book-it

Today for lunch we went out to eat at Pizza Hut using Thomas and Elle's Book-It coupons. It's a monthly tradition during the school year that they look forward to. Personally, I don't think Pizza Hut's pizza is as good as I remember it to be growing up but the kids love going. Especially during the lunch hour because they are allowed to use their coupons at the buffet instead of just toward a personal pan pizza. Kids love buffets. So many choices! Thomas came back from the buffet first with a few pieces of pepperoni pizza, the next trip he went to the salad bar and got a plate of peaches swimming in all kinds of syrup, and then back for mac and cheese. He watched the buffet like a hawk waiting for warm cinnamon sticks to come out for dessert.

I'm actually really surprised they continue to let him get the buffet instead of the personal pan pizza. He's at that age where he can just eat and eat and eat right now and yet he wears slim jeans.

Elle was so excited last year when she was finally old enough to participate in the Book-It program. She'd always gone along and ate pizza with us anyway when Thomas was the only one in it but it's more fun when you earn the reward and get to have your name on the wall of the restaurant!

You can enroll your homeschoolers in Book-It for the 2009-10 school year here. The coupons will get shipped to you next September. I think it's really great that they include homeschooling families!

italian chicken salad

This is chick food at it's best! I love this pasta from Giada's Everyday Pasta cookbook. Her recipe even calls for serving it in butter lettuce leaves as cups which would be fun to do if you were serving it for a lunch with friends. Scott doesn't mind this dish but it's not his idea of a 'real' meal though so I rarely make it as our main entree. I did serve it last week for dinner one night with breadsticks and the boys were fine with that because there was chocolate cake for dessert. Big slices for them!

Elle, Ava and I were happy to have the rest of it for lunch for the next couple days. (It makes a lot!) Ava gobbled it up. She picked the capers and some of the onions out but ate everything else. She even said, 'Mmmm, this has good flavors' while she was eating it. She's just repeating what she hears on the cooking shows she loves so much. :) Here's the recipe -

Italian Chicken Salad

1/2 cup slivered almonds
1 lb. farfalle pasta
4 cups coarsely shredded roasted chicken (I like to use one rotisserie chicken for the grocery store. Easy, convenient and always good.)
1/2 cup diced roasted red bell pepper* (1 small - medium pepper)
1/2 cup diced roasted yellow bell pepper*
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/4 cup capers, drained and rinsed
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 cup Red Wine Vinaigrette (scroll down for recipe)
Parmesan Cheese, shaved with a vegetable peeler

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread the almonds on a small baking sheet in a single layer. Bake until golden brown about 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and transfer to a bowl to cool. (I often toast the almonds in a non-stick pan on the cooktop and just be sure to watch it very closely. It seems a waste to heat a big oven up just to toast nuts unless you are going to throw something else in as well.)

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until tender, stirring occasionally, 10 to 12 minutes. Drain.

In a large bowl, combine the pasta with the chicken, bell peppers, onion, parsley, almonds, capers, salt and pepper. Drizzle with 1 cup of the vinaigrette and toss gently. Add more vinaigrette if needed. Serve with a shaving of Parmesan cheese on top of each individual serving.

Giada's recipe says to serve it, arrange 1 large lettuce leaf and 1 small lettuce leaf on each plate, overlapping slightly. Spoon the chicken salad into the lettuce 'cups'. Drizzle the remaining 1/4 cup of vinaigrette over the salads. Garnish with shavings of the Parmesan cheese.

Red Wine Vinaigrette

1/2 cup red wine vinegar
3 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tsp honey
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Combine the vinegar, lemon juice, and honey in a blender. With the motor running, gradually add the oil. Season the vinaigrette with salt and pepper, adding more to taste if needed.

*My favorite quick method to roast peppers is to place them right on the grate on my gas cooktop. Turn them several times so that the skin gets completely charred. Wrap in paper towels and let sit for 5 - 10 minutes. Then just rub the skin off into the paper towel.

cookie baking kind of day

We are getting somewhere between 4 - 6 inches of snow today. One more month of winter, just one more month of winter. That's what I keep telling myself. Chocolate chip cookies seemed just the thing we needed on this cold, snowy day.

i'm back

For real this time! Thank you so much for the comments and emails. Many I have yet to respond to! I am feeling much more caught up around here. Everyone has clean clothes again, closets have been gone through and reorganized and several of those forgotten areas of the house have been cleaned. There is still a lot to do but it seems manageable now and I don't feel guilty taking time to blog.

Does anyone else ever get this way? Where you just feel overwhelmed by all there is to do? You start to notice all of the cobwebs in the corners, layers of dust on the ceiling fan blades, feathers and dust bunnies under the dressers and beds, let alone all of the everyday messes and you just don't have enough hours in the day or the energy to get to it all. Please tell me you do! There is a definite change in attitude and atmosphere in our house when we get too busy and I can't keep up with things around here. I want our home to be a haven to come home to. A place where you walk in the door and feel comfortable and relaxed. For me, it's really hard to make that happen when we are running here and there several times a week. Elle recently said to me that it's nice to just be home so that she can play with her toys. That was music to my ears and confirmation that taking last week off to not do extra activities was just what we needed.

So anyway, I should be back to regularly blogging. I hope you'll check back often! :)

my sewing area

My sweet hubby recently converted the closet in our guest bedroom into a sewing area for me. We'd been talking about it and when it was a balmy 40 degrees here a few Saturdays ago he decided that that was the day to do the project. He went into town, picked up a piece of counter top and within an hour he was done and I was moving everything in. Here is what the room looks like most of the time - a very undecorated guest bedroom! I hope to change that before our next guests come!

Then when you open the closet doors - viola, sewing room!

I was going to wait to show you everything until I was done with it all but that will take awhile so I'll give you a little tour now and another later when I get more done. I had planned to paint the walls but didn't have time beforehand. He got to work on the project much sooner than I thought he would! There was no way I was going to ask him to wait for me.

What I love about this is that it is still totally functional as a closet for guests. Well, as soon as we purchase the closet bar to hang clothes on that is! And I'll just push everything to one side when guests come so that they can set their luggage on the counter. The other great thing is that I can just close the door to hide the mess and to keep little Miss Ava out of it when I am working on something!

My favorite little secondhand shop is closed right now. I'm sure the owners are probably somewhere warm right now! When it opens back up I'm hoping to find a cute chair to paint to keep in here. For now I'm just using a chair from the table in the family room. I also hope to find a dresser to put along that empty wall to store all of my fabric in. Painting the bed frame is also on the to do list along with our old nightstand that is under the counter. It needs to warm up here so that I can get to this stuff! When we finished the basement it took away the area to do painting projects inside during the winter.

I am so glad that we thought to put a light in this closet. We didn't put an outlet in though. An electrician is coming soon to do a couple of things around here and he going to see if it would be possible to put one in since there is one right on the other side of the wall in the bathroom. If not, I'll just use an extension cord and that will work just fine.

Hopefully I'll be showing you some finished projects soon! Elle and I have a couple of bags cut out waiting to be sewn!

checking in quick

Scott keeps telling me I need to update the blog so I thought I'd check in just to let you know that I am still alive. :) I'm just kind of in a blog funk right now, not knowing what to do with this space. Also, Scott has needed my laptop for work for the past week and a half so I haven't been online near as much. This has been a good thing though because I finally feel like I am catching up on some of the housework that has been neglected for way too long. You'd know what I'm talking about if I'd actually have took some picture of the ceiling fans and light fixtures in this house before I cleaned them! They were gross. Swim team ended last Friday and it is so nice to be able to tackle projects around here without getting interrupted to run into town to go to the Y. So anyway, that's what I've been up to. I'm sure I'll be back soon. Any ideas about what I should blog about though?!

wild and crazy random things about me

I was tagged awhile ago by Jessi of Just a Blink and Julie of According to His Power to list some random things about myself. I've actually had this post in the works for awhile. I've done these tags before and they are much harder to put together than you'd think! So here are 7 random things about me that really aren't that interesting....

1. My favorite shows that I have set up to record on the DVR are -

The Office
24
The Unit
American Idol
Survivor
Dear Genevieve
The Property Shop

And of course my Food Network addiction with -

Barefoot Contessa
Everyday Italian
Giada at Home

2. I am running again. Last year one of my resolutions was to run a half marathon. It's just not going to happen. Not for awhile anyway. I do not know how mom's train for events like that with little ones! I am tired of my sporadic exercise routine though. I thought I was back on track again in the fall when I was running again consistently on our elliptical machine. Then swim team started and it was too easy of an excuse to not have time for it! I really, really would like to be consistent in this though so made it my goal this year (inspired by Wendy!) to run 500 miles this year. That goal forces me to run about 42 miles a month which means running 3 - 4 miles 3 or 4 times a week. Just the routine I want! I did it in January and am on track for February. Scott is challenging me to see who can run more miles this month and I plan to kick his butt. :)

3. I'd like to have my hair dyed black. I'm such a chicken when it comes to stuff like that though so it probably won't happen.

4. I love having coffee every morning. I'm totally spoiled because I hardly ever have to make it either. Scott is always up earlier than me and gets a pot going. When I try to make it it's never as good.

5. I'd like to get a bike this spring. We have a really great trail close to where we live where we can bike for miles and miles. Ava is at the age where she would enjoy riding in a little trailer and Thomas and Elle could lead the way on their bikes.

6. I own 60 cookbooks. Crazy, I know! I love them though and it's the only thing I really 'collect'. And at least it's a useful collection! :) I often wish that when we built our house 5 years ago that I would've designed my kitchen with a couple of bookshelves among the cabinets. It's seems a shame to keep them behind doors.

7. I totally stink at video games. Thomas has tried to challenge me on XBox and he beats me all the time. The only game I can win at is Tetris (my favorite!) and sometimes Guitar Hero.

ava's office

I got my order from Melaleuca yesterday and gave Ava the box to play with this morning. A couple hours later I found her playing with her Barbie computer inside of it. Got bored kids? Give them some old boxes to play with and watch what they come up with! Remember this?

chai tea

It's time for Randi's Recipe Box Swap again and this month's theme is fun foods. I'm sharing how to make Chai Tea that tastes just like it's from the coffee shop and is a fraction of the cost! I did not figure this out on my own. My friend, Angie, told me about this a couple of years ago and I've been enjoying it since!

Fill a coffee mug half full of Oregon Chai Matcha Green Tea Concentrate. (Look for this in the organic section of your grocery store. It's sold in a 32 oz carton.)
Fill your mug the rest of the way full with milk.
Heat for a couple of minutes until very warm.
Stir and then place a big dollop of whipped topping on top, sprinkle with a little cinnamon, then enjoy!