretty well) and then move on to letter stuff.



Amelia has started soccer. She had her first game yesterday and for the most part she loved it. She was a little whiney by the end, but that's what happens when it's 90 degrees out, the girl gets hot and she complains. lol. She kept asking if we could take a break and get ice cream. :-)

Saving this for later...

I was going to try making this recipe tonight, following the directions I found here so I could bake them in the morning before school and work, but I just discovered my kitchen thermometer isn't working any more. So, I'm saving it for later.

It's hot...

Sunny

Temperature: 109°F Feels Like: 108°

Details: Dangerous heat index. Outdoor exposure should be limited.

Wednesday, what's for lunch?

It's still the beginning of the school year, and I'm already bored with packing school lunches. My kid can be kind of a picky eater, and I also try to send more home made type stuff and less of the prepackaged stuff. Here's a typical lunch for Amelia.

String cheese, nutrigrain bar, cucumbers, applesauce, a peach and some milk. Speaking of the milk, I found her drink bottles at some random place, RiteAid maybe, and I love them. They have a little frozen tube that goes in the bottle, so her drink stays cool even when it's 110 outside. Sometimes she has celery instead of cucumbers, and most of the time she has a PB&J on whole wheat. Although lately, we've been told no PB products, so now it's Sunbutter and Jelly. I think it's nasty, but she says it's good. Anyway, I'm running out of lunch ideas, what are your kids eating for lunch?



Oh and did I mention that when we pack Amelia's lunch each morning,we also have to pack one for Anthony? Even though it just goes in the fridge until lunch time. :-)

Menu Plan Monday: August 23rd

Monday: Acapulco Chicken in whole wheat tortillas, brown rice, broccoli, Boston Cream Pie
Tuesday: Burrito Bowls, Corn Muffins,
Wednesday: Gingered Pork, Brown Rice, Salad
Thursday: Jack Fish, corn on the cob on the BBQ, Salad
Friday: Crock chicken with tomatoes and peppers
Saturday: Fajita Steak Kabobs
Sunday: Southwestern Cheese Steaks

We're celebrating Jeff's birthday tonight, so I'll be spending the morning baking a cake. The cream filling is already made, so now I just have to make the cake and the chocolate topping. I'm trying a new yellow cake recipe, we'll see how it turns out. I'll post the recipes next week if it all turns out. :-)

What's for dinner at your house? For more menu ideas, visit Laura over at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

All of my menus this week are again from Savingdinner.com I actually did two weeks worth of menu's this week, and shopped for everything at once, we'll see how that works out.

Sad

On Friday our new little kitty Murphy died. He was fine Friday morning. By mid afternoon he was not doing well, not eating, lethargic etc. I knew he wasn't doing well so I got Ant up from his nap, put the kids in the car, grabbed Murphy and headed to the vet. He was sitting with me in the waiting room when he died. Poor kitty. Of course I was crying, the kids wanted to know why he wasn't coming home with us. I'd tried to explain to Amelia when we got him that he was little, only 4 weeks old, and he should be with his mama still and he might not live. I reiterated that a few times for her on Friday when he started acting weird. I'm sad, because we did everything we could. I feel a bit silly because we had him less than a week. But he was my little buddy, spent a lot of his time in the house curled up snuggling my neck. He'd been to the vet a few days before and was fine then. So anyway, that's how our weekend started off. Amelia and Jeff both wanted to go Friday night and get a new kitty but I told them I wanted to wait a few weeks before I was ready for another kitten.

Our new addition...

I can't find the camera cord, so I can't upload pictures. I have a bunch of posts written in my head but they all have pictures that go with them, but the pictures are stuck in my camera. So for now, here are a few phone shots of our newest family member.

Murphy, aka quarter pounder, is our sweet little four week old kitten. Ant and I found him in the middle of our street on a 100+ degree day so we brought him in and then Jeff took him to the vet. He had a nasty infection in his eye, but it's getting better. Jeff named him Murphy but I think quarter pounder is cute too, he only weighed 4 ounces when he went to the vet.








The bottle in his box is full of hot water, he seems to like having something warm to snuggle, and I worry he'll get cold with the AC running. I cover it with a blanket but he pulls the blanket off and then curls up on top of it.

Menu Plan Monday: August 2nd

It's Monday again! Where did the weekend go? We got a lot done around here, Jeff did a ton of work in the yard. It looks pretty good out there. I figure we'll get all of the projects done around the house about the time we're ready to move on to a new house. ;-)

Okay on to the menus. Last weeks menus went pretty well. The ratatouille was really good. I wasn't crazy about the lemon chicken, like I thought I'd be. The chicken itself was really good and moist and not dried out. But the sauce at the end ruined it for me. Next time I think I'd just skip that part.

Again all my menus this week are from savingdinner.com

Monday:Peachy Keen Pork, steamed sweet potatoes, salad
Tuesday: Grilled Sesame Ginger Chicken, brown rice, salad
Wednesday: Smothered Flounder, steamed broccoli, salad
Thursday: Turkey Lettuce Pitas, sliced veggies
Friday: Pizza or Fend for yourself night
Saturday:Caramelized Pork Medallions, corn bread, veggies, salad
Sunday:Lemon-Thyme Sirloin Steak, garlic bread, broccoli and salad.

Go visit Laura for more menu planning, and leave me a comment if you posted menus this week, I'll stop by and say hello.

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!