I am finally back!

After yet another long hiatus, I am back in the blogging world with more umph then ever before! I have had a lot of changes around home, like the addition of two part-time jobs, home business, and renting out our room on AirBNB.  I have found that between that, homeschooling, and my own school; there has been very little time for blogging. Well, not anymore.....I AM BACK!

Happy Fall Return & Pumpkin Puree

    After a very long hiatus, I am back in the blogging world. The blog looks a little different with an added mission. This has been a very long 6 months of so, with a lot of changes around the house as well. We have converted to as homemade or close to ground to table as possible when it comes to eating. This means the days are a little slower and the food takes more effort. I use the term "Urban Homesteading" kind of as a catch all for the changes around our home. I try to use homemade, local-made, or go without when possible. 
    Things this does not include are: clothes, cars, computers (obviously), every toy, and I am sure a few I am forgetting. We do not live on a farm and are not pretending to be completely Eco-perfectly-friendly or completely self sufficient. This is a slow process and somethings we will just not give up or have the space/money to handle on our own.

   In other big changes, I no longer nanny full-time but instead work for an amazing family two early mornings a week. This allows for a much easier flow of homeschooling, housework, ect. I LOVE my new just even with the hours of 5am-930am.  I am NOT a morning person but I am finding a new found appreciation for the quiet dawn I am now part of two days a week. 
    Long story short, new direction overall for blog, hopefully lots of new posts soon, & fun fall activities to share!

ROASTED PUMPKIN PUREE

    Today's activities include roasted pumpkin puree with pumpkins from a local farm. I use pumpkin all fall and winter long just like the rest of the pacific northwest. I love trying new ways to utilize it and having it be as fresh as possible is always preferable to me. I don't how ever love taking the time every time I was some to cut, de-seed, roast, puree, and then use the pumpkin. So to stream line this process I spend about one afternoon a month roasting and pureeing around 6-10 sugar pumpkins. I know you can use the bigger and less expensive pumpkins but the small sugar ones definitely taste more like the "traditional processed" pumpkin we are all used to. I can not take credit for this idea though, one of my favorite blogs, The Pioneer Woman, is where I got the idea. I love her easy to follow and well put together recipes. The pictures below are The Pioneer Woman's from her post on how to take this.......

and turn it into this......

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!