Time for a tea party.

Last week was a very long week, First the girls had the sniffles, and never ending runny noses, Then hubby got sick, he took off Tuesday and Wednesday from work. Then had Thursday and Friday off. Well Wednesday morning I took the girls up stairs (hubby was in bed) woke him up turned on play house disney for the girls and then left to take the boys to school.. Hubby still almost asleep didn't notice Brianna going into our bathroom and coming back out with my keys....well from then on I could not find my keys at all... Not until Saturday, some how in the 10 min. it takes me to take the boys to school and get back home Brianna had gotten my keys taken them down stairs hidden them not on or behind but Under my hope chest, and then gone back up stairs... sighhh... Well I have them now at least That and in an effort to find the dang things my house is cleaner than ever ;). Well since today was a back to normal day I decided the girls and I would make some graham crackers , we used our nifty Halloween cookie cutters to cut them out and had a good time. Then I got out the girls tea set and let them have a tea party with water in the teapot and graham crackers for snack. They had soo much fun :)
(Btw that is a cat Caitlynn is holding, she is holding it upside down by the tail).
Then we went and got the boys from school.. When they got home they joined in the fun also........
Nathaniel now back to his home workAlex picked out a ghost

Coloring and trying to lean as far away from the teapot as possible :).
And...This picture again...just because I like it :)

Breakfast

Alright, here are our steel cut oats, Now we can not find steel cut oats around our house, so my mom stocks up on them when we come to visit! Thanks mom!!!!
This is what the look like...they kind of look like rice that has been chopped in half...steel cut...yup thats it.
here it is before I turned on the crock to one cup of oats I added 4 cups of water 2 peeled and chopped apples a generous helping of cinnamon, a sprinkling of cloves and ginger...it smelled wonderful.
Then I put the lid on the crock, set it to low for 8 hours and woke up to this......

yummm oh and my house smelled good and the kids had a hot breakfast before school yumm
add some brown sugar and some milk and it taste like apple pie... (not kidding it really does!)
yummmm.

dinner tonight

Well I started off the day looking through my Rachael Ray cook books.. I got to This one , and though I had found dinner. Mac and cheese, peas with onions and bacon, and apple crisp... Yummm. Then I went to look in the pantry...we somehow missed buying noodles at the store this week... OK so that was out... so I started browsing again I came across grilled honey lime chicken... looked interesting and easy....Only I don't have any lime juice, well lemon should work right? That sounded good to me! Well here we go

Ingredients
The juice of 1 lime (I used lemon about 2.5 tbs. of juice from the bottle)
2 tablespoons honey
1 rounded teaspoon cumin
A handful of cilantro, finely chopped (1. 5 tablespoons)...i didn't have cilantro so i left it out
2 tablespoon olive oil
4 pieces boneless skinless chicken breasts
Montreal steak seasoning

Toppings
lettuce, tomato, red onion, avocado
salsa
4 crusty rolls split (i only had hamburger buns)

Directions
combine first 5 ingredients in a small bowl to make a dressing. (I double the dressing but only added 1 tsp of cumin to it, i was afraid the kids wouldn't eat if I added to much cumin LOL) Sprinkle chicken with seasoning (or salt and pepper), Coat with dressing, set aside for 10 min. (I pounded the chicken with a rolling pin so it was thinner and cooked faster then seasoned place in a small roasting pan and let it set in the dressing for about 30 min.)

Grill chicken on an indoor electric grill 6-7 min. on each side, or pan fry over med. high heat in a large non-stick skillet uncovered about 6 min. per side.

Slice grilled chicken on an angle and pile on roll bottoms (I just cut the chicken breasts in half they were the perfect size for the buns) Top with lettuce tomato red onion and sliced avocado spread salsa on roll tops.

This was good... really really good. Brianna Ate 2 whole sandwiches... Yayyyy we served with chips and salsa on the side and topped them with salsa... Oh I will be doing this again, they were sweet, a tiny bit spicy from the seasoning with only the slight taste of the cumin just really really good! Even Alex liked it.. though he was done after half a sandwich. Hubby ate a sandwich after work tonight and proclaimed it a keeper :).

Yum

He says it tastes good :)
Brianna says "mmmmm" (she was done with her first sandwich before I even got to sit down)
Caitlynn's was soon gone
Yayyyy a meal everyone liked!

Now for Breakfast, working in the crock pot. We are having Steel cut oats (it is just a chunky oatmeal really and takes longer to cook)
I ad 1 cup of oats 2 peeled and chopped apples, and 4 cups of water,and a liberal sprinkling of cinnamon (I may add a dash of cloves tonight not sure yet) cook on low 8 hours (our crock pot will then keep it warm for up to 5 hours). It will be perfect when we wake up. Spoon into bowls, sweeten with a little brown sugar or honey and a dash of milk... The easiest hot breakfast ever!!!

note... tonight I added a dash of ground cloves and a bit of ground ginger with the cinnamon... it smells wonderful, My house is going to smell sooo good when we get up tomorrow!

Cookie day

Yesterday was a nice little chilly day, The perfect day to make cookies! First we started with a recipe from my cookie cook book, 500 cookies
I used the recipe for Witches' hats, (just a sugar cookie recipe they use it has many of them.)

Here is the recipe

Witches' Hats

2 cups of flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup butter
1 cup superfine sugar (not sure what superfine is so i just used granulated sugar)
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla
(I could not get this to come together at all so I added about 2 tbs of milk and it worked wonderfully)

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.
In a separate bowl beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla.
stir in flour mixture until incorporated, and knead lightly until combined. (this is where i added just enough milk to pull it together). refrigerate until firm.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out dough to 1/8 inch thick, cut out cookies. bake for 8-10 min. Allow to cool.

Then after we ate dinner I mixed up some frosting using this recipe.
It was easy and quick and then we painted our cookies!

Everyone got to work right away, this was so much fun and so easy, and quick to clean up!Busy little bees
eatable paint yum

I think one of the best things was watching the baby so intent, on painting....awwwwwThen before long they where almost done


And waiting till it was time to taste themSome took a little longer ;)

But they all had a blast!
These were proclaimed as the "best cookies ever". I think that is because they got to eat their artwork, not so much because they actually are the best cookies ever (though they are pretty tasty). It was fun to make our own desserts :). Then while the kiddos watched their last tv show before bed and enjoyed their dessert, I painted the rest of the cookies for lunches and snacks...I probably had as much fun as the kids did :)

Just some girl time

On Friday Hubby was home for the day so instead of going to pick up the boys by myself I decided to take just Brianna...It was fun We dawdled along to school, picked dandelions. Brianna talked about princesses, fairies, and giraffes. We sang the alphabet counted to 30 . And then we where there.




We had a good time.

Outside to play

We finished dinner early tonight (chicken and dumplings), And it was just beautiful out so we went out to play for an hour before it was time for bed.
The plan was to go for a walk around the circle (several times)...we ended up playing a rousing game of tag. And then talking about all things Pokemon and Star wars with the neighbor girls.

Brianna running away from me
Here are the boys playing star warsAnd Caitlynn being cornered by a clone trooper
Oh and please don't mind our poor pathetic plants... We have here 2 bell pepper plants 1 zucchini plant and one pumpkin plant....Out of all of that we have gotten on eatable pepper and one more that is growing now LOL...A little late for it to redeem itself though.

Frustrated

Ok i really really want to like the recipe for ham that I have been trying.. It is easy, we like everything in it....but it just doesn't seem to be turning out...I am beyond frustrated. This time it should have worked...It was better, everyone ate it. It smelled AWESOME...It just didn't have that WOW factor when you tasted it...it was..alright...I have some still in the crock on warm for hubby to try later... we shall see what he says. I think that A... This ham NEEDS to be cooked in the crock pot to be soft enough... B if nothing else this recipe needs cloves, or something...it seems to be a little bland...But I have no cloves right now I used cinnamon (liberally) about 1/2 tsp of nutmeg, and 1/4 tsp of ground ginger... It just wasn't a Wow this taste so good meal...it was however a Wow that smells good meal though LOL.

I think next time I will try another glaze recipe... Does any one know a good one?????

here is the ham, almost done... I cut it into fourths so it fit right in the crock pot

I added the apples at about 3:30, we ate at 5 ish the apples were great.
sprinkled with cinnamon... later I added more, and nutmeg and ginger.
Out of the crock pot, the ham was falling apart... it was alright...could have been better, the apples they where very good...hmmm well if you have any ideas let me know...please!

Dinner

Last week I made This recipe.
Which looked like this
It was very very good, but for starters, Our ham was very very thick which with quick cooking I think equaled very tough...secondly we only had butter flavored syrup, which I think may have made it ...um... not taste as good as it could have.
Well I am trying it again today..It is in the crock pot right now, on high for 5 hours. Right now in the crock pot I have the ham and syrup (still the cheap kind but instead of butter flavored it says with 2% maple syrup) smells better already. And since I want apples not applesauce I will add the apples when we get home with the boys probably ...Around 3 o clock... I really want this recipe to work...I have A LOT of ham to use :). and thinking about it...I bet it would be great with chunks of sweet potato thrown in the crock too...man I wish I had sweet potatoes!

some awesome clouds, and my boys

This is what the boys and I saw when we stepped outside today...
They looked even better in person...
Ahhh good morning Nathaniel...Nathaniel is mad at me this morning...Because I made him change clothes before school...His first outfit was a green plaid shirt and blue camo pants...then he tried that red shirt and the camo pants...finally he came down in those pants...whew.... But he was not happy. Then he refused to wear a jacket...It was COLD this morning. Tomorrow he will wear his jacket ;).
And here is Alex... in his favorite outfit...A sweater vest and button down dress shirt... oh my..
Yup that is my child....

And here we have more clouds... I thought they were neat.
Nathaniel seriously rethinking his decision about his jacket
a cool break in the clouds...pretty blue sky.
ok this was just neat.

Now tell me that you think this one looks like... I think it looks like some swirling vortex thing over my house. I had a better picture ready to take, but the batteries in my camera died.
well until later!