Small Kitchen Appliances

Awhile back when my grandma passed away, a close family friend was helping my grandpa clean out his kitchen. My grandma was a great cook, and she had a lot of fancy things to help her cook in the kitchen. My grandpa on the other hand, was so well taken care of he had no idea what to do with most of the items in the kitchen.

I'm the person in the family who seems to get passed down everything. If you have old *whatever*, call me and I'll either reuse it myself, or find someone who could use it. I'm a one stop thrift shop! I've also learned that I am the only one who actually can throw things away.

So when kitchen cleaning time came about, I gladly took whatever was given. The friend of the family was so insistent and excited over all these small kitchen appliances she had for me. My friends and I are all on budgets, so we really don't own a lot of kitchen things aside from crock pots, blenders, and coffee makers. The most interesting item I was offered was a hand crank sausage grinder. I am slowly learning to cook from scratch (I actually own spices now!) but grinding my own sausage seemed to be more of a time user then a money saver.

I was also given a patty-maker. I have no idea what a patty maker really is. It has two little metal things you are supposed to dip in batter and then fry in oil, and fill with fruit or filling. It looked really nifty. I did gladly take the magic bullet, and use that to make milkshakes and baby food and other small jobs. There was also a 4 slot toaster. I didn't think we needed a toaster with 4 slots, but now I am very grateful for it! Two kids can make breakfast at the same time.

I didn't really get the joy in small appliances until I started reading recipes online. Then I began using my crockpot more. I wasn't sold on the whole crock pot cooking until I bought a good crockpot that actually heats food to the proper temperature. My most recent purchase- a rice cooker from ebay. I didn't think ebay would be a good place to buy things like that, but I got a $60 rice cooker with extra steamer trays for $14 shipped. Not bad! So now I can experiment with that. On Friday I think we will be buying a deep fryer off ebay too- not a cheepie one from target, but a larger, restaurant grade fryer. I've learned bigger is better, since our kids are only going to eat more and not less. I am dying to make some restaurant style fries and chicken nuggets.

I have to laugh, because I originally thought it was pretty silly to own a bunch of small kitchen appliances, and now here I am with my crock pot, 2 blenders, a rice cooker and a deep fryer. I wonder what else will make its way into my kitchen. I guess that's what happens when you don't go out to eat unless its a very special occasion.

4 Moms, 35 Kids Open House- Bedrooms!

Welcome back to my lovely home. By now you know where the drinks are kept, so go ahead and help yourself.

Today is bedrooms part 1. So I guess I will show you my bedroom this week, and the kid's rooms next. Our master bedroom is special to me because this is the first time in 10 years we have our own master suite. I can run naked from the bathroom to the bed. It's great! The kids are also not allowed to play or bring toys in our room. If they want to come cuddle, they are more then welcome. But all that kid related stuff (aside from a few baby toys) stays out! They have more then enough rooms for their own use. It gives me and hubby a quiet spot where we can spend time together.

I have to admit, I cleaned our room a week or so ago, and took pictures then to prepare for this day (which I completely forgot on Thursday!). I was planning ahead for once (kind of)!

This is what you see when you walk in the room. I got mad when we moved and tossed our old bed, so we have an air mattress until we get a new one. We will not be going into debt and buying an expensive mattress. The dresser has been in my family for 20+ years. It holds my clothes on one side, the baby's on the other. On top I toss the misc stuff my hubby brings home from work. We have central air, but there is a cooler in here.

Looking towards the door, the Doorbuster's crib, hubby's dresser. Hubby's dresser usually has some nice candles on top, right now it has a puzzle on top of it. Behind the dresser is the overflowing laundry basket, and the door to the bathroom. All Doorbuster's blankets and a few toys get tossed under the bed when I clean.

Our closet is awesome! One side for each of us, and the middle holds all our misc junk. It's pretty much a stack of boxes in the middle. It's not very pretty, but it works to hold the stuff that really has no home, but no place to go.

The vanity. Isn't it pretty!

Our very own shower, and the toilet paper roll. The walls and ceiling are all tiled, and they forgot things like towel racks and paper towel rolls. I'm not sure I want to ruin the tile to put a roll holder in. There is also that funny hole by the floor. We have no idea what that is for.

The ceiling. It's tiled. I think its pretty neat. We also have a skylight in the bathroom, so you rarely have to turn on the lights during the day.

Hope you enjoyed our house. Wait until you see the kid's rooms next week. I'll be showing you the disaster of my boy's room. Thanks for stopping by!

If you'd like to see more bedrooms, take a hop on over to Life in a shoe, Smockity Frocks, The Common Room and Raising Olives.

Itsy, Biggsy, Spider

To the tune of Alice, Where are you going?

Princess where are you going?
I'm going, to take a bath.
Princess, she bathes twice daily,
and she makes a big old mess mess mess mess
mess mess mess mess
Princess, fills up the bath-tub
Princess, she plugs the tub
Oh my goodness!
Oh my soul!
There's a spider by the plug.
Princess...why are you running?
Aggggggggg!



(After this, I have to be the brave person to go in there and kill the spider. So I find my trusty can of raid and carefully peek around the bathroom door. So far, so good. Then I step on the step stool, then to the top of the toilet, and then to the edge of the tub. I then use the can of bug spray to start whacking away at the pile of bath toys, dirty clothes, dirty towels, and empty soap bottles to find the spider. I find the spider and it makes its mad dash at me. I spray it and it keeps running. I give it a second and it's still trying to flee. So I spray it until it begs for mercy. I think there is now a half a can of bugspray on the towel and the bathroom floor. I also think that bathroom will be out of commission until I get up my nerve to go clean it up and vacuum up the spider. Ewww)

Speed Dating- Park Day Style

Going to a homeschool park day is sort of like speed dating. First, you have to figure out if the group meets on time, or on "homeschool time". We hate being late, which means we show up at the time listed and usually means we are the first ones there. I've now started to show up 15-20 minutes late, and I usually am still early. The worst one was a group that said they started at noon, but no one showed up until almost 1:30. By they we were ready to go!

After figuring out which group of moms are the ones you should be sitting near, then comes having conversations. This is where it starts to seem like speed dating. You meet a lot of people, with a lot of kids, with a lot of different ways of schooling and parenting, and you have to try to remember who belongs with who, and who can you have a conversation with. It's hard when you school one way, and they are the complete opposite. Then there are the awkward silences where everyone is trying to come up with something to say, but there's nothing to be said at the moment. Hopefully you find someone to talk with, or a interesting conversation to listen too.

Of course, if the group is large enough, you always have cliques of moms. Then you have to find which group you fit in. I usually have too many kids, am not "organic" enough, am too attachment parenting, or not a strict classical homeschooler, or not unschooling enough. 

Then comes trying to get your own kids to socialize. The first park day is to figure out what toys and things are popular- Do they bring scooters? Bikes? Legos? Cards? Sand toys? Swords? Then the 2nd park day you try to bring as much as you can to keep the kids busy. Then you teach your kids to introduce themselves and ask if they can play. My kids usually think I'm nuts for making them play with other kids. Then after a few park days they figure out which kids they fit with and are happy to go play.

The princess believes park days have another purpose. The last park day she kept asking if we were going to the park to get her a friend. She kept asking where her friend was going to sit in the car. As we were leaving, she starts throwing a fit. "Why weren't we taking her friend home? We were supposed to go to the park and get a friend". Uhm, we don't go to the park to pick up kids! That's kidnapping and I don't think their moms would appreciate that. I hope she figures it out soon.

4 Moms, 35 kids, Open House- Living Areas

I am loving looking at everyone's houses. They are all so beautiful. I have gotten so many ideas for my own house, and how I'd like to eventually re-do my kitchen. 

Welcome back to my humble abode, today we are peeking at my living areas. There are two living areas in my house, the living room, and the play/school/lego room.The living room is also known as the no legos, no little parts toys, no food room. Doorbuster plays here most of the day, and I really hate picking legos and stuff out of his mouth. This is where his toys live, and if I have company over, its always neat and ready for friends.

Looking in from the entry way into the dining room area. I've been debating a desk/table or something along the right.

Looking into the living room (I'm watching the news). Under the TV is two baskets full of wooden trains and train track.

Looking in from behind the couch.

He loves to bounce in his bouncer while I sweep and mop. But if I vacuum, he cries. All the floors in my house are ceramic tile, only the bedrooms and part of the playroom are carpeted. I love it and hate it at the same time. It does stay very clean, because I notice the dirt much, much easier.

"May our house be warm and our friends many" And our mouse ears from the 50th anniversary of Disneyland, and our regular mouse ears.

Looking at the couch, we got the couch and the rocker for free from craigslist and freecycle. The couch is a recliner, table, and sleeper bed. Pretty nifty! When I'm done with my laptop, I flip the table up and put my laptop away.

Looking back towards the entryway, and towards the bonus room. The closet is over there, with our jackets/bags/etc.

Walking over. The baby gate keeps little ones out so the big ones can build things.

The room in its current state. I usually leave things be, as long as the tile walkway to the garage is clear. They were playing legos yesterday, and building a Knex roller coaster over again. All the white drawers are filled with legos. Under the TV is all the letter/number mats to play with.

Other side of the room. The bookcases hold current school stuff. Princess is packing to go to Vegas, so she has her pack-pack, a lunch bag, her purse, and a spy kit. It's what everyone needs to go to Vegas, right? Note- we aren't going to Vegas anytime soon. The posters on the wall I got for free from NASA, and Genius took the beach pictures that are on the wall.

If you want to see the playroom/schoolroom in its neat, clean glory, you can see it here.

Hop on over to Life in a Shoe, The Common Room, Smockity Frocks, and Raising Olives and take a look at how they organize their living areas. I used to have lots of books, but moving every year convinced me to donate all my books to the library, and let THEM store my books!

Enough

It's that time of the year that you either love or hate as a parent- back to school time! Some parents relish sending their kids off to school, some dread counting how much their babies have grown. Some look forward to gathering their kids around the table and starting a new year of homeschooling, and some dread deciding what curriculum they should use this year.

I think I'm in the middle. I get stuck arguing with myself over being a good enough homeschooler. Good enough for what? Beats me! I "hear" of families who teach their kids 12 different subjects, schooling from morning until night, at desks, with workbooks, textbooks, rules and guidelines. Most of them are in the same boat as me- trying to give their child a classical education. But the thought of schooling all day, every day, drilling and killing facts and information, drives me batty. I don't want to be a lecturing teacher. I see teaching as cuddling on the couch reading good books to each other, or answering "why?" over and over again.

You'd think after 4 years of homeschooling (this is the beginning of year 5), I'd have it all down like an old hat. But back to school time makes me start to question if I am doing good enough compared to all those other moms I use as support. It's always the same questions- Did I cover all the bases? Do we have enough activities? Do we have the right workbooks? Do we have the right curriculum for the right child? Am I pushing them enough? Am I pushing too much? Am I leaving them enough time to be a child? Am I giving them enough time to explore?

It's the same thing as any parenting issue. We will always question if we are doing enough for our kids. But that's the answer right there- we just have to do enough for our OWN kids, not any one elses.

Boycott Target? No thanks!

It seems some people are boycotting target over their recent contribution to anti-gay Republican Minnesota Governor candidate Tom Emmer. They are boycotting over one, $150,000 contribution, that I'm sure Target Corporate didn't donate just because he was anti-gay, it was more then likely to help them open more stores or distribution centers in their state.

My view- I will not be boycotting target. Not for this issue. Target does so much to help average families save money. They allow you to use a manufacturer coupon in addition to their printable coupons. Recently, a lot of their target-printable coupons have given you FREE items. Free Chef boyardee, free french bread, and quite a few others. Free just by going to their website and printing the coupon- paired with their low price, it equals free stuff. Yes, some other drugstores allow you to match coupons with their store coupons, but not to the same extrent I see Target doing it. Shopping at Target, and pairing it with coupons, saves my family hundreds, if not thousands of dollars every year.

I see it as Target supporting families, kids, people of any belief, color, race, or creed. They are supporting us where it counts- at the cash register. With so many people unemployed and underemployed, every dime is being watched, and counted and recounted. To go into Target with some well planned out coupons and sales and come out with food that costs little or nothing, is worth millions to those who had to pick between buying food and paying their rent. Or, to those who have enough- they can pass on the food to someone who needs it.

I will be sure to go to my local target and let them know I support them whole-heartedly, and thank them for helping my family save money.

As for my stance on gay rights, I am not against their rights at all. They are people. If they are here legally, they should have the same rights as anyone else. I'd suggest they spend their efforts trying to get the Governor they do approve of elected, rather than attacking Target.

7 years ago....

Birthday Pan-cakes for breakfast!

7 years ago....I birthed a handsome baby boy.
7 years ago....He has made our lives more joyful.
7 years ago.....Our BlackJack, born on 8-13, at 8lbs 13oz, at 1:38 (all add up to 21)
7 years ago....the van door falling off when we came to bring him home.
7 years ago....7 years has gone too fast!

4 Moms, 35 kids, Open House- Kitchen/Dining Room

I'm loving looking at all the other houses from the 4 moms-35 kids Open House link up! I love to see how other people organize and make their homes welcoming.

Last Thursday was the outside areas of your house. (Click to visit some other moms!).

Lookie! I'm actually getting this one done on the right day! Here is my kitchen/dining room. They are one and the same. I love having both of them together in one open spot. This kitchen/dining room was one of the major things that made me fall in love with this house.

Looking in from the living room. Between the table and the counter is the door to the backyard.

Looking up a bit higher, I have a shelfy thing! It cracks me up, I want to have a 50's/I love Lucy kitchen...yet I have my warcraft box up there too (its special as its signed by all the developers).

My lovely Ikea table and chairs, and the high chair. It had a pad on it. I hate cloth pads on high chairs, like I need something else to wash on a daily basis. There are always cups on the table.

This picture is for prosperity, as this counter is hardly ever clean. Note the sprinkler fixing/baby proofing supplies on the counter. The kids sit on the stools and help cook or talk as I cook. I have a garden window, but no garden. The dead roses were alive, my hubby got them for our 10 year wedding anniversary, and I am not ready to toss them yet.

Continuing around the counter. Hubby got the stove for $30 from the neighbor. Very thrift of him! It's a great stove!

Steam Cleaner, pantry, fridge.

Last wall- Sewing cabinet (with my sewing machine and stuff in it), the calender, and my hutch with all our dishes in it. In the bottom is all the plastic kids dishes and cereal.

Hope you enjoyed the tour! Pop on over to Life in a Shoe, Raising Olives, Smockity Frocks, or The Common Room to see more houses.

And if you think your kitchen is bad- here is my kitchen before I cleaned up this morning. See, my hubby gets home late some nights, and I'd rather spend time with him instead of clean. Add to that a park day, and you get a huge mess. Plus, we tried to make toquitos (that is probably misspelled- little tacos) for the first time.

We all have those days!

Swimming- our style.

We tend to stay home a lot more then we used to. I plan more when we are having a out of the house day, so that we eat at home (since eating out is a big budget buster), and we use our gas efficiently, and we are home before or after rush hour traffic. The kids are still getting used to this.

We were going to go swimming at a friend's house. This involves a few simple steps- waking up, eating breakfast, putting on bathing suits, grabbing towels and floaties, getting in the car, and leaving.

Yet, somehow all of my kids conspire to make it 10 times more difficult then it needs to be.

Doorbuster is getting teeth, adjusting his sleep schedule, and going through separation anxiety. A.K.A. my nice mellow baby is content to fuss, wail and cry unless he is nursing.

Daredevil has decided he doesn't want to go swimming. I told him he didn't have a choice in the matter, we were going swimming. He could sit in a chair by the side of the pool, but we were all going.

Princess is trying to pack up all her clothes that I just put back away, all of her toys, her lunch box, plastic easter eggs, and other assorted items. Apparently her friend needs these toys to play with. Even after repeatedly telling her that we are swimming. Now she is throwing a fit over the dry erase board. She doesn't have a marker for it (markers in my house of any kind are kept under lock and key in a high, high cabinet.). I wont give her a marker because we are getting ready to GO, not color pictures. Daredevil is now mad that she is going to draw over his picture. It was a very special picture, and he wanted to keep it forever. I'm starting to wonder if having the marker board is worth the fighting over it.

Where was I? Oh yes, Swimming. Someone will undoubtedly forget something, a swim floatie or a towel, and all of them will have to protest and fight over what's left. Someone will fight over their shoes being missing. Or a shoe being gone. Or how they hate flip flops, and would rather get their shoes soaking wet.

There is hope....when we get home from swimming, it's NAPTIME! Naptime = Bliss

Mmmmmm......I love my crock pot.

Yesterday I made a yummy (to my taste buds anyways) dinner. I usually make decent food, but nothing special. I'm not much of a cook. I either lack the patience, or the attention span. Usually both.

I put my trusted dinner companion, chunk o frozen London Broil, into the crock pot on high. I put in a cup of water and 3 beef bouillon cubes in, and let it cook from 11ish until 2. Then I shredded it up and put it on low. I then debated from 2-6 of what I should do with the shredded meat. I decided to make some AuJu Sauce. I also decided I wanted a toasted bun. So I toasted a bun, put the meat on top, then poured the AuJu on the meat, so it would soak into the bottom bun. Then put the toasted bun on top. I let it sit for a few min to cool and then flipped it over. The non-soggy bun held everything together so I could eat it like a sandwich.

It was a bit salty, but oh so good!

4 moms-35 kids Open House!

I'm loving looking at all the other houses from the 4 moms-35 kids Open House link up! I love to see how other people organize and make their homes welcoming.

Last Thursday was the outside areas of your house. (Click to visit some other moms!). I was busy, busy, busy last Thursday with Kids Krusade at our church, and that busyness just kept going until today.

I just have one favor to ask- if in looking at my pictures, you have frugal ideas on how to fix up the backyard, I'd love them! We got the front going in the right direction, it's time for the back!

Praying for grass to grow. It's a good size, and flat. The rest will come in time. To the far end is the tree trimmings from the tree we trimmed, we toss them in the dumpsters weekly.

Back planter. I'm leaning towards digging up the weeds and making this a garden. On the other hand, some big, bushy privacy trees would be nice too. I don't know much about gardening. 

Hope you enjoyed the tour! I know I enjoyed showing it off.

If you want to see more houses, go see:
The Headmistress: http://heartkeepercommonroom.blogspot.com/2010/08/four-moms-open-house.html
Life in a Shoe: http://inashoe.com/2010/08/4-moms-35-kids-open-house-linky/
Raising Olives: http://raisingolives.com/2010/08/open-house-yard-entry/
Smockity Frocks: http://www.smockityfrocks.com/2010/08/4-moms-open-house.html

Kid's Eat FREE!

I have been keeping a eye out for restaurants that have kids-eat-free nights. We don't have much extra money to eat out with, but at least getting 2 kids meals free sure helps out!

So if you live in the Southern California- Riverside County area, these are the places I know that have Kid's Eat Free nights:

Jason's Deli at 2225 Canyon Springs Pkwy, Riverside, has Kid's Eat Free* nights on Mondays. It's Mom-Mondays! (As an added bonus, their kids meals are nitrate free, artificial colors & dye free). I haven't eaten here myself, but my brother raves about them.

Chick-a-fila at 2885 Canyon Springs Pkwy, Riverside, has Kid's Eat Free* nights on Tuesdays. So does the Chick-a-fila by the Ontario Mills. I love the Ontario Chickafila, it feels like home!

Jose's Mexican Food at 11875 Pigeon Pass Road, Moreno Valley, has Kid's Eat Free* on Wednesdays. Be sure to eat lots of chips and salsa for me!

Hooters at (well, any hooters), Kid's-Eat-Free on Sundays. Apparently they also play WWE wrestling too. I think this was  my husbands way of saying we really, really need to go to Hooters after church on Sunday. I'm all for it! Less cooking for me!

I'll update this as I find more places! 


*Kid's-Eat-Free= one kid's meal for each adult meal purchased. 
As a disclaimer- any of these offers may end at anytime, and I was not paid, nor compensated by any of the resturants above. This is purely for my information, and yours too! 

Back to School! Almost, anyways...

Sniff, Sniff. It's that time of the year where I compulsively buy anything that is vaguely school related and on sale, like a million boxes of crayons for a quarter and notebooks that are a penny. In the process of moving, I realized exactly how many of those notebooks for a penny I had (around 50 of them) and how many I used during the year (none). So, I either need to use them, or quit buying them. However, you can never have too many boxes of crayons for a quarter. I also bought each kid a pencil sharpener of their very own. Genius has "graduated" from crayons. He prefers colored pencils, since they are more exact. My big 4th grader. That's scary, since 4th grade just sounds so old. Then Princess asked when Genius goes to college, and I realized that could be in 5 1/2 years. Ack! That sounds so soon!

My goal before we go officially back to school on August 23rd, is to get the play/school room set up, with the calender up, whiteboard up, the two fold up desks up, and maybe to find a table to work on. They have enough room between the laptops on the desks and the fold up desks in my opinion, but a work table might be nice, and they could build legos and stuff on it again. I'm also picking up the desk/hutch thing at some point from my moms so that I have a place to stick away the teachers manuals, and a nice place where I can lay them out to use them. Since I realized Saxon math works better if you actually READ the teacher guides. I also learned from the very helpful forums on The Well Trained Minds, that for about $2, staples will cut the binding off your workbooks so you can put them in a regular notebook. Someone decided it was a bright idea for the kid's Saxon notebooks to be bound at the top, and hole punched down the side. It drives me batty!

I also bought two teacher planning book things at Target in the dollar isle. Even though most of our curriculum is to do the next thing, I think it will be easier if I can write it all out and plan where we should be at any given day, and be able to schedule work and field trips around each other. Maybe I will get adventurous and plan a monthly or weekly theme. It will also be easier to keep track of the teacher meetings and what should of been accomplished between each one.

Speaking of accomplishments, Daredevil can write MOM. Sometimes he gets confused and writes WOW, but having him label everything for me, MOM, is adorable. Especially when it is accompanied by a picture of me and him holding hands. I love it. I can't believe his 7th birthday is just a few days away.

Genius is working hard at his blog, which has now turned into a full fledged website, with photos and games and all sorts of cool stuff on it. He's working on more stories. I love to read his stories. I think this year we may alternate between one day of copy work, one day of grammar, and one day of editing stories. I love that he is writing and I think that is the important part. I don't want to kill that and make it school work, but at the same time, I'd like him to learn to use punctuation! He spells pretty well on his own, and he has figured out spell check. Now it's teaching him to use spell check very carefully, as sometimes it comes up with the wrong word. He will be taking photography and video game designing classes this year.