The boys spent part of a day with their good friend “Miss Karen” who has bailed me out on several occasions when I needed someone to watch the kids. She’s SO great with children, and the boys go wild with excitement every time they get to go to her house! On this occasion, she had some cupcake decorating supplies on hand and I’m sure you can imagine the excitement that went into this artwork of theirs! 
They enjoyed eating it as well!
You remember that I “forgot” to take photos of us opening gifts on Christmas day? Ha! Oh my. Anyway, here’s De Bella opening her princess riding toy from Grandma and Popeye Noggle. I think she likes it!!
When we were kids… though it was more like jr high and high school age that I remember this. We’d sometimes have split pea soup for lunch. Most of the time along with a sandwich of some kind. My preference was always tuna. The soup that we had was the condensed kind which you have to dig out of the can with a fork and then whisk like crazy to make “smooth” while you incorporate the water back in.
Still, I liked it. One day when we were first married, I thought I’d let my new hubby in on this great lunch tradition. He was very nice about it and slurped up his green soup without complaining. However, I have been unable, since that time, to ever get him near a bite of split-pea soup again. Ha ha ha! I guess it scarred him for life.
I wish he’d try this homemade version though because it’s a MILLION times better than any can of condensed stuff you could ever buy! I found this recipe off of thehillbillyhousewife website, and didn’t think that it would be all that at first. I’ve tried other of her recipes, and while the frugal concept behind a lot of them is good, there just isn’t much else to say of lentil and dumpling stew…. really.
But I’m glad I gave this one a try because it’s become one of my new staples. I make a big pot on a Monday and then I have split-pea soup to eat the rest of the week for lunch. And yes, it’ll fill you right up without a bunch of fat and calories that you don’t need. Plus, I don’t have to worry about anyone else eating it all up since me and Ella seem to be the only ones who like the soup. Though I have to admit I haven’t tried it on the boys recently. Perhaps I should give it another go. 
Simple Split-Pea Soup
2 T veg oil (I just eyeball it, but don’t usually use this much)
1 T minced garlic OR 1 t. dry
1 large onion, chopped
1 1/2 t salt (I find that this isn’t “enough” salt and I add a dash of salt and pepper to each bowl I eat, but I’d rather put it in later than over salt it to begin with)
2 c. dry split peas
6 c. water
I also add chopped celery and carrots. I like the flavor and the color!
In a large pot heat veg oil. Sauté onion and garlic (and celery and carrots). Add water, salt and split peas. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to med-low, cover and simmer for about 2 hours.
It ends up being thick and hearty. The peas fall apart in a great way, and it’s almost like a stew rather than soup. If you like peas at all, you’ll like this soup. It’s extremely frugal, and it’s simple and yummy, though I know not everyone will be wild about split-peas. Ha ha!
Dairy
I so totally flopped on my diet last week. And it was obvious since I didn’t lose any more weight. Oh well. Today is a new day…
My downfall was dairy. I told you I was trying to cut back on it since I’ve read in more than one place, that dairy can actually be a diet saboteur. I don’t know why since it ranks low on the GI, but whatever, I’m not a scientist. I do however now know that I can’t deprive myself of it for long. I’m too much of a yogurt, cheese and sour cream lover! Not sour cream by itself, mind you, but in dishes, and dips, yum!
Anyway, I made it to Wednesday very reluctantly last week. I don’t know why it is but whenever I do the “low carb” thing I just never feel full. I’m starving all the time, it’s weird. But Wednesday came and I just caved in when I saw the crock of homemade yogurt in the fridge. *sigh* My new favorite thing in the whole wide world is homemade plain yogurt with a dollop of real maple syrup on top. Just bliss!!!! Ahhhhhh!!!
And homemade yogurt is so much better than the kind you get in the store! It really is SO simple to make it! You’ve got to give it a try!! I’ve been making it for over a year now, and I love to do it! It’s so cheap compared to what you pay to have your not-as-good-yogurt brought to you in those little cartons. It’s way better for you as well since you get to control how much, if any sweeteners go into your yogurt. Good for your munchkins cause you can make it from whole milk which is more nutritious.
Have I convinced you yet?? You need to make some yogurt! You can read how I did it the first time HERE.
Anyway, it’s a new day, and a new week, and I’m slugging away at the diet again, only this time I’m allowing myself to have some dairy again. I just can’t do both. Carbs or dairy… I think I’ll stick with dairy for now.
MMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I’m sore! The kettlebell is to blame!
Yesterday was such a beautiful day! It warmed up so nicely in the afternoon that the lads were able to play outside sans coats! They were thrilled with that! I sat outside for some time watching Ella and her “sea legs” on the uneven terrain. She tends to be like water when she’s walking outside, her legs just automatically follow the flow of the land, ha ha!
I’m making yogurt again today. I can’t wait to have some tomorrow with Maple Syrup on it! YUUUUUUUM!
Stuart bought me a houseplant a couple weeks ago, and so far I haven’t killed it! I’d like to have several around the house, since that’s the best way to “filter” your inside air. (Did you know that?) I just have a hard time keeping them alive…. probably something to do with forgetting to water them or something. Maybe I’ll have better luck this time around.
My iPod Nano (1st generation) that Stuart got for me on our first married Christmas has been recalled. I was a little sad to let it go actually, even though I’ll be getting a new one, because he’d had it engraved on the back to say “Merry Christmas Darling! Love Your Stu” and the new one won’t have that. *sigh* Yes, I can be sentimental, I know. Anyway, right now I’m somewhat musicless because I don’t have any play lists on my other iPod. I think it might need to be a weekend project for me.
So the headache that was kind of lurking on the fringe of things for awhile has decided to move in and stay for awhile. I think I’m on day 4 or something with it. It hasn’t been a doozy the whole time, but it sure has been annoying. And since it’s been at least that long since I’ve had a really good night’s sleep, I imagine good ol’ headache thinks it’s his prerogative to stick around. Humbug!
Guess who SAT in a pile of goatheads while watching the kids play outside? Yep, it was me! I didn’t sit there for long, I’ll tell ya what! Usually I’m the lucky one who finds those nasty things with my feet in the carpet, but discovering them THIS way was an entirely new, and need I add unpleasant, experience. (BTW, if you’re still in the dark about what a goat-head is, it’s a very hard, very sharp 3 pointed (hence goat head) sticker that likes to grow in these here parts. I detest them greatly since they often hitch a ride inside on people’s shoes, turn loose in the carpet and then my poor lil unshod feet usually find them.)
Had a little mini-session with Ella today to model her Christmas tutu set that her Auntie Tiff made. I didn’t get any big grins, mostly because she was busy stuffing goldfish in her mouth, but I still got some cute photos!
It’s snowing outside, right now, and that wasn’t supposed to happen till Tuesday! The power out here is SO finicky in any kind of “weather” so it keeps blipping in and out. Twill be an interesting night with my noise-maker randomly shutting off. That wakes me up faster than anything.
Qade enlightened Myels this morning by telling him, “Nutella means chocolate.” I’m happy I’m brining them up right!
P.S. This post was written over the course of several days, as most of my this n that posts are, so the “yesterdays” and “todays” will be off slightly…. just to clear that all up for ya! Because yesterday we actually had snow, not lovely weather, gotta be honest, you know!
When I pinned this recipe I wrote, “You had me at the words easy and crock-pot” And it’s true, I have a weakness for easy meals, especially the kind I can toss in the crock-pot and forget about. Really though, doesn’t “Easy Crock-Pot Fiesta Chicken” just sound like a dish that you HAVE to try?
I did try it and I’m adding it to my favorites list. Stuart’s comment after his first bite was, “This is another one of those dishes that looks like it’s going to be boring, but tastes awesome!” Now what further praise does it need?
I confess I had some skeptical moments when I thought about adding cream cheese to the dish, but wow, it does some amazing dancing with the salsa and black beans! Total fiesta time, oh yeah! I used the neufchâtel cream cheese which says that it has 1/3 less fat, but it sure tasted yummy! I didn’t miss the extra 1/3rd at all.
I served it over jasmine rice for the menfolk. Ella got plain rice with just a smidgen of butter, but I avoided the carbs and was “good” even after Stuart commented, “It’s too bad you can’t have rice, because it’s REALLY good with the rice.” Har har har… thanks for that! Guess I’ll have to take his word for it for the time being, however, I would like to go on record as saying that it was scrum-diddly-umtious without the rice as well. Hee hee!
Give this one a whirl, you’ll love it! By the way, I found the recipe here if you’re interested.
Easy Crock Pot Fiesta Chicken
4 chicken breasts, frozen or thawed
1 (15 1/2 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 (15 ounce) can corn, drained
1 (15 ounce) jar of your favorite salsa
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
Take 4 frozen, yes, frozen (or thawed), boneless chicken breasts put into crock pot. Add 1 can of black beans, drained, 1 jar of salsa, 1 can of corn drained. Keep in crock pot on low for about 4-5 hours or until chicken is cooked. Once it is cooked, take it out and shred it. Return shredded chicken to the crockpot.
Add 1 package of cream cheese (just throw it on top!) and let sit for about 1/2 hour. It may look at little strange at this point. Don’t worry. Stir in the cream cheese.
Serve over rice or in warm flour tortillas.
Twas the weeks before Christmas and all through the house not a toy was to be found, not even for a mouse!
This was the culmination of some grumbly issues the lads had been having about keeping their toys neat and cleaning up the messes that they made.
Their favorite activity at that time was to empty their toy box of all toys cover it with blankets and play IN the toy box. Which is totally fine with me. I love it when they use their imaginations!! But I don’t love it when it came time for clean up and they balked, threw fits, fussed, whined and cried about having to clean up their toys.
Part of the problem came from the fact that they had too many toys out at once. And a lot of those toys were in lots of parts. (think lego) So the clean up did seem like a monstrous task when all 175 train track pieces were scattered all over the floor, not to mention all the matchbox cars, legos, and each and every stuffed animal along with an assortment of McDonalds happy meal type toys. It was overwhelming to ME and I’m not 3 and 4 yrs old.
We tried various tactics including tossing out some of those trinkety toys if they hadn’t made progress on cleaning up in a certain amount of time. It made an impression, especially on one little lad who hates for things to “go to the dump.” But unfortunately it didn’t take care of the above issues with cleaning.
Finally Daddy decided that enough was enough. After dinner one night, he packed up every toy in the boys’ room and took it out to the garage. The reaction was not very positive to be sure, but Qade mellowed a bit when he realized that they were just put away, not thrown away. He looked in his room and said, “I don’t think it looks nice in there.” Then he amended it to say, “Well, I think the floor looks nice, but the toy box doesn’t look nice because there aren’t any toys.”
They were toy-less for a weekend, and were not allowed to play with Ella’s toys. That next week, I brought in one of the boxes of jumbled up toys and told them that if they could help me clean up THAT box of toys, they could put those toys back into the toy box. We got through about 1/2 of the box before the whinies took over. I packed it all back in and out to the garage it went.
I have to say that I was surprised at how well they did without toys. Initially I told Stuart that I was going to be punished as much as the kids because they’d be bored out of their minds and driving me crazy all day. I was happy to discover that this wasn’t the case. They adapted very quickly and made up all kinds of games to play together with no toys!
Eventually, before Christmas Day, I had them help me sort their old toys. We put a LOT of them into a Goodwill pile. Qade was a little more able to cope with them going away if he knew they weren’t going to the dump. Another pile we are donating to my mom who wants more toys for them to destroy her house with when we go visit. And there was the trash pile where broken, and Micky-D’s type toys went. A few got put away into a bin to “rotate” out later. The very slimmed down toy box became much easier to manage, and most of the toys with a zillion pieces got put away to be used in Mom initiated quite time play.
We still get complaints when it’s time to clean up, but it’s NOTHING compared to what it was!! The lads play with their toys just like they did, but they also continue to play their toy-less games much more frequently. All in all I think that the time without toys was good for them, and the time now with fewer toys is also good for us all!
You all know how I have this hate-hate relationship with this low-carb diet thing. But as much as I hate to admit it, because I’d rather have an excuse to quit, it does work. Now I haven’t seen as much progress on the scale that I’d like, but one thing that I have seen progress in, is the decreasing muffin top! You know what a muffin top is right? Believe me you’ve all seen it… it’s also known as a spare tire. It’s that revolting jiggly mass that likes to attach itself to people’s midsection that is SO difficult to get rid of. Ugh! Something about having babies adds to the general flappyness of this region. Ha!
Anyway, it was this very muffin-top issue that I noticed in that “pictures never lie” photo! Yuck! It was motivation enough for me to give up carbs though, and now I’m happy that I have. Who knew that carbs always settle there?
I still have a ways to go, and I there’s quite a bit of toning that I need to do… which I’m rather lazy about at the moment, though I have been doing the kettle bell and I’m sure that will help. BUT I should be doing Tabata or other cardio as well. I’ll get there… eventually. For now I’m enjoying less muffin top and more loose clothing! Ha!
Tis the season for dry, flaky, cracked and painful skin! At least it is for me. This is a somewhat new state of affairs for me. New enough that I’m not really “used” to it yet. I was never the “dry skin” type as a teen. No, I had quite the opposite issue, and it was typical for me to be of shiny skin, and icky looking hair if I “skipped” a shower.
Now, I’m afraid to tell you for fear that you won’t ever want to sit next to me or be my friend again, I cannot shower every day. Even if I wasn’t a mommy with 3 young shower-stealers (believe me that’s what they are… the shower is the first to go when it comes to choosing that or more sleep, ha!) I still couldn’t, for my skin and hair’s sake, shower every day. I dry out terribly!!
Part of it has to do with the VERY minerally/hard water we have where we live, but part of it is just a changing life thing. Kids do weird things to ya! And getting older does too, but I chose not not think of that as a real reason. Ha ha!
Anyway, all of that to say that my skin is in bad shape if I shower more than every couple of days. And my hair too! I actually can’t stand my “freshly washed” hair because it refuses to look nice! It looks SO much better the next day, or the next even.
So I’m learning to counter these moisture sucking terrors to my skin, but I have to admit that my hands bear the brunt of it. They are naturally more often in water as I do dishes, switch laundry, bathe kids, wash hands, they just don’t get a break. And then they do break. I get paaaaaiiiiinnnnful cracks in my fingers and especially my thumbs, and even the back of my knuckles when they get too dry. Oh and just as an aside, superglue works WONDERS for skin cracks on your fingers. Really!!
But I’ve invented (well probably not very original) a thing I like to refer to as momicures. I’m pretty sure the last manicure I had was the one I got before my wedding…. yep, 6.5 years ago! Wow! My poor hands have been so neglected. Anyway, what I do is when I have chores to do around the house, which often happens, I slather up my hands with some THICK lotion, (my Hurb got me some great body butter stuff from BB&B and some thick Dr. Scholles foot lotion, and my sis-in-law gave me Avon’s Silicon Glove for Christmas and those all work fantastic!) or Vaseline will work in a pinch too, and put on my lovely rubber gloves. I have a pair that I use for icky chores, (like bathroom cleaning and such) that I drew a “yucky face” on so that I don’t get them mixed up with my dishes handling pair. I’m weird that way. But I wear the gloves while I do my chores, and when I’m all done my hands feel SO soft and moisturized!! It’s great!
I try to be conscientious about doing it all the time, because I’m the only one who suffers if I don’t, and believe me that ONE time of loading the dishwasher without gloves (and I don’t even pre-rinse all the dishes) can totally thrash my hands. So I keep lotion under the sink right next to the gloves so I have no “lazy” excuses and so far it’s making a big difference during this dry winter weather! So even if I’m just sweeping or dusting, I try to put on my gloves with lotion. That way I don’t feel all “dirty” like I have to wash my hands when I’m done, and I get some extra moisture at the same time.
Gotta protect that skin! It’s hard to crochet with rough hands!
These pictures are old. We had a snow quite awhile back, but I’m just now getting around to putting the photos up.
The lads went outside to enjoy the snow, and as they were out there it started to fall! Myles right away stuck out his tongue to catch some of the snow! Ha ha ha! I never did figure out what snow tastes like when I tried this tactic as a kid. Not sure they did either, but I had fun catching a few of the funny moments with my camera.
