Daily Housekeeping Schedule

Incase you need this as much as I do.....

Happy housekeeping!  I'm going to try this schedule for the next week and see how doable it is for the whole family :)

Parmesan Baked Chicken

How about another good recipe for you?  I saw this one on Pinterest and decided it couldn't be bad.  And I was right.  I steamed broccoli with it, which I will do again, but next time I'll also add some mashed potatoes!  My kids ate it too which is a double bonus.

Slightly adapted from Boy Meets Bowl.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 package Good Seasons Italian Dressing mix
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 6 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
• 1 egg, beaten

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400*.
2. Mix cheese, dressing mix and garlic powder in a bowl and set aside.
3. In another bowl, mix the egg until the white and yolk are combined.
4. I buy the fresh chicken breast from walmart.  I like to trim them very well, so I do this now and slice them into 3's or 4's.  They are typically large and thick, so it's very easy to get 3 or 4 pieces out of one breast.
5. Dip chicken into beaten egg then coat with cheese mixture. Place in shallow baking dish.
6. Bake 25-30 min. or until chicken is no longer pink in the center.

Our 1st Harvest

Big news...  We harvested our first vegetable from our first garden this past Sunday.  I've been watching this yellow squash grow for quite some time and I was so proud of it!  I let Kevin cut it from the plant so I could snap a picture.

We waited a day before we cooked it.  Kevin wanted it battered in cornmeal and fried like his parents use to make it.  His parents have done this many many times, unlike me, so we let them take over and cook it for us.

We have several more growing right now and I can't wait to try a few new recipes with them! :)

Healthy-ish Banana Muffins

Let me introduce you to a healthy-ish banana muffin I made a few days ago!  My favorite recipe is one my mom made for us when we were growing up.  I took that recipe and made a few adjustments.  It has quite a bit of sugar in the recipe (1 1/4 C) so I decided to replace half of the sugar with honey.  I thought while I was making substitutions, I'd take the butter out too and replace it with no sugar added applesauce.  As I was wrapping up throwing in ingredients, I decided to add a little cinnamon because it's my favorite spice and I like cinnamon in everything (and because I'm not a huge honey fan and I thought it may tame that taste)!  They are perfect once they have cooled a few minutes out of the oven.  Allie called them cinnamon and sugar muffins.  The cinnamon is very mild, but gives it a little something extra.  They get a little more sticky as the day goes on, but my kids snacked on them all day, and they were all gone by dinner time. 

Adapted from my mom's recipe.

Yields 40 mini muffins.

 

Ingredients: 

• 1/2 C sugar (heaping)
• 1/2 C honey
• 1/4 C no-sugar-added applesauce
• 1 egg
• 2 ripe bananas
• 1/2 C whole milk
• 3 C flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• *Optional* chopped pecans or walnuts or chocolate chips

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350* and grease mini muffin pan.  Set aside.
• In a mixer, add sugar, honey, applesauce, and egg.  Mix until combined.
• Add peeled bananas and milk.  Mix again.
• Add in all the dry ingredients and mix well.  
• Add any optional ingredients.
• Scoop into mini muffin cups and bake for 13-15 mins.  They are done when the tops spring back when touched
• Cool then serve.

                 

I made a plain muffin and a walnut muffin.  Both were delicious!

My batter looked shiny and a bit more runny than usual so I was anxious to see how they baked.

They were the perfect size with the perfect dome top.

Breakfast is served!  I made fruit smoothies to go with our muffins.

(Fruit smoothies were made with:  1 C vanilla yogurt, 1 banana, 1 C frozen fruit {pineapple and strawberries}, 1/2 C OJ)

Cute/Funny/Sweet Things My Kids Said

I am so bad about writing down funny things my kids said over the years.  Someone will say, "Do you remember when _________ said _________?"  And I feel like pregnancy brain has forever ruined my memory because I really don't remember so much!  I decided since I usually have my phone on me, when they say something that makes me smile, I'll write it in my notes in my phone so I can remember it.  Most things have dates, but some don't.   Here's what I've written down over the last several (March - July) months:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hayden: "Allie where are you?

Allie (purposely locked in the bathroom): "I'm giving myself a makeover."

Hayden (knocks on the door): "Let me in, it's your hero, I'll help you"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3-5-15

Allie: "I want my purple crown!"

Me: "Why don't you just wear your bike helmet? It matches and has a crown.".

Allie:  "Because it's purple (the crown) and my underwear is purple!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3-6-15

Krissy was brushing my hair and looked at me and said, "you booful"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3-13-15

Hayden (after watching a commercial): "Mom do you buy Boudy (Bounty)?  It lasts longer!"

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Me: "Allie let my cat go." (I say this about 20 times a day)

Allie: "He's mine. And his bweath stinks (holding her nose)."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3-19

Allie at Walmart "Mom, I was trying to chilax"
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Allie at lunch: "I've been wearing the same underwear for years."

Me: "Really? Well you should probably go change."

Allie: "Yesterday and today! (Whispers) it's pink."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Krissy put my arm on her and said "mom, wuv me!" 
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6-1-15 
Krissy: "Can we go to ABCD?" (Toys r us - not sure how she came up with ABCD)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6-1-15

We were walking out of church and saw our pastor's wife.  She said, "How are your kiddies?" Hayden promptly says "We aren't cats!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6-4

Hayden dropped his breadstick while we were out to eat.  I said just throw it away and he replied, "But it hasn't been 5 seconds!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6-7

Hayden says "in fact" before everything he says!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6-12

Hayden: "Can I have a brownie?"

Me:  "Didn't you just have a Popsicle?"

Hayden: "No! I just went to the bathroom!"
(But he had a popsicle before he went to the bathroom...)

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7-6-15

Me: "Guys we have to make sure to sanitize our hands a lot so we don't get any germs. Last time we went (to Holiday World), Hayden you got hand,foot, mouth. Remember "the bumps"? You had to go to Christmas lake with Mimi."

Allie:  "It feels so good to have you back Hayden. It wasn't the same with out you "

Hayden: "Yeah I missed you guys so much."

Allie:  "Yeah but we facetimed a lot."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Krissy: "I'm side up down" (up-side down)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7-13-15
After the first day at Art Smarts (church camp)
Allie:  "It's just not the same with out Hayden."
{sidenote:  I can see there being some major melt downs again once Hayden starts school in a few weeks :-/ }
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7-15-15
I'm doing dishes...
Allie: "Moooooom, Hayden said the F word (I just stood silently and listened to what in the world they are talking about because I certainly didn't hear any curse words) --- (now talking directly to Hayden) You shouldn't say fart, you should say pass gas."

Holiday World

We took Hayden & Allie to Holiday World earlier this month.  We debated on whether or not to take Krissy and Austin, but Kevin assured me they would have more fun with their grandparents and Hayden & Allie would have more fun if it was just the two of them.  And he was right.  We picked a Monday thinking it wouldn't be too busy, and it wasn't packed, but we had to wait a bit for everything we wanted to ride.

We had a few "must ride" rides we wanted to do before we did the water park.  We rode old cars, the carousel, Raging Rapids then headed to Splashin' Safari.  We got to the park around 10am, and were there until 7pm.  We wanted to get our money's worth!

Here are a few pics from the rides before the water park.

Waiting in line to ride the old cars.

We have a picture similar to this two years ago when we took the kids.  I love it.

Me & Hayden waiting in line.

The boys rode in a car and the girls rode in another.

I held down the gas while Allie steered.

She got to ride her favorite carousel.

We spent a good portion of the day at the water park.  We sat in the lazy river a lot, rode three water slides (that scared Hayden to death - and each one we kept promising wouldn't be as scary - but he still screamed the entire way down), played in the wave pool, and in the big monsoon lagoon.  We ate lunch at the water park and spent almost $40 on 4 meals.  Food prices were pretty ridiculous.  We took advantage of the free drinks and sunscreen!

Hayden wanted his pic with the rhino on the way out of the water park.

We decided to ride the bumper cars to help us dry off, but made a pit stop at the ice cream stand.  We caught the end of a show too.  They were always a bit lame, but we were so entertained by the one we got to see (WOW: World of Wonder)!  Their performers were from all over the country and they were riding unicycles, break dancing, hanging from the ceiling doing some trapeze work - it was really neat.  I'd definitely go back and plan to watch a couple.  

Fountain picture because there were too many people in front of the Santa statue.

We let them both pick out a $5 gift from the gift shop.  I was rooting for a crazy hat, but Allie picked a pink butterfly necklace and Hayden picked a sword.

They both pooped out on the way home.  Allie's wearing her necklace and Hayden fell asleep holding his sword :)

It was a great day!  Can't wait to go back again next year!

Our 4th of July

We had a great 4th of July weekend!

On July 3rd, we let the kids do sparklers when it got dark!

Krissy was too scared to hold a sparkler, but liked to watch them from afar.

Allie in her pjs and "high heels"

Charlie was interested in the sparklers too!

July 4th was so fun.  I made pancakes for breakfast.  I tried to make them red and blue but they ended up pink and blue.  Still festive though...

That's a big bite for a little girl!

I cut Austin's into star shapes but we ended up leaving all the others as circles!

I bought this shelf while thrifting a couple months ago.  It's sat in our garage and I decided to paint it after breakfast.  I distressed the wood a bit once it was dry.  I'm still working on what to put on it.  I'm looking for a cute green artificial plant to add to it. 

We rented a red box and ate popcorn before lunch.  We got Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  We all enjoyed it! 

I wore my new navy and red strawberry scarf.  It was from JoAnns!

I made the girls red and white hair bows during nap time.  

We had a busy evening planned - church then family night at Kevin's work.  They were providing dinner and entertainment, not to mention a great view of the fireworks. 

Krissy was dancing to "shake your booty"

The kids got to play in bounce houses after we had some dinner.

Waiting for fireworks to start

Almost time for the fireworks!

The fireworks were great and no one seemed scared.  We were far enough away that they weren't too loud.

One last funny memory, kevin and I usually guess who will be asleep by the time we get home and we both predicted Austin would be out first, and the other three would stay awake until we got home.  We got it backwards!  The first three crashed and Austin jabbered the whole way home!

Adorable Austin

This is one of my favorite pics of Austin I've taken lately :)  Allie got this panda hat about 4 years ago and we keep it in our dress up drawer.  The older kids put it on Austin and he loved all the attention he got.

Austin @ 18 months:
I love his messy hair.
I love his plump little body.
I love how he smiles when I figure out what he's trying to say.
I love how he's always holding on to my legs.
I love how he hugs and pats your back at the same time.
I love that he's not scared of baths anymore.
I love how he still rocks himself to sleep.
I love how he says: "sushi go" (it's a game), "shoooo" (shoe), "sock on", "beebee" (baby), Tarley (Charlie), "want one" (to everything one of his siblings gets), "ewww yuck".
I love his floppy hand wave hi & bye.
I love seeing him wear his brother's old clothes.
I love how he naps 3+ hours everyday.

My baby is growing up too fast!

TuTu Shower

I helped throw a shower on Sunday.  I didn't really know the mom-to-be, but I got to know her mom while we worked on the shower :)  We had lots of funny connections and she was so sweet.  The theme was tutus and she wanted it shades of pink and girly!  I spent the majority of my time making decorations.  She did ask me to make my strawberry brownies and chococlate covered pretzels.  The grandma-to-be (that put on the shower) took care of games, prizes, thank you's (and also getting the location and sending out invites).  We both helped decorate along with my mom, an aunt, and friend of the mom-to-be. 

Everything turned out very pink and lovely!  Here's a little looksie into the shower!

Tuexdo Brownies topped with white chocolate instead of milk chocolate!

She ordered the cake from Piece of Cake

Cupcakes were from Piece of Cake too.

Grandma-to-be made this adorable diaper cake

Our little sign in/welcome table.

Food table before it was loaded down with salad and pizza!

This is a vintage baby buggy I bought about 20 years ago.  My friend Stephanie made the little baby blanket for Krissy when she was born.  Worked perfect for the shower! :)

My mom painted the sticks for the stick bouquet and we added little whimsical pompom balls from Hobby Lobby!

Most of my hours spent working on shower decorations were spent making pom poms!  I loved how the little garland turned out!

A client of the mom-to-be made these little adorable sheep!

Our sign in turned out adorable!  

I realized I failed to take pictures of the tables!  They were decorated with fresh carnations and babys breath or a silver lantern!  They were hot pink with a lace runner down the middle!  They were so pretty.  Can't believe I didn't get a pic!  This was the best I had in all my pics....