Baked Oatmeal

I know awhile ago I posted my baked oatmeal recipe that I was using.

Recently, I have switched to this one, found at allrecipes.com.

I change it up a bit; I put 1/4 cup sugar in it this morning, and Chris and I both agreed it was a bit too sweet.  I would go with 2-3 TBS next time.

Plus, I always have different add-ins.  The recipe calls for dried cranberries. This morning I put in one cut up apple and one cut up pear, no cranberries.  I have put in apple and blueberries, just blueberries, apple and raisins or currants, or actually cranberries, as the recipe states.

We eat a lot of oatmeal in our house, and baked oatmeal is a special way I dress it up every once in awhile.  :-)

Other recipes I have posted using oatmeal:
oatmeal soother
using up leftover oatmeal
banana pudding with oatmeal

Baby Helper!

Look at this cute baby! It was his first time"helping" me in thie kitchen.  I had to give him two things-- one for each hand-- because he kept trying to grab the knives out of the knife block and the dirty dishes out of the sink!

Ben cuts a tomato

This was so cute--

Ben has been wanting to cut everything himself recently.  I have been letting him, within reason and of course, supervision!

Today we had soup for lunch, and he wanted to put a tomato in his.
"I put tomato in the soup while it was cooking"
"But I can't taste the tomato taste"
"Okay, go ahead"

And you know what?  He cut the whole tomato, put it all in his bowl, and ate every last bite.  :-)

First Day of School 2012

Our official first day of school was today!

After our trial run last week, I knew I was going to have to go for structure.  Last week everyone was talking to me and needed me and had questions all at once.  It was mostly chaos and very stressful for me.

So, I divided up our school time into fifteen minute segments and assigned something for each child to be doing, changing every 15 minutes so that no one gets bored.  Also, everyone has a bit of mommy time.

We started with scripture workbooks. I will have to post about them on another day.  :-) We all do scripture together.  We do this out in the living room, because then we can move into the dining room for 'school' and no one is too antsy yet.

We moved into the dining room and each child had his/ her own stack of books.  Earlier in the morning while the kids were playing, I wrote down in order what each child would be doing.  That way I would know easily what was next.  I like the schedule at the top to make sure no one is doubled up on something, but I can't read it very easily in the midst of school craziness.

Then I set the timer for fifteen minutes, and we went to work.

I have written before about how I am not a big fan of strict schedules.  But I have small children, and none of them can really do things with out my specific and direct instructions.  So, alas, I don't really see a way around it for school time.

This way everything gets done (or if it doesn't I know where we stopped) and there is some semblance of peace in the house.

At the end of the day today, we were all still smiling.  I'll take that as a good start!  :-)

New Sewing Project: Couch Slipcover

Okay, so, our couches are old.  I'm talking the family we got them from had moved these to their basement after they got a new couch and then got another new couch and moved their other new couch to the basement and gave us the ones from the basement. We figured out they are at least 12 years old. Those 12 years were years of heavy use by adults and also small children.

Well, the material for the cushions actually started to wear through.  Not have holes ripped in them.  I mean, get thread bare and then finally wear away until there just isn't any more material. 

Yesterday I saw that Big Lots had curtain panels for $5, buy three get one free. I thought, 'hey, if I can get a bunch of panels, I can start piecing together a new couch slipcover as I can and when I need it.' So I went to Big Lots, but alas the only curtains were bright pink that were $5, buy 3 get 1. BUT, in the same aisle were the slip covers.  I looked through them.

Now, I have never been a fan of couch slip covers because they always get all wrinkled, they don't stay in place, they LOOK like slip covers, and I have rowdy kids that are on and off and on the couch again all day. Nevertheless, I picked some that looked decent because they were by far the best price (about $60 for the pair) I was going to find on slip covers anywhere.  I have priced them for the couches before, but never got any because when it came down to it, I didn't want to spend $100+ on slip covers about which I just wasn't happy.

I came home with my slip covers, reluctantly put on the loveseat one, and purposed to give it a few days to see if I could stand it.

By the end of the night, I decided to keep the slip covers and modify them to suit me.  It will be cheaper than buying fabric at Jo-Ann's, and all the pieces are already cut to the general shapes that I need them.

We'll see how this goes!  I will have to keep you posted.

Today I washed the cover and cut up the pieces into five big parts: two arm pieces, two front of the arms pieces, and the one big one that goes in the middle.  Now, I am going to need to cut the big middle piece into three pieces: the part that goes over the back and down to the floor, the part that goes down the front to the wall, and the rest of the cover I am going to use to make covers for the cushions. Then I will connect the back part and the front part with a panel of plain fabric that I have left over from another sewing project.

That last paragraph seems a little confusing.  I will have to post some pictures. But I haven't started the pinning/ sewing part yet.

I found this blog which will hopefully help me out along the way.  It was my inspiration for taking on this crazy project.  :-)