A Long Time & A Challenge

Well, yes it's been a long time & yes I'm sorry. I've been a bad blogger but I've been a good Mama so I think it evens out.
With the holidays blogging was seriously not on my mind. I had so much more to do with my girlies like baking, cooking, decorating. Then we had our school break & The Hubby was on vacation as well.
So, that's my excuse...K?

Now, I've decided to do a "12 month challenge"
Here's how it works, I will commit to trying/doing something new every month as well as some personal goals.

So here's my list...

January- Homemade Marshmallows
February-Learn to Knit
March-Make Homemade Cream Cheese
April-Window Herb Garden
May-Sew a dress for the Piglet (nope, I don't know how to use a sewing machine)
June-Homemade Cream Cheese
July- Homemade Sunflower Seed Butter (Piglet is allergic to PB)
August-Homemade Ice Cream
September-Homemade Cottage Cheese
October-Homemade Foaming Peppermint Hand Soap
November-Homemade Seasoning Mix ( Taco, Ranch, Onion Soup )
December-Homemade Body Scrubs (I hope to use these as Christmas gifts)

Some personal goals for the year 2012 are;

1. Have a date night with The Hubby once a month.

2. Lose 40 lbs, now I'm not telling you my starting weight & you can't see me so you have absolutely NO CLUE what I'll end up looking like. I mean maybe I'll be rail thin & maybe I'll still have some junk in my trunk. But considering it has just recently come to my attention that my trunk is scraping the sidewalk I think it's time to get crackin'.

3. Decorate my apartment!! Woo hoo!! This one I'm uber excited about! Hubby says since we will be staying in this apartment another year I get X amount of dollars to fancy it up a bit. I'm really happy about that because since we've moved from a house to an apartment things have been sorta modge podge haphazard. This will be nice =D

4. Paint the entire apartment no later than April. This will not be nice...

5. Get my eyebrows threaded once a month. Now I know this may appear immature & really dopey but honestly I do very little for myself. I often put my children's wants/needs before my own as many of us do. I think it's okay to take time to pamper myself a bit considering I found a place that threads cheap & I can sit & have some time reading a book after. Besides, not getting my eyebrows done tends to make me look somewhat like a sasquatch.

Spiritual Goals;

1. Read the Bible in 90 days. I'm using this plan on my YouVersion App. I am a few days behind but considering that in just over a week I've read 2 books of the Bible I think that's pretty good. An added bonus, for me at least, is reading it on my droid. It is always in my purse or even in my jean pocket, that means I can read it ANYWHERE. Waiting at the Drs office, during lunch, taking a potty break or "I'm hiding from you using the bathroom as an excuse!!" break.

2. I also plan to deal with some very tough childhood issues this year, actually the group I will be involved in is a 2 year program. It deals with a very difficult area of my past that is most definitely wreaking havoc on my present & could most certainly affect the future. This one is gonna be painful but my children deserve the best of me & God will never leave me. I know he will be holding my hand the entire time & carrying me when I need it.


Well, these are my goals & as of yet they aren't too scary. I plan to post them as I try to give each one a go. I hope to get those marshmallows whipped up soon.

The Blessed Supermom

UH-OH...

Well, I'm not real sure about this one....

I trimmed the Monkey's hair. Now I tried this once before with Bear but her hair is sooooo thick I was scared to ever do it again so I made Monkey the guinea pig.
Hey she's a Guinea Monkey or maybe a Monkey Pig =)
Anyway, it was only spose to be around an inch off & it's more like two. I kept fouling it up & had to trim shorter & shorter. It appears to be OK now & there are a few straggling strands however I'm too traumatized to go any further. I'm worried my poor baby will end up with a buzz cut before I'm through with her.

Truth is I feel terrible, I never wanted my baby's hair this short but she's tickled pink. She wants it shorter!! I asked Bear if she wanted to give it a go but she looked at me like I had a third eye growing outta my head. She does NOT want short hair. If I messed up hers she'd probably opt to wear a wig...

I plan to keep practicing & believe it'll get better & since she doesn't mind I think it'll be OK. Or Cow can play with her hair, she plans to do this sorta thing as a career so she can work on the Monkey Pig =)

The Blessed Supermom

Homemade "Poptarts"

OK, I came across a recipe for "Homemade Healthy Poptarts" & mentioned how I'd like to give 'em a go. I looked over the recipe & it appeared simple enough, it only called for 5 ingredients so how could I mess this up right??

So we melted the 1 cup of butter & mixed it with
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup plain yogurt

The next step was to "knead the dough just a little bit to make it nice and workable"

So that's what we did, however the dough doesn't look like regular dough, at least not to me it did. Instead it's quite flaky & annoying. Far from workable, I really fought with this stuff....but we eventually got it rolled out on the table & covered with flour.

Then we took a pizza cutter & cut out pop tart sized "rectangles" mmmmm...right. They were shaped interestingly to say the least. Then we added about a 1/2 teaspoon of jelly on 1/2 of the dough rectangles, really...this is what the recipe calls for. 1/2 teaspoon, well, lemme just tell you that as a kid I liked the jelly gooing out the sides. With a 1/2 teaspoon there's no goo *sigh*
So, I would say bump it up a bit if you're like me & the jelly needs to jump up & say "hi!"
Oh, & make sure to spread the jelly around, leaving the edges free so it doesn't all out explode.

Match up the bad boys according to size & use a fork to pinch the edges shut. Then have your adorable kid put in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake in a 350° oven for about 25 minutes or until the crust is lightly browned.
See the munchkin peeking over there waiting for her snack =)

Then watch said kid thoroughly enjoy her pop tart creation!!

The Blessed Supermom

Butter, Syrup, Whipped Cream...OH MY!!

Whew! Me & the girlies have some seriously sore arms & huge muscles now. We made butter!!
OK, it wasn't all too hard, but a lil more work than I thought. Probably cuz we made a whole cup of butter & another cup of whipped cream.

Yes...oh so yummy!!

So here's how we did it....

We started off with a simple carton of heavy whipping cream, here are my wonderfully gorgeous models showing it off. Aren't they beautiful!!

Then the Bear started whipping. Honestly we whipped the daylights out of this cream & we were getting a whole lot of NOTHING...

Poor baby. However, she wasn't upset, in fact she was tickled at the idea of making this yummy topping. After a while of getting nowhere we couldn't figure out what was wrong so I called my SuperSister who suggested we use a chilled metal bowl.

The Monkey gave it a whirl & lo & behold...NOTHING!!
Ha! Just kidding, it just wasn't happening fast enough for my girlies so Mama had to take over. Once it started to thicken up they naturally became interested again & promptly took over =)
We added some vanilla & sugar & ran a few taste tests. It passed!!

Then came the butter. OK, maybe we shouldn't of tried to make as much as we did. We started off with 2 cups of heavy whipping cream in a jar then shook the daylights out of it.

Honestly, this part was hysterical! Watching the girls shakin & shakin! Well, you can imagine that it didn't take all too long before they decided that I should do it! Well, I didn't let em' get off that easy & we all took turns, however~my turns were two to three times longer than theirs. Finally, we started rolling it across the floor to one another & VOILA! BUTTER!!!
So we got all excited & tasted it, then decided it was gross & added a wee bit of salt...PERFECT!

I was able to explain to the girls how the forced air from the mixer whipped the cream into a fluffy consistency. However, when we didn't add air by keeping the cream in a jar the consistency of the cream was different. The fat particles in the cream began to "stick" together making butter =)

With all this homemade yummy goodness we decided to make waffles for dinner! The Hubby cooked up some bacon & Monkey even helped make some vanilla syrup. It was an awesome time with my sweet girls & we all enjoyed breakfast for dinner =)

The Blessed Supermom

Some Do-It-Yourself Ideas

Some of these DIY ideas I found appear a little harder than others & some are perfect for the kiddos. I wanted to share 'em cuz I thought they were All adorable.

Stenciled Hurricane Vases

Snowflake Pillows


S'mores in a Jar


Homemade Peppermint Bark


"Yo-Yo Ornaments


Popsicle Stick Tree Ornament