"Wand"erful Valentines

Quick Post!  I love all things Pinterest!  I had picked up these wands for like 50 cents (a package of 8) when the Dollar General put them on clearance last year...

 

I saw this great valentine idea on Pinterest to use wands and a card that said "I think you are 'wand'erful".  The link for the card printout did not work for me, so I made my own...

Then I snipped a spot on each corner to stick the wand through and tada --

Allie's valentines for school!  She loved the idea, she is all about wands ;)  Now, I have to find an idea for Brianna's... off to Pinterest!

The Dress

So, it has been a while...  I started a cleaning business and it has really taken off.  Fortunately I can set my own hours (I'm in good with my boss, lol), so I only work when the kiddos are at school.  Two of my kiddos are in high school, both of the boys have girlfriends and do sports, so they are out and about a lot.  The girls are both still in elementary school, but they are becoming social bugs, which requires a lot of riding around from me.  That on top of all of our ministry commitments leaves not a lot of time for blogging.  However, I have decided to give it another go this year... we will see.

So, the dress.  Well, the girls each have school pageants coming up really soon.  I have known they were coming all year, as they do every year, but didn't really think about it until the first registration form came home from school.  Allie got her form a couple of weeks ago, and the pageant is in a week and a half.  So the hunt for a dress was on.  I went to the "big city" and talked my husband into going to three or four dress shops.  (He waited in the car after the first one, but he was very nice and patient about it.)  My intention was to rent a dress to save a little money.  The first shop used to rent (back in the dark ages when I was in school), they no longer do that, but the lady said she would be willing to rent me a dress (only had one choice) for $150.  I thought that was a little steep seeing as how we wouldn't get to keep it, so I continued on to the other stores.  The second store had nothing under $300 (not happening for a Kindergarten school pageant).  The third store was a second hand shop that had only dressy stuff.  They did not have anything in my girl's size, but had a website that I could look at and they would order from for me.  Those dresses were a little more reasonable, but still more than I wanted to spend ($150).  I thought, if they can order from a website and add their fee to the price, surely there is a website that would sell straight to me. 

 

I found the website!  I was so excited.  The dresses were beautiful and cheap!  I found Allison the perfect dress for $95 (pictured above), and Brianna picked one out that was $69 (even better).  Allison's dress said it would ship out in 2 days and be at my house within 8 days, perfect!  A day or two passed and I checked the sight to see if it had shipped.  There was a tracking number, yay... and a note from the seller that China was on holiday for the New Year and the workers would not be back for 20 days.  It stated that they would begin working on the dress when the workers returned.  I messaged the shipping company and the tracking number belonged to a package that was destined for Australia... what?????   I was freaking out!  I messaged the company that was the go between (it is like an ebay for china) and they said they could not do anything.  That after four days I could begin the process of asking for a refund.  Then the seller had to agree to the refund and it would take a few months.  This was not what I wanted to hear, the pageant was pending.  I contacted the seller and after several rounds of "no workers, I am so sorry dear friend."  I finally asked if they had any other dresses in stock that were the same size.  She quickly got back to me and gave me three pictures to choose from.  We found one that was an acceptable replacement and then she promised to have the dress shipped out asap.  My friend joked that we should pray it was not a Barbie dress, lol (not funny at the time, but I was a little worried.)  Biting nails, pulling hair, the lady finally sent me a UPS tracking code and when I looked it up, it said it was headed to my town.  God is good!  (We had been praying all week that this would work out!)  So, the dress arrived, and I learned an important lesson...  you can get just about anything cheaper from China... but you better make sure they are not on holiday before you order!  (Come to find out, my sister-in-law has ordered a dress for her wedding from China also... I told her that she better find something else, because it probably won't get there until after they are hitched.

                                                           The Replacement Dress

          Brianna's Dress (white), hope it gets here in time!  I was promised that the workers would make it as soon as they return and that I will receive it by March 3rd.  (Her pageant is on March 7th!)  I will be really nervous that week until it gets here!!!

My newest addiction...

I have found a website that lets you mail in your child's clothes that no longer fit for credit.  You can either cash out your credit, or you can use it to purchase gently worn clothing in the size your child now wears.  They will send you a bag for mailing the clothes, with postage already on it!!  Sometimes they require a deposit for the bag, which you get back when you mail the bag full of clothes to them.  Right now, they are running a special where there is no deposit for the bags!!  They accept clothes sizes 18 months to kids size 20.  All clothes have to be in like new condition, no holes or stains, etc.  They inspect each item when it comes in to make sure it is quality, then they price it, and award your credit.  I have mailed in two bags of clothes that my girls have outgrown, and I have another bag on the way to me....  I do have to say, I could not wait for the first credit, I bought some stuff before I got it.  I am very pleased with the things I got for the girls.  Name brand, like new, for a fraction of the cost of buying it at the store!  The website is Threadup.com, go and check it out!

OAMC -Once A Month Cooking #2

Last night we had lasagna.  This was one of the casseroles that I had made last week and frozen.  It was not completely thawed by the time I stuck it in the oven, so I put it in the oven while the oven was preheating (an extra 15 min).  When I made the recipe, I bought two boxes of lasagna noodles, which were a couple shy of what I needed, so you need three boxes for three casseroles.  Also, if you are not a fan of cheese, this one is not for you.  Or, you can make a little more meat sauce to add to it.  My four year old licked her plate clean!  We also ate some bread that I made in the bread machine.  It was really good too!  This is also an OAMC recipe, which I will include at the bottom of the page.

Simply Lasagna

1 lb ground beef  (I used ground turkey because it is cheaper and you can't really tell the difference)
1 egg, beaten
2 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
1 container (15 oz) ricotta cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese, divided
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped (I omitted this)
1 jar (26 oz) spaghetti sauce
1 cup water
12 lasagna noodles, uncooked (finally a recipe I don't have to cook the noodles first for!)

Brown meat, drain, then add spaghetti sauce and water.

In a separate bowl, mix egg, 1 1/4 cups mozzarella cheese, ricotta cheese, 1/4 cup parmesan cheese and parsley, until well blended.

Spread 1 cup of meat sauce onto bottom of 13x9 in baking dish, top with layers of 3 lasagna noodles, one-third of the cheese mixture, and one cup of the sauce.  Repeat the layers twice.  Top with remaining 3 noodles and the remaining meat sauce.  Sprinkle with the remaining mozzarella and parmesan cheese.  Cover with foil.

Freeze, or heat oven to 350 degrees and bake for 45 minutes.  Remove foil and bake for additional 15 min, or until heated through.  Let stand 15 min, before cutting to serve.  Makes 12 servings.

This is the bread recipe.  I stored my mix in a recycled plastic ice cream bucket (one of the larger ones).

Bread Machine Mix for White Bread

5 lbs bread flour  (make sure to get bread flour!)
1 cup powdered milk  (I bought  the ones in envelopes, one envelope equals 1 cup)
2/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 Tbsp salt

You will also need:  water, butter, and bread machine yeast.

1)  Stir together flour, powdered milk, sugar, and salt in a big bowl.
2)  Store in a tightly covered container in a cool place. (I keep mine in the refrigerator)
3)  To make 1 1/2 lb loaf:  use 3 cups mix, 1 1/4 cup water, 2 tbsp softened butter, and 1 1/4 tsp bread machine yeaste.
4)  To make 2 lb loaf:  use 4 1/3 cups mix, 1 1/3 cup water, 2 tbsp softened butter, and 1 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast.
5)  Place ingredients in machine, select basic or white bread cycle, with a medium or light crust.
6)  When done, remove from machine and cool on rack (I ate mine straight out of the machine with butter!)

OAMC - Once A Month Cooking #1

In the middle of everything that was going on last week, I also started on my OAMC.  Once A Month Cooking is a great idea, if you have time to do it!  The idea is to do as much prep work as you can and freeze the dishes, so all you have to do is thaw them out and warm them up.  I have done this once before and it was a lot of work, but worth it if you are really busy and don't have time most nights to cook a good meal.  While my kiddos would be fine with hamburger helper and mac-n-cheese, my hubby prefers a little more substance to his meals.  I have been too busy to do all of the cooking in one day, but I did manage to get quite a few meals done in down time over the week.  I did not take pictures of the process, like I wanted to, but I was in a hurry :)

This is some of the stockpile I have been working on.  What I did was one or two meals at a time that had the same meat.  That way I could prepare the meat all at once and then divide it up with the other ingredients.  I would serve one of the meals I cooked that night, and put the rest in the freezer.  Some of them can go in ziplock baggies and some of them have to go in casserole pans (because they are layered or have toppings).  All of the meat and noodles are cooked, so they can be thawed the night before and just popped in the oven for 45 minutes.  I don't have to spend all of my time in the kitchen!  I can focus more time on my kiddos and hubby :)  I am going to post the recipes that I found and used.  I have not had any negative responses from the family on any that we have tried so far.  Brianna is not crazy about the chicken packets, but she eats them, and this is one of my favorites!  If you don't like these recipes, you can look up OAMC and find tons of sites with recipes that work for freezing.  I usually double, triple, or quadruple a recipe (depending on how much we like it) and make several meals at one time.

Chicken Packets

40 min/ 20 min prep

Serves 8/ 8 packets

2 cups chopped cooked chicken

1 (6-8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

1 Tbsp chives, chopped

2 Tbsp milk

salt

1/2 cup seasoned croutons, crushed to crumbs

2 (8 ounce) packages refrigerated crescent dinner rolls

1/4 cup melted margarine

1)  Mix chicken, cream cheese, chives, milk, and salt in a medium bowl to make filling, and store in a 1 quart freezer bag.  (I just put everything in the bag, seal it, and mix it in the bag).

2)  Put crouton crumbs in another 1 quart bag, attach it to the bag of chicken filling, and freeze.

3)  Refrigerate crescent rolls.

4)  To prepare for serving, thaw chicken mixture.

5)  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

6)  Unroll crescent rolls.  Each tube contains 4 rectangles of dough with a diagonal perforation. Press dough along each perforation so that the rectangle halves do not separate.  

7)  Place about 1/4 cup of the chicken mixture into the center of each rectangle.

8)  Fold dough over the filling,k and pinch the edges to seal tightly.

9)  Dip each packet in melted margarine, and coat with crouton crumbs.

10)  Place packets on baking sheet.

11)  Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

12)  Packets can be eaten hot or cold.

This is another chicken recipe that I made (we have not tried this one yet, but it looks yummy!)  I made this at the same time as I made the chicken packets, so I wouldn't have to cook chicken twice!  This time I cooked the chicken in the crock pot, so I wouldn't have to stand over it.  This makes the chicken more shredded when you cut it up, which works in both recipes.  However, I liked the chicken packets better with cubed chicken....

Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole

4 cups boneless chicken, cooked and cubed

2 (10 1/2 ounce) cans cream of celery soup

8 ounces of sour cream

2 cups cubed ham

1 1/2 cups Swiss cheese, shredded

1 (6 ounce) seasoned stuffing mix

1)  Mix all ingredients but stuffing mix together.

2)  Place in freezer bag and freeze.

3)  To serve, thaw in refrigerator over night.

4)  Put mixture in the bottom of a casserole dish.

5)  Fix stuffing, and spread on top of soup mixture.

6)  Cover with foil.  Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

I did not read all of the directions and fixed the stuffing mix.  So, I put mine in a foil casserole pan and went ahead and put on the stuffing and froze it.  I will let you know when we eat it if it turns out ok.

I will post some more recipes soon!

Happy cooking!!

Fancy Hair

Short post!  I found this great hair blog on Pinterest!  www.cute2tryhairdos.blogspot.com.  It has how to's on a lot of really cute hair styles for little girls.  Some of them are easier than others.  I tried out a few on Allie and Brianna.  Brianna's hair is still a little short for many of them, but Allie's turned out well.  I just have to invest in some smaller ponytail holders!

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!!