I hate titles.....

Happy Thursday.

Yesterday....

My to do list was much longer then my energy level. But I tried to muddle through and try and get some things accomplished.
 

( I don't think a whole day getting caught up on my new favorite show meet the midwives would be very wise....fun....but not wise )

So I made plans to carve pumpkins.

Which lead to roasting pumpkin seeds.

I made pizza dough for calzones. 

 

Let me rephrase that.... Attempted to make pizza dough for calzones. I accidentally left out a whole cup of water to the bread machine.... Needless to say... I still had a whole lot of flour mixed with a little bit of gobbly goo at the bottom.

Not very appetizing.
 

Thankfully Walmart carries Pillsbury pizza dough already made. ;) 

In all this chaos, I was still able to make an apple pie ( I attempted the lattice crust, it didn't work so well. ( Rabbit trail.... My crust hasn't been turning out so well lately. It's either to sticky or to dry... I try to fix it but it just gets worse)) and a pumpkin pie.
 

On a completely different subject..... Have you ever been just kinda blown away when you find out someone's true nature or when you find out how very fake and selfish they really are down to the very core? Right now I have a choice.... To by Christ like and try and respond in love and respect or......to..... To stuff the hurt down deep and pretend like I don't know or don't care.

I'm a stuffer by nature yah know. 

I pray I make the right choice. 

Bc really.... This life I live isn't about me. That's what I am learning.... It's about Christ in me. 

Our LoVe ChAiN

Last year we made our very first LoVe ChAiN. It was something that the kids remembered and couldn't wait to do it again this year.

Brother was sick today so I have been able to be home getting CAUGHT UP on housework! It is a neverending job.

I am glad to have this day. I got all my winter stuff down and put away. Which meant I was able to dust really well. YAH!! I think Brother thought I was having fun b/c he wanted to do it with me. :0......... I made him go lay down.

I worked on some laundry and now have about 4 loads to fold. I can hear my Mother now, laundry isn't that hard....all you do is wash, dry, fold, put away. It's just 4 steps. Just do it and it isn't that hard.

Much easier said then done I say.

Especially when carrying on a full time job.

Anyway.

I still want to make some sugar cookies with the kids. I just don't know if I have the energy for it today. We will have to wait and see.

I have dinner in the crock pot. Homemade chicken noodle soup. I have to thank Steph for this. She is the 1 who gave me the courage to make chicken noodle soup to begin with. And now it's a staple in our home.

I even made it for school yesterday.

I hope you are all having a good week.

Enjoy your family this week. Spend extra time with them showing them that you love them.

And don't forget your Hubby. Even he needs some extra time. ;) Make a memory tonight.

BTW, I can't wait for spring. I want to have pretty painted toes, and wear flip flops.

A painting

Brother was painting yesterday. He is quite the little artist. I was impressed that I could actually see what he was painting.

He said that the black was our sin, and the red was Jesus's blood washing our sins away. I think the middle thing is supposed to be God. It melted my heart. I told him I would put it on the fridge. He grinned from ear to ear and went on his merry way.

Fun with Peanut Butter and Bird Seed

Yesterday after school, we made peanut butter bird feeders. To do this, all you have to do is spread peanut butter on pine cones.

Then roll in bird seed. It is a little messy if you aren't right there watching what is going on.
Joy came over and wanted to make on also!
After they are all made, then hang in a tree. Enjoy!!

SuGar CooKies

I have neVer been a crafty person. In fact I have always ran the other way when people even talked about crafts. Just ask Tancy!! I think that has changed since I started working at school. I see how much the kids love doing art projects. I think before I honestly didn't want to be bothered with doing it. How selfish of me! I think of all the fun things I have missed doing with my kids because of my own selfish thoughts. Now that I know how much fun it cAn be, my goal is to really take the time and do FuN little projects with the kids. (Don't get me wrong though....I still don't like a huge mess!!) Like I said in my previous post, this week I am really showing my family how much I love them. And after learning that LoVe is spelled TiMe. I have really tried to give my family my time. In doing that last nights project was making sugar cookies. ( I will post the recipe below ) And let me tell you. The kids were SO excited about this! Dada couldn't wait to get home from school! Homework was done in record time. I had previously made the dough, so all we had to do was roll and cut out the cookies.
The other day at Target (which I LoVe that store BTW) I picked up some cute heart shaped cookie cutters. They had about 4 different sizes which I loved! The kids had fun picking their size cookies that they wanted!
The kids didn't want my help. They wanted to do everything by themselves. I did roll out the dough most of the way and then let them "finish" rolling it out and then they picked their cutters and had at it. Some of the cookies looked better then others. Some of Brothers were pretty mutilated but it was so worth it to see the look of pride in his eyes.
We got the first batch in the oven and were anxiously waiting for them to come out of the oven! Dada couldn't wait to ice them!
I think Brother was just interested in icing 1 of them.....just so he could eat it! After he ate 1, he quickly disappeared!
I felt bad for Dada, her sugar was high yesterday, so she wasn't even able to have 1. But she was a great sport about it, and was happy just to help ice them.
I do want to thank Joy. She came over to babysit last night so HuNny and I could go out for VaLenTineS DaY. Dada and her finished icing the last dozen or so cookies. And then she even helped clean up the kitchen!




Here's the recipe for the SuGar CooKies. I used my favorite recipe book The Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book

2/3 cup shortening
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
4 teaspoons milk
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Thoroughly cream shortening, sugar, and vanilla. Add egg; beat till light and fluffy. Stir in milk. Sift together dry ingredients; blend into creamed mixture. Divide dough in half. Chill 1 hour.

On lightly floured surface, roll half of dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Keep other half of dough chilled until ready to use. Cut into desired shape with cookie cutters. Bake on greased cookie sheet at 375 degrees about 6 to 8 minutes. Cool slightly, remove from pan. Makes 2 dozen



I also iced the cookies using a recipe I got from my best friends mom years ago. Her mom makes the most AmaZinG wedding cakes ever! And she used to work at this little amazing bakery where I grew up. Her name was Suzy, and she is a very dear lady to me. I don't think she knows how much she meant to me growing up. Erica and I would always want to go to each others house, but for one reason or the other I always ended up over at their house. Suzy AlWayS made me feel welcome and LoVed. Even when Erica and I would come up with quite the shenanigans ( and let me tell you, we had some doosys ) She was always KinD to me. Her home was a ReFugE to me especially when things in my life seemed so uncertain. I love her dearly. Anyway.....here is the recipe.

2 lbs powdered sugar
1 cup crisco
2 T butter
2/3 cup milk
1/2 t salt
2 t vanilla
Combine and beat for 10 min. This recipe makes a lot of icing. But it is worth it when you are making lots of cookies or cupcakes and you want lots of colors.

Edible Playdough

Tonight I decided to make edible play dough with the kids. I didn't know how it would turn out, but I thought we would try it. I will post the recipe for you, it is well worth it! The kids played for about an hour and a half! Here is Brother's car that he made! Although....Joy did mention how it looked more like a pile of poop then a car!
Dada loves her hearts! BTW, that was one of the things she wrote on her love chain!
Brother wanted me to put boobs on....it wasn't my idea.
But after I made myself, Brother wanted to make him. And yes, that is what you think it is between his legs.

Dada didn't want to make herself, but she wanted to make her name. She added raisins as "glitter."
Joy had come over for dinner, so she was enjoying seeing the play dough creations!!
While we all played......Hunny was stuck working. I really felt bad for him also! He has been working such long hours lately and tonight when he actually got home at a decent time we was stuck doing more plumbing! But I am so thankful that he is a plumber. He is still working at fixing the pipe. I guess there is a hole in the trap under the sink, what that means I don't really know, but what I do know is that there was water literally pouring out of the cabinet right when he was walking in the door! He has been there all evening trying to get this fixed! Thank you Hunny for your hard work!




Edible Play Dough

1 cup powdered milk
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup honey
raisins and nuts for decoration

I did double the recipe and that was enough for the 3 of us to play with.
I thought it was to sticky, so I kept pouring in more and more powdered milk. I probably poured in at least another 1/2 cup of the milk. So you will have to use your own discretion as to what consistency you want it.

ENJOY!!

Our love chain

I decided to make a love chain with the kids. They both love anything crafty, so they were totally up for it! In fact....I used this as my pawn to have an easy flowing night with the kids since Daddy was working late. They both quickly got a bath and ate dinner and then we started. They wrote down things that they loved and then we chained them all together. I just picked some of my favorites to show you. Since Brother is still learning to spell....he just wanted to draw pictures on some of his b/c he HAD to do it himself. He loves his Daddy so much. I love to see them together. Hunny is such a great dad.
Brother also loves to go to church. He is actually upset when he can't go. I loved seeing him draw this out!
Dada loves to be home. I think it's her favorite place. She complains when she has to go somewhere.
This one warms my heart. You always know that they love Mommy, but it does a person good to see it written down!
I think this in my favorite, because it really is one of the most important things. It is the thing that I am most thankful for, and the thing that I cherish the most!