Halloween Party (2015)

Sooo, Finally getting around to posting our Halloween Party pictures from last year! It was so fun to put together. I really enjoy doing things like this. It's so fun. Anyway, we had one of the soccer teams over along with their families.  The kids got to run around and after they went trick or treating together.

Give Peas A Chance - Matzo Ball Soup

Happy Manic Monday!!! One of my favorite soups is Matzo Ball soup. My sweet friend, who's birthday is coming up shortly taught this way not Jewish girl how to make this. Every time I make this it reminds me of my bestie. I love how food is not just nourishment, it's also memories, relationships built, relationships nurtured. I understand the eat to live, live to eat thing. I do. But I also understand that food is so much more than that, and can be so much more than that in a healthy way.

Valentine's Day Gifts and Cards

WOW. Talk about waayy behind right? I still wanted to share the Valentine's that the kids gave to their friends this year. 

Pixie handed out these little make your own Snowmen kits. It's funny, because I just happened to have these and the movie Frozen came out so Snowmen were perfect for an Olaf card. I had the pack of the Snowmen from Target's Christmas clearance. The pack of 20 was originally $5, and I got it for $1.25 I made the printable in black and white because I figured the kids could color it in if they wanted to.

Diva gave out these great pencils that have tongue twisters on them from Super Duper Publications. I found the Ventricular, is that the word? Where the image changes when you move the item? These little stars "wink" when moved. Anyway. They were a steal, I found them at Target for 75% off at the Dollar Spot! There was maybe 12 in each bag too! She wrote on the back of each one.

Piglet is BIG into robots and robotics right now, so these sticker packs from Target were PERFECT. She just opened up each one and wrote a message on them for each of her friends.

So those were our Valentine's this year. Simple but still fun, and NO candy!

November Days of Gratitude Days 28-29

I didn't post yesterday but I'm thankful for The Block and my sisters that I've met because of them. If you're not a Blockhead you just don't get it. You don't understand why grown women trek across the country to see a boy band from their childhood. You don't understand the memories, and that we grew up with these guys and they are a huge part of our childhood.  You don't understand how friendships can be formed between people through a band, how complete strangers can meet up once in the middle of a big city and they are instant friends. You don't understand that it's SO much better this time around. Everyone's grown up, no one's in a frenzy- ok most of us aren't, and the guys are more down to earth, friendly, and it's a great community. That's OK, you don't need to.It doesn't matter. All that matters is I'm thankful for Coming Home. For the friends, hanging out, for the shows, the meet and greets, the cruises, the after parties. All of it.

Mommy Parties- Littlest Pet Shop Viewing Party

The girls set out some of their Littlest Pet Shop toys.

We were chosen to host a premiere/viewing party for The Hub's newest show Littlest Pet Shop. An animated show about a girl named Blythe who moves to the big city. When she gets to the big city, Blythe discovers she can talk to the pets that are in the Littlest Pet Shop below her apartment. The Littlest Pet Shot is in danger of being closed down, so Blythe and the new friends she's made host a fashion show to raise money. Blythe is quite the fashion designer and her designs are a big hit! If you haven't seen the show you can watch full episodes on The Hub's website HERE. You can catch the show on Saturdays 11:30am ET/8:30am PT on The Hub. 

 

Here's a quick synopsis of the show from The Hub's website

November Days of Gratitude Day 24

Today I'm thankful for the friends and family we will get to fellowship with.
"Behold how good and how pleasant it is, for brethren to dwell together."

God has blessed us with friends and the Body, no matter where we are.
I'm also thankful for God's word. I don't know it all, I don't understand it all. Not even half or  a significant portion, but God in His grace and love reveals Himself to me and meets me where I am.

My other November Gratitude posts can be found here.

Are you blogging or posting what you're thankful for? Leave me a link or let me know what you're thankful for in the comments!

November Days Of Gratitude Day 4

Not my picture, this is the only link I have for it.

Day 4- I have so many things I'm thankful for. I'm thankful that we have religious freedom. That we are free to worship, to own and read bibles, to meet at church as often as we please. Today is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. So often we forget that our brothers and sisters are not as fortunate as we are. They know true persecution, not what we claim as persecution here. "Today a co worker called me a Jesus Freak/Bible Thumper." That my friends, is not persecution. Accounts in books like Foxe's Book of Martyrs. That is persecution. The church was built on the blood of martyrs. I am so very blessed here. I can't forget that. I especially can't forget to pray for my brothers and sisters.
Closer to home I'm so thankful that we got to have dinner, or a meal of epic proportions, with a dear friend we haven't seen in almost three years!

My other November Gratitude posts can be found here.

Sparkly Citrus Lavender Hand Scrub

During Diva's Birthday Brunch we made three things the girls could take home. This Citrus Lavender Hand Scrub was one of the items. It's so easy to make, and I let the girls help. You can make this with any essential oils you would like. I also had cosmetic glitter on hand for the girls to put in. We only used olive oil, the next time I make this I'll use part coconut oil. I think it's a little lighter than olive oil.
Sugar scrub can be so expensive, this would make a lovely present. Package it in a pretty jar, with a lovely note. I used plastic tubs for the kids, but for an adult a pretty glass jar would be nice.

Find more Spa Party posts HERE, and enter to win party goods from CupKate's Event Design by following the giveaway link on the left hand side of this blog.

Piglet's Kai-Lan Party

Diva helped me set up.

Piglet is turning SIX. Oh goodness, it seems crazy. She's going to be a first grader next year. Time sure does fly. We had her party early, since she doesn't officially turn 6 until July. We were at Party City and Kai-Lan party goods were 2 for $1. She decided she wanted a Kai-Lan party, I didn't say no. Really, 2 for a $1? Awesome.
 I'm crazy, but we had her party in the middle of a move. So we had a partially empty house, which was awesome, but goodness. It was nuts. I decided not to make cupcakes, we just went out and bought them. To top it off, the night before I was making cupcake toppers and favor box decorations, because the seller I ordered from on Etsy never shipped. (Ugh, I even convo'd her before to make sure she could have items shipped to me on time.) Still, it was so much fun.

We had a water play party. The kids spent most of their time outside, all 20+ of them! We had a water bead table, bubble station, they played on the play set, had water guns, and a Pinata. I had wanted to bring out frozen water balloons with food coloring in them for races. Good thing I didn't bring them out! They stain. Can't wait to make them when it snows for decoration though!

So thankful that my friend Angel Murphy Photography was here to grab my camera and take pictures. So while they say Give Peas A Chance on them, she took most of them. I tried to post only pictures that didn't have so many children's faces in them. They are SOOC, with her using my Nikon for the first time, she's a Cannon girl!

Rainbow Cake

This crazy cake took forever for me to make despite it's simplicity. I had a hard time with the frosting and learned that stabilizing a white chocolate whipped cream frosting is a waste of time. The water in the Knox mixture curdles the chocolate. Oh well, lesson noted. Diva wanted a Rainbow cake with a unicorn on top for her birthday. She didn't specify what kind of rainbow, like on top of the cake or what so I thought this would be fun. There was no unicorn, I don't work with fondant. I just don't. Each layer of cake is 1 3/4 cups of batter and lots of food coloring gel- Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo- does that look indigo? and Violet. When all was said and done the cake was TALL, it was only 8 inches across. But it was tall. I used two wooden skewers to stabilize the cake, I just poked them all the way down through the layers.

The cake is vanilla with sprinkles, the frosting is stabilized whipped cream. (Which I ran out of whipped cream so when I got to my friends house- we were having dinner there, I finished frosting the back of the cake with *gasp* cool whip) I decided not to bother with the white chocolate after the failed attempts. It just goes to show you though, if you have a perfect recipe don't mess with it. I don't know why I tried to stabilize the frosting when it's always held up fine without.

Peppered Steak

Ok, no real recipe. It's pretty basic. There is a "Thai" restaurant here that makes this dish and DH orders it every time we go there. I say "Thai" because it's owned by Vietnamese people, they also serve Vietnamese food there. It seems to be a staple at most Thai restaurants though. This is fairly close to the restaurant's dish- the only difference is the hot/burnt wok taste that you get that is so delicious when you have a professional stove.

Peppered Steak

1 pound thinly sliced beef
1-2 Bell peppers
1/2 Onion
1-2 jalapenos (optional)
1 clove garlic smashed and peeled
2 teaspoons corn starch
3/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup (ish) Oyster sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon black soy sauce
Black pepper
Garlic salt
Vegetable oil

Dissolved the cornstarch in a little bit of broth. Once it is a smooth paste...








add more broth. Add soy sauce/s. Set aside.








To the beef add garlic salt, oyster sauce and black pepper. Mix it all up.







Cut up the veggies.







To make the dish-
Heat some oil in a wok, let it get SMOKING hot, stir fry the vegetables until crisp tender. Leave the veggies in the wok to really heat up and almost smell burnt. But don't let them get burnt.
Remove from the wok and set aside.
 Heat some more oil in the wok, toss in the garlic clove and let it infuse, add the beef and cook until almost done, add the starch mixture and return vegetables to the wok. Cook until the liquid is slightly thickened.

Peppered Steak

1 pound thinly sliced beef
1-2 Bell peppers
1/2 Onion
1-2 jalapenos (optional)
1 clove garlic smashed and peeled
2 teaspoons corn starch
3/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup (ish) Oyster sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon black soy sauce
Black pepper
Garlic salt
Vegetable oil

Dissolved the cornstarch in a little bit of broth. Once it is a smooth paste add more broth. Add soy sauce/s. Set aside.

To the beef add garlic salt, oyster sauce and black pepper. Mix it all up.
Chop the peppers and onions into 1 inch pieces.

To make the dish-
Heat some oil in a wok, let it get SMOKING hot, stir fry the vegetables until crisp tender. Leave the veggies in the wok to really heat up and almost smell burnt. But don't let them get burnt.
Remove from the wok and set aside.
 Heat some more oil in the wok, toss in the garlic clove and let it infuse, add the beef and cook until almost done, add the starch mixture and return vegetables to the wok. Cook until the liquid is slightly thickened.

Comfort in a cup...

You know there is nothing like a little mommy time, or a lot of it HA HA. Recently I contacted Lisa at the Healing Pixie for some special mama tea and I asked her if she had a decaf Chai. Turns out she makes one called "Spice of Life", I got my package in the mail yesterday and free boiled myself a cup per her instructions. Just looking at the tea with the cardamom pods and all whole all spice I knew this would be a treat. Usually I make my Chai with the same spices and some black peppercorns too. In my excitement to try the tea I never got a picture of the final product, so if you want to know what that looks like order yourself some Spice of Life, it's divine. I had my first cup with just a little honey, tonight I am having it with honey and heavy cream. Ok and a chocolate bar LOL.

Lean mean cooking machine...

Yesterday Shell and her family came over for dinner. I was also wanted to make some meals for the freezer for when we have guests. So in the span of 2 1/2 hours I made a huge pan of green chili chicken enchiladas, a huge pan of lasagna, a half pan of lasagna, two batches of pizza dough and I prepped fillings for our calzones. I just uploaded my pictures so shortly I will post recipes.
The thing is I no longer live in the Land of Enchantment, so fresh fire roasted green chili's are only found in my dreams at this point. So I did use canned green chili sauce. And as a base for the lasagna sauce I used a jar of spaghetti sauce, hey this is speed cooking NOT gourmet. :-) I even folded the tremendously large pile of laundry that as on the couch. I must say I work well under pressure. Sad that there was that much laundry isn't it? Once my youngest is out of diapers perhaps there will be one less load to do every night.

The dinner that wasn't shared...

Today I had plans to have my friend Shell over for dinner and her little man, but both she and DH got stuck in work traffic for TWO hours before she (very wisely) decided to head home. Diva was upset about it, but I told her next time we'd meet up. Tonight I made a toasted pine nut couscous (boxed), jalapeno poppers under the broiler, roasted butternut squash with cinnamon and tilapia in parchment, for dessert we had pumpkin roll with fresh whipped heavy cream that had fresh grated nutmeg on top.
Everything was fairly easy to make, I have learned that with the girls I should do as much prep as I can early on. So in the morning I got all the vegetables ready, the squash cut up and put in the casserole and ready to go.
I don't really use too many recipes and I am not a chef or a photographer so bear with me. The more I look at my pictures the more I think that DH has a case for buying a new camera.
I also managed to pack two lunches for Diva and DH tomorrow, I am woman hear me roar!!!!!!