Gymnastics and a Winning Crock Pot recipe!

Today was an interesting day! It was the girl's second class of gymnastics and of course, little C was running again. Last week she was so excited that she just couldn't contain herself and kept running, and running, and running...all around the gym!  Thankfully, her teacher was really understanding that it was her first time at any sort of class like this. They "pinkie-promised" last week that she'd be a good listener this week.

Well, guess what? This week her teacher was on vacation. So little C went off with another teacher and stayed in the class for maybe 10 minutes before she started running again.  This time the new teacher just handed her to me, saying "Maybe you'd like to try the Mommy and Me class instead?" Ugh.

I mean, of course, I would like to try it, except that it's summer, and I have 2 older girls who have been so, so, so excited to try gymnastics and this particular time worked for all 3 of them to have a class at the same time. Which means that if I can get my 2 year old to stay in her class, then I get to have 45 minutes of uninterrupted me time, even if that means I get to read a book at the gymnastics gym...I'll take it.  Little C and I had a heart to heart after she was  asked to leave  kicked out of class; she was so upset that she couldn't go back. I'm hoping it'll help for next week! Fingers crossed!

After gymnastics, the girls and I headed to the craft store to pick up some yarn.  Exciting news!  I got an order to make a set of dryer balls!  So exciting!! We also picked out a few American Girl-type dresses that were on clearance, and the girls were super excited to play with them when we got home.

I also tried a new crockpot recipe tonight, which actually turned out pretty good!!  Maybe the girls were just hungry from all that jumping and tumbling, but they all asked for seconds. That's a win in my book!  Check out the recipe below if you're interested in making it; I was pretty stoked that I had all the ingredients already in the house.

Slow Cooker Curried Chicken with Ginger and Yogurt
from Real Simple 

Ingredients:

1/3

cup

tomato paste

4

cloves

garlic, chopped

2

tablespoons

curry powder

1

tablesppon

grated fresh ginger

1

teaspoon

ground cumin

1

medium onion, chopped

3/4 cup water

2

pounds

boneless, skinless chicken thighs (about 10)

kosher salt and black pepper

1 1/2

cups

long-grain white rice

1/2

cup

plain whole-milk Greek yogurt

2

scallions, thinly sliced

Directions

1. In a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker, whisk together the tomato paste, garlic, curry powder, ginger, cumin, and ¾ cup water. Add the onion and stir to combine. Place the chicken on top and season with 1 teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper.
2. Cover and cook until the chicken is tender, on low for 7 to 8 hours or on high for 3 to 4 hours (this will shorten total cooking time).
3. Twenty minutes before serving, cook the rice according to the package directions.
4. Just before serving, add the yogurt and ½ teaspoon salt to the chicken and stir to combine. Serve with the rice and sprinkle with the scallions.

I cooked mine on high for 4 hours and the meat was easy to divide up for the girls and myself to eat. Yum!  Even my husband had some, so I'll 

I'm hoping to get back to blogging more regularly now that school is out. I've started the Konmari method in hopes of getting my house and craft supplies in order too.  I've got a bunch of dishes and clothes and toys and your basic household space fillers that I'm ready to part with.  If you want to join me, pick up the book on Amazon and let's purge and then fill our lives with joy together! 

~Patricia 

Under the bathroom sink organizing!

Last week, I was so excited to go out to lunch with a new friend; I got a babysitter and everything!  And then I got a message that she had to cancel due to work. I read her email at 10:30am, and I was supposed to leave at 11am and the babysitter was already on her way.

What's a girl to do with no plans and a babysitter for the kids?!  Shopping of course!

I ended up going to Bed, Bath ad Beyond, and although I felt like the youngest person in there by 30 years (there are a lot of snowbirds where I live), I found some awesome things!

I got this really cool Two Tier Sliding Basket Organizer for $20, and I used it to organizer under our bathroom sink in the master bath.  I was really proud of myself that I actually used it (sometimes I like to just buy things, lol) and that it really worked well since I didn't measure it or anything!  I also got rid of a bunch of stuff we don't use anymore and cleaned the cabinet.  The drawers slide out really nicely too!

I also got a few clip-on shelves for the girl's beds, hopefully to help keep all their stuff off the floor.  It's so hard to clean when there's stuff everywhere!  I also got a over-the-door organizer, a bathtub storage thingy and a few letter trays.  Oh, and a new shower curtain to go with the new paint color I'm putting up in the master bath this week.  I can't wait for that!  Our bathroom is going to be amazing! 

Stay tuned!
~Patricia

Time to get organized!

Yesterday, I had some time to organize my pantry closet. And if you haven't had a chance to clean our your pantry closet (or any closet for that matter), give it a try! You never know what you'll find!

Some of my "findings":
Bread mix from a few years ago (maybe 2009?)
Cake and brownie mix that expired in 2011 (guess that's never going to happen)
Baby food from 2012
Correction: Stale, gross baby food from 2012
2 large chocolate Easter bunnies with the ears partially nibbled off
1 unopened large chocolate Easter bunny (score!! Guess what my kids are getting for Easter this year? Don't worry, they won't actually eat it-see above statement.)
Lots of old valentine/easter/halloween/christmas candy. That I promptly threw out. That my children fished out of the trash can. I got wise and threw it in the garage. Then they whined because I threw all their candy away! Then I showed them the big box of candy still in the closet. Somehow they weren't really satisfied.

And the biggest lesson I learned? Just throw the old food away. Don't try and taste it to see if it's really bad. It is. It really is. And your kids don't want you spitting in the trashcan. On top of all of their candy.

So that's sorta how it went. Pantry closet is good for the next 3 or 4 years now. Check!

Check out a few photos of the finished closet and the only candy left in the house.

I'm getting a good feeling about you 2014.

Trofast Ikea Hack

Does anyone really have enough storage?

I always ask myself this when putting away the girls' clothes for the thousandth time.  Maybe they just have too many clothes (darn you, Target clearance!) or maybe I just don't have enough places to put everything, so it gets cluttered.  I decided that the next time I went to Ikea, I would get another Rast dresser and jazz it up to match the one that is already in the girls' room. Here's a photo, and even though I am really much better at sewing than painting, I just have to point out that the middle drawer was completed by my daughter, who was 4 at the time, lest you think that was my handiwork. 

What I made.

What I wanted to make.

Now imagine my sadness when I finally made it to Ikea (it's two hours away) and their Rast dressers were out of stock. Ack!  What am I going to do? Thankfully, thanks to Pinterest, I had seen several different ideas already on making a storage bench out of their Trofast line.  Here's the original link I liked, as well as this one and this one too. I'm pretty handy, but actually building something without directions is out of the question for me right now (I'm also having a baby in a few weeks!), so I decided to go with the Trofast bench in solid pine (it's pretty solid and somewhat heavy).  After assembly, I spray painted it white and then added in the buckets / tubs from Ikea.  

Here's a snapshot of how the completed bench turned out:

Looks pretty good!

Obviously, I was inspired by the links above and wanted to make a cushion for the the top.  It just so happened that a few weekends ago JoAnn's was having a sale on foam (60% off!, that's a deal in my book!).  So I dashed over and grabbed about a yard of some 2 in. foam.  I found this girly print in the clearance rack for $5/yard:

This awesome print was a steal at $5/yard!

I ended up doing my own pattern for the cushion cover, and made the cushion just a little bit smaller than the entire top of the bench. It fits really nicely, and I'm super happy with how it turned out. I sewed the whole thing on the sewing machine and even got the corners to look nice, now that's an accomplishment!  The total size of the cushion is 35.5 in by 15.5 in.  It's has an underside like a pillowcase, so I can remove it and wash it. The cushion only took me one day to finish, sewing a little bit here and there so my feet wouldn't swell up too much, and I love how easy Ikea's furniture is to put together. I used one can of primer + white gloss to cover the wood.  The girls love it as much as I do!  On to the next project...

More storage = one happy mama. 

Organizing!!

So lately I've been super busy trying to organize, well, pretty much everything! This has left little time for crafting, except for making a bunch of baby bibs for presents. When we moved into our house, there was this one room with two big closets, but just one shelf near the top. Thankfully, a friend was about to come over and install nice shelving for me, oh about a year ago!! And finally, I've been able to get all of my crafts organized into one closet (well, sorta) and the kids' toys in the other. I don't have a huge stockpile of crafts or fabrics, but just a lot of little pieces that get cluttered around if they don't have a home. I have been searching on Pinterest for some easy ways to organize, and finally settled on plastic totes. Genius time, right? :)

So here's a photo of part of it, and like I said, it's a work in progress!! I just wish I could have my own giant room devoted to all of the fun things I've collected, then I could finally use them all (and then just collect more!).