The Passing of the Wings and Memories

I don't do many of the fictional or fantasy characters with my kids, i.e. Santa, Easter bunny and others. It's not that I did not want to... I really was looking forward to all of that stuff when I first became a parent. But I have a brother who does not believe in telling kids all of those things and I knew he would spill the beans, so I did not do them.....except the tooth fairy.

I loved being the tooth fairy and when my first born began losing teeth I was very seriously excited about the role. Once my daughter came along, I thought I had gotten it down pat, but never counted on the fact that she would be afraid of "something flying into her room at night and reaching under her pillow!" The tooth fairy changed to only leaving treats and money on the outside of the bedroom door.

Jackson lost a tooth on 2/19/13 and was excited about the tooth fairy coming to his room. After the boys went to bed, I asked Jordan if she would like to don the wings and be his tooth fairy. She was so happy. The transaction went smoothly and he came rushing out the next morning waving his dollar. I was happy 'cause at least I had the money this time...in the past the tooth fairy has been known to not have any small bills in the house and has had to leave a sugary treat in stead. :)

Wednesday 2/20/13 was Entertaining Angels. It was so very cold and windy that we did not expect too many people. We did end of still having a good crowd with 2 new families signing up. I am amazed that 3 years later this little ministry is still going and growing strong. My dear friend came to help us with distribution and brought her 4 little girls with her. She surprised us with spending the night so my house was running 9 kids deep! I call my little house elasti-house 'cause it seems to stretch to accommodate more and more so easily. I had learned a new recipe for chicken pot pie and made 2 jumbo pies for dinner and they were so good. They are switching from traditional school  to homeschooling for next year, so my friend asked if they could join us in school to get a feel of homeschooling. It was such a blast to have a room full of children. She took notes like crazy and we had good conversations about good fitting curriculum. When they left on Thursday, it was very sad as always.

Thursday 2/21/13 was James' 12th birthday! Usually the kids don't have to go to school on their birthdays but with having guest and us all being downstairs for school, he joined in with us. We had a great day and Jordan made "Whoopies" for his birthday.

Whoopies

1 box cake mix
frosting
sprinkles

Make the cake mix as directed. For these she used a gluetin free white cake. Using a griddle, make silver dollar sized (2 in diameter) little cakes, flipping and cooking on both sides like you would a pancake. Set them aside to cool. Each whoppie needs 2 little cakes so to make a dozen you will need 24 little cakes. Jordan used pre-made frosting, but you could make your own. Add a small dollop of frosting to 1 side of a little cake and add another cake to make a small sandwich. Now roll the edges of your little whoopies in sprinkles.   A very neat way to eat cake.

Friday 2/22/13 greeted us with a big snow storm. The boys shoveled for a while and then I had to run an errand. While out, I surprised the kids by taking them sledding. I took them to a pretty infamous hill in our city (it is huge and is on a very well used golf course in our town) that my parents used to take us to in the 70's and 80's when my brother and I were kids. Since it was still early in the day, the snow was still powdery and needed to be packed down before they got a few good runs in. It was funny because we were the only ones on the hill and then another homeschooling family showed up and the father ended up helping all of the kids with sledding. Very fun.

The weekend was spent providing respite and doing lots of laundry.

Progress, Pies and Reborns

Progress reports:

Jordan loves to bake. This week she made a graham cracker crust pudding pie with a cherry fruit topping. Very yummy. 

As an early birthday present, Jordan received a reborn doll. He is a Michelle Fagen Sculpt by the artist, Cindy Sales from the Bountiful Babies Nursery. She loves him so much. She dresses, grooms and changes him several times per day. He goes almost everywhere with us. Last night he had his first photo shoot. She took no less than 70 pictures of him. LOL! Here is 1 of my favorites. The picture with the 3 babies shows my 2 reborns with hers. I have 2 Berenguar Reborns whose artist I cannot remember. They have crazy, wild hair as I did not prepare them for pictures. :)

 

That is what we are doing around here. I am hoping to work on our use-to-be-playroom-that-turned-into-a-storage-room-because-we-had-too-many-toys-room as we are hoping to change it to a schoolroom. 

Have a Great weekend!

Peace!

My Chili

This weekend I entered into a chili cook-off and won 2nd place! It was so fun. I had a slight crock pot malfunction so my chili was only warm and did not get hot. The judges later told me that had my chili been warmer in temperature that I would have won 1st place. There were so many different kinds of chili's but one of my favorites was a white chili with shredded chicken. So so good. Jackson ate about 5 bowls of different kinds of chili.

Jordan is our resident ground beef browner and she did a great job. One judge told me that my meat had a great flavor. We don't eat a lot of red meat, but for chili I use real hamburger from a little store that has the freshest meat in town.

The judges were so serious. One of them claimed that he could tell at what time in the cooking process the beans were actually put into the pot. He was a bit critical of all of the chili's, but I don't care because 2nd place was a surprise for me.

In response to Mom #1: Mea culpa!


 It really is a very simple recipe:
This makes a very large batch. Can be halved or quartered.

5.5 lbs of real hamburger
9 cups or 80 oz dark red kidney beans
4 cups diced tomatoes
4 6oz cans tomato paste
1/4 cup minced celery
1/2 cup diced or minced onion
1/8 cup diced chili peppers
LAWRY'S® Seasoned Salt
garlic powder
salt
black pepper
cayenne pepper


Brown hamburger with onions, Lawry's, pepper, pinch of garlic, pinch of cayenne. Drain about 3/4 of the fat off. Prepare your beans as you normally would or if you use canned, rinse well and add to hamburger along with all other vegetables. With the tomato paste I added about 1-2 cans of hot water per can or until you have your chili as soupy or thick as you like. Season to taste with garlic, salt, pepper and cayenne. Simmer on low for 30-40 minutes.


I think one of the things that helped me is that I made my chili on Saturday afternoon and refrigerated what I was going to take to the cook-off so it sat all night giving the ingredients time to mingle and get to know each other very well. ~Smile~ 


We like our chili with Cheez-It® crackers. I did hear from 1 of the judges that he did not like the crackers as they took away from the flavor of the chili. 


That's it. 

Crock-Pot Dinner

I rarely, almost never post recipes on here because while I can cook, I don't like to and do not claim to be particularly skilled at it. I do however love reading other people's recipes and have tried quite a few. Some time ago, Kim over at His Hands and His Feet Today posted a recipe for taco soup that we really liked. Today I knew we would have a longer day at church as James is taking his Baptism classes so I decided to just throw all of the ingredients in the crock pot before we left. When we came home and opened the door it smelled so good that I have never had kids change out of church clothes so fast. LOL!

It was very warm today, so I decided to not do this as soup, but as nachos.

Our version of Crock-Pot Nachos:

1/2 lb of ground chuck (we rarely eat red meat so this is all that I use, but you could use more)
1 can whole kernel corn (drained)
1 can beans (kidney, black, whatever your favorite) drained and rinsed
1 can tomatoes (diced, stewed, however...)
1 pack taco seasoning (per amount of meat)
1 cup water

My ground chuck was frozen when I started so I just threw it in, added the canned items, emptied the seasoning on top, threw in the water, covered, set it on high and left. When we came home 4 hours later, I stirred, added another 1/2 cup of water and it was ready. I served in bowls with nacho chips (we like *Scoops*) on the bottom, spooned mixture over the chips, added shredded cheese and a dollop of sour cream.

It was so easy (especially since the kids opened the cans, rinsed and drained everything while I was in the shower) and fun.