2 + 2 =

Friday, April 30, 2010 5:06 PM Posted by The Cookie Cutter Diva 3 comments


Oh the last few days have been busy busy busy! I haven't had busy days like this in months! It was sort of nice to be more in the old routine of things but I have to say I think I kinda like my new life style of just staying home more and being more mellow and really enjoying my days rather than enjoying half of it in the car!




Wen, was a pretty relaxing day for the most part but a busy evening. We had our monthly FRG meeting for the unit to go over some of the upcoming deployment stuff. You know the usual, how to be prepared for it, what to expect, what numbers to have, got our little deployment folders, etc. Basically all the stuff that I already know and just reminded me even more how close this deployment is coming way to soon and feels like he just got home from the last one! But useful for those that maybe have never been through a deployment before. We picked the boys up from wrestling after and headed over to the food court on post where there's a Baskin Robbins to have dinner and enjoy the $.31 ice cream scoop night! Who can pass up a savings like that!





Thur, was my son Keagan's first day at home from school and my oldest son's last day in public school. He had a field trip to the zoo so he stayed an extra day. Made a trip to the Education store and picked up some posters for our classroom wall. A little juvenile for my oldest son but more geared for my 2nd son to remember things by or my oldest daughter to learn from. I plan to go back and pick up some of the older charts for my oldest later. Sadly I think I might have just found yet another place to have a bad spending habit at. There was so many neat things in there! I could have been in there for hours! But I only had 20 minutes before we had to get my daughter to her dance class and it was on the way there. So I got some posters, had some laminated, got a few work books and headed off to dance class. I sadly had to drop her summer class because they may not even be around much this summer between all the visits home and my surgery that I just don't think it's going to work out. So we're just going to take a break during the summer.




Thankfully my friend Kim took her back home with her so I could knock out getting groceries while I was out. That's always an adventure. I swear with a family the size of ours I don't think I can ever get in and out of the store in less then two hours it seems! And you know you have bought to much when someone at Walmart helps you out to your car! I of course had two weeks of groceries in two baskets all for $200! Finally picked up a printer since we will be needing this for home school and well this will just make my life even easier when I can print postage from the comfort of my own home and have the post office pick it up rather than taking all the kids down to the post office and standing in there forever with as often as I need to mail things! I sell a lot online between my little home business and resell items and I usually do one run a week and just save everything for that day and go during my daughters dance class but it would be much easier to do from home! We had a printer but it wasn't comp with vista or something and had problems hooking it up so we gave up. Also got the kids a bigger pool for this summer at a pretty good price and hubby got all of it set up last night when a piece of the faucet broke off! What a let down that was! And even more so seeing that it's going to rain all weekend probably!





Came home and did our first day of home school which was a light one since it was only one child home but got a start none the less. I really don't think I saw my floors for half of the day between trying to feed the baby, put groceries away, school one child, cook dinner.. you name it! It was complete chaos most of the day but I managed to get everything done in time to enjoy Greys Anatomy at least! haha



So then came today! Today was our first "official" homeschooling day with both of my children home. Now my oldest daughter isn't going to be preschool age till fall of '11 with her birthday missing the deadline but I plan to start her in prek here at home this fall. I think she could really benefit from it and I always did light prek at home with the other children as early as 2 and 3. I am including her in some of it right now since we have already been doing some things at home like crafts, flash cards, learning to write, etc but nothing to major just yet. So I'm including her in bits and pieces but not expecting her to sit down at the table just yet and be involved. The biggest tasks for her is that she has got to learn she can't come in the "classroom" and chatter all morning long with her brothers and needs to leave them alone and if she wants to be in there needs to stick to her little tasks given. I think this is going to be my biggest struggle of them all in all honesty.



I think the first day went pretty well for a first day at least. We started out with Keagan practicing writing his name like he has been doing in public school (which he obviously has down ) and Aidan's normal spelling words, then moved on to some phonics and worked on letter sounds, reading flash cards and sounding out the words, then on to math, reading, and science where we did rock observations today. That's something we defiantly have plenty of in our yard so we took some time out to hunt rocks and look at them carefully and write down and discuss our observations about each rock and how different they were.









Then we had a little break and had our recess time which today happened to be a social event and a play date I had planned with the playgroup I and another friend run. The even better part to that is we now have a couple of homeschoolers in the group, one in which lives around the corner from me so the older boys were not the oldest kids in the group but had some other homeschoolers to visit with as well. We had a play dough play date today. Who would've thought you could get so many things for play dough! We truly have collected just about anything you can think of for play dough it seems! We have a tub full of play dough toys alone! That is one thing the kids can play with for hours! Course the moms played with it quit a bit today too haha






















After the play date was over we finished up our school day and had computer time, did our daily Bible devotional, history and then ended our day with baking some cookies! Some yummy chocolate chip cookies for desert!






Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups of all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup butter softened (2 sticks)
3/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups chocolate chips





Directions:

Preheat oven to 375







Combine: flour, baking soda, and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla extract in large mixing bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels. Drop by rounded spoon fulls on ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 9-11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 2 minutes.




Can someone explain to me how those cookies came out of the oven half eaten? I mean one minute I removed a batch of cookies, turned around to put the 2nd batch in and when I turned back around half the plate was gone? I believe the little cookie Nome's came running through my kitchen with their neighborhood friends and ate them! I had to hide them before daddy didn't get any and was a very unhappy daddy haha



I'm hoping to get a movie I've been wanting to see tonight. I've been wanting to see It's Complicated and it just came out this week. So hopefully the hubby will be up for watching that tonight and it's a good pick. We rented Gamer last weekend and wasn't the least bit impressed with it and shut it off half way through!

He's finally on his way home from work. So I need to go get the diapers in off the clothes line and

I'm going to go finish up the meatloaf and sides for dinner! I might not be the most beautiful housewife in the world after 4 kids or a long day at home but I know the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach and when he comes home to meatloaf (his favorite dinner) and cookies I can pretty much guarantee myself that I'm getting to pick the movie for the night because I'll have one happy husband haha




South Dakota Meat Loaf



Ingredients:






1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup evaporated milk
2 tbs worcestershire sauce
3/4 cup quick-cooking oats
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp rubbed sage
1/8 tsp pepper
1-1/2 pounds ground beef
1/4 cup ketchup

In a large bowl, combine the egg, milk, worcestershire sauce, oats, onion, salt, sage, and pepper. Crumble beef over mixture and mix well.

Press into an ungreased 8in x 4in loaf pan Bake, uncovered at 350 for 1-1/4 hours, drain.

Spread ketchup over meat loaf Bake 10 minutes longer or until meat is no longer pink

Let stand for 10 minutes before slicing.

Official Come End of the Week!

Tuesday, April 27, 2010 8:46 PM Posted by The Cookie Cutter Diva 2 comments



Seeing as I have absolutely no patience when it comes to waiting, we have decided to go ahead and start our homeschooling journey now rather than waiting till fall. I have wrote up my letters to with draw the kids from school and we will be an official homeschooled family come the end of the week! I'm very excited to start our journey and see how it works out for us. It may be something wonderful for us, it may be something that we can only do short term, it may not work out! But we won't know until we try!

I didn't get much done today that I wanted. I had really hoped to get to the library and print out a few things. I need to get a printer. The last one we had wasn't compatable with Vista. I had hoped to clear out some space on the craft shelves and organize things for homeschooling since we're starting the process soon but some how my day completely slipped away from me. I really am not sure where the hours went today at all and don't remember doing much other than the usual dishes, more dishes, laundry and more laundry! It seems like with a family as large as ours that I have a full sink at least once a day!






Of course the sound of summer came down our street today. It was a beautiful day out today and the kids enjoyed some time in the sprinkler and playing with the water hose with the neighbor kids. I swear they can hear that ice cream man 5 blocks away! There's just no hiding the sound when it comes..





Sometimes I think I can catch it and pull them in the house and blare some music and side track them but it's like they have dog ears and hear it before I do!



Can't beat the price of happy kids I guess!

Not much else going on tonight. It was a chili dogs, tater tot and America's Funniest Home videos type of night around here!

Mean while I guess I will start my grocerie list tomorrow. It's about that time again! I need to get back into making baby food. I've really slacked in this department the last few weeks.

We just recently started Miss Peyton on some baby food a few weeks ago. Mostly cereal.

If you haven't made your own baby food before and are looking to cut your budget some, this is a great way to do so! You get so much more for your money and it's by far a healthier option for baby as well!

Some great tips on how to start up, store, and even some great recipes can be found here!

http://www.homemade-baby-food-recipes.com/index.html

of course I'm also hoping to get back into better planning with meals as I've slacked on that some lately too with how I've been feeling. We've been so quick to eat out and grab fast food which is a nice quick fix but definatly puts a stress on the budget with a larger family and isn't making me loose weight any faster for sure!

Here is a great weekly meal planner if you don't yet have one also!

http://www.5dollardinners.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/weekly_menu_planner.pdf

Well, off to spend some time with the hubby and watch a little bit of tv together for the night!

a place to clear my thoughts

Monday, April 26, 2010 6:36 PM Posted by The Cookie Cutter Diva 2 comments





I've decided that since transferring over to facebook from myspace and closing my myspace account that one thing I truly miss is my blogging experience. I have to have somewhere to clear my daily thoughts, experiences, and just over all clear my head! So I figured I'd start up the blogging experience again!


When you're a stay at home mom to 4 kids, or any number of kids, sometimes you need just that! A place to clear your head and feel like you got a little bit of adult time and maybe even a little adult communication!


Today was the start of a new week. Monday is always a boring day it seems around here. The same daily tasks only there seems to be more of it after the weekend fun of course.

Start the dishes, finish the dishes, start the laundry, hoping no one notices that the buzzer on the dryer went off and that it can sit in there a little while before the next load before I have to do the dreadfully unthinkable.. folding it! I'm pretty OCD and I love to clean and organize but when it comes to folding laundry.. you couldn't pay me enough to fold it! I will put that off for days sometimes. I've been trying to make myself fold it the day of and just get it out of the way and over with instead of it sitting. But with a family of 6, I could wash and fold laundry seriously once a day! It's never ending around here!


My oldest daughter Brooklyn came to me today dressed as a beautiful princess and tells me "I can do hop scotch mom, want to see" as she jumped across the rug pretending to do hop scotch and then suddenly stopped and very dramatic as she always is.. starts to sulk and says "I can't do hop scotch.. I just can't.. can you make me a hop scotch"

It was definitely a beautiful day this afternoon and I decided that dishes and laundry could do just that.. wait! I'd go enjoy the day outside with my girls today and I'm glad I did so because a storm came brewing in around 4pm and ruined all of the fun!

So we went outside and I drew her a hop scotch out of chalk and she hopped around happily as the other one sat in her walker enjoying some fresh air. But we needed a friend to play so we had to include Dora (though mom's dora looked like she was having a bad hair day lol)

Of course we couldn't forget to enjoy some pretend cheeseburgers and fries through her playhouse too!





I went over to the neighbors house and chatted with her for awhile and the girls played together. She is moving in the fall and I'm going to be sad if I stick around in housing because she is one of the few I've really hung out with and chatted with the most.


It was getting near time for the bus to come and drop off my youngest son so I took my daughter and her daughter back to the house and let them play together and keep each other company with dress up, Popsicles and cookies while I got my house work done. I managed to get the dishes done, laundry all washed and folded, cloth diapers washed and dried for the day, and did some research for possible places to stay and where we'd like to visit while in San Antonio this weekend for the boys wrestling tournament. Think I finally made up my mind on where we are going to stay. Just
hope that I truly feel up to it.


After a change in the dosage for my thyroid meds, I did start to feel better but still not enough. I started my heart medication on Friday. I can already feel it working and the weird thing is after having my heart racing for so long it almost feels weird to have my heart beat regular. Some days I feel completely fine if I'm at home. Others it will come out of nowhere. I'm still very tired and anxious right now but if it can at least take care of the racing heart, chest pains, some of the major things that are making me lack being able to be truly functional to my old self.. I will be happy. I've been able to enjoy the kids at home, get things done around the house that need to be done every day but I truly miss being my old social self that once attended story time once a week, playgroup a few time
s a week, or anything I could find to keep me busy. You could never keep me home! But at the same time I hate to say that I think in a way my positive out look on this has been maybe it's God's way of telling me to slow down? Enjoy the little things in life more that I might have been taking for granted? Enjoy life more! So I can't say that I truly want to go back to my completely old self but I don't want to feel like I can't do things when I want to do them. I seem to function fine for the most part when I'm out with my husband and him by my side so that I have him for comfort but he will soon be gone and I will be alone for a year again and I need to get past this before then.


I'm still waiting on the hospital to receive my referral for surgery. It's approved through tricare, they just have to receive it and call me and book the surgery. I pray once it's over and done with that I will adjust more to my old self. But I can't help but still fear what will still remain.



But enough of that, there's not much more I can do about it now aside from sit and wait like I have been the last 2yrs for someone to do something. At least I finally have proper medication and have seen the specialist rather than being completely on the back burner not knowing anything and that is something! That is a step!


Wow, where did the time go? I swore it was just 6:00pm and now it's 7:00pm? The boys will be home from wrestling soon with their dad so I better get started on dinner! Tonight we're eating Beef Enchiladas, Spanish Rice, and Re fried Beans! One of my husbands favorites! Now what we're doing about desert I'm not quit sure because the Fudge Crinkles I baked last night for desert have been completely some how wiped out by 4 little kids, their friends and myself haha



Bake at 350 for 20 minutes!
Ingredients:
1lbs ground beef
1 small onion chopped
1 small can of enchilada sauce
10 flower tortillas
1 small jar of queso
1 small can of sliced black olives (if desired)
Brown beef and onion in skillet while oven heats till light brown.
Remove from heat and drain. Add a small amount of enchilada sauce
to cover meat.
Cover baking dish with a thin layer of enchilada sauce.
Add about a spoon full of meat mixture to flour tortilla, roll shut, place
seemed side down in baking dish.
After all the enchiladas are lined up, drizzle remaining enchilada sauce
across the top. Drop spoon fulls of queso sauce across the tops of
enchiladas, then spread evenly.
Place in oven, uncovered and bake for 20 minutes!