Reusing crayon pieces to make new crayons

A fast project to make new crayons out of the old broken pieces you've got...

1- Seperate broken crayons from intact ones and take off paper.

2- Sort by color and put into foil cupcake holders so as not to ruin your pans.

3- Bake at 250 degrees for about 11 minutes. Do not stir them to keep the colors.

4- Let cool for 10 minutes.

5- Remove from pans and let cool for at least 6 hours to overnight.

6- You now have pretty new crayons for wee ones to play with!

Resolution update, 4 weeks in

It's been a little hectic in this house the past four weeks, so I apologize for not blogging and also for not commenting on other blogs... it's nothing personal... *insert sheepish shy smile here* and I should be back to a better schedule soon.

But, until then, I thought I'd send a quick New Year's Resolution update. By now, statistically, most people have already given up their resolutions... have you? Let's see how I'm doing...

#1- Taking care of me. Have I?
I've used my birthday and holiday gift cards for.... for me!! That never happens. :-) I bought myself a new wallet and a new shirt with my gift cards and still have a bit left over for something eventually.

#2- No new magazines. Have I bought any?
No! The only magazines that make it into this house are from our two subscriptions (Outdoor Photographer for Rob and Wonder Time for me). And when those come in, another magazine is recycled out.

#3- Start a crafting business...
Well, not yet. But I have been gathering ideas and all sorts of possibilities. So, this is being worked on, but no debut as of now.

#4- Read. Have we been reading?
This is such a funny one... of course we've been reading! Ro is finally enjoying being read to and sits still for about 1/2 a book. He still prefers being sung to, but now he also brings me books to read to him. Em is up to 3 books a day on average and will often make up stories to "read" with Ro. I've only read 2 books of my own, but I have a wonderful variety of fiction and non-fiction books fresh from Paperback Swap all ready to go.

#5- Two new recipes a week.
Yes, this one is being kept, often with more than 2 new recipes each week. I've made new breads, a new pie, new chicken dishes, a different kind of chili, new cookies and even a new smoothie!

#6- Cleaning up. Are we clean yet?
This is perhaps the one I have been the most diligent about. While 1-5 come pretty naturally on a daily basis, #6 requires set aside time. And I have set aside time. :-) I've declined 39 catalogs (some are from the same company under various names and initials for whatever odd reason) through Catalog Choice. I've also called companies to opt out and have mailed out 6 different "Take me off your list" requests. The mailbox is lighter, but many of these requests can take up to 10 weeks... so time will continue to tell.

Also, the one time we've been to the park, we filled an entire plastic bag with trash (eewww!) and promptly sanitized our hands. But, Em declared the park to be prettier now and understands that keeping everything clean, both at home and while away from home, are equally important.

We've also Freecycled several bags of toys, clothes and other odd items and donated several more. Once construction is completed in my house (this summer I hope), we will be able to park one of our cars in the garage! The other side is reserved for equipment for woodworking, bike/bike trailer and several trikes.

Not too bad all-in-all.

Freezer paper stenciled t-shirts

A long time ago, I found a super easy tutorial on Angry Chicken's blog (a.k.a. Amy Karol of Bend-the-Rules Sewing) on how to make stencils out of freezer paper. It took me forever to even find the freezer paper (it was at the one store I never go into!) but once I did, I've been having a grand old time making all kinds of stencils!


Yesterday, my mom came over to make t-shirts with Em and I. She had NaNa-and me time with Em by making his train shirt, while I made Ro's giraffe shirt. Here's how we did it.

I found the train and giraffe pictures by doing a Google image search. Once I found the pictures that I thought would look good, I saved the pics, sized them to fit the t-shirts and printed them out.



Tape the picture to a self-healing mat (or a few layers of cardboard so you don't ruin your table) and then tape a piece of freezer paper, shiny side down, on top of that. With an X-acto knife, cut out the silhouette. Carefully remove the tape and there's your stencil!

I got the shirts at Michael's when they were on sale for 2/$5, but you can really work with any cotton or cotton blend shirt, onesie, fabric, etc.

Iron the stencil, shiny side down to the shirt (or any other garment you want to). Iron an additional piece of freezer paper to the inside of the shirt so that the paint doesn't bleed through to the back of the shirt.

Paint using fabric paint (available at Michael's and Jo-Ann's) and any sturdy paint brush. You don't have to use a stenciling brush... note in the above pic that my mom and Em are using kids brushes, nothing fancy schmancy.

Wait patiently to dry. When dry (about 2-4 hours), slowly peel off the stencil and reveal your original work-of art!

Be sure to follow the instructions on washing/drying as labeled on the fabric paint tube.

The stencils took the longest to do (about 1/2 hour per picture), so I did that ahead of time. The rest of the project took about 2 hours, so this was an easy Mommy-NaNa-and-Me project that we were able to complete while Ro was napping.

Since this was our first time painting t-shirts, we went with a simple black silhouette, but now I'm pretty sure we'll be doing all kinds of crazy things! I'll post more pictures as we make them.

Another yummy chicken dinner

Cordell my sweet, this one is for you!

We eat a lot of chicken in this family... so I have a lot of chicken recipes to use and try and then send out into blogland. This recipe is one I keep modifying based on the ingredients I have on hand, so each time it's a little different... I hope you like it. The prep work is messy and extensive but well worth it. Plan for about an hour in the kitchen.

Ingredients: This will feed about 3 people
1 chicken breast cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes per person (I've also cut the chicken into 1 inch strips, that's yumm-o also)

--

2 cups buttermilk (can also use plain yogurt)

--

Entire box/canister of Italian bread crumbs (Panko can also be used wonderfully, the whole bag. Just omit the Parm!)

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon granulated onion powder

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

--

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon sugar

--

3 flat bottomed pans (like 8x8 brownie pan) for each mixture

Canola oil or grape seed oil (A lot as you will be making chicken in batches)

Extra grated Parmesan

Paper towels

Instructions:

Put the chicken pieces in the buttermilk and put in fridge to marinate for at least 30 minutes while prepping everything else. (Making a salad, cooking pasta, garlic bread, green beans, etc.)

In the flat and wide containers, put the buttermilk/chicken, the flour mixture and the breadcrumb mixture with buttermilk in the center.

THIS IS MESSY! Just a warning... :-)

Preheat canola oil in dutch oven or 12 inch wide skillet. Can be cast iron, non-stick, whatever you've got. You need just enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan and up the sides 1 inch. I set my oven to a medium temperature and wait for the oil to get warm rather than turn it up too high and risk burning the chicken.

You'll do this process three times so prepare to wash your hands often.

Take 1/3 of the chicken out of the buttermilk and dredge it in the flour mixture. Once coated in flour, dip it back into the buttermilk quickly and then into the breadcrumb mixture. I can usually do about 3-5 pieces at a time. Put these in the frying pan and repeat until all the pieces (the 1/3 of the chicken) are cooking. Usually this takes up the bottom of the pan.

WASH HANDS!

Turn pieces over so that other side cooks. Since they are cut up, they go quickly. With tongs or a bamboo skimmer, put cooked pieces of chicken onto paper towels and sprinkle Parmesan cheese on them.

You can leave the chicken here at this point or put it on a tinfoil covered sheet in a warm oven.

Add oil to the pan as needed and repeat process until all chicken is done.

Plate chicken on top of the pasta of your choosing and cover with marinara sauce. Sprinkle with additional Parmesan cheese. A salad and some sauteed green beans on the side with warm rolls or garlic toast to round out the meal would be perfect!

SIDENOTE: This chicken is a great snack item, a salad topper, great with a plum sauce glaze and jasmine rice (when done with Panko)... and the munchkins will eat it too! You can also spice it up by adding cayenne or chipotle to the flour and breadcrumb mixtures. Ground Ginger if going for an Asian dish... once you get the basic fried chicken thing down, let your imagination invent new ways to enjoy the chicken.

Okay, now I'm hungry...!

Dinner with family

Last night, Rob's cousin and Aunt came over for dinner. I decided to make one of my staple dinners-- lemon chicken skewers, and used a new dessert recipe as part of my New Year's Resolutions.

Lemon chicken skewers. This is a cinch!

Ingredients:

• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into 1 inch cubes (easiest to cut if a little frozen). One breast per person usually works well and will make about 2 skewers. Marinade below was used for four chicken breasts.
• Juice from 2-3 lemons - at least 1/2 cup
• Juice from 1 lime (optional)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup parsley, chopped
• 2 tbsp. finely chopped garlic
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 1 tbsp. salt
• 1 tbsp. ground pepper (white or black)
• 2-3 medium onions, chopped into 1 inch pieces (big enough to skewer)
• 1 pound white mushrooms, whole
• About 15 wooden or metal skewers. If wooden, soak in water for 20 minutes before using to avoid scorching on grill or BBQ.

I made this indoors on a Lodge cast iron grill pan. Outdoors is even better... less cleanup!

Directions:

• Throw lemon/lime juice, oil, parsley, salt, pepper, garlic and sugar into a big bowl. Whisk to combine.
• Put all ingredients in the marinade and mix around to coat everything. Seal bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours, stirring at the one hour mark if possible.
• When done marinating, put chicken on skewers alone. Veggies on their own skewers. Can add tomatoes, pineapple, bell pepper or anything else you like as long as they are lightly coated with oil.
• Grill or BBQ until done. Can re-coat chicken and veggies while grilling with marinade but do not use it to pour over everything after done cooking as it held the raw chicken.
• Serve with Jasmine rice, Pita and Naan bread, a giant salad and any side veggies you like. Cous cous is another great side with toasted pine nuts and golden raisins.

1 1/2 inches to go...

My hair is 21 1/2 inches long as of last night when Rob took this picture. When I hit the 23 inch mark, my hair will be cut and donated! Why am I doing this?

Why not?

It's long and strong. Never been bleached or dyed... heck, I hardly ever blow it dry anymore! I love my hair, but I rarely ever wear it down because it's always in the way. It's up in a giant bun at night to prevent it from wrapping all the way around my neck. I've even caught it in back passenger window when rolling it up-- it's that long!

Seriously though, it's just hair that will grow back for me. A by product of a healthy body that I am very thankful to have.

There are others who are not so lucky. Hair loss from any number of cancers, chemotheraphy, alopecia, etc. There are two different organizations that I am looking at for giving my hair to.

One is called Wigs for Kids, a non-profit organization that provides free custom-made hairpieces for children who have hair loss stemming from a number of illnesses. The donated hair must be a minimum of 12 inches long.

The other is Pantene Beautiful Lengths, the one Hilary Swank cut her hair off on Oprah's show for. Their hair donations go towards anyone with hair loss and your hair donation only needs to be 8 inches long.

Would you like to join me in this donation? You don't need to have the hair right now... you can pledge to grow it out for this cause. Hair can be colored with non-permanent dyes, just not bleached. For more information, both sites go over the hair-cutting process. The Wigs for Kids site also shows you where your hair goes and how it transforms from a ponytail mailed in an envelope to a new confidence boosting outlook for a child without any hair.

UPDATE: To see what happened, check out this blog entry.

Drizzly week.

Our big storm that is supposed to dump inches of rain and I think over a foot of snow in the local and central California mountains... it's not here yet. It was supposed to be here yesterday according to every overly dramatic weatherman and woman on every television station in the entire southland. Right now it's misting... BIG RAIN!! Woo hoo! I joke because I'm waiting, Em is waiting, Ro is waiting and Rob is waiting... waiting to enjoy the rain. Living in the desert of Los Angeles, we do not get much rain and this family loves the rain, so we are waiting impatiently.


So, in order to distract from the waiting for our new tradition of the rainy day observation walk among other things, the munchkins and I have been busy doing "stuff". First up was a chalk creation of Daddy... newly back at work after the Christmas break and very sorely missed by Em and Ro. As soon as the masterpiece was completed, we emailed Daddy and promptly called Daddy to say hello, we miss you, here is a pic of you, we love you, kiss kiss!

After an arty morning, we ate breakfast (Ro loves to self feed even the messiest of food items) and prepared for a quick walk around the neighborhood. Our neighbors are putting in a new concrete driveway, so we stopped to watch the twirling cylinders and the pressure pumped tube spit out wet concrete and be screeted (??) and smoothed.


With the laundry finally done... a new project began... the revision of Em's room. Oma and PaPa had given Em a new bed comforter and sheet set that we exchanged for a different set... I'm not into television cartoon themed rooms personally, so we opted for Em's favorite colors... blue and green. Once that was all washed and put on the bed, I revealed the new bed to Em, who said it was beautiful and that he couldn't decide which blue and green were his very favorites... that's a good sign I think. On to accessories!


We painted his bulletin board and the shadow boxes that will hold his inspirations and creations and whatever else he wants it/them to. Those will be done next week when the pics that go in the back of the shadow boxes arrive from Snapfish. He chose a picture from our October East Coast vacation which I never blogged about. The pic is from a fun pick-your-own apple orchard in Natick, MA. The other pic is a drawing he has yet to create... so the mystery begins. :-)


With the morning crafting over with, we rocked out to Maxwell and then everyone went into afternoon rest mode. So, I am finally going to go rest with Em while Ro energizes with a nap.

It's finally raining. Heavy drizzling really, but I'll take it! Dinner tonite is homemade chicken soup and a new bread recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice by baker Peter Reinhart. Dessert will be a on fast standard of Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies... right off the Quaker's oat canister. We just switch out the raisins for cranberries and leave out the nuts.


Have a great weekend everyone!

What are resolutions anyway?

Happy New Year Everyone!

In catching up on so many wonderful blogs these past few days after a two week hiatus, I've noticed that many people do not like to make resolutions. I do. And I keep them... well, most of them anyway. And I think it might be the kinds of resolutions that I make that help me to keep them. So this year, I'm sharing some of them with you-- my 2008 promises to myself and the why's behind them.

#1- This pic is of me yesterday. Note my tiara-- a leftover from treating myself like a Queen at Camp GetAway. In my hand is a giant cup of my favorite mint tea. And on my feet are softening socks and warm booties. The babies are playing in their rooms for a bit and I'm giving myself a mask and listening to music. I never put myself first. I do everything for everyone else (lovingly!) and never take time for me. So this year, I am!

#2- Stop buying magazines. This is a resolution I made many years ago and I actually did not buy a single magazine throughout the entire year. That time, it was for clutter sake that I stopped. This year, it's for the environment. Besides, anything I'd get from a magazine I can find online anyway.

#3- Start a crafting business. In making gifts for everyone this year (over 40 gifts), I realized how much I like sewing, crocheting, painting, photographing and just creating in general. And, with each project, I get better and better. So, sometime in the first 6 months of this year, I'll be up on Etsy or some other site with my own little shop. My mom has her own shop, and makes these amazing works of art, so I am going to try to follow in her footsteps. I already craft every day with my children... so why not give it a go?!?!

#4- Read, read-to and be read-to more! Both munchkins are finding their love of books and I want that love to flourish. There are books all over this house... in every room (including bathtime reading!) except the closet, and I want to promote this lifelong learning and enjoying activity. It's as simple as that.

#5- Two new recipes a week. This is another old resolution that I'm bringing back. As a self-proclaimed intermediate chef and baker, I once racked up a collection of about 350 cookbooks. While I could happily say I've made something from every single one, I knew I didn't need them all. The first time I made this resolution, I either gave to friends, donated and/or sold half my collection! Some were just not my kind of book... some I had a better version of a recipe, some I knew I would never use past that one recipe. And, they went to good places and I don't miss them. But, after becoming a mommy and not having time to research recipes, I've become a little dolldrummish in my cooking. I make the same 20 or so things... and I'm bored, so this will spice things up for me and us at the dinner table.

#6- The last but most certainly not the least is cleaning up. Not in the way you're most-likely thinking though. Cleaning up to me means:

• Taking a bag to the park and picking up trash while I'm there.
• Freecycling and donating away the things I no longer "must have" for the sake of having. (And promoting this concept to receptive others.)
• Watching my water and energy and waste so that the earth gets a little recovery from our family. (All the Xmas wrapping you see in that pic above is recycled = less footprint)
• Stopping every awful piece of unwanted mail I can! Catalog stoppage, Direct Marketing Junk, Val-Paks I'll never use...

There's more, but I think you get the idea.
Sure, I also want to lose weight and all that... but these 6 are pretty good for me. They're on pretty pieces of paper in a few places throughout the house so I see them daily. By February, they'll become habit and easier to just keep and not resolve to do like a chore.
Do you have resolutions? What are they??

Writing commences tomorrow...

... but for your viewing pleasure now... Ro and Ro. Ro put Rody up on the speaker and then they had a wonderful babbling but serious conversation.