A Taste of Thanksgiving

When I was pregnant for all of my children I craved many things from Bubble Gum ice-cream to pickles, blueberry donuts to anything pumpkin related.  If the hubs and I weren't walking to the local ice-cream shop to get said Bubble Gum ice-cream then I was sending him to fetch me some pumpkin pie on many evenings. I remember it not even being close to Thanksgiving and wanting a pumpkin pie all-the-time.  I had been gifted a Better Homes and Gardens subscription and recently remembered one pumpkin recipe I made frequently from this magazine.  This dessert is like eating a crust-less pumpkin pie, yum!  Since it is "that time of year"  I thought I'd share this favorite pumpkin recipe with you all.

Ingredients:
3 eggs slightly beaten
1-15oz can pumpkin
1 1/2 cups whipping cream
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup coarsely chopped pecans, toasted
1/4 cup maple syrup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl combine eggs, pumpkin, cream, brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and salt-mix well with a whisk.  Divide mixture among 8 custard cups (6 oz), place in a roasting pan and pour hot water around the cups to the depth of 1 inch.  Bake 45-55 minutes or until set.  Remove cups from water and cool on a wire rack.  In a small bowl combine chopped roasted pecans and maple syrup.  Spoon on top of warm custards.  Serve warm or chilled.

I am not a huge fan of maple syrup so I omit that part.  I like mine chilled but to each their own.  I top mine with whipped cream and add a few candied pecans.  Try this and I bet you will start making it every Thanksgiving season as well......or when you are pregnant.

Organization vs. Letting Go

I really love alphabetizing my books, my movies, my cds....well anything that is able to be alphabetized.  I also really love to look at beauty in my home.  With three kids, it isn't always easy to have something beautiful and it is definitely difficult to keep things alphabetized.  The other challenge as a mom who likes to decorate is that I may not always have the funds to change my decor as often as I'd like.  One thing I've learned as a mom is to pick my battles.  So here are three pictures to illustrate what this looks like in my home.

I alphabetize our movies.  It makes me feel accomplished to have this done and the kid movies are below on separate shelves and they usually are quite messy.  I've learned to let this go.

Speaking of letting go--this is a picture of my kids' books.  I will occasionally straighten them out, but 99% of the time this is what it looks like.  Does it make my eye twitch?  Yes it does, but I've learned to just look the other way.  It isn't a battle I'm willing to fight.

And finally, these are my books.  They aren't alphabetized but they are grouped by color which makes me smile.  I love the simple beauty of it.  Would I love to have a room lined with perfect bookshelves that are filled with books?  Yes.  But I am content with this...even if I am testing out paint colors to put on the back of the shelves :)

So what do you organize and what battles do you choose to not fight?  I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Kinetic Sand

If you haven't heard of Kinetic Sand, you are missing out.  I purchased some from Michaels after seeing it in the store and my kids loved it.  At my next visit, I purchased a few more for some unique birthday gifts.  It is great for sensory play and the best part is that it has a pretty easy clean up and it doesn't dry out. 

 

 

My son chooses this option a lot during our school time when I am trying to teach our daughter and he wants to sit at the table with us.  He can use his play doh tools to work with it and he likes to try and build 'castles'. 

 

My daughter really enjoys playing with Kinetic Sand too.  It comes in a 1.5 lb box and it goes a long way.  You can now even buy it in different colors! I purchased mine at Michaels and HERE is the link.  If you are looking for a fun gift for your kids or for a unique birthday gift, I would totally recommend checking kinetic sand out as an option. If it isn't on sale, make sure you get a 40% coupon to make it a great deal.

 

Have you used Kinetic Sand? If so, what do you think?

I Spy Bag

If you are anything like us we have quite the array of random tiny toys around our house. You know the ones that end up in the middle of the floor that you step on at night and shriek in pain. Recently a few were donated for a local moms group and I thought it might be fun to make a sensory type toy for a couple of the kids classes.  

As you all know I am not the sewing savvy girl on this blog.  So this is a no-sew version of this toy. Gather your materials.  I used 2 large plastic baggies, scissors, fun patterned duck tape, and rice. Put the toys/small objects in the bag and double bag it making sure the product label is on the back of the bags.  Fill with rice. I learned my lesson, you don't want to fill with too much rice or there isn't enough room for the child to move the toys around and really search for them.  The next bag I will cut back on the rice. Then I cut the duck tape to wrap around the bag leaving a window to view and search.  Seems durable and can wipe clean which is a plus.

Parker is testing it out for me, unfortunately it did not keep his attention long probably due to the fact he was engaged in a Curious George episode.

I think these would be great for a road trip or a quiet activity while kids wait for food at a restaurant.

Leaf Prints

Leaves are starting to fall and my daughter has collected practically every single fallen leaf (and acorn, and pinecone and sticks) in town.  She enjoys playing with them outside (yay for free and easy entertainment!)  and often calls me outside to check out her latest creation.

She brought a dozen or so inside last week, and carefully pressed them in our biggest books because she wanted to paint with them, because that is what we do every fall.  However, this fall all of our paints are packed away, so I had to come up with a different way to make leaf prints.

Now, this project is super complicated, so pay close attention.
  

Step 1: Color the pressed leaf with a marker.

Step 2: Flip the leaf over and press it on the paper.

And you are done.  This is super simple, yet oddly satisfying because you can still see the veins on the leaf prints.  Not much to clean up afterwards either, which is always good.

So, if you are looking for a simple quick craft to do on a rainy afternoon try out this easy leaf print!

A Pallet Bed in the Making: Part 1

I have started on my boys' room makeover.  I decided to work on their room for a few reasons--I'm tired of the stripes that are in there right now, the closet doors keep falling off the tracks and are driving me batty, and it is time Alex was out of his toddler bed.

I initially thought I'd get them bunk beds but after shopping around, the only affordable option for us at this time was Ikea.  Normally that's a good thing :)  But we don't really have the time to go to Ikea right now and when a friend said that her husband has pallets at work for free, the wheels in my head started turning.

I searched pinterest for a few days and was inspired by a lot of pictures but kept coming back to this one via the budget decorator:

I really loved the simplicity and the rustic vibe.  I thought it would fit well in my boys' room.  I knew for them I would like their beds up off of the floor.  I ran across this picture via mrs fancy pants:

I really liked the industrial look of the pipe legs with the rustic wood.  My next step was to go to Lowes and get material.  I took my dad along to help me pick everything out and he's also good at brainstorming with me.  I'm glad he was there because I soon came to realize that the pipe materials I needed were going to cost $160 for two beds.  Um.  No thank you.

So we decided to improvise with PVC pipe and I'm going to spray paint them with metallic paint.  He helped glue the pipe together and attach them to 2x4's that will be the base structure of the bed.  Here is where we're at so far:

My next step will be to spray paint these legs either metallic silver to match my inspiration picture above.  Or I might do copper.  Ben really wants gold in his room and he might be satisfied with copper.  We shall see :)

I then need to sand all of the pallets down and I think I'm going to paint them Navy.

After the painting is done, we'll take everything up to the bedroom and my dad and husband (and probably lots of help from the kiddos) will attach everything together.

My plan is to have everything painted by next week.  So stay tuned!...

Easy Steps to Making Meal Planning a BREEZE

For many of us wives and mamas, including me, meal planning can be something we really struggle with. I was having a conversation with a friend and we were talking about meal preparation and she gave me this brilliant idea.  As she told me about it, I knew it was something that I needed to do ASAP.  I was so excited about it that I knew it was a topic I wanted to share with all of you too.

 

So what is this brilliant idea you ask? Well, here you go!

 

My friend told me that she had 2-4 weeks of meal recipes on hand that were her 'go to' recipes and that she would do a new recipe maybe once every 1-2 weeks that wasn't in her 'go to' recipe book.  If they liked it then they could add it to their favorite recipes.  These recipes were all together so it was very easy for her to plan her meals out ahead of time.  If you are like me, my recipes are ALL over the place - on pinterest, email, saved on my computer or in various cookbooks/magazines.  That makes meal planning take a lot longer then it needs to on a weekly basis.  Her idea was genius and I knew it would be a time saver if I put in the work to get organized.   

 

The first thing I did was pull out a binder - an empty one used or brand new would work.  I put in 3 different dividers that I had on hand.  My dividers were for main dishes, breakfast and side dishes.  We normally do leftovers for lunch so I didn't feel the need to make a separate divider.  I also had some plastic paper covers on hand to easily put in and take my recipes out of (these are not a must, you could just hole punch your recipes, but it helps keep them nicer and if you get them wet it will save your recipes). 

 

I started pulling recipes off of pinterest, going through my email for saved recipes and actually printing them, and typing up the ones we really enjoyed from various cookbooks that I knew we would like and printing those off too.  It is some legwork and took me a couple of days during my kids' quiet time/naptime, but believe me when I had the finished product it was so worth it!

 

I knew I wanted to have a variety of recipes so we didn't bored, so when I was looking for what recipes to put in my binder, I tried to focus on what types of meat we eat (my husband prefers to have meat so my plan evolved around that fact).  We purchase half of a cow almost every year so it is crucial that we utilize what is in our freezer.  We also eat chicken and pork.  So as I was looking, I tried to find 4-5 different variations of roasts, chicken, ground beef and pork dishes along with a few soup dishes as the temperatures get cooler outside.  By the time I was done, I had over 30 main dishes in my binder! I did the same with breakfasts and side dishes but with those only had 5 breakfast dishes since a casserole will go a long way for our family and the side dishes are normally items we have harvested from our garden - green beans, corn, potatoes. 

 

This is the beginning of my binder.  I have it broken down by main dishes, breakfasts and sides.   For the first page, I have written down what recipes follow for a quick 'summary'.  I can take the paper out and add to it as I add more of our favorite recipes into the mix or if we get bored with one, I can easily cross it out.  In the bottom corner I also added some obvious dinner ideas that don't require a recipe for myself such as hamburgers, mac & cheese, tacos, etc. 

 Here is a glance at the middle of my binder and how I have my recipes layed out.

Here are the meals I planned for the week of 9/15.  Literally took me 5 minutes to do this and another 5 minutes to make out my grocery list.  Can I get an AMEN!?

Doing all of this also enabled me to recycle my cooking magazines since I pulled out my favorite recipes and lets face it, I never looked at them anyways.  My office shelves are so much more organized than before. 

 

Another positive note to doing this - I went to the grocery last night and my grocery bill for the whole week was only $20 and $6 of that was for 3 lb of apples!  This is helping me utilize what we have in the basement in our freezers, in the pantry and what we have harvested out of our garden.  

 

I urge you to take the time to do this because you will use it and it will be such a blessing.  You will save so much time in the long run and hopefully will not run into another 4PM wondering to yourself 'what am I going to make for dinner tonight?'  If this seems like too much all at once for you, maybe make a binder of 10-14 favorite go to recipes and then add to them from there.  If your family doesn't mind eating the same things over and over each week it can be very simple!

 

Happy non-stressful meal planning!!

 

What other easy ideas have you found to make meal planning easy and non stressful?

Gourds Galore and More

I'm with Lisa, I love fall.  The cool brisk mornings/evenings, picking apples, making cider, camping, and going to pumpkin patches are among my favorite things this season.  I just did some decorating in my house as well to coordinate with this time of year.    

My parents had some birds plant some wonderful little gourds in areas around their house.  I was able to snatch quite a few out of a bucket full they had in the garage.  My decoration is fairly simple.  I just spray paint the gourds white.  That sounds simple enough right?  Well, either my spray painting technique needs some work or I used the wrong kind of paint because I tried painting it 3 times and it just peeled right of them!  I also thought I would make stencils from my cricut to spell the word 'fall' but using those also chipped the paint.  The fourth time painting was a charm and then I ended up hot gluing the word on. Looking back I think a bronze or gold would have been better than the white paint.  Maybe next time. Exhibit A.

With the remaining gourds I made a centerpiece.  Super simple here kids.  I had a drink dispenser that leaked beverages all over my counter.  I just took the nozzle out and filled the container with gourds. In my mind I thought clear Christmas lights with the gourds would be smashing, turns out it looked better in my mind so I ended up taking them out but didn't snap a pic without.  I thought about adding flowers to the top.  What do you think, yes or no?  Exhibit B.

Pinterest has so many great ideas for decorating pumpkins and I wanted to try one where you paint it white and wrap it with some black lace but it ended up being monogrammed instead.  Maybe I will still try this someday but something in the instructions about running stitches and a spoke pattern had me confused. Exhibit C.

My kids love the movie Despicable Me and there are some cute pumpkins someone made into minions. I'd like to try this but should probably figure out what kind of paint they used first.
As you may have learned many of our projects don't exactly turn out the way we think they should or how we see them in the picture (or in our minds) but it's all about having fun creating something, right? Grab a cup of cider and get crafty. Happy Fall Y'all!

A Gift For Me

This post started out as a tutorial for an infinity scarf, and somehow turned into something very different.  In between making the scarf with my daughter, and writing this post I snapped approximately 75 times, and it was at the point when I turned around and glared at my daughter in anger because she asked for food (didn't she just eat?!) that I decided it was time for a reset.  I would say everyone in my house asked me what was wrong or told me to 'relax' multiple times a day.

Don't mistake me here.  I love being a mom, and I am so thankful my husband works so hard to provide for our family so I can stay at home.  I have an awesome job, but when I get to the point where every single day drags on and I am angry for no reason, there is a problem.  For me, it's usually because I need an attitude adjustment.  Sometimes I get into these 'poor me' moods.  I grumble because I have to throw away a water bottle (why didn't the person using it, throw it away?) or I get frustrated because it is 4:00 p.m. and that means it is time to start dinner, again.

How do you reset, when you get into those moods?  In all reality, I know that picking up that empty water bottle, isn't really that big of a deal, but my attitude about picking up that water bottle needs to change.  So, what's a mama to do?  First, I changed my lock screen on my phone.

Wait, what?

Yeah, I know.  I found a Bible verse that someone had drawn, and saved the image to my phone.
You can find things like this at SheReadsTruth.com.  Since I am on my phone frequently, throughout the day, I see Colossians 3:17 often.  Are you with me?
   
Next, I took time for me.
Typically, I love to make things and I love to give those things to other people.  But today, I made something for me.  4 things actually.  I made a scarf with a hidden pocket.  I made cookies and called them Lactation Cookies so I wouldn't have to share.  I started crocheting a pair of fingerless gloves.  I have made these for 4 years and do you know how many pairs I have?  Just one.  They are the very first pair I made, and let me just say they need to retire.  I have this habit of saying I am making a pair for myself and then before I realize it, someone else has them.  Finally, I made some time for myself, so I could read.  I love reading, yet somehow in the last several months it just hasn't happened.  By the time I have a moment to sit down to read, I fall asleep.

I am so glad I took some time out for myself.  I have stopped being such a grump, and am not glaring at my daughter when she asked for simple things like a snack.  

So, dear mamas if you are grumpy all day, or seem to snap at the simplest things I would encourage you to take a break.  Memorize Colossians 3:17.  Write it somewhere you will see it often, and then, do something you enjoy.  Your family will thank you.