children

Cheeseburger Pizza

/ Jeanette / Leave a comment

With my homemade pizza dough, I made this cheeseburger pizza. I was a little unsure of how my family would react to it. But it is definitely a keeper.

Start with your rolled out pizza dough. I spray my pan and sprinkle some cornmeal so the crust doesn’t stick.

Next add the sauce, which in this case is Ketchup and Mustard. I used more ketchup than mustard but it’s whatever you prefer.

Now your ready for the toppings.

Sprinkle a little bit of cheese. I used shredded Cheddar. This just helps to stick the toppings to the crust. Then I piled on the hamburger that I cooked in a skillet.

Now comes the fun part. Stop and think about what you love on a cheeseburger. Is it pickles, onions, or tomatoes? Great now get those items out. Chop them up and sprinkle on top.

My family is a little picky and were skeptical of the idea of pickles on pizza, so I just used pickles this time.  Next time I am gonna add some tomatoes and maybe sprinkle some lettuce after the pizza has cooked.

Then finish with some more cheese. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes. If you prefer you can add some extra ketchup or mustard on top but my family didn’t request any.

YUMMY!

First Day of High School

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Well it has officially happened. Yes I knew it was coming all summer long. But it was still a bit sad.

My oldest started her freshman year of high school  on Tuesday.

How depressing!

That means I am getting old.

And that also means that in 4 years she will graduate and go to college, become an adult and start living her adult life without her Mommy there all the time.

So sad, yet bittersweet to know you had a hand in creating someone amazing for the whole world to see.

Homemade Pizza Dough

/ Jeanette / 1 Comment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few days ago I tried my hand at something I have dying to make. Homemade Pizza Dough. I see it ready made at the stores and have always wondered can I make it at home cheaper. And the answer to that is YES!!!!

I have this wonderful machine called a bread machine. A lot of people have complained about theirs but I love mine. I have had it about 10 years and have never had a problem with it. And it makes homemade yummy bread easy.

I used a recipe for a 2 pound pizza dough. And this was enough for 2 pizzas for my family of 7.

The dough process takes about 1 1/2 hours.

Ingredients:

3/4 tsp salt

4 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp active dry yeast

1 3/4 cups water (it called for 1 3/8 and I don’t have a measuring cup with that measurement. LOL so I used 1 3/4 cup and it was fine)

3 Tbs oil, olive or vegetable

I put liquid ingredients in first.

Then comes all the dry ingredients except the yeast.

I then make a little hole in the center of the flour and put the yeast in there.

Put the machine on Dough setting. And go about your life until it beeps.

I then flour my cutting board or countertop.

Knead the dough a little.

Cut in half and roll out half of it until it somewhat resembles a pizza.

Now at this point you can use both halves to make 2 pizzas or you can freeze the other half for another day.

Don’t fret if it’s not perfect it will still taste good.

I spray my pizza pan with cooking spray and sprinkle some cornmeal to keep the crust from sticking.

Not add toppings and bake at 400 degrees for 15- 20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Crazy weather

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So as I was enjoying my relaxing first day of “NOT back to school” week. We had storm pop up and wreck havoc on our little piece of heaven out here in the boondocks. And I say this storm popped up because I texted my mom and she was getting nothing and she is only about 20 miles away.

We had massive rain, swirling wind, lightning and thunder. I mean it came down in buckets. The best part was it really didn’t look extremely bad outside when all of this happened. Our power was going off and on. Trees were swirling in circles and rain was coming at all directions. Our yard is perfect for mudding right now. I have never seen it this bad before.

So once it had stopped I decided to jump in my truck and drive back to hubby to see if he wanted some homemade cookies. I walked out the front door, glanced over towards our front gate and freaked out!

Our tree snapped in half and was completely blocking the road. We live on a dead end road so this wasn’t good. I jumped in the truck drove back to hubby horn honking and screaming about the tree. Almost got stuck twice trying to drive up for him to get in without soaking his feet.

So let me go back and say this tree blocking our road was not just a huge problem because I live on a dead end road but also because it was 3:20pm and the school bus for high school comes at 3:40 and it was raining. Thankfully the bus was almost an hour late and we were able to clear a path on the road before then. And there was no way around the tree because our rain came so much, so fast and so heavy that everything is a swamp and the one car that tried to get around got stuck and Hubby had to pull him out.

Anyways our power line got knocked out to our yard lights. Our fence got smashed along with our very expensive mailbox.

Here are some pictures….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is after Hubby pulled it over the fence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This our fence. LOOK at all the standing water!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my backyard this morning. Can you say waterfront property? Now I understand why I needed flood insurance even though I am miles and miles from the water. Oh and By the way more rain expected today with a possible Hurricane on Monday. YIPPEEE!

 

 

 

Hubby going to work. Needless to say we are now proud owners of rain boots. Just bought them this morning at Tractor Supply. Cashier said they were open for 15 minutes and have already sold 4 pairs. Geez I wonder why?!?

 

 

 

 

M.ADD~ Mom’s Attention Deficit Disorder

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Everyone has heard of Mommy Brain or Pregnancy brain. This is the common excuse for forgetfulness.

But by a certain point you really can’t use that excuse.

Like if you kid is 15, you can blame your forgetfulness on Mommy Brain or Pregnancy Brain because IT”S BEEN 15 YEARS.

But what you can blame it on is M.ADD~ Mom’s Attention Deficit Disorder. This is when we have so much going on and our to do list is as long as The Nile River that we begin to forget things.

Like let’s say your on Facebook and you see it’s your Uncle’s birthday. You think to yourself that Oh I need to wish him a Happy Birthday. BUT then the kids wake up and the phone rings and the dogs need to go out and the kids want breakfast and then there is a dirty diaper to change and your girls are pulling each other’s hair out over the bathroom. And then it is 3am and your in your quiet comfy bed when you sit straight up and realize you never went back to the computer to say Happy birthday.

I would have to say that every Mom suffers from this and it has come a time to put a name on it other than Mommy Brain.

M. ADD  just sounds perfect to me.

By the way the story told in this post was not exaggerated or made up by me but happens daily in the chaos of my life with 4 kids, 3 dogs, 2 old ladies (a cat & a Grandma) and 1 hubby (thank god, could you imagine me with 2?!?) SOOOOO…..

Happy Birthday Uncle Gary! LOL

Holidays have begun for us!

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We usually start the holidays much earlier than everyone else. We usually start in July. Why? Well let me give you the break down.

July~4th of July party, Cailin’s Birthday and then Dakota’s Birthday

August~ Beginning of school

September~ Homeschool begins and Dad’s Birthday

October~ Alissa’s Birthday and Halloween

November~Thanksgiving and Mom’s Birthday

December~Brianna’s Birthday, Christmas, New Year’s

Beginning of January~ Grandma’s Birthday and finally my birthday

So as you can see in my family most of the birthday’s fall right in the major holiday time. And that is why I say my holiday season starts in July because I have to hit the ground running and keep going until I crash on my birthday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy birthday to my big 13 year old!

 

And Happy 3rd Birthday to my lil man!

 

Lazy Cat Days of Summer

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Summer is here and so our the long lazy days. Or at least I had hoped. But as usual life has thrown me a curve ball and I had a slew of unexpected events that hampered everything I wanted to do with my kids.

The only one who got to relax was the cat!

 

 

 

 

See she is too lazy to even stand to get a drink!

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here…well I’m not sure but I thought it was funny and strange.

 

 

But I don’t know if its the weather, but I have felt like doing nothing all summer.

The heat has been unbearable. Or we have very high chances of severe storms.

Everytime I tell myself we are getting back on track something happens:

My dad came to stay for almost a month.

Then I was planning 4th of July, then the kids and I all got sick, then I went into planning birthday parties and throw in another round of unexpected houseguest.

And I am still fighting whatever this is that I got, but also wondering if it’s my body saying SLOW DOWN AND RELAX!

I now am preparing for oldest to start high school. And at the last minute Hubby wants her in braces before school starts. Plus my youngest daughter has started Speech Therapy so that is a standing appointment every week.

Then Hubby decides he wants to go to his class reunion in the middle of all this chaos.

UGH…. This momma needs a vacation!

I can’t wait for school to start so we can have a routine again.

Jeanette

Breathe in ~ Breathe out~ Every mom freaks out (Here’s mine)

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It’s 6:30 on a Sunday morning. And I am up already making my way through my first cup of coffee. I enjoy listening to the birds chirp and the frogs croak as my dogs go in and out of the house. I consider this my quiet relaxing time. Except I am not.

I feel immensely overwhelmed. I feel as if I haven’t done anything fun with my kids since “school” has gotten out. I also feel that I haven’t worked with them on completing their science lessons from last year. I feel like my son doesn’t get enough attention. I never read him books and I haven’t even started potty training. I feel like I should be looking towards next year and I need to get braces for the oldest before she goes into High School. But all I want to do is breathe.

We had an unexpected house guest show up and stay for about 3 weeks. And it just threw off everything in the house. Things slipped and slide into the maybe later department.  And he is not very sociable guest and was kinda depressing. So I feel like it brought the whole house down.

Hubby has been working his butt off. Which is a blessing but I would love if he could spend a little bit of time with us.

In writing all this down I realize that I need to relax. I let little things in life bother me. I let what people say, do and think into my soul and let it eat away at me.

So what if my almost 3 year old isn’t potty trained! There is no law!

So what if I didn’t get to the last worksheet on birds? They learned a lot just ask them!

So what if my house is a mess and the yard isn’t cut? I live in the country its normal out here!

What I am enjoying is hearing my birds and frogs, the bright sunshine that fills the sky, the loud squeals of delight that fill my house at times and the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the morning.

And I need to live for me, my kids and my husband. These years are so precious. I know that and can’t understand why I am getting depressed about my kids being older instead of savoring every moment.

Maybe its in my DNA. I know that can’t be changed (Lord knows I have tried) but I can change who I am and want to be. And that is what I am going to start doing.

Wrapping up our homeschool year (pun intended)

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I wanted to finish this post a month ago but life got in the way. Anyways better late than never, Huh?

 

My kids have busted their butts these last two months. And they have hit almost every goal I have set for them and I couldn’t be more proud of them. (Beaming Momma moment) Technically they have about 3 weeks left of school and I am trying my hardest to stretch their lessons to last. But I have to say I am having a hard time. So what do you do if you start going a little crazy coming up with ideas. You go crazy and plan a party and a field trip. WHY NOT? The kids have earned it! So that is what we did.

We finished up our project of comparing our Egyptians scrolls and clay tablets. Unfortunately our experiment had opposite results. Our scroll last and our clay tablet just fell apart. Apparently it was the wrong clay and some darn good paper we used. So this was our end result.

Terrible picture, I know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next we wrapped up our chicken mummy ( HAHA~get it). It has been 6 weeks and we were ready to wrap it up to gross out  show everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also went on a field trip to our local Science Museum where they had a special exhibit about Mummies around the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We really liked this exhibit. It is not for the faint of heart I might add. There were a few moments that I had vision of mummies attacking. But I kept a cool head and the kids never knew.

In the end we manage to “wrap up” our mummies unit and the rest of our lessons early so we took two weeks off instead of just one!

Jeanette

 

 

 

When your words bite you in the butt

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This week I have heard my own words come out of my toddler’s mouth and hit me right in the face. The worse part is he is using them in the correct context.

First, Hubby and I were taking advantage of a few spare minutes, while dinner finished up, to cuddle in the recliner. My lil man looked over at me and said “Mommy, you sitting with Daddy?” I said “yup, I’m sitting with Daddy.” He looks my hubby right in the eyes and said “disgusting.”

Then when I was giving my lil man a ton of kisses, he yelled “Stop Mommy, your annoying.”

And then there was the time my youngest daughter was antagonizing her brother, he got so mad that he yelled “I’m tired of this!”

This weekend I thought my aunt was going to die laughing when she was trying to give my baby boy a hug and he looked at her with the look of sarcasm and said “Do you mind?”

These are all things say or have said.

And they have now come to bite me in the butt in the form of my precious two year old.

This is what happens when you wait 10 years between kids. You forget all the things your not suppose to say and do.