Mason the Manace

So you know how some people (not me of course) adopt a puppy from the humane society and keep it for a few days, or weeks, or months and then decide it isn't a "good fit" for their family?  Maybe the dog is hard to potty train.  Or maybe he bites their mailman. Or maybe he's jumping on their kids and just way too high energy. So this family takes the dog back and turns him back over to the nice people at the humane society so he can find a new home that will be able to handle him.  CAN YOU DO THAT WITH KIDS????

Doesn't he just look like trouble???











We had a NOT great night.  Mason's new little trick is to get up and go into Ellie's room and wake her up.  It is bad enough if he does it early in the morning, but last night, he decided to do it at 3:30...and 4am.  Luckily I heard him before he actually woke her up.  Needless to say, I am way beyond tired today.

The kids got up this morning and I was fresh out of their normal frozen waffle breakfast.  Being that I am in the running for Mother of The Year, I cooked biscuits.  I got the kids all settled at their little table in the kitchen with their biscuits and jelly and went to dry my hair.  Ellie came into the bathroom and said "Mama...Mason is smearing jelly all over the floor."  I went to the kitchen expecting to find a small smear of jelly I could quickly wipe and be done.  I found a 3 foot by 3 foot smear of grape jelly all over the hardwood and little size 7 footie pj footprints leading away from it.

I had to wipe the jelly up and then mop the floor TWICE and I still think there are some jelly spots.  That boy can find some trouble to get into.  It seems that messes are a new phase.  Sunday, the kids were playing outside and I peeked out to check on them and found Mason with mud up to his ankles all over his tennis shoes.

So you see, I think Mason may be a bit too high energy for our family.  Maybe we'll just get a goldfish.

***THIS IS ONLY A JOKE.  I ADORE MY KIDS AND WOULD (almost) NEVER TAKE THEM TO THE HUMANE SOCIETY.

{The Smorgasbord}

This was my grandmother's chair.  It sat in her kitchen at her sewing table.  I knew I wanted a cool chair to sit in MY kitchen at my desk.  My Pop painted it for me and my mom recovered it.  Isn't it lovely???

Biz got an awesome new camera.  I can't wait for her to not be pregnant so she can trudge around in the fields and take pics of ours kids!  (I know while she is ready to not be pregant, she CAN wait.  April 20!)Another great shot!Mason loves Lola so much.  I think it's is mutual.  I don't know if I have ever known such a patient schnauzer.

Mason likes to hide in the cabinets.  And he makes a really funny face when he says cheese.

I made sliders for dinner Saturday.  ZOMG!  So yummy!  I'll try to post my recipe tomorrow.  It's really quite easy!

Be sure to check out some new posts on my sewing blog:  Initial Reaction Designs

{Where Ya Been, Jenn?}

..Oh I've been around.

We had our first official snow day in I-can't-remember-how-long last week. See, WKU never closes. Honestly, I have no clue what prompted the closure last week (I heard icy walkways on campus) but we were ever so happy to oblige and have a lazy day at home!

The snow has continued and I am completely and totally over winter. (We got two more inches last night!) Isn't that always the way? In August, we are begging for cooler days and in February all we want is some warm sunshine and a pool? As a matter of fact, NO you cannot make me happy. Thanks for asking! But seriously, I wanna punch that Groundhog! (Don't tell Pappaw Pete!)

We've been busy decorating, cleaning out the old house, and SEWING.

My Pop made the very wise suggestion to take one room at a time as not to get overwhelmed. So that is what I have been trying to do. I think we have just about every picture hung and I have been working on the knick knacky stuff. I am not a big fan of crap sitting around everywhere. But some amount of crap sitting around everywhere is what gives a house its character so I see it as necessary.

I actually have more cool stuff that I thought I did. :) Brandon and I have come across some real treasures in unpacking. And by unpacking, I mean things that have been in storage for nearly two years. We have things we forgot we had! Brandon has a lot of very very cool stuff that his Pappaw Pete brought back from WWII. We also found some wood carvings his Pappaw Pete made that I really love. I found my Grandma's china and some adorable dessert cups that Brandon's Granny gave me a few years back. Some other favorites that I found were both mine and Brandon's sterling silver baby cups. OH and how could I forget my bunny collection! Yes, I have been collecting bunny figurines since I was a little girl and I found them in my parents' attic last week. I am going to paint a shelf (that I have also had since I was a little girl) and put the bunnies on a shelf in Ellie's room. Cool stuff, people!

I hung these shelves in the kitchen a few weeks ago thinking I would display some of the many pitchers I have collected. But this arrangement just didn't suit me so I have been working on it.

Here is the current display. Plus I added mine and Brandon's baby cups. I kind of love these shelves. You'll note: a teacup from my Grandma'a china, a bunny woodcarving from Pappaw Pete, a military issue lantern from WWII, and that picture.

Here's a better shot:

Our wonderful neighbor when I was growing up in Alabama, Mrs. Barwick, is an artist. My parents' house is full of her work and my Pop brought this picture to me Ellie last week. Mrs. Barwick gave this to my Pop for his birthday when I was about 5 and when she brought it over and I saw it I said "That's me and my Daddy going to church!" (You see the obvious humor in this, right?)

Brandon's deer was finally ready this weekend and Brandon was only too pleased to get the ladder out and hang up his trophies. The deer on the left is the deer he shot back in October. This is the first buck he has killed on our farm.

I think he turned out quite nicely.

Ellie got Lincoln Logs last year (2008) for Christmas and we got them out for the first time this weekend. She played alone, building a city for about 1 1/2 hours!

Ellie told me a BIG story last night during dinner.

And Mason put his place-mat on his head.

Do you ever have one of those days? Our family had one yesterday. Brandon's car kind of bit the dust. Then my favorite spatula BROKE when I flipped Mason's grilled cheese. And not only did the handle break....

There was another crack as well! I seriously considered gluing this back together. I have no clue where we got this thing. It is very possible, probable, even that Brandon has had it since he moved to Kentuck and acquired all the things neither of his parents wanted anymore. (But really, WHO would not want this spatula???)

So I soothed my soul with a little sewing. OH. MY. WORD. I cannot even explain to you the absolute overwhelming JOY that my new sewing room brought me!

{Swagbucks}

Do you use Swagbucks to search? It is super easy to set up. You can set it as your default search engine and every time you search, you earn swagbucks that you can exchange for gift cards (and other stuff but the gift cards seem like the best deal.)

A few items of interest:

• You earn 3 SB just for signing up.
• As your search for stuff you would be searching for anyway, you will earn SB. The most I have earned so far is 3 for a single search.
• There is no rhyme or reason to why you earn SB for a specific search so just search away.
• If YOU sign up, I get SB! Just Click that little button over to the left and it will walk you through the sign up process.
• Click here to download the SB toolbar and you don't even have to remember to search at swagbucks.com. Your computer will remember for you!

I have earned 57 SB as of today and I just downloaded the toolbar about a month ago. I've read about people who did all their Christmas shopping with Amazon gift cards that they got with swagbucks! Wow!

So click the box and sign up! Now.

{Freezer Cooking Extravaganza}

I read alotta blogs. Do you use Google Reader? You should! It keeps track of my many blogs and lets me know when they are updated. It's a one stop shop and I love it. (hopefully very soon I will update my list of favorite blogs!)
Anywho...what's going on in the blogosphere is a big freezer cooking PUSH. I have done something like this once before and it worked out pretty well. Brandon and I have talked a lot and one of our family goals is to eat more meals together. Growing up, both of our moms cooked dinner every night and we ate as families. (My mother-in-law even made dessert... Overachiever!)
Evenings are always pretty chaotic for us. When we hit the door, the kids are starving (or so they say) and sometimes fish sticks and macaroni are the best we can do. BUT, I know there is a better way! Planning is critical. Menu planning is a great place to start.

A few sites that have this Freezer Cooking thing going on:
Money Saving Mom
$5 Dinner Mom
Happy Housewife

So I was inspired to try a little Freezer Cooking Extravaganza of my own. Since the weather outside was frightful, I had the perfect opportunity over the weekend. I did things a little at a time over Saturday and Sunday. I did not go quite as far as completing ENTIRE meals. My plan was more to prep things as much as possible. Here is what I did:

3 packages of diced chicken


1 package of marinated chicken


2 packages of Taco/ Fajita seasoned chicken


2 packages of Taco meat


3 packages of meatballs for Spaghetti and Meatballs OR Meatballs subs


And 6 packages of cooked pinto beans to be used for refried beans OR to cook with ham



This was the one Brandon was a little iffy about. But I paid about $2 for a two lb bag of dry beans and got about 6 cans worth of beans out of it. And 1 can of beans costs about $1. Every penny counts, right? And yes we do like beans. It took me about 15 minutes of hands on time (soaking, rinsing, putting in crockpot and packaging) because I used the crockpot to cook the beans.

So I got all of that in the freezer AND I made a pot of yummy Broccoli Cheese Soup for dinner Sunday (and we still have leftovers!) I made things as I saw small windows of children being entertained for more than 5 minutes and I barely noticed the work! So we have 9-10 meals prepped. I figure if every weekend I can get a few things ready to go for the week AND remember on weekday evenings to prepare for the next day, we will be doing pretty good!

AND for dinner tonight, I have this cooking:
Slow Cooker Beef with Balsamic Onions
I remembered to thaw the roast and I cut up the onions last night and had them ready to go in the fridge. It took me about 5 minutes to get it in the crockpot this morning.

So there you have it. Planning is really everything. Things go so much more smoothly when I can plan ahead a little!