middle of the week

today was cold, cloudy and wet - we had both rain and snow.
and i'm not sure if it was the weather,
usually i LOVE this kind of a day,
or what - but i just felt - BLAH!
nothing seemed to come together very well.
and my productivity from monday and tuesday came to a dead stop.

so in an attempt to comfort myself this evening i made one of my most favorite chocolate treats.

hot fudge pudding cake

warm, yummy, chocolate comfort - even better with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
this is super easy to make - and requires only a handful of ingredients.

and i shouldn't forget to mention that i did have a very fun surprise last night-
i won a giveaway!
on one of my favorite blogs take heart!
it was for six patterns from this wonderful etsy shop.
and i'm super excited!!!

i hope to expand my sewing into quilting and fell in love with these fun and modern designs.
i figure i'll have lots of free time on my hands this winter...
right? just me, an active three year old and a new baby in the house all day.  :)
joking aside - i do hope to dust off the sewing machine,
and find time for some fabric and thread over the cold months.
we'll see how it falls together...

for now i'm off to get a bowl of chocolate pudding cake with ice cream, put my feet up
and watch a little tv.
good night.

jellybeans for breakfast

did you ever read that book?
i remember it from my younger days, but it must be out of print now because i can't afford it on amazon!
so why are we having jellybeans for breakfast?
well ben loves them - and they are a good reward for using the potty.  :)
something we've been struggling with, but seem to be making good progress.

pumpkin muffin recipe from marigold road

i had many things i wanted to post about, but this week has FLOWN by.
so some of the highlights...

some new success with the potty for ben!

new furniture delivered

some cleaning and organizing done

baby clothing washed and put away

started putting some food in the freezer

hope to be back with more this weekend.

loving the fall!

 

honey-baked chicken & family photos

That's what I made for dinner tonight.

  

It's super easy, budget-friendly, and tasty.  

Which makes it perfect for this time of year! 

Honey-Baked Chicken
from More-with-Less Cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre (Excellent cookbook!)

Preheat oven to 350
Arrange in shallow baking pan, skin-side up:
1 - 3lb fryer, cut up (I usually just use thighs and drumstick I've caught on sale - like tonight.)
Combine and pour over
1/3 c margarine or butter, melted (I use butter)
1/3 c honey
2 T prepared mustard
1 tsp salt
1 tsp curry powder
Bake 11/4 hour, basting every 15 minutes, until chicken is tender and nicely browned.  Good served with rice
Serves 6

 Ingredients

Chicken coated with combined ingredients

The final product

See!  It's so easy I only needed to show you three pictures.  (Maybe a couple more, but I forgot to take a picture each time I was basting.)  But you get the idea - it really is simple and delicious.  Ben ate the chicken off two of the drumsticks himself.  And I don't personally eat the skin, but the chicken itself is still full of flavor.  Enjoy!

Along with making a yummy dinner, 

I also managed to update some of our photos today.

Love our new pictures from Unruh Photography! 

The LOVE and family are from Back40Life.

This seemed to be the perfect place our nativity this year.

colossal cookies

These are so good!

Especially when your Mom makes them,

and brings you several dozen of them frozen and ready-to-bake.

But if your mom is not around to bring you some frozen ones, you can still enjoy them.

Here's the recipe...

(you may want to 1/2 it - or not)

Enjoy!

the library & apple dumplings

Recently Jake was home from work during the week and I was able to escape to the library by myself during nap time.  This may not sound exciting to you, but I was thrilled.  I LOVE the library! In fact, I'm there every week on Tuesdays - for Toddler Story Time.  And even though I really enjoy sharing story time with Ben, it doesn't really give me time to go browsing through books for myself.

  I think I spent about 30 minutes just wandering and looking.  I found myself looking at books about everything from sewing to making skin care products at home.  It was great!  I eventually found myself with a pile of cookbooks and a couple of novels.  Did I mention I also love the library because it's FREE???  This causes me to checkout a large amount of books because I know that even if I don't finish them I can always recheck them, and if I don't like them I just return them.  Perfect - no hassle, no risk, and great for someone who can tend to be indecisive.

Little did I know this cookbook from my recent library visit

would be a common topic over the weekend.

It was pretty surprising when Jake's cousin and aunt brought this dessert to lunch at Grandma's house on Sunday.  It was delicious!  We also talked about the cookbook and The Pioneer Woman.  It was fun!  The Apple Dumpling Recipe is not in the book, but you can find it on The Pioneer Woman.  I have started reading through the book and it looks like all the recipes will be just as tasty.  Hope to try one of them soon!