My 2010-2011 10 things I want to do list

1. Try something new, something scary for me to do.
2. See an NFL football game in person.
3. Run 15 minutes without stopping.
4. Read 25 books.
5. Make a difference in at least 1 persons life, besides family.
6. Get an article published in a church magazine.
7. Plant and harvest a garden.
8. Go to a broadway play.
9. Try Gumbo.
10. Travel somewhere I've never been.

Ones I've accomplished so far:
1- I have never played soccer before and am playing in an indoor soccer league. I still get butterflies before every game.
2- I have tickets for a game in November! So almost done...
8-I went and saw Beauty and the Beast a few months ago.

I need to get cracking because I'm almost 1/2 way through my goal period and still have 7 more things to accomplish!

Korean Candy Chicken

This was really yummy. A little bit of work, but the family loved it. Actually my kids liked it, but I had some Orange Chicken sauce from Panda Express leftover and coated half of the chicken in that- they loved that more, but they still liked this too.

2 lbs boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite size pieces
2 eggs
2 cups flour

sweet sauce:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup soy sauce
toasted sesame seeds

cooked rice (I used quinoa instead)
Green onions (optional)

In a pan, pour about two inches of oil and heat on medium heat til hot. Beat eggs and put chicken pieces in the eggs, to coat. Then coat the chicken in the flour (which is in another container).

Place coated chicken pieces in oil and fry for a few minutes on each side until done. Place cooked chicken on a plate with paper towel to rest.

Mix the ingredients for the sauce. The sauce will be kind of thick, but not grainy. Then place the chicken pieces into the sauce and coat.

Serve over rice (or quinoa) and place sliced green onions on top.

Yummy Pretzel Turtles

Besides filling that void in my sweet-deprived belly, these were just plain EASY!

Ingredients: Pretzels, Rolos, and Halved Pecans.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Place pretzels on wax paper on a cookie sheet. Place a rolo on each pretzel.
When oven is preheated, place cookie sheet in oven for 4 minutes. When done, place a pecan half on each rolo.

YUM! And oh-so-easy! Enjoy!

Menu Update

The Buffalo Chicken Salad was a success! And what's even better is that my kids LOVED it! They aren't usually too fond of anything green, but they devoured this salad. Yay! In fact, they devoured it SOO fast that I didn't even get a chance to take a picture of it! But take my word for it, it was good. We even tried the less-guilty version, so I can't imagine what the real thing would taste like.

Also, I made the mistake of going to a Mexican grocery store this morning and the aromas that enveloped me (sigh) made me crave some good ol' Mexican food. YUM! So, I'm switching up todays menu. I bought some Carne Adovada meat (that has been marinating) and I'm going to make us some yumminess. Now I've never done it before, but I'm thinking just sticking the meat in the crock pot and then eating it on the fresh tortillas that I bought, smothered with some pico de gallo, avacado, and cheese and lettuce will be just the thing.

Menu Mania

It's been a LONG time since I've posted my meal plan. I've actually gotten really bored with my meals, so maybe that's why I lost the motivation to post them... and to cook them.... I haven't done very good lately.
Well, I finally found the time to try to redo some of my menus so I'm slowly building up the motivation.

Here's what's cooking for this week:

Wednesday: Buffalo Chicken Salad
Thursday: Cafe Rio Pork Salad
Friday: Breakfast for Dinner
Saturday: Alfredo with breadsticks and salad
Sunday: Ham, Potatoes, rolls, green beans
Monday: Stroganoff and salad
Tuesday: Leftovers


The Buffalo Chicken Salad is a new recipe, so I'll let you know how it goes.

How We Do Chores and Allowance Part 1

I'm super excited about our new chore and allowance program we started a couple weeks ago in our family. I'm a huge believer in having the kids do chores. It teaches them some responsibility and it teaches them that I'm not their slave!
But in the past we've had some issues with getting an actual organized program in place. Oh and being consistent! Yikes! So a few weeks ago, the hubby and I sat down and talked about this with a goal of not leaving until we had figured something out.

So our problems: 1.Having a consistent chore program that would work for us.
2.Wanting to give the kids an allowance, but not having that be
a condition of chores. I want them to do chores because they
are part of our family, not because they get paid for it.

So this is what we came up with for the chores part (I'll share our allowance plan in another post):


The 2 older kids and mom do chores every Wednesday. I hate having the kids do chores on Saturdays because as a kid, I hated having to work on my day off from school. Plus, that is sometimes our only family day and I don't want half of the day devoted to working. So Wednesday it is. After everyone is home from school, we have a snack and then immediately start our cleaning time. We turn the music on and get to work.

Each of us gets a jar and in each jar are a few popsicle sticks with our jobs on them. (Mom assigns them before they get home from school). On one end of the popsicle stick is the job and on the other end is a smiley face.
So, we get to work. All of the sides with the job on them are up-smiley faces are down. After we do the job, and after inspection, we get to turn the stick around so the smiley face is showing.

The only rules we have for the chores are : Do it quickly. Do it right. And do it happily.

Some kids do it happily.

Others are still working on that.

And even the 2 year old tries to get in on the fun.

And if they decide to break a rule or refuse to do the chore, they get punished. Not by taking any allowance away, but by making them sit on their bed (no laying down) and staring at the wall. They can come off their bed when they decide to follow the rules or decide to do the chore.

So far it's been totally successful. Sure, there have been some grumblings, but overall it's been great! I love having one day set aside to clean. Oh, and most of all- I LOVE having a clean house!

Scrap

Just some more pages I made. All of my stuff to create these pages comes from The Lilypad.