Grill It!

With the warm weather comes the urge to grill!  I love this time of the year as my husband is willing to man the grill and I have time to putz around the deck and flower beds while dinner cooks.  Here's an easy shish-kabob recipe for the whole family:

A tangy marinade: 2 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp white vinegar, 2 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp spicy brown mustard, 1/4 tsp pepper, 1 tsp favorite grill seasoning or seasoning salt.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Now I know why my daughter's 3rd grade teacher recently told us that her writing was some of his favorite and he found it fun to read.  While sorting through the paperwork she had brought home, I discovered a sheet where she was practicing similes.  My favorite:

"The street was as dusty as the top of a ceiling fan."

My husband and I were laughing so hard we were in tears...girl has a point.  You will not be hearing me give dusting tips...

Awaiting a Project

These bottles were just too beautiful to take to recycling so there they wait for me to dream up a job for them. Share your ideas with me please!

Deli Roast Chicken - Round 2

So the rest of the deli chicken got stripped off the bone and rough chopped. Threw it on top of a basic salad and served with seeded rye bread with spinach dip. Yum!

Quick Lunch

Taking advantage of warm deli roasted chicken to make a quick but tasty lunch after the Saturday morning grocery run.

St. Patty's Day Fun Snack Mix

Got this awesome snack mix recipe Pot O Gold Chex Mix  through the Betty Crocker's Dinner Made Easy email newsletter (which I love!).  The Princess helped me out.  We actually made 3 batches.  Two following the recipe exactly - one for her class and one for our family dinner on Saturday.  The the third we left out the peanuts and the sauce mixture for Little Man's class since some of the kids are still very young and its not known about allergies they may have.  Tasty!

My helper breaking the pretzels.  This was a great hands-on chance to practice her math skills (multiplication, division, and fractions) with having her measure and figure out how many measuring cups full we needed of each ingredient since we were making 3 batches.

This is the beautiful final result.  The coating is like a caramel sauce but dries pretty well so its not too sticky - like caramel corn.  We elected to just load each batch into gallon ziploc bags to make it easier to take to school.  One batch is a very full ziploc.  Some people on the Betty Crocker site indicated problems with the marshmallows melting but I had no issue with that.  I did make sure to only microwave 1 minute at a time and stir between each minute - this gives the mix a few seconds to cool back down and may have made a difference with the marshmallows.  The cereal can be a bit pricey but I don't mind using store brand cereals and nuts and that can cut your cost to make this in half.  If you are a brand lover, subscribe to the newsletter in the above link and you get a ton of great coupons on General Mills brands.  A large box will make about 3 batches of this recipe.

Green!

All sorts of signs of spring tonight! Trying to refrain from pulling the leaves off the beds though as I know frost is still more likely than not. Love seeing these curly little columbine leaves!

Sweet Country Life: ~ Rainbow Colors ~

Sweet Country Life: ~ Rainbow Colors ~

Love this!  I've done a similar thing using old crayons and old candle chunks and melted together in a muffin tin.  Only I made candles by taking candle wick string and tying it to skewers that are laid across the top of each row after the wax is melted.  Let it cool and trim the wicks to size.  Great little goodie bag fillers either way!

Managing Chaos

I am a very Type-A person.  I like my lists, I like my folders, I like at least an organized pile or designated bin.  While my desk at work is often overly organized (yes, I am known as the "white board lady"), I do not have enough hours in the day at home to have it as organized as I would like.  I have two kids, a husband, two dogs, a cat, a goat, a pony and a horse - love them as much as I do, they conflict greatly with my desire to be a neat-freak!  :)  So while I would like to claim that I know how to manage chaos...I should perhaps call it attempting to minimize...

What I Like...

What it usually looks like...

I love FlyLady and her tips and certainly if I was at home all day (and the kids were at school) I could surely implement them all (total sarcasm here!).  Instead in a typical day we are out the door by 7 a.m. and back home with the kids in tow around 5:30 p.m.  The kids are starving a looking for snacks, the critters are calling for their pats and treats, homework to be done, clothes to be ironed, dinner to be made somewhere amongst the mess while everyone tells me about their day and the things they need for the next day - oh and let's not even go there with laundry, dishes, and dusting non-sense...  Anybody tired yet?  And about 2 hours to do the majority of it and get in snuggles and stories for bedtime at 8...8:30...ish...

If you think weekends are better...well...more on that later...  Now don't get me wrong...I don't mean to complain...I fully accept that I have done this to myself...I mean...I could cut down on the number of pets, hire a housekeeper (sure...), bring home carryout every night...  But I fully realize I'd be totally bored without all this stuff to do...  :)

A few things I love that do help minimize the chaos

• A clothes sorter that hangs in the bathroom with enough space for a week of clothing.  On Sunday The Princess picks out her clothes and PJs for the upcoming week - we check the class newsletter for which days she has gym or other activities that require certain clothes.  I also pick out Little Man's clothes - and he's starting to help.  In the bottom of the sorter is an area for shoes but I use that for PullUps and wipes since we no longer need a changing station (hooray for potty training!).
• Electric toothbrushes and a fun timer - makes it much easier to get the kids to brush!
• My crockpot!  ('Nuf said...)
• Semi-homemade and 3-in-1 meals like this multi-meal chicken plan that allow me to cook a large amount of one item one night and turn leftovers into multiple meals and lunches.
• A dry erase board I hang where the kids can look at it - I put the bedtime routine and morning routine on it and when the sleepy-head Princess is struggling to focus I refer her to the board to see what's next.
• The "kids pantry" - three shelves in a kitchen cabinet designated for the kids.  The first shelf is full of their reusable plastic cups and reusable water bottles.  The second has all their reusable plastic bowls and plates, along with a plastic basket full of cup tops, silly straws and other things they use.  The third is full of snacks: all their favorite crackers, bananas, fruit snacks, granola for making yogurt parfaits, fruit cups, raisins, granola bars, cereal bars, etc.  They still have to ask but as long as they get permission I don't have to stop and go fetch the item for them.  This means The Princess can pack her own school snacks (and pick what she wants), they can grab a small snack if dinner will take a while, and they can grab a morning snack on our way out the door if they are starving (they eat breakfast at daycare).

Easter Cake

Try this fun Easter cake with the kids - The Princess and I made this last year.  We just made a simple sheet cake (the kids picked a sprinkle cake) and white frosted the whole cake.  The we rounded up supplies from the cabinets for decorating - lots of flexibility here.  We used coconut (dyed green with food coloring) for the grass, jelly beans as eggs, packaged cotton candy for the sheep and clouds, Chex cereal for the basket, and a chocolate egg we broken in half for the chick's egg.  The rest of the details were gel piping - piping is not my strong suite.  Tip:  Don't decorate until a couple of hours before you plan on eating this and keep it in the fridge - otherwise the cotton candy and Chex absorb moisture from the frosting.  The green dye may also leech into the frosting.