12 Days Till Christmas

Bella wanted to show off her presents she made for the teachers.

It’s a potpourri mix that is made with fresh ingredients and supposed to last for weeks.  I made one up for myself and have been burning it for the past couple of days.  I’m excited to see if it really will last for a couple of weeks as it does smell divine.

And back to Bella.  She also wanted to point out her chair, and how loud the fabric is on it.  She wanted to know why I haven’t recovered it yet. 

It’s coming Bella, once I make some decisions on the kitchen that is!

Oliver wanted to show you what happens when mom tries to get things done while he is around.

I was baking in the kitchen and Oliver was hanging out and getting into the pantry.  He happened to find a bag of crushed graham crackers and proceeded to dump them out all over the floor.

Enter doggie vacuums.

Although it looks like mom is still going to have to get a bunch from under the fridge that the dogs couldn’t quite reach.

And I’ll leave you with this picture.

It perfectly captures Oliver’s naughty but nice behavior.  He thinks it’s funny to lift objects up over his head and say “Ohhhh Ohhhh”.  Which we believe he is saying “Oww” because that is what comes out of our mouths when he throws things at us.  I don’t think he does it to be mean and hurt us, but because he thinks our reactions are funny to him.  So we have to somehow curb his behavior of throwing things by not reacting to it.  I will let you know how it goes.

Happy Birthday to Me

So yesterday was my birthday.  Nothing too crazy happens around our household for our birthdays.  It’s pretty much just normal days around here.

Jesse did stick around in the morning to help me with getting the kids ready to go to school and the sitter.  Although the kids being out of the house for the day was short lived when Bella’s teachers called to say she had thrown up a bunch of phlegm on the bus and was tired and cranky at school.  So Bella got home from school and Oliver came back home from the sitters.

I did make my own birthday cake.  A cheesecake, correction a dulce de leche cheesecake, was my cake of choice.

My birthday meal of choice was a new meal combo from Dairy Queen.  You get a cheeseburger, fries, soda, and mini blizzard.  I know a crazy fancy meal, but it was delicious and quick, which is what you need when you have fussy kids around.

And my big present is a new camera.  It was shipped out yesterday so I’m hoping to receive it in the next few days.  And then I have a lot to learn about using it…but I’m excited!

Oh and I also made myself a new top.  People have been asking me if I am still sewing.  I am, and I have a few projects to share in upcoming posts.  I got the idea from pinterest.  It’s sort of a cape sweater.

I had bought some cheap sweater knit fabric and decided to give it a try, here is what I came up with.

BTW – I haven’t hemmed the shirt yet, I plan to put a curved hem in like the picture above.  Just ran out of time today and can’t decide if I should use black thread or cream.

Well that was it for my birthday.  Now Christmas season can officially begin.

It’s Turkey Week

This past weekend we headed up to Nebraska to celebrate Jesse’s grandparents 60th wedding anniversary and to meet our new nephew Camden.  We did not do a good job taking pictures, but we did get a couple of Oliver and his cousin Beckett playing house.

The previous two weeks I had told Jesse we were going to go on a “good eating” binge so that we could enjoy this week.  We accomplished one of the two pre-week eating plans, but the second week went to crap when neither of us was getting any sleep.

Regardless I am hitting this week with a flourish and started baking away yesterday.

I started with Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins.  I took a few recipes and combined them, plus I substituted some ingredients to make it healthier.  They turned out delicious.  Or so myself and Oliver think so.

The whole time I was baking things Oliver kept coming up to me and saying “mo, mo” which means more, which means I want whatever you have.  I kept telling him either the items weren’t ready to eat, or they were too hot.  But the second the muffins were cooling on the counter, he couldn’t take it anymore, and he was allowed to sample one.

One wasn’t enough for him, but I wasn’t about to let him eat anymore than that.  He needed to leave some for the rest of us.

I also baked up some Pizza Hut Cheese Sticks.  I know so very Thanksgiving appropriate you say.  No, just really not good for you, so they are sneaking their way into this week’s diet!  I must say they were very close to the real thing.  I followed the recipe found here.

I also made this dessert, Pumpkin Lust Cake, especially for Bella.  Bella and I may have sampled a little bit of it for lunch today.  I thought it was delicious and it seemed to go over well with Bella.

Randomness

First I wanted to share with you a new recipe I found.  I’m sure you are well aware that I love making pumpkin items.  I will seriously try about anything if it has pumpkin in it.

Yesterday I whipped up some Pumpkin Donut Holes.

I followed the recipe exactly.  You use a mini muffin pan, so the donut holes are actually tiny little muffins.  The recipe actually yielding 48 muffins, instead of the 24 it stated.  So you had to use the pan twice unless you own two pans…which I don’t.  If you do want to make these, and I highly suggest you do, I will tell you a little cheat I came up with near the end.  After you bake them you are supposed to roll the whole thing in butter and then coat it in a cinnamon sugar mix.  This was the most time consuming part.  So after I had done half the batch, I started only dipping the tops in the butter and then into the sugar mix.  You can’t taste much difference, it was 5 times faster, and probably better for you anyways.  It’s definitely hard to stop eating these!

I actually worked in the morning and then made the donut holes while Bella was home for lunch.  That afternoon she went over to the sitters to join Oliver.  We all know how messy my house is, or at least you have heard me talk about it.  I did some quick research on house cleaners.  And it still seems so expensive to me.  So I thought to myself that I had 3-4 hours that afternoon.  Why don’t I just get as much done cleaning wise as I can.  I should be able to make a huge dent in the house in that amount of time.

Ha Ha Ha.  I did in fact clean for 3 hours, but came no where near to that deep clean I thought I would accomplish.  I guess I need a whole weekend to actually get that done.  Part of my problem was that I started things in all parts of the house so not one room really got done.  Well at least some places look better than they used to.

Jam

I don’t feel like I have the time to cook/bake much around here.  But every once in awhile I will see something that I want to try, and then if the moons align, I actually get the time to make it.

This spring we are starting to lay out our garden, which had me doing a little research on layouts, what to grow, etc.  I stumbled upon a blog that was all about preserving, and being that I seen a box of pears on sale at the grocery store that week, and a pear jam recipe on the blog, I really wanted to try it.

I made it to the grocery store and picked up a carton of pears.  Except these were teeny tiny pears.  That’s a paring knife (one of the smallest knife’s) next to the pear, to show it's small size.  Because the pears were so small, I had to peel and chop a lot of pears.

The jam turned out delicious.  It was a little chunkier than I expected, but I guess it all depended on how small I diced it up in the first place.  I only got 3 small jars out of the process, and this one in the picture is our last one.  You can tell it’s been a big hit around here, since I didn’t make it that long ago.

I’m excited to try other jam flavors, so as soon as I see fruit on sale, I’ll be picking some up and seeing what else I can create.  And the great thing about making homemade jam, I got to control the amount of sugar that I put in it, and needless to say, I didn’t add much, and it still tastes great.

If you are interested in the blog it’s called Saving the Season.

Design Sunday on Monday

Yesterday I wanted to show you our family outing pictures, so I will show you a couple things I made on Monday instead of Sunday.

First up – last year I did a little bit of canning.  One of the things I made was jalapeño jelly, lots of it.  I needed to create a recipe to use some of it up….and found one I did.  I’ll call it jalapeno cream cheese puffs.

I’ve only got 6 more jars of jalapeno jelly, so expect to see these little appetizers popping up at any gathering we attend in the near future.  They have gotten rave reviews so far.

Next up, you remember I made myself a purse/diaper bag a couple of months ago.  I have been using it since, and it has plenty of room. 

But plenty of room often means a big giant mess and trouble finding things.  (By the way, this picture was actually after I cleaned it out.)

So I made myself a bag to go inside the big bag.  This one will be for diapers and wipes, and pretty much anything kid related.

That way if I know I want to use my purse as the diaper bag, I can just throw the actually little diaper bag inside.

It’s hard to tell, but it cleans up the purse quite nicely.  Now I want to make a few smaller ones to store makeup/medicine/whatever else lives at the bottom of a purse.

Pinterest

This child does not look 2 months old.  I'm not quite sure how old I think he looks, but I really can't believe how big he is and how quickly he is outgrowing things.  I also try and see if I can see myself in him, but he pretty much always looks like a mini Jesse.

Onto another subject.  I like to get inspiration for house projects and clothes on the web, the newest craze is pinterest.  I'm sure most of you have heard about it, but when you find pictures you like, you can pin them onto a virtual board and it links you back to the original posting on the web.  The other day I was about to create my own pinterest account when I ran into a slight problem.  You see you have to have a facebook or twitter account to sign up.  I do not have either of them, and really don't want to.  But I'm pretty sure Jesse doesn't want me to hijack his facebook account to save a bunch of style and decorating items....people might get the wrong idea about him.
And if I had a pinterest account I would be sharing this pumpkin recipe with everyone through a link.  Instead I have to try and copy everything and post pictures in order for you to see it.  But I love the fall and all the great apple and pumpkin recipes so here is the first one I want to try.

Pumpkin Dip
16 oz. light Cool Whip, thawed out
1 (5-ounce) packet of vanilla pudding (instant)
1 small can of Libby's pumpkin - (15 oz.)
1 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

In a large bowl, mix together pudding, pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice and vanilla. Gently stir in Cool Whip.This takes about 5 minutes to get the mixture smooth. (After mixing, I usually stick this in the refrigerator
for a while before serving it.)

Cinnamon Sugar Tortilla Chips
Flour tortillas (I used about 7 large tortillas) and holiday cookie cutters
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
1/2 c. sugar
Butter flavored Pam cooking spray

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix cinnamon and sugar together in a bowl. Use metal cookie cutters and a cutting board to cut your tortillas into desired shapes (use leaves for fall, gingerbread men, trees, stars, etc. for Christmas). Place them on parchment or foil-lined baking sheets.
Spray all of the tortilla cut-outs with butter flavored cooking spray on the top side that is facing you.
Sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar mixture.  Lightly spray again with cooking spray to make sure the cinnamon sticks.
Bake for 10 minutes, or until lightly browned. Place the chips on racks to cool off. Serve with Pumpkin Dip.