Like A Bandit

Borders is going out of business, which means huge clearance sales. We have one here in town and with everything 50-70% off, we made a point to make it over there this weekend.

Our main interest was looking for chapter books for Tyler, but I was also on the lookout for cookbooks, music, and fiction novels for myself. But when we went inside we were surprised to see the ENTIRE kids section cleaned out....I mean gone! You snooze you lose, right? No kidding, the kids section had been reduced to one single bookshelf. And yet, we were still able to find a few things.

Actually we found a lot of things...for Tyler, anyway.  We found an Ook and Gluk comic book, which is from the same author as his beloved Captain Underpants books. Also a few puzzle books and a couple of Stink-O-Pedias. But our biggest score came from the board game section. We found several games by ThinkFun, which is the best brand of games ever. We got the Railroad Rush Hour, Hoppers, and Chocolate Fix. We even found a great Brain Quest board game.

So yes, I think it's fair to say that he made out like a bandit.

Me...not so much. I didn't get anything. I guess I'm being too picky with my book selections because I really don't have the room. All of my bookshelves are bursting at the seams and I already have books spilling over to other areas of the house. I kind of need to purge my collection before I get anything new.

Hot Off The Stone

Last night was pizza night mostly because I wanted to try out my new pizza stone and a new crust recipe I found in my ATK Healthy Family Cookbook. So first things first, I turned the oven on to a raging 500 degrees to preheat the stone. And no, I don't think I could have picked a hotter day to put the oven on full blast.

But look at that! There's my new stone listed right in the cookbook as the Test Kitchen Favorite. Yay, I knew it was a good one!

Anyhow, I rolled the crust out to a perfect 14 inch round and then moved it over to a parchment lined baking sheet. Then I put on all the toppings and transferred the parchment and pizza to the hot stone in the oven (which isn't nearly as easy as it sounds...or maybe I just need more practice or maybe I should lose the giant BBQ gloves I had to keep from burning myself).

Hey, good lookin'.

So how did it taste? I thought it was great! The crust was noticeably crisper and using bread flour made it chewier on the inside...just as the cookbook said it would be. Yum! The turkey pepperoni did get a little more crunchy cooking at 500 degrees though, so maybe next time I'll try using *gasp* regular pepperoni.

Project Completed

52 weeks later and I'm proud to say I just finished my first year of project life.

 Yay!

I'm so glad I stuck with the process because this is basically all I have to document the last year. I have around 3 regular scrapbook layouts that I finished last November and that's it. I just focused on project life and put regular scrapbooking aside. But what I really loved about this format was the organization and the ease of it all. It just took a few minutes of journaling each day and that's it....besides taking pictures, of course.

Here is week 52. I just finished with the journaling this morning.

And now I have another kit ready and waiting, but I'm not sure if I want to start it now or wait until January.

In the meantime, Tyler will be working on a scrapbook of his own which was inspired by my project life.

He plans to scrapbook 1 picture of baby Kyle each month for his first year. He already has the newborn picture taken care of and now that Kyle is one month old he's ready for the next one.

Recipe Review

My goal last week when I was preparing the meal plan was to use up the flank steak and chicken breasts I had in the freezer and also to utilize some of the cooking magazines I have piling up. So these are the recipes I came up with:

From the August/September issue of Healthy Cooking I made the Broiled Parmesan Tilapia.

We're always looking for new ways to cook tilapia and this sounded great and it didn't call for anything fancier than your basic pantry staples. However, Tyler and I didn't care for it all that much. For me it had a strong taste of raw garlic or maybe I was too heavy-handed with the cheese. At any rate, the flavor of the topping was way too strong and overpowered the fish. I don't think we'll be making this one again.

Next, from an old Taste of Home Annual, I made Hearty Beef Enchiladas.

Mexican style food is huge in our house, especially tacos and enchiladas, so of course this was gobbled up without complaint. The filling is a mixture of ground beef, chili beans, salsa and enchilada sauce and while it was good, I think our regular chicken enchiladas are better.

From the September issue of Rachael Ray's magazine, I made Spicy Chicken with Spinach Orzo.

I thought this meal was just okay. I don't think I put in enough of the chili pepper because the spice didn't come through at all, but maybe it wasn't needed anyway. My biggest complaint was with the tomatoes. I thought the fresh flavor was nice, but I let them go too long while I was cooking the orzo and they ended up kind of mushy...not a good thing.

Finally I made Cheesesteak Pierogies.

Yum! This was my favorite meal of the week. Sliced flank steak mixed with peppers and onions and topped with pierogies and cheddar cheese. Simple and delicious!

Back to School

Tyler starts school next week so over the weekend we hit the mall and finished up most of the shopping. We took care of his supply list before Kyle was born so we wouldn't be rushed or scrambling at the last minute.

It was an extensive list though, and very brand specific. The kids are required to bring 48 sharpened Ticonderoga pencils, 12 Scotch 3M glue sticks, Fiskars scissors, Pink Pearl erasers, Expo Dry Erase markers and so on.

So with the supplies out of the way, we really just had to get a backpack and some new clothes.

We found a backpack that Tyler liked and several long sleeved shirts, so now all we need is maybe a new pair of shoes and some jeans. Good thing we have one more weekend left to shop!

Proper Credit

The other day I opened up a package from Amazon thinking that it was something that Rick had ordered and inside I found 3 cute little baby outfits. And I thought to myself, "Oh, he did order something", because I saw him browsing through the baby clothes on Amazon not too long ago. So I immediately picked out one of the outfits and put Kyle in it after his bath.

Perfect!

Then Rick comes home and tells me, "So your Mom sent some clothes for the baby...?".

Huh!? I guess I should have checked the receipt, because yes, they were from her.

Which makes it even stranger, because these are exactly what we needed. I was just telling Rick that we needed to get some pajama style clothes for the baby that had long sleeves and footies. We didn't buy anything like that ahead of time, because we thought, 'oh it'll be August so long sleeves and pants will be too hot'. But no, being inside an air conditioned house for most of the day, we're constantly wrapping the baby up in a blanket to keep him warm. So having clothes like this eliminates the need for the extra blanket and socks that just fall off anyway.

And the best part is that they were the newborn size, which is the only size Kyle fits into right now. Even the 0-3 month clothes are still too big for him. But hopefully that'll change soon. He's about 7 lbs now, putting him in the 9th percentile for his weight, but it's increasing all the time.

So how is it that mom's know exactly what you need without you even telling them? It's almost like they can read minds. P.S. Thanks Mom!

Cashing In

My birthday was a week ago, but I'm still reaping the benefits. This week I've been using all my coupons for free birthday ice cream and I also cashed in my lottery ticket.

That's right. Rick got me a lottery ticket for my birthday and I was a big winner. Well not a 'big' winner, but a winner nonetheless. It'd be easier to see my lucky numbers if Tyler hadn't come along and scratched the entire ticket clean, but hey.

And since the ticket was a birthday gift, I figured I'd put my winnings toward something on my wish list. So....

...with 1 penny left to spare, I bought two bundt pans. One is a traditional 12 cup bundt and the other is a smaller 6 cup bundt. So now I'm ready for any bundt recipe that comes my way. I can either make a full sized cake or half the recipe and make a cuter, smaller cake, which is more my style anyway. Speaking of which, now I can finally make that Rootbeer Bundt Cake I saw in the Food Network magazine a few months back.

But that'll have to wait until we're done eating ice cream.

Earlier in the week, we stopped at Baskin Robbins to pick up my free birthday scoop. Trying to go with something on the lighter side of the scale, I chose Tropical Ice, which is a blend of coconut, papaya and pineapple flavors. Tyler went with Picnic Punch, the flavor of the month.

And Kyle, he just slept through the whole thing.

Then yesterday we stopped at Dairy Queen to use my BOGO Blizzard coupon. No hesitation from me...I picked the new Nutter Butter flavor.

Wow! Blizzards aren't even my thing, but this was seriously the best flavor ever. Mmmmm. I ♥ peanut butter. I bought a medium as per the coupon stipulations, which is way more than I need, so I just took a few bites off the top and put the rest in the freezer for later.