HOMEMADE SNACK DAY!!

We took this afternoon to make a BUNCH of snack foods and a messy kitchen! :)

We made kale chips with sesame, garlic, and ginger and JJ loves them! He called them green crackers and has been munching on them all afternoon. I just coated the kale in the sesame oil and ginger, garlic, a little salt, and pepper and baked on low at 350 until crispy.

We also made some cookie dough to freeze and have when we want a special treat. We made oatmeal chocolate chip. But I added wheat grem, flax seed, and a little nutritional yeast. (these double as a milk cookie for me, which helps with my milk supply for evee)

Homemade nutella from this blog! I love the recipe and don't feel as bad when JJ wants it every am on his homemade wheat bread.

Roasted garlic hummus for myself and my mom.

Grahmn crackers! I love these and cant wait to make some homemade marshmallows another day.

Goldfish crackers! JJ loves these and so does Evee and they don't have any icky oils.

Chocolate peanut butter granola bars!

Fruit leather fruit roll ups!

I think we have some yummy healthy snacks now that I can feel good about both of my kids eating. 

make your own felt board & pieces!

I made the kids a felt board after going through my old toys and remembering how much fun it was as a kid to have a felt book. I looked around and really like this tutorial I found and went from there.

I made them one using an old picture frame and some black felt. It was what I had and I wanted it to literally be a blank canvas for them. I love it and it hangs in my kids playroom where my awesome brother attached it to the wall for me. I know this isn't ideal for all but kids will love any kind of felt board big or small. It is such an open ended activity and lends itself to adding new things all the time.

I just glued black felt to the "wood" back already part of the frame and took out the glass. Put it all back together and had my brother mount it with some very heavy duty brackets for me.

I am left handed and I don't know if its because of that or just lack of skill but I am not good at cutting things out. So with that in mind I decided to use some non fusible interfacing and trace my kids some letters and stories. The first three stories we have made are five little monkeys, three little pigs, and five little ducks.

 I looked all over using google images and found pictures I liked printed them out and trace using a black fabric marker.

 I then colored the pictures with colored pencils. It actually works and the kids love them! 

DIY Soccer Ball Cake with Cupcakes!!

   Its been a while again since I have posted. We had a lot of sickness in the house the past month and have been super busy! Its the time of year I tend to get crazy busy with projects, cleaning, organizing, holidays, and outside fun!

   For my first blog back I thought I would post about my recent experience with making a 3D Soccer Ball Cake and cupcakes for my friends little mans 3rd birthday! When she told me she couldn't find an organic cake that still tasted good and didn't want to spend $200+ for a cake the tasted like butter and cardboard, I was intrigued. I knew her little man wanted a soccer ball cake and I spent a long time looking for options. She also sent me a few that I liked. I found this one and the soccer cake here and decided that I wanted to make a 3D soccer ball on top of a round cake that looked like grass with cupcakes around it that were little soccer balls on grass. I even found grass looking cupcake liners.

Here is my journey in making this cake.

I decided to make the soccer ball part out of cake after a disastrous incident with organic marshmallows and Rice Krispies.

I used a Pyrex small bowl because it is oven safe. This is how my torte chocolate cake came out. I froze them. (totally lost picture of before I added the ganache)

Then I made ganache and put the halves together and covered them to make them round and easy to cover in fondant.I forze this again.
I then made fondant and covered it to get this.

I made two round cakes froze and put rasperberry in the middle and covered with homemade green buttercream icing to look like grass.

I also made 30 chocolate cupcakes and covered them with green grass icing.

This is how it looked when I set up the table for Jrs party! Best part is it turned out pretty much like I wanted visually and tasted great!!

I have to say I was pretty proud!

Getting into a routine is HARD!! part two

I have spent a good deal of time thinking about how I would like to put my routine into place. (mainly while nursing Evee, since I am stuck sitting anyways) ;-) I have decided that I am in need of a daily routine as well as a chore routine that handles the weekly/monthly chores. I am hoping this will help me not have days were I feel SO overwhelmed it is hard to even get started. I am also hoping this will help us fit in working out and homeschooling without feeling pressured. So here is the tentative schedule I have worked out. I am always open for changing things as the kids grow and our needs change.
Daily:

Morning

·         Get kids up by 830

·         Change kids

·         Make beds

·         Start load of laundry fold the load that is in the dryer from night before

·         Eat

·         Email (while kids eat)

·         Circle time/homeschool (half hour)

Afternoon

·         Eat no later than 1pm

·         Unload dishwasher (load am dishes)

·         Wipe counters/table/high chair

·         Move over laundry/tidy up house

·         Quiet time (my time for email and workout)

·         Shower

 

Evening

·         Dinner by 630pm

·         Bath

·         Pjs/teeth/vitamins

·         Fold load in dryer

·         Load and run dishwasher

·         Wash counters/table/high chair

·         Read stories

·         Kids bed by 930pm

·         Mom bed by 11pm

Days	Chores
Monday	Clean master and kids bathroom
Tuesday	Wash kitchen/dining room floor
Wednesday	Wash Windows
Thursday	Clean down stairs bathroom
Friday	Deep clean kitchen
Saturday	Wash sheets (catch-up on laundry day)
Sunday	Make bread and yogurt

Bi-Monthly:

Dust

Clean fridge

Go through stock pile of food and move older things to front

I will add chores as I realize I forgot them. I am going to write up the chores for the week on a white board and add the bi-weekly when necessary. I am not going to freak if I don't follow this sometimes as things come up with the kids but I hope this will help alleviate my some of my stress and overwhelmed feelings.

A catch up on the recipes I did last week, I HATE HOMEMADE SOY MILK as a drink or in my smoothies. I LOVE EDAMAME but I HATE soy milk. It is good for baking and I like that I can control the sugar/salt content but Kevin and I think it tastes terrible. I loved the yogurt and different dips we made as well as the yam taco. I changed the recipe a bit but I followed the key ingredients. I added more vegtables and didnt get to make the pesto so I made homemade salsa.

Over the weekend I made polenta for the first time and we loved it. I made braised veggies with it and then had left overs with eggs and veggies for breakfast! YUMMY! 

trying to get into a routine is HARD!!

I have yet again been gone for a while. I am trying to get my family going on a routine. I am following MoneySavingMommy's how to develop a routine series, I have to say so far I am really impressed and have thought about her posed questions. I am not religious so I do not have some of the same answers as the other women following her postings but I still love her insight and thoughts.

I am on day two and here are what I have come up with so far:
I AM NOT AS ORGANIZED AS I THOUGHT!

my five big rocks:
-quality time (reading doing crafts just playing ect) with my children
-time alone not watching tv with my husband
-making our food as wholesome and from the "farm"/homemade as possible
-homeschooling the kids
-exercise and getting back in shape/staying healthy as a family

Next I love how she talks about needing to come up with a "framework". I used to have a morning routine with jj but honestly after evee came I has mostly just gone with the flow. It is really just making things harder for me and giving me more excuses not to do the things I want to do. I am going to make it my goal this weekend to come up with a basis for our routines. I am just making some rough time ideas now.

Morning:
-get up at 8
-get jj up by 830

Afternoon:

Night:
-start bedtime routine no later then 830
-kids in bed by 930 at the latest
-my bed no later then 11 (time to spend with hubby)

I will work on filling in the actual goals around these a little more this weekend and see how it goes.

On a side note I am working on making some changed to my families diet. I am trying to add some new and interesting dinners and lunches to the menu. (another goal of mine is to star to menu plan a bit more to help save money as well as vary our diet more)

I am currently making these veggie burgers to freeze and use as lunches when I am in a rush and want something nutrient packed and yummy! I am add toppings to make them Mexican, Asian, or even just regular hamburgers. I tasted one this evening and I have to say that I am impressed and they are very filling with not a lot of fat or "bad" calories.

I am making a lunch for a friend coming over tomorrow and am excited about it. I love closet cookings blog and have made a few of his yummy looking meals. Tomorrow I am going to tackle making sweet potato and black bean tacos with swis chard pesto.

I also have some yogurt in the crock pot getting ready to be made into frozen yogurt, Greek yogurt roasted veggie dip, cream cheese, and just some good old plain yogurt for the fridge. JJ loves yogurt and I love being able to make it less sugar filled and tailor each day to his mood of flavors. I also have soy beans soaking to make some homemade soy milk tomorrow. I will post recipes and results of these tomorrow! GOOD NIGHT!

back to fun!

I am hoping that the kids are finally back to being healthy. I am so ready to get back into fun and creative things. I have a lot to post that we have done even throughout the sickensses, but I will have to post those later tonight. I will post that I finished a bird feeder with JJ. (actually we did both this one and this one) ours of coarse were made by jj and i so they dont look exactly like those two but jj loved it and we hope to make another milk carton bird feeder for my moms side of the yard.

One of the days Jj and his dad made this fort.

proud daddy and little evee
 (he even made windows and a working door)

side view of the cool house

bed time reading in the house
(every night since it was built, id say that makes the house a sucess)



There are plenty of other projects to post later. These are just my two favorite! 

Got lost in snow craze!!

Have not blogged recently for a lot of reasons but mostly because I just have not had a lot of alone time to get it done. Sadly, the only reason I have a little alone time today is because JJ is not feeling well and is taking his first nap in over 6 months. He passed out on my bed after laying down on his own free will. He has some sort of eye infection. :(

We have still been busy as always though. I have finished a few projects but I am not ready to post about them yet.

Since it is snowing, I figured it was only appropriate to share what we have been doing to occupy our time since we are snowed in (only one car and Kevin had to take it to work).

We have made:
Snow Ice Cream (After a lot of research, I loved this website because it gave us options on how we wanted to make the snow ice cream and lots of ideas we are going to try again later.)
We made two kinds on snow ice cream but between the two kiddos "helping" I only got a few pictures. We made the mix the snow in the milk/cream kind and the put the snow in a bag and the cream in a little bag inside of the snow and and mix kind. I have to say after having both Jaedyn and I both liked the put the snow in a bag and then the cream in a smaller bag and not let the snow touch our ice cream simply because it was smoother and richer. The kind where you mix the snow in is a LOT easier with little kids though. Its like instant gratification. We made the mix the snow in kind chocolate using a bit of coco powder in the mix. We made the other kind vanilla.

ingredients

jj mixing it all up

finished snow mixture

 

Snow "gems" (These are currently freezing in the snow and awaiting jj in his bath tonight, he is too cold and tired to play with them in the snow today, we will make more tomorrow if there is still snow to play in)
These did not work as well as hoped. I reccomment using small water ballons since they hold more and you can make them bigger and the ballon is thinner so it would have actually frozen solid like we had hoped.

ingredients

water in balloons

Freezing the water

 

now paint ( I didn't have spray bottles so I used old mustard and ketchup bottles I also use for homemade chalk during the summer because jj isn't ready to have to paint it all over he loves to squirt it and make designs)

our painted snowman

Freezable Sugar Cookies (we made the drop cookie version today and froze more then half of the dough so we have some ready for other days)

Freezable Peanut Butter/chocolate chip cookies (we added the chocolate chips to the recipe)

Slow Cooked Chuck Roast (I didn't use sour cream, I used our homemade plain yogurt instead)

Spinach Pesto chicken with noodles (this is where I got the idea. I honestly didn't use a recipe and just made it to taste. I decided to add grilled chicken to my pasta and mix it all together. FYI Jaedyn LOVES this recipe and just thinks this is how we make pesto) 
Homemade liquid Laundry Soap (FYI I LOVE THIS SOAP, but I don't put it in a 2 gallon bucket, I put it in a large yogurt container, well two to accommodate it and only make about 1/3 at a time, then I have one under the sink for later and one I use in the laundry room at a time)

Those are just the things we got done. We are still working on our crate paper flowers to decorate for Valentines Day. I will be posting more details and pictures later! :)

HOMESCHOOL DAY #1

  First we made a few more weather descriptions  and the days of the week to go along with the ones we had. (month, date, and some weather descriptions) Making them required JJ to help me type them up, we printed them, cut them out, and then we put them through the laminate machine. It took quiet a while and now I need to buy some more Velcro but all in all its nice to have more options for him to choose from.
  Then we just made out letter tracing papers A-Z after a few mess ups and changes, I made them black and will let him trace using homemade paint the color of the week so we can use these same tracers week after week.
  I decided to start with the Zoo as our main subject. So this month we have A-alligator, B-bear, C-cheetah D-duck, E-elephant, F-fox, G-giraffe, H-hippopotamus I-iguana, J-Jaguar, K- kangaroo, L-lion, M- meerkat, N-newt, O-ostrich, P-penguin, Q- quail, R-rabbit S-snake T-turtle U-urchin V-vulture W-wolf X-Xenopus: a frog Y-yak Z-zebra. that list was actually kind of hard to come up with. I did my best to pick animals that we can see at the local zoo or science center. I also wanted all real animals that I can show him online. I think this will help him start to connect with the letters.
  I picked out some of his books that have to do with the zoo and animals to read each day as well as our nightly books that are now focused around the animals he will be learning about.I plan to take this month as a trial to see how in depth he is ready to get into each of the subjects.


I am excited to say that we are going to make a felt board soon as well as some felt letters and numbers. I am pretty excited.

HERE GOES NOTHING!!! :)

homemade ritz and ricotta cheese.....cheeses #1

Today we made some homemade ricotta and Ritz crackers. I will make both of these again because they are pretty easy to accomplish. I have some notes for myself now concerning both of these recipes.

Lets start with the ricotta. Which I got from here. I have to give this blog some credit for their recipes and the ease of understanding instructions. I love quiet a few things from here.

Makes about 1 generous cup of ricotta
3 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream (see Note above about using less)
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

• Pour the milk, cream and salt into a 3-quart nonreactive saucepan. Attach a candy or deep-fry thermometer.
• Heat the milk to 190°F, stirring it occasionally to keep it from scorching on the bottom.
• Remove from heat and add the lemon juice, then stir it once or twice, gently and slowly.
• Let the pot sit undisturbed for 5 minutes.
• Line a colander with a few layers of cheesecloth and place it over a large bowl (to catch the whey).
• Pour the curds and whey into the colander and let the curds strain for at least an hour.
•  At an hour, you’ll have a tender, spreadable ricotta. At two hours, it will be spreadable but a bit firmer, almost like cream cheese. (It will firm as it cools, so do not judge its final texture by what you have in your cheesecloth.)
• Discard the whey, or, if you’re one of those crafty people who use it for other things, of course, save it.
• Eat the ricotta right away or transfer it to an airtight container and refrigerate until ready to use.

Today, I did not have whole milk and with Kevin at work all day I didn't want to take the kids to the store. I used 1/2cup cream and 3 1/2 cups 2%. The ricotta worked like a charm and now that I have confidence I will make sure to have the right ingredients next time because while it tastes good and is so going on pizzas tomorrow I would have liked it to be creamier. There was just not enough fat with 2% to achieve that. I would like to make it like this those to make some manicotti soon though.
Side note, I WILL NEVER THROW AWAY MY WHEY AGAIN!!!! This is an amazing site to let you know where to use up that left over whey.

Next up was the Ritz crackers. I will make the dough with store brand butter that firms up better and not my expensive real cream butter next time. It was a bit sticky. I will also roll them out in a few smaller batches and as thin thin thin as I can. They taste really yummy and I have eaten quiet a few with the ricotta I made spread on top with roasted garlic. YUMMY! I love this blog! I am so also going to make her graham cracker recipe later this month with these homemade marshmallows ( I also love this blog).

This recipe is made in a food processor. If you cut the recipe in half, you can fit it in a mini food processor.

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp + another 1/2 tsp salt for topping
• 6 tbsp cold unsalted butter + 3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup water

1. Preheat oven to 400 F.
2. Put the flour, baking powder, sugar, and 1/2 tsp of salt in the food processor.
3. Pulse to combine.
4. Add cold butter a few small pats at a time, and pulse to combine.
5. Add vegetable oil. Pulse to combine.
6. Add water a little bit at a time. Pulse to combine after each addition. The dough should start to form a ball.
7. Roll dough out as thin as you can. Mine ended up being all different thicknesses. Don't sweat it. They are homemade! If you are really concerned, Jeffrey had luck using a pasta maker to make the dough all one thickness - great idea!
8. Use cookie cutters to cut the dough out. You can make them "Ritz" shaped or any shape that you like.
9. Bake the crackers on a parchment or Silpat lined baking sheet for ten minutes or until the crackers just begin to brown.
10. While the crackers are baking, melt the remaining butter and mix in the remaining salt (Some people said that the crackers weren't salty enough. Add more or less salt to your taste.)

As soon as you remove the crackers from the oven, brush them with the salty butter.

Final products together. The ricotta was mixed with freshly roasted garlic and some Italian herbs.

Homemade Cheeses!!

I am going to start a couple week long post where I am going to experiment making different types for instance mascarpone, ricotta, cream cheese, hopefully eventually ending with harder to make cheeses like mozzarella and cheddar. I will also be spotlighting different ways to use each cheese. Meaning I will pair making crackers and puff pastry ect… with the different cheese I make. This weekend was yogurt and we are going to try to make some homemade frozen yogurt tonight. I am thinking mascarpone is next week’s venture with homemade graham crackers to enjoy it with.


YUMMY!!!

Homemade Cheese Its!!

I am not a fan of all of the crap that is in the crackers the my kiddos LOVE to eat. If I let Jaedyn and Evelyn they would eat some sort of cracker for every meal. Obviously, I don't and wouldn't but it would be nice to be able to name everything in the crackers and also not have to spend an arm and a leg buying the special organic ones that honestly don't always taste that great. This is the awesome cheese it recipe I am trying today. There are a lot of different recipes available and I just picked this one because I have made some other things from this site with some success.

Jaedyn loves them! I could use a bit of stronger cheese since I used half sharp and half medium cheddar. I also think there would be great made with Parmesan. Maybe even a mix to eat with some Italian soup! ooh ideas!! :) anyways they are great and I am so going to make these again.

Hot/Cold Packs

I am making some more hot/cold packs today, I got the tutorial from here . I changed it a little and since the ones we have made so far have been such a big hit with JJs friends, we are going to make some more for birthdays.

start with the shape of material you are looking to have the final product look like. I started with a large rectangle for this one. (I have made circles and squares)

Then fold inside out and sew along the sides.

Then turn right side out and fill with rice about 3/4 way full (if you want it really full and tight or 1/2 if you want it a bit more loose) you can add a line down the middle stitching to make two pockets like I did as well. (I just forgot to take a picture of this part)

Then once full sew the top closed. I had to hand sew this part because I chose to fill the bags pretty full and I didn't want to break a needle if a piece of rice got in the way.

 You are done! I have added loops with ribbon to the side of some of these so the kids could carry them around and other fun little embellishments. This one is just for Jaedyn and it is not quiet as lopsided as the picture shows but I was not quiet as concerned with perfection here.

Homemade Yogurt! YUMMY

I love making this homemade if I can. I have used this easy Crock Pot Yogurt Recipe before and love it. I like a lot of the things Our Life Simplified (In the kitchen) has on her blog. I only made a quart of the yogurt because we are currently not using it fast enough and I would rather make it more often then waste any. I didnt use my saved cup of yogurt fast enough so I had to start over and use from store bought to get it started again as well.

My yogurt is currently all wrapped up (just to keep it warm) as its cultures away. It should be done by 9pm tonight. I am excited to have a yummy snack tomorrow am with some homemade strawberry jam mixed in. I am also going to try to make a small batch of homemade frozen yogurt with this for a dessert for tomorrow night. I will update tomorrow with how that goes.


UPDATED!!!

yogurts done

almost done frozen yogurt one hour into freezing



frozen yogurt after two hours

trick to frozen yogurt is glass or metal bowl/container and stir every 1/2 hour to break up ice crystals and keep it smooth.

homeschooling preschool......ready set go!

I know not everyone is into homeschooling their kids but, I have known since Jaedyn was a baby that I wanted to homeschool. I just see so many gaps in the educational system, but that is another topic all in its self. We have decided that we are going to take it year by year and see how we do with it as a family and what works for us. We are currently not going to do a co-op or anything since I have Evelyn, cant afford a babysitter, and Kevin is only home with us a little bit during the winter. I also think that at Jaedyns age play dates and outings with other kids provide enough peer "practice".

I just updated my calender wall and weather "center" so we can start looking at the weather each day as well as posting the date up to work on numbers and understanding the days of the week. (btw I love Velcro)

I am going to officially start school Monday January 9th. I figure it gives me the weekend and a deadline to get my butt in gear and make a basic lesson plan. I have not completely decided if we are doing letter of the week, two weeks, or month. I honestly am looking at letter of the week as a lot of work but I know it is probably best for him. We will see how it goes with this first week. The beauty of homeschooling is I can change it up anytime I see things are not working.

The current plan is to work the way through the alphabet with corresponding numbers, words, colors, and shapes, like first week A, 1, Apple, red, circle. Second week B, 2, bear, brown, square. Then once we have gone through the alphabet I will see how he is doing and I may start to do months with concepts.

We are also going to restart potty training now that he has shown more interest. So tonight I made a potty chart and a behavior chart using picture frames I already had hanging in the playroom. Jaedyn picked red as the background for the potty chart and I am using a dry erase marker to make marks when he goes in the toilet. This is going to save paper, time, and stickers :). The marks count as points and points are counted at the end of the day and then a certain activity is picked as a reward. We are NOT doing candy or toys as rewards.

The behavior chart was created because Jaedyn has been having trouble with his attitude as of late. He is extremely jealous of Evelyn and has been acting out a lot. So the same thing goes for good behavior. He still gets time outs for bad behavior but we wanted a physical reminder and reward for good behavior as well. We are going to do the same thing with points except that the more points means more books being read before bedtime with either myself or Kevin. We want the reward to be a positive activity and to not take away from his accomplishments by saying act a certain way and you will get candy or a toy. We already read each night before bed, this is just an extra incentive to get more books (he LOVES to be read to).

time for new decorations-Valentines Day!

Since the Christmas holiays are over, it is time to get some new things up so the house doesnt look so bare and it gives me an excuse to do projects with my little man. (he is currently pushing his way up into my lap like the little cuddler he is). we just made a fun puzzle piece wreath from left over cardboard, a few puzzels that are missing pieces, some left over acrylic paint and some left over Christmas ribbon. We also decided to add some fun glitter dots to the heart. I had all of these on hand and even if I had to buy the paint, just watch for a sale at either JoAnn's, Michael's, or Hobby Lobby. They often have acrylic paint for as little as $1 a bottle. This project does not use a lot either.

Materials:
-old cardboard box
-old puzzel pieces
-red pink silver gold or purple paint (at least two colors)
-hot glue gun and glue
-left over complimenting ribbon
-paint brushes
-glitter glue (optional)
-heart stickers or cut outs (optional)

1. We took the left over cardboard box and cut a rough heart shape out of it. It has to be hollow so cut the outside shape first and then the inside of the heart out.

2. Then we started hot glueing the puzzel pieces on randomly. I let jj pick the pieces and stick them on while I added the glue.

3.After that was done we went ahead and painted out heart metalic red.

4. I then got the idea to make an L out of cardboard and do the same thing with the puzzel pieces except that we cut hte pieces up so that they were a bit smaller. This is fun because an L stands for out last name of Lind as well as Love. (since this is a Valentines Day wreath)
5. We then painted the L pink to compliment the red heart.

6. Then once it is all dry we added silver glittler glue dots to both the heart and the L.
7. We then connected the L with hot glue to the heart.

8. Now as soon as it dies all the way, we are going to use the left over ribbon to hang the wreath on a wreath hook on out door.
 

 DONE!!! (not the best picture color but it was night time and I just wanted to get it posted)