Normal life = blogging funk

My life seems to have hit a very normal stride. It doesn't seem like there is much of interest going on, just the daily life of dishes, laundry, school, messes...etc. In a lot of ways this is a great thing but for blogging, well, it just makes for boring content. :(

As the kids were all telling knock, knock jokes the other day Josiah (2 yr) piped up with,

"Knock, Knock."

Who's there?

"Me."

Me who?

"Me."

While it may not seem that funny it sure made me laugh at it's simplicity, and the fact that he's cute.

Imagine something interesting is here.

I'm going to just jump right in and tell you that I'm a HUGE procrastinator. Sometimes this isn't such a big deal, but in other areas...well...it's just not good.

Yesterday my two year old was tugging at his ear and telling me it hurt so I knew he needed to be seen by a doctor. I was pretty sure that he would need antibiotics for an ear infection.

Since we would be going in anyway I decided to just ask for 2 appointments and have the baby seen also. This is where the procrastination shows...he hasn't been seen since he was 6 weeks old. He's 10 months.

I'd go into all the fun details of taking all seven of the kiddos to the doctor's office but instead I'll just say that next time....I'm bringing their dad...or muzzles and leashes. :)

It actually wasn't that bad, but it definitely wasn't up to my expectations either.

After having Noah weighed my suspicions that he's a bit tiny were confirmed. He weighs 16 lbs. Not even enough to be on their little graph/chart for his age. Two of my other kids were small like this too and are perfectly normal on the charts now, so I'm not really worried. I will be watching him closely though as the other two had huge growth spurts at about 12-14 months. His length and head circumference were about the 40 percentile, so his weight is the main concern.

Now I have a big to do list for the day that I need to get to!

A peek of springtime??

The weather has been sunny this past week or so and we have been outside as much as possible!! I think everyone around here needed it after a week of sickness that we had, especially me. So I'm posing a few random shots of our fun. :)

This pretty much sums up a lot of my life :)

Burritos

I didn't come into marriage with a great foundation for meal preparation. In other words, I really didn't know squat about cooking. Our meals were more reheating frozen or packaged food. I remember one day our neighbor brought over these yummy burritos, fresh and hot. I asked her about them and she said her husband makes them and he'd teach me if I wanted to learn. (they were a really sweet elderly couple, so please no thinking this is weird)



So a few weeks later I was invited over and got to watch him assemble these. I think the key was the process of crisping them in butter after they were all rolled up. It took a good burrito and made it great!



This recipe makes 35-40 large burritos. Plenty to feed a family and freeze a couple more meals worth.

Here's what you'll need:

1 beef roast 3-4 lbs
1 pork roast 3 lbs
2 lbs hamburger
40 burrito size tortillas
3 packets burrito seasoning (I use Lawry's)
1/2 small can diced jalepenos (can use more but my kids don't like them spicy)
1/2 medium onion diced
1 to 1-1/2 cups water
2 cans refried beans
grated cheddar cheese ( 6 cups? this depends on how much you want to use)

I cook the roasts in the crock pot overnight and then shred them. Brown the hamburger in skillet (you'll need a BIG one) and add onion & jalepeno towards the end. Drain off fat & add refried beans, water & Lawrys. Stir in the shredded roast meat and heat through. Warm tortillas, spoon in meat mix, top with cheese and roll up.

I brown mine on all sides in a cast iron frying pan w/butter to give them a nice crisp outside.

Then eat some & freeze some.

To use the frozen ones just put on a cookie sheet in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes.

These are good served with sour cream and salsa. :)

The kids and I usually make an assembly line. These don't take too long to whip up if you have a couple of helpers!

If you want to try out some other recipes head on over to Gayle's, she hosts a recipe swap every friday...Lots of good stuff there!

As they grow so must the pans

A couple of years ago I had a conversation with a mom of 4 grown boys. We were talking about cooking and how things change as the kids get older. She mentioned that her mother in law had taken to getting her a larger cooking pot each year for Christmas. I thought that was brilliant. So far I've gotten by with my normal size cookware and I LOVE my cast iron pans. I have two.

The first is this cute little one I use for frying eggs, it's the perfect size for it and it gets daily use.





The second is a 12 inch skillet that's great for frying (like the chicken fried chicken). Though I use it mainly for potatoes.


The last couple of times I've made potatoes (seasoned cubed potatoes or hashbrowns) I've filled this guy to the brim, so full that every time I stirred some fell out the side. At dinner the potatoes were the first thing to run out. So, I've been eyeing a bigger pan. I looked on Amazon and found this one but I just wasn't up to paying $69.99 for it.

Then last night we went out to the store looking for a couple of things, cookware wasn't even a thought I had. We're walking through the store and I ended up on the kitchen aisle, actually pricing muffin pans (mine need replacing). What I found though was this guy:



A giant 17 inch cast iron skillet....exactly like I wanted! Anticipating a large price sticker, I looked down and saw $36.99, I was excited!!

But wait, I stood up and saw another sign saying they were on sale... the final price $27.99!

I bought it.

Now I can't wait to see how many potaotes I can cram in that puppy :)