Pintrest Success!

I found an delicious, easy, new recipe on pintrest yesterday. We all give it 2 thumbs up! The lady it is credited to doesn't even have a name for it other than "Cream Cheese Crockpot Chicken". It doesn't need a name. It's just yummy! And ridiculously easy. Only 5 ingredients: chicken (doesn't even have to be thawed), cream cheese, black or pinto beans (I only had kidney beans and it was still good), corn, and salsa or Rotel!

I used 4 frozen chicken breasts (the recipe calls for an entire bag)-just put them in whole on the bottom and when it's done, you can either leave them whole or shred them. Leftovers are supposedly great on tortillas. The recipe calls for a can of corn, drained, but I only had frozen. Works just as well. And the recipe calls for Rotel, but I only had salsa (lime & garlic to be exact) and it was still delicious. It is pretty soupy so I served it over rice. Supposedly it gets thicker once it sits without cooking for a while. I cooked mine on high for about 4.5 hours, but you can cook it on low for 6-8 hours so it's a great recipe to put in the crockpot after breakfast and you don't have to worry about supper the rest of the day!

Not a good picture at all, but trust me...it is tasty!

Pintrest Success!

 I love pintrest. I was just going through my boards tonight and I'd forgotten how many fun ideas for school/kids I had on there! Here's the one I did tonight. It took all of 30 minutes (most of that was waiting for the paint to dry).

The BORED JAR:

The best part of this project is that it was free--I had all the supplies on hand (and have had them for a long time!). The general idea is that if your kids say "I'm bored!" they can go to the bored jar and draw a "job"! BUT, the catch is that not all of the papers are jobs...some are fun things!

 I started with this jar/vase that I had from teaching. The pintrest jar decoupaged fabric onto their jar, but this one is too odd shaped and I didn't have any fabric I wanted to use on it.

 So I used black spray paint (that the previous homeowners left behind!).

 I got out some scrapbooking paper and wrote some chores (and fun things!) on slips of paper. A few examples: dust, go for ice cream, vacuum, help with laundry, bike ride, pick up toys, play a game with Mom, clean your room, play a Wii game, etc etc etc. The "fun" of the Bored Jar is that you never know whether you'll get a treat or a job! :)

Then I pulled out my bag of ribbons (I think I bought the bag at a consignment sale for $1 last year) and decorated. I'm not good at bows...oh well! :) I used puffy fabric paint to write "Bored Jar". I'm excited to show the kids in the morning. I've been telling Anna for a long time that if she complains of being bored, she has to do a job. This will help me follow through! Lucky for her!! ;)

The Cloffice

 Since the office area of the house was turned into a school room, with no room to be an office and school room, I was trying to figure out where we could put an office. Thanks to Pintrest, I discovered The Cloffice!! We have a closet by the back door that we didn't really need to use as a closet. We have a good-sized coat closet by the front door, plus a storage bench. So, I decided we should make a cloffice! I liked the white-I knew it would help to make the space feel bigger and not so closed-in. I had plenty of paint left over from our bedroom, so I just used that (it actually matches the hallway pretty closely).

 Aaron took out the shelf. It was nailed in! And since Mom & Dad showed up unexpectedly and Dad can't be here without him doing a project, he got to finish it :)

We had a bit of debate (Aaron & I) about what to do for the "desk" part. I wanted to just cut the shelf down and repaint it white, Aaron wanted to get a new piece of wood and stain it. My whole idea was to use what we had and not spend much to create this cloffice. Aaron just really likes the true stained wood look. Well...Dad and I went to the lumber yard to price wood and it was going to be $50 (not to mention it was 4' x 8'!). I convinced Aaron to let me go with the white re-purposed shelf and if he didn't like it, we would go with the stained wood. I keep telling him he should never doubt my decorating sense! ;) I won him over...again.

 Aaron went through all his totes of memorabilia and found more than enough to decorate his side of the cloffice! 

 I got the floating shelves and corner shelves at Lowes (with THE dumbest directions in the world for installation!!!!). Those were the most expensive part of the makeover (maybe $50 for all 5 of them?) I already had all the paint for the desk top and walls.

We used the filing cabinet we've had for years to help hold the desk up and for obvious storage purposes. I just got a $5 can of spray paint and made it white! I also bought some office organizer stuff for maybe $20. All in all, it was less than $100 to create an office out of a closet! We have another chair in storage (at Grandma J's!) to use. And I'll probably keep my eyes open for another wooden chair to replace the roller chair.

I LOVE my cloffice! It turned out so nice! Thanks Dad for doing this!!

Anna's room

We've got Anna's room DONE! It helps that 1) we didn't have to paint it and 2) she was organizing and putting away as soon as she had boxes in there! She is absolutely relishing having her own room. Most of the time, her door is SHUT :) There have been a couple nights that she's had trouble sleeping because she's "lonely" but for the most part, she's done fine sleeping. Sorry for the poor picture quality...our new computer should be here next week so I'll be able to empty my camera's card and start taking REAL pictures!

Just inside her door-Aunt Cara made this for her when she was born!

Yes, she has a queen bed. When we have overnight company, she has to give up her room and sleep in the bunk beds with Jacob again (until Isaac is out of a crib, then we'll put the boys together and use Isaac's room as a guest room). Curtains are next up on the list...she got a couple of fuzzy lime green ones, but they aren't enough to cover all the windows, so for now I have the blackout curtains up with the not-working shades.

Her very own bookshelf...or should I say toy shelf?? She organized all of this completely on her own.

Her clothes cubby/dresser is in her closet. Of course if there's an empty, flat surface she's going to "decorate" it! :)

I didn't realize I hadn't gotten a full picture of the words on the wall...they were already there! "All you need is a little faith, love, and pixie dust"

Mom found these decals for her. Perfect :)

Her closet door. We put their nice, wooden toy box at the foot of her bed.

"So everyone knows a Cowgirl lives here" :) And a little Kris Goertzen art "You are precious in God's eyes"

The school room is almost done and so is Jacob's. I need to get decor for the master suite and Isaac's room, then it's mostly just hanging what we've already got in the family room, living room, and kitchen! Whew!!! Oh, and we're turning one of the large hall closets into a closet office! :) We are absolutely loving all the space and OUR OWN ROOMS!!!

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi