Organized Chaos

I haven't blogged in the last week and a half because our family has been on the go.  Last week, Sunday through Tuesday, our church had a big event going on.  We had Steve Carrier of MegaForce visiting.  I worked on his team that went around to area schools during the day on Monday and Tuesday.  We got to go to five local schools!  Steve gave motivational messages at the schools about making good choices and then he was able to invite the children back to our church for evening services.  He broke a couple of things at the schools to get the children interested enough to come at night.  At the night services he broke concrete, bent bars, rolled pans, ripped license plates and phone books, and exploded cans of sprite, then he talked to the congregation about Jesus.  So much fun!!

On Wednesday night our church invited back all of the visitors that made decisions for Christ for a dinner and to tell them about our baptism service on the next Sunday.

Thursday night a group from our ministry (my husband and mine's), Radical Christian Outreach, went to BDCC prison.  The prison was having a revival all week, and TJ was preaching the message that night.  As soon as we got there I got sick and had to rush home.  Ugh, and the sick has been in our house all week!  Pray for it to leave, please!!

After such a whirlwind week, we were looking forward to our family reunion that was to be this past weekend.  We found out last minute that it had to be rescheduled due to pine beetles!  Apparently they had made many of the trees in the camp we use sick and they had to be cut down.  The clean  up crew had not finished getting all of the dead trees out....  Well, we were in much need of a rest, and we had already made arrangements for others to fill for us in our regular obligations, so we decided to take off to Tyler, Texas to our timeshare.  This is a picture of the girls on the way to Texas!  They were already worn out from the busy week!!

It rained all day Saturday, so we went to the mall in Tyler.  I took the girls to Build-A-Bear, while the boys and TJ wandered around.

Then we ate at Chick-Fil-A (love them!!) and went to see the new movie Transylvania Hotel, which was very cute.  We then went back to the resort and ate ice cream at the A&W and played a game of bingo.

After ice cream, we went back to the condo, relaxed, and played a couple of games while dinner cooked.  It was so nice just to get some quality family time in!!

Hmmm, that actually worked!

So, in my last post I was talking about how I had to come up with something new for dinner, because what I had planned ended up being pretty close to what we ate at lunch at church...  I had some chicken breasts thawed out that I needed to use, so I threw them in the crock pot.  I was going to peel some potatoes into it also, but there was one that had gone rotten and was starting to infect the others in the bag, sooooooo I threw the whole thing away (Gross!).  HMMMM.... what to do?  I found a box of those augratin potatoes in the cabinet and put the dry potatoes on top of the chicken, then added a can of carrots (minus the juice), and the cheese package from the potatoes on top of that.  Then I added the water and milk that the potatoes called for, covered it up, turned it on, and left it to cook while I ran to night service.  I was a little worried about how that would turn out, would it be edible?

 

It turned out pretty good, actually.  My family loved it!  Definitely putting this on the "do again" list.  Easy Peasy recipe that I don't have to stand over the stove for, can't beat that!

Ideas for Losing It!

First of all, I posted earlier in the week that I was trying the 5 meals, 1 bag recipes.  We did eat the Cheesy meatball subs that were listed, but I did not take pictures.  The other two recipes got changed as the week progressed.  We were going to try the other meatball recipe, but we ended up having company, so I quickly changed it to spaghetti and meatballs, so I would have enough.  The other recipe was a kind of a chicken alfredo recipe, which I was going to cook tonight, because we had company again yesterday and ended up getting pizza.  We eat with some other families for lunch after church and take turns cooking the main meal and bringing sides.  The family that cooked this week brought cheesy chicken spaghetti (so good!!!).  I didn't think it would be fair to subject my husband to something so similar again for dinner.  So, anyway, I put the chicken in the crock pot with some other stuff I had, and I will let you know about it tomorrow (if it turns out any good!).

I have been working on losing weight.  I re-joined Weight Watchers online and did very good for the first two weeks.  Then I kind of got a little less strict with it.  I found a couple of things on Pinterest today that might help a little.  One post pointed out a site that has the point calculator that Weight Watchers uses, so now I can ditch my $18/month membership fee and just track it on my own (woo hoo!).  I am always looking for ways to save money, so this was a bonus.  The site is http://www.calculatorcat.com/free_calculators/weight_watchers_calculator.phtml.  I know how many points I am allowed for each day and the extra for the week, and I also know how many points I am given for when I walk, so I should be able to track it on my own.  As for the weight tracker, I found another pin that inspired me.  I had some pickle jars and a ton of those clear glass rocks, so I made some jars to keep track of my weight.  You just move the rocks from one jar to the other depending on what you lose or gain.

I also thought, this would be a great idea for the kiddos.  My little ones are terrible at saving money.  Brianna wants to spend hers as soon as she gets it, and Allie does good if she can keep money long enough to spend it.  I usually find hers laying on the floor somewhere.  I can take a picture of what they are saving for and put it in a jar.  Put rocks in another jar for how much they need to save, and move them over as they earn the money.  This way I can give them the whole amount when they reach their goal, and they won't risk spending it or losing it.  We will make "need" and "have" jars.

Travel Chalk Boards

I found a great idea on Pinterest the other day and thought I would try it out!  I loved the idea of making a personalized chalk board for the girls that they can carry in the car with them.  The pin on pinterest used new cookie sheets.  I have been needing new cookie sheets, so I repurposed my old, worn out ones instead, I got the new ones to cook on!  Here is how you do it!

1)  You have to paint your pans with primer, I tried putting the chalk board paint directly on the pans, and it did not work!  You can get cheap spray primer at WalMart.



2)  Once the primer dries, you can paint the pans with chalk board paint.  They make it in a spray can, which would be much easier, however, I had some left over from another project, so I had to brush it on.  I did use a roller for the open parts.

The chalk board paint has to dry for a while before you do anything else.  I waited 30 minutes to put on a second coat.  It says to let it dry for four hours before recoating and even longer before you chalk on it.... make sure and read your paint's instructions. 

3)  I did this over three days, because I had to do it inbetween other things, and these are for gifts, so I didn't want them out when the girls came home.  Step three is painting on the Initials.  I just pained on their first initial, you can do it any way you like.  I used the acrylic paint in Walmart, it is in small bottles and costs from fifty cents to a dollar.  I painted on three or four coats of this.

4)  While I waited for the paint to dry, I made the bows to tie at the top of the pan.  I also tied a long piece of ribbon to the bows to tie on the eraser for the chalk board.

5)  The bows were attached at the top (there was already a hole in my pan, so it made it easier).  If you don't have a hole, you can drill one, or you can try hot gluing the bow on, however, this will probably not stay long.  The eraser is a fuzzy finger.  You can find these on the cleaning isle.  I got mine at Fred's.  They were only a couple of dollars each.

This is the finished product!  So cute, can't wait to give them to the girls.  I also found some printable pins on pinterest where you can print out worksheets to use with magnetic letters!  And these will be great for the magnetic paper dolls we have!

Terrific Tuesday and my Pesto experience

Well, in my last post I talked about the Kraft Website and their "1 Bag, 5 Dinners" menus.  http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/dinner/1bag5dinners/main.aspx#.  Tuesday I started with the Pesto Chicken recipe.  It is actually day 2, but I skipped and will come back to day 1 later.  This was an extremely easy recipe and did not take much time to prepare.  Here it goes:

Crispy Baked Pesto Chicken

4 small boneless skinless chicken breasts (I used six and did not need to increase the amount of the other ingredients.)

1 pouch Shake 'n Bake (the recipe says original, I used parmesan and it was great!)

2 Tbsp. pesto

1/4 cup Kraft Shredded Mozzarella Cheese (I did use a little more cheese, but I always do!)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

1)  Coat chicken with Shake n' Bake and place in baking dish.

2)  Bake until chicken is cooked through (I cooked mine for about 45 minutes).

3)  Top chicken with pesto.  Then sprinkle with cheese.

 



4)  Bake an additional 5 minutes or until cheese is melted and lightly browned.  This time I served it with rice and creamed corn.  I have made this chicken before and paired it up with manicotti and it was great!

I will try the next recipe on Thursday!  Can't wait :)

Manic Monday

On the Kraft Website, http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/dinner/1bag5dinners/main.aspx#, there are recipe lists called "1Bag 5 Dinners".  It gives you recipes for five days of dinner that only take ingredients that will fit in one bag at the grocery store (the big brown bags, not the little plastic bags).  Anyway, I have used a couple of these before, but they have added quite a few since then.  You can print out the recipes and a shopping list for the whole week.  I got my list and went to the store intending on trying one out this week.  I am only going to try out the first four days, because the last day is just mac-n-cheese, and seeing as how my husband thinks we eat too much cheese (as if you could!), I didn't think he would appreciate having only mac-n-cheese for dinner.  Also, we are eating dinner at church on Wednesday nights this month, so I really only need four anyway.  Well, Monday I was supposed to cook meatball subs, but my day went kind of crazy and I just threw something quick together.  One of my dogs, Dexter, hurt himself somehow and has been limping around for a couple of weeks.  I took him to the vet last week and he would not cooperate, so  they said if it did not get better to bring him back and they would sedate him to look at him.  Monday morning he was hopping around crying, so I decided it was time to take him back to the vet.  So, there went a big chunk of my day.  The good news is that he doesn't have cancer (yes, they had to do a biopsy), he does have a very small fracture on his shoulder, and a lump that seems to be making his leg temporarily paralyzed.  He should get better soon.  As ornery as he is, I went ahead and had them shave him down and clean his teeth while he was out, he is a whole new pup now!

So, instead of trying out the first recipe on my list, I just threw together some stir fry.  I had some beef tips, frozen broccoli, and red bell pepper, so I just cooked it all together and put in on top of rice... the fam loved it.  I'm not crazy about broccoli (hate it, won't eat it), which was ok, because I had so gone off my diet at lunch, that all I ate for dinner was a boiled egg and a bananna.  I'm doing the weight watchers online program, which works if you stick to it :)  However, I find that the more we walk in the morning, the hungrier I am when I get home.  Monday, I picked up a bowl of white queso from the restaurant down the street and had that for lunch with some tortilla chips.  Turns out it is quite a few (quite a lot, actually) of points and so, yeah....

.... This is a picture of my four year old, Allie.  She had confiscated my Kindle Fire to watch cartoons and when I checked back in on her I noticed that she was no longer watching cartoons.  I asked her what she was watching and she said a cooking show!  She found a show all about cupcakes on Netflix... too cute!

Who would have thought!

So, one of my good friends has started selling AVON, and her aunt found this list of uses for the bubble bath that they sell.  I love their bubble bath!  I never would have thought to use it as anything but bubble bath.  It just so happened that I had three bottles stockpiled in my stash..... so I thought I would try out some of these "other" uses.  Today I tried it in my laundry.  The list claims that you can use one to two caps of it for detergent and you don't even need fabric softner.  I used two caps because I like to wash large loads.  Well, my towels came out smelling good, soft, and not full of static!  Next time AVON has a sale on bubble bath, here I come!  Can't wait to try out some of the other things on the list... my friend told me she tried it as floor cleaner and it worked great!

Here are some of the things on the list:

1.Zillions of bubbles that leave NO bath tub ring.
2. Does a beautiful job on washing cars, mobile homes, caravans, trailers and boats.Leaves a protective wax like coating - water marks wash off!
3. Laundry Detergent: Use one capful on regular loads, 2 capfuls if washing greasywork clothes. You won't need fabric softener.
4. Use for hand washing delicates.
5. Pretreatment for Laundry: Use your old spray and wash bottle. Mix 1/2 bubblebath and 1/2 water. Pretreat stains with a spray. For set in stains, dab on directly,scrub stain with an old toothbrush, then wash. Great for ring around the collar andgreasy work clothes.
6. Use to wash windows. Windshield Washer Solvent: Use when freezingtemperatures are not a threat. 1 1/2 capfuls per gallon.
7. Use to wash outside of appliances to cut kitchen grease.
8. Use to wash floors (but not wax floors).
9.Sink-dishwashing Soap: Your dishes will sparkle as well as your coffee pot, glassesand cook-wear
10. Use to give pets a bath (along with SSS).
11. Clean mirrors.
12. Use to shampoo carpets (whole room or a spot). Carpet Cleaning: Add 2 capfulsto large carpet shampoo machines it will even take out red wine stains.
13. Use to wash walls and ceilings.
14. Use bubbles and sponge to shampoo vehicle interiors.

15. Cleans chandeliers and light fixtures.

16. Cleans china

17. Dissolve 1/2 a capful in water to wash your plant leaves, they will shine. Thenpour into soil as a fertilizer.

18. Upholstery stains come out by rubbing with a damp cloth dipped in full strengthbubble bath. Do not wet the sponge with water. Water may leave a stain, thebubble bath won't. Upholstery Cleaner: Use 1 capful for a 24 oz spray bottlefilled with water. Scrub with brush against nap. Let dry. Vacuum and allowit to dry.

19. Clean your jewelry - even costume jewelry.

20. Splatter grease, oil or butter on a good blouse? Put straight bubble bath on thespot, let sit a few minutes and wash. No spots!

21. Wash Venetian blinds.

22. Wash paneling - no rinsing, no streaks.

23. Clean your eye glasses.

24. Put some bubble bath and a bit of water in your potpourri burner.

25. Clean your painted or real wood cupboards.

26. Refill for liquid soap, mild on hands (add a touch of Skin So Soft Bath Oil).

27. Hair Shampoo.

28, Inside and outside the refrigerator - easy to wipe off and gets rid of odors.

29. Polishes all chrome household fixtures - because it's alkali it won't mark.

30. Cleans bathroom vanity and ceramic tiles - No water marks. Kitchen/Bathroomfloor: Add 1 capful to 2 gallons of water to mop floors. Add 1/2 capfuls extra forvery soiled floors.

31. Toilet Bowl and Tanks: Add a capful to tank occasionally to help reduce build up.

32. Cleans combs and brushes - leaves no residue.

33. Add to the children's wading pool makes for great summer fun and keeps the pooland the kids clean too!!