Being naked and eating cookies

Although the title sounds dirtily fun, it is not entirely what this post is about. Let me explain. For about a month now, my neighbor Melanie and I have been in a cooking showdown. Iron Chef next door going on in Moody, AL. I am not entirely sure how it started, but it's been a nerve wracking and weight gaining experience for me...Not sure about her. She is the grandmotherly type and is so sweet. It's probably more of me being a psycho "out doer" in my own right. She will bring me something tasty that she "just whipped up" and in the back of my head, I immediately think "Oh no, what do I make NOW?" Yes, it's like that. Recently, Jerry made some of his granny's biscuits and I was "gracious" enough to take them to her hot and wonderful, knowing full well that as soon as that door closed... she was thinking "what can I make to completely smash her into the ground?" LOL Well, she brought it... She brought the big guns out and made...wait for it... PUMPKIN PRALINE CHEESECAKE!!! Yes, she did. I conceded and made her soap. (after asking for the recipe) She leaves a sweet little bag on the front door with the recipe, coupons she's been saving for me...and home made apple butter for the biscuits... another jab. She's GOOD...She really is. I love getting her "prizes" as my boys call them. This morning she knocks on the door with two types of home made cookies. I handed her the soap (lack luster, I know...compared to cookies) and walked into the kitchen just as excited as my boys to dig into the cookies. They were pretty wonderful...ful of grandma-ish love and still warm from the oven. I put them on the counter after we all had two each...  Now to the second part of this post...

Austin. He knew where I had placed the cookies. We had a battle of the wills this afternoon. It was a pretty harsh battle...tantruming and whining..he did a bit of that too. He didn't want to keep his clothes on. He's a boy and loves to be naked. Stark naked... I don't want his naked butt sitting all over the couch and wiggling. No visual needed. He got mad because although I let him take his shirt and pants off, I was not budging on the undies situation, considering we have a random pee smell looming in the living room since this weekend. I am not pointing fingers...it's either him, or his "lovely" brother who loves to take his diaper off and run naked through the house. That being said... I said no...and I meant NO. So after like 56 minutes and him screaming and me threatening to duct tape his undies on...he left it alone...or so I thought. I'm not sure if it was him trying to get back at me or him being a punk...I'm pretty sure that latter is the case...I am cleaning the kitchen and suddenly he's quiet... I know that's a bad sound...so I call out for him. He didn't answer so I go to look for him. I find him...

...hunched in a corner...naked (yes, naked) with the plate of cookies...eating them...did I mention he's naked. It was probably the funniest thing ever. I was laughing too hard to get on to him... Needless to say, the cookies have been moved to a nondescript place and his underwear have been put back on. Boys are such a ... ahem...joy.

DIY Dishwasher Detergent

Can it be? Another way to make my own stuff?? Too good to be true or just perfect? I am making a huge batch of this due to the absurd amount of borax I purchased last night for my laundry soap. If this stuff works, I might just throw a party. Dishwasher soap is expensive and I am so tired of buying it. I found the recipe here but it's below too. I am about to put a load of dishes in and I will update this post as soon as they are finished. This makes me incredibly excited.

1 tablespoon borax
1 tablespoon baking soda

*make a huge batch to save time and if you are already making the laundry soap, you should have borax on hand anyway.

Oh and did I mention...fill your "rinse aid" spot on your dishwasher with white vinegar.

Update! I put a load of dishes in last night with this stuff... it works =) I had no problems...in fact they came out a little shinier than what they used to look like. As long as they are clean, I don't necessarily care much about super shine. I think the Vinegar helped the shine too though.

Salt dough ornaments

The boys LOVED making these today, and I actually had everything we needed right in the pantry. I got the recipe here but I cut the recipe by half considering I didn't know how much it would make. I will definitely use the whole recipe next time. These are so fun! You can make them for any occasion. We are going to decorate and give them to our neighbors for Christmas!

Salt Dough Ornaments (this recipe is cut in half, for the full recipe, see above link)
2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
3/4 cup hot water
large bowl, rolling pin
cookie cutters
decorating items (string or pipe cleaners, glitter, markers, crayons, glitter glue, Easy Peasy Fingerpaint , sprinkles, googly eyes etc)

Make a dough with the above ingredients and roll it out.

Cut it with whatever cookie cutters you want. We used Christmas cutters to make ornaments for our neighbor.
Place the ornaments on a microwave safe plate and microwave for about 2 minutes.

Once they were microwaved (and still a bit flexible) I stuck a pipe cleaner through the top to hang like ornaments. (note, I don't think I ended up microwaving them enough b/c they were still a bit "gooey" in the middle. I just hung them on the back of a chair though)
Wash your hands! The salt in the dough starts to really sting after a minute! LOL I used my  Coffee Hand Scrub which really made my hands feel awesome and smell good too!!

After they are cooled and hardened...comes the fun part :)
The DECORATING!!!

Markers definitely work on these too FYI. We used markers, googley eyes, glitter, sprinkles and my fingerpaint. They turned out so cute!

Garlic Noodles (so easy)

I can't explain how much I love garlic. It seeps from my pores (hopefully not literally, yikes). I have been making simple garlic noodles since I was out on my own. I used to just cook the noodles and add parmesean cheese and garlic powder. I have since perfected my method and I LOVE these noodles. It's such an easy lunch or quick dinner. The boys (and hubby) like them too. So here's the recipe. It's definitely an "eyeball it" sort of thing, so just make it how you like it.

Pasta
fresh garlic, minced
butter
salt and pepper
parm cheese (shredded is better, but use the canned stuff if it's what you have, which is normally all I have)

Cook your noodles until they are al dente. Drain and put them in a larger bowl. In the same pot you used to cook the noodles, add butter and melt it down. Add the garlic, salt and pepper and saute the garlic until it's browned. Once it's cooked to how you like it, pour the mixture over the noodles. Put as much parm as you want on top... taste...add more s/p to taste.

Viola! EASY AWESOMENESS

Peanut butter dip (um...yum!!)

It's not a secret... I LOVE PEANUT BUTTER. If you add chocolate, the better...In this recipe, I did not add chocolate...but I will in the future.  We were eating apples and peanut butter and I started to wonder if I could make this even better (hard, I know).  So I made this little dip.

Put some peanut butter in a pot (I used creamy b/c that's all I had...crunchy would pretty much make this 100% better).

I cooked it over medium heat, whisking constantly, until it started to melt and then added some evaporated milk just to make a creamier consistency and then added vanilla for flavor a the very end. (like you need more, just sayin')

Put it in a bowl...and literally run to your pantry scouring things to dip in it!!

We used apples (they went quick so there are no pics of it), bananas and marshmallows. Yes, I said marshmallows. Thankfully, before the sugar induced coma set in, we ran out of the dip...but oh the possibilities. I am going to beg my hubby to make his famous biscuits tonight so I can have MORE of this fattening dip. It's pretty much the best thing I have eaten lately. 

Teddy Bear Crayons!

Today it's rainy and nasty outside. I had to think of something we could do inside that would take more than 4 minutes to do. I decided that we would make Teddy Bear crayons. The only reason we made teddy bears was because that's the only mold I had. I wanted to use a muffin tin, but I didn't have one that I was willing to not use for food anymore. Next time I am at the thrift store, I will definitely look for one because these little crayons were so cute and fun to make!
First things first...selecting the crayons you want to melt. We used no rhyme or reason, I just let the boys pick some crayons. If you want it to be two toned, make it two toned...up to you. Oh and did I mention, they need to be Crayola crayons? Well, they do...they melt the best.

You then need to peel all the paper off. This is a great job for little fingers, unless you want your manicured nails multi-colored :)

You then have to break the crayons... Since Lucas is so good at breaking things (hee hee) I let him break them in little pieces. I don't know if you know this, but breaking crayons into little bits is hard (surprising..I know) so I took the larger pieces and cut them with a knife to make little bits.

We took the bits and added them in little piles to the mold and placed the mold on a cookie sheet so the overflow didn't get all over my oven.

I preheated the oven to 250 degrees and put them in. They took all of 15 minutes in my oven, but just watch them until they start to melt. Austin loved watching them and kept wanting to open the oven. I advise against this :)

Watching crayons melt gets boring, so in the meantime, all the crayons we didn't break and melt, we colored Spongebob with.

Once the crayons are melted to your satisfaction, take them out and LET THEM COOL!! This is ridiculously important. It's deceiving. They look dry on the top, but when you touch them, the wax is pooled underneath...it burns...FYI! Don't ask how I know this... I still have no feeling in my finger. They also need to cool because if you try to take them out before they are done, they break. We have no Teddies with heads because mommy got impatient.

So there is our finished product. The head is actually broken, but the nice thing about wax is you can shove it back together and no one knows :)  That's a teddy and a honey pot...super cute. The bottom picture is supposed to be my lack luster attempt at drawing a teddy...laughable. I hope you make these...this was a lot of fun and the boys thought it was cool.

Laundry Soap

Let's face it... Laundry soap is expensive! I spend a lot of money on laundry soap for my family... I have been searching for a cheap alternative for a while and I think I might have found it! I made my own laundry soap tonight with ingredients that are so stinking cheap, I was double checking my receipt. It would have been even cheaper, but I had to buy a 5 gallon bucket to store it all in ;) It was a total of $7.92(without the bucket)...BUT the best part about it is that I bought the bar of Fels Naptha soap (5oz) @ $.97 and I used the whole bar, so I will have to get a new bar each time... the Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda was a 3 lb box @$3.24 and the Borax was a 4 lb box @3.73.  I only need a small amount from each of those...so this is a DEFINITE money saver!! 

Laundry Soap

4 cups hot water
1 Fels Naptha Soap Bar
1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
1/2 cup Borax
**note** all these items were available at Walmart..so it's not like you have to go to some specialty store either.

- Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted. This took FOREVER!

-Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.

-Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)
-Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.
-Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.
-Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)
-Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)

I can't wait to see what it looks like in the morning! Not to mention, I can't wait to actually use it. I love that you can potentially add your own smells too! Very fun.

I found this recipe AND one for some homemade fabric softener here. I want to try the fabric softener next, but I may try the recipe that you add vinegar to the rinse cycle first and see which I like better.


Hope you try this recipe soon! Let me know what you thought :)

My camera has an "awesome" feature!

I'm not sure when you would need this feature, but it's pretty much the most awesome feature ever!! When I found it, the boys and I caught the goofy bug and started posing like rock stars :)

Easy Peasy Fingerpaint

I'm cheap. I don't buy into the hype that you need expensive finger paints for a three year old and a two year old to use for 5 seconds. I make my own. I heard word that you can make fingerpaint with pudding...um, I would rather eat my pudding.. Since Austin was a year old or so, I have been making our fingerpaint with flour, water and food color. I had the most adorable helper making our paint.
In a bowl (size depends on how much you want to make, I use a medium bowl) put some flour and enough water to make a paste. You don't want it thick, you want it sort of runny, but not so runny it's all over the place. Use your judgment.  Austin loved to stir the paint and instead of freaking out and flinging it everywhere, he actually stirred it very gently.

I then took a emptied and washed egg carton and poured the paste into the egg places. I did this because I wanted to add different colored food coloring to each spot.

I put a few drops of food coloring in each little spot and let Austin use a kabob stick (lol) to stir it in.

Viola! Fingerpaint. It's literally as easy as that. The boys get covered most of the time and it sort of takes some scrubbing to get it off. It doesn't stain though. I normally just hose them off outside. Yes, I'm serious :)
I put an old cleaning shirt on Austin and tied the bottom with a hair tie. We laid out some wax paper on the driveway and I let him go to town. This day, however, he painted for about 5 seconds until he realized that his motorized bike was charged. Eh, the paint was free.

Always look when you hear spitting.

Rule of life number #42...always look when you hear spitting, especially when you have toddlers. So tonight, I am cooking dinner. The boys are out in the living room playing. Lucas comes up behind me, squats on the floor and starts spitting. Without looking at him, I say "Lucas?? Why are you spitting on the FLOOR?"  He proceeds to say "POOP!"  When I turn around, he is literally SPITTING POOP ON THE FLOOR! No, I don't have a dog as I explained in a previous post... I checked both boys, no poop... I checked the bathrooms just in case...nothing. WHERE is this poop coming from and WHY is my kid putting it in his MOUTH!??! So I clean up this spot of poop and the spit (gross) and send him out into the living room again. I continue to cook dinner and ponder what the heck just happened. I then hear Austin... "NO LUKE! that's not FOOD!" (OMG) So I come out into the living room and Lucas has found MORE poop!! WHAT??! I check him again... he's digging it (sorry to be gross) out of his butt hole...Yes, I said it.  After I brushed his teeth, changed his diaper and vomited... I decided to keep him in the kitchen with me...close by... just in case! Kids (especially boys) are nasty.

Goodbye Old Friend, you have been good to me

It has been a long time coming, but today I say goodbye to a dear friend of mine. I am sure we will meet again sometime, but for now, for the sake of my image, I am saying goodbye to my long time friend, yoga pants. I said it. Goodbye to my yoga pants. I have been wearing yoga pants, tennis shoes and jeans for three years now.  My husband brought it to my attention a few weeks ago that I do not dress up anymore. He's right. Since being a stay at home mom, I have let myself go. I haven't blown up to massive proportions, but I have just stopped caring about my appearance. I used to take the time to do my makeup and hair. I used to care what I looked like when I would go out of the house, even to the grocery store.  It's just easier now to throw on a pair of jeans, a pony tail holder and tennis shoes and out the door I go.  When I take the time to think about it, I FELT better when I was taking a minute to care about what I looked like. So today, on this rainy gloomy day, I retire my comfy clothes for a little bit of "old me".  I went to the thrift store (one of my favorite places) this weekend and it's funny how just buying some nicer clothes made me feel better and want to dress up and not look like such a bum. Yoga pants and tennis shoes are fine for the park or cleaning the house, but I am going to make a point to take them off and don some nicer clothes during the day or to run some errands. This is such a random post, I know.  

Natural Odor Remover for the House

Sometimes odors in the house are so hard to remove and air fresheners just cover them up. Today, after the hubby loaded and ran the dishwasher, I went to open it after the cycle ran. There was a horrible horrible odor coming from it. Apparently, a piece of food or something got on the heating coil and burned. We removed the food, but the odor hung around the house for a while.

Here's a little concoction to get tough odors out of the house without just covering them up:

2 parts water
1 part straight vinegar
Boil on the stove for 30 minutes (or until you can't smell the odor you were trying to cover up)
There will be a strong vinegar smell for a few minutes, but it will go away.

If the odor isn't gone the first time, boil the vinegar a while longer.

Fog bubbles using dry ice

Due to the excess of dry ice from Halloween, the boys and I decided to play with some today. Having never played with dry ice before, it was time to get creative. Jerry had been filling a pitcher with it and adding boiling water to make this awesome fog. I had the idea to not only make fog, but to add some dish soap to it and see what that did. We were surprised to find that it not only made fog, but it also made huge bubbles. When the boys popped the bubbles, fog came out of it! The boys were pumped about this venture. They played for quite a while just popping bubbles, swishing the water around and enjoying the fog they made. What a cheap and fun morning!

What you will need:
Dry Ice
dish soap
a straw or something to poke the bubbles (the water is boiling in the bowl so you don't want their fingers to get hurt)
boiling water

a large bowl/pitcher

First you boil some water in a large sauce pan. Once it's boiled and ready, pour it into a fairly large bowl. (in the picture, the water looked blue. I did add food coloring thinking it would make blue bubbles... it did not, don't waste your time!)

Take the bowl outside. Set it on the ground and start adding the dry ice. (DON'T let the kiddos add the dry ice unless they have gloves on. It will BURN their fingers. You have to move quickly as it will burn YOUR fingers too!) Enjoy all the fun the kids will have popping bubbles and making their own fog!

Hamburger Steaks with Onion Gravy

This is one of Jerry's favorite recipes of mine. It's such an awesome comfort food to come home to from a long day at the office or in my case, a long day with the kids (and one that I know they will actually eat). See my note at the bottom about the gravy... Definitely consider it! I love to serve this over rice with a side of steamed veggies or with made from scratch mashed potatoes.

    1 pound ground beef
    1 egg
    1/4 cup bread crumbs
    1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
    1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
    1/2 teaspoon onion powder
    1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
    1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
    1 tablespoon vegetable oil
    1 medium onion, thinly sliced
    2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
    1 cup beef/chicken broth
    1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt

In a large bowl, mix together the ground beef, egg, bread crumbs, pepper, salt, onion powder, garlic powder, and Worcestershire sauce. Form into 8 balls, and flatten into patties.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Fry the patties and onion in the oil until patties are nicely browned, about 4 minutes per side. Remove the beef patties to a plate, and keep warm.

Sprinkle flour over the onions and drippings in the skillet. Stir in flour with a fork, scraping bits of beef off of the bottom as you stir. Gradually mix in the broth. Season with seasoned salt. Simmer and stir over medium-low heat for about 5 minutes, until the gravy thickens. Turn heat to low, return patties to the gravy, cover, and simmer for another 15 minutes.

**My suggestion is to make double gravy. You would take 1/4 cup all purpose flour, 1 tsp seasoned salt and 2 cups broth. You will thank me :)

Sugar and Spice Pumpkin Seeds

It's that awesome time of the year when we get to carve pumpkins for Halloween and make Pumpkin Seeds! I love them. I normally prefer mine with some salt and garlic on top of them... but this year I thought I would try something a little different. I wanted to go with a sweet pumpkin seed. I think I achieved it! I hope you enjoy this recipe and try it yourself!

Pumpkin Seeds
1 cup raw pumpkin seeds, rinsed and dried (I dried mine overnight, which I think made a difference)
6 tablespoons white sugar, divided
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (if you don't have that like I didn't, use the below recipe to make some up yourself)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F (120 degrees C). Spread pumpkin seeds in a single layer on a baking sheet. Toast for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until dry and toasted.

 

In a large bowl, stir together 2 tablespoons of white sugar, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. Set aside. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pumpkin seeds and sprinkle the remaining sugar over them. Stir with a spoon until the sugar melts, about 45 seconds. 

Pour seeds into the bowl with the spiced sugar and stir until coated. Allow to cool before serving. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Pumpkin Pie Spice Recipe

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves