busy little girl!

The house is mostly all baby/toddler proofed. Even so, I know that if have to leave the room she is in I have to make it fast. Usually it is when we are in the living room and she is watching TV, I leave to go to the bedroom to put away folded clothes. I literally count to about 90 seconds and know that I have to return or there will be some mischief she gets into. Today is no different! Our living room is open to the kitchen. It is safe but plenty of stuff for her to get into, such as paper towels, silverware and now she can get passed the childproof lock on the refrigerator.  So, today as she was sitting watching Dragon Tales…quiet and calm, I left to put away folded clothes and returned to this……

Lawry’s, empty and all over the floor and rug. She pulled the chair to the counter and got the Lawry’s that was on top of the back of the stove. I have most of the spices in a cabinet over the stove, but I can’t reach past the first row.  So, most used spices end up being stored over the stove.

I would love to get something like this to store my spices in so that they can be out of reach. I found it here. I will have to look around for something cheaper, but this looks wonderful!

Meanwhile, I will have to apologize to my hubby for wasting his hard earned 6.99 on Lawry’s all over the floor!  And ask for a spice rack for my next gift.  Hopefully my sweet and sassy little monster will grow out of the stage soon. This is the 2nd time, the first time was while I was talking to Jessica on the phone. That was Morton’s nature season blend 🙂 I can certainly say there is never a dull moment in my house!!

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Why am I not motivated to spring clean yet?

Because after a busy week last week, I am behind on all my daily duties and can’t seem to catch up.  I thought I would be brave for those of you out there that think everyone in the blog world have perfect homes…not.  My house doesn’t look like this often but when it does, I get really overwhelmed and down in the dumps.  So I will show you all the pics in hopes to let others out there who are looking at the same type of chore list,  you are not alone! When you give your kids your all, your hubby, your family, church and God….when all of this comes first, then a perfect house is second.  These are the areas that I can shut the door and company doesn’t see.  That is why these are the areas that need all the work!  Ok, so don’t laugh at me….pity me, please…lol  Better yet pray for me to have a happy heart and dig in to the disaster!

 

hubby’s

My laundry and towels/sheets

the kids laundry

My Son’s room (my daughter sleeps in there too but her play area in our room)

 

The School Room

Plus it looks like this outside.  I love rain and thunder storms, but it doesn’t motivate me to clean! I just want to cuddle with the kids and read and watch movies. 

Well I am off to get back to work….blah, blah (can you feel the drag in my feet and my head hung low?)

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last weekend..

 Last week was a busy week!  We didn’t do so much outside of the house, it was just all the activities at home.  We are bringing our 3rd quarter to a close next week so we are doing allot of review, book reports and testing. So it was a big week with school work!  

Plus I tried some new recipes last week. I had a few coupons and the same items were on sale at our grocery store, so everything was in line to try a few  recipes that had some ingredients that aren’t so common for me to use.  Though most of  the recipes were pretty easy to make, it still threw loop in my routine some how.  This is one that I tried that turned out to be a big hit with everyone! 

  

CHICKEN & BROCCOLI STIR FRY INGREDIENTS:

 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 cup water

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 cloves garlic, flattened

1/4 cup honey

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

 2 tablespoons molasses

2 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons dry sherry

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons cornstarch

12 ounces boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

Cooking oil for deep-fat frying

1 tablespoon cooking oil

3 cups broccoli flowerets

DIRECTIONS: In a medium mixing bowl stir together flour, baking powder, 3/4 cup water, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, and flattened garlic; let stand for 15 minutes. Remove and discard garlic. Meanwhile, in a small mixing bowl combine honey, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, vinegar, molasses, 2 tablespoons water, dry sherry, minced garlic, and cornstarch; set aside. Rinse chicken; pat dry. Cut chicken into 1 1/2×1/2-inch strips. Add to flour batter. In a wok or 2-quart saucepan heat 2 inches of oil to 365 degrees. Remove chicken from flour batter, allowing excess to drain off. Fry chicken strips, a few pieces at a time, in hot oil for 30-60 seconds, or till golden. Drain on paper towels. Pour 1 tablespoon cooking oil into a large skillet. (Add more oil as necessary during cooking.) Preheat over medium-high heat. Add the broccoli and stir-fry for 4-5 minutes, or till crisp-tender. Arrange broccoli around the edge of a serving platter; keep warm. Stir honey-soy mixture; add to the skillet. Cook and stir till thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir for 1 minute more. Return cooked chicken to skillet; heat through. Pour chicken and sauce into center of broccoli-lined serving platter. Yield: 4 serving

Please note: If hubby is watching a basket ball game and you have a toddler trying to follow your every move and help…this is not good to try because it will scare the pants off of you because of the hot grease. Not, easy to make with kids in the kitchen!  But, yummy and the kids will eat it!

On Saturday we had a great after noon at church helping set up for the St. Joseph’s Feast Table that our home school group put together.  Many of the families in our home school were there and we had a great time! This is what we made as our bake/craft last week for St.Joseph’s Feast Day. (normally is celebrated 3-19 but was moved up due to Holy Week)  We used the same recipe for our crown of thorns and just painted it this time with water colors. I got a few pics of the table but I couldn’t get them to upload!  rats!

 

Saturday was a good day, but I was hoping to catch up on my house-work and lesson plans.  I was hoping to have hubby watch the kids Saturday night so I could do some catch up work. This was the plan until hubby had a call from a friend, then hubby decided to ask him over for a few beers as they changed the spark plugs on our Jeep.  aaarrrgghh!

It needed to be done badly so, my plans were put on the back burner.  The kids and I watched August Rush instead.( I watched it first then let builder watch it with me, there were a few scenes that I forwarded through…but it is PG and was just fine for my 9 yr old to watch.  He was very inspired!

Sunday we had hubby’s dad and grandparents over.  We always enjoy their company and had a great time.  The grandparents don’t like to drive much, so when they are here we try to drive them to see granny’s brother in a retirement home in downtown. He is the retired Bishop of our city.  The kids love to go there because he gives us a special blessing and they get to see the nuns there that help take care of him.  He is not doing very well so please pray for him.

I had some fun activities planned for St.Patrick’s Day yesterday but did not get to do one of them due to having to run some unexpected errands all day!  I feel sad that we basically missed it, builder did do a creative writing assignment on St. Patrick but that was about it. No fun at all yesterday….bummer.

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swoosh,swoosh

That’s what I heard around midnight last night. Lil monster……my toddler woke up and was wide awake.  I was just about to go too sleep, and thought…no I ‘ll fold one more load of laundry. She was sitting in the recliner waiting on me to rock her back to sleep, so I ran in the utility room to remove the load from the dryer.  Then went to my closet to hang a few shirts up.  Then I heard….swoosh,swoosh…I thought…hhhm she is playing with her little play broom in the utility room. I didn’t worry much because there is nothing for her to get into there.  Swoosh, swoosh….it got faster with a what seemed to be a rhythm.  I thought, she can’t be sweeping in a rhythm…..so I jolted in there to find this!

Seems a toddler can manage to tear open a brand new, unused box of plastic gloves and pull them all out in a matter of minutes.  So, off to pull a thorn from our crown, then to pray that I will get lucky and get her back to sleep.

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poor man’s redecorating

We have limited space in our home.  We also have various items that need to be stored, and no room to put it anywhere.  So, I have to be pretty creative with what we want to do with stuff that is really no longer in use.  So, hubby’s 15 year old out of date beloved stereo speakers need to be kept safely, but out of the way. 

Now, we haven’t ever had nightstands.  One time we had a small book shelf there, but builder nearly split his head on it when falling out of the bed asleep one night.  So we figured… no money for nice Ones so, we don’t have to have them anyway. So for 8 years we have had no nightstands. But I hate seeing my alarm clock on the floor, and no where to set a glass of water or my cell phone.  Now enters the poor man’s speekers  nightstands.  The above pic is of his speakers turned around backwards.  The below pic is of them after I bought twin sheets for 2.00 bucks each(cheaper than fabric!) and folded and tucked them around the speakers.  Ok, I know it is not the best….but it is easier to look at this rather than looking at 15 year old speakers as nightstands! Instead of worrying about heads that go bump in the night, we now have those toddler bed rails saftey mattress gate thingamajigs(what do you call those things?)

It’s a good thing!

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