Recipe's for the day

For those of you who know me very well, know I really like to cook. I was not always the best cook. In fact, when first married the only thing I could do really well was cookies (and still do...man I am the BIGGEST COOKIE MONSTER!!!). So because I felt so bad serving my hubby horrible no flavor dinners, I was in search of good recipes! I stumbled on to Cooking Light. Oh my, we love the Cooking Light! I would think it was safe to say 90% of what we eat is from Cooking Light or Body for Life! So I am going to share a new recipe we tried out a few weeks ago. Very yummy and so easy. I love the slow cookers! This is a Char Sui Pork recipe and I love it. Try it out here.

And as mentioned before I am such a cookie monster, what better thing for desert than Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip and Pecan Cookies? These are even a big hit with the boys! As I have said at Christmas time I go a little crazy with the treats. Well, for the english toffee there are chopped pecans and chocolate all over both sides of the toffee. When I cut the toffee into pieces there are leftover pieces. I save these in the freezer for ice cream topping or whatever. So I used these pieced in the cookies! Oh man, did the little pieces of toffee and chocolate taste so good. However, I am running out of the pieces (we have made these cookies so much) and I am sure they will be just as good! Try it out here.

Have a good one all.....Let me know if you try these and what you think!

Math....

Take a look at the math Jaxon brought home today.....

I don't know how well you can read it (click on it and it will be bigger for you to see). But when Gregg and I saw this we laughed to ourselves because it would have taken us all day to try to figure this one out.....Man, I guess I am not smarter than a 2nd grader!

So many plans!!

Yes, so many plans. I just don't know why I do it to myself. I didn't want to really make any 'new years resolutions' because well I suck at them okay. I instead made myself just some things I would like to accomplish. One of these things being getting caught up on my scrapping. This was my 'would like to accomplish' last year and it lasted until February. I admit it, it is a bit of a mighty large feat. But I really feel like it needs to be done. I hate having to feel like I am burring myself out all the time. I want to be on top of things. That is one of the reasons I have realized I really really really need a new camera. It kills me. I am going through all of my pics and see pic after pic that SUCKS!!! Talk about pixelated (if that is a word) and yucky! Anyway, I feel like Zeke is getting the shaft because he doesn't have any pictures in a book yet.
Well, without boring you with the details I have resolved to finish January 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009 all in January of 2009. Then in Februrary the same (06, 07, 08 & 09). To help, I have fallen in love with Becky HIggins. She is just fantastic. I love her concept of crisp clean and quick. So needless to say I have already spent $50 this month to develope the January pictures necessary to get these out in a book! I am doing okay. I will keep you updated as to my success!

Becky HIggings has come up with a speed scrapping for 2009. It is called 'Project 365'. I don't know if anyone knows about it, but basically it is a picture a day. Yes, I know it sounds tough but really it isn't. I have really fallen in love with the idea. It is making me really sit back and either evaluate what is going on in my life or just to appreciate those things I normally wouldn't and get it down. There is no fancy scrapping involved. you just take a picture a day and journal a small 3x4 card on it and why you chose that as your pic of the day. I will share a few of mine so far (I started it on December 28, 2008).
Why is it the socks always end up everywhere but on their feet? I can find socks like this all over the house! And if you notice he is roughly a 'foot' away from the sock (no pun intended). It will drive me crazy before I gather up the socks all over the house every time I run out for clean ones the next day....I guess no one really knows if it is a re-wear right??
Why is it they are so dang cute and frustrating at the same time? He is such an actor! I don't know where he gets it from. His father doesn't ever do anything like that. But honestly, this child is going to be the death of me! He loves ME TO DEATH! I love him so much but when he wants something there is NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING that will change his mind! And he loves to see himself cry! He really turns it on when I get the camera out or when we go by a mirror too!
One day I get that today I get this! See what I mean, he is so dang cute. I love how he loves his teddy bears, or 'bea bea' as he calls them. He usually is carrying around at least one and usually all three! Then today when I peeked in to get him after his nap he was hidden in them, his little head was poking out of the top....to dang cute!
Please, please don't ever change this! I love the 'Friday night movie'. The boys get to pic a move and either watch it in the 'cave' our little finished dug out under the basement steps that they play in, or on each others bed. They have to have popcorn with it. Tonight it was on Sunday becuase there was no school on Monday for MLK! They love it, and what a great bonding activity to look forward to. They are getting a little big to sleep on each others bed but they are still trying!
The not so fun discovery of our leaking basement! Yes, our 6 year old house is leaking from the roof! Man, I don't know what else could go wrong. It has a really nice drip and it has pulled the paint and sheetrock off the walls in our exercise room! Gregg and I have been sick about what we are going to do about it. We thought it was the hose bib that has been broken but our friend assured us it was not. I think I would have rather had it be the hose bib. We will see what happens.

Yeah for school!

Oh, I love it when the boys are off track and I get so excited thinking about all of the fun things we can do while they are home.....um okay been there and we did all that......
BACK TO SCHOOL!!

Woo hoo. Am I terrible to be so excited they are back in school. Just to demonstrate look at this!


My boys are the ones on the left. The boys we carpool with are the ones on the right. Let's just look at this pic for just a minute. My boys are so so so embarrassing sometimes. They are such goofballs. This is them all the time. Always making faces. Always getting in 'cool fighting poses'. Always, always, always (did I say always) LOUD!!!!

boy oh boy oh boy am I glad to have a little break! Yeah for school!!!

GO UTES!!!

Have to send a little shout out for the rockin' UTES!!! AWESOME! I really wish we could have been there. We wanted to go so bad, but Gregg and I decided $2,000 for each of us to go....we could spend our $4,000 a lot better around the house (besides we didn't have $4,000 to be quite honest!). But we again, partied at home. Gregg has the boys all worked up about football! They were really into the game with us too.....

Happy New Year

Okay so I guess I am in a bit of denial. I still have the big Christmas Tree up and our Christmas village. (Gregg has been gracious enough to take the downstairs tree down) but I have Christmas boxes everywhere....what am I doing? As I was driving the kids to school today it donned on me...it is not January 1st it is January 5th!!!

I don't know about everyone else, but I have had seriously the most relaxing and great holiday I haven't wanted it to end. I just keep thinking when the holiday's are over. HELLO! they have been over for many, many days now. I need to get off my big ol' fudgy enjoyed butt and get back to work!

We hope you all enjoyed your New Year as much as we did. I guess I sound so mean saying this, but this is the first year we have let the boys stay up and celebrate the new year?! Weird I know? But I guess they have always been so crabby the next day with out their sleep it has totally been out of the question. This year we had a little party as a family. It was so fun. I have seen this idea a number of times on Family Fun (best family fun ideas ever familyfun.com).

Basically I just had these bags for the boys to open at the beginning of each hour! Best $13 I have ever spent on entertainment. I tell you I am a sleepy gal myself and find it hard to stay up sometimes and this even kept me going. Time went by so fast. Here is what was in it:

8:00 - Candy (start the night off right you know)- Airheads & Peanut butter cups for the boys; Snickers for Gregg and a 3 Musketeers for me!

9:00 - Movies depending on their mood - Indiana Jones Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or Kung Fu Panda

10:00 - Popcorn - they didn't even realize they didn't have it at the beginning of the movie...weird especially for my boys!

11:00 - party poppers and confetti poppers (getting ready for the next big hour)

12:00 - silly string!!

What a mess, but so much fun! We really had a ball.