Melissa’s Groupie…

So I have these two friends.  No, they’re not my ONLY friends, but the two friends I’m speaking of specifically right now.
First there’s Melissa.  She’s a dear friend who invited me to one of my most favorite websites EVER!  Then there’s my friend, Mandy.  I met her on this website Melissa invited me to.  Anyway, Mandy has said many times that she’s Melissa and Rosie’s (another lovely lady) groupies.  It always got a good chuckle out of me.  But I can see why!  See, Melissa has this FABULOUS idea.  Remember the schedule post?  Yeah, ask me how many times I’ve used it.  Go ahead.  I dare ya.

Well, dear Melissa has this fabulous idea of a checklist.  That’s right up my alley.  Checklists I can do.  Bound by time slots, I can’t.  So.  Tonight, I’m making a checklist for the kids and me.  Individual checklists that is.  Her’s has subjects for school.  She probably does have checklists for everything.  I’m going to make, I think, 2 checklists for each kid.  One for school and one for chores.  I hope it works out.  I hate schedules.  There, now you see the real me.  I’ll probably have another post tonight on what my checklists look like.  We’ll see.

Have a great Monday night!

Church

I love church.  Church rocks.  I love the people, the music, and the learning.  We had a GREAT church in NY.  Forestview Church of God has a GREAT pastor, his wife is awesome, the praise team was awesome, Pastor’s messages were awesome, the kids were awesome… Have I mentioned it was awesome?  No?  Well it was.  So, we move.  We moved 742.35 miles away from Niagara Falls to Havelock, NC.  Yeah.  I miss my church.  I miss my family up there.  I miss singing every Sunday with my praise team.  I miss my husband’s special musics.  I miss the Awana my kids attended.  I miss the Sunday dinners at the S’s.  Ho hum.  I miss it.

Since we’ve moved we’ve visited 3 churches.  Have I mentioned we moved here almost 4 months ago?  No?  Well, we did.  Almost 4 months.  Yeah.  We first visited a church I grew up in.  I’m not linking them or mentioning their name.  After several visits, we’ve learned they’re going through some leadership problems.  Divisiveness, to be exact.  I won’t go into detail.  It was sort of sad to make the decision that we’re not going there.  It’s sort of hard to attend a church for the first few times and find out from the sermon an elder gives that they’re going through divisiveness.  Anyway, no more on that.  Just a decision was made that we’re not going there.

Second church we tried.  Community Baptist Church.  It was VERY small.  Quaint but small.  We’re not picky.  But I’m talkin’ there were probably 20 people there, total that day.  The message was about immersion baptism.  It was definitely very interesting.  I liked it.  The people were SO nice!  I think 70 % of the people noticed we were new (how could they not :giggle: ) and came up to greet us.  Even the pastor!

The church we visited today was called Brice’s Creek Bible Church.  I REALLY liked it.  There were several people from the first church mentioned there.  The youth pastor spoke on “How God Seeks Us When We Are Lost.”  He focused on the three parables Jesus told in Luke 15.  The praise team was fabulous!  All in all, I really enjoyed it and so did Jason.  We’re going back next week w/ hopes that the head pastor will preach.  YAY!  I’m so excited.  I hope this is IT.  I hope this is the church I’ve been praying for!

I’ll always miss my Forestview.  They were all great.  Every single last one of them.  But, when you’re in the Marine Corps, you have to learn to let go and move on.  I’m trying, I really am.  It is just A LOT harder than I EVER expected it to be.  Before we left I was SOOOO excited!  Then we left and ugh, it was very hard.  Anyway – HERE’S TO A NEW CHURCH!  WOO HOO!

Shepherd’s Pie

YUM!  This is probably one of my family’s most favorite meals!  Mmmm.  I can smell it in the oven cooking as I type.  It’s SOOOOOO good.  Okay anyway.  So I’m doing another recipe as I can’t think of anything else to write about.    So, let’s get this recipe on a roll!  It’s SO super easy!  I promise!

First, the ingredients.

So what do we have here.  Ah yes.  First let me say, the beef is not in the picture b/c I had already crumbled it up into the pan to cook before I decided to take pictures and blog about it.  There’s about 1.5 lbs of ground beef in the pan on the stove.  In addition to that we have mashed potatoes, white corn, cheddar cheese, brown gravy, herb gravy mix for beef, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and oregano.  YUM.  You really can’t go wrong w/ those ingredients!

First, I like to get the potatoes made.  Please don’t yell at me when I tell you that I just popped them in the microwave to cook.  It was already 630 at this point and I needed to get dinner done!  On the Hungry Jack box, I used the measurements for the amount just above using the whole box.  But, I also used one more cup of potatoes than it asked for.  Just an FYI.    In my experience w/ fake potatoes, they don’t use enough flakes.  So, w/ the water, milk, butter and flakes, I added in salt and pepper.  I cooked the potatoes in the microwave for 5 minutes.  When they were done, I did a quick stir then added in a couple handfuls of shredded cheddar.

Mix that together well.  Yum.  Okay next up, let’s get the beef and gravy cooked!  This is easy peasy, brown the ground beef then drain.  While that’s cooking up, add 2 cups of water to a small sauce pan, add in the 2 packets of gravy.  Whisk together until fully desolved and bring to a boil to thicken.  When the beef’s done, eyeball the seasonings you see to your taste.  I just like to sprinkle enough to cover the top (except for salt, I use that moderately) then stir together.

Next we’ll go ahead and mix the gravy into the beef.  Yum.

See how that’s really soupy?  That’s b/c I wasn’t paying attention.  I typically don’t use all 2 cups of the gravy.  Maybe 1.5 to 1.75 cups.  But well, it happens.  So the next step is to put a small layer of potatoes in the bottom of our dish.  Yes, you’ll see finger marks.  It’s FAR easier to use my hands to spread it around then a spoon. 

Now we’ll start layering!  So, the layers are as follows:  potatoes, beef (all of it), cheese, corn, cheese, potatoes.  With the beef this is what I did…  I used a hole-y spatula to keep from using ALL of the gravy so we won’t have a soupy shepherd’s pie.  You’ll see…

So, well, apparently I forgot to take a picture of the potatoes on top.  So, just use the rest of the potatoes and put on top.  Then we’ll bake for 45 minutes in a preheated 375* oven.  After 45 minutes, we’ll put the rest of the cheese on top and bake for another 10-15 minutes.  Mmmm, I can’t wait to eat this yummy goodness!!

Can we say YUM!?  Altogether now.  YUM!  Mmmm.  Let me tell you, it was good.  You know how else it’s good?  With a dollup of sour cream.  Do you see a pattern here?  Sour cream and cheese.  You just can’t go wrong w/ those.  Mmm.  Try it and let me know what you think!

Taco-Zagna My Friends!

So, the Pioneer Woman has a LOT of recipes on her blog.  LOTS.  And like my friend, Melissa, says, the way she writes out her recipes makes it so much more appealing and easier to understand for visual people like us.  She takes a picture of each step.  It’s so helpful for me to make something like her cinnamon rolls, and see what each step should look like so I know that I’m either doing it correctly or incorrectly.  So, today I’ve made a family favorite – taco-zagna.  It’s SOOOO YUMMY!  But just a heads up.  In the first picture – the ingredients – you’ll notice there are tomatoes.  However, that was before I looked at them and they were bad.  No tomatoes today.  So here’s my taco-zagna recipe!!

The Ingredients:

2 lbs ground beef.  Yes, you see 1 lb there.  That’s due to poor planning on my part.  What. ever.  You’ll need 16 large flour tortillas, a 16 oz block of cheese (or 16 oz of preshredded if that’s how you like it), 2 cans of black olives, 1 can of refried beans, 2 jars of taco sauce (not enchilada sauce, taco sauce… I’m pretty sure there’s a difference), taco seasoning (1-2 packets if you don’t get a big container of it), tomatoes, lettuce, and sour cream.  I explained the tomato thing already.  The lettuce thing.  Well, I learned the lettuce was bad the day I bought it.  I just didn’t go back to the grocery store.  Okay, onto the recipe.  OH WAIT!  First preheat your oven to 350.  Okay, now moving on. 

First, start browning the ground beef.

While that’s browning off, let’s shred the cheddar and cut the olives.  To shred the cheddar, I just use the food processor.  My hands would die if I had to use a cheese grater.  The olives, I just do a rough chop.  I most certainly do NOT try to cut 4-5 slices per olive.  CRAZY!

Next, we’ll need to drain off the grease.  I learned something new tonight .  2 packets of seasoning mixed in w/ probably 3/4 to 1 cup of water then add that to the beef.  Mix well.  I have the container, as you saw, of the taco seasoning.  I originally didn’t add the water.  Thought it would get too watered down.  Well, in the end I needed the water.  So, my suggestion to you is to follow the directions on the packet regarding the taco seasoning and water. 

Next up, beans.  Add in the one can of beans and mix well!

So now we’ll start layering.  To stay away from too much repetition, I’ll show you the first layer and the final layer.    This is the order I layer the ‘zagna.’  Taco sauce, 4 tortillas, beef/bean mixture, black olives, cheddar cheese.  Taco sauce, 4 tortillas, and so on.  2 layers of that.  4 more tortillas then taco sauce.

Final two layers:

Into the oven this goes for 30 minutes.

After the 30 minutes are up, add the rest of the cheddar on top.  Put back into oven for 5 more minutes.

Then you’ll get this big dish of yummy goodness.  Doesn’t that look tasty?  Now, go try it!  Tell me what you think!  Oh, and don’t forget that yummy dollop of sour cream!

Oh and one more thing.  Had my veggies not gone bad, this is what I would have done.  I would have chopped up the lettuce and tomatoes and put them on top of each individual plate w/ the sour cream on top of that.  YUMMO!

What to Talk About?

I don’t really have anything exciting to talk about.  But I’d like to get into the habit of blogging at least every other day if not every day.  So.  I can just jibber jabber.  :giggle:
Have I mentioned at all that I’m in a weight loss competition?  No?  Well, I am.  It’s SO much fun and the ladies are so GREAT!  I even made a new BFF!  I won’t share her name, though, out of courtesy for her privacy.  There’s nothin’ like a good ol’ BFF at the ripe old age of 27.  Oh weight loss…  Since January, I’ve lost around 18 lbs.  Yeah – I’m a loser and not in a good way.  Blah blah blah.  I have to do something about this weight loss.  I’m motivated but I’m not.  Does that make sense?  Ha ha.  I want to lose weight, I really do.  But, I don’t want to drink the water, I don’t want to exercise, I don’t want to not have my sodas and sweet tea.  Why is it so hard to get rid of that stuff?  WHY!?  Someday.  Hopefully sooner rather than later.  I want to lose 70 lbs by March.  That’s 11 lbs a month.  Almost 3 lbs a week.  YIKES!  Oh ho hum.  I should exercise soon.

So, I guess that’s what my post is about today.  Exercise and weight loss.  Exciting, eh?    Well, I hope you have a great Wednesday!

Schedules, schedules everywhere!

I so should have done this weeks ago.  We have started school already and it’s been pretty choppy.  Once the first week of August, twice last week and I’m hoping, praying, BEGGING that we get school done every day this week.  To better manage our time, I’m in the process of creating a weekday schedule, weekend schedule, master chore list which I’ll have daily chores and weekly chores for every person in this house.  YIKES what a task.  I got the weekday schedule done today.  It’s not much.  I do see how it could REALLY help us.  As long as I grow up and become an adult and act responsibly.  In other words, if I follow the stinkin schedule!  Here’s the first installment of my scheduling.  Our weekday schedule, folks!

It’s the New Me!

Okay, not really a new me.  I just got a hair cut.  Well, actually, I got all of my hairs cut.  :giggle:  It’s REALLY short but I actually kinda like it!  A year ago I got a perm and it was just on its last leg.  So, I had to cut it short to cut the rest of the curl out.  So, without further ado, here’s the new me!

What do you think?

Do You Ever Crack Yourself Up?

Well I do.  Every day.  Most times, multiple times a day.  It’s a sickness.  My dear friend Michele has coined a new phrase.  Whenever you crack yourself up, you’re really having a “Tawna Moment.”  HA HA HA HA!  Seriously, it’s funny.  It’s okay to laugh.  Her 5 year old daughter calls it, “Tawanaing.”  So, there you have it.  Let’s all have a Tawna moment today or do some Tawanaing. 

Here’s one of those times I had a Tawna moment:

Spider Bites? (Copy)

My husband and I have been very worried about our daughter.  When she gets a bug bite, it swells up like crazy.  She’s also like a human bug lamp.  If that child goes outside for 2 minutes, she’s been attacked at least 3 times already.

So, yesterday morning…  We wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast and start school.  Kylie thinks she has bug bites all over her legs and asks me to please put the itchy gel on her.  Okay, so I take a look at her legs.  Oh. My. Gosh.  This child is covered in spider bites?  Ha ha, I learned it was hives.  But in my defense, I have never seen hives before!  I really truly thought that she had been attacked by like a colony of spiders!  Her legs and arms were covered.  OH and she had some spots on her tush too.  So anyway, my husband comes home from work and she and I head to the ER.

At the ER, we have to check in, of course.  I go to the window.  (This guy I’m about to speak of was not a medical professional – but merely a secretary.)

Him:  What are you here for?

Me:  It appears that my daughter has been eaten alive by spiders.

Him:  *LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY AT ME IN FRONT OF THE PACKED WAITING ROOM* Spiders don’t do that, I highly doubt they are spider bites.  *CONTINUES TO LAUGH HYSTERICALLY*
Can I see your military ID, please?

Me:  Sure.  *Shows ID through window pocket of wallet.*

Him:  You need to take that out so I can see the back.

Me:  It’s not budging.  *I’m VERY frustrated at this point – almost to tears.*  You know, I don’t appreciate being laughed at.  This situation isn’t funny in the slightest.

Him:  I wasn’t laughing at you, merely explaining that spiders don’t do that.

Me:  You were most certainly laughing at me.  I’m extremely concerned about my daughter right now.

Him:  I was just trying to make light of the situation.

UGH!  To me, this was neither the time nor the place to ‘make light of a situation.’  I was sincerely frustrated and concerned for my daughter.  I could have slapped him.  Good thing I’m not violent, right?

So anyway.  15 minutes into sitting in the waiting area, the ‘bites’ clear up completely.  It was SOOOO crazy!  I was completely flabbergasted.  Yes, I truly, 100% thought they were spider bites.  An hour later, we are finally led back to the room.  Another hour later, the doctor comes in, I explain, he probably thinks I’m a complete moron.  DUH.  Why didn’t I think it was hives?  DUH!  I.  should.  have.  known.  Silly me.  One track mind here.  She’s been bitten a lot lately so that was just my first instinct.

Lesson of the day:  Don’t always go w/ your first instinct.

So now, I have to figure out if this was a fluke or if there’s something she’s allergic too.  Great.  I’ll keep you updated.

Oh here are some pictures of her legs (I didn’t get pics of her arms):

Oh, and just a note.  I meant I’d be copying 3 posts, not 4. 

First Day of School (Copy)

Well, we had our first day of real school on Tuesday (8/5).  I didn’t actually expect a full week of school this week as I hadn’t planned on starting until August 11th – and a full week of school we didn’t do.  Ha ha.  But in any case, Tuesday was our official first day of school for the ‘08-09 school year.  We didn’t do a whole lot as I wasn’t really fully prepared.  The boys were both placed in their spelling.  I’m so excited to say that both of my boys are above their grade levels in spelling!  YAY!  We all completed handwriting and math.  Kylie also did her language and phonics.  It was a pretty decent first day.

Monday will start a FULL load.  That includes, spelling, writing, math, language, phonics (just Kylie), history, science, Bible, and I think that’s it…  The kids were SOOOOO excited to start school!  I’m ready for our full schedule.  Well, let me clarify.  I’m ready mentally, but not organizationally.  I still have to create a schedule, make copies of the boys grammar books and read through My Father’s World to be completely ready organizationally.  I also need a three ring hole puncher to save their work in binders.  Looks like we’ll be running to Wal-Mart this morning!

I hope everyone has a FANTASTIC weekend!  Let me leave you with some pictures of our first day:

My three kiddies:  Kylie, Connor and Zachary

Connor in the midst of his spelling placement test.

Zachary also in the midst of his spelling placement test

Kylie completing her handwriting

As Zachary started getting bigger numbers in math, he started to not have enough fingers.  So what’s the solution?  The solution is Jason teaching him to use fingers AND toes.  :giggle: