The new year is a time for a clean slate. Fresh starts.  But as I look around my house, it’s anything but clean.  There are toys strewn about, the kitchen is full of dishes, little children’s artwork decorates the dining room table, and the hamper overflows.  This is the blessed life of a house full of children.  And I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.  I consider myself a laid back housekeeper though.  I don’t find it necessary to have perfection.  A little dust doesn’t drive me crazy, and honestly dusting makes my allergies go crazy.  Coming from the home of a mother who cleans when it looks perfect everywhere, I’ve chosen a more laid back approach to life. However, with four children and a husband who works from home, we do need to get some chores done.  And as I’ve had children I’ve learned that dealing with small amounts everyday keeps a baseline “clean” level.  It helps to be able to pick up quickly. And everyone is happier when it’s cleaner in the house.  If you aren’t doing something everyday, then you are just running around like  a chicken one day when you loudly declare “I can’t TAKE IT ANYMORE! We are all CLEANING RIGHT NOW!”

Enter Motivated Moms.  I’ve used this calendar for several years now. I have at times fallen off the motivated wagon but Motivated Moms always makes it easy to jump right back on.  Reasons why I love this calendar:

• It has a daily list of chores.  Things such as laundry, making beds, feeding pets, and emptying trash cans.  Sure this is stuff that we do everyday but it feels good to check something off the list, and it helps remind me to get the laundry going early or the dishes.  They are also chores that I can assign to a child.  My 3 year old empties the bathroom trash cans.  He can also change kitchen towels.  The girls can help make beds.  Everybody makes the mess so everybody should be accountable for cleaning up.
• It includes things that I would never think of doing regularly.  Things like dusting the dining room light fixture or washing the windows in one room.  It gives you easy tasks that you can do quickly.  Just the other day it said “clean living room glass”.  I have no mirrors so I took the opportunity to wash the three windows in the living room.  It took me 30 minutes of time and it looks so nice.  And I know that the other rooms will come up eventually.
• It reminds me to set aside time to plan ahead for birthdays the next month.  It also reminds me to do those household chores like cleaning the dryer vent and changing batteries in the smoke detector.
• And most important of all, you are never behind.  Motivated Moms was written by a homeschooling mom.  She understands that there are days where you are “grounded” on the couch nursing a baby. Or there are days when the stomach virus has turned the house upside down.  Or days when you go out and end up staying out all day.  No sweat!  Just skip that day and pick up the next.  You aren’t “behind” with this cleaning schedule.  Promise!

There are many styles of the calendar to choose from.  I choose the page per day with bible scripture.  I’m able to scribble notes on it as needed, write in appointment reminders, write in what I’m planning for dinner, and anything else I shouldn’t forget.  I don’t worry about using a page of paper per day because at the end of the day I toss it in the drawer with the coloring books and it gets used again for decorating before being recycled.  I print one page per day.  You may want the half size to fit in a Franklin style planner.

I’ve been drinking green smoothies for a while now.  Full of vitamins and low in calories, they are a great way to pack a good nutrition punch in a fun package.  My girls have been begging for a purple smoothie for a few days and I finally gave in this morning.  They called them Fairy Smoothies and have declared them awesome.  And they are good for them too!

Fairy Smoothies

1 to 2 cups of frozen berries (strawberries, rasberries, blueberries, blackberries, etc)

1 cup of plain yogurt

2 cups Silk Vanilla Almond Milk

2 handfuls of fresh baby spinach

1 banana

I layer the ingredients in my Ninja blender starting with 1 cup of berries, yogurt, spinach, and the banana.  I pour the almond milk over the top.  I start blending on speed 1 to get it going and then kick it up to 2 briefly and then 3 to really liquefy the spinach.  When it’s all blended together you’ll have a thick, creamy smoothie that you can’t even see the spinach in.  Makes about 4 cups.

It’s snowy and cold outside.  A stark contrast from the unseasonably warm weather we’ve had in Indiana lately.  The natural thing to do is to turn on the oven.  I have some chex mix in there right now and it smells delicious.  Paired with some fruit, it will make an excellent snack here in a little bit.  Since I like to live on the wild side I just threw it all together.  Melted butter in a roasting pan then added worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, and seasoning salt.  Then added pretzels, pecans, chex cereal and cheerios.  Stirred it all together.  If you don’t like to live quite as crazy as myself, I’ve added the recipe from Chex.  Enjoy!

The Original Chex Party Mix

3 cups Corn Chex® cereal
3 cups Rice Chex® cereal
3 cups Wheat Chex® cereal
1 cup mixed nuts
1 cup bite-size pretzels
1 cup garlic-flavor bite-size bagel chips or regular-size bagel chips, broken into 1-inch pieces
6 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons seasoned salt
3/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder

Oven Directions Heat oven to 250°F. In large bowl, mix cereals, nuts, pretzels and bagel chips; set aside. In ungreased large roasting pan, melt butter in oven. Stir in seasonings. Gradually stir in cereal mixture until evenly coated. Bake 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Spread on paper towels to cool, about 15 minutes. Store in airtight container.

I have a love/ hate relationship with eating out.  I love to eat out.  I hate eating out with kids because it’s so expensive.  And when we are finished I always feel like the cost was way to high.  But some days, cooking isn’t feasible.  Maybe you were out all day running errands, or you had a field trip, or maybe the baby demanded you sit on the couch and nurse him lest he protest and tell the entire neighborhood that you want to feed those other children and not him.  That’s when the freezer can work for you.  Simply by making double of a meal (like lasagna) or having a massive cooking day, your freezer can hold meals ready to heat and eat.    You’ll save valuable dollars by not heading out to a restaurant and they will be more nutritious than packaged meals from the grocery store.

Recently I made a big batch of Twice Baked Potatoes.  Well, they were a big batch until all of my children declared them the best thing they had ever eaten and ate their body weight in potatoes before I could freeze them.  Thankfully, I was able to freeze some!  And they are super easy.  They make a nice side dish depending on the size of your potato, or a quick lunch.  Add a salad and you are good to go.  Or don’t add the salad, I won’t tell.

Twice Baked Potatoes   

Sack of russet potatoes

bacon, cooked and crumbled

cream cheese, softened

sour cream

shredded cheese

butter, softened

olive oil and salt

Preheat your oven to 450*.  Wash all of your potatoes, poke holes in them, rub them with olive oil and some salt, and wrap in foil.  Stick them in the oven until they are perfect baked potatoes: when you squeeze them they feel a bit squishy.  When done (probably in 1.5 – 2 hours depending on the size of your potato), pull them out of the oven, take off the foil, and let them cool until you can handle them.

When they are cool, cut all of them in half lengthwise and scoop out the insides into a big bowl.  You want to create a little potatoe boat.  Be sure to not scoop to much or your potato boat will collapse.  Once you have all the potatoe insides scooped into the bowl, it’s time to make the worlds best mashed potatoes.  I wish I could give you exact amounts, but I just guesstimate my way through.  I start by throwing in half a stick of butter and mashing it all together.  then I add an 8oz package of softened cream cheese and mix that thoroughly.  Last I add a bit of sour cream to get the right consistency, and then add salt and pepper to taste. Finish by adding shredded cheese and the crumbled bacon.

Now fill your potato boats full of the wonderful mashed potato mixture.  Set on a cookie sheet.  After you are done filling all the potatoes you could sprinkle more shredded cheese if you want.  Stick the cookie sheet in the freezer and let the potatoes freeze up.  When they are completely frozen, put them into a freezer ziploc bag and label.  When you are hungry, you can grab one (0r 5 if you have an army like mine) and place in the oven on 400* until warmed through.  You could also microwave them, though I’ll admit I haven’t tried that.

Thanks to Pinterest I came across a checklist of books, composed by librarians, of 100 Books to Read in Kindergarten.  I don’t know about you, but I enjoy lists like this.  Sometimes the library feels incredibly overwhelming with so many books to choose from.  When I find checklists like this, I try to follow them.  It makes me feel like my children won’t miss out on really awesome books.

While there today, I also picked up Little House on the Prairie.  I’ve been encouraging our first Princess to read it, but she is not the most enthusiastic reader and the thickness of the book intimidates her.  I don’t remember reading the books when I was younger so I figured it would be a good read aloud book.  I do however remember the TV series with Michael Landon as I’m sure many of my peers do as well.  This will be an awesome book to map out the United States.  And I’m thinking a game of Oregon Trail might be in order.  :)

Tonight we read chapter one, where they pack up their little cabin and head west.  We can relate to the talk of Kansas going on forever and ever as we’ve driven through Kansas – flat land as far as the eye can see!  I stopped because Prince K was asleep and Prince S was wanting to nurse and go to sleep.  I encouraged Princess M to read chapter two to Princess C.  I figured knowing that she didn’t have to read the entire book by herself might ease her into such a long book.  She seemed apprehensive when I closed their door so we will see what happened in the morning.

Thanks to Pinterest I’ve been trying  a lot of new recipes.  And homeschooling ideas. And decorating ideas.  And… I’ll spare the list.  It’ s a fun little place to organize your online creativity for sure!  I recently made this Poppyseed Chicken recipe.  I made it just like the recipe stated the first time.  The second time I already had chicken breasts cut into pieces, portioned out, and frozen in the freezer.  Since I didn’t have it thawed ahead, instead of poaching the chicken, I threw the frozen chicken into a hot skillet with olive oil and worcestershire sauce. When it was completely cooked and soft, I poured it all into the casserole dish and finished with the sauce (sour cream, cream of mush soup, poppyseed)  and cracker topping.  It was delicious!  We served this over brown rice.  We don’t keep white rice in the house in an effort to eat more whole grains.  It worked perfectly!  It’s not the most photogenic casserole in the world, so I don’t have a picture of my own creation.  But trust me, what it lacks in presentation it makes up for in taste!

I never really truly knew what the windowpane test was when it came to bread.  You’d see it everywhere, “when the dough passes the windowpane test, it’s ready”  But what was the importance?  When it comes to whole wheat bread, the windowpane test is extremely important.  When you make your bread dough and start kneading it, gluten is developed.  The more it develops the more stretch the bread will get.  When dough passes the windowpane test, we know that the gluten is developed and strong enough to “stand up” in the bread.  What does that mean for your bread?  It means that your whole wheat bread will be fluffier, lighter, with more air holes.  It will give you that store bought sandwich feel, not the heavy dense bread a lot have come to associate with homemade whole wheat bread.  It’s really important!  But what does it look like?  What are you looking for?

To perform the windowpane test, break off a gumball size of dough after kneading.  Work the dough and gently begin stretching.  When you can stretch it without breaking, almost like bubble gum, and almost see through it, your gluten is developed and you can move on to your first rise.

Did you know you can make your own tortilla chips at home using a fryer?

We use a Oster 4-Liter Cool Touch Deep Fryer because it saves us time when deep frying chicken, appetizers, or chips for our family. We actually save money on chips by making our own, but we use it for more than just chips.

Here’s what one reviewer on Amazon said, “This met all my needs, the large capacity is double the amount of my 10 year old deep fryer and it had the mechanism to raise the basket out of the oil without opening the lid…The black and stainless steel is relatively easy to keep clean between uses. It heats up pretty fast, which I love!”

Another reviewer said, “If you love to fry, love fried foods, and want crispy delicious foods without a buttload of grease because your fryer does not make heat, then you NEED this fryer.”

Features

• Extra large 4 liter oil opacity
• Rise and fall fry basket with folding handle
• 60 Minute digital timer
• Adjustable thermostat
• Locking lid with dual filters

Description

Make a variety of fried-food favorites at home with this easy-to-use electric deep fryer from Make a variety of fried-food favorites at home with this easy-to-use electric deep fryer from the Oster brand. Equipped with a 1600-watt immersion heating element, the machine delivers fast heat-up times and consistently crispy, delicious results. The unit also provides an extra-large 4-liter oil capacity, which means it can cook just enough for two people or up to 1-1/2 pounds of food at a time-great when cooking for a crowd. Use the fryer to make anything from French fries, battered onion rings, deep-fried cheese sticks, and fish fillets to doughnuts, apple fritters, and funnel cakes-or less popular but equally delicious recipes like fried okra, shrimp fritters, and sweet potato croquettes. The appliance features a rise and fall frying basket with a cool-touch folding handle for safe operation, as well as an adjustable thermostat and a 60-minute digital timer with a signal bell. Other thoughtful design details include durable steel housing that stays cool to the touch, a locking lid with dual filters to help reduce odors, and a Sure-release power cord. This Oster 4-liter deep fryer has a one-year limited warranty.

This sourdough sandwich bread from Whole Foods is awesome.  Recently, they were on sale so I wanted to buy multiple loaves knowing that we had company coming over and it makes a really great sandwich or panini. The bakery case was empty so I asked the lady in the bakery if she had more coming.  She explained to me that they arrive at the store par baked and frozen.  So then the store finishes baking and puts them out in the cases.  I told her I wanted about 4 of them and she gladly retrieved them for me, packaged in tie up plastic bags.  She also commented on how smart it was to buy multiple loaves while they are on sale and throw them in the freezer.  I agree!

This is a great way to save money at Whole Foods.  It is possible to eat whole, natural, foods on a small budget!  You just have to plan plan plan ahead!

Often I’m asked, how on Earth do you homeschool when there are so many of them? First of all, there are only 4 not 24. So it could be a lot busier. But as they get older, I find that they can help out more. Better yet, they enjoy helping out. For instance, the other day I had a baby who only wanted to nurse and a 3 year old who desperately needed a bath. With supervision, my 7.5 year old jumped in readily to help the 3 year old get a well needed bath. And they both had fun in the process! It’s bonding like that I can get behind!

As each child gets older, there is an expectation of a little bit of independence in their studies. My oldest does her phonics lesson on the computer, and she can go in and start the program and knows what I expect her to accomplish each day. In fact, some days while I’m making breakfast she asks me if she can get to work on that. They know that quick, efficient work will ultimately lead to more free time to explore and play as they choose.

The other added bonus is that now the older children are helping teach the younger children. Now, I’m definitely not sending them off to cover an entire lesson, but just like Daddy can be a better science teacher than Mommy, an older sibling might have a different perspective and be able to help her sibling understand the concepts. Just this morning my oldest helped her sister with some addition problems. And of course, since my 5 year old thinks that her older sibling is the best thing since sliced bread, she was willing to listen and accept the advice her sister had. And of course, those first borns really like feeling important.