Who would have thought?

Who would have thought that a faucet, a sink and some dawn would have created a half an hour of entertainment for my 2.5 year old?

Last night, as I was preparing dinner, my son wanted to help unload the dishwasher. On the bottom shelf, he found himself a tumbler to play with so I let him. He ran and got his stool and then proceeded to fill the glass up with water to drink. Normally I freak out because I don't want water everywhere, but then I realized "Hey, its water, he needs to drink that!". Feeling ballsy, I then asked if he wanted to play with bubbles too. He of course said "YEAH!" So I bubbled up the sink on one side and then just ran the water on the other. He had a blast filling up his cup with water, with soap, washing bubbles off, etc.


Its amazing what a few empty cups and some water can do for a one of those days when you can't play outside!

Momcessities: The little things mom shouldn't go without. Mommy Cards!

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My friend Anelys runs her own graphic arts/printing business and she does amazing work. I plan on ordering both of my kids birthday cards from her this year. You should really check out her website and all her products they are much better than you would find at Snapfish or Kodak.

But one of her products stands out to me, and I really can't wait to place my order when the kids get into preschool. They are the "mommy cards". These little ingenious cards, are perfect for any mom. They have your kids picture and info on them, your phone number, allergies, birthdates and anything else you feel is important to have available in an instant.

Think about it:

You are setting up a play date for your kids and you need to swap numbers, just pull this card out and hand it over.

You are dropping your kids off at daycare, and you need to leave some pertinent info with the staff, drop off your mommy card, so they can match up the allergy or disability with the proper kid by seeing the photo. Its easy to pull this card from out of a file than search through it for the information.

Your kids have wandered off and you can't find them in a park/store/museum, you have your card out so you can have the security guard know exactly what they look like to help you find them.

Its the first day of school, leave one with the teacher so she/he knows exactly how to get in contact with you.

There are just so many uses these little cards have. I think every mom should have some! Plus I just love showing off pics of my little ones, and what better way to brag than by handing over your mommy card to new friends as you set up play dates. You know you will get compliments on 1. having a mommy card and 2. having such cute kids.

Momcessities: The little things mom shouldn't go without. Buttoned Up Pads

Need things in your household Buttoned Up?

Towards the end of summer, I decided that I needed to get my act together again. I had used a planner in college, and felt maybe I could get my household back on track again by reinstating my Franklin Covey Planner. While I was at the Franklin Covey shop, my sis found a section called Buttoned Up. I had only glanced at them initially when we walked in, I was on a mission to get my planner pages, nothing else, but she insisted they were something I should peruse because they looked really handy.

OH MY WORD.

These pads were truly the neatest little pads i have ever seen. The more I thought about my husband, the more I realized these pads would be in our future. Their pads are brilliant and can be incorporated into your whole families daily routine, whether you are needing a pad for directions, or wanting to make a shopping list these pads help you organize your thoughts and keep you on track. The kids can have a homework pad so they can keep track of their assignments at school or a chores pad so they know exactly what is expected of them with their household duties. There is a baby bag pad and a kid pad, so you can have a checklist of things to pack (or in my case, so my husband can finally learn to pack the diaper bag)when you are in a hurry. Their Would you pad looks great for making sure your significant other knows exactly what you need from them and the Not to do pads tell them what to hold off on. The options are endless and so user friendly. I can't believe I had never heard of them before.

Needless to say, when I left Franklin Covey, I left with a buttoned up pad. I chose the diaper bag pad, because the one thing my husband can not do is pack the diaper bag. No matter how many times he packs it with me telling him what goes in it, we are always missing something. So now I just highlight on the pad what we need, and he checks it off as he packs it. Having an infant in the house and a toddler really makes this an essential for our diaper bag.

I'm also a sucker for planning. It was what I did best as a teacher, and what I do best as a mom/housewife. I can plan the dickens out of something ( getting me to implement it is another story) so needless to say, now that I have my Franklin Covey up to date, and a few Buttoned Up pads in my household I feel like I can be a better organized parent. I just can't wait for the kids to get old enough so I can start getting some of those other pads.

A Friday Tradition in the B's household... Homemade Pizza (using our bread machine).

We have a meal schedule in our house. Every day of the week has a different theme. Mondays - Mexican, Tuesday - Italian/Indian, Wednesday - traditional, Thursdays - Eat Out, Fridays - Pizza, Saturday - Finger Foods/Left overs, Sunday - Boo cooks. This is the system that helps us plan our meals out and helps us keep a variety going through our diet. Seriously, when we didn't adhere to this routine we either: 1.) ate out every night (eek!), or 2.) ate the same thing every night. Seriously, we would have various meals of the same thing and that can't be good for the budding food enthusiast that was my son. I mention "was," as my son has given up eating at this time. So any help in getting him to eat more than chicken nuggets, french fries and yogurt would be much appreciative.

Friday was finger food Fridays, but we decided that pizza would be more fun. I got the idea from Lara who does Pizza night as well. Hopefully she will show us how she does it. As they get older Mac and Mya would be able to help make it and choose what we should have. However, now its usually just me unless pepperonis are involved. Mac will volunteer to help eat those before putting them on the pizza.

But I digress. Pizza! The worlds most perfect easy meal. I love it. I never thought I would be making my own this frequently but I have been tweaking this recipe for over a month now and just love it. I have fallen in love with my bread machine, and have been a bread making fool these past few weeks as well, but that's a whole other story.

So follow me: Let me walk you through my way of making pizza.

Ingredients:

Dough-
3 cups of flour, 3 tsp of yeast, dash of salt, 1/4 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup of oil and 1 cup hot water.

Toppings-
1 jar/can of pizza sauce, 1-2 bags of Italian/mozzarella cheese, whatever else you like. Today we have sausage, red pepper, and onion.

The bread machine is a masterpiece for bread making. It takes all the time consumption that bread/dough needs and puts it in a machine that does it all. The rising, the kneading and all that
hands on stuff is no longer necessary. So you can throw your ingredients in and leave it to do its job while you do whatever you like, whether its cleaning, watching a movie, playing with the kids, taking a nap, eating some chocolate, or whatever else you would like to do. The possibilities are endless.

Here is my beautiful bread machine:


Now that i have my beauty out and ready to rumble, I need to go gather my ingredients. First I will start by going and getting 3 cups of bread flour. All-purpose flour works nicely, but it just so happens that I have 50 pounds of bread flour in my pantry so I will use that...

What? You think I am kidding? Nope! My neurotic self actually has 50 lbs of bread flour in her pantry. I kid you not. Here it is:
That bag of flour ways more than my two kids combined...seriously. I'm neurotic and it seemed like a great idea at the time to buy it. It only cost me 14 bucks and do you know how much bread I can make with that??? WOOT!

Back to the recipe. While you are getting your flour, turn you faucet on to hot. Let it run for a bit and get good and steamy. You want that hot water to activate your yeast so your bread will rise.

Once you have gotten all your ingredients together, add them to your bread machine with the liquids first. I usually do water, oil, sugar, salt, flour, and then yeast. Most definitely your yeast should be the last thing you put in. Let it nest in a comfy little flour bed so it can relax before we really put it to work.
What I really like about my bread machine, is that it is something my son can help me do. Its so easy, plus he loves pushing the buttons to make it start. He also has to make sure that I put everything in properly and its up to his code. You don't want to cross the Bubbee...he will get ya.
Now, turn your bread machine to the dough setting and go have a little fun!! You have an hour and 10 minutes to do whatever you like until you need to focus on your pizza again!!

.....


Now its time to focus on your meal again. While your dough is wrapping up, its time to prep the toppings for your pizza. Tonight we are having sausage with peppers and onion. Yum. I totally forgot to take any pictures of me using my new frying pan to fry this sausage. But lets just say she worked maaaahhhvously! Hopefully I can introduce you all to her next time. Plus if you don't like cutting veg (I don't), and your husband happens to get home before you have popped this baby in the oven, casually ask him to cut the onion. Tell him you have cried enough today, since your 7 month old started a new way of communication which involves shrieking to her hearts content anytime you are holding her, looking at her, or just being around her. Seriously, its unnerving as she is shrieking like I did in labor with her. It doesn't do my eardrums any good, and it does my nerves even worse. So let your husband do that part while you go sit with your reclining chair and use your back massage pad.

When he is finished you should have a beautiful pile of veg to throw on that pizza when the dough is ready.
No pizza should go without these two wonderful vegetables. Seriously. It would just be wrong.

I also had totally meant to show you how I knead my dough. But alas, I was just so hungry I forgot and threw the pizza together. But here is a walk through.

When your timer for your bread machine goes off, you will notice your bread has risen significantly. Beat that sucker down to a manageable level and pull it out. Its a huge hunk of dough, and if you have a normal size pizza stone like I do, I would rip about a 1/4 of it off to make either a small personal pizza, or make some rolls. The dough will spread while cooking, I noticed that it always overflows my pizza stone, making it hard to cut. So unless you are using a cookie sheet or a larger stone, this may be too much for you. However, I just throw all caution to the wind and pop my hands in flour and spread her on my stone. I never minded a little overhang. Layer those toppings on anyway you like and you will soon come up with a beautiful yummy pizza creation ready for the oven.


Ah yes, my love. Soon you will be toasty and brown with gooey cheese and a sweet delectable crust. My oven (that was preheated to 400 F) awaits this pie and will bake her for 20 minutes.

Which leaves you with a totally indulging could eat the whole pie pizza that will have you coming back each week.
Notice how you no longer see my pizza stone. LOL. She really did expand. YUM.


Better than Fazzoli's Bread Recipe (thanks to my sisters roommate Brenda):
modified by me for the bread machine.

Ingredients:

1 cup of hot water
1/2 cup of oil
1/4 cup of sugar
dash of salt
3 cups of flour
3 tsp of yeast

Place ingredients in the bread machine pan in order given. Make a little divot for the yeast in the flour. Set to dough cycle. Relax and enjoy the 1 and 20 minutes of freedom this wonderful machine gives us!

Jennie B