ThrivingMama

[Freezer] Twice Baked Potatoes

2012-05-31T06:06:00.000-07:00

I made these a couple weeks ago and they were good. Really good. I concocted this recipe from the general idea of twice baked potatoes and a few different "freezer friendly" mashed potato recipes. It seems that using milk when you make mashed potatoes for the freezer, is part of what makes them thaw weird. Go figure. So, while this recipe isn't exactly artery friendly, it's really yummy. I didn't use any light sour cream or light cream cheese so I'm not sure how those substitutions would hold up in the freezer. Maybe I'll experiment later.

[Freezer] Twice Baked Potatoes

2 1/2 lbs of baking potatoes (I chose smaller potatoes as I intended them to serve as a side dish)

2 Tbs shortening

Salt

4 oz softened cream cheese

1 Tbs Butter

2 cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese

1/4-3/4 cups Sour Cream

1. Wash your potatoes and rub shortening on the skins. Then sprinkle with salt. This step adds a lot of flavor to the potatoes.

2. Bake potatoes on a baking sheet (I cooked mine at 425 for an hour) until fork tender.

3. Let potatoes cool until you can handle them. Cut them in half and scoop out the meat of the potato into a mixing bowl.

4. Add cream cheese, cheddar cheese and butter and mash thoroughly. Add sour cream until your potatoes are the consistency of a thick mashed potato, or cookie dough. Amount of sour cream will vary depending on how much potato filling you have.

5. Fill your potatoes.

6. [Freezing] If you're freezing them, let them cool at this point and put the baking sheet in the freezer until they're set. Then wrap in plastic wrap to prevent freezer burn and place in zip top bag to freeze.

7. [Baking] Place thawed (or just prepared) Twice Baked Potatoes on a baking sheet. Add a bit of cheese to the top for looks and bake at 375 for 20 minutes, or until cheese is melted and potatoes are completely heated. Baking time will vary by size of potatoes. You can also add bacon bits before baking or chopped steamed broccoli or chili after baking.

Cooking for One: These are a great dish to stash in the freezer if you're cooking for a small family or just one or two people - each can be pulled and thawed separately and easily baked in a toaster oven with a "bake" setting.

Sunday Sunshine - Time With Friends & Thoughtful Gifts

2012-05-27T04:00:00.000-07:00

Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week and practicing gratitude through giving.

My brain's a little mushy - I caught myself putting clean measuring cups in the fridge and milk in the pantry today. So I think I'll keep this brief. It's been a good week . . .

:: Sunshine & warm days.
:: Beautiful, thoughtful gifts.
:: Fun "thinking of you" gifts.
:: MOPs
:: Morning Out
:: Lunch with a friend.
:: Yummy cupcakes on the back porch while "kids" played.
:: A nap.
:: Evening out crafting and visiting.
:: Buddies to teach G things like how to roll down the hill in the back yard.
:: Tylenol PM & children's benadryl-ingredients for good nights of sleep during hay cutting season & final weeks of pregnancy.
:: Cold creek water.
:: Meals on the back porch.
:: When details come together and work themselves out.
:: Crossing things off the To-Do List, even when I'm completely unmotivated.

May you enjoy this week as summer quickly approaches and remember to find the gifts in your day.

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

Freezer Fri-er- Saturday: Cookie Dough & Mac n' Cheese

2012-05-26T07:44:00.001-07:00

This week sort of flew past me, but I did manage to get a couple of things in the freezer. As the joy of the last four weeks of pregnancy settles in, my motivation to cook comes and goes so I've been very happy to begin raiding my stash of stuff from the freezer.

I made a batch of Mac-n-Cheese for the freezer and also put together come chocolate chip cookie dough to freeze up. I'll share the Mac-n-Cheese recipe after I thaw and re-heat it if it's as good as I hope it is!

While not much has made it to the freezer this week, I've been keeping the fridge stocked with flavored yogurt cups which are the new favorite snack around here. I also made a big pan of granola bars and cut them and bagged them individually in snack size zip-top bags so they're easy to grab snacks as well. I made a batch of coffee for the fridge for iced coffee in anticipation of HandyMan being away for 2 days this week. Does that count as batch cooking?

Sunday Sunshine

2012-05-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week and practicing gratitude through giving.

This week [like so many others] has been highlighted by a lot of little things that were of great encouragement in the middle of some craziness. I don't foresee a break in the craziness in the next couple of weeks, I just hope to stay focused on what is really important. Here's just a few of the things that brightened my week:

:: The "I've got your back no matter what's going on" friends
:: Flowers hanging on my front porch.
:: Black Forest Cake (made by HandyMan for Mother's Day)
:: Warm weather & sunny days
:: Baking with my little helper
:: Extra work hours
:: Un-interrupted work time
:: PB&J Picnics in the yard
:: Mom's Night Out
:: Thursday afternoon nap

So many things to be thankful for, and so often I miss them. I hope we can all seek out the things to be thankful for this week!

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

Freezer Friday: Cookie Dough & Twice Baked Potatoes

2012-05-18T08:15:00.001-07:00

This week was grocery week and there was a lot of eating of leftovers. Have I mentioned that both HandyMan and G-Tot will eat just about anything I put in front of them? Happily. Makes for a happy Mama! Especially this week since I had a bit of extra work on my plate. So the leftovers were devoured, groceries were purchased and Thursday morning, G-Tot was out in the yard helping HandyMan with projects and I got alone cooking time- for a while anyway!

I whipped up cookie dough for the freezer. Usually I'll scoop it out and freeze the dough balls so they're ready to bake, this time I was lazy and just put it into containers. I press plastic wrap into the top of the cookie dough so that it won't grow those little ice crystals around the top that seriously mess with the flavor of a good cookie.

I also made twice baked potatoes for the freezer. This is a new recipe for me to try to freeze, but I used a mashed potato recipe from my Freezer Pleaser's cookbook and have high hopes. The ones we had for lunch were fantastic. They'll go great beside kielbasa or burgers this summer and this fall I'm thinking of topping them with chili, steamed broccoli, etc.

I also got a batch of granola made, but that just went to the pantry. That's about all for this week. Did you get anything stashed in your freezer this week?

2012: The Darwin Garden

2012-05-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

This year I have to say, my head's not really in the gardening game. With the arrival of Itty Bitty 6 weeks-ish away, my brain is on other things and my body is not into the idea of bending and digging and the work that is involved. It's a good thing I have some helpers! Since my Littlest Helper loves her tomatoes and green beans, she's excited to be part of the garden process this year.

I take minimal credit for getting the garden in. In fact, I was on a conference call while HandyMan and Big Girl did most of the work. So this year, the garden will have to survive the weather, likely neglectful watering (or over-zealous toddler watering), minimal weeding, and the ambitious harvesting of a 3-year-old. It's the year of the Darwin Garden: may the fittest survive!

Last year's early beds worked out well. So this year, the tomatoes are out early, enjoying life in their "tent" as Big Girl called it.

Clearly, dancing barefoot in the beds before you plant them makes them extra ready to grow lots of good things! Seeing your footprints in the fresh turned dirt is pretty fun too. If you're 3.

Sunday Sunshine: Moms

2012-05-13T04:25:00.000-07:00

Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week and practicing gratitude through giving.

This week is Mother's Day and I'm very thankful for my daughter and the blessing it is to be her Mom and the joy it is to have Itty Bitty on the way.

I wouldn't be here, nor be the Mom I am if it weren't for my Mom. It was a treat this week to get a quick visit from my parents as they passed through our area. Until you're a mom, I don't think you fully realize the sacrifices your mom makes. With all three of us kids born within four years, my poor mom must have gone four years without sleep, and then interrupted sleep for the next 6 at least! And yet I don't remember any, exhausted-Mommy-meltdowns as a small child. I can only hope my children don't remember mine!

I remember cooking and baking with my mom. She and my grandmothers gave me my first lessons in gardening, canning, sewing and crochet. Mom taught me how to shop the best deals in the grocery store and the department store clearance racks. From my first allowance, Mom (and Dad) taught us the invaluable skills of budgeting. All these things that are part of my daily life now, thanks to my Mom.

Mom taught us how to pray and I know, has prayed for her children and grandchildren every day for the last 34+ years. Love, patience, organization and faith are the traits that exude from my Mom. I'm the Mom I am today, because of the great Mom I had. Happy Mother's Day Mom!

So many things to be thankful for, and so often I miss them. I hope we can all seek out the things to be thankful for this week!

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

Freezer Friday - Desserts & Casseroles

2012-05-11T05:00:00.000-07:00

This week I loaded up the freezer with some yummy desserts and casseroles. My 8x8 pans are my go-to for freezing things like bars and casseroles because I can freeze them in the pan, then remove them and they fit nicely in my vacuum seal bags or a gallon freezer bag. It was a small investment that has paid for itself over and over! When it's time to bake the frozen items, I put them back in an 8x8 pan (usually my glass one), thaw and cook or heat. Easy peasy!

Here's the rundown of this week's freezer cooking:

Fudge Oat Bars
I found this recipe for Chocolate Oat Squares a while ago and they are fantastic! I doubled the recipe to make 4- 8x8 pans of these great little treats. One for the oven (it was a rainy grey afternoon that required something warm and yummy) and three for the freezer. These bars like an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie - only better! The only modification I made was to substitute part white-whole-wheat flour for some of the all purpose flour (2 cup WWW for 2-1/2 cups All Purpose on the doubled recipe).

I found that having a bit of flour in a measuring cup to dip my fingers in make pressing the cookie crust in the pans much easier. Also, for the top pieces, I pressed the dough out on wax paper and then used a small spatula to pick up as large of pieces as I could. I dipped the small spatula in the flour as well when I was doing the top "crumble" pieces.

Tips for Freezing:

Line your pans with wax paper before pressing the crust in. You may leave the paper or remove it to transfer the "block" to a freezer bag". DO make sure to remove it before thawing and baking!
Spread chocolate layer just to the edge of the crust, but try not to hit the wax paper as it sticks pretty bad once frozen.
Let "block" thaw in the fridge before baking for best results.

To the Freezer this Week:

:: 3 pans of Oat Fudge Bars

:: 1 round Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

:: 2 pans Beef Salsa Casserole (inspired by this recipe- I was tired and cooking on the fly so I only loosely followed the recipe)

My Homemade Yogurt Just Got Better!

2012-05-09T13:48:00.000-07:00

I've been making my Homemade Yogurt for a while now. I've experimented and perfected my process to come up with the Yummiest Homemade Yogurt. Or at least I thought so, until today.

I've been making yogurt so often lately that my daughter sees me pouring hot milk into jars in the sink and knows exactly what's going on. It's still good on granola and with fruit, but the plain yogurt is just that - plain. I was craving some of the grocery store flavors - like key lime, and raspberry. When I mentioned to HandyMan that I was thinking of experimenting, he requested vanilla.

If you look at the basic flavored grocery store yogurts, the additives are basically flavoring and gelatin. I checked out a few recipe sites that had varying combinations of adding gelatin to yogurt and knew I wanted mostly yogurt and just enough gelatin to add flavor and get it to set up a little firmer than our homemade plain.

Here's the recipes I tried and they worked beautifully! The flavors are subtle and the sugar in the recipe and in the gelatin mix adds a bit of smoothness to the plain yogurt. I got 16 of the little 1/2 cup containers with lids and these make fantastic on-the-go snacks and are easy to toss in HandyMan's lunches. I think I will probably add some 1-cup containers to the stash too - the 1/2 cups are great for snack size and kiddos, but if I were grabbing one for lunch on the go - it'd be a little small. I've used yogurt straight from the incubator as well as refrigerated yogurt for these recipes and both worked great!

Homemade Vanilla Yogurt
3 cups Homemade Plain Vanilla
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
1 envelope Unflavored Gelatin

Bring milk and sugar to a boil. Add gelatin and stir until completely dissolved. Then stir some more to really make sure it's dissolved - otherwise you end up with gelatin granule chunks in your yogurt and it definitely takes away from the experience. Just sayin'. Add Vanilla and mix thoroughly. Combine this syrup/gelatin mixture with yogurt in a blender and pour into individual cups or container. Refrigerate until it sets.

Homemade [Gelatin Flavor] Yogurt
3 cups Homemade Plain Vanilla
3/4 cup boiling water
1- Box of Gelatin (box intended to add 2 cups of water to make 4-1/2 cup servings, flavor of your choice)

Add gelatin to hot water and stir until completely dissolved. Combine the jello mixture with yogurt in a blender and pour into individual cups or container. Refrigerate until it set.

***
Cost wise - I've been able to get milk for about $2.15 a gallon and gelatin runs anywhere from $0.35-$0.65 a box. Calculated out, it runs about $0.13-$0.18 per 6 ounce serving. The reusable cups were a $5 up-front investment. All told, it fits quite nicely in my grocery budget!

Next up - experimenting with adding fruits!

Linked up at We Are That Family's Works for Me Wednesdays.

Sunday Sunshine: The Return of Spring

2012-05-06T11:41:00.000-07:00

Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week and practicing gratitude through giving.

This week brought the beginning of May and with it the warm summer-like weather I've been craving so badly! An afternoon on the back porch in a tank top did my soul good. As did dandelion races off the bridge with G-girl, line-dried sheets, and working to the sounds of the creek.

This week also brought another "right on track" report from my doctor and the extra work hours that come to me with the month of May. A nap, ice cream, and volunteer hands that helped to get a heavy lifting project done were great bonuses this week.

So many things to be thankful for, and so often I miss them. I hope we can all seek out the things to be thankful for this week!

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

Back to Freezer Fridays: Cran-Apple Crisp Bars

2012-05-04T11:49:00.000-07:00

Way back when, I posted a regular Freezer Friday post of what batch cooking I'd done that week or fresh produce had been put away for the colder months to come. Life shifted, things change and I lost track of the habit.

A few things have pushed me back into the practice:
1. I'm having a baby in 7 weeks (more or less). I know the farther into the pregnancy I get, the less I'm going to want to cook. And after the baby gets here, the easier the meals are - the better!
2. I've gotten my hands on some great domestic produce lately and it was begging to be canned/frozen.
3. I inventoried the freezer and found a lot of random ingredients that will be much better in a complete meal than getting frost-bite on their own little container in the corner of the freezer.

As an added bonus, a blog I follow is running a "Four Weeks to Fill Your Freezer" feature in May so I'm hoping to get some good recipes from there!

So I bring back Freezer Fridays. In the past I posted a lot of original recipes. Not so much anymore. I've found and altered a lot of the online recipes I find that have turned out fantastic. I will put the alterations in along with the links to the recipes. I really don't have time to reinvent the wheel here!

Without further ado, here's what went into the freezer this week (and what random ingredients I used up from the freezer!)

Cran-Apple Crisp Bars:

I started with this Cranberry Oat Bar recipe that I've made before and loved. I altered it. A lot. So here's my version. And since I was cooking for the freezer, and using up cranberries I had in the freezer- I tripled it to make 3-8x8 pans.

Filling

6 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
2 cup sugar
1 cup Unsweetened Apple Sauce

In a small saucepan over medium high heat, combine the cranberries, white sugar and apple sauce. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cook until the mixture has reduced to a jam-like consistency.

Crumble
1 1/4 white whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup margarine

In a medium bowl, cream together margarine and brown sugar. Combine dry ingredients and mix into margarine/butter batter. Press half of this mixture firmly into the bottom of prepared pan (wax paper for freezer or liberally greased for oven). Spread the cranberry sauce evenly over the base, then crumble the remaining oat mixture over the top.

At this point, all three of mine went to the freezer. When it's time to bake them, I'll take them out, remove wax paper, put them in a greased pan and bake in a preheat oven to 350 degrees F for 10 to 15 minutes (probably a little longer), until the top is golden brown and filling is bubbly.

Cool completely before cutting into bars.

* * * * *

Also to the freezer/pantry this week:

Roasted Tomato Marinara (Thanks Florida for the awesome tomatoes!) - This was a one-off type deal. I skimmed over a few recipes and made it up as I went along. The end result is really yummy, sadly I don't have an exact recipe.
Bacon Egg & Cheese Sandwiches

Sunday Sunshine

2012-04-29T07:32:00.001-07:00

Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week and practicing gratitude through giving.

The last two weeks have been a blur including travel, illness, sunny days and cloudy. Amid it all - here are a few things I'm thankful for as April comes to an end:

:: Friends who help out, just to help out.
:: Sunny days - and warm days!
:: Rain - our area did need it.
:: Safe travels
:: Quick stomach bugs (as opposed to the long drawn out nasty bugs)
:: Doctors we like and speedy medical treatment.
:: Budgeting and money management skills passed to me from my parents.
:: Extra work
:: Days for uninterrupted projects
:: A Little Helper who is learning to do so many new things around the house. She particularly likes loading the washer and dryer and unloading the dryer.
:: Play dates
:: California strawberries and Florida tomatoes and the promise of the fresh produce season that's right around the corner.

So many things to be thankful for, and so often I miss them. I hope we can all seek out the things to be thankful for this week!

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

Mommy Made It: Binky Leashes & Tags

2012-04-19T14:42:00.001-07:00

G-Girl was a binky baby. She figured out how to get them out of the binky leashes we had pretty early on. I saw this post last week and got inspired. I grabbed my fabric store coupons and G-Girl and I went shopping. G-Girl picked out the ribbon, with much deliberation: there were a few different monkey options. I grabbed the ribbon and the clips, added the brown fabric from my stash and got to work. The finished product:

We used the Soothie binkies which G-girl loved, and we were fine with them. Until she dropped them. Then they roll and hide under furniture, into corners and all over the place. Then we would mutter phrases that are not repeatable and join in the crying with the angry infant. I had forgotten about these ordeals until the Little Guy I babysit came with the same binkies. And I remembered. I decided to try to figure out a solution before Itty Bitty gets here. I made little tags that attach - they're about 3 inches square, and will hopefully prevent the disastrous rolling as well as making the semi-translucent binkies easier to find!

So, here's my stash. We'll have leashes for the car seats and a couple extras. When they get grubby, they can go in a lingerie bag in the washer. What's not to like?

The Toy Baskets

2012-04-18T07:35:00.000-07:00

If you have small children in the house I’m sure you know of the Toy Bunny phenomenon. You start out with a few toys in a living room, or play room. You turn the lights out and go to bed and they seem to multiply like, well, bunnies.

Toys filled a corner of the living room and often threatened to take over the entire room. When I told my three-year-old to put her toys away, they just got piled back in the corner with minimal organization since they really didn’t have a place where they belonged. Toys were brought out to play at random. I needed to be able to tell G-girl to put her toys away and have her know where away was. I also wanted a limit on how many toys came out at once so they had less of a chance to take over a room. Oh, and I wanted to do it for about $20.

I racked my brain trying to figure out the best way to rectify the Toy Bunny chaos in my living room and started looking around my house. I landed on some baskets that I had picked up at our local dollar store and an idea started forming. Then the next time I was in my DollarTree, I picked up ten basic black plastic baskets.

Then I began sorting. I put toys in categories and started filling the baskets. G-Girl has some baskets specific for her things that are kept on a higher shelf: toys that are small, or have small parts. Other toys that don’t pose a hazard to younger children I baby-sit or own Itty Bitty down the road, are on lower shelves for easy access by all.

Then I took each basket and dumped its contents on the floor (stay with me here – I’m really not nuts). I arranged the items quickly and shot a picture. Then out came the cardstock and a stash of scrapbook letters that I’ve had on a shelf, nearly untouched for –oh, about three years! I got to work. I set G-Girl to work with scissors, paper and glue-stick to make her own "po-jet" (project). I printed out my photos, cut the cardstock to fit the fronts of the basket and heated up my laminator. I laminated the cards, and punched holes in the corner so they would tie easily to the baskets. The finished product was basket labels that have a photo of what goes in the basket, as well as a word description.

There are a number of points to this solution that make it work so well. When the basket is full, if something new comes home, it’s time to pass a toy along to someone else. There is a picture to show what goes in the basket to make clean up easy and G-Girl can match the toys to the photo. Now that the toys live in the nearly finished Green Room, a basket of toys can be brought out to be played with, but when play is done, everything gets cleaned up, back in the basket and back on the shelf before the next basket can come off the shelf which limits toy explosions all over the living room!

I am not claiming this as an original idea. I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere before but I finally implemented it and it works for me!

Sunday Sunshine

2012-04-15T05:34:00.000-07:00

"Take A Picture of Me? Cheese!"

Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week and practicing gratitude through giving.

Last weekend, after morning worship, we had a great Easter celebration with friends: fantastic food, lots of laughter, card games and of course egg hunts.

This week brought the lab work and doctors appointment that come with being 30 weeks pregnant. After every appointment, I'm so thankful to have a doctor I like and that I have access to great medical facilities.

Play dates, lunch with friends, and deals on baby gear, were also highlights of this week. On Wednesday, I got some kitchen creativity time and made homemade croissants that turned out perfect! Spring break and friends' vacations meant that G-Girl got to go play with friends and I got some breaks this week. I love that we have friends in our life that G-Girl loves to spend time with and literally runs from the car when we drop her off, or to their cars if they pick her up.

A routine filling of our car's tires this week caught a damaged tire before we had a blow-out and that the money was in the savings account to get the car fixed!

So many things to be thankful for, and so often I miss them. I hope we can all seek out the things to be thankful for this week!

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

Easter Sunday Sunshine

2012-04-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

The Easter Egg Inspector

Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week and practicing gratitude through giving.

This was a relatively peaceful week. HandyMan was out of town for two nights for work, and I had myself prepared for the craziest, and, thankfully, it didn't happen. We had play dates, time with friends, and adventures in egg dying. G-Girl is having a lot of fun checking on and watering her flower seeds we planted on Thursday. It's so much fun to watch her explore the world around us.

I made some changes this week, and found my missing energy. Well some of it anyway! It's been nice to not feel like I'm dragging myself to get anything done.

Now that I'm a grown up, birthday money gets put towards grown up things, like appliances! On Friday the new dishwasher came and HandyMan worked to do the finish work and get it installed.

Itty Bitty is growing and moving. Some days my due date (June 20) seems so close, and other days it seem so far away. Either way, I'm sure Itty Bitty's arrival will be here before we know it!

On this Easter Sunday, I'm thankful for the peace that comes through faith and the joy we have in the hope of Christ. May you find peace and joy this week. Take a moment to look at the signs of spring around you and celebrate life!

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

Dyed Egg-Shell Seed Starters

2012-04-05T14:09:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I saw this idea for re-purposing egg shells and containers for seed starters. G-Girl is three and old enough to get the hang of plants growing and all that jazz. So I saved our egg shells this week. Then, because dying eggs is fun, I decided we'd dye the shells for the planters while we were dying our Easter eggs. I pulled out four packets of flower seeds that have been sitting in my gardening bin for too long and we gave them new homes.

We found that a baby-spoon was the perfect size for little hands to fill the eggs with soil:

Then, the my Favorite Helper/BabySitter would put the seeds in. When G-Girls attention span waned, I used a teaspoon to fill them up a little faster and then G-Girl topped them off once the seeds were in. Since watering needed to be done at a slow pace since we were working with such a little space, a sippy-cup without a valve was the perfect tool:

As you can tell, I have a very serious gardener in the making!

Sunday - Rainy Day - Sunshine

2012-04-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week and practicing gratitude through giving.

Sitting at home, on a rainy afternoon, and I am thankful. Here are just a few things that have highlighted this past week

.: MOPs mornings out
.: Childrens' play museums
.: Sunday afternoon naps
.: Birthday outings
.: Play-dates with friends
.: Daffodils that make it through frost and ice.
.: Projects finished (did you see the Green Room?)
.: Pandora. Now that I have easy access to decent speakers and music (aka: TV moved to the Green Room) I've been playing music regularly. I've realized how much I've missed having music around.
.: Waking rested.

It has been a full, great week. I hope your week went well and you can look forward to the coming week with anticipation of good things.

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

Ta- DA! Finished Green Room

2012-03-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

So if you also follow our family blog, this is kind of a repeat-except from my perspective. Since most of you don't - enjoy! You'll remember the "before shots" from a few weeks back as this project was in progress.

Here are the "after shots". I still need to get some things up on the walls - photos and such, but small details in scheme of the project! De-junking was by far the largest part of this project for me and there are still a couple boxes stashed in corners that I have to finish going through. HandyMan did a fabulous job on the flooring and it is such an improvement over the previous floor covering: industrial carpet that was glued to the slab that is the foundation of our house!

So the freezer has a new corner and we added shelving above it for large kitchen items, canning jars, and extra pantry space. The DVD player and Roku will eventually go on a small shelf under the TV. The table also doubles as work space for kid crafts, my sewing or just setting up a laptop.

The quick-project pockets and the utility shelves are now on the wall where the freezer was and organized so that toys and supplies can be easily found. A coat of paint to the mounted shelves leave a more finished look than what I started with before.

Comfy place to watch TV from and my cabinet of sewing stuff in the corner, finish out the room.

Short of the flooring which was budgeted as part of a larger home improvement project, I cleaned this room up for about $75 and used a lot of things we already had on hand. Here's a rough breakdown:
$10 - Toy Baskets (more about these later!)
$30 - Gallon of paint for the walls
$15 - Shelving brackets
$7 - 3M Command Strips and hooks to hang stuff
$13 - Curtains (there's another story here too that I may get to later)

Items we had on hand that I used included white and dark green paint used for shelves, polycrylic that I used on the shelves and white utility shelves.

I'm so excited to have this project actually finished (for the most part) and to have (another) comfortable place to hang out in our house. We like to have multi-purpose space in the house and while this will mostly serve as a play room and tv room, it will also convert easily into guest space in the event of large gatherings. We simply break down the table and pull out the air mattress. While we had done that in this room before, it is now a much prettier guest space!

Monday Sunshine: Independent Play & Finsihed Projects

2012-03-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week and practicing gratitude through giving.

The weekend got away from me and now it's Monday. It was filled with visiting with friends, cooking for lots of hungry teenagers, and a Sunday afternoon nap.

We also finished the Catch-All-Room, now known as the Green Room. I can't wait to post the "finished" photos!

G-Girl has moved towards more independent play time in the mornings which gives me a little bit of extra work time and "wake-up" time.

Last week was fully spring: warm weather, flowers blooming and gorgeous days. While today is a lot colder and we've got temperatures back down where they really are supposed to be for March, all the reminders that fairer weather is coming are still out in the yard: daffodils, crocuses and buds on the trees.

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

KitchenAid Shredded Chicken

2012-03-23T12:21:00.001-07:00

I have had my KitchenAid mixer for 5 and a half years. It never ceases to amaze me the things that this puppy can do. If you are contemplating the investment and you like to cook: it's worth every penny!

So in flying by comments on a blog-post somewhere in my recent memory, I saw someone mention that you could use your KitchenAid to shred cooked chicken. No WAY! I filed it somewhere in my brain and the thought surfaced again today.

Sometimes I buy a full 40 pound case of boneless/skinless chicken breasts when a local restaurant supply has it on sale. A friend of mine called and investigated their "regular" price this week and found out it wasn't that much more than when it's on sale. I had just used the last of my chicken, so I asked if she was willing to split a case. She was game so I gave her some money and promptly forgot about it.

This morning we were in the middle of Domino Projects since Fridays are HandyMan's day off. The dog goes nuts and up to the door walks my friend with 20 pounds of chicken. Oh yeah. So I quickly package about 12 pounds of it up for the freezer and I remembered the shredded chicken trick I had read. I threw the remaining chicken in my crock pot to cook it:

Five hours later, I chopped each breast into three or four pieces and threw it in my mixer bowl:

Mixer on low, three minutes later, shredded chicken:

Oh yeah! It was that easy. I ended up with 8- 2.5 cup containers of shredded chicken in the freezer for tacos, chicken salad, or whatever random meal I need it for in the coming months. I'm so glad that my mommy-brain held on to this little tid-bit of information!

The Domino Projects: The Catch All Room Deconstruction

2012-03-22T05:57:00.000-07:00

So the Domino Projects are under way. They are all centered around areas in our home that we have identified as areas that need work and are mostly centered around our Catch-All room. While I didn't get any "true" before photos. These photos were taken after a 2 trash bags of garbage and recycling had been removed from the room as well as a pile of broken down cardboard. I love how it's turning out now that the work is underway and I know that I will have some awesome after photos pretty soon.

In this first picture, the wall that's clear, has been cleared of two shelves and a pile worth of stuff. You can also see the beginning of the new paint color for the room:

Here you see my "quick grab keep G-Girl busy project pockets", more [unfinished] shelves of stuff that needs to be sorted, the black blinds who's days are numbered and just piles of junk! Oh, and if you look close, you can see the industrial quality carpet that is glued directly to the slab of our house. It's really warm in February, let me tell you! (Keeping it real, folks.)

More piles. The cabinets were once the center of operations for my candles but that has since moved to a smaller corner of the house and these cabinets will be removed and re-purposed in our bathrooms.

So there it is, in all it's messiness. The Catch-All, Junk Room will soon be an inviting family space.

Sunday Sunshine: Summer Toes

2012-03-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week and practicing gratitude through giving.

So, my last Sunday Sunshine was definitely the case of trying to find the good in a rather difficult week. Let's be honest here, we all have them. But that's why I love my Sunday Sunshine practice: it forces me to focus on the good going on and not get caught up and dwell on all the things that are driving me nuts! This is the Stuff by Francesca Battistelli has been a fun- rolling around in my head-top of the Pandora list-theme song for the last few weeks and while everyone's "stuff" is different it's been a good reminder.

It's been easier to find the good in the last couple of weeks. Highlights have included moms' night out (aka book club), a great MOPs morning. It was the "pamper yourself" day. I left with pretty toes for summer with the help of a friend when getting to my left foot proved a bit more challenging than I had planned on thanks to Itty Bitty positioned just right on a nerve in my hip.

Itty Bitty (aka- baby due in June) continues to grow and develop healthily and I am so thankful to have a doctor who I actually enjoy going in to see.

To go with the pretty summer toes we have also had great spring weather to bust out the sandals, enjoyable play time outside, walks on the field, laundry dried on the clothes line. This is by far my most favorite time of year.

I'm thankful that the Domino Projects are moving along nicely and that I have had some time to write to go along with all the work we've done. I love the finished products as they come about and am enjoying our home even more.

The sun is out, the sky is blue. What's not to like?

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light.” (James 1:16 -The Message) May the light of the Father brighten your week!

The Domino Projects: Identifying the Problem Areas

2012-03-01T05:00:00.000-08:00

The Domino Projects started by identifying an area we wanted to improve in our home: a larger eat-in kitchen area. Once that was resolved and the flooring was installed in the kitchen it was time to finish the flooring project. We purchased enough flooring to install it in a bedroom off the kitchen that has been a catch all area for the last 5 years. It was time to look at the Catch All Room.

In order to put the flooring into the Catch-All Room, everything needs to come out. It was really a blessing in disguise that everything has to come out. It has forced me to re-think the space, under the influence of pregnancy nesting hormones, and I really thought about what I wanted to go back into the space and how we want to use the space in the coming months and years. I thought about other problem areas in the house and how they may be resolved. And the dominoes started falling.

Here's the list of 10 areas that we came up with. Some solutions will be big projects, and some small but all lined up in the Domino Projects list, in no particular order:

Need to put flooring in the Catch-All room.
My candle stuff taking up more space in the house and less time being devoted to the business.
Toy chaos in the living room.
The clothing hampers lived behind the bathroom door and you couldn't open the door the whole way. This really bothered GTot!
Makeshift storage in the downstairs bathroom, looks makeshift, not finished, and is not well utilized. (and needs to be cleaned out!)
Large kitchen items and canning jars and supplies that don't have good storage spaces.
A Catch-All room that has been catching all kinds of junk for five years and needs some serious reorganization and de-junking!
After I spent some time in the Catch-All Room working on #6, I realized that the walls looked awful - dingy and dirty and like they may never have been painted, just primed. Or maybe just flat white 17 years ago. Blech!
Current guest room space needs to be converted over to kid's room space.
New guest room space needs to be re-established so that we can easily host grandparents, family and friends!

Introducing The Domino Projects

2012-02-28T05:00:00.000-08:00

Have you ever started a quick project only to have it domino into a much bigger line of projects than you had planned? We are in the middle of such a line of projects.

We are blessed to have a house that is more than enough house for two adults and one (soon to be two) small children. But the designer (and I use that term loosely) of our house made some floor plan decisions that I would not have made had I been around when the house was built. But I wasn't here so we're modifying as we go and we seem to be constantly working to make the space work for us.

Rewind to Spring 2011. Our house was perfect for our little family of three. We could all sit at the counter in the kitchen for meals in the cold seasons and usually ate out on the screened in porch as soon as it was warm enough. We have plenty of room in bedrooms and all was good. Then we started talking about expanding our family. Family dinners are important to us and if our family grew, we would no longer fit around the counter. So we started exploring our options for expanding an eat-in kitchen area.

We knew the job was more than we wanted to do ourselves so last spring we accessed some inheritance funds and hired a contractor to do the work while we were away (best choice we could have made!) So this little project was the start of the Domino Projects. We only had the contractors do the basic work and we did the finish work. I painted and then we began preparing for flooring. While we saved up, HandyMan worked to put leveling strips out to prepare for flooring (using wood pieces he had around in the garage) and we started saving. We thought putting the flooring would be the finish of the project. Little did I realize it was the beginning of the Domino Projects.

The Domino Projects are a series of projects that are in my head to maximize the space we have in our home to create the best storage and inviting floor space. I'm working to utilize what we have in the house already and spend as little as possible. I am so excited to see how it all turns out so follow along, get ideas and make the most of your space.