Category: Uncategorized (Page 31 of 201)

Chloe loves purple.  I think that was made obvious by her last Birthday party theme being PURPLE.  Nothing else.  Just purple.  We’ve tried dying her hair purple before with limited success.  It normally stays for a little while and then washes out over the period of a few months–leaving her with a wide array of colors as it’s leaving her hair.  Purple, then blue then teal then kind of grey… It’s the color that just keeps on giving!

But for Christmas Jen bought her a new purple hair dye that’s put in like a shampoo/conditioner and then just rinsed out.  The more you use it, the more color you get.  It’s fascinating.  In fact, it’s called a “Color plus clenditioner”

It smells amazing and actually keeps her hair clean WHILE dying it!  We decided to do a peek-a-boo color, not an all over color just in case.  So, the only draw back is that it’s kind of a hassle to pull her hair part way up, apply the color, let it sit and then shower without letting the shampoo touch her purple hair… but we’ve got the system down pretty good now.

See how fun it is?

Now, I’m curious how quickly it will wash out once we stop washing her hair with it.  I expect it to wash out pretty fast.  If it does wash out fast, it would sure make it easy to have blue/green/pink/orange hair one day and then not the next!

Baking powder biscuits.  Does the baking powder matter?  She was asked by her science teacher to test it out and record her findings.

We’ve decided to put Maddie in preschool next year (starting in September).  She’ll be going to the same preschool that Chloe and Josiah went to, but the teacher they had is not teaching there anymore.  We’re bummed about that, because we all really loved her, but I’m sure the new teacher will be equally awesome.  🙂  So, Tim took her to the open house tonight to let her see the classroom and meet the teacher.  She was Over. The. Moon. Excited.  It’s adorable.

They gave her a bag of microwave popcorn as a thank you for coming that says, “Thanks for Popping In!”  She’s been carrying it around obsessively since she got it.  I love that she is so excited about school and meeting new people.  She is definitely our social butterfly!

We are in a meal rut.  We seem to eat the same things over and over.  Partly because it’s easy, and partly because it’s tried and true.  However, I’m starting to feel like we need to branch out.  I’m excited to try something new and hopefully add to our repertoire of monthly meals.

So, after some digging (okay, just 10 min of internet searching) I’ve decided to try three new “Sheet pan meals” this month.  Basically you prep your stuff (cut into strips, etc) and then spread it on a pan and bake it.  Boom.  I like the idea, because I can prep everything earlier and then just run into the kitchen pour it on a pan and shove it in the oven in between lessons.  And my amazing new oven even has a delay start so I can have the oven all ready to go! Here are the three I’ve settled on to try out:

1. Sheet Pan Bruschetta Chicken
2. Sheet Pan Greek Chicken
3. Sheet Pan Teriyaki Chicken and Pineapple

See? Don’t those sound interesting?  I’ll keep you posted on how they turn out, and what everyone has to say about it…  🙂

I’m feeling good about January.  I finally have two massive things off of my endless To-Do list.  These are things that I have been meaning to do for MONTHS, and kept rewriting them as I would update my list every week or two.  That’s always depressing… rewriting the same task.  Ugh.  But this week, I got it done!

First I scheduled dentist appointments for all the kids!  Yes!  Our last dentist retired (say wha!? I know!  Dentists aren’t allowed to retire.  Don’t they know that?  Haha!).

And Second, I cleaned off the kids school board/backpack area.  It still had papers in it from the end of the LAST school year.  Ooopsie!  But, look how pretty it is now!

I’ve already accomplished so much, and it’s only January 11th.  I’m on a roll!

One of my favorite gifts I got on Christmas (my first favorite was my amazing oven… oh, and another amazing one was a folding 3 tiered dessert tray that’s so cool and compact!  but I’m getting off topic…) was this mug and gift cards from Tim and the kids.  It’s filled with gift cards–labeled, one for each month–for a cup of coffee at  Caribou.  And or course, the mug says it all.  My family knows me oh so well!!

I decided to try to make chicken noodle soup in my instant pot this weekend–and I LOVE it!  It’s a smidgen peppery for me, but not bad.  (as opposed to the egg noodles I made the night before in the instant pot and I read the directions wrong and DOUBLED the amount of salt I needed–they were horrendous.  So. Bad.  In my defense I was making them in a hurry, but still… I could taste salt in my mouth for hours after supper.  Yuck.)

But, back to the soup!  It wasn’t necessarily a fast recipe, but it was really nice to be able to make a nice large pot and only get one pan dirty.  I’m thinking I should try out different soups over the winter.  I do really like soups but I don’t make them much because most of the family doesn’t care for it.

Here’s the website I got the soup recipe from.  I’m not going to link the address, so you’ll just have to copy and paste it into your search bar.  I’ve been getting a TON of spam comments recently, so I’m just playing it safe.

Instant Pot Chicken Noodle Soup: https://www.jocooks.com/recipes/instant-pot-chicken-noodle-soup/

So much of life is a choice.  You can choose to see the good in the little things or you can choose to see the negative.  I strive to see the good!

Today I am focusing on how happy I am that I’m (almost) not sore anymore after restarting my exercise program with the new year.  It’s taken a week, but I’m finally starting to feel like I can get up and down the stairs again without wincing.  Hehe!

In other news (that I refuse to call bad news but rather surprising news), Tim had to go back to work today.  He’s working today and tomorrow on that massive job.  They were supposed to finish up before Christmas but 5 stones were delayed and they want to set them in thawed ground, so the homeowner needed to thaw the ground for them… and so without notice, the homeowner decided now is when he wants it done. So, off Tim goes.  The good news is that it shouldn’t take more than 2 days.  It’s only 5 (REALLY, really big) stones.  And in all seriousness I am so thankful that Tim’s business is doing so well.  Even if it means going to work in January.

It’s become sort of a tradition that we do a puzzle on Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We aren’t always around for the Thanksgiving gathering at Bakers, but I know they’ve been doing a puzzle for a few years now.  The whole point, of course, is to finish the puzzle in one day.  We go this one done a just a couple hours.  It goes fast when 4 people are working on it!  I so enjoy just sitting around talking and laughing and just hanging out–all while doing something productive.  Well, if you can call doing a puzzle productive… but you know what I mean.

Jen and Abby really love the Thomas Kinkade Disney puzzles. Lots of color and details.  This one was Under the Sea.  Very fun!s