Organizing

My favorite blog at the moment is iheart organizing.  She has the best ideas and her house is super cute.  I thought I was neat and organized, but this mom takes it to a whole other level!  It's fantastic! Well, it got me thinking about all the things that I need to organize but just haven't gotten around to doing it.  So I started with a couple of small things and wanted to share. 

First, I decided I wanted to organize my freezer.  I saw what Jen did at iheart organizing which you can find here and decided to try something similar.  My fridge/freezer is a tiny little thing that most apartments put into their units.  My freezer did  not have a shelf in it so I ended up buying a wire shelf for a closet and sticking it inside.  It fit perfectly.  Then I found some small white baskets, in which I placed veggies, breakfast items and meats.  Everything fits so nice and neat now and I can actually find things and pull them out without everything falling out and on top of me.  It's awesome!   I got the wire shelf and white baskets from Target.  The baskets were 2.99 and the wire shelf was around 10.  So, all in all, not too shabby!

Next, I tackled the junk drawer in my kitchen.  I forgot to take a before shot on this one and the freezer (sorry!).  But, I'm sure you all have a junk drawer and if you were anything like me, it was super junky!  It was a big ol' mess!  Well, while I was searching for my freezer baskets, I happened across these little white trays that snap together in any configuration you desire.  So I snatched them up and viola!  My new clean, organized drawer.  Before I started, I could barely open this drawer, but now, it slides right open!  AND, I didn't throw anything away!   

My next project is going to be Legos.  This is a pic of the boys separating the little bricks by color.  We still have a giant bucket to go through and separate, but at least we've started!  I still haven't figured out how to organize these guys yet.  We don't have a ton of space in our apartment, so I'm brainstorming at the moment.  

They had a good time doing this.  I was really surprised at the length of time they devoted to this particular task.  It kept their attention for quite a while.

Lunch with Daddy

Last Thursday, we went up to daddy's office to have lunch with him. One of the things the boys really love is dessert after lunch. (what kid doesn't?!)  My husband's office has a yogurt machine as one of the desserts and my kids love to help themselves.  This is what they look like each and every time they eat it.  It's pretty messy, but really funny and cute to watch them lick all that dripping ice cream down from the cone!

PB&C Waffle Sandwich

So the other morning, I was thinking that I really needed some chocolate.  Now, for me, this is an odd thought.  The only time I ever want chocolate is when I'm pregnant...NO...I'm not pregnant.  But, ever since I've had Bean, I've been wanting chocolate ALL THE TIME.  Like, I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT IT cravings.  It's weird!   Anyways, I was making the boys their special breakfast, which for them, is a waffle sandwich of some sort, and they really like this for some reason...so I thought I should use some nutella and peanut butter to make it special.  Well, we don't typically buy nutella so I was kinda out luck.  UNTIL, I realized that I could just make it myself with the things I had on hand.  So I took some peanut butter and stirred in some cocoa powder and a little bit of liquid vanilla stevia and PRESTO...my own version of nutella!  It was yummy and totally  hit the spot.  Plus, the boys think they are getting a dessert for breakfast ;)  

This is what it ended up looking like

This is how I made the chocolate peanut butter spread

2 tablespoons of peanut butter (I used creamy)

1 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Ghiradelli)

8 drops or so of liquid vanilla stevia (I used NuNaturals)

Stir it all together and spread on your waffle or toast or just eat if off the spoon!  This made enough spread for 3 waffle sandwiches.  I used it on one side of the sandwich and then put plain peanut butter on the other side.

Now all of these measurements were just to taste...my taste...so, if you find that you need it sweeter, add more of the stevia, or if you want it more chocolatey, add more cocoa powder.  It's whatever you make of it!  

Jelly Belly Factory

We finally did it...we finally went to the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield, Ca.  It was ah-mazing!  All the jelly beans you could eat, even the gross ones, plus a tour AND you get a SWEET hat.  I decided that we should take the hour and a half drive up north to my every child's dream place.  There were MILLIONS of jelly beans...can you wrap your head around that?  It was a beautiful sight!  The colors and smells and tastes of all of these wonderful little beans of tasty pleasure were simply delightful.  You, LITERALLY, were a kid in a candy store!  We came home with a ton of beans...of all flavors.  The hubs and I finally got to taste the gross ones.  You know, the ones from Harry Potter...booger, soap, earwax, vomit, rotten egg...they were all disgusting.   The worst, in my opinion, were the rotten egg and soap.  So, if you have an enemy, or someone you just don't really like, you could definitely buy some soap or rotten egg jelly beans as a special "present" for them.

Chile Verde Pork Roast

Before we left for the museum, I thought it would be nice to put something in the crock pot for dinner.  Then, when we came home, I wouldn't have to order pizza cook dinner.  So, I thought chili verde pork roast sounded good.  This was not my idea.  I was at a friends the other morning for a playdate and got to talking to another mommy friend about food (as we always do) and she said she was making this dish for dinner.  Well, I immediately asked what the ingredients were and went to the store pronto.  When I got to the store, they didn't have all of the ingredients that she had said, so I had to improvise on the recipe a bit.  My recipe turned out really well!  I used 1 jar of chili verde cooking sauce (from Target), 2 cups -ish of white wine, an onion chopped, some carrots, lots of garlic and about a cup of chicken broth.  I put it on high and left the house.  When we returned, about 7-8 hours later, the pork was done.  It fell apart and was pretty tasty.  I put the shredded pork on some corn tortillas with cheese and Tapatio and scarfed them down.  The boys liked them!  They even used the Tapatio. :)  I forgot to take pictures...we were so hungry from our long day that it didn't even cross my mind to take a picture of it! :)

Bay Area Discovery Museum

Today we visited the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito. It is a children's museum with, mostly outdoor, exhibits.  The boys brought a friend and had a blast.  We spent a few hours there and the 1.5 hour drive was well worth it!  The coolest part of the museum, for me, was the living willow installation by Patrick Dougherty.

This sculpture is LIVING!  It is coming out of the ground and woven together to form this incredible house/maze.  It was unbelievable!

This was a very cool pathway down to the play area.

Our view from the parking lot of the museum

another view from the parking lot

Turkey, Angel & a friend

view from the top of the acreage looking down onto play area 

same view, better pic

me and Bean 

typical Turkey face

the Hubs

Bean

More Chocolate Oatmeal

So, I discovered I really like slow cooker chocolate oatmeal.   I made this the other day and would like to share the recipe with you because it's that good!

Chocolate Coconut Slow Cooker Oatmeal

I know...it looks just like the other,except it has coconut on it...and it does, except it has a few extra ingredients.

Chocolate Coconut Slow Cooker Oatmeal
1 cup steel cut oats
1 cup milk
3 3/4 or so of water
5 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 banana cut into thin slices
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon or so of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon or so of salt
NuNaturals Vanilla Liquid Stevia -  1 dropper full
1/2 cup or more of shredded coconut

Mix it all together and put it on low for about 7-8 hours.

The next time I make this, I will not add the banana.  I added it for sweetness, but the shredded coconut and stevia that I added was perfect.  Plus, the banana ended up being a weird texture that I particularly did not like.

Hope you enjoy it!


PS - If  you would like to try NuNaturals Vanilla Stevia, I have a coupon for you from iHerb.com.  If you use this code TIB423, you will receive a $5 savings on your iHerb purchase! ;)

Valentine's Day Cards

This post is a little late, but I wanted to show you what the boys did for their Valentine's Day cards.  I got the idea off of Pinterest.   The idea from Pinterest came from this blog.

Here are my versions:

These are the flowers that the hubs got me :)

Valentines Day

Usually, this day meant flowers and a card and chocolate and dinner and a movie and a present from the one I adored.  I look back on all of that  now and think to myself, 'Geez!'  We sure were spending a lot of money on a few ways to say I Love You...instead of just saying 'I love you' to one another.  I'm sure we said it, amongst all the other things we were doing, but sadly, none of those other things were very memorable.

After the kids, we sort of stopped doing all of the extravagant V-day commercial things and, well, just stopped doing anything at all.  I think we had completely burned ourselves out from all of the commercialization of the holiday. Now that we have children, I've been trying to get back into the spirit of V-day and at least do things for the kids.  Well, this year, I've been thinking I need to do something special for the man I love.  I mean, I did marry the guy and promise him that I'd spend the rest of my life with him. I probably should do something nice for him occasionally, huh?   

Well, I've decided to make him a pie.  It might sound lame to some and maybe not as fancy schmancy as others might do/give to their loved ones, but my hubs, well, he likes pie.  Coconut cream pie, to be exact.  It doesn't hurt that I like it too!  So, this year, I will be giving my husband, man I love, a homemade coconut cream pie for Valentines Day.  Maybe it's because we have kids now or maybe it's because we haven't really celebrated V-day in such a long time, but I really want to do this....I need to do this.  I know he knows I love him and I will definitely tell him I love him, just like every other day, but making him a pie with my own two hands and watching him eat it will make me so happy.  It will totally give me the warm fuzzies.  

This also got me thinking about the kids and how little we actually do for certain holidays (V-day, for example).  I want the kids to grow up and remember the fun things that we did with them.  Even on the holidays we don't typically celebrate...can anyone say Ski Week, ummm, I mean President's Day?  For those of you not from CA, I recently found out that the week we get off for President's Day is referred to everyone here as SKI WEEK.  This is because parents were taking their kids out of school this week to go skiing.  So many, in fact, that the school districts decided to let them have the whole week off!  This is something completely foreign to this Texan!  Anyway, I want the kiddos to have fantastical memories of their childhood and if that means celebrating National Chocolate Day (oh, wait, we celebrate that EVERY DAY) then by golly, we're going to celebrate it's butt off!  I need to stop being such an ADULT and be easy breezy.  Not only for my little ones, but for my hubs and myself.  Don't you think it would be a nicer place if we were all a little more easy breezy with things?  

So...what are you doing for Valentine's Day?

Dinosaur Museum

Today we went to the California Academy of Science Museum.  A friend of ours was very generous and offered to treat our family to a museum trip today.  My Angel has been talking about this museum ever since we moved to this beautiful state.  So, naturally we didn't tell him we were going...we thought we'd keep it a secret until we rode into the city.  When we finally revealed where we were going, his reaction was less than enthusiastic.  I was not looking in the rear view mirror though.  I was told that his expression was quite the opposite of what his vocal reaction was.  I think he was in shock that we were actually. finally. going.  Anywho, he really was excited as well as Turkey.  Here are a few pictures from today. 

Chocolate Oatmeal

This is what I made for breakfast this morning.  It's chocolate oatmeal.  It was delish!  Even Turkey ate it, and he isn't too keen on oatmeal these days.  The recipe came from the blog Chocolate-Covered Katie.  I mentioned her on Friday...obviously, I like her food!  Anyways, she has a recipe for 5 minute chocolate oatmeal.  I kinda adapted her recipe to my own (but just by a teeny bit).  I didn't have regular oats.  I had steel cut oats and I wanted to make 5 servings, not just 1.  So...my chocolate oatmeal took about 40 minutes and served 5, well, 4.5 (Bean only ate about 1/2 a servings worth).  It was so good and it wasn't full of sugar.  I used a Vanilla Liquid Stevia from NuNaturals.  This stuff is the bomb!  I use it in my hot tea in the morning and it tastes great!  It doesn't have the fake sugar taste that some sweeteners have, plus it's natural, which is a bonus.