My obsession with jugs... milk jugs that is.

When we stopped having milk delivered, I thought I'd miss those paper 1/2 gallon cartons. I would open them up, throw in my compost and could put the entire thing in the yard waste. So handy! Well, I've come to love my gallon jugs (mostly my Costco ones-milk there is 2 for $5 roughly)  I made them into sandwhich containers last fall  now I'm using them for other things... like a compost bucket.

to store things in my pantry....

The advantage of a well-organized pantry is 1) using all this stuff so you aren't throwing things away that have expired 2) you get to use the other 1/2 for storage (see below)  the top is seldom used stuff, then a shelf for baking, one for snacks ( a little out of the kids' easy reach) then cooking (I use a lot of packaged side dishes, I've got main dishes from scratch nailed, but I'm still working on getting sides cooked as well) and breakfast, the bottom is soda and bulk or extra stuff.

I use the top and bottom shelves of the other side for appliances that I use, but not everyday, a shelf for food storage-tupperware, baggies & foil; one for the bread holder & cloth napkins (once I get reusable snack bags for lunches made, they will also go on this shelf).

I've been organizing with these milk jugs. I used to store my Cuisinart food processor blades in a plastic bag.  The bag shredded... so now I use this milk jug to keep them in... (excuse the little container of failed bath crayons on them)

I also organized some of the snacks in them...

  the crackers between the boses are in one

and also my baking chips that were taking up too much room because they are bagged and don't stand on their own... 

I'm also saving some for when I try to make my own laundry soap.

Just another crazy Friday night

I took all 3 kids to the swimming pool at Carter's school where the little ones have their lesson. The entire family can swim for $7 if they are enrolled in the lessons.  anyways, we got back and Valerie got stuck next to the toilet...

More trials

so Wednesday kind of was a bust since I had a tax seminar all morning and then took a quick nap since Valerie decided 2am-4am would be an excellent time to play.  The we had swimming and I had curling and that was it. Oh, though I discovered the Ellen Degeneres channel on YouTube. I was laughing until it hurt. Next time you have a bad day or find yourself in a funk, try it, esp the Gladys call ins...

Thursday got a bit away from us as well, errands, etc. but we did manage to try to make some cheese sticks (string cheese wrapped in won ton wrappers and fried  we probably won't make them again. Super easy, kinda bland.  However, I'm much more hopeful about the 3rd round of granola bars.  The recipe uses prunes and dates to hold them together (can you say "fiber"?) and since no peanut butter is allowed at school, I put in Nutella. Well, and because pretty much anything is better with Nutella. I have a recipe to actually make Nutella, but I already have 3 jars from Costco that I want to use up first. They ended up alright. They may not be sinfully good, but they are nutritious and do taste good.

While dad's away!

Paul's got curling tonight, so he stopped off at home and put Battleship in the Xbox so I could make some dinner in peace.  Well, sort of. The kids got Annie's Bunny Mac & Cheese (that organic stuff in a box) that was on sale awhile back for 75 cents a box, I haven't eaten yet. While the kids ate, I cut up the fruit snacks we made (see previous post), and got this lemon pull-apart bread ready for dessert. I didn't read the part about letting the dough rise earlier, so I put the oven on 300, turned it off and opened the door (everyone was at the table, so I figured it would be pretty safe) until it was just warm, then closed it and let them rise while we had dinner. I also got our science experiment ready.  When they finished, I had them use a turkey baster to put the hydrogen peroxide (BTW, I just used 3% from grocery store and it worked fine) in to the water bottle while I finished up the bread and got it cooking. Then we did science...  (yes, I bribed them to clear the table)

 Then we exploded some Ivory soap in the microwave

 and the kids had a shower (all 3 in the same shower- it sounds like a frat party, maybe I should check on them instead of blogging....)while I put glaze on dessert (this photo is pre-glaze)

Hopefully they will go to sleep quickly in a sugar-induced coma after a quick book because I need to leave by 7am tomorrow and Paul has to take Carter to school by 8:15 am for Spanish class. Paul is not a morning person.

Week in Review-1st week of February

First off, this week has been beautiful weather here in Seattle. Today's the last day of it as the next week is supposed to rain straight through to next Thursday.  We've been taking advantage.

I went scrapbooking the last Saturday of January, which meant I had a friend from BC stay with me and got 30 pages put together, mostly of our adventures last summer.  I cleaned the house Monday and did meal swap (btw, because I had stuff left from Dec since we went away for the holiday, I'm only cooking once in February, you can all be jealous now), ran errands on Tuesday, so Wednesday the 1st I decided to scrapbook some more since I had all my stuff still packed up.  I finished our 2011 album, woohoo! I also put the 2 pages of Valerie's first year in her book and picked out her album.

Then went curling and did WAY better than I normally do. I started taking more time in the hack before my release and it's totally made a difference. Our team is great about getting set up while it's the other team's turn to throw, so I can take the extra few seconds to take a deep breath and it's not costing us too much time.  That's my story, anyways.

Then I found my twin site.  A friend posted that she was looking for a sunscreen recipe on Facebook, guess what the link was? www.littlehouseinthesuburbs.com and guess what, it's a blog of a gal in the suburbs who is trying to do more making stuff from scratch. Sound familiar? I e-mailed her and the funny thing is her last name is not even Little....

Tuesday night while Paul was curling he came home to find me doing some projects in my office and asked why I wasn't watching TV. I pointed out that since we cut the cable TV cord last week and only had Hulu Plus & Netflix now, I didn't have any devices in my office to stream anything. So, while I was at curling, he went out with all 3 kids to Costco on a weeknight and got a box all set up in my office.  So I got up early Thursday morning and washed his super dirty car for him.  Aww... we're all ready for Valentine's day! 

Thursday & Friday I tried 2 granola recipes. The first ended up too dry, but it's no-bake and I only had rolled oats, not quick, so I'm not counting it out. I found it on pinterest, I'm hoping this week to try again with quick oats...    the other was offered up by a curling friend from the King Arthur Flour website. I used quick oats, but it was too "wet" and won't survive Carter's lunchbox, so I'm going to try again, but with a little tweeking, I think... I used 1 cup craisins, 1 cup chocolate chips. Carter wasn't a fan of the craisins, so I'm going to try replacing with 1 cup rice krispies and see how it goes.

Then Henri decided to use the Annie's bunnies Pasta to build and we took some pinterest inspired pictures...

Then we exploded some Ivory Soap in the microwave.  1) it only works for Ivory soap 2) only do 1/8 to 1/4 of the bar at once 3) it's more of a volcanic eruption than an explosion per-se 4) use a clear, large bowl to contain it 5) you can use it in the bathtub afterwards, it cools off pretty quickly.

Friday my mom came over so I could get my hair done. Don't I look nice?

At my steering team meeting I got some baby food jars from someone to organize my spice drawer. Pinterest had it being done with chalkboard point (which I made in a previous post) but I have large man-hands so writing, esp longer spices like Cinnamon was really tricky so I got out my hand dandy labeler and used the smallest type. Love it Eventually want to upgrade to all the same.  When cooking with children around esp at a time of day when 2 are usually crying and the other is talking ad nauseum about how hungry he is, it's good to have spices alphabetized for quick finding.

Monday morning was still nice, the little kids were outside by 8:30 am, I made cloud dough 8 cups flour to 1 cup baby oil. I made them strip and change clothes when they came in at 10am so we could try out the YMCAs new indoor playground at Carol Edwards community center (We walked down) .

Then we walked back up home and Henri said "Mom the sun is out, take a picture." What a Seattlite...

We played and then walked up the hill to go get Carter and the little kids played outside another 2 hours when we got home.  Oh, over the weekend we also made Mounds bars per Paul's request.

Today was Lemon Crinkles (I'd add a little more zest, they were very good and easy) and finding a fruit snack recipe.  The first one I tried I put in ice cube trays and was terrible. It was so stiff I could have made bouncy balls out of it.  The second one made of blueberries & 1/4 cup sugar was a great consistency, no blue fingers. Valerie was suspicious (and tired, so I may try again tomorrow) Henri gobbled them up, Carter tried them but seemed unimpressed (also tired-and the pickiest of the bunch). I want to try them again with strawberries next time I get to the store and retry my granola bars tonight while Paul curls.   I also printed these and these to put in Carter's lunches. Then I took a nap for 30 minutes while the little kids played outside in the sun for 2 hours this afternoon :)

That's what we've been up to! This week I'm hoping to: Share Valerie's Valentine's Day card (I want recipients to get theirs in the mail first); tweek the granola bar recipe; take a 2012 tax season seminar (tomorrow morning!)  Make Lemon pull-aparts (dessert tonight); and other fun crafts. 

oh, and a pic for grandma-sorry I couldnt' get a front picture, but she was rocking the skirt with beads and very involved in the fridge magnets.

Bookmarks

Everytime I try to dogear a book to save my place, Carter tells me that it's not good for the book to do that. So we made a bookmark from Pinterest. Directions are HERE. 

Make ahead meals-with tortillas!

I used pre-packaged tortillas, but hope to try making my own when I run out.  Looking for a healthy, microwave meal that is cheap without all the sodium? Make your own burritos! I've made these with dinner ingredients and with breakfast and they are so great! I recommend buying the largest burrito tortillas you can find. I had a hard time finding the large ones in whole wheat and had to use white flour.

For dinner ones, use:
black beans (either canned or soaked or cooked for 2 hours from a bag if you want to do this super cheap)

rice (brown or white-make your own to save money or get those Uncle Bens 90 second packets or minute rice, but if the point is avoiding processed foods, I'd rather cook my own)

shredded cheese (remember, shredding your own saves about $2 a pound)

optional is meat. You can either use shredded chicken, which I read yesterday you can shred quickly by putting the hot chicken (boneless) in your Kitchenaid with the cookie paddle, I haven't tried it yet, but wow, what a time saver! and use salsa or you can cook hamburger or shredded beef with some taco seasoning (look online to make your own to save on money and chemicals)

I put about 6 tortillas at a time in the microwave with just a few drops of water or wet paper towels between them for about 30 seconds to soften them so they don't break when I wrap my burritos.  Lay down a square of foil, put the tortilla on the foil, put in a scoop of each ingredient, roll up and then roll in the foil.  Voila.  Put them in a large baggie to keep them together or label individually. Cook about 2 minutes on each side (you may have to adjust for your microwave) straight from frozen when you want a quick lunch or dinner. Add salsa, tomatoes, more cheese, sour cream or whatever you have on hand. You could also cook the meat with onions for added flavor.

For breakfast, scramble eggs, use cheese and I like to add meat. You could do bacon or sausage. You could also add spinach, though I've not tried freezing these with any veggies, so maybe try one first before you make a dozen, ok?  The breakfast ones need about 1.5 minutes per side. So yummy and quick to make a hot breakfast!