I wish I hadn't...

I wish I hadn't...

...waited so long to learn how to make crepes!
...eaten that cupcake last night.
...ditched college in the middle of a semester (13 years ago).
...put off doing laundry for half the week.
...forgotten to put sunscreen on yesterday.


I'm glad that I...

...was able to share some fun time with friends at the pool
...learned to make crepes and now I know how easy it is
...have leftover crepe batter- yum!
...was able to pull off two birthday parties, two birthday family celebrations, and family (2 parents, 4 kids) visiting- all in a week without the house being completely destroyed.
...can sleep in without the kids making disastrous messes.
...totally cleaned my car... it's so nice when it's clean on the inside!

One more cake...

I just wanted to put up the cake I did for my 10 year old.

One of these days I'll take the Wilton classes or something else and learn how to really decorate cake and use the tips and make flowers and all that fun stuff.  For now, I'll just settle for figuring things out on my own and making things that have a definite "homemade" feel to them. :)

What I've been up to...

I've been playing with food...

Baking cakes, and making cookies.

Snickerdoodles III

Submitted By: Sue W
Servings: 24
"Soft sugar cookie with a cinnamon-sugar topping."

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C).
2. Combine 1 1/2 cups white sugar, butter or margarine, vanilla and eggs. Mix well.
3. Stir in flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt. Blend well. Shape dough into 1 inch balls. Combine 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon. Roll dough in sugar/cinnamon mixture and place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set. Immediately remove from cookie sheets.

And I discovered that while my kids won't touch bbq chicken breasts whole-  when I cut the chicken up into smaller pieces and put them on a skewer... they fight over who has more pieces...

A kid funny

Yesterday the kids were all giving hubby his Fathers Day cards.  I slipped my card to him in as well.  He opened them all up, gave the child it was from a hug and thanked them for their cards.  He opened mine up, read it and told me thank you.  Then leaned over and gave me a quick kiss.  Our five year old looked at us funny and in a giggly voice said "Daddy!  that was on the lips!"

Guess the kids don't see us kiss often enough. lol!

Menu Planning

When the kids were little, and not in school.  I was a menu planner.  I would sit down and plan out two weeks of meals and make one shopping list and go and spend 3 hours at the grocery store and stock up for the next two weeks and only have to stop by to pick up milk, bread, and bananna's in between those big trips.

The kids are older, they are busier with school and playdates and other stuff and I haven't consistently menu planned in a long time.

I'm trying to get back into the habit though.  I don't know if I can get organized enough to shop only once every two weeks again, but I can at least get organized so I know what is for dinner each day and what cooking/baking I'm planning on doing each day of the week.

Here's this week's menu:

Monday: Lasagna (leftover from Sunday night), salad, corn, and garlic bread.
Tuesday: Bake cakes for birthday parties later in the week and freeze them.  Dinner- grilled chicken, rolls, corn on the cob, baked beans.
Wednesday: Decorate cake for Angela's party.  Dinner- mac and cheese and chicken nuggets for kids.  Sandwich for me. (have an early YW activity I'll be leaving the house at 5pm for)
Thursday: Fajita's, and cheese Quesadilla's
Friday: Decorate cake for Ashley's party. Make Bread with Cami.  Dinner:  Hamburgers and Hot Dogs.  Potato Salad.
Saturday: Ashley's party- Party Food and Pizza.

Frog Eyed Salad

My friend called me today needing my recipe for Frog Eyed Salad.

In the past I had the recipe on an old blog sidebar, but I lost that when I changed some settings around.

I'll share it here, and probably start sharing some other favorite recipe's from time to time.

Frog Eyed Salad

1 cup Sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbs flour
1- 3/4 cup pineapple juice
2 eggs
1 Tbs lemon juice
16 oz acini de pepe pasta
3-  11 oz cans mandarine oranges
2-  20 oz cans pineapple tidbits
1- 20 oz can crushed pineapple
1- 9 oz carton cool whip

Directions:
1 Mix sugar, salt & flour.
2 Add pineapple juice and beaten eggs.
3 Cook until thick and add lemon juice
4 Cook acini de pepe. Drain.
5 Combine with above sauce, mix and put in an airtight container overnight.
6 Add mandarin oranges, pineapple tidbits, crushed pineapple and cool whip.
7 Put back in refrigerator for a couple of hours.

A summer day in the life of...

wake up
remind the kids that they should eat some breakfast
watch the USA soccer team's game
remind my 9 year old that she needs to clean her room
remind my 11 year old that he needs to clean his room
referee between the kids about who's turn it is to be on the computer
toss a load of laundry in the washer
feed the kids lunch
clean up from lunch
rotate clothes in the washer to dryer and new load in washer
agree to take kids to the pool
go to the pool
send hubby and oldest child off camping for the night
pull out something from the freezer for dinner for the rest of us
feed the kids dinner
get talked into having a movie night
decide the girls can watch their Disney show special
decide I'm not watching their Disney show special
try and decide what to do that I should be doing
decide to get on the computer instead of folding laundry or doing dishes

and that was my life today...

No wonder no one reads this blog. lol! :)