The Final Product!

And here she is... the final product!!!

I think I love this kitchen much more than my daughter does! :)

What's for Dinner Wednesdays!

My brother and sister in law have been in town staying with us for the holidays, and my sister in law made the most scrumptious dinner last night that I just had to share! They are chicken quesadillas, and they seriously are restaurant worthy, and so easy!

3-4 chicken breasts cooked and cubed or shredded
1 can green chiles
2 green peppers
2-3 tomatoes
green onions
cheese
tortillas

In a pan, saute green peppers in a little butter. Add tomatoes, chicken, and chiles. In another pan, place tortilla, add a good portion of the chicken mixture, and lots of cheese. Fold tortilla in half and cook 'til golden brown, flipping halfway through.
Top with sour cream, avacados, salsa...etc.
So YUMMY!!!

Declutter

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! I know we sure did. I can't believe Christmas has already come and gone! I'm the type of person who LOVES LOVES LOVES to decorate for the holidays. My tree is always up the day after Thanksgiving, and I love enjoying the festive decor all month long. But I also start to feel things piling up in our home throughout the month, and by the time Christmas is over, I am ready for major declutter/organization. So today we took down the tree and the decorations and my house feels so...sparse. But clean, and a little more orderly. I know the holidays aren't over yet, but once the new year begins, I plan to do a whole week of posts dedicated to cleaning/organizing and I'm so excited! So what do you do? Do you like to keep the decorations up as long as possible? Or are you ready for some cleaning and decluttering once Christmas is over?

A Gift To The World

May we all remember the reason for the season! Merry Christmas!

A Thrifty Cupboard

My mom found this cute little cupboard for five dollars at a yard sale. My husband's parents brought it up when they came to visit in October, and hubby got straight to work sanding it down,




Priming it to get rid of that crazy reddish purple


Adding a few coats of cream paint and some red crystal knobs, and we have a new kitchen for Brynlie for Christmas!

I got a great deal on some Melissa and Doug play food, some stainless steel pots and pans, and my mom made her the most darling apron ever. I'll post pictures when it's all put together on Christmas morning! Can't wait!

What's For Dinner Wednesdays!

On Wednesdays I'm going to post something yummy we are having for dinner. Disclaimer: I'm pregnant, and just getting into my second trimester, so I am still not feeling tons of energy and food is still not sounding great, so I have not been cooking/baking much of anything! So the meals for the next little while will probably be VERY simple (which is what I love even when I'm not pregnant!)
This is an easy recipe for Chicken Pot Pie that I learned when I was serving in Young Women's in my last ward. Our Young Women's president did a fun activity night to teach the girls some easy, inexpensive recipes they could use when they went off to college, moved out on their own, etc. I think I learned/enjoyed the activity more than any of the young women!

Easy Chicken Pot Pie

Frozen Pie Crust (In freezer section at your grocery store, usually come in a pack of two, very inexpensive)
1 can Cream of Chicken soup
1 small bag frozen mixed vegetables
1 cup chicken (you can use rotisserie, canned, boiled...she suggested you crockpot a whole bunch of chicken and shred it up and store it in individual cup sized portions in the freezer. I'm a big fan of this idea.)
1 handful of grated cheese

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, pour into pie plate, and top with pie crust. Bake at 375 for about 30 minutes or until crust is started to get golden brown.

This is so cheap and easy to make, and my whole family loves it!

Your House is Only as Big as Your Hospitatlity

I found this post at www.incourageme.com and felt so inspired! I think anyone who has family/friends coming to stay with them for the holidays might enjoy reading it!

Your House is Only as Big as Your Hospitality

I am a reluctant renter.
Have been for years.
Our house is small, it has faux bricks that constantly fall off the kitchen walls and carpets that, well, let’s just say we have three kids under the age of six and leave the rest up to your imagination.
For years my small house has stunted my hospitality.
I’ve always loved to have friends over. I’m not awesome with a glue gun and I do not have any real furniture arranging mojo. But I’m generally comfortable in my own skin. And I love lingering over the last of the hot chocolate with friends and leaving the dishes for later.
Give me girlfriends, church friends, grand parents, aunts, uncles or cousins – I love to have them in my space.
But since my space has shrunk the last few years it turns out my hospitality has shrunk right along with it. I didn’t realize quite how much until our South African cousins surprised us with the news they were going to be coming through the DC area and were so excited to come and visit – and hopefully stay – with us.
I was elated for 5 minutes before the wave of embarrassed disappointment hit.
The teeny living room, two bedrooms and one bathroom all flashed through my mind. Then there was the not-so-small matter that we only have 4 dining room chairs and no guest bedroom. An inflatable mattress and sofa pillows were the best we had to offer over night guests.
Five of them and five of us in our house seemed like a recipe for hostess hyperventilation. So I was relieved when they said they’d be happy to stay at a hotel. And astonished when my husband emailed them back and insisted they stay with us.
I was incredulous. I pointed out the obvious. Our. House. Is. Small.
Turned out, however, Peter wasn’t limited by the size of our house. Because he had big hospitality in mind.
He said we should give them our master bedroom and we’d take the inflatable mattress in the playroom, even if it was only for a night. The kids could camp out on mattresses and sofa cushions in the living room. He was determined that our homesick boys would get a full dose of family. And that meant sleepovers included.
We made dinner a taco fiesta buffet and everyone ate anywhere they were comfy. We put our best sheets on the bed and fluffed up our favorite pillows for them. The boys rolled out their blankets and stuffed toys and plotted games and snacks and stories.
In the four years we’ve lived here our house has never felt as big as it did the week that the Vercueils visited us.
I learned that big hospitality has nothing to do with the size of your house.

Big hospitality is a matter of the heart and not the architecture.
Once I let go of the obsession with smallness, I was able to embrace the fun of squeezing as much big hospitality as we could manage into a week instead of worrying how it would fit into our four walls.
Maybe you’re like me. Maybe this holiday season has you hyperventilating at the thought of your house being exposed for all to see how small or cramped or imperfect it is.
May I suggest a mental shift? If you see your house as big and welcoming as you feel about the people you’re having over, so will everyone who walks through its doors.
The size of your house, my friends, is entirely in your own hands.

Holiday Recipes

I love this time of year. I love celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I love driving around looking at Christmas lights. I love the beautiful glow of our Christmas tree lit up at night. And I especially love all of the Christmas goodies!!! Here are a couple of my favorite fun festive (and easy) recipes:

Peppermint Bark

Melt 1 bag chocolate chips, spread on wax paper or foil lined tray. Refridgerate until hard.
Melt 1 bag white chocolate chips. Add a few drops of peppermint extract. Spread over hardened chocolate, and while white chocolate is still warm and soft, top with crushed peppermints. DELISH! And so much cheaper than buying peppermint bark!

Chocolate Kiss Cookies

These are so easy! Just whip up a batch of brownie mix (follow recipe on box)
Spray mini muffin tins, fill each about half full of brownie. Bake until toothpick comes out clean, and while still hot, place a chocolate kiss in the center of each. YUMMO!

Ooo, I'm going to go start baking!

Christmas Gift Ideas

With Christmas right around the corner, I have been crafting quite a bit. I love making homemade Christmas gifts (easy on the student budget, and they mean a lot too!) Here are a few ideas:

Square Table Runners

(I will post a tutorial on these someday!)

Easy Peasy Bracelets

(Just sew a tube of fabric, right sides together, turn right side out, add bead, tie a knot, add bead, tie a knot...if that doesn't make sense, I will do a tutorial on them as well!)

Felt finger puppets for kiddos!

Have you been making homemade Christmas gifts?

Welcome!

I decided to create this blog as a place to share recipes, crafts, projects, tips and tricks, and everything else helpful in a mom's world! I love blogging, but I started realizing my family blog was getting a little mixed up--it is a family journal mixed with projects and crafts! So, this little blog will help to separate the two, and let me keep my family blog a family journal. For the first few posts, I will be posting old posts (projects, crafts, recipes, etc.) from my family blog. Hope you enjoy!!