New recipe

I don't like to cook. When I try a new recipe, it usually fails. However, once in a while, I score!

I tried a new recipe last week and SCORED! K girl even ate some. So I will share what I made. I saw a recipe in Taste of Home's Quick Cooking and adapted it to us (that's an even bigger deal for me; that's usually how I mess up a new recipe)

So here is how I made it.
Chicken with Onion Gravy
1 pkg chicken tenders (Tyson all cut up and ready to go)
1 pkg onion soup mix (the dry kind)
1 can chicken broth
16 ounces 1/2 and 1/2
flour, garlic salt, and cracked black pepper
EVOO

In a gallon ziplock bag, mix flour (enough for the amount of chicken that you have), garlic salt and pepper (to your taste). Place chicken in bag and coat.

In a large pan, heat EVOO. Cook chicken in pan just long enough to start getting brown (they won't be cooked the entire way through). Remove chicken from pan.

In the bottom of the same pan, carefully pour in the broth. Whisk all the bits up off the bottom of the pan. Pour in soup; mix well. Slowly pour in 1/2 and 1/2. Once it is all combined, add chicken back to the pan. Stir often. Cook until chicken is cooked through.

I served this with mashed tatoes (pre-made Bob Evans brand) and Sis Shubert rolls (YUMMY huh sissy?). K loved the mashed tatoes! She helped "make" them and ate 2 helpings. I figured out that if she helps, she's more willing to eat it. The gravy that the chicken cooked in was wonderful over the tatoes. The only thing--the house smelled like onions for a long time afterwards!

Indianapolis Indians game

The Indianapolis Indians are a AAA baseball team. Every year our church gets free tickets to go see a game. It's nice to go to this game, cuz most people in our section are from our church. K and I didn't go last year because it was so HOT. This year, it was beautiful! We actually took jackets for the kids. Another bonus, Monday nights are $1 menu nights. So we ate dinner at the ball park.

We had a really nice time. The kids were good (extra nice since Monday was HORRIBLE w/ K girl-HORRIBLE), the weather was beautiful, the Indians won, and we got to just sit and talk with church people.

We took Stanley with us (I remembered poor Stanley). So here are some pictures of our night.

As we were walking to the stadium, we saw the outside of the massive Lucas Oil Stadium where the Colts play.I know it's hard to see, but the Indians won 5 to 1.

Breakfast

We had cookies for breakfast this morning. Aren't I an awesome mom?

Our weekend

Here is just a quick re-cap of what we did last weekend. (Just as much for my memory as for your interest)

Saturday morning we had to go to church. We are trying to make a Christmas CD to sell to raise money for Dei Gratia. Daddy got elected to do all the taping. We are taping groups, solos, instruments, etc. of people in our church. We are hoping that our church family will be interested enough to buy them. Anyways. We only had a piano solo to tape Saturday morning and they were done in 30 minutes. Very nice.

We then went home and got a lot done around the house. Daddy mowed grass and weed eated. We all helped to stain another section of fence (only 11 sections left!), pulled weeds in the front, swept, baths, PlayStation, and then I cleaned up all the grass that got tracked in all day. Later that night, we went to some friends house and she asked what we had done that day. By the time we stopped listing everything, she said "wow you did get a lot done."

Saturday night there was a night NASCAR race. We went to some friends house for the guys to watch the race and the girls to sit and talk. The kids always enjoy going cuz they get to play outside on their big driveway. We took their bikes and they had a great time. She always fixes dinner and monitors the kids for us. It's always a lot of fun. But it was another late night.

Night out

Last Friday night, Daddy and I got to go out. For no specific reason. Aaaah. How nice! We went to Weber Grill. I love that place. They have awesome meatloaf and cornbread and pretzel rolls and garlic smashed tatoes and..... I could go on. I love their food!

After we ate, we walked around the mall downtown. And then came back closer to home and went to Target. I found 2 new pairs of shorts for our Disney trip and we found just a few other things. It was a wonderful night, with no kids!

M and Green socks watched the kids for us. We ordered them pizza for dinner and then Mr. D and Miss J brought the kids some ice cream. (We game them a hard time later "you came to our house for a party when we weren't there!") The kids were so excited about the ice cream. They thought they were hot stuff cuz "they had ice cream and mommy and daddy didn't."

M & GS put the kids to bed around 10 or so. Of course, they don't know our "routine" for bed and so my kids were so confused. I guess M latched K's door and it freaked K out. "I don't want to be locked in." So C explained that the metal (latch on the door) touches the metal (latch on the door jam). Oh dear. And I usually hum Brahms Lullaby to my kids before bed. So K asked M to sing to her and tried to explain which song M was to sing. Since M had no clue, she sang Jesus Loves Me. That was quite the story from K once we got home. I think my kids are just a LITTLE routine oriented at bed time. We got home about 15 minutes later and were able to right all the wrongs in the world--or so you would think.

I think everyone had fun and I know it was wonderful to spend time with just my wonderful hubby!

2009 Indiana State Fair

Monday we went to the state fair. It was another hot day. Very hot. But we all had a good time, the kids were good, they had fun, we ate good food, and the kids got to ride rides. What more could you ask?

We got there around 10 am. We had some friends give us tickets so we didn't have to pay to get in. What a blessing! We didn't end up leaving until 5:15. K was asleep within 3 minutes of us leaving. It was a long day.

The 2 things that the kids wanted to do and talked about ALL DAY was put-put and rides. Which we didn't do until the end of the day. So we heard about it A LOT.

We looked at cows, sheep, horses, and pigs. We walked through a space exhibit. We visited an old "tyme" soda shop. We walked through a DNA exhibit. We saw a sand castle and a cheese sculpture. We ate cheesy beefstick, pizza (kids choice), milk shakes, funnel cake (it was burnt this year), and corn on the cob (only me!). And finally we played put put (K girl has no clue and C kept making up what par the hole was) and rode rides. We spend $30 on rides and they only got to ride 4. That's crazy! I can't wait til Disney when all the rides are "free."

So here is our day in pictures.

This is the entrance to the space exhibit.

This was an awesome sand "castle." Amazing.

And this is my kiddies being chickens in the "egg" chair.

This sculpture was made almost entirely out of cheese!Daddy was just amazed at this pig. It's the world's largest boar and we have never seen it standing! We each picked out something from the South Bend Chocolate company. The kids got covered Oreos, I got twice covered peanuts and Daddy got peanut butter covered malt balls.

This is K's attempt at taking pictures. Still working on that photography class for her.C actually took this picture. I think he did pretty good. There were some other really good ones while we were taking a break, but I won't post them for fear of boring you.Anyone want a combine? It's only $395,000! And that's not including the attachment on the front. It was HUGE!Here are my kids pretending to be the corn that's getting cut down. Crazy kids.
Finally playing put-put. K wasn't so good at it.

C was only a little better. At least he knew which side of the club was supposed to hit the ball.These were some crazy goats. You could pay 25 cents (we did;suckers!) to get food to feed them. See the dispenser in the bottom left? The crazy goats would see you put the money in and try to lick the food right out of the dispenser! We kept having to push them out of the way just to get the food out.K loved all the animals. She is such an animal person. We need a dog.The kids loved this "ride." It' really high and they go fast. I rode it last year; it is kinda fun.

And the bee ride. They actually went by themselves. And at the end of a long, hot day we rode the tractor one lap around the fair. What a good day!

FBC won!

Daddy finally had his softball tourney this past Saturday. After being rescheduled two other times. And let me tell you, it.was.hot! Daddy played 5 games total. The kids and I ended up going home and missing most of the games. I think we watched 2.

His first game was at 8 am which meant he had to be there at 7:15. No way I was going that early. After that game he came home and got us and we watched one game. Then we went to get lunch. While we were gone, they won a game by forfeit. Then we watched another game. After that game, the kids and I went home for nap time.

Daddy made it all the way to the championship game. They actually played our other church team. So our church came in 1st and 2nd. Daddy was actually on the 2nd place team.

After it was all over, we went out to dinner.

Actually the entire weekend was HOT! But the next hot day will be saved for another post.

Stanley has left the building!

Stanley is off to many adventures today. Six to be exact. Plus I have 3 more Stanley's floating around out there somewhere. (Does it "negate" his travels if he is in 9 places at once?)

Here are all Stanley's "clones." Kinda disturbing.

So those of you who are waiting on a flat houseguest, he is on his way!

SPOILER!!!

Beware! Pictures to follow!

I took K to get her 3 year pictures today (a little late, I know). I tried a new place this time called Portrait Innovations. I think they are somewhat nationwide. I was pretty impressed. I like the fact that they don't charge a sitting fee. Since my JCP portrait membership expired, I would have to pay $9.95 per person! Not so much a big deal this time; but I plan on getting family pictures soon. OUCH! Anyways. You also get your pictures back w/in 20 minutes.

K is my ham, my funny girl, my photogenic one. I expected her to blossom in front of the camera. She did not--at first. She was somewhat stiff and wouldn't smile. Not like her. Finally after a little coaxing she came out of her shell. Her last shots were her spinning around in circles and acting like the K I had expected. The one thing I DON'T like about them--you only get to pick one pose, unless you plan on spending $758!!! Seriously??? Who does that? They do have a great deal though on the one pose. For $10 I got: 10x13, two 8x10, four 5x7, four 3x5, 32 wallets, and 6 greeting cards/envelopes! Not bad! Now I did pay extra for a sepia tone 8x10 and that's where they get you! I think that was like $25. But I have really nice shelf above my computer desk w/ each of the kids pix in sepia in classy black frames. And K's seriously needed updated.

So here is a scanned copy of K's 3 year picture. Just remember, it is a scanned copy. The original is so much better.

Family: BEWARE! If you don't want to see this until you get yours in the mail--STOP READING NOW!

BTW: I didn't scan the sepia one. I didn't think it would turn out very well.

Two Years in a Row!

So this is the second year in a row that I"ve had a summer cold or the summer flu. This year it is the flu; and it is no fun! Friday afternoon I hit a wall and never re-bounded. Saturday and Sunday were really bad. Sunday morning, C woke up crying because he had a headache. I think he ended up with a touch of it. He is still dragging today but seems much better. I feel almost all better today. Just a touch of a headache and scratchy throat. Hopefully tomorrow I will be 100% better. I have too much to do to be sick! (Momma: and you thought your laundry was bad!)

So Sunday we did not make it to church. But we did make it to lunch. My cousin's husband was driving through on his way to Chicago for a job. He stopped in Indy to see us for lunch. It was a good time! We went to Grindstone Charlie's. We had never been there before. I was very impressed. It was nice to see him; we hadn't seen him since C was a baby. After lunch, he visited the Indianapolis Speedway. After lunch, we went home and all crashed.

I had thought to bring Stanley to lunch, but totally forgot. Poor Stanley. I need to "send" him to school with C soon. And he had been begging to visit friends. Hopefully soon I will send him out on some adventures. Keep on the lookout for a flat guy! He may show up at your house!

Busy Thursday

So Thursday was the day that I had a total of 6 kids: my 2+2 brothers+2 (bro/sis)=6. Thankfully the weather was beautiful, so we spent most of the morning outside.

Two got to my house around 7:15 and the others around 8 am. After we ate breakfast (Monkey bread), we went outside. C and I had had a conversation the night before regarding which toys would be "safe" to take outside--in regards to the kids that were coming. We didn't think bats were a good idea. I was just picturing the severe beating of a child. We had some super balls, kickballs, dirt digging tools, basketball, bubbles, and chalk.

Everything was going really well: not much fighting, playing together, not too hot out, good kids---then I looked at the clock. It was only 9am! I thought the day would fly with all those kids! I think it really crawled, but not necessarily cuz they were bad. I'm not sure why. Everyone was relatively good. Only minor issues.

Here is their artwork on the patio. They were trying to sell it with not much success.

Then they moved onto the small patch of dirt. All 6 tried to dig/play at once. I'm not sure what they were making there.
Here is a group picture. They all piled on top of each other.

Lunch was my standard fare when I'm babysitting: hot dogs. Then they all got cleaned up. Each got in the shower and stood under the water while counting to 100. I just wanted the dirt and sweat off before they sat on my couch. The boys went first while the girls stood and cried in chorus (still not sure why). It was quite comical. Ater the girls were clean, the girls went to naps and the boys watched cartoons.

Southwestern Chicken Salad

A few weeks ago we went to O'Charley's for dinner and I had a southwestern chicken salad. It was HUGE! and very good! So last week I decided to try to re-create it for dinner--for Daddy and I anyway (the kids had popcorn chicken and mac & cheese). It was actually really easy to make and was very good. I did take a lot of help from the store (as Rachel Ray says). I would say it was really healthy too. So here is my very own recipe.

*1 bag of salad (I chose romaine, purple cabbage, and carrots)
*2 chicken breasts (we had some leftover from grilling out; that would be the best tasting option), cut into thin strips
*Taco blend shredded cheese (amount would be your preference)
*chopped onion, red pepper, green pepper (again, according to your preference; Daddy didn't do the onion and I was very light on the peppers) I found in Wal Mart's produce section, these "pre-made" salad kits. These peppers were already diced (which was more economical for me then buying 2 whole peppers) which was really nice.
*Corn--I bought one ear of corn and "grilled" it on my George Forman. Next time I would like to grill it on the grill and would probably get more than one ear. I lightly sprayed it with cooking spray and sprinkled it with taco seasoning.
*I also added chopped tomaotes (could use cherry ones) and sliced mushrooms--not so for Daddy.
*1 can black beans, rinsed well (we had a lot of beans leftover, but I don't know if I could have bought any smaller can)
*chipotle Ranch dressing-we made this ourselves. I looked at W-M for a bottle of it and didn't find anything that was close to what we wanted. We just mixed some Ranch dressing and some Chipotle sauce (made by Tabisco) and viola' our own dressing.
*tortilla strips: this was my favorite part of making this salad! Again, I looked for these at W-M and couldn't find them. So I made my own. I bought corn tortillas and cut them into very thin strips with a pizza cutter. I then put them on a sprayed cookie sheet, sprayed them with cooking spray and sprinkled them with Taco seasoning. Then I baked them at 500 degrees until they started to brown. For just a few seconds I put them under broil (I wish I would've done that longer). They were very yummy! The kids and I snacked on them all morning. They were the prefect topper to the salad.

So there you have it. My very own recipe. It was good. I had fun making it. It was mostly healthy. And we will have it again!

School Is In Session!

C started school Tuesday--well actually Monday--kinda. OK. Long story short.

Late Monday afternoon I got a phone call asking if I could babysit 2 kiddies from church (their names are the names of the 2 main characters from Star Wars--no kidding. And at one time they had a black great dane named Vader. Seriously.) Anyways. They weren't going to be "delivered" to my house until 10:15, so I thought C would still be able to finish school for the day. Usually the first week of school is MUCH shorter than normal. But just in case, he did 2 subjects Monday afternoon and then finished his day Tuesday before they got here.

I am also babysitting on Thursday--4 extras for a total of 6 kids! Call me crazy! But remember, I have been praying for some money. God's just making me work for it (I tried to win the lottery; but no luck. JK!) And I have a possibility of a semi-steady babysitting "gig" starting end of August. Hopefully that will come to pass. It will be nice to have that "steady" income again. Especially right before Disney World.

So C will actually only have 3 days of school this week. But that's the benefits of homeschooling, right? Since his first day was split and since it was much shorter, I don't think it seemed like real school. At least to me anyways. I'm sure he thinks different.

K girl is wanting to start school this year too. But in her mind, school is watching it on TV. So I think I am going to have her watch C's Bible class and then she and I will do some papers, crafts, etc. It's hard to believe that she will be doing K4 next year!

So that is how our first week of school will be defined. At least I do NOT have a beginning of the year surprise like Momma! Love to her! And BIG CONGRATS! No, mother-in-law---not interested!

Space Balls

We finally got the kids bike helmets. I know, I know; safety is important. But I think they look kinda silly--but don't tell them that. I never grew up wearing them and I'm OK (I think). Oh well. They think they are cool; I guess that's all that matters.

So here are the kids in their helmets. (Daddy says they look like Space Balls; BTW he loves that movie--right dear?!)

She matches so well, doesn't she?

Now Daddy's trying to be a space ball. Silly Daddy!

Organization

I have been trying to get many different things organized. And in the process, I have made some messes!

I have been trying to figure out how/where/etc. we are going to do school since the TV in our room died. I rearranged some stuff in C's room and I think it will work. He has a desk in there (our old computer desk) that he usually plays Legos on. I'm going to have him do school there. Eventually next year when K does DVD school, she will be in our room in front of the TV. So C would have to move to his room anyway. This way, we can get all the "bugs" worked out this year. I am going to have Daddy hang a bulletin board over the desk for me to tack stuff up that he might need to see, i.e. his Cursive Writing cards. Right now I kinda decorated it for school (thanks Momma!).

Every morning I will have to take our laptop in there and set it up. I'll also have to take in all the school stuff that he'll need (pencils, scissors, crayons, papers, etc) I don't trust K enough to leave it all in there. She'd get into it somehow and do something with it--not good I'm sure. But I have a basket that I can pile all that in and just have to carry that over to his room. I am very jealous of a separate school room (Handy Family!) Maybe I'll just stop doing laundry (any other takers?) and turn our laundry room into a school room. If we were to ever move, I would LOVE a separate room. But for now, this is our plan.

Anyways. On to the organizing part of this post. I am also trying to organize the school stuff that is in my room. I have a pile of stuff that I am planning on working with K this year. Pre-school type stuff. She's excited about that. Plus all my scrapbook stuff is a MESS! I've also been trying to organize all my pictures on my laptop. I vowed to keep up with them when we got this new laptop, and well, let's just say, it's getting there. Plus we are still staining the fence and staining the boards for the swing set. So the garage is full of boards all laid out to dry and staining paraphernalia is out there in the midst of it all.

Throughout all of this, I have discovered that it would very nice to have a lot of money to spend on coopy holes (that's what I call all kinds of organization type containers--any and all get called that). But alas, I don't have that kind of money. So it all stays unorganized.

When everything is finally done, I'll be sure to let you know. We'll have a party. Since everything will be organized, I'll be able to find your address. Now, to find my youngest child. Where did I put her? Hmmm.........

The Bride to Be

The other day I was sorting through some tulle' that I've had since my wedding. We use tulle' for Dei Gratia and I wanted to see what I had--if we could use it. (We can)

In the midst of it all.......

........K wanted me to make her a dress. She wanted me to make her look like "that person, ya know with the white on her head, and a white dress." Oh you mean a Bride? "Yeah, her." So here is my creation. I made her shoes too. And I found my veil (just tulle' surged around the edges).

So here is the beautiful bride 30 YEARS TOO EARLY!