Marathon Cooking

Yesterday was a busy day for me~
I didn't get the chance to do my usual Sunday cooking so my week was totally off. I decided I better get on it so my cooking stress would be null and this weekend the kids would have something good to eat without having to be on the Ramen Diet while I'm gone to Summit weekend.
Here are some pictures of my crazy kitchen:

This is my crockpot chicken fajitas. They are so very yummy! All I need to do is make some fresh guacamole, warm some tortillas & supper will be served.


This is my Mexi-Chicken (my bestfriend Kelli calls it Katie Chicken when she makes it. LOL). I make this pretty much weekly as a staple for lunches & quick snacks. It freezes beautifully too.

Here's how you can make it too:

3 boneless/skinless chicken breast
1 c. chicken broth
3 Tbs. taco seasoning mix
1 sm. can diced green chiles

Put all in crockpot for about 6 hours on low. When it's fork tender, shred in the pot so it will soak up all the juices. Then use it for chicken tacos, enchiladas, quesadillas, nachos, or just right on a piece of bread or a bun. It's just too yummy!

So, while I had both crockpots working on the countertop, I had my oven on too.
I put a nice 8lb brisket in there. Oh my...the house smelled heavenly last night when we walked in from church.
We had some of that for supper tonight with couscous & green beans. With your meat already cooked, you can have supper on the table in less than 15 minutes. It's wonderful!



Now for today (Thursday):

It was a great day. We've been discussing & learning about the Solar System this week. Lauren is loving it, Chloe too but Lauren especially.
While they did their workbooks I did some housekeeping. I was shocked at how much junk I vacuumed up today. It looked like I hadn't ran the vacuum in months! Where did all this stuff come from? Holy smokes...I also vacuumed the blinds today. Wow...I'm thinking I should do that more often after what all I saw. It was scary.

We then got on our bikes, headed over to Ms. Trish's house for a NAHE field trip committee meeting. We love going to Trish's house. She has great kids the same ages & a nice big yard & home for the kids to play in. She also shows us the best hospitality, we love visiting over there.

Next on the P.O.W; OKC Zoo in the morning then home to drop off these munchkins so this homeschool mom can get back to The City for Winter Summit weekend. (Yes I know it's really not winter right now but thanks to all the snow & ice we had in Feb. our Retreat Weekend was postponed.)

I'll be back in a few days. Have a great weekend!

These Boots Were Made for Splashing!

Saturday, March 20th is the first offical day of spring for 2010.

Yesterday after the rain was done the girls & their friends wanted to go outside for puddle jumping & mud stomping so they were hunting down the proper shoes, well boots in this case.

Lauren's lovely rainbow boots she's had since moving here have a small leak in them somewhere & Chloe's plain black rubbers were too small, I couldn't even force them on her feet.

So after they played in their regular shoes, came in muddy, wet, and just plain filthy, we did a "spare the moment" trip out in town for new boots.

We totally missed the great rubber boot sale at Academy Sports. That would have saved us about $20 (or more) if they had not clearenced them out before the "rain season". Headed over to Target for a look there next and this is what we found:



The only pair they had in Chloe's size were the cute Hello Kitty boots but she would have NOTHING to do with those. She wanted Frog boots. I thought the Hello Kitty boots were cute & loved that they had those easy grip handles, that wouldn't even sway her.

So we headed over to old faithful...Walmart. She picked a nice pair of plain pink & purple boots. I was relieved she passed up the Camo & the blue/red pair. She said she loves pink & purple, just not Hello Kitty. LOL

Now, all us gals have our rainboots for the Oklahoma rain season. I have a strong feeling we'll be using them a lot this year. Here's a look at what we got!

Monday...Monday....

Monday Monday, so good to me,
Monday Monday, it was all I hoped it would be....
NOT!!!

I love Monday. All my friends know that. I wear sweats, no make-up & most of the time a ballcap in place of hairdo! Monday is my favorite day of the homeschool week. On Monday we have PE class from 9:45-11:00 a.m., we have lunch out about twice a month afterward then meet some friends at the library from 1:00-3:00 p.m. That's our easy school day. It's a great way to start the week!

Then Monday comes with a warning from the weatherman that a stormline coming up from Texas would bring dangerous thunderstorms with lots of lightning & heavy rain. So I prepare & change plans! I drop the girls off at class, head over to a favorite place to find scrappy friends, at A Whole Lotta Scrap, get my new paper supplies for a couple of special projects I have planned, then back for the girls. We go straight to the library in order to beat the 1:00 p.m. timeline the weatherman has given us for the storm arrival. Wouldn't ya know it?!? It comes in a little earlier however, not as bad as he said it would be...at least not here in Norman!! Ugggg...

Keith said the storm was bad in the City. I don't know if that makes me happy or not, but it does restore a bit of my faith in the KFOR weatherman. LOL

I'm reading a great book today about bringing order & beauty to your home. I could use a little of that...how about you?







My plan for supper time is homemade potato soup.

Cookies & Chloe

Lauren went home with our friends, The Lords (Jeanette & Katie), after church today. After church, we had a meeting with our photographer that will be shooting our vow renewal, when that was over Chloe requested to make cookies with me. I didn't feel like making anything elaborate so I got out my favorite shortcut recipe for cookie making that my friend Melissa Larson gave to me when we lived in California. It's the easiest yummy cookies you'll ever make!

Recipe:

1 box confetti cake mix
1/3 c. oil
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350*. Mix above ingredients. Place small round scoopfuls onto stone & bake for 10-13 minutes (ovens vary so be sure and check them at 10 min).

Time to Make the Donuts....

Keith & I went out to run a few early morning errands. While we were out thought we'd get Saturday morning donuts since we hadn't done that in a while. We sent a text message to Jimbo letting him know our intentions.

He said, "Hurry!! They're waiting out in the driveway for you now."

This is what we saw when we pulled up. Keith & I got a good laugh & thought we'd share it with y'all.

Playdough Fun

Yesterday we made playdough using koolaid to color it and give it a good smell. Lauren used grape for some pretty purple dough & Chloe picked cherry for a nice pink color.

We used our fun plastic cookie cutters and Zoo Pals utensils for cutting & such.

The girls really enjoyed making the recipe. I discovered a couple of things with it though.

1. The recipe required more water & oil than noted.

2. Homemade playdough is much easier to clean up than store bought.

This was a fun art & craft project, I believe we'll do it again very soon.

Recipe:

1 1/2 c. cold water
1 c. salt
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
1 pkg. koolaid
3 c. flour
2 Tbs. cornstarch

Mix cold water, salt, oil & koolaid in medium bowl. Set aside.
In stand mixer, using kneading hook, mix flour & cornstarch then add in wet ingredients. I got it mixed together pretty good & then put it in a very large bowl for the girls to work out until it looked like playdough.

**This is not the exact recipe I found, I tweaked it to make it "right" for us. So this is my "tweaked recipe".**