You know when you sit down to type a blog because there have been ideas bouncing around in your head??? And then you sit down and ....... nothing. So a funny picture for all of you to enjoy.


Grace is in that transition period where she really kind of needs a nap but if i make her take one she wont go to bed at night. She ends up falling asleep in strange places...like the baby's seat.

Busy day chicken

This is one of my own creations and since it turned out so well the other day i thought i would share. You may need to adjust if you have a smaller crock pot than mine.

potatoes, peeled if you prefer, and cut into chunks
carrots
onion, cut up
chicken pieces, i use a whole chicken cut up.

put the vegetables in the bottom of your crock pot and place all the chicken pieces on top. Sprinkle garlic salt, pepper, and oregano over all of it. Add i can of diced tomatoes and about 1/2 can of water. Cook on high for 4 hours. If you want a thicker sauce when you pull the chicken out mix a little cornstarch with water and mix it in. then let it cook a little longer. the great thing about this recipe is 1) it cooks while you are at church and 2) you can adjust the amount very easily by adding more chicken and vegetables if you have a bigger family.

thanks Meleah!!!

Some of you may know the Super Talented Meleah. She took some family photos of us about a week ago and here is the result.




Thanks Meleah...you are awesome!!!

Extreme Home Makeover: Our House!

So far only paint but new floors coming soon!!!

Grace and the Marker

this morning i was sitting on the couch holding a sleeping baby and i thought to myself....'Grace is being really quiet, i should go check on her'. I ignored the thought because i wanted the baby to sleep a little bit longer. Big Mistake. A few minutes later Grace came back into the room and i noticed she had blue marker on her hands.


So i started looking for the evidence.

Clearly this wasn't hanging on the wall and hasn't been for many years. I found this in my room. I still haden't located the marker.

next in the baby's room, a dvd case. i happen to know hairspray will take permanant marker off plastic so no big deal.







I found this in Eddies room, next to the marker. This also was not a terribly big deal because there wasn't a pillow case on it. Also it belongs to the kids and they dont care, right?






on my way back to my room i discovered this in the hallway. Again i thought i had dodged a bullet since tomorrow night we are pulling up the carpet in the hallway and the living room and putting down laminate. Then i walked back into my room.....


thank goodness for the Magic eraser!!!

another wonderful time waster

here is another way to waste time online, as if we needed another one. it's a site called netwinner. You play games for points and then cash in your points for gift cards when you earn enough. I have been playing for a week and have earned 3000 points.

All you do is play games like Banko, which is like Bingo, and they also have Money Wheel. They are so easy that you can actually have them running in the background while you are doing other things. You can play 10 Banko cards a day and get 100 spins on the money wheel per day.

When you sign up for Netwinner, make sure you verify your email address with them or you won't be able to cash out and get your gift cards! Verifying your email with them also will enable you to be alerted if they have special double point days. These will make great Christmas gifts.

To verify your email with them, log in then go to the "my account" tab. Once there you will see your address information and to the right a "verify email" tab. Just click the link and follow directions to verify.

To sign up click here.

Magic Bean update

I think they are coming along rather nicely. Pretty soon we will have some green beans to eat. they started out like this on march 25th

do i have something on my face???

After dinner of sloppy joes for grace and sweet potatoes for eleanor it was just too cute. to me they really look nothing alike.....

bread how to

I have been surfing other food related blogs and I have been inspired to do a how to. Since bread is my forte.... here we go. Feel free to use your favorite bread recipe with my steps.


Step one: Mix warm water with yeast and sugar. Allow to ferment and 'bloom'. It will become very frothy.


While your yeast is blooming, place all your dry ingretients in a bowl. Pour you oil/butter in and then pour your dry ingredients in all at once.



Make sure the salt doesn't hit the yeast mixture directly, it will kill the yeast. Just give the dry ingredients a quick stir before you pour them in.


Start to mix with a wooden spoon, adding more flour as you need it.


Turn the dough out onto the counter and kneed until it forms a nice smooth ball. It should take about 5 minutes.


Place dough in a lightly greased bowl and grease the top. I use pan spray and just spray it all over the top.


Let rise until double in size.


Shape into a loaf and place in a greased loaf pan.


let rise until double.


bake.