01.26.10
Home school in our jammies
I started homeschooling Mikayla half-way through last year. She enjoyed it a lot as compared to “regular” school. She liked that she could work at whatever pace she wanted to. Mikayla excels at reading, math, and science. Art related things take more time for her. It is not that she is not good at them, she is a perfectionist. At 5 years old, she does not want even the slightest bit of color outside the lines. She takes her time. At home, I can give her all the time that she wants/needs. She blazed through our Kindergarten curriculum already and is doing a grade 1-3 review book that she is frankly doing even better on than I expected. She will do the crossword puzzles in her school book and will refuse to look at the word at the top, she wants to spell it herself.
Miranda is 3 and she already went through 3 preschool books. We are now working on a book that really focuses on the alphabet. She is doing really great and can now recognize the letters that we have gone through. She wants to read just like her sister.
Here they are, just after breakfast, doing a little school.
Zack sits happily next to his sisters, about two minutes after I took this, he fell asleep.
We are pretty pleased with our choice to home school. I think next year we will join a group or coop so that we can have more social time. I would also love to get both girls involved in a dance or music class but that will depend on the budget.
01.24.10
chicken recipes to make your mouth water
Cold weather puts me in the mood for warm, wonderful, home-made comfort food. I have 3 inexpensive recipes to tempt your palate. The first is my take on enchiladas, the second is what my family calls KFC (Kari’s Fried Chicken), and for the soup lover, a wonderful chicken noodle soup.
Chicken Enchiladas
Ingredients:
2 large chicken breasts (or one can of shredded chicken)
1 jar salsa
1 package cream cheese
1 jar enchilada sauce
12 tortillas 10″ or larger
cheddar cheese
sour cream
salt
pepper
In large sauce pan or crock pot, place chicken breasts and a generous pinch of both salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer until tender. About 20-25 min for thawed on the cooktop, about 2 hours on high in the crockpot. Fork the chicken apart, add cream cheese, stir until melted, add 1/2 the jar of salsa, stir. Warm your tortillas by placing a jar of warm water on the lowest rack of your oven, place the tortillas on a baking sheet, preferably with a wax paper liner. Put in a 350 degree oven until warm/soft. Remove tortillas and water from oven. Spoon generous helpings of the chicken mixture on the tortillas. Wrap in any way that you like. Pour sauce on top then sprinkle cheese. Bake in the oven that you already had warm from the tortillas, cooking times vary depending on how much you put in, when they are a golden brown, they are done. Top with sour cream and enjoy.
Kari’s Fried Chicken
1 whole chicken (either cut or cut it yourself for more money savings)
1 bottle of your favorite cooking oil, I use vegetable
1 lb bacon
salt
pepper
large cast iron skillet (yes, this is necessary)
This recipe starts a day in advance, take your thawed chicken, liberally sprinkle salt and pepper on chicken pieces. Remove backbone and save for chicken stock if you wish. If you want to add a rub or additional spices, now is the time to do it. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 24 hours. In skillet, fry bacon and set aside bacon to use in another meal, all you are looking for is the grease. While the grease is hot add 3/4 of the bottle of cooking oil (leave roughly 1.5 inches in skillet so it does not run over when you add chicken). Heat oil to between 300 and 350 degrees, if you don’t have an appropriate thermometer, wait about 5 min with a gas stove, not sure about an electric. Put one chicken breast in first, then a thigh and wing, no more than that should be in the pan at any one time. If you add the meat too quickly, you will lose heat and it will take an age and a half to cook. It will take breasts about 20 min. too cook thoroughly thighs and drums about 15, and 10 for wings. To make sure that they are done, pull pieces out one at a time and stick a fork in all the way to the bone, it is done when the juice runs clear. If it is at all red, put it back in for a few minutes. The outer skin should be nice and crispy with a wonderful red/gold color. The chicken is incredibly tender and juicy.
You could add more spices or use an egg and flour dredge to make a batter, but you don’t need to, it tastes wonderful as my brother would say “stock”.
Chicken Noodle Soup
I am going to start with the soup stock, but if you must use canned or boxed stock go ahead, I just don’t want to know about it. 
Ingredients:
6 cups water
1-1.5lbs bone in chicken (the spine you took out of the chicken from the last recipe works great)
1 carrot sliced
1 stock celery sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon thyme, crushed
1/2 onion chopped
generous pinch of salt
generous pinch of pepper
toss everything into a stock pot, when it reaches boiling, turn it down to medium and let it simmer for 2 hours. You will be tempted to touch it, it is not necessary. Believe it or not, it does not need a babysitter. After two hours take it off the stove with the lid firmly in place (in fact I would hold it on with both hands) and pour the liquid portion into a large bowl. discard the remainder unless you can find a good use for it.
For the soup you will need:
The stock you just made, all of it
2 large chicken breasts, thawed and chopped to bite size pieces
2 carrots sliced
1 stock celery sliced
1/2 onion chopped
spaghetti noodles (or any noodles in your pantry)
salt
If you make this right after you made the stock as I do, you can just pour your stock back into the stock pot. Don’t turn it on just yet. In a fry pan, heat the chicken until the chicken is white on all sides. Add chicken, onions, and carrots to stock, bring to boil. Boil for 15-20 min. Add celery, break about a $.50 piece size ring of spaghetti in thirds and simmer an additional 15 minutes. Salt to taste.
I love this because it is easy, inexpensive, flavorful, and not over-salty like canned.
Enjoy!
01.23.10
clutter…from the trash heap
Nothing in this world will let you know just how much clutter you have besides moving (possibly putting your house on the market), we happen to be doing both. My landlady has decided to sell the house we are living in, so I have to get the house show ready in the next few weeks and begin packing. Luckily, we have a lot of time. With my back, even as good as it has been feeling (thank you for the prayers, I know it is by grace alone that I am doing so well) moving fast could hurt a lot.
I have begun going through boxes that never quite made it into the house when we moved here 2 years ago. I have been going through and tossing a lot of it. If you don’t need it in two years, unless it is pretty special and sentimental, it has to go. I keep thinking about Matthew 6:20, “But keep on storing up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where moths and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal,”(NIV) this is a passage about giving, but it is also a passage about possessions. I have a lot of, for lack of a better word, junk. While I may not have come across moths, I did come across rust. Funny how when you use tools regularly, they do not rust. Clothing that you wear once in a while, do not look dull and rumpled. Spiders generally don’t make nests in the cloths you have on your back. I suspect that is why de-cluttering feels so good, the more stuff you have the more of a hold earthly things have on you, the less stuff you have, the less you have to worry about.
In about 4 months, I will probably be closing this blog and starting one just for the farm we are moving to (Possibly).
That is where the post that I wrote on Feb. 2, 2009, but never posted, ends. So, here I am a year later, with a lot less clutter, living with my family which is one person larger now, in half of my fathers house. We have not began working on the aforementioned house as of yet. I was off-line for a little over 8 months after we moved, but am very happy to be back online and writing again. I have some wonderful recipes to put up including my recipe for what my family calls KFC (Kari’s Fried Chicken) and a wonderful cold weather comfort recipe for home made chicken noodle soup. Seriously, they are so easy and so good, you won’t want to ever eat canned soup or baked chicken again.
We are in the middle of winter up here in the frozen north. I look out the window and see this:
Last but not least, our newest addition, Zachary. He was born 11/8/09 and though, I think he deserves a whole post of his own, that will have to wait for another day.
04.17.09
I wish I could blog more…
I haven’t been for a few reasons. The first and most over-riding reason is that the whole focus of the blog will change in a month or two to the renovation of my grandfathers home, which my husband and I have been given. The other more demanding reason is my 2 and 4 year olds. They really can’t stand it when I am online or on the phone. As anyone who talks to me on the phone can attest to. The first 10 or so min. are usually okay (on a good day, if you happen to be the first call of the day). After that, all bets are off, my kids will do just about anything to get my attention back. Frankly, if these two ever have to go to daycare, I really feel sorry for the provider, because they are used to me answering them almost immediately at any time day or night.
I have so many things I want to write about but I thought I would share my train of thought, so that you can be part of my world for just a few minutes (lucky you, right?).
So, as I sit, I begin to think about what I want to share the most, I have been so sick, “Mikayla, get out of there!” where was I? Oh yes, so sick that I could barely get out of bed for about 5 weeks, I have morning sickness, which I think would better named “pregnancy sickness” since it happens “Miranda! Get out of the cat litter!!!” Crap, have to go wash her hands….Sigh. Morning sickness, it happens all the time, in fact for me, I couldn’t move after about 4PM. A little over a week ago, I visited the Dr. who told me that I should try vit. B6 both morning and evening and a half tab of Unisom at night. Overnight I felt better. (what is wrong, it is too quiet….go into stealth mommy mode to find quiet children, find this in the bedroom…)
Okay, got the cat de-extentioned. Got a snack for kids, that might buy me a min or two. Nope, forgot water. Now? We’ll see.
We had a really nice Easter, I sang in the choir, bittersweet as I won’t get to sing in another one for a year (this wee one is due right when the next choir would be). I was sad because my brother could not make it, he is having truck trouble. I am being yelled at, Randa needs help on the potty, be back in a minute.
At this point, I would generally hit delete (it would be half as long as this because I would not have included what what distracting me, and I start by just putting ideas down then adding substance) and just give up for now. At least I know my kids are “attached”…to my hip. 
Good thing I love them so much.
03.04.09
In a pit
Have you ever been in a mental pit? You feel like everything that happens to you is just against you? Today was one of those days for me. I was having a tough day with my oldest daughter who is 4, which then lead to a not-so-kind conversation between Matt and myself. Even though our conversation had literally nothing to do with my ability to parent, I left the conversation feeling like the worst mom in the world, completely unable to effectively love my daughter. Isn’t it also funny that exactly when you don’t need to feel more condemned, is the exact moment that the condemnation comes? You start hearing messages from the TV or books you are reading and suddenly, you are the ugliest worst scum on the earth. Not worth the air you breath.
There are only a few things that you can do in a pit, you can lay down and let the dirt pile on you, or you can climb out. In the midst of my negativity, I picked up a book that I am reading, Facing Your Giants, by Max Lucado. It asks the poignant question, what are your personal giants? For me, it is taking what people say incredibly personal (I have always had this issue) and anger at one person. Now, I can’t explain to you why I let my anger grow to the point of running my life for a while. I think it is because I am a pretty shy person, always have been. There are very few people that I allow “in”, very few people that I talk to on the phone or converse frequently enough to be called friends. This person fit that bill. We had a disastrous miscommunication and it cost us our friendship. One of the dangers of having an argument online. While I was reading this persons name popped into my head. Then the question arose in my mind “what would you say if that person contacted you, what would you say if that person gave you an apology”? I had always let my anger take over and was able to say that that wouldn’t happen anyway, why dwell on it? This happened again today, and just added to my feelings of negativity self anger. Then I got a phone call, the phone call was negative too, and for a minute, I decided to just lay down in the pit.
I decided to take the kids on a short walk to clear my head. By the time I got back I had decided that the pit was not going to win. I turned on the computer, clicked into facebook and saw that I had a message. No biggy, I am part of a group that is an add-a-thon for fashion wars. It was not someone for fashion wars. It was my old friend, the one I spoke of earlier, with real communication.
Well, I sat there for about 2 seconds, to see if my anger grew. It didn’t. You see, a lot has happened since our argument. As a direct result of our fight, I stopped spending way too much time on the computer. I now read and play with my kids like I should. I read for myself, I clean my house, I learned to knit!! I could have forced my anger back to the surface, I could have ripped the olive branch that was extended limb from limb, but who would gain from that? We both lost out on each others love and support over the last year.
I realized when I was writing my reply to her what I was really so hurt/angry about, it was less about what was said and done and more about losing one of the few friends that I have/had, that was the long and short of it. Selfish as it may sound. I hope that we can some day work through the issues and become friends again, but if that is not in the cards, then it isn’t.
I am still scaling the side of that pit right now, but I am on the way out, and it helped to finally slay that giant of anger that I had let control part of me for a long time.
01.14.09
Out of the mouths of babes
We had just finished our dinnertime prayer and I continued to talk to Mikayla about prayer, she is just such a sponge about all things related to Jesus. I explained that she can pray whenever she wants, that above all, Christ wants to know her. Matt then told her a story about when he was driving the car and started to slip on ice, he told her that he started to pray and the car stopped. Mikayla looked at Matt and said, “When you start to slip, the best way to stop is with God.” Amen baby.
It has been a pretty uneventful week here. I keep trying to find time to get into my sewing room and crank out some diapers (or something else). I just need the peace that a little sewing brings. I have a pair of pants for Mikayla mostly done and about 5 diapers cut, just waiting for me to finish them. The worst part is, until I stock something, my store will stay off of people’s radar, so I have to do it.
I also found a little time to work on Miranda’s quilt that I started forever ago.
I have never been a neatfreak, I had an adopted director long ago and far away when I was in Mary Kay who used to say that cleaning her house was like making love to it. I just never got that statement, if cleaning your house is like being it’s lover, let’s just say I was barely a flirt… That all started to change about a week and a half ago. I got tired, seriously tired, of doing a grueling 3 day power clean before anyone showed up to visit. I decided that I was just plain done with that. If I can clean the whole house in three days, surely I can keep it clean with a few minutes of maintenance a day? I made a list of all the things I need to do daily, and all the things I need to do weekly. I cross off the days item after I do it, I can see my progress all day long. I am feeling better about being at home and I don’t have to worry about anyone just dropping by. The only drawback is that I am sore at the end of the day, but like someone once said, no pain, no gain.
01.08.09
Tag, you’re it
I have been tagged in this challeng by Meleesa and Tara
So, here are the rules of the challenge:
1. Link the person who tagged you
2. Mention the rules on your blog
3. List 6 unspectacular things about you
4. Tag 6 other bloggers by linking them
1. I am on facebook way too much for anyones (most especially my own) good.
2. I love to bake and I have the hips to prove it.
3. I once was a trekkie.
4. I took 7 years of French, and still dream in French occasionally.
5. I am an insufferable ring twirler.
6. I share a birthday with one of my closest friends.
Calm after the Storm
What a month!
So much has been going on in the last month.
The first holiday event was Dec. 18th. That was Mikayla’s last day of school. She wanted me to make a scarf for her teacher, since her teacher liked the one I made for her so much. I was bored with that pattern, so I picked the Christmas Lace pattern (figured it was appropriate). If you are on Ravelry, you can find the pattern here.
On the 21st of Dec. I performed with (I think) 16 other men and women in the Assembly of God Church choir. I was told that we sounded really good. From my vantage point, the second time was better, but both services sounded good. We (husband, daughters, and I) were supposed to head out immediately following the second service to Sioux Falls, SD. Matt has quite a few family members there and they do the family Christmas there. Unfortunately, the windchill was dangerously cold that day and there were blizzard conditions on the way, so we chose to not go.
On the 24th, we left for Wilmar, MN to visit my mom. We spent the whole day there, frosting cookies, having fun, etc. It was a really fun day. I gave my mom and Tom each a hand knit soap sock, we really don’t exchange expensive gifts, but they liked them. The one I gave to my mom is here
On the 25th, my father and brother came and we had as relaxing a holiday as can be expected (and surprisingly a warm day considering just 4 days before, it was so bitter cold).
Mikayla decided the day after Christmas to take down the tree, so we did that too. Phew, what a couple of weeks.
Jan. 1, we just hung out until about 9:30PM, got the kids to bed late, then we just sat here and did our own thing, wished the hubby a happy new year, and that was it.
Jan. 4th we went to go visit Josh and Becky. Grammy Trumbo came at the same time and we celebrated Christmas yet again. I would be a complete liar if I said that seeing that wee lumpling did not make me want another one. I wanted another one anyway and seeing such a cute, sweet baby makes you want one even more. I made some little booties for baby Allison, and a calorimetry for Grammy.
Interspersed with all the knitting was a ton of baking and volunteering, which I love. I am really glad to back to “normal” life again now though.
12.12.08
I love spritz cookies
I have ever since I was very little. My mom used to make at least a double batch of them so that they would last longer than a day. Naturally, the first cookies of the season I make (annually) are the spritz. I married a man who shares my love of these so simple looking butter cookies that taste so wonderful if done right and like cardboard if done wrong. This is the first year when I did my entire batch on stoneware and I have to say, I don’t think I will ever cook them on anything else. They are evenly done, not burnt, the color stayed true. They look and taste wonderful. I would make a bunch more if money was no object, but it is.
So, here are the pics the first picture is on my poor mans cooling wrack (crumpled tin foil)
going into the tupperware for its short stay there
12.03.08
Girls Gone Loopy
I love this little hat. My Mikayla loves it too. I got this pattern from hooked up knits. Bethany is a great friend and makes some really beautiful things. The pattern was totally easy and the finished hat looks really good. If you don’t have the right needles to make gauge, adjusting the pattern is easy too, if you are doing it on dpn’s it is even easier. You decrease twice per side (I used 4 dpns and a 5th to knit with) so on each side count all but the last 4 stitches on one side, then divide by 2, I was unlucky in that I had an odd number on each needle, so I did an even decrease, then an odd, but it still worked beautifully.
Here is the hat:
and here is the hat after it was stolen by sister Miranda, doing her best Pirate impression (she did steal the hat y’know)
You can find this on Ravelry here.
