Cooking and EVOO

I had to share a delicious dinner we had last night.  Mostly because it was cheap and easy, both top qualities in my book!!  I was inspired by a cooking show called Jamie at Home.  It's one of my favorite cooking shows.  The guy is hilarious and has the most FABULOUS garden.  He cooks healthy, simple yet delectable meals with lots of fresh ingredients.  I hardly ever see it, though.  I don't get to watch much TV that I actually like.  Typical mom, yes?  Anyway, his last show that I saw was about squash.  I am NOT a squash lover by any account, but want to try it more because it is healthy and usually pretty cheap.  And grows well, so in my future garden I will plant some.  His dish included cooking squash with onion, garlic, herbs, salt, pepper, and topping off with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO).

So I prepared one pan full of sliced zucchini, sliced yellow squash, pieces of onion and sliced carrot.  I drizzled a good amount of evoo on top, added salt and pepper and lots of garlic (out of my jar of chopped garlic).  Then prepared another pan of cubed red potatoes topped the same way-evoo, salt, pepper, lots of garlic.  I baked them at 375 for about 30 min, maybe?  I didn't watch the time, just checked them until they were done.  They were so so so good!!  All the family liked it so much, they kept saying, "Mmm, this is so good!".  YES!  The little kids ate all but the yellow squash and onion.  Oh well.

For the main dish I got some boneless pork chops, which are buy one get one free at Fry's right now.  I put them in my big cast iron pot (LOOOOVE THAT POT!)  and browned them in a little evoo with salt and pepper.  Then I mixed a can of golden mushroom soup with a little Hidden Valley Ranch powder and more garlic.  Just pour that over the pork chops (I cooked 7, I think) and cook on med-low until done.  They took about 20-30 min to cook.  If I had time, I would have had a salad too, just because I like something cool with all that warm food, but it was great. 

Anyone have any other great ideas of how to prepare squash?

Ballet Class

My kids have been bugging me to get the dress up/costume box out since Halloween is approaching.  I figured we might as well, as it is their FAVORITE thing to do.
Well, things were quiet for quite a while, and the bedroom door was shut, so naturally I had to check and make sure things were ok.  What I didn't expect was to be disturbing "ballet class".  There were 3 pink tutus, and 3 little ones to wear them...gender appropriate or not...

So, while I didn't have anything to do with dressing them up, I did have to get a picture.  We have since passed on the 2 smaller tutus to girl cousins.  :)

Hunting Season

Here's my husband, Big White Hunter:
(it's a family thing.  this is cousin T in training) :)

He goes out and slays the winged beast (otherwise known as the bird of peace, or dove) so we don't starve. hehehe  When he brings home the kill, the younger girls like to help prepare the birds.  (the older ones go out and help him shoot them.  it's good bonding time :)   
Blondie got really into it.  They have to pluck them, then take the breast meat off:

Little Miss tried popping the head, but she couldn't get it to come off:

Here's our dinner that night; dove, salad and mashed potatoes. 

We prepared them two different ways to see which was better.  The first was lightly breaded and sauteed then served with gravy.  The second was wrapped in bacon and sauteed.  The bacon won out, surprise surprise!  :)  Thanks for dinner, honey!

Lovely Lipstick

Well, at least he knows where to put it!  :)

No-eyed Ned

What's worse than a blind pirate?

A blind pirate with a hook!!  (headbands CAN be dangerous, afterall! :)

Estate sale find!

I have been wanting a small dresser to put in my front entryway.  This is what I have had there for a while:

Not bad, but a little visually light for the space.   (and let's face it, I need more furniture with storage capacity for all my junk.  I mean, treasures.)  :)
I have searched on Craigslist week after week, and have seen many that would work, but I am going for very cheap and very close.  I wasn't willing to travel the state to get this dresser, know what I mean?  I just wanted something with good lines that I could makeover and that would hold blankets.  We have too many blankets, but that's a topic for another day.  :)
Well, last week, I was about 20 min. early to pick up Dr. D from preschool, so I decided to drive around the neighborhood to kill time.  I saw an Estate Sale sign, so Tailgunner and I went in to see.  There was some cool stuff, but what caught my eye was this little dresser, and it was only $5!!!  

I had a $10 in my pocket, and it was PERFECT!  Just what I was looking for, at the price I dreamed of!  So, I quickly claimed that baby.  Here it is in my entry:

   
I was also looking at this little old schooldesk that was in the same room.


The lady working the sale came in and said how surprised she was that the desk hadn't sold.  (marked $10)  It was charming and I admired it out loud to her.  She said, "Well, I'll let you have it for $5 if you can take it today."  That worked for me!  I'm not sure where to put it, but my kids LOVE playing "school", and I knew they would go nuts over it.  (which they did)  I figured I could always re-sell it later and make money on it if I don't want to keep it. 
So, off I went with a dresser, antique school desk, and she threw in Battleship and a Barbie car for my $10 plus some change I had in my purse.  Score!  I may have to come early to pick up more often...

First day of preschool!

Dr. D began preschool this month. He LOVES it!!  Here he is ready to go on the first day:

He soooo loves his Spiderman lunch box.  He is so excited and hasn't had one stitch of unwillingness.  He marches right in and gets to work!  We love this school!

Hoedown Showdown!!

Due to the extreme kindness of a friend, our girls were able to be in a show put on by another local friend of ours.  She has done shows in the past, and the girls have really enjoyed them.  I wasn't planning on it this year, due to finances, but the teacher of the group called me just before rehearsals started to let me know that this other friend of ours covered the tuition for the girls.  We were soooo happy!  They were all very excited and pleased with this news.  :)
It was a cute show!  Here are some pictures from the evening:

Sweet G learned some fiddling!  That was one of my top favorite numbers.  They even played on their neighbor's violin!  It was so fun.  Little Miss and Sweet G also had solo singing parts.  They were AWESOME!  Teeny Bopper was in a comedy sketch, "Gloom, Despair, and Agony".  Doesn't she look the part?

Thanks, friends, for giving our girls this opportunity!  Thank you so much.

Frugal meals

Here are some frugal meal ideas that I made last week.

Chicken baked with marinara sauce, brown rice, and peas. We love chicken and rice.

Mexican casserole-layers of corn tortillas, hamburger browned and mixed with enchilada sauce (red or green or mix), and cheese. The kids all liked this! Yay! And a salad on the side.

Yummy chicken marinade- sprinkle chicken with lemon pepper and garlic powder, mix zesty Italian dressing and some A-1 and let the chicken marinade for a while. Grill, bake or saute to your liking!

Stuffed bell peppers-peppers were on sale (I like to use red, orange or yellow ones) and so was ground beef. Take the peppers, cut of the tops and remove seeds. Place in boiling water for several minutes. Then I just mix cooked hamburger, some cooked brown rice, season it up with garlic and onion, add some tomato sauce and fill the peppers. Top with more tomato sauce and a little cheese and bake at 350 for about an hour. Great with a salad.

Grand Canyon

A few weeks ago it was free National Parks day.  So my friend Naunee and I thought it would be a good idea to visit the Grand Canyon.  I haven't been in for-ev-er, and my younger kids had never been, so off we went!  The two older girls had to stay home for a performance rehearsal, so Naunee just hopped in with us. 
I'm glad she went, because I actually got to be in a picture!  Proof that I WAS there:

I admit I was pretty darn nervous the whole time, because there are no railings-nothing between rambunctious little kids and the edge of the canyon.  And for some reason, this little turkey:

Didn't want to come near the edge while holding anyone's hand (you can tell by his death-grip on dad's arm):

But while walking on his own, was fine going to the edge.  I was NOT fine with that!  See, he is even trying to get through the railing they did have in this one lookout spot:

Aye, aye aye!  My nerves!!  My poor nerves.
Here's my boys:

Even though it was only in the high 80's up there, it still felt pretty hot so we drank lots of water:

You can tell Little Miss was feeling pretty warm and tired:

We took a picnic lunch and had a great time!  What a beautiful planet we live on.

How do YOU eat an oreo?

I saw some mint oreos in the store today, and couldn't pass them up.  While watching my kids eat them, I discovered some interesting things. It reminded me of those old commercials that said, "How do YOU eat an Oreo cookie?"
Here's what I noticed:
Tailgunner enjoyed his the way any baby would.  Thoroughly!
Dr. D didn't really end up eating his.  He pulled them apart, dipped the side without cream into his milk until it was soggy, then threw it away.  Then he nibbled on the cookie around the cream on the other side and left the center of the cookie with the cream on it.  I'm guessing he doesn't love oreos!  He did have fun dipping, though.
Blondie dipped and ate, no problem.
Little Miss separated hers, licked all the cream off, then dipped and ate the cookies.
I usually like to dunk mine in cold milk, then eat the whole cookie together.  Sometimes I do like to separate it but I never just lick the cream off.  I like double stuff and mint the best.  I really love Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe Joe's the best (their version of oreos are called Joe Joe's).  All the Joe Joe's are great.

So...how DO you eat an Oreo cookie?

Message Board

We are in the process of decorating the big girl's room.  (we are always in the process of decorating something, right?)  With the bright pink (Disney's Satin Ribbon) and white walls, we thought black and white would be a good accent.  There are touches of other bright colors in there as well, in the pillows and some accessories.  With wall space to fill and pictures and other paper "things" to be displayed, naturally a message board was necessary.  With our budget of very little, we got creative!
This is what I dug up to transform:

A map picture that has seen better days.  It was the perfect size, nice and big.  And the map was glued onto foam core, also perfect.  First things first, I took the map out of the frame and spray painted the frame black.  (already had the paint)  Then I cut a square of some mid-weight batting and cut it a little smaller than the board so that it wouldn't be in the way when I put it back into the frame.  I sprayed some adhesive on the board and stuck the batting onto it so it wouldn't be moving around.  Then I took some cute graphic black and white fabric (already had) and cut it bigger than my map board. I spread the fabric out on the floor and centered the board on it, batting side down.  I then wrapped the fabric onto the board, using duct tape to adhere.

 I took some ribbon (I had to buy the ribbon) and criss-crossed it onto the board, also adhering on the back with duct tape.  Almost done!  The board was ready to go back into the frame.  I took some cute buttons (also had to buy, so went with cheap-yet-cute ones) and sewed them onto the board where the ribbons crossed each other.  I just sewed through the foam core-it was easy!  The needle went right through.  Someone clipped their flower hair clip on and it was cute, so I left it.  Voila!  Awesome message board, for very little money!  Perfect.