random stuff

I haven't been very good about blogging lately.  We had family in town.  We only see them once a year, so we made sure we got the most out of it. 

Other than visiting with family, we have been doing the norm around here:  working, working out, homeschool, being the domestic goddess that I shouldn't have to be, and I was sick yesterday.  That sick part wasn't fun.  Luckily, it came and went quickly!  I also don't enjoy being the domestic goddess.  It just isn't my style.  But, sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do.  That is life.

This past week I finally got around to teaching the girls how to tie their shoes.  Bella picked it up quickly.  The day that I taught her, all she wanted to do was tie my shoe the rest of the night.  The next night, when she got home from her grandma's house, she asked if she could get one of my shoes so she could practice tying more.

She doesn't own one pair of tying shoes.  We will correct that situation this weekend.  A much overdue trip to Aguascalientes is in order.  It has been just short of THREE months since we have been there!  I know!  Crazy!  I was trying to recoup our savings since I reserved our beach trip AND bought plane tickets for the three of us to visit Indy this fall.  But, it is time.  Bella wants a pink pair of Converse All-Stars like Emily has.

We were at the grocery store the other day and I spotted something that made me so happy!  FRENCH DRESSING!

I bought 3 bottles just in case they didn't have anymore.  Since they were cheap, I figured it wouldn't hurt even if they didn't taste very good.  Let's just say, that was the biggest disappointment!  I have never seen French dressing in Mexico before.  Finding it was like finding gold.  It is my favorite dressing.  My favorite brand is Western!  YUM!  This stuff tasted like crap! 

We leave for the beach on May 14th.  Just around the corner.  We have it marked on our calendar so the girls can see how far away it is.  They want to wear their swimsuits all the time.  Here they are posing in them.  Bella is wearing one that Mamaw sent a while back.  Emily is wearing the new one I just bought her.

I don't want to jinx it or anything, but lately, it seems the girls are fighting a little less.  They even show some love to each other now and again.

I need to catch up on my work from yesterday.  All I did was sleep the whole day away.  Now, down to business.

food fail

Last night, I tried a new recipe that I found via Pinterest.  It was a way of eliminating the "crust" from a pizza.  The picture that was included on the woman's blog was delicious looking!  Here it is below.  Take a look!  I can say that her picture makes me drool!

Click on picture to go to the blog

When I decide if I am going to try out a new recipe, I usually read through all comments on the blog, just to see what other people think, if they altered the recipe, and so forth.  It looked promising.

Wrong!  OK, well, it wasn't horrible.  It just wasn't pizza crust.  At all!  I was a little mislead because when I read through the comments, it seemed it was a pretty good substitute.  Well, it isn't.  It changes the taste completely.  It doesn't taste like you are eating pizza.  Which, it might just be me, but I would rather eat one slice of a really good pizza, rather than a few of a lower calorie pizza.

So, just wanted to throw this review out for any of my Pinterest "followers" that might have had their eye on this "substitute" crust.  I would just say PASS!

busy school week

We were busy bees this week with school.  We are just chugging along and doing pretty well.  We have some hiccups here and there.  And, sometimes it seems the girls are more interested one day verses the next.  But, I guess that just comes along with the territory.

I have lots of pictures from this week.  We did a few art projects and a science project.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of our science project.  But, here is a link to what we did.  The girls found the chemical reaction of colored vinegar and baking soda to be more than fascinating.  I need to find some baking soda in bulk!

Here we are using a worksheet that my dear cousin Monica sent us.  Thanks, Monica!  They had to match up the lowercase letter with the uppercase letter.  They did fairly well.  We are still having a challenge with the letters "b" and "d".  They keep trying, though.

The crowns on their heads they cut out.  They cut out the main piece and two strips.  We taped them all together and the project was a hit!  They wore those things the rest of the night.  The activity they are working on is pasting.  They had to paste 9 pieces and they had to keep count.  Somewhat of a challenge for my wild Emily!  But, she hangs in there.

Here was one of our art projects.  We did fingerprint drawings.  I found the link on Pinterest.  They had fun and were able to make a few of the fingerprint animals.

Here is a little car that Bella did.  I thought it was pretty cute!

Here is a scan (even if it is a horrible scan) of what all Bella ended up doing.  She had a "boo boo" on her finger so she didn't want to do much more.

Emily did a bunch of random fingerprints.  I think she was intending on making them into balloons, but got distracted and didn't draw on the strings.  But, she did do a caterpillar.  The littler caterpillar towards the bottom is mine.  Sometimes you have to give her a stong example of what to do.

Then we got out the wooden sticks and glue.  They were just building houses, shapes, and we ended up making a few boxes to hold little goodies.

We have been working often on handwriting.  Here is a front and back of Bella's practicing.  She is doing pretty darn well. She is a perfectionist so it isn't as easy for her to not get the letters spot on.  That is a work in progress.  Just look past all the check marks.  Bella thought it was fun to put check marks on hers and Emily's papers.

Emily, on the other hand, she is a wild spirit and is just gung-ho with everything.  The only problem with her is she loses interest a lot sooner than Bella.  So, I have to keep her on track. 

Hope you enjoyed a little view into our school week.

easter pictures for mamaw and papaw

I am not good at snapping candid pictures.  I'm more of the type to have the girls "pose".  That makes holiday pictures, like Christmas morning and hunting for Easter eggs, not so easy for me.  I just can't get good pictures.

So, this is as good as it gets.  Here are the few pictures that I took of the girls.  They ambushed the small little baskets that the "Easter bunny" brought.  (I was last minute in throwing them together.  Hopefully they will have better ones next year!)

The girls seemed to have a blast!  Also, I have already asked my mom to get me some more eggs.  We only have 20 and these girls find them in a hot second.  I need to have more, and hide them in more challenging places. 

Oh, and don't hate on Bella for winning the award for best bedhead! :)  Emily's looks good, but not as good as Bella's.

They hit up the Easter baskets first.  Both were happy with their identical bunnies.  And, they do fight over which bunny is theirs.  I tied different color bows around each bunny, but they took them off.  What can you do?

Emily is happy with all the candy she has scored.  And, we haven't even collected all the candy-filled eggs yet!

Emily attacking the entertainment center.  It seemed I didn't hide the eggs well enough.

Bella stepped in a little too late.  Although, these girls were surprisingly nice with sharing the eggs they found.

Emily scoring a few more eggs.

Bella made the rounds in the kitchen.  Here is a good look at the bedhead!

Somehow they each ended up with half of the eggs.  I don't think I could have planned that.  But, that was due to their "sharing".  Sometimes they are sweet to each other.

Bella couldn't seem to muster up a better smile for me.  I was distracting her with my picture taking.  She just wanted to bathe in all of her candy.  Remember, she is the one with the extra large sweet tooth.

It was a fun morning for them.  We have had to put the candy away so it is out of sight. 

pasta!

UPDATE:  I miscalculated the number of calories.  I put double the amount of cheese when I was figuring it out.  It is approximately 460 calories for a serving.  Much better!

I'm going to talk about food, again!  I know.  I'm probably pushing it with this subject.  But, right now I am trying to lose this weight and find foods that are relatively healthy and satisfying.  And, even if you aren't in the same boat as I am, why wouldn't you be interested in semi-healthy foods?

Well, Pinterest gave me another winner, at least in my book.  A quick and simple pasta dish that I just threw together for lunch.  It uses Parmesan cheese which is one of the "healthier" cheeses out there.  It isn't too high in calories.

Even though most of the ingredients are tame, one serving was still sort of high amount of calories for a lunch.  I estimated a serving around 580 calories.  So, I will have to go light on dinner.  But, it is filling and I could totally go for more greens and less pasta in the next serving.  Or maybe a little less of the cheese.  (I could have estimated wrong.  I really need a scale for the kitchen...)

Anyway, if you would like to try it out yourself, check out the Macaroni with Broccoli & Peas.

Here are the ingredients.  (not pictured are garlic, butter, and olive oil)

It was pretty good and very light and fresh.

I will eliminate some of the calories next time around.  I wanted to make it like this just so I could figure out the best way to make it.

Either way, maybe this could be a quick meal for you to throw together.  Maybe even add in some chicken.  I think even the girls might like this one.

sweet treat

These girls of mine get their sweet tooth honestly.  Mostly Bella, though.  That girl gets up thinking about sweets.  Of course, I don't allow her much more than a few sweet items a day.  Not only are they not good for her, she has a sensitive stomach.  Sweets + Bella = puke.  Yeah, I know.  Gross!

Emily, she enjoys a few sweet things here and there.  But, mostly, she likes salty things.  Fine.  But, that doesn't slow her down from asking for cookies and candy.

And, me.  My sweet tooth has been deprived of sweets lately due to my major desire to lose weight.  As you know, I have been searching Pinterest looking for easy, semi-healthy, sweet treats.  Just something that is enough to calm the sweet tooth cravings.

I found one that looked promising.  Frozen chocolate-peanut butter covered bananas.  Sounds yummy and simple!  Yesterday, I whipped up some.  I ended up using some milk chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate chips.  Melt those with the peanut butter, dip the cut-up bananas, and wham!  Pretty good sweet treat!

Here is the thing.  Emily doesn't like bananas.  Weird, I know.  But, she doesn't.  She ate the Gerber banana baby food when she was little.  But, after that, she said adios to bananas.  I was wondering if she would notice that they were bananas under that chocolate.

I gave each of the girls one and they both made noises to indicate that they LOVED them. 

Emily asked, "What are they?".  Of course, loud-mouthed Bella said, "Bananas!".  After she already ate one, Emily didn't want anymore.  She got made and said she didn't like bananas! 

Oh well.  I guess I will have to find another fruit to cover for her.

one closet equals a hot mess

I have mentioned before that we only have one closet in this house.  And, the design of it is horrible.  It is shaped more like a hallway than a closet.  We have made the most out of it.  Jorge built a rack that holds our shoes.  On top of that rack we have all our jeans and pants.  You can see there are two rows to hang clothes on.  Those weren't even there when we moved in.  Jorge installed those.  Behind the rows of hanging clothes are two shelves. 

When this is all the storage space you have, it equals a big, hot mess when it comes to storing/sorting out clothes for the girls.  I just gradually remove clothes that are too small or out of season, put them in a bag/small trash bag, and throw them behind all those hanging clothes.

Let me tell you, it is NOT a very good organization system.  There is no organization at all!

So, today, when I decided to go through their clothes, put some winter clothes away and bring out the shorts, I have all these bags to sort through.

I wish there was a Goodwill or something around here to instantly be able to get rid of things I don't want.  And, I need something to organize from here on out!  I need another closet!  Maybe Pinterest can help me out with this, too! 

If you need me, I will be sorting through all the clothes.