WooHoo!

So I sold more stuff! Two table runners and one tag around blanket, in addition to the apron that I sold. That's four items in one month, I started my online store on September 3rd. I'm not doing too bad! I'm sharing a booth with Shawn's mom for a craft fair in Clarkston, the first weekend in November, I'm hoping that I'll do well.

Slow Cooking Thursday!

Well it's that time again...Slow Cooking Thursday! Check out Sandra's Blog Diary of a Stay at Home Mom for more great slow cooker recipes. I have to mention that I may be running out of slow cooker recipes. The one for this week is another one that I haven't tried yet. Here's mine:

Chicken Parmigiana

1 egg
1 cup dried bread crumbs
6 chicken breasts, skinless
1 jar (10.5 oz) pizza sauce
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
6 slices mozzarella cheese

1. Beat egg in a shallow bowl. Place bread crumbs in another shallow bowl. Dip chicken breasts into egg, then dip into bread crumbs, using spoon to coat meat on all sides.

2. Saute chicken in large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray.

3. Arrange one layer of chicken in slow cooker. Pour 1/2 of the pizza sauce on top. Add second layer of chicken. Pour remaining sauce over top. Cover.

4. Cook on low 6 to 8 hours, or until chicken is tender but not dry. Just before done, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and add mozzarella on top, cover, and cook 15 more minutes.

Makes 6 servings.

Wordless Wednesday!

He's been a Busy Bee

Maddox wasn't feeling that great today so we stayed home. Awhile back I

bought a Busy Bee Bag for when I needed something new to do with Maddox.

Here's one of the activities out of his bag, Flower Fun, and it was FUN!
It came with some florist foam and a bunch of
silk flowers for arranging into a
center piece.

Here's Maddox's first centerpiece!

He was so proud of it I threw it into a clay pot that I had

but it didn't quite fit. I was thinking that I could paint up a couple of these clay pots

and have Maddox make a flower arrangement in it for a Christmas present

for his Great Grandma's, just from him.

I don't know, just a thought.

Maddox just kept saying "Oooohhhh, Oooohhhh".

He had me take the flowers out so he could do it again.

He's really concentrating.

He'd pick the flower that he wanted and then

find just the right spot for it in the foam.

Every once in a while he stopped and smell one of the flowers.

Here's Maddox's 2nd flower arrangement.

After this one I stopped taking pictures, we did this for a while.

He just LOVED it!

The Busy Bee Bags come with 10 activities in each bag. Each activity is in it's own gallon Ziploc with everything you need. I got Maddox the "Little Bees" bag for 2-3 year olds. So far he's really liked it.

Soccer Tots!

Soccer Tots started yesterday and Maddox LOVED it! The above picture

isn't very good but this is Maddox as soon as we walked out onto the turf and he

saw all the soccer balls. He started running!

Here he is kicking, and getting distracted. He's one of the youngest.

They didn't have enough interest in the youngest class so they put him in the older class.

Most of the kids are 2 1/2, and Maddox kicks better than quite a few of them.

He doesn't follow directions near as well.

He loved to pick up and bring it to "coach".

He was tired of me taking pictures but I wanted to capture his soccer outfit.
Notice that his shirt says "Soccer Champions".

All in all we had a great time. Great exercise for me because "coach" kept us running the whole 45 minutes. Half the class was for fun and geared toward the kids with songs and games. During the other half you could tell that they were training them to be soccer players. I talked to "coach" afterwards about Maddox being so young, since yesterday was kind of like a trial run. He said that getting them to have fun is half the battle and Maddox had NO problem having fun. A couple of the little girls didn't want to participate and their Moms had to carry them running for some of the activities. And I COULD NOT believe this one family. Their son was 18 months, so even younger than Maddox. After a few minutes the Mom told the Dad that it wasn't working out so he took over. This is a quote overheard from this dad "You're going to do this, you don't see any of the other kids crying!" Holy shit! The kid was only 18 months, and honestly he was following directions better than Maddox, what did that guy expect?!
So other than the psycho dad we're looking forward to next week!

Another Yucky House Update

More progress is being made, but I still hate this house. It will continue to rule our lives probably until Spring. This is the kitchen after it's been gutted.
This is the basement. We'll be putting in an egress window in two weeks
and pouring a concrete floor the end of October/beginning of November.
When finished it will be the 3rd bedroom and a big family room.


Here's me operating the backhoe. (Horrible pic of me!)
I didn't actually do anything important, just moved some dirt around.

Here's Maddox driving the backhoe with Grandpa.

He liked the cause and effect of the levers.

He was really working hard.

Is it any wonder that he's obsessed with construction and trucks right now?!

We're using the backhoe to level out and shape the landscaping.

We're loading the excess dirt into the dump truck.
It's great that all we have to pay for is the gas to run these machines

because someone in the family owns them.

Here's Maddox heading off in the dump truck to dump the load.

Maddox loved to watch the dump truck in action.

Yucky House Update

The new estimate is that the house will be done by Spring. I want to point out that spring is still months away. The new roof is finally on and now we're starting on the landscaping.

Here's the back yard minus all the trees and the crappy fence. The new fence should be up by the end of next weekend...maybe.

Maddox is such a helper! Here he is hammering a rock.

Here he is digging. This is the pile of dirt that's ready to be loaded onto the dump truck.

Maddox helps by shoveling it back into the wheel barrow.

Here is the once empty wheel barrow when Maddox is "done".

That's actually quite a bit of dirt he moved.

Helping Grandpa drive the tractor.

Here is the hole we dug for the egress window,

this is the project for the weekend after the fence.

Here is Maddox in the hole with Grandpa re-measuring the window.

He doesn't trust Grandpa's measurements.

Slow Cooking Thursday!

Slow Cooking Thursday again, WooHoo! Head on over to Diary of a Stay at Home Mom to check out more great Slow Cooking recipes! I like my recipes to have very few ingredients, here's mine:

Quickest Chicken

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 package dry Italian dressing mix
1 Cup warm water OR chicken broth

1. Place chicken in slow cooker. Sprinkle with dressing mix. Pour water over chicken.

2. Cover. Cook on low 8 to 10 hours.

Makes 4 servings

More Co-op Pics!

So can you tell that Maddox LOVES anything that has to do with trucks, tractors, driving, construction, etc.?! He had a blast and fell asleep on the way home again.

Wordless Wednesday!

You know, I have gotten MANY comments regarding the picture I posted for Wordless Wednesday, about how beautiful Maddox's eyes are. That's great, that's awesome. But has no one noticed that HE'S PICKING HIS NOSE in that picture?! That's what I thought was so funny! Look again.

Wordless Wednesday!

More Contests!

WooHoo! Who doesn't love a contest to win something for FREE?!?! Here's a couple of new ones. Head on over to Adventures in Babywearing to enter her drawing win Protect-A-Bed covers for each of your children's beds. And/Or head over to The Whole Family for your chance to win a $10 Target giftcard!

This one's for Lisa

OK, I can't use this one on Slow Cooking Thursday because I stole this recipe from someone else a few Thursdays back. I'd give credit where credit is due, except I can't seem to find it again. To participate in Slow Cooking Thursday, or to find more great crock pot recipes check out Sandra's blog, Diary of A Stay at Home Mom. So here it goes, Lisa you will LOVE this one, it doesn't get any easier than this!

Salsa Chicken

Salsa
Chicken

I just throw 4 to 6 frozen chicken breasts in the crock pot, and dump in enough salsa to cover them up. That's it! (Are you using crock pot liners? If not you should, clean up is wonderful!) It was really good! I cooked mine on high for 5 hours and the chicken was falling apart. Next time I'm going to cook it another hour and shred up the chicken to put into soft tacos. Maddox didn't eat it, but he's weird about chicken sometimes.

First Trip to the Dentist!

That's right, Maddox went to the dentist for the first time today. (He has almost all of his teeth already) It went awesome! Could not have gone better! I TOTALLY recommend The Kidds Place. We waited in the waiting room for about 10 minutes, but we didn't care, there were tons of things to do. I wished Maddox would have been a little older because I wanted to play the video games, but I survived. As soon as they called us back they were ready for us and it went really quick. There were stuffed animals everywhere. I sat on a bench and had Maddox's butt while his head was in the Dentist's lap. I held his hands while she counted his teeth and then put some special crap on them. He cried for this part, but once he was sitting back up he was fine, and the whole process took maybe three minutes. Then came the bag of cool stuff! Maddox got stickers, and a new toothbrush (which he tried out as soon as we got home), a western rubber ducky (went with the Dentist's office theme), and a balloon. What I also thought was neat was that the older kids get tokens to put into the cool toy crane, which they play until they win a prize, FUN! Afterwards we went to McDonals for breakfast as a treat because Maddox was SO GOOD, and because I had to wake him up this morning to get us to our appointment on time. All in all we had a great morning! I think we really needed to have a great morning after last week.

So complicated

I visit other people's blogs and they look so cool! They have fancy banners and colors, etc. My banner and background are from the list of available ones on Blogger. I want a fancy banner, too! Why does HTML have to be so complicated? Maybe I should look into a class on website design at the Community College, you know, with all my free time. Right. Maybe not. Hey, someone want to help me out with this?! I'll be your BFF!

First Field Trip...The Fair

First Field Trip Today! The Fair! Maddox LOVED all the animals! Other than that the fair wasn't that great this year. There aren't as many things to see and do as there have been in the past. Plus, I was a little bummed because you have to be 36" to ride the cool rides and Maddox is only 34". He loves the carousel at Riverfront Park, I thought he'd like to ride the cars, etc. We'll wait for next year.

Slow Cooking Thursday!

Click on the picture above to check out more great slow cooker recipes! Here's mine:

Cheesy Chicken & Broccoli

1 Cup long grain rice

2 tsp. chicken bouillon granules

1 can (10.75 oz.) cream of mushroom soup

2 cups cooked chicken breast, cut into 1" pieces

1/4 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 Cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 bag (10 oz) frozen broccoli, thawed

1. Combine all ingredients except broccoli in slow cooker with 3 cups water.

2. Cook on low 4 to 5 hours, or high 1 to 2 hours.

3. Stir in broccoli and cook 1 more hour.

Makes 6 servings

Mom's Turn....

Here's something I ran across that I think is a GREAT idea! Click on the picture above to find out more about it. But I'll give you a hint...."As our blogs grow in popularity, not only strangers (now our "blogger" buddies), but our family and close friends have begun reading and commenting. It is no longer possible to really vent about the things we want and need to in order to maintain some balance of sanity." This blog will give us a place.

First Day of Preschool!

So here's the play by play...We started out trying to take a self portrait. As you can see we weren't very successful, this is the best picture.

Then I handed Maddox his adorable backpack to take to his first day of preschool, he wanted nothing to do with it. This is the same backpack he's been carrying around for a while. Here is yet another thing that backfired on me. I thought that if I gave him his backpack early and got his used to carrying it around, that it would be no big deal...wrong again.

Heading out the door, without the backpack, he's ready to go.

Wait...had to stop to play with his prized possession, a $4 dump truck from White Elephant.

Still playing with the dump truck....

Pitching a fit in his car seat because we left the dump truck behind.

Finally at school. Playing in the sensory table filled with popcorn kernels.

Alright! Playdough! (Technically the color of the month is yellow, but Bethany was out of yellow, so we got green)

Still playing with the playdough.

He found a baby. Once discovered this baby took up a big chunk of the rest of the day.

Here he is putting his baby in the shopping cart. If it's one thing Maddox understands, it's sitting in a shopping cart! :)

Talking the baby for a ride.

STILL taking the baby for a ride....

Snack Time! Once we got past Maddox taking all of Hunter's bananas, it went well. Small day today because a couple of kids are out of town, and this is a small co-op. I stopped taking pictures here because Maddox was getting exhausted and wanted to be held. After co-op it was a 5 minute drive to meet Grandma Jo (Shawn's Mom) for lunch, Maddox was out! I think he had a great time! Can't wait for our first field trip tomorrow...the Fair!