Fan Love

Since it is warm upstairs in our house, even though it is gloomy and chilly outside in JULY, hello weather, we live in California and we would love our sun back.  Nevertheless, it stays warm upstairs in the rooms and so I have the ceiling fans going in every room.  I turn Hayley's on at night because well, she is a baby and babies don't know how to put covers back on when they get cold and it get chilly at night and I don't want her uncomfortable.  So, I turn it off, yet every afternoon when she takes her nap, i turn it on so her room doesn't get stuffy.  We walk in her room and her eyes automatically go towards her fan.  I ask if she wants me to turn it on to which she shakes her head yes.  So, I turn it on and her eyes just watch it go from slower to fast to faster.  She looks at it like she looks at me when she is in total amazement.  her eyes light up and she has a slight smirk of a smile on her pretty little face.  I just love to watch her.  I always tell her she is my little fan of her fan, give her sweet cheeks kisses and tuck her in with her favorite puppy pillow, a snugly blanket and a million other blankets she has to have, you know, just in case she needs to switch it up.  I love watching her grow!!!

Sloppy Joe's

Ok, this seems like I am constantly blogging about food.  I guess it is because I am trying all sorts of new recipes lately.  So, here is another one.  The other day around 2, we realized we had no clue what we would be doing for dinner.  Leftovers didn't sound good and it was too late to take anything out of the freezer.  So, I went to my go to website for food these days, none other than the cooking goddess Ree Drummond, otherwise known as the Pioneer Woman.  I have been wanting to make her summer salad but it is not something the girls would probably eat unless it is a little on the side of something so that was out.  I ended up looking in her cowboy food section (she also has a cowgirl food section to).  One of the first things I saw was her sloppy joe's.  When we lived in Illinois and Will had surgery, our church brought us some meals over.  One of the ladies brought sloppy joe's.  To be honest I was not that excited to be eating sloppy joe's.  The only kind I had ever had was Manwich out of the can.  Don't get me wrong, it is cheap and easy and not bad but then I tasted the super yummy sloppy joes this lady had made and knew it was so not out of the can.  I asked her what was in it and all I got was "Oh, it is so easy".  Needless to say I didn't get the recipe and I don't think we have made sloppy joe's, until this last weekend.  Oh my goodness these are super yummy.  They are super easy to make and your house smells divine, kind of like you have actually been cooking, haha.  And I totally recommend her idea of buttering and putting your buns on the griddle.  Our buns were a little buttery and crunchy and so were the ones for our sloppy joe's too :)  Here is what the end result looked like while it was still in the pan (minus some because my kiddos were starving of course and couldn't wait for mommy to be annoying and take a picture of the food).

And then here it is on the bun with our super healthy side of tater tots.  Which by the way, there has to be a way to make homemade tater tots and I want to know how!!!!  Minus deep frying them so they are healthy.....anyone?

Ok, so I totally mushed my bun down.  I have a habit of doing that anytime I have something on a bun.  Maybe to fit it in my mouth, maybe to make it look like I am eating less?  Maybe because I am just weird and sometimes have weird habits.  Either way, please don't mind the smooshed bun, the food is delicious and I want to spend a weekend at The Lodge and watch Ree make me food, or maybe Marlboro Man and then just eat until I cannot move.  Which would be perfect if I could sit on the porch and relax.  Have I mentioned I want to move to Oklahoma on a ranch now and have nothing but land and wild horses and streams surrounding me?

Oh Holy Cookie!!!!

There are quite a few blogs I read everyday and one happens to be Bakerella.  I found this woman pretty amazing in the first place and think you should definitely check out her site, but did you also know that she franchises with Disney now?  Her fun cake pops that she does as Disney characters are featured on Disney websites, how cool!!!  The other day she made a recipe called pillow cookies.  OMG, they looked amazing.  They consist of a brownie surrounded by a chocolate chip cookie.  They reminded me of a cookie I made by Paula Deen around Christmas where you take any miniature chocolate or peanut butter cup, whatever warms your sweet heart and surround it by a sugar cookie and bake.  Super yummy but I must tell you, they turned out gigantic.  and on this I am not exaggerating.  My Aunt went to check the cookies and all we heard was "Oh my gosh, you need to come see this".  My 6 cookies I put on the pan were the size of the whole pan!!!!!  This new recipe by Bakerella said the cookies are huge as well.  I gotta admit, that kind of freaked me out!!!!  I was thinking of ways to make them smaller.  I was also not able to place the brownie in the middle as she told you to do.  I ended up putting my brownie on a cookie sheet and then putting my cookie dough on top, covering the whole brownie.  To make the cookie look better and have it look like there isn't anything inside, you should push down the brownie a bit so it isn't in a huge lump, but not so smooshed where it is flat.  Ok, so on to the cookies.  Here mine are when they came out of the oven.

Looks like a normal chocolate chip cookie right?  Now, all you need to do is split it in half and you get this.

Do I need to even say YUUMMMMYYYY!!!  Do you see the chocolate chips all gooey?  This cookie is amazing and if I was a secret eater, I would have stolen the whole batch while my family slept.  Not all of my cookies came out so perfect.  Ask my friends.  With some you could totally tell that there was a huge ball of brownie in the middle.  That was before I figured I should smoosh it down a little.  Either way though, they are to die for and I recommend making them asap!!!!

Happy Fourth

234 years later and we are having ourselves a celebration.  And no, I did not know the anniversary right off the top of my head, I had to subtract 2010 minus 1776, world, please be happy knowing I am not homeschooling my children :)  Last year we celebrated by watching my amazing friend Erin marry the love of her life.  This year we are staying home, having a BBQ with the neighbors and heading up the hill later to watch the fireworks they shoot off over the pier.  Wherever you are, I hope you are having a great day filled with love, family friends and good food of course.  Happy 4th America!!!!!!!!!

Lamp Overhaul

I think it was when I became a Girl Scout leader that they put me on a mailing list for a church who gives things away to military families.  I guess instead of people selling their household goods, they give it to the church and the church sends out an e-mail to everyone on their list.  Sometimes there is nothing I need or anything that interests me but I have found some treasures.  Of course, people are getting rid of these things so they aren't store bought perfect but sometimes they turn into nice additions to my house.  Such as this lamp.

The ladies house I got it from was huge.  It was in a mansion-like area up in the hills of Carlsbad.  It was super nice so I was a little excited to see what this lamp was going to look like.  She described it as a free standing black wrought iron lamp with a suede like lamp shade that had vines twisting around the stand and leaves coming out of the side.  I envisioned it to be beautiful.  When I went in her house, it was gorgeous.   She either had impeccable design skills or an amazing interior decorator.  And standing right in the entryway was this lamp.  I smiled and told her how gorgeous it was and I was so thankful.  Don't get me wrong, it was a free lamp and I was and still am very grateful but the thing is ugly.  Need a closer look at the decorating she did on it?

Who does that?!  I don't know what to call it.  It is not shabby chic or cute country or anything.  It looks like she had a white lamp and decided she wanted it to be green so she quickly brushed it with a green paintbrush.  I took it home however and it has been sitting in my garage waiting for me to refurbish it.  The thing has good bones.  And the lampshade is super nice, I can tell she paid good money for it.  So, this was the week.  we made a quick trip to Lowe's after one of my doctors appointments (which may or may not be blogged about, I don't know how I feel about things quite yet).  We talked to one of the experts about my vision and she gave us all we needed.  And more, I think that woman is good at what she does.  So, we came home and like always, I wanted to do it now.  Will asked if we could wait until the weekend but I wanted it now....now, now now :)  It wasn't so bad, we took the kiddos outside to play and prepped our area and it seriously only took us 10 minutes.  Within that 10 minutes Hayley decided to be a daredevil and run across the street in her walker.  The thrill of speeding down the slope of the driveway was too much for her, she couldn't stop herself.  And I am sure someone was looking out their window at that very moment wondering who the idiots were who would let their 1 year old baby run across the street in her walker for the thrill of speed.  She tried numerous times to do it again, with her evil little giggle but thankfully we were done with our project.  We let it dry overnight and last night I was able to put it in our living room.  Granted it is taken at night so you don't get quite as good a picture as I had hoped and it is kind of behind our couched so you don't get the full top to bottom shot but you will see how lovely my lamp is now.

Imagine that, black wrought iron.  What the lamp was supposed to be in the first place.  Our home feels so much homeier with that light at night.  It sure beats the overheard fan light the military housing usually has.  Granted, it does have a dimmer which is more than any other house we have had but it still was very institutional feeling.  I am kind of excited to see what else people are getting rid of :)

Lazy Days

Since I have been medicated and not doing much lately, our days around here have been more lazy than usual.  I did however enroll our girls in the summer reading program here on base so we are trying to read as much as possible.  When they read 12 books, or have me read a book to them, they get to turn in their list and get a free book to keep!!  Kendall has already gone once for her free book.  Even Hayley is enrolled which may seem odd but do you see how interested all of them are?

Please don't mind the messy house.  If you have not been to our home, this is the back room where our tv is, along with the toy box so it is guaranteed to be a train wreck for most of the day.  After some reading, Kendall became very interested in doing some yoga on the wii.  Really?  You know we have other fun games, even sports games you can run and jump with.  Nope, she wanted to do yoga.

She was really making sure to listen to the instructions.  She even kept telling Hayley and myself to shush.

Then came some sit-ups.  Poor thing tried so hard but it gave her a score of zero and called her a couch potato.  I guess you are supposed to keep your feet on the wii board the whole time.  Which by the way was not registering her much at all anyway since she is light as a feather.

Then of course her sister came to ruin her fun.  It was followed by a lot of screaming, yelling and crying that she was ruining her good time.  Hey, if baby wants to do yoga, babies gonna do yoga.  She is starting to be a hard headed little thing.  Thank the Lord she is cute :)  Have I mentioned how much I love lazy days?

Last Minute Yumminess

Yesterday was another grocery shopping day.  Only I had help this time.  Will came along, mainly to make sure I don't pass out since all my craziness going on, but I know secretly because he likes to add things to the cart.....unneeded things I might add.  And for the most part, I normally get home from the commissary and wonder what on earth I bought and if I can even make meals with this stuff.  Yesterday though, yesterday was brilliant and yummy.  First, we picked up some hot sauce and wings and had this for lunch...

These are just the first little bit that came off of the grill and were being coated in yummy sauce.  The kids of course insisted on trying what mommy and daddy were eating, which was quickly followed by running to the fridge for something ice cold to wash it down with.  Surprisingly they came back saying "that was really good", ha.  Then hours later came dinner and I made 2 of these bad boys.....

Homemade pizza dough, okay maybe I didn't get all fancy and make it homemade, it was store bought.  I normally use Trader Joe's whole wheat pizza dough which is crazy good, but this was commissary bought.  Brush the crust with a bit of olive oil, add some pesto for sauce topped with sliced tomatoes and bake for 7 to 10 minutes.  When it comes out, add your sliced avocados and enjoy.  Sooooo yummy!!!  I actually just had some cold for lunch and it is still just as good.  And I think I may want it for dinner tonight, who knows, ha.