Baby #4 and life!

Sorry about the lack of posts it is due to my lack of energy lol! As all of you know I am expecting my 4th and final baby. I am due January 1, 2012. We are very excited to bring a new life into the world and cannot wait until next month when we get to see what gender our little bean is. We are hoping for a boy to even out our little family but we will be happy with either of course. Just a happy healthy baby is enough for us. We have picked our names we like. 


Tanner James Simpson for a boy 
Mckenna Hart Simpson for a girl


I have been feeling slightly defeated lately which I am guessing has alot to do with all the extra hormones coursing through my body. I feel like I am doing something important with my life as a mommy I am molding my children into the wonderful people they are becoming. But I wonder if that is all I should be doing... Should I be working or maybe going to school? Could I handle anything else on my plate...? I have no idea. Do I even want to add anything to my plate? Who knows. I guess it will just be something I have to think about harder and longer.


There is one thing I definitely want to do and that is start writing blogs more and also cooking more gourmet cuisine. I just dont know what to cook... lol. So if you have any suggestions feel free to write me a comment. Whats your favorite meal? Is it a family recipe or maybe something your stumbled upon on the internet? Also I would really like to start creating more, sewing,crafting,crocheting. Just doing really. 


There will definitely be some recipes including tomatoes,cucumbers,peppers,zucchini,patty pans and corn soon :D My garden is taking off and I cannot wait to see my beautiful harvest in some awesome fresh dishes. What do you do with these ingredients? I cannot wait to cut a tomato in half sprinkle it with some salt and pepper and dig in. Yummmmm nothing beats a homegrown tomato. 


Well that is enough for now time to get dinner going and pick up the hubs from work. Expect to see more posts soon. I promise to stop slacking.

Terrible 2's Treacherous 3's and Fearsome fours Eeek!!

Soon I will have a newborn a 2 yr old a 3yr old and a 4 yr old! Ah I am getting alittle nervous. Maddie and Parker are getting into a stage where they are very defiant. So calling all you moms out there.... What are your tried and true techniques to reprimand and see results? I go out of my way to make sure that my kids are not spoiled and have good manners. The only problem with the spoiled thing is I like to do nice things for/with my children so it is hard to decide if it is spoiling them or just making the most out of my time. How do you feel about this? My kids have alot of toys and stuff in general. Everything I do really I do for my children. They come first and I would buy them something without hesitation and it takes me about 30-40 minutes of procrastinating before buying myself a $3 item. It usually also takes a call to my husband making sure it is ok by him. I normally get yelled at for that last part lol!

               Hahahaha yeah they look sweet huh?? They are most of the time and I love them to death just need alittle help from all you awesome people


Also wondering what you feel is more important a clean house or happy children..? I am trying to keep things neat and tidy but the clutter takes over sometimes. I would say that deep down my house is clean but on the surface it is slightly out of control. I need to purge and get rid of things. Maybe a yard sale :D!! Lots of baby clothes lots of toys and tons of other stuff lol. We will see. I will add it to my never ending list of things to do. Also are any of the rest of you drowning in laundry. I can get my laundry washed and dryed. It is just a matter of getting it hung,folded and put away. How do you accomplish this? How many loads of laundry a day do you have to do to keep the mountain under control?


I know this is alot of ?'s I am just hoping mom to mom or mom to dad or mom to friend you can help me out with your helpful amazing ideas!! :D

Easter Fun!!

My Easter week and weekend were jam packed! So many amazing things occurred. I found out I was pregnant and that explained the exhaustion. I knew that I had been going and going and going but I was REALLY tired. Finding this out made my day... actually my forever. We were trying to get pregnant and it took about 3 months.  So we will have 4 beautiful children to make up our family. I will be 25 with 4 children 4 and under. WOW!!  I was also sewing and sewing and sewing. Trying to get easter baskets Ashlynn's dress and Maddie's skirt done. I am so happy that I got it all done.

 For the Easter baskets I used this tutorial for a guideline:
http://kikicreates.blogspot.com/2011/04/little-bunny-basket-all-about-easter.html

I stemmed pretty far from the original design on Parker and Ashlynn's and didnt follow completely for Maddie's but pretty close.  Go check out her blog she is pretty awesome.

I also made the girls Easter dress/skirt!! The dress I just did as I went along. And the skirt I made from this awesome tutorial over at Made:
http://www.dana-made-it.com/2011/04/simple-skirt-simple-tutorialeaster bunny basket.html

                                                      this is a Teresa original lol!!

I had some late nights but it was all worth it to see the girls in there pretty outfits and parkers eyes aglow about his angry birds easter basket!!

We had alot of fun doing an easter egg hunt around our yard! Eating good food and of course a TON of candy. Oh and cant forget dying eggs.
I love making the holidays an event instead of just another day. I love creating memories for my children and I hope that they remember the fun stuff forever :D I hope everyone had an awesome easter I know we did!!!

Wildflowers & Whimsy: Skye Reve Fabrics Giveaway

Wildflowers & Whimsy: Skye Reve Fabrics Giveaway

Go check this our if you want to win some pretty fabric! Follow the rules towards the bottom of the post

Wildflowers & Whimsy: Skye Reve Fabrics Giveaway

Wildflowers & Whimsy: Skye Reve Fabrics Giveaway

Lets eat some Greek!

We had some of our best friends over last night for a dinner party! I love entertaining and usually do alittle too much!! So this night we went greek I didn't take pictures of everything because by the time dinner was done I couldnt help myself but dig in to all the awesome smells!! I can give you all the recipes I used or came up with. So that you can have your own greek themed night. I always like to have some sort of appetizer because dinner is never done on schedule. So I made hummus. Here is what u need. I had all this stuff laying around. And this was the recipe I came up with-


Ingredients:
1/2 Red Bell Pepper
4 cloves garlic
1 can garbonzo beans (chick peas)
2-4 T. EVOO
salt to taste


Roast red bell pepper in a 450 degree oven for 15 minutes on a baking sheet. @ 15 minute mark flip your pepper and toss in your garlic cloves skin still on. roast 10-15 minutes longer or until garlic is tender. When garlic is soft take pan out of the oven and remove skin from both the pepper and garlic and shove in a food processor blend into a paste. Next drain your beans and pour them into your food processor pulse until incorporated. Drizzle in some of your EVOO and check your consistency. Add more as needed!! Then check your flavor add salt as needed pulse a couple time to incorporate. I also added a pinch of chipotle rub(pampered chef) I like alittle spice you could easily do cayenne or anything else you have lying around or it would be fine alone either way this is a good recipe if you like hummus.

I also made Turkey gyro burgers and authentic oven roasted greek potatoes.


I used this recipe for a couple of parties when I did pampered chef and it was always a crowd pleaser. It is also pretty low cal I am guessing cause it is made with very lean ground turkey. I could not find pitas and most of the time when I can they are stale so I decide to do a little spin of my own and make gyro burgers.
Here is the turkey gyro recipe I used:

Gyro Meat:

1/2 small onion, finely chopped

2 Tbsp fresh Italian parsley, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 lb ground turkey

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Yogurt Sauce:

1/2 cup plain lowfat yogurt

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1/8 tsp salt

2 Tbsp fresh Italian parsley, chopped

1/4 cup cucumber, finely chopped

4 flat pita rounds without pockets
Sliced cucumbers and tomatoes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine the above gyro ingredients. Mix vigorously until well blended. Form turkey mixture into four, thin rectagular loaves about 1/4 inch thick. ( I made six burger patties)

Cook in a nonstick skillet on medium heat for 1-2 minutes on each side or until browned. Place skillet in oven and bake an additional 11 - 13( I cooked them in the oven for 5 mintues and they were done) minutes or until loaves are no longer pink in the center. Remove turkey loaves from oven. Thinly slice lengthwise.

Meanwhile, prepare sauce. In a small bowl, combine all sauce ingredients.

To finish gyros, warm pita bread in oven. To serve, arrange turkey slices over pita bread, top with 1 tablespoon of yogurt sauce, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes.( I piled it all on whole wheat burger buns)

Recipe from Pampered Chef's "29 Minutes to Dinner" cookbook

I also made authentic oven roasted greek potatoes also called patates sto Fourno:

this recipe I found on About.com

Ingredients:

• 5-6 potatoes, peeled and cut in to evenly sized wedges
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• Two lemons, juiced (plus more for serving)
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• Note: When I serve these with roast lamb, I also add a teaspoon of dried rosemary to the mixture and that works very well.

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, add the sliced potatoes and toss them with the remaining ingredients until they are well coated.

Lightly grease a non-reactive half sheet pan with olive oil. Place the coated potatoes in a single layer and drizzle them with any remaining marinade left in the bowl.

Bake in a 400 degree oven for approximately one hour. Carefully turn the potatoes halfway through cooking to prevent them from sticking and to brown them evenly.

Re-season with salt and pepper and squeeze a bit more lemon juice (if desired) when they are fresh out of the oven.




I hope these recipes inspire you to get together have a good time with some friends and of course have some good food!

Parker the snack helper!!

Parker goes to preschool now! 


And everyday a different child brings snack. When that child brings snack he/she is the snack helper for the day and they get to pass out the snack with the teacher. This is a huge honor and not taken lightly at all!! The kids all love to help. Too bad I cannot get him to help more at home huh? Well this week was our snack day. His snack day happened to land on duck day. So I wanted to do something that was duck related. I have been wanting to make some candy coated marshmallows for the kids and though it would be a fun project that they could help with. I also wanted a ducky twist so I was on a mission I headed to Michaels with duckies in my head and came up with this idea with a little googleing and couple of my own twists here they are.

I love this little saying with the play on words and thought it was relevant. I then added a felt duck to each circle and added them to the packaging with the included silver bag tie. I had to cut the cellophane bags down so that they were not double the size of the pops 

If you want to make some of your own marshmallow pops heres what you will need:

Marshmallows

Candy Melt (about half a bag I used yellow you could use any color depending on occasion/holiday)

coordinating sprinkles

cellophane baggies

lollipop sticks

Instructions:

1.Melt candy coating according to package

2.Skewer marshmallows with lollipop sticks

3. Dip marshmallows as much as you would like in candy coating and twist to get of excess( I just did the top 1/3)

4. Dip gently directly into bowl of sprinkles

5.Place your Marshmallow pops into the bottom of a turned over colander (found this tip while perusing the net :D Pretty neat trick I would say)

6.Prepare your tags with any funny or cute saying you would like and assemble your packages 

7. Watch your child beam with delight when you hand them pure sugar coated with sugar .... and dont forget sprinkled with some more SUGAR!!!  

Ps: This may be a good day to plan a trip to the park