my baby watches tv

My father-in-law took this picture of Ava last weekend and said I should blog about my baby watching tv. :) I thought it was pretty funny!

Yesterday I was in our local christian book and gift shop and found a new baby movie that you can let your baby watch...guilt free. :) The PraiseBaby movies are similar to the other baby movies out there that display different toys in action, animals, and kids playing but praise and worship music plays during the whole movie. We really liked the My Father's World video that we purchased.

Joking aside, I do think that the whole baby tv thing has got a little out of control. There is a channel on Direct TV that can purchased that has only baby and toddler programming all day long. It is sad to think about how many children watch hours of it everyday. I do appreciate having a video though to put on when mommy just needs a break for awhile!

a little update

I took a little longer blogging break than I thought that I would! We got our big box of school cirriculum in this week and I have been doing lots of reading and getting ready for the school year. We start on Tuesday! The kids are excited. Elle has been ready to start kindergarten since the middle of July but Thomas has been saying that he doesn't want summer to end. When he saw some of the new things he was going to get to do this year in 3rd grade he's changed his mind and even asked if we could start this week. :)

We had a really great time with Scott's parents last weekend and were sad to see them go. They took some cool pictures of the kids tubing that I will post here tomorrow since I don't have them on the computer I am using right now.

Today Thomas had a dentist appointment right after lunch so we made this our errand running day. We took a break after going to a few stores and had lunch at a park and then played on the equipment there for about an hour. All three of them had a ball!

defrosting and organizing the freezer

For this part of the the Cooking With My Freezer series I am going to discuss how to defrost your stand alone freezer and how to organize the food when you put everything back.

The first thing you want to do is clean out the freezer. Toss out anything that is freezer burnt, unrecognizable, or that doesn’t have a date and you can’t remember how long ago it was that you put it in the freezer. Then move all of the food that you possibly can into the freezer in your refrigerator. Store the rest in coolers (but not for more than a couple of hours). I had quite a few items in my freezer so a few weeks ago I started using up several of those items since I knew my freezer was in need of defrosting. This really helped a lot when it came to storing the food during the defrost and it was good to get things used up that had been in there for awhile.

After you have the food safely packed away, unplug your freezer, leave the door open and let the defrosting begin. Put a couple of towels in the bottom of the freezer to soak up the water. My freezer is in an unfinished basement so I didn't have to worry about the floor but if your floor is finished it would be a good idea to put a couple of towels around the base of the freezer as well.

After 30 minutes or so check on the progress. When the ice starts to get soft you can take a wooden spoon and start breaking it up and pushing it off of the shelves to speed the process along. This step isn't necessary but it is a great stress reliever! :) At some point you will probably need to take out the towels because they will be sopping wet and replace them with some dry ones.

When the defrosting is done wipe down the walls and shelves and then dry everything really well. Stand back and admire your work for a minute. :) Then plug the freezer back in, close the door and let it get cold again.

One of the ways that I like to organize my freezer is with washtubs. They are very inexpensive and are great for holding small packages and things that can easily get lost. I have 3 in my freezer. One is labeled 'chicken', another 'pork' and the last is 'beef'. Smaller items and things that I don't have several of go into these tubs. I try to keep like items on each shelf. Since taking these pictures I bought 18 pounds of ground beef that went on special at the grocery store. All of those packages are stored on the shelf next to the 'beef' tub. We don't have near as much pork as we do chicken and beef so the other half of the pork shelf is used for storing frozen fruits. This system makes it easy for me and my family to find exactly what we are looking for.

Be sure to put the items that need to be used first at the top and towards the front of the shelf. I find it helpful to even move the items that need to be used quickly into the freezer in my refrigerator. When planning the week's meals I be sure to include those things.

Next I plan to share ways to stock up the freezer (and pantry) and save money at the same time!

go-karts

Grandpa and Grandma took Thomas and Elle to the go-karts while they were here. They had a fun time!

company's coming

This has been a busy week so my blog has kinda been neglected lately. Scott's parents are coming here today and will be staying until Monday or Tuesday so it might be a few days before I post again. I do have another 'Cooking With My Freezer' series post partially written so hopefully I will get it up here before next week. I cleaned out and defrosted my stand-alone upright freezer in the basement on Wednesday and have some pictures and tips on how to reorganize!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

little princesses

This afternoon I asked Elle to watch Ava for me while I did some housework. I checked on them a little later and found them dressed up in princess dresses, playing kitchen and listening to bible school music. It was really sweet. Elle is such a good big sister.

it's been a year already!

This morning I got to thinking that it was around this time last year that I started this blog so I went and checked the date of my first post - August 10th, 2006. It's been a year already!

I started this little blog as a way to keep in touch with our family since we live so far from them. And since I am not a scrapbooker, I forget to write in baby books, and majority of our pictures are not in albums, I thought it would be a good way to document all of the cute things that the kids say and do and organize the pictures at the same time. It's so fun to keep the camera handy on the counter and be able to catch 'blog-worthy' moments of the kids that I might otherwise have missed.

I have also enjoyed getting to know other bloggers through having a blog. There are so many wonderful blogs out there that I am constantly inspired by. It's so fun to learn from other women, try out each others recipes, get new cleaning/cooking tips, crafting ideas, and hear about the fun things they are doing with their kids. I definitly plan to keep on blogging!

By the way, check out this cool site where you can have your blog printed into a book. I plan to do this soon with all of my posts from year one. I thought it was a pretty neat idea.

oven-fried chicken

Scott is working in Atlanta for the week so before he left I made a dinner that he really likes - fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, steamed carrots and biscuits with honey. Everything was so good except for the biscuits. I have not mastered a good, fluffy biscuit. I have found a fabulous recipe for fried chicken that we all really like though. It's Ina Garten's recipe in her Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook, with just a couple of modifications.

1 whole, cut-up chicken
buttermilk (Buy a half-gallon. Make a batch of pancakes first and then you will have just enough!)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp kosher salt
1 Tbsp ground black pepper
Vegetable oil or vegetable shortening

Place chicken pieces in a bowl and pour buttermilk over to cover. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the flour, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Take the chicken out of the buttermilk and coat each piece thoroughly with the flour mixture.

Pour the oil or melt shortening into a large heavy-bottomed stockpot to a depth of 1 inch and heat to 360 degrees on a thermometer. (I use a candy thermometer.)

Working in batches, carefully place a few pieces of chicken in the oil and fry for 5 minutes on each side until the coating is a light golden brown (it will continue to brown in the oven). Don't crowd the pieces. Remove the chicken from the oil and place each piece on a metal baking rack set on a sheet pan. Allow the oil to return to 360 degrees before frying the next batch.

When the chicken is fried, bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the chicken is no longer pink inside. Serve hot.

Besides the chicken turning out moist and flavorful everytime, the reason I love this recipe is because I can get the frying mess cleaned up and the side dishes prepared while the chicken finishes cooking in the oven. Be sure to remember your apron when you make this recipe!

puppa

Ava really likes kitties and puppies....especially puppies. A few weeks ago Scott was holding her while he was on the computer and he went to youtube.com and found some silly puppy videos to show her and she loved it. She now will come up to him when he's on the computer and in baby talk let him know that she wants to see a puppy video. And of course he usually does. :) Around this same time we got out the cute little puppy stuffed animal that Uncle Wes and Aunt Nicole gave her for Christmas last year and she hasn't slept a night without it since. She takes it out of the crib with her when she wakes up and calls it Puppa.

ava mae in video

children obey your parents...

I think that is the verse Ava was reading in the bible this morning. :)

cooking with my freezer series

I've been working at cleaning out our freezer the past couple of weeks and thought that it might be fun to do a series here on my blog about how to utilize this important appliance in your home.

I remember as a young girl going to visit my Great Grandma Pearl and always having such good food to eat. Her favorite meal to make, and our favorite to eat, was beef and noodles over mashed potatoes (always made with her homemade noodles), warm homemade buns with butter, green beans, pickles and usually a jello type salad. There was always something yummy like a pie or an angel food cake for dessert too. It didn't matter when we stopped in, we could always count on being treated to that meal around the table in her kitchen. I got to spend the night there a couple of times and once I remember looking in her freezer and seeing bags of her homemade noodles in there. I've been thinking about that lately. I think her secret to being able to put out such a spread was in the preparation ahead of time and having things ready to go in her freezer. Had I dug deeper into the freezer I probably would've found homemade pie dough ready to be thawed and baked into a pie, breads and buns that were already baked and just ready to be defrosted and then warmed in the oven.

This is the atmosphere and memories I want to create in my home. I don't want dinner to seem like a big overwhelming task that will take me all afternoon to do. There are so many things that can be done ahead of time and stored in the freezer that will make the task so much easier and enjoyable. Even small things, like chopping onions ahead of time and keeping them in the freezer, are beneficial because it's one less step to do while you are preparing the meal and a couple less dishes to wash later.

So this series isn't going to be about a once a month cooking marathon to fill up our freezers. I wouldn't know how to do something like that and I enjoy cooking too much to even want to. A few meals prepared completely ahead of time are great for those super busy days for sure. This series is going to be more about little things that we can do to make meal preparation easier, how to save money in our grocery budgets and stock up our freezers at the same time, and recipes and methods to make the most of the food in them. I hope you will enjoy it!

pretty pink washcloths

I had big plans in the spring to do lots of knitting. Remember these dresses for the girls? Well, I worked and worked on Elle's until June but then just lost interest in it. Just last weekend I finally finished knitting the tank part of her dress and now need to sew up the seams and make the skirt. Elle should be able to wear it for awhile as it seems plenty big enough and Ava will for sure get many wears out of it in a few years. I will not be making one in her size like originally planned.

I decided to make washcloths for the girls to use at bathtime with the rest of the pink cotton yarn. I love the yarn and washcloths are easy, quick projects that I can start and stop easily. I'm happy with the way they are turning out though I do have to say I don't think I've dropped so many stitches on a project before! That first washcloth took way longer than it should have because I had to keep fixing mistakes. The second one is half done now though and I haven't dropped a stitch yet.

Ava was around when I took the photo above and I couldn't resist a shot of such sweet little baby toes.

books, candy and sand

Those three words pretty much sum up our afternoon. After lunch we went to the library to return books and check out some new ones. While we were in town we stopped at the candy store so that Thomas could spend the gift certificate he received for his birthday from some friends. So many choices!


He ended up buying a package of Big League Chew gum, 1/2 pound of Swedish Fish, 1/2 pound of Sour Gummy Worms and 1/2 pound of Sweet Tart Legos that you can actually build with. That ought to last for a few days! :)

This is what I would've bought if it was my gift certificate. Truffles!

And now to the sand. It was in the mid 80's this afternoon so we hit the beach for about an hour and a half. Yes, that is sand by my baby's mouth. She got a little dirt in her diet today. She didn't seem to mind at all.


They all got sand in every crevice on their bodies I'm pretty sure. There was way more playing in the sand than there was playing in the water.

This is the magazine I didn't get to read at the beach. Did I actually think I was going to get to relax?! :)

chocolate chip zucchini muffins

Kansas at Canadian Crafter asked that I share the recipe for the chocolate chip zucchini muffins that Thomas requested for his birthday breakfast. This fabulous recipe is from my friend Steph. (I'm hoping she will start up a blog soon. I know it would be great!) For those of you with an abundant harvest of zucchini from your garden this is a great recipe to make and then put some away in the freezer. I always double the recipe when I make it and leave a dozen out to enjoy right away and a dozen for later.

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins

3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini
2 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3/4 cup canola oil
1/2 tsp baking soda

Combine, then add:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup chocolate chips (or maybe a little more!) :)

Pour into a greased muffin tin and bake for 15 - 20 minutes at 350 degrees. (Mine usually take a little longer to bake....around 25 minutes.)

Thanks for sharing this great recipe, Steph! :)

While we are talking about zucchini, check out Kansas's recipe for zucchini curd. I'd never heard of this before but it sounds great.....especially with scones!

mid morning snack

Yesterday we stopped at the local Farmer's Market and found these delicious heirloom tomatoes. Someday I hope to have a garden that I can grow my own in! Elle and I love tomatoes so this morning I made this for our snack when our tummies started rumbling around 10:30. So good! Scott and Thomas can't believe we eat tomatoes like this. Scott doesn't mind them in things but Thomas doesn't like them in anything besides ketchup.

penne with chicken & sun-dried tomatoes

This month I am working at going through my freezer and using the food, especially the meat, that we have in there. (More to come on this idea in a later post.) Tonight I pulled out a package of chicken breast strips and used part of it to make this recipe. It is so easy and it is one of my favorite meals. Elle said she might choose it as her birthday meal...that is saying something!

Penne with Chicken & Sun-Dried Tomatoes

2 shallots, peeled and chopped
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, raw but cut into small pieces
4 oz sun-dried tomatoes, cut into strips
1/2 - 3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 pound penne pasta, cooked al dente
1 Tbsp butter
4 Tbsp freshly grated parmesan
6-8 fresh basil leaves, chopped or torn

Put a few teaspoons of olive oil in a saucepan. When hot, add the chicken and saute for a few minutes then add the shallots. Continue to saute until the shallots are tender and the chicken is cooked through. Add the tomatoes and heat through. Add the heavy cream gradually and then add butter. When butter has melted, add the cooked penne, parmesan and basil. Toss and then serve immediately.

*A note about the sun-dried tomatoes - These can be purchased dried or packed in oil. Either will work fine. If you use dried you need to reconstitute them by putting them in boiling water for awhile before using them in this recipe. I prefer the oil packed for the convenience and the flavor.

ava after a bath

pneumonia update

Scott's fever is gone and he's feeling better. The cough is still hanging around but that is his only symptom now. It was a gray, dreary weekend here so we just hung out around home and didn't feel bad that we couldn't go out on the lake. That is just what he needed!

pneumonia

Scott has been battling with a sickness for 12 days now. First it was a fever and aches, then headaches and a couple of days before he left for London on Sunday he got a cough. He decided to go ahead and go though since he thought he was getting better and figured the cough would go away soon. Well, it didn't go away so he asked me to schedule a doctor's appointment for him. When he went in for that appointment yesterday he found out he has pneumonia. His fever came back again last night so he is feeling pretty miserable. Hopefully with lots of rest and the antibiotics he will be feeling well again soon.

going for a walk

After lunch today we went for a walk and stopped at the bridge. I had brought along my camera just incase there was a chance to get some good pictures of the kids. Ava was not in the picture taking mood though. These are 3 of the 4 pictures that I was able to take before her meltdown.



Once she got in the stroller and we started moving again she was a happy camper. We ended up taking a couple mile walk but about a mile into it Elle started complaining of being tired. Then her feet hurt. She hadn't put any socks on with her tennis shoes and was starting to get a little blister. She switched spots with Ava and got in the stroller and Ava rode on my shoulders. Thomas pushed Elle the whole way home and in return she had to get him a big glass of icy cold water when we got home. She thought she was pretty funny playing the part of the baby and wanted me to take this picture -

Silly girl! :) Now that I've got them all wore out they are going to have rest or reading time in their rooms and I'm hoping that they fall asleep for awhile so that everyone is happy and rested for when Daddy gets home tonight. He's been in the UK since Sunday and we can't wait for him to get home!

pictures from the beach

happy 8th birthday thomas

My Thomas is 8 years old today. I can't believe it! This morning we opened some presents and had the birthday breakfast of his choice - strawberry banana smoothies and chocolate chip zucchini muffins. Later this morning we are meeting some friends at a beach to have a picnic lunch and go swimming.


Ava thought breakfast was yummy! She kept saying 'mmmm' while she was eating it!