Some new pictures.

We have been getting pummeled with snow lately. Since Friday January 9 we have gotten snow every single day! It has also been down as low as 20 below zero during the day with the windchill factor. How crazy is that!! So I have only gotten a few pictures taken these few days, not much inspiration to do much with all that cold and snow. So here are just a few from these last few days.

A cabinet that I garbage picked today. I think we will use it as the entertainment center.

Look at how high the snow is next to that car. Crazy!

Taken out my front door last Wednesday.

Crazy amount of snow!

The kids being cute and silly

Homemade crackers

About a week ago, Adam and I made homemade crackers thanks to a blog written by my friend Mary Jane. We used her recipe and changed the herb to thyme. They were super yummy!! So here is the recipe that we used, with our modifications.

Poppy Seed & Sea Salt Crackers

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp poppy seeds
• 6 tbsp light cream (I used heavy whipping cream, because that's all I had. I suppose milk would work fine too)

Preheat Oven to 300. Put the flour salt and sugar in a bowl and rub in the butter. Stir in the poppy seeds. Add enough cream to mix to a stiff dough. Roll out on a lightly floured surface to a 8x10 rectangle. Cut into 20 squares.
Place the dough squares on an ungreased baking sheet and brush sparingly with milk. Sprinkle a few sea salt flakes over each cracker.
Bake for 30 minutes until crisp but still pale. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Modifications that I made: We used whole milk because that was what we had in the house, we also used thyme instead of the poppy seeds.

To "rub" in the butter, I cut each tablespoon of butter (since we doubled the recipe, I had two) into several pieces and the kids took their butter and mushed it around in between their fingers, in the flour mixture.


They didn't last long, everyone including my brother-in-law Ben gobbled them up right away.

Silly us

Rolled out thin and cut with a pizza cutter

Baked to a crisp on my new wilton baking sheets

I was super embarrassed!

Last night the kids, Adam and I went grocery shopping after picking Adam up from work at 6. Realized that we didn't have the checkbook so had to go all the way back home to get it, and head all the way back. He gets paid today, but we figured we could right a check last night to cover the groceries since it was getting really low. So low that I had to go to 2 food banks and my mom picked up a few things to get us through until then. So we head to Meijer and get the shopping cart that plays videos for the kids. We figured it's only $1 and that may be the only way to get through shopping this time. So after much yelling and arguing with the kids, we finally get done shopping. We head on up to the check out, I bag the groceries in our own bags, while Adam writes the check. It gets declined! Shit, now what do we do! The cashier tells us that our only options are to pay with a different method which we don't have, or put all the food away where it goes. So Adam takes the kids, and I put everything back. Do you know how embarrassing that is? Everyone was watching me and wondering what the heck I was doing. And I swear I was getting strange looks. I got done, and met Adam and the kids by the door. I was fine until we got outside and then I just lost it. I couldn't help myself. L was very concerned about mommy crying. He actually started to whimper right along. Luckily the other day while I was cleaning I came across an old Dairy Queen gift certificate for $5, so A took us and got fries for the kids and a dipped cone for me. It had taken us over 2 hours at the grocery store and we didn't even get to take anything home. The really sad part is that we have to do it all over again tomorrow night. I think I'll go by myself after dinner and let Adam put the kids in bed.

But in case you were wondering here is my menu for the next few weeks:
-stone soup with popovers
-a frozen birdseye dinner (on sale)
-plain pasta in sauce (twice)
-chicken and noodle casserole
-greek pizza
-pollock with baked potato and broccoli
-tuna melts
-homemade egg drop soup and egg rolls
-chili with corn bread
-a frozen pizza
-rice balls

At least we know that all the food, including some basics that we needed to restock, and some cleaning supplies that we needed to restock, it all comes to $121 with coupons! So at least I know how much money I need. I may just go take out the cash so that way there is no problem next time!

Kids Tidbits!

The kids have done some cute things over the last few days and I just wanted to share. We had just gotten done eating lunch, when I noticed that L had leaked through his jeans. So I changed his diaper and left off his pants while I changed D too. Next thing I know, he is sitting on a pillow telling me he was sitting on what sounded like his ayass (think ass with a Chicago accent). I was shocked and asked him to repeat it again and again until I realized that what he was actually saying was that he was sitting on his eggs. He had gotten 2 of the plastic play eggs from D's kitchen and was sitting on them. He then told me he was going to hatch them and we would have baby chickens. I had to laugh out loud with that one.

The next day I was having a bad day, the car was broke, and L was being really bad. After struggling to get him down for a nap for 2 hours he woke up his sister. I was really mad at him, and brought them both downstairs. I made L sit in time out for a while and put D on the couch with me. She climbs over into my lap, waves to me and says hi mommy. Then she leaned over and gave me a bunch of kisses on the cheek. Then she pointed to my cheek and kissed the air. How can you be mad at anything after that!

Just the kids and I. L totally needs a haircut, maybe this paycheck!

Camping in the living room

On Saturday before vacation was over, Adam set up the tent in the living room for him and the kids to go camping in. The kids went bonkers over it. L has been obsessed with camping for a while now, not sure why, and both kids got backpacks for Christmas. L even got a Diego camping set from Aunt J so he was even more insistent to go camping. Silly kids don't understand that we live in freezing cold Indiana where you can't go camping comfortably until June. So they each got their backpacks, a blanket, and a pillow. They even put some of the play food from the kitchen set in the bags. It was too cute. They went looking for animals so I got on Google image search and looked up pictures of animals for them to find. Overall a great way to waste a cold and dreary Saturday afternoon!

And on to a car update.... we are still having trouble with the damn thing! After replacing the radiator, starter, battery, and distributor cap, not to mention adding 2 bottles of fuel injector cleaner it now doesn't want to go any faster than 20mph and then it revs way high, kicks into the next gear and we start all over again. Adam will check a few things tonight when he gets home from work, and hopefully it's just the fuel filter like someone suggested.

The kids in the tent. Yeah, look at those blankets, we aren't "hippies"

Playing, and camping

Cute as a button D

L with his backpack, blanket, and pillow

Ham and Lentil soup

I kinda made this up as I went along, but here are the approximate measurements that I used.

1 1/2 cups cooked ham, chopped
1/4 lb. dried brown lentils
1/2 onion diced
3 ribs of celery, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp. olive oil
6 cups of water
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. beef bouillon granules

1. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan, over med. heat. Put the carrot, celery, and onion in and cook until softened and translucent. Add ham, and cook until warm and ham has browned a little.

2. Add salt and pepper to taste, 6 cups of water, thyme, lentils, and the beef bouillon. Stir to combine, and simmer over med. heat for 2 hours. It should cook down quite a bit, just make sure to stir occasionally.

It feed the 4 of us, but then again Adam and I both had multiple bowls of soup. I served it with a whole grain toast. Both kids even ate some, which is major when you have 2 toddlers! Let me know if you make it, and what you think!! Thanks.

Well Happy New Year!

Well, I tried to post this last night, but was having trouble with the Internet over this way. Happy New Year everyone! We had a very quiet night at home. My brother-in-law Travis had given us this great basket filled with yummy things to eat for Christmas, so we had the cheese, sausage, and mustard from the basket, the homemade pretzels, chocolate cake, beer, crackers, nuts, I had Crystal Light. I told you it was quiet! I was actually in my pj's before 10pm. New Years day I made a ham and lentil soup with leftover ham from Christmas at my dad's. I stuck it in the freezer so that it would still be good, I had intended to make a ham and black eye pea soup but realized that I had used up all the peas in a chili I made a few weeks ago. I am not a fan of lentils at all!! In fact I hate them! But the soup was awesome. Adam kept going on and on about it. I'll post the recipe that I made up later on another post.

Good by 2008! I am happy to see it go, it was a rough year for us, not as bad as 2007, but still not good. I have high hopes for 2009! My family has had a rough time for the last few years, but it seems to be getting better slowly. And that is a good thing. We don't ask for much out of life, and we aren't greedy people that is for sure. We just need enough to get by and pay all the bills, and to eat. Our kids don't get everything they want, and neither do we. So the outlook of Adam having this new job at Notre Dame this last year is really great for us in the future. It's going on 6 months already, and our life is getting better.

My resolutions for the new year are simple ones. To become a healthier me, and to help my family get out of the slump we were in. I think these are both doable, and realistic! I want to loose weight, and just get healthy over all. And for the family, I just want to be able to pay all our bills and on time. So far we are on a good route with both. Thanks so much for reading my blog. When I started this I thought I would be the only one that read it, and maybe Adam too. And now I have followers, and have met friends through this blog. I have also been told that the last month I inspired people to create more things. That is awesome! I never thought that would happen.

So once again, thank you!

New Year's eve

Not a great picture, but me in my pj's

Awesome ham and lentil soup!