Tonight

I love my kids. Sometimes it is just so hard being a mom and I get too serious and discouraged and feel like the whining will drive me crazy, and I'll never be patient enough, and how did my mom do it!? But other times I get these gifts of true perspective and look at my daughters and see how they are such amazing delightful daughters of our Heavenly Father and how lucky I am that He sent them to me! A lot of times just when I feel really frustrated they will do something to make me laugh or smile! They do whine and frustrate me at times, but they are truly the sweetest girls and I wouldn't trade them for anything! And even if I'm not the perfect mom I dreamed I'd be...they are growing up wonderful in so many ways! So I must be doing some things right - and/or - it's not all on me :) Mike is a pretty amazing Dad. 

Anyway, tonight my 7 year old Lily put on some music from the Nutcracker and was dancing her version of ballet for her Dad. He praised her leap and twirl and said she was pretty good at ballet. Lily replied enthusiastically: "All I had to do was read some books 2 times in kindergarten, and watch some ballet shows, and I've got it!!!" :D

She does have some pretty cute little moves! Mike calls her a little River Dancer because a couple of St. Patrick's days ago she got this thing for Irish dancing and watched a couple of You Tube videos and has made up her own version of "real Irish dancing!"

Here's from tonight:

Lily holding a birthday gift she got together for a classmate tonight. 
A bracelet, a sticker, and some candies individually wrapped and
stacked :)  That's going to be one tough package to unwrap, but
this girl is definitely one of my sweetest gifts!

What's for dinner

Well...not beef most of the time in our house :) 

Wanted to share a few yummy recipes perfect for this time of year.

Made this yummy pork roast tonight with mashed potatoes and homemade rolls and a green veggie. It's one of our favorite ways to eat pork. Got the recipe long ago from an old friend, but altered it for the crock-pot.

Great Glazed Pork

Glaze:

½ c. distilled white vinegar or cider vinegar

1/3 c. light brown sugar

1/3 c. apple cider or apple juice

2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

1 Tbsp. soy sauce

Pinch pepper

Pork tenderloin ( I buy a long one from Costco, cut into 4 to freeze)

Combine all glaze ingredients, mix thoroughly and set aside. 
Brown pork tenderloin in a little olive oil and glaze mixture then add to slow cooker and pour remaining glaze over top. Cook on low about 4 hours or until meat thermometer indicates done. Reserve juices for gravy or to dribble on top as desired.

This other recipe is one Mike says he could happily eat for Thanksgiving. I like how fast and easy it is to put together. One of my two picky kids will usually even eat it.

Maple Glazed Chicken with Sweet Potatoes

1 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces

 1 pound chicken tenders

 2 teaspoons seasoning (such as Grizzly Joes')

 vegetable oil and or butter

 1/2 cup maple syrup

 1/2 cup sliced green onions (I usually use a little regular sautéed diced onion or leave it out)

Place the diced sweet potatoes into a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to medium-low, cover, and simmer until tender, about 20 minutes. In the meantime, sprinkle chicken tenders with seasoning; heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat, and cook the tenders until the meat is lightly browned and no longer pink inside, 5 to 8 minutes per side. Remove the chicken, and set aside. Stir the maple syrup into the skillet, scraping up and dissolving any browned flavor bits from the skillet. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 2 minutes, and stir in the onions.

When potatoes are tender drain and allow them to steam dry for a minute or two. Mash with a little butter, then spread in serving platter and top with the chicken tenders. Pour the maple sauce over the chicken to serve.

Sierra Ballerina

--I love that quote. Here's a part of my heart dancing around outside my body. 

This is our little ballerina. She's never taken a dance lesson, but she's naturally talented.
One morning in September she dressed herself up like this and then let me do her hair (which she rarely does) and danced for us. It was adorable. I will share videos. They are a little long, but for those of you who love this girl like I do I know you won't mind!

 She was being so thoughtful and expressive I kept trying to capture it.

 This girl has some mad skills :)

 And she's just such a love. So lucky to be her mom!

Mike has some of the best job perks = mid day performances, and a short commute :)

Didn't think she could pull of dancing in those shoes, but she did it!


What can I say...She's cute. She's my kid. I love her.

Cream of Chicken and Rice Soup and Our Favorite Rolls

Got this recipe from a sweet friend in our old ward who made it for us last year when I was feeling really crummy. I made it this week hoping it would kick Mike and Sierra's colds to the curb. Sierra turned up her nose, but the rest of us enjoyed it with some homemade rolls. 

I've been thinking I should share more recipes because I am always looking for something fresh to make for dinner when we get bored of the same old things and I sure appreciate coming across good recipes from real people.

Cream of Chicken and Rice Soup 

Eralee Jordan

1 zucchini, 1 carrot grated

1 sweet Vidalia onion

2 cloves garlic

1 Tbsp olive oil or butter

4 c. chicken broth

4 c. milk

1 can cream of chicken soup

3 c. cooked rice

3 c. cooked chopped chicken (to make it really easy you can just cut up 2 Costco rotisserie chicken breasts)

1 Tbsp basil

pepper and salt to taste

Simmer 30 minutes.

My Favorite Roll Recipe while we're at it!

Roll Dough

Kris McKinney

Put in saucepan till butter melts:

1 c. milk

½ c. butter

¾ tsp. salt

½ c. sugar

Put in bowl, add:

3 eggs beaten

1 T yeast

1/3 c. water              

1 Tbsp. sugar

Flour to make soft dough (4 ¾ - 5 ¼ cups flour).

Bake 350° 15 minutes

Brush tops with butter while hot.

I made my rolls with rapid rise yeast this time to save time. Shape into dough ball and allow the first rise for only 10 minutes, form rolls and allow to rise 25 minutes more before baking. Turned out a little different taste and texture, but still yummy!

A Little Artsy

If you know me well you know I'm something of an artist. I've always loved to draw and create, but I haven't done much drawing or painting since I graduated from college. Honestly, I've never been all about drawing and painting, or sculpture either. There have been times in my school career where the only art I would do was what I was assigned, and I'd sometimes struggle to complete that. Pretty immature of me to pick Art as my major. (Doh!) It's always felt kind of wrong for me to say "I'm an artist." Silly, silly... but I wouldn't say I'm "crafty" either. That just makes me think of scrap-booking and painted wood decor knick-knacks with raffia and something hot glued.

I do love to create, but it doesn't matter to me if it's sewing, cooking, homemade cards, building something...I like to mix it up! But I do get a lot of satisfaction from making something I imagined into a reality. (My daughters are my best creation, but I can't take all the credit!) Since having kids I have made some things here and there, but honestly I spend most of my time attending to their needs and just keeping up with day to day responsibilities. Those wipe me out much of the time! I just can't stay up late like I used to anymore, and I face life so much better after a good night's sleep!

I've been looking forward for a long time to having our own place so I could have space to spread out and make stuff when I want to. Living with family I never felt right leaving a big project spread out in the main/shared part of the house, and there wasn't a lot of room in our packed little spaces to do a lot of things. Plus materials cost money which we've always tried to save...so projects were minimal. If I needed to spend a late night up sewing a costume in time for Halloween it was done sitting on the edge of our bed sewing machine propped on my lowered ironing board with Mike trying to sleep on the other side. What a patient guy! Not that he enjoyed it, but he put up with it :) This year's costumes I was able to sew out on the dining room table while Mike slumbered undisturbed in the other room - hopefully! So nice to have other rooms! I stayed up until about 4 am two nights in a row to get the costumes done in time for Lily to attend her new Dentist office's Halloween party that she was really set on going to. The house was such a disaster by the time I got them done I know it was driving both of us crazy, but Mike didn't complain once! And I didn't go all ballistic on the kids over stupid little stuff in my sleep deprived state...though it was close once! I was pretty proud of both of us over that.

Anyway, I finally put paintbrush to canvas this last month for the first time in like...(I'm thinking...) ...14 or so years!?  Craziness.  Mike is the painter, but I wanted some cheap art for my girl's bathroom to coordinate their cute whale shower curtain and the new towels I bought Lily & Sierra before it came in from online that totally didn't match it -- and I saw some blank canvases for cheap at Ross so I bought them and then I was committed. Bathroom art for kids is much less intimidating than a more fine art painting. I had a vision of what I wanted, got me some cheap acrylics and cheap brushes, got a little inspiration off the internet, planned out my 2 paintings in Photoshop and one night went to it. My first layer on both paintings looked ... really bad. I got a little discouraged, and the next night Mike took pity and agreed to take over one of my paintings for me. But I didn't want to totally release control of my vision... So then we were both up late listening to music and painting together for the first time since we were in art class together, and it was totally fun! Why have we not done this more? Oh, well, lots of reasons, but I'd definitely like to do it more now :) Well, Mike's turned out a little different than I had envisioned, but still super cute...though I think he would rather I not share his hand in it since it is totally not his style of art! Too late! I think the world will forgive him since it just shows what a devoted husband and dad he is. I was pretty happy with how mine turned out too! Much better than I anticipated after that first night! I'm glad I kept at it. Still need something else to fill the walls, but the paintings make it much cheerier in there for my girls who are sometimes afraid of going alone to the bathroom. The one room in my house with no windows had to be their bathroom! I so wish it had a skylight every time I walk by the door!

So the colors look better in person than in my photos, but what do you think?

Fun fact: I totally doubled the mermaid painting as a reminder for Mike as to which color towel belongs to which of our girls. --A big deal for Lily, and possible the main reason she even likes the painting...they never react how you'd expect them to... ;)

I'd like to do some more painting and projects soon, but right now I'm just hoping Mike and Sierra get over their current colds, and that I get over my most recent back strain! Hoping for a good night's sleep!