Dutch Babies are silly AND yummy!!!

 With my kiddos fresh out of school, and the hubby helped and washed dishes yesterday and cleaned out the refrigerator. (yes be impressed!!)  This morning I decided I was going to make something special.  If I am being entirely honest we also didn't have anything but some eggs in the refrigerator left after said cleaning was complete.  So armed with some eggs I decided I was going to make my first EVER Dutch Baby! (giggle)

I have always been adventurous in the kitchen and never having tried recipes before has never stopped me from going for it!  This morning I am SO THANKFUL that I am so fearless that way because WOAH!!  Discoveries this morning Dutch babies are not only really FUN and SILLY to talk about, they are also SUPER DELICIOUS and EASY to make!  They are MAGICAL creations that take moments to create!!  NO KIDDING!!  So even if you are not a culinary adventurer this is a recipe that seems to be fool proof and amazing!!  GO FOR IT!!

So the magical ingredients needed?

Eggs
Milk
Flour
Butter
Powdered Sugar

For your topping GET CREATIVE!!  I love the butter, powdered sugar, lemon juice mixture. (just mash it all up together and smear it on before you eat.  But skies the limit.  Peaches poached with some brown sugar and amaretto, blueberry syrup, poached apples, my kiddos even used some jelly!!  So get creative here!! Will post some recipes for toppings another time.

Time for the magic!!

So I am not a measurer!  WAhhh?? Yeah I bake and cook usually with a little of this and that and never follow or really use a recipe, so if pushed and I have to give you one, here it goes.

      Fool Proof Yummy Dutch Baby Magic Recipe REVEAL!

Heat oven to 450 Degrees

 

Put oven safe skillet or casserole dish into oven and warm about 5 minutes or so.
Pull out of oven and put 4TBS of butter in. 1/2 a stick of butter push around a bit and allow to melt all over bottom.

Ingredients:
4 Eggs
1/2 Cup Milk
1/2 Cup Flour

Mix this together in a blender for a quick second and pour into your hot buttery dish. HINT (for the casserole dish I doubled this recipe)

Pop this into the oven, set timer for 25 minutes and VOILA!!! MAGIC!!

Pull out of the oven using some serious hot pads will be very hot, sprinkle some powdered sugar over top, and serve with your favorite topping!!

This was so super simple, looks amazing, and my family is in love with this and super impressed!!

WINNING!!  Go for it and make one for your family!!  Any questions just let me know! And let me know about all of your success too!!  LOVE THIS!!! <3

PLEASE don't make me Say it AGAIN!

 

We are struggling in our home to organize chaos! We call it herding cats. Are there systems in place in our home, yes, but we are finding that the struggle is to get our children to follow these. For example EVERYDAY since the beginning of school days the after school routine is: Hang Up Coats & Backpacks, Put Lunch Bag On Counter, Wash Hands. SIMPLE!  The older my family gets the more complex these three instructions become.  They morph into some twisted altered state and things like throw coat on couch, or toss backpack onto floor, seem to stick into my children's brains!!

The final straw for us, one word,  mornings.  There isn't anything I detest more than chaotic, unprepared, stress filled mornings!  I don't believe that is the way to begin a day, and more importantly no way to begin a child's day before sending them off for school.  We were having a particularly chaotic Monday morning which began with no one setting their alarm, the children waking a half hour after their necessary wake up time, and snowballed from there. Tears, shouting, forgotten school clothes, it was UGLY!!

I  made up my mind even with all of our wonderful intentions and our "systems" they just simply were not working.  The children KNOW they are supposed to set alarm clocks before bed, but it was not happening.  They KNOW they need to lay out clothes before bed, but only some were following this fully. We needed to find something to help us to more clearly define our systems already in place.

I decided to make a run to staples for laminating ($1.99 per page).  I filled out some organizational charts and felt it was worth the shot!  I had three for each of my school age children. Morning, After School, Night.  They were each filled with what I felt were the essentials.

Morning Routine looks like this:

Put on school/PE clothes, Brush teeth, Brush Hair
Quietly make my bed
Come downstairs and eat breakfast
Clean up my spot and any mess I made
Get my hair done
Put my lunch bag on my backpack
Make sure I have everything I need for the day
Read quietly and wait until it is time to leave

Seems simple enough, but for some reason we have struggled with this EVERY morning! Until now.  I am no longer the constant nagging and reminding mother.  I no longer stress myself out trying to get my children to get ready in the morning.  All I say now is did you get your list.  SIMPLE!  Outlined, written, no reason to say "oh I forgot"

Thus far the blessed lists have been absolutely fantastic!  They have helped the ones that need further help and they have re-enforced our routine for the ones that are already organized.

After my children have completed their set of lists for the morning they bring it to me all filled out, I go through it and make sure they did indeed accomplish these things and they will earn a star.  We have decided to keep things simple and give them money for the stars I had been thinking that a trip to the library, or they could earn special outings, but I wanted something more tangible where those that were following and earning the stars could feel justly compensated.

Here is the wonderful Link from SuttonGrace Blogspot  Charts

Take a look and see if this may be something you could implement into your family to help keep everyone on task and organized while fostering independence and a sense of accomplishment, AND keeping your sanity!!!

I am going to include our set of reminders for After School and for Evening to help get you thinking what your list may be.

After School:

Come in quietly
Put hat, gloves, scarf inside sleeve of coat
Hang coat/backpack, put lunch bag on counter, wash hands
Give mom or dad take home folder
Eat my snack quietly at table
Finish homework and ask for help if needed
Have mom or dad check my homework
Put my homework in my folder and in my backpack

Evening Routine:

Eat Dinner, clean up after myself
Make sure my backpack is packed with everything I may need for tomorrow
Have school/PE/dance/sports clothes, library books, ready for tomorrow
Set my alarm clock to wake up tomorrow
Put on my pajamas, brush, floss, rinse my teeth
Make sure my room is clean and I put back everything in it's place
Say my prayers before bed
Turn off lights and go to sleep

We have had a few stragglers here and there, but I kept it simple for them. They did not earn their star for that day and I encouraged them to try again for next time.  I will keep you posted on how we continue with this.  I am greatly encouraged by our initial success and I plan on continuing to emphasize the importance and use of our lists.

Awww Despicable Me!

I have no idea how this came to be, I believe it was a family fun night gone wild! Long story shorter my children decided that this year our family HAD to be the cast from Despicable me. The children all REALLY got into this idea and started handing out roles for each person in our family. (if you haven't seen this movie, DO!)

At first I just smiled thinking that it would pass over like most things do in our family, but as October 31st crept closer the children were still VERY insistent on BEING Despicable Me!

So reluctantly Mom and Dad jumped on the Despicable Me bandwagon and we have been having a BLAST!!  I am so thankful that I really listened to my children and that we have been able to do this together.  It has taken some creativity and some thought and time, but our family has had so much fun with it this year! 


Unlike the other years this years "themed" Halloween has brought all of us together in a really wonderful way! We are working together, admiring everyone's costumes as they come together, encouraging, cheering, talking, interacting, all around enjoying this entire process!


We have found pieces to our costumes all over! Goodwill, Ebay, Walmart, Amazon, right in our own house, Etsy, garage sales, and friends!  My favorite ABSOLUTELY has to be Alex's find!!  He came running up to me and shouts "SQUID LAUNCHER.....OH YEAH!!" and I looked and he was holding (I would just like to insert this here and say it was brand new, unused, clean) the holder for the scrubbing bubbles toilet wand.  It didn't hit me right away, it was more like a joke grenade (as my husband so affectionately calls them) but after ten seconds or so you could see dawning realization creep across my face and then.........it happened........"OH WOW!! YES!!! IT .......IS.....a squid launcher.......OH YEAH!!!! GREAT job Alex!!"  We ALL break into FITS of laughter! And now this morning I am ordering a plush squid from Amazon, bald caps, and giant ears??  I know right, and I am laughing thinking about how much we will all giggle when they arrive, and how much we will giggle when we all actually put on these costumes!!

We still have some work to do on them to get it all pulled together and ready, but the key here is that we will all do it together and have fun!

So there is still time! Grab the family and see if you all can't come together and think up a Family Fun Halloween Night Costume for your family :oD  Who knows what fun you may have, or what you may find at YOUR local Goodwill.  The key here is to have fun with it and do something special as a family that you will all laugh about for years to come!

DVD MAGIC!!!

Okay so I probably just got absolutely sick and tired of having a box FULL of DVDs that we couldn't watch.  With six little people over the last eight years we have gone through our fair share of DVDs.  Some of which we have had to repurchase due to lots of little hands and LOTS of scratches!!  Earlier today I said to my husband we need to spend a day going through all of these DVDs and figure out which ones we can still use.  We can get a skip dr. and try to fix them and see how many we can save.  (oh yeah like let's just add that to our great idea but never gonna happen list let's get real you have six small children)

I was trolling the web for some ideas to see what may save my sanity as well as the DVDs!  Well I have gotta say I have found a MIRACLE for DVD revivals!!

So how many of you like me have a box or case FULL of scratched DVDs??  Nothing is worse than having your kiddos favorite movie skip and trying to explain why it isn't working and WHY you CAN'T make it work.  Once all of the tears and crying settle have you ever went out and bought another one???

I PROMISE you won't be sorry to try this!!  I have saved 10 DVDs so far that we haven't watched in years.  So many years in fact some of the very small children have never watched them!!!  I am honestly amazed at how simple and amazing this is!!

Yeah I know I sound like an infomercial and like I am about to try to sell you some oxiclean or ginsu knives!  SHAMWOW!!!

You can actually find the solution possibly right in your own bathroom!!

TOOTHPASTE!!!  YES!!  Well not just any toothpaste, Children's toothpaste.  I read that Crest works very well, but I used Children's Colgate, because we had a tiny tube of it from the dentists office.

Take a few small dabs of it and use your fingers to smear the entire shiny side of the DVD.  Smear it around for a bit rubbing in circles around the entire DVD.  Rub until the paste starts to dry.  Rinse thoroughly under water and repeat a second time.  I do this just to be sure!  For really badly scratched DVDs I repeated a third time.  Dry with a soft towel, I used Viva paper towels, and give it a try.

Tip- you can always watch it first to see where the scratch is and after you follow the above directions put it back in and go right to where the skip was.

I hope this works as well for you as it did for me!!! HOORAY!!!

Pass The POPCORN Please!!

Who doesn't LOVE popcorn!  It has been brought to my recent attention the dangers and harmful chemicals contained in microwave popcorn. 

Information and Sources:
  Researchers at the University of Toronto reported that the chemicals lining junk food/fast food wrappers and microwaveable popcorn bags are leaking into your food (source). Dangerous chemicals such as perfluorinated carbocylic acids (PFCAs) or more specifically,  Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), also known as C8 (a Teflon Chemical), line microwave popcorn bags and get in to your bloodstream from consuming the food inside the bag. PFCAs have been linked to cancer and other development problems in animals.
“According to Daily News Central “In a study published last month, Food and Drug Administration researchers said microwave popcorn bags alone could expose the public to ‘hundreds of times’ more C8 than normal use of nonstick cookware.” The C8 is then ingested by the people eating the popcorn.” (source)
“Maureen McFadden of WDNU reported on 5/3/06: “Recent tests found PFOA, which can be extracted from Fluorotelomer, does cause cancer in animals.” Scientist Glen Evers explains, “Even before we cook the popcorn, the butter is already contaminated with a paper flurochemical that will be absorbed into your blood and stay in your blood for a long, long time.” (source)  info from thehealthyapron.com

I always believed that the FDA would keep things like this off of the shelves and who would ever put something harmful on consumer shelves to be eaten and harm people.  The more information that is out there the more I am realizing how proactive parents and individuals MUST be!!

So why would this post be titled PASS THE POPCORN PLEASE??   Well I guess I thought I was being clever here.  It actually has a double meaning because you CERTAINLY want to pass on microwave popcorn!! Anything that is putting chemicals like THAT into your diet is NOT welcome in my home!!

So does that mean we should pass on popcorn entirely.  NO!!!  Recent studies have come out sharing the AWESOMENESS of popcorn!!  Claiming that those wonderful little kernels may even contain more antioxidants than fruit!!! WOAH  Long study short the hulls of the popcorn (not the white fluffy stuff) contain between 242-363 milligrams per one-ounce serving. (By comparison, fruits like apples and pears often have about 160 milligrams of the antioxidants per ounce.) Overall, about 1.5 percent of popped corn is comprised of polyphenols, according to TIME Healthland Read more on this at Popcorn Facts

So is it back to the ole air poppers?  Too many appliances, not enough room in my kitchen!

REMEMBER I try to keep things super simple, quick, and healthful for my growing family!  So if you have an air popper go for it, but this is what my family reaches for!!

Grab a lunch bag, put in a scoop of popcorn kernels, fold top flap down and seal with a piece of tape, place in the microwave and microwave until you only hear a few pops per second, (our microwave has a popcorn setting we use)  pull it out and take a sniff no need to worry about chemicals!  SERVE IT UP to your family and PASS THE POPCORN PLEASE!!  

This is an AWESOME snack for the kiddos after school, while watching a movie, or whenever!! LOVE IT!!

***UPDATE**  Another option is your stove top!!  Heat some oil in a pot (works best if there is a handle don't use a teflon pan, sorta defeats the purpose :oD) and pop in some of your kernels, place the lid on (clear lids are the most fun!).  Once they start popping shake the pan back and forth to prevent burning and watch your popcorn pop!