I want to be bored!

When was the last time you were bored?  I've had this conversation with my family and friends in the past and we always agree that being bored happened around 1987.  I remember complaining to my mom "I'm bored," there's nothing to  do," "I don't have any cool toys."  Oh, to go back to that time again!
Being a mother of two who works full time, I think that being bored for five minutes would be like winning a dream vacation.  Even if I had five minutes of uninterrupted solitude to be bored my mommy mind wouldn't allow it. It would be thinking of all of the things that need to be done. Switching laundry, folding clothes, doing dishes, vacuuming, picking up toys, etc...or thinking random life goal thoughts like "how did my butt get flat?" "Do I really look that old?" "How much is in my 401k?" Okay, so one life goal thought.    There is never enough time in the day to do everything that needs to be done.  When I break my day down, I sometimes wonder how I even got out of bed let alone do everything that gets done.  Not that you care but here's my normal schedule in a run on sentence. Wake up at 5am-pump-get showered and dressed for work- get L fed and ready- get E changed, fed, and ready- pack up van- take L to school-take E to sitters-get to work hopefully on time- work-pump-work-gym-work-pump-work-pick up E- pick up L-get home and start dinner, give girls a bath-eat dinner and feed girls-clean up dinner-get girls ready for bed-pump-feed and put E to bed, pack lunches for the next day- go to bed at 10pm. It sounds exhausting just reading it, much less doing it.  This is my basic schedule, not including things like blowouts-extra baths-cleaning-laundry-grocery shopping-etc...

I should be skinny....but...

I should be skinny but, I really like food. I actually love food! Most all food! Especially bacon and bacon flavored food. I have a slight (or major) addiction to bacon flavored ritz crackers.  Have you had these yet? They are delicious!!! With everything! I eat them with peanut butter, cheese, yummy cucumber tomato stuff (recipe to follow). I don't have a good name for this stuff but I made it up a few years ago and it's so yummy!

Back to bacon...it's the main reason that I'm not a vegetarian. Bacon and steak.  Anyway, I love to cook and experiment with food but I eat a lot along the way which is why I workout so I don't gain a million pounds.  It's a very vicious cycle!

Back to cooking...I got some great kitchen utensils for Christmas! My mom got me some herb scissors that are so fun to use!  Do you have these on your arsenal? Love them!

As I post recipes on here,  you will learn that I don't measure anything! Unless I'm baking something.  If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
Recipe for cucumber tomato stuff:
1 cucumber
1 red onion
3-5 Roma tomatoes or pint of grape tomatoes
Feta cheese
Garlic salt to taste
Fresh garlic minced
Fresh parsley
Olive oil and vinegar (salad dressing, red wine vinegar, and Greek dressing all work well)

Chop veggies into small pieces. Stir all other ingredients in with veggies.  Pour a little dressing (a little goes a long way) and enjoy with delicious bacon flavored ritz or any other cracker.

Thanks for stopping by:)

New Year...New (and continued) goals...back to blogging

Happy New Year! One of my new goals for this year is to blog. I've started and stopped my blog numerous times.  I would really like to stick with it this time for a couple of reasons.  One reason is to document the wonderful happenings in my life and share them with family and friends.  Another reason is to have something that my girls can look back through (digital scrapbook) that does not include facebook and Instagram.

A new year always brings new goals and a busy few months in the gym.  I have mixed feelings on the gym thing...  I appreciate that people are being healthier but I like getting my workout on without 50,000 people in the way.  That's just a personal rant.  Anyway, new goals...  I think creating goals are important, not only at the beginning of the year but all year round.  My big goal earlier this year was to lose my baby weight.  I am happy to say that I acheived this goal, plus some.  Working out and breastfeeding are pretty big helpers!   I would like to see myself about 7 pounds lighter and a lot more toned but I am happy with what I've acheived so far.  I do have ways that I plan on making this  happen and I will be sharing recipes and my workout regime on here.

One of my other goals is to document the lives of my girls.  Day by day life goes by so quickly and then BAM (insert comic book style BAM) it's been 6 months.  I feel like L has gone from this little sweet baby into a sassy school aged diva and E is growing up so quickly and hitting new milestones each day.  I don't plan on spending hours on a computer (or phone/tablet) documenting, but I'm hoping that getting back into blogging will help me hold on to these moments for years to come and be able to share these with our family that doesn't get to see the girls as often.

I hope you come back and visit my blog for recipes, workouts,  crafts, and more...

Baby it's HOT out there...

So it's officially summer! I've had the last three weeks off! And, 5 more to go with my sweet girl! It is going by SO fast though. I love having time off with Lyla, even though it means we are totally broke. :) 

We have been doing all kinds of fun things and I love finding new ideas. It's obviously no surprise that I love Pinterest, it's sort of an addiction! (I'm sure we could all start a group.) I pinned a few things recently that I wanted to try. One of those is "snow." Snow sounded great considering we have been spending quite a few days out in the sun and heat. How do you make "snow" in the middle of summer you ask??? Two simple ingredients...

Super cheap shaving cream and cornstarch. Yep, a whopping $2.52. You may even have these two ingredients in your home which makes it even better (FREE)! 

We took a container, poured some corn starch in, (half the box at least) and squirted the shaving cream! There is no scientific measurements here, just make a mess! After you add the shaving cream...get your hands in and start mixing. It creates a moldable foam type consistency. That sounds scientific right? Anyway, It holds shape pretty well. We used some Tupperware containers to make snow castles and cupcakes🎂. Don't forget the sprinkles! 

You will make a mess! It's worth it! 

We played for a long time and then kept it in a bowl. It starts to dry out but you can just add more shaving cream to bring it back to life. Hope you have fun! 

 

I would love to hear what kind of projects  you've been up to? 

Keeping a calendar

We are kicking off the summer by keeping busy, very busy! To keep everything organized, we decided to use our dry erase calendar (also to practice the days of the week.) Lyla knows what day (day,date, month, and year) it is EVERYDAY! It amazes me sometimes. 

We are doing summer school activities to keep her in somewhat of a routine during our busy schedule and to learn new things.  

I bought these at Easter time and they are fantastic! If you don't have them...go buy them...now:) They work great and don't run out like dry erase markers. They also have a great little cloth to wipe away your mistakes or to draw a new picture. Lyla was very adamant about doing all of the numbers by herself. She is doing so great with her fine motor skills.  

We also wrote and drew pictures of all of the fun things we are doing this month like visiting a friend, going to a baseball game, and starting jazz class! This month is going to fly by but we will be making wonderful memories! 

I love this face!!! 

What are you doing to stay on schedule? 

Batgirl freezer stencil

We are getting family pictures tomorrow and I am beyond excited!!!! We haven't had pictures taken since Lyla was 1, she's 4! We are going to do some traditional shots, some fun shots, and some superhero shots! Chris and I have superhero shirts but Lyla needed one, duh!  Well, after much debate we decided on ...dun dun dunnn....BATGIRL! 

  I found a yellow t-shirt and bought metallic black paint. I used a hand drawn freezer paper stencil. If you  you've never used a freezer paper stencil...go here...http://www.rufflesandstuff.com/2012/04/freezer-paper-tutorial-better-late-than.html?m=1

(I'm still working on doing "links" on my 

phone. ) 

Easy peasy lemon squeezy! 

I love using this method! It's easy, cheap, and the possibilities are endless! 

Lyla has quite a few shirts (ballerina, "whycause", and now batgirl) and she can help 

paint them which makes it a great project! 

I also turned my simple black t-shirt into a 

super fab shirt for me! 

Let me know if you have questions. I will be 

Posting our family photos soon! 

Summer goal

Welcome, it's been A LONG TIME since I've posted a blog! 

    Well, I have a few summer goals for this summer.  One is to write my blog at least twice a week. (I have failed miserably at this goal before:) I don't have a lot of followers but its such a great way to journal about our lives and share with my daughter all of the fun we have and show her how much I love her. Second is to let go of stress and have more fun...the dishes can wait, dinner can be late, and we can enjoy outside a little longer. Third is to find more time to craft and sew and work on my ever growing to-do list. I'm excited that I have the next 8 weeks off with my daughter and husband and I know we will have a blast just being together. 

   Lyla (4) decided that she wants to learn how to read, so we are already working on that and we will be having "summer school" and discovering new things. I would love any suggestions anyone has for ideas and lessons!  

Come back and see if I've accomplished my goals! 

Back to blogging

It's been months since I've blogged and thanks to my mommy, I am starting it back!
Lots of things have happened since my last blog. Much more than I can even remember. But life is good even as we are stressed with certain situations. I'm still in love with my job! I love working with kids and families! My hubs has been through a lot and is still healing from knee surgery, but he is doing great! Miss Lyla is a talkin machine. Like she won't stop talking....ever!!!! We have officially entered the 'why' stage. She is one smart cookie though and is learning lots at preschool and by asking all of her 'why' questions!
Crafting had taken a back burner to the day to day grind. I have done a few things and one is ready for tomorrow! Valentines Day! 💙💛💜💚❤ I found this idea on blog lovin and I thought it would be so fun to do. So I got my little one involved, we picked the felt colors, googly eyes, and fabric. Oh and candy!!! What is it you ask??? Valentines snakes! I love them! I can't wait to take them into preschool tomorrow. Lyla helped so much with this project so it was such a great process. Even after doing 25 of these silly snakes, I'm really glad we made them.

I cut the snake body and sewed it into a tube shape...cut the felt hearts and added eyes, then hot glued everything together. The little tongues say "wissssssssshing you a happy valentines day!" 💙 Agter glue is dry... Stuff with candy. We used sixlets, starbursts, and dum dum suckers. (Don't think about it looking like a mouse) hahahahaha)

Let me know what you think or if you have questions.

Catching up

I've been making lots of projects lately, but I keep forgetting to post about them. I also have a ton of half written blogs that I need to finish up. Well, this is a sneak peak at all of the things I have done since this summer.

I'm still working on learning how this blog works via my phone because all of my pics end up at the bottom. Hopefully you can follow along.

There is the painting I did for my parents bathroom. I have one in my home and my dad really liked it so I made one to match their shower curtain. It is oil on canvas with hand made stencils for the lettering. I love the 'live, laugh, love' saying.

The brown and green coasters are ones I made for our home. I just love them! Plus they also dub as a wipe of there are no towels/paper towels/ wipes/ kleenex/ etc... They are machine washable and are fun to use as frisbees:)

The necklace is one that I found on pinterest but the website is no longer working or I would give credit. I used some random beads and brown jewelry twine and tada, a cute necklace.

The colts stuff is a drawstring bag and two sets of coasters. I made these for my dads work picnic as a giveaway. I also gave one of the sets to my big brother. I love football season, mainly because of the food!

My favorite is this green knit shirt that I made. It is a stretchy knit material (that is very hard to sew with). I found a cute ruffle shirt at a consignment store a few weeks ago and it gave me an idea for this shirt. It was time consuming but well worth it. I do get a secret thrill when people ask where I got it and I say "actually, I made this" heeheehee my ego gets a huge boost.

What projects have you been working on? I hope I can get some tutorials going soon. Sorry that they are all jumbled. Feel free to ask questions or leave comments.

Thanks for stopping by. <3 Jenn

Dinner at the Shue's

I love to be creative, especially when it comes to dinner. I like to switch things up, try new recipes, alter others. Well, a few weeks ago I decided to "clean out the fridge" dinner. By that I mean, what do I have that I should probably use before it starts smelling funny. We eat A LOT of chicken in our house so it's nice to shake things up a little and thanks to my awesome parents, I had pork chops in the freezer.
My ADD mind went to work and I came up with the following recipe. Boneless pork chops, mushrooms, blue cheese, everything bread, bacon bits, green onion, and garlic. Everything but the chops are chopped finely and mixed together. Smush it together (that's a culinary word...right?) and put it on top of the pork chops in a baking dish. Bake at 375-400 for 35-40 minutes.(depends on how thick the pork chops are.)

I also had some leftover mushrooms, so I stuffed them full of yumminess too and baked them with the chops. I am trying out baked green tomatoes that have been tossed in egg whites and Panko/shake n bake mixture and baked along side of the pork chops. I will let you know how they turn out.

End result: The stuffed/topped pork chops are delicious!!! The More blue cheese, the better! The mushrooms are amazing, I only wish there were more than a few, and the tomatoes are nice and crispy on the outside and juicy and sweet on the inside. The beer; always tasty! All in all I would say that this dinner is a winner!

**my husband even 'stole' my leftovers to take to work because he leaves uber early before I even get out of bed.

Feel free to email me with any questions or comments.
P.s. I'm still learning this whole blog thing so my pictures are all in crazy orders and only at the bottom:/.

What do you get creative with?

Family, food, and spirits

I love my in-laws! Seriously, I could not have hand picked a better family to marry in to. My husband has family all of the place, Missouri, Kansas, Alaska, and here in Indiana! Well, the Alaskan crew and some MO crew are visiting, which means lots and lots of fabulous...fun...family...time! I love family time!
My father in law just got back from a fishing trip in Alaska and brought back some fresh salmon and fresh tilapia. We had it fried, grilled, and in a dip. Yum..yum..and yum!!! Of course I forgot to take pics of the actual food but there is a glance at the bottom of what it looks like.
This night was perfect, especially after a very long day of training (and dying of boredom). I met my hubs at my in-laws and was greeted by a very red little girl. My husband dressed our daughter like a giant care bear, but She was Super cute(of course I forgot to get a pic before I put her jammies on.)

Anyway, we had a very late night, lots of laughs, and a super great time!!!


What are your favorite family get togethers? :)

Egg biscuits

I haven't posted in a while because, well, I keep getting side tracked. which is the story of my life, I will start to clean out the fridge, the start to do dishes, then stop and put a shirt in the laundry and start to wash a load, then see toys in the way......then nothing is actually done, everything is just half started:/ I have really good intentions though:) My hubs on the other hand has a day off and the bathroom is spotless! I love that man!!! :).

Back to the blog at hand, this excerpt is about these delicious egg biscuits! I LOVE breakfast food, it's my favorite meal. Probably because breakfast means bacon, and I LOVE bacon!!!! I started making egg muffins a few years ago which is basically scrambled eggs in a muffin tin. Well, I started usig biscuits that come in the four pack, it's ridiculously cheap, like 4 10-packs for $1.88 for buttermilk biscuits. Well, here's the recipe, melt a few Tbsp of butter, mix 5 eggs, add cheese, bacon, and whatever else you want. ( onions, sausage, peppers, etc...) break 1 can of biscuits into 4 pieces each and add to mixture. Stir mixture together and place evenly in greased muffin tin. Bake at 400• for 10-15 minutes or until browning.
Eat with fruit, coffee, and enjoy!!!!
What are your favorite breakfast recipes?

Mouse paint

Last time we went to the library we picked up the book 'Mouse paint' by Ellen Stoll Walsh. If you've never read this book I highly recommend it, especially if you have a little one. Our daughter is all about colors and I started teaching her about mixing colors and what happens when you mix certain colors. This book is all about three little mice that find paint and jump inside and dance in puddles to mix colors. Well, I decided to make a little project to go along with this book. My little one isn't always a big fan of having paint on her hands and definetely not her feet, so I put the primary colors in a ziploc bag so we could mix, discover, and stay clean.:) I will admit, my little one wasnt overly excited about this but it did work well.

Do you have any fun color mixing ideas or experiments?

DIY mini flower vase

I pretty much love anything "mini," mini candy bars, mini appetizers, and mini wine bottles:) I bought some pinot grigio in the little 4 packs not too long ago. The bad things about "mini" things is they tend to be gone very quickly, and this rang true for these delicious bottles of wine. I love the little bottles, and I couldn't just throw them away so I washed them out, cleaned the paper off and got out some paint supplies. I started to get really creative and painted a Monet scene on the first but didnt think I should try to remake the Mona Lisa. I think these would be so cute as a gift for a friend or mom with a wild flower inside. I painted these with acrylic paint and will be putting a clear coat over them when I am finished. The white one still needs to be painted, but I'm waiting to get inspired. (starry night perhaps?)

What do you think? I would love to hear comments or questions:)

Productivity = happiness

So I have been feeling very unproductive this summer, sleeping in, playing ALL day, choosing whether or not to shower (I almost always do :) reading, and soaking up the suns rays. Well, we've had some gloomy days this week and I decided today to get some things marked off my list. I straightened/cleaned my crafting room, did some sewing, swept the floors, put all of lylas toys away, laundry, dishes, cooked, played guitar....wait that wasnt on the list of to-do, but little miss helpful wanted to play with it. I forgot that I dont know how to play it but did have a jam session with lyla and her barbie guitar. "I'm a barbie girl...in a barbie world...life in plastic...it's fantastic..." I have just song bombed you all, and I'm not even going to apologize:)

Back to being productive, why do I procrastinate? It's so nice to get things done, even if there are more dishes in the sink, more laundry to do, and more toys to pick up.... But for now, I'm happy that I did get productive today...even if I havent showered yet :)

Let's all hope the weather is nice for our pool, zoo, 4th of July cookout, and family visiting coming up this week. I will try to blog about it all!

Here's a preview of the dress I made for my daughter, hopefully she will want to wear it on Wednesday! I still have some altering to do:) and also a pic of us having our jam session;)

What are your secrets to staying productive?


I would love to hear any questions or comments that you may have...

~Jenn~

A cold hotdog....slap in the face:)

So I was searching through foodgawker and found a recipe for beef and broccoli from http://www.myculinaryescapades.com/

It looked easy, delicious, and easy. (did I say that already?). I have been craving Chinese but hate to spend 20$ on food that is full of calories and leftovers sit in the fridge for way too long after dinner.
Well, what else could I do but make my own....I semi follow directions when it comes to cooking. Here's what I did... Cut and marinate beef stew meat in some heavy shakes of soy sauce and ground ginger (refrigerate 1 hour or more), cut and sauté onion in a spray of evoo and a splash of soy sauce...after onions are sautéed, add meat and frozen bag of broccoli. Once heated through, add water and corn starch. (mixed together) I also added mushrooms to mine. Serve with a side of brown rice and some homemade crab rangoon (which I'm still trying to master) and viola! your homemade take-out is done!
Enjoy!

Let me know what you think, questions, ..or if you have a great baked crab rangoon recipe I would love to hear about that too!

Beef and broccoli

1 lb. Beef stew meat
1medium onion
1 pkg. Mushrooms
Bag of frozen broccoli
1 tsp Ground ginger
4ish tbsp of soy sauce
1 tbsp corn starch
1cup Water
Evoo

P.s. My daughter refused to eat this and wanted a cold hotdog, what a culinary slap in the face!!! She has never even eaten a "cold" hotdog. Wtf!!! But I liked it and my hubby enjoyed it too:)

Care bears

Care bears, care bears, care bears!!! Our daughter loves the care bears. My parents brought my Care bear that is almost 30 years old and it has been inseparable from our three year old. She named it Teddy... And she loves watching the shows on tv. The Hub has new episodes every Saturday at 9:00 am.

So with all of the love for care bears, we decided to make care bear t shirts! I googled the different tunny symbols, found some t shirts at walgreens for $1, and started painting! I couldn't find all of the colors that i wanted but we made sunshine bear, good night bear, friendship bear, and cheer bear. I think I got carried away:) She likes to wear the bedtime bear shirt to bed. Here are the shirts. I still need to get pics of her in them, but I think they are cute and she likes wearing them and talking about the care bears.

What was your favorite care bear?

Dead squirrel, cute cat, and poppers

I thought I would catch your attention with that title....but I will explain it all. Starting off with the crafty stuff... Before vacation I bought 3 cheap Cooke sheets at Walmart. I think they were $3.98 for three of them. They made the perfect trays for our 9+ hour car trip to Kansas and Missouri over Memorial weekend. On top of being the great catch all for snacks, crayons, and the Olivia car, they are also magnetic! We have these super cute magnetic dolls that you can dress in different clothes, and the cookie sheets were the perfect fit for these dolls. Well, I decided to paint a little outdoor playground for the dolls and for Olivia too:) Not my best work but I may or may not have had a couple of glasses of wine while painting:) (don't judge me, it's summer break:). I painted it with acrylic paint and learned that I will need to seal it to keep it from chipping under little piggy feet.
On to the title explanation.... We were outside playing with firework poppers, throwing them, stepping on them, and hearing them pop just means its summer! Our little one loves them, she was throwing them and jumping on them, all while my husband was trying to pop them on my feet;). While we were outside we met some neighbors who had just dumped a squirrel that had fallen into their pool and drowned. Poor squirrel... Let's have a moment of silence.………
After the excitement of squirrels and poppers we were about to head inside when a cute little kitty cat came into our yard and wanted to be pet. Well, of course we had to get him some food and water and of course a good petting. Our little one was so exited!!!! "titty tat" "titty tat" "titty tat"!!!! Well his name is of course "titty tat." he will stay outside but we will feed him, he's just too cute and Lyla loves him already!!!
There you have it, a crazy, ordinary, fun evening in the Shue household.

What's happening with your family this summer?

Letters to Lyla

I've been writing things down here and there to document things that our daughter does, but I thought I would just start blogging the little things she does. So here are just a few recent things that she will inevitably hate me for in about 11 years.
One: you started saying "shhhhh" at the funniest moments, like when daddy and I are talking at dinner and not including you. It's even funnier when you do it in the car while mommy sings.
Two: you finally started pooping on the potty everyday, too bad it also includes watching MickeyMouse clubhouse, Olivia, and care bears to finish. (like father like daughter;).
Three: you count everything, a little rainman-ish but none the less awesome; you are currently counting to twenty with little to no help from mommy and daddy.
Four: you started writing your name...semi legible!!!!
Five: You love "Teddy" which is a homemade Care Bear from when mommy was little. ( it's about 30 years old!)
Six: you love playing "earthquake" with daddy before bed every night.
Seven: you are talking up a storm
and very inquisitive to sounds, and your great at "charades" as we try to decipher your speech:)
Eight: you love mustard....
Nine: instead of saying pig ( for Olivia for instance), you snort like a pig and breath deep through your nose. So cute and it reminds me of my aunt Louise who had a pig decorated kitchen. She would have loved you!
Ten: you say "I love you too mama" when I tell you I love you. Which may or may not be 50+ times a day!
Eleven: you started pushing your stroller with your belly. ( picture below)
Twelve: you were a daredevil at the park and played on the swing with 'no hands!'
Thirteen: your fear of dogs has gotten SO much better! ( spike and lyla below)
Fourteen: you wear the stuff mommy makes you because I think you know how happy it makes me. (you are so beautiful) (see below)

More to come and to add. What are your little ones doing these days that will embarrass them later in life??? I would love to hear your comments or questions.

Summer dress

So I found this fabric at Walmart for 1$ a yard, yep you read correctly $1!!! I love good deals. I only bought two yards because I wasn't even sure what I was going to do with it, but it's pretty and it was $1 a yard! It's been sitting on my ironing board (with a million other things) and it keeps calling out to me "make me into something beautiful."

Today, I made something beautiful! I love making clothes for my little girl, it just makes me smile when she wants to wear the things I made. I also like making her dresses because she is so tall and all of the store bought clothes are WAY too short! I can't wait for her to see the finished product. I of course added pockets because you have to have a place to put rings, coins, snacks;)
Here it is, please leave a comment or question, I'd love to hear them!