Update on my grandpa:
I made an emergency visit to Oklahoma on Saturday. Easton did so well on the flight! He's a regular pro at the whole flying thing. We went straight to the hospital once we got into town. I'm so glad we got there in time to say goodbye to my Pawpaw. He passed away this morning, just a few minutes after being taken off the ventilator. We are going to miss him so much! He was such a good, sweet, kind man and we are all blessed for having known him.

"How Beautiful Heaven Must Be"
We read of a place that's called heaven it's made for the pure and the free
These truethen God's words he had given how beautiful heaven must be
How beautiful heaven must be sweet home of the happy and free
There heaven of rest for the weary how beautiful heaven must be

In heaven no drooping nor pining no wishing for elsewhere to be
God's light it's forever there shining how beautiful heaven must be
How beautiful heaven must be...

The angels so sweetly are singing up there by a beautiful sea
Sweet chords from their gold harps are ringing how beautiful heaven must be
How beautiful heaven must be...

I bet he's up there in heaven cracking jokes and cooking up a big batch of peanut butter fudge for all his new friends.

Pawpaw, we will miss you! Thank you for taking such good care of all of us and for loving us just like we were your own.

The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 1 Peter 5:10

I love Netflix! Now Jason and I can watch all those TV shows we should have watched but didn't. And the best part is: no commercials and no waiting until next week to see what happens.
Shows we've got in our Netflix queue:
Grey's Anatomy
Alias
Northern Exposure
Roots
E.R.
Friends
Ally McBeal - why do they not have all of these episodes on dvd? Only 6 episodes available on Netflix but I LOVED that crazy show!

We're gonna be some tv watching people around here for a while! We now have 131 discs in our queue and only 12 of them are movies. But it's fun to watch all those shows we missed out on and a good way to relax at the end of the day.

I made it through my first week of online classes with no problem. Man, it is hard to get back in the swing of things with homework! I could not concentrate at all on my assignment as I was reading it. I'm struggling with a difficult decision I have to make. My grandpa is really sick and I'm trying to decide if I should make a trip out to OK to see him. On one hand, I feel I need to see him to be able to tell him myself just how much he means to us and how much we love him. On the other hand, we really cannot afford a plane ticket and I am totally dreading travelling with Easton. Not so much the flight part but the being away from home and off his routine. These days, even just running errands in town messes his schedule up for at least a day or two. But if I don't go, will I be able to not feel guilty? So you can see why concentrating on theories of adult development might have been a little tough. I just keep praying and waiting to see how he's doing. But I'm afraid if I wait too long, I'll miss my chance. I love you, PawPaw!

One of Easton's favorite things to do is to blow raspberries. You know, stick out your tongue and go "tttthhhhppppbbbb". (Nice sound-effect, huh?) Anyway, I guess maybe we shouldn't have encouraged it because now he has started doing it with a mouthful of food. GROSS! After lunch today, I ended up covered in strained peas. Anybody know how to make him quit? Saying NO does not work. I think we're fighting a losing battle. He loves it!

We are a recycling family. We do our best to recycle whatever we can and today, my WFMW tip shows one way to recycle used milk jugs. Shortly before Easton was born, we planted a dogwood tree in the front yard. Everything else in our yard is looking great but that tree looks so sad! Well, OK...our grass looks sad in this picture too but one thing at a time here.

We decided it wasn't getting enough water and that it needed a good, slow, soaking instead of just a spray from the garden hose. Instead of buying a soaker hose, I filled up 3 gallon milk jugs with water and carried them outside to the tree. I poked 2 holes in the bottom of each jug with a sharp knife and sat them on the ground around the base of the tree.

Now, I don't have to worry about turning on the water and forgetting to turn it off, my poor little tree gets a drink and 3 milk jugs have a new purpose. That works for me! Keep your fingers crossed that this poor little tree makes it. It may be too little too late.

And by the way, can anybody tell me what this is? I planted it two years ago and can't find the card that came with it. I have no idea what it is but I love it! We need to buy some more but I don't know what to look for. Can anyone help me?

5 Homemade Cleaner Recipes

Ingredients:
Baking Soda
Distilled White Vinegar
Castile Soap (or any other olive oil or vegetable oil-based soap)

1. Soft Scrub
Add enough soap to 1/8 cup baking soda to make a creamy mixture. Apply with sponge to clean; rinse the surface well. Use and discard.

2. Appliance Cleaner
Dry baking soda shines up small appliances and even removes bread wrappers burned onto the toaster. Try rubbing a teaspoon onto a grubby blender or food processor with a clean flannel cloth.

3. Toilet Cleaner/Deoderizer
Sprinkle toilet bowl with 1/4 cup baking soda. Drizzle with 1/4 cup vinegar, then scour with a toilet brush.

4. Oven Cleaner
Sprinkle oven with 1/2 cup baking soda (more if needed) and spray with water. Let sit for several hours or overnight before scraping up stains and spills. Rinse thoroughly with water.

5. Hardwood Floor Cleaner
In a pail or bucket, mix 1/4 cup vinegar in one gallon warm water. Mop wood or linoleum floors, then rinse with water, making sure not to leave large pools to dry.

Recipes from Green Clean, by Linda Masin Hunter and Mikki Halpin. Reprinted from August 2007 Better Homes and Gardens Indoors section p 90.

Crafty Lil Devil's Easy Chicken Pot Pie

1pkg premade pie crust (we like Pillsbury or store brand)
2 cans chicken breast
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 can carrots
1/2 can corn
1/2 can peas
1/2 can green beans
1 can diced potatoes
1 Tbsp minced onion (or more to taste)
lots of black pepper
1/2 tsp poultry seasonig (or more)

Preheat oven to 425. Unroll one pie crust and place in pie pan. In a large bowl, combine all other ingredients and mix well. Spoon filling into pie crust and top with 2nd pie crust. Pinch edges and pierce with fork a few times to let steam escape. Bake for 20-30 mins or until golden brown and heated through.
**Note**I put the leftover veggies in a plastic container in my freezer and use them the next time I make stew. Or I've even defrosted and used them to make pot pie at a later date. Once it's baked with the cream soups, you can't tell they've ever been frozen.

No, my little devil-girl header isn't gone for good. I thought it was time for a change for a bit. She'll be back some day when I get tired of the dots. Don't expect this layout to stay the same very long. I'm so tired of the same old look but couldn't figure out how to keep the old header (devil-girl) and still have all the other things I want on my page. Expect things to be a little wonky looking around here for a bit. Boy, if I only knew someone who could give my blog a makeover for free???!!! I've spent hours on this silly thing and still don't have it the way I want. I want tabs at the top so I can add a recipes page, an about page, a books I'm reading page, a printables page (where I'll have lots of goodies for you to be able to print...labels for recycling, the coupon stacker and organizer images, etc). Keep your fingers crossed. I'll keep working on it but MAN, it is frustrating! Can anybody help me out?

Still having trouble getting Blogger to recognize my template with the changes I've made. I'm thinking seriously about switching to WordPress. Will be sure to let you know when/if I change but for now I'll still be blogging here. This template thing is about to drive me crazy though. If I can get WordPress to work more easily, I'm switching! Stay tuned.

What a beautiful day we're having today! Easton and I are on the deck now (I'm writing this post from my laptop-Yay!). He's in the wading pool just having a good old time splashing and talking to his toys. I'm in a lawnchair with my feet in the pool. I've got my shades on, my glass of sweet tea and my laptop on the table beside me. I don't think it could get much better than this! We just had a big "art project" here at the Crafty house. Easton fingerpainted for the first time! He was much more into tearing up the paper than actual painting though. But I did manage to salvage the page before he ripped it up entirely. Now it has some very lovely "distressed" edges. :) I already had his sunblock and swim diaper on before we started the painting project so all I had to do was wipe him off a bit and then plunk him down into the pool to wash off. I am so blessed to be able to stay home with him and have beautiful days like this!
I'll try to post pics of the painting project when we get inside and get dried off. Or it may have to wait until tomorrow when I have more time. In the meantime though, I'm gonna go swimmin' with my sweetie boy!

I am really getting into this coupon thing. I saved $72.33 by shopping at CVS today. Everything I bought was on sale or I had a coupon or CVS extra care bucks. I've been reading blogs like Money Saving Momhttp://www.moneysavingmom.com/ and The Centsible Sawyer http://thecentsiblesawyer.blogspot.com/ and learning how these ladies shop at CVS and play the "CVS game". They spend relatively little there and make huge $$$ with extra bucks. I've been shopping at CVS for quite some time but usually let my extra bucks expire because I only went there very infrequently. Last month, I made a list and bought most of my stuff at CVS and with the sale prices combined with manufacturer's coupons, I actually made money shopping there. Well, ok not actual dollars but extra bucks that are redeemable for almost anything in the store. Now the hardcore CVSers just keep rolling those extra bucks over and buying more stuff each week but I like to use the extra bucks to buy milk or bread or treat myself to new makeup or Easton a toy or whatever when funds are low at the end of the month. It's like getting it for free! Today I went to two CVS stores and used up every single extra buck I had. But I found some majorly good deals! The first store I went to didn't have anything good on clearance really so I went to another CVS that I knew was pretty much almost always a jackpot for finding good stuff on clearance. And sure enough, I wasn't disappointed! Right when I walked in the door, I saw a cart full of stuff marked "Clearance! 90% off!" I dug around in the bottom of the cart and found some really pretty tinted lip balm that regularly retails for $7.99 on sale for $0.79! I stocked up and bought all they had. Here's what I got:

• five new lip balm shades for less than $5!
• some eye shadow on sale for $0.35
• some L'Oreal Visable Lift makeup for $1.29
• a Cookie Monster doll for Easton for $1.75

And that's just the stuff that was on clearance! All the other stuff ended up being on sale or I had coupons for. I also got

• a remote controlled car on sale for $5.49
• 2 bottles of nail polish that were $0.99 each which I had a coupon for that meant these were FREE
• a box of Lipton green tea that was on sale for $0.69
• Crayola fingerpaints for E for $5.49 (not on sale but with all the other steals I found, it didn't bother me too much.
• a bar of Johnson's Buddies Soap for $0.99 but free after $1.00 off coupon
• a gallon of milk
• a loaf of bread
• a newspaper
• two CVS magazines full of coupons

All of this only cost me $3.71 out of pocket after extra bucks, sales and coupons.

Pretty nice, don't you think? Jason couldn't believe it. I told him he shouldn't complain about me shopping if I get all this stuff for so little money. He laughed and said "I guess you're right." What was that honey? Can ya say that again for me? :)

Oh my stinkin' heck! (I found a website of that same name over at http://www.ohmystinkinheck.com and hopefully they don't mind that I'm borrowing that phrase. It's much better than some of the others I'm thinking of right now!)

I'm trying to make some changes to my template. Ya'll know what happened LAST time I tried that...I lost my pretty little devil-girl template! I'm a little leery of trying again but there are a few changes I'd like to make here so I will save and double-save and keep my fingers crossed that all goes well. I know absolutely NO html so I'm learning along the way. Half the time I don't even know if I'm using the right phrases, I just keep using the preview function and copying and pasting and editing until it looks like I want. It is a long, slow process but keep checking back and maybe some time my Crafty Lil Devil site will lhave an update. IF and only if I can ever figure out what the heck I'm doing! I love learning new things but this is taking FOREVER! But man, once I figure this out, I'll be able to change it whenever I want and add new things. It will be cool. I hope.

Easton,
OK, now I told myself I would not be upset when you said "Dada" first as almost all babies do. But you say "Mmmm" when you're eating, and that's not too far away from "Mama". Come on, little man! I know you can do it! Ok, OK, I know you'll do it when you're ready. Just letting you know...I'm ready any time you are!
Love,
Mama

I'm not generally an email forward-er but one of my friends sent this to me and I really liked it so I thought I'd share. (Thanks, Mandy!)

To: YOU
Date: TODAY
From: GOD
Subject: YOURSELF
Reference: LIFE

This is God. Today I will be handling all of your problems for you. I do not need your help. So, have a nice day. I love you.

P.S. And, remember... If life happens to deliver a situation to you that you cannot handle, do NOT attempt to resolve it yourself! Kindly put it in the SFGTD (something for God to do) box. I will get to it in MY TIME. All situations will be resolved, but in My time, not yours. Once the matter is placed into the box, do not hold onto it by worrying about it. Instead, focus on all the wonderful things that are present in your life now.

Today, Easton and I were playing basketball and I was trying to teach him the word "ball". Since his favorite "word" to say is "buh", I thought this would be an easy one for him. Boy, did it prove to be an interesting lesson for us both!

Overheard in our living room today:

Me: "Ball. Easton, this is an orange ball. A basketball. Can you say BALL?"

E: "Buh."

Me: "Yay! Yes, that's right. Ball. See, here's another ball. This one is yellow and purple and has a bell inside. Ball."

E. "Buh."

Easton waits a few seconds, looks over at me, grabs my boob and says "Buh."

Not quite son! Boy, they start early don't they?! By the way...in addition to "buh", Easton said "Dada" last night for Jason. Pretty cool. You should have seen the look on Jason's face. It was priceless. He was so proud!

Things I am thankful for...

• Beautiful weather! Easton and I played out in the pool today and then after he went down for a nap, I brought my book and the baby monitor out and had a nice peaceful time reading and listening to the birds sing.
• Crystal Light Lemonade
• Finally feeling rested. The past few nights I have just not been able to sleep well. I've been going to bed at 1 or 2 am and then getting up at 7:30 which does NOT work for me! I've always been an "I need 8-10 hours of sleep" kind of girl so when I get less than that, you know I'm headed for a crash. Last night I could not keep my eyes open past 7:30. I actually went to bed at 7:30! I woke up at 10 when Jason came to bed and knew I could not go back to sleep. I got up and read some blogs until my normal 1am bedtime and then finally went to bed. But I woke up this morning with lots of energy and I got my house cleaned up, my laundry done and still had plenty of time to relax with my sweetie boy in the pool.
• Popcorn
• My perfume (birthday gift from Jason) arrived in the mail today. Pure Grace. It smells deliciously like soap and water. Clean and fresh and I just love it. I knew about it but when it came by UPS today, it still made my day.
• Baby Magic body wash. I love the way it makes Easton smell after a bath.
• Anybody reading this blog. Thanks! :)

Through searching the great tips over at http://rocksinmydryer.typepad.com/, I found my way to Daiquiri's site. What I found there (besides a great tip about those Debbie Meyer's Green Bags) was a site full of goodness. One of my favorite finds there was her Seek the Lord Sunday posts, which I cannot wait to read the rest of! I spent quite a bit of time happily reading her previous posts and thoroughly enjoying every minute of it. But when I got to one post, I knew I had to share about it on my blog. Go over and read Daiquiri's beautifully written and touching story about her very own loaves and fishes miracle. I was moved and blessed beyond words reading her post. It was a much needed reminder about just how good God is and how we should just stop stressing out over everything and just listen to Him. Thanks, Daiquiri for allowing me to blog about this and for sharing this story on your blog for us all to read. Beautiful!
http://www.calledblessed.com/2008/06/my-very-own-loaves-fishes-miracle.html
Wish I had your way with words! My description of this story just does not do it justice!

So much to do! Where do I even start? I've decided to go through my many cookbooks and combine all of my cookbooks and recipes to make one cookbook with all our favorite recipes. I have all of these recipes and really only use a couple out of each of these books. (If you've given me any of these cookbooks...Thank you! But I've really got to consolidate!) Oh boy! This means I have to flip through every magazine, cookbook, or cut out recipe I've saved. And I have a TON!
There's these:





And these:





And also these:




Normally, they're all hidden out of sight under my baker's rack until I need a recipe. Then I have to try to remember which book it's in, shuffle through all of these until I find that book, flip through the pages until I find it and then I can make the recipe. That takes forever!


Plus, THIS is my to-do pile. The plastic container is where I put coupons to file, stuff to put in file cabinet, wedding announcements I've saved to remind me to buy wedding gifts, a magazine with an article I wanted to save. Just a bunch of miscelaneous stuff that I need to do.

Like I said, where do I start? I guess I'll just try to do 1 or 2 maybe even 3 small things a day until I'm done. At that rate though, I just might be done by Christmas. :) But boy, won't it be nice to have all my recipes in one big fat book?!

All of this to do plus laundry, dishes and getting my scrapbook stuff organized so I can finally go to my friend's and scrapbook. Whew! I'd better get busy!

***Update***Easton took a long nap so I was able to get through 20 (yes, TWENTY!) of my cookbooks and copy my favorites and put them into my "favorites" binder. YAY! That's a good start! Too bad I still have about 3 or 4 times that many recipes to look through! Now the question remains...what am I going to do with all those cookbooks after I've gotten all of my favorite recipes out of them? Any ideas???

Hmmm...I could give them away to people who comment on this blog. Leave me a comment if you want a free gently used cookbook.

OK, technically where I live it's still Tuesday but barely. At least I didn't forget to do this for this week! :)



I've really gotten into using coupons lately. With prices of gas, groceries and really everything else rising every day, it just makes sense to save every dollar you can. Tired of rifling though a bulging coupon-filled envelope (and praying not to drop it!), I made myself a coupon organizer folder and a coupon sorting mat.

For the coupon sorting mat:
First, I made a list of all the types of things we buy. My list has categories for
Baby, baking needs, beverages, canned goods, cereal, cleaning supplies,condiments, dairy, deli, frozen foods, household supplies, meat and poultry, organic and bulk items, pasta and sauces, personal hygiene, pet supplies, produce, restaurant coupons and store coupons.

Next, I used Microsoft Word to create a list of these items and included small graphics for each category. I also printed a Mom's Coupons title with a cute little flower graphic I like and a return address info block with my name, address and phone number in case I misplace the folder. I printed these out and cut them apart.

Finally, I laminated them using clear contact paper. I should have spaced them out a little more to leave more room for the bigger coupons but here's a couple pictures of the finished product.



For the coupon folder:
I used a folder I had lying around and added some trading card pocket sheets. (I think I got mine at Walmart). I used tabs to label the edges so I can flip right to the section of coupons I need. I'll probably get some more durable tabs but this was all I had on hand at the moment. Last, I printed a second copy of the Mom's Coupons label and return address info and added them. Here's what it looks like:



Last month, I saved at least $100 using coupons and shopping the ads. It was a lot of work, but well worth it! Now let's hope when cashiers see me they don't say "Oh no, here comes that crazy coupon lady!" Or maybe that would be a good thing?

Itchy, itchy
Scratchy, scratchy
Ooh I've got one down my back-y
Beat that big bad bug with the bug spray!
SSSSHHHHH!!!!!

I'm sure there are more words to this silly little song I remember from grade school but that's all I know now. Mrs. Smith had a million funny little songs like this that I loved when I was in her music class. Boy, I'd love to have a copy of her songbook! That would come in so handy in my resource file for teaching!

Anyway, I digress. Why I posted that song is Jason and I are COVERED with mosquito bites! And when I say covered I mean they are EVERYWHERE! I think I counted 21 on myself last night. And one or two or even three or four I can totally handle. But 21 makes you feel like your whole body is one big itchy mosquito bite! I'm ok during the day but I wake myself up scratching. We've gone through almost an entire bottle of itch relief spray between the two of us. Thankfully Easton doesn't even have a single bite. We've been outside a lot lately and have no idea where all these bug bites came from but you can be sure we'll be carrying around the OFF! spray! YUCK!

We had a great 4th of July. We did pretty much what I thought we would do. We stayed home and watched the neighborhood fireworks from our deck. We made burgers and roasted potatoes for dinner and ate smores for dessert. It was a fun night. It was a nice night, so we had all the windows open. I think Easton must have known it was a special night because he didn't want to go to sleep. Normally, we would have just kept trying until he nodded off but since we were out there on the deck having fun we decided to make an exception just this once and let him watch a few minutes of fireworks. Sure enough after about 20 minutes he was rubbing his eyes and yawning so we put him back to bed and he went to sleep without another peep. He LOVED the fireworks! We were far enough away from them so that it wasn't loud but close enough to really see them well. It was a fun night.

Fast forward to yesterday. My birthday. It started out just like any other day. I went to run some errands and go to the library. While I was at the library looking for a certain book, I came across one called "It's my F#$*ing Birthday". I cracked up at the title but didn't check it out. After our errands, I came home and fed Easton and put him down for a nap and then read a few blogs and caught up on my emails. Thank you to everyone who called, emailed or a comment to say Happy Birthday!

When Jason came home from work, he brought dinner. Steamed Chesapeake Bay crabs! He also brought wine and a really yummy chocolate-peanut butter cake. We had a great dinner. Easton was taking a late nap while we ate, so it was a pretty relaxing, fun dinner. Just a note though...if you are easily grossed out or the least bit squeamish DON'T get whole crabs! I'd much rather just eat crab legs! At least that way you don't have to look at the whole crab and tear it apart piece by piece. Let me say though that they were delicious! Once I got over the yuck factor, dinner was REALLY good! And the cake was great! Who knew peanut butter flavored icing was so delicious? Then again, how could it not be...it's peanut butter!

After dinner, Jason and Easton brought me some gifts. I got a really sweet card that Jason and Easton both signed. Jason put Easton's hand on the pen when he signed his name. It is too cute! I also got 3 cds I've been wanting and some Amazing Grace perfume and body wash. It was a really nice night.

Tonight, I'm going over to my friend's to scrapbook. Easton's coming with me so I might not get too much scrapping done but it will be fun anyway. Jason's going out to dinner w/a vendor from work so we'll all be busy.

Oh yeah! And what did I decide to do for myself to celebrate turning the big 3-0? I enrolled in Ashford University's online bachelor's program. I start classes
July 15th and once I take that first class, then I'll find out how many of my credits from previous schools will transfer. It sounds like they're pretty liberal about transferring credits so I should be more than half way to my degree. Finally! And with an online school, I can do it anywhere so I won't be interrupted when/if we move again. Like I said recently, no moving plans that we know of but you never know.Hmmm...now if I could just get a new computer to do homework on. This one I'm on is constantly locking up despite everything we've done to clean it up. We'd better start saving for a new one.

Anyway, wish me luck! Going to school and doing homework again should be interesting with the little man around. But it feels good to finally be working (again) toward the degree I've wanted for so long. The actual degree from Ashford is a Bachelor's of Arts in Social Science with a concentration in Early Childhood Education. Finally! And the good news is I think all those classes I did working toward my CDA will transfer and count as college credit. YAY!

4th of July tomorrow already?! We are still trying to decide what to do tomorrow. J's off work and of course it will be E's first 4th so we want to do something fun. One day I would really like to go to D.C. to see the big fireworks extravaganza that I used to watch on tv when I was little but I don't think we'll be doing that this year. I'm interested to see how E will react to the fireworks. It will be past his bedtime so we might just stay home and let him sleep and watch the fireworks in our neighborhood from our porch. But I kinda wanted to do something a little more FUN! Well, not that staying at home and hanging out w/my honey wouldn't be fun but you know what I mean.

I really miss our big family get-togethers we used to have for the 4th of July. It was always an especially fun time for me when I was little because my birthday is the 7th and I could kinda pretend all the fuss and fireworks were for my birthday. I know, I know...I was a self-centered little cuss when I was younger but hey, wouldn't you like to pretend the same? I mean I got to have cake and presents, homemade ice cream and sweet, cold watermelon AND fireworks! YAY! :)

When we went to D.C. the last time, we were privileged enough to be able to see the original "Star-Spangled Banner" while they were working to restore it. It was so amazing to be in the presence of such an important part of our nation's history that it gave me goosebumps and brought tears to my eyes. Very, very cool.

Click here for more info about the flag


What are you doing for the 4th? (Or what did you do if you're reading this after the big day?)

We might just stay home after all. Cook out burgers on the grill, have lemonade and roast marshmallows over the grill for s'mores. Sounds pretty yummy to me! Anybody want to come over? It's just gonna be the three of us here...there's plenty of room around the grill for you to roast your marshmallows just the way you like 'em!

Happy Birthday, America!

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I was about to feed E today when I realized I didn't have a bib. I put down his yogurt/banana/cereal mixture I had just made and went to his room to get a bib. While I was back there, I thought to myself "Hmmm...did I just put that bowl..." SPLAT! I ran back into the dining room and sure enough...I put the bowl on the highchair tray and E decided he wanted to feed himself. He grabbed the spoon and knocked the bowl in the floor. All over our tan carpet. Now I want to know which genius decided that carpet is a good idea in a dining room. And I cannot believe I made that rookie mistake and left that bowl within arm's reach. Now it looks like I'll be having a hot date with the steam-vac so my house doesn't end up smelling like yogurt. GROSS! And I used to work at a daycare; you'd think I'd know better. HA! We'll just blame it on the fact that I hadn't had my morning pot cup of coffee. YUCK! Carpet, banana yogurt, and an independent boy do not mix. But on the bright side...at least he wants to feed himself! YAY! He'll get the hang of it eventually. But for now we all need a bath and so does the carpet. Think I'll invest in a mess mat to put under his highchair. Who knew yogurt could fly so far!

Is it really true that I'm going to be 30 in 5 days? Nope. Not me. I think I'll just stay 29 for the next 10 years. Then I'll go straight to 39 for 10 years.

Well, OK actually I'm not all that weirded out about turning 30. But I do feel like I should do something big to celebrate. Something really big. Something life-changing big. But the question is WHAT? I've already got a tattoo so I've kinda been there and done that. I'm not getting anything pierced, so that's out. I don't have much money so that limits what I can do. Probably no sky-diving trips (I'd probably wet my pants on the way down anyway. Ew gross!) Any ideas?

Well, I missed doing this last week but I am REALLY looking forward to sharing my 5 ingredients or less recipes for this week's WFMW post. Here ya go!

Chicken Taco Filling (my favorite go-to meal)
1 Packet Taco Seasoning
1 Cup Chicken Broth
1 Pound Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts(frozen)

Spray crockpot with non-stick spray. Dissolve taco seasoning into chicken broth. Place frozen chicken breasts in crockpot and pour chicken broth on top. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours. With 2 forks, shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces. Use in soft tacos, hard tacos, burritos, tostadas, taco salads, nachos, etc. To freeze, place shredded meat into freezer bags with juices. Press out all air and seal. I usually double this recipe so I have extra to freeze. YUM!

Cheese Tortellini in Light Broth
8 cups low-salt chicken broth
Freshly ground black pepper
2 (9-ounce) packages refrigerated cheese tortellini
2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves

Pour the broth into a heavy large saucepan. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat. Season the broth with pepper, to taste. Add the tortellini. Simmer over medium heat until al dente, about 7 minutes. Ladle the broth and tortellini into soup bowls. Top with parsley and Parmesan crisps and serve.

Parmesan Crisps: 1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Pour a heaping tablespoon of Parmesan onto a silicone or parchment lined baking sheet and lightly pat down. A silicone baking sheet is highly recommended. Repeat with the remaining cheese, spacing the spoonfuls about a 1/2 inch apart.
Bake for 3 to 5 minutes or until golden and crisp. Cool.
Yield: 8 to 10 crisps

And for dessert:

Frozen Peanut Butter Cups
1 (8 oz.) Container Fat Free Cool Whip
1/3 Cup Reduced Fat Creamy Peanut Butter
1/4 Cup Hershey's Light Chocolate Syrup

Line a 12 cupcake pan with foil liners. Combine 1 Cup of cool whip with the peanut butter with a whisk. Fold in remaining cool whip. Divide the mixture into the liners evenly (approx. 2 1/2 tablespoons each). Top each cup with 1 teaspoon of chocolate syrup. Freeze. After frozen, remove from pan and place in a freezer bag or container. These are best eaten with a spoon.
Serves: 12