Mama's Little Loves

Monkey Bread

If you are looking for a gooey, yummy breakfast for special occasions, here is a great recipe! Ambry even helps with it. It is pretty sweet, so I will usually cook up some kind of sausage or something for protein.

Ingredients:
*1 cup sugar
*3 tsp cinnamon
*4 cans (you can get away with 3) of Pillsbury biscuits, each biscuit cut into fourths. (I have even used crescentrolls before.)
*3/4 cup melted butter
*1tsp vanilla

Mix the sugar and cinnamon together. I use a regular cereal bowl. Dip the bread into the cinnamon. Put into ungreased pan. I use a bundt pan. It tends to not burn and will cook everything nice and even. Once all the bread has been dipped and put into the bundt pan, take the remaing sugar/cinnamon mixture and add the melted butter and vanilla. Stir together and pour over the bread. Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes. It sometimes takes a little longer/shorter. I will generally watch it and once you can pull off the top "layer" of rolls and it isn't gooey underneath anymore, then it is done. This is almost foolproof. My daughter LOVES this for breakfast! She gets to help by putting the bread into the sugar bowl, so it is even something your little ones can help with. :)

Labels: recipes

Labels: Ambry pics, stuff

It all started out innocently enough...

Kasey and Rosie came over to our house a little while back and I had bought them each a baseball bobble-head figure and a piggy bank to paint. I don't know what I was thinking, but I forgot to buy Ambry something to paint! Ooops! I then remembered that I had quite a few glass bottles left from the hospital visit with Piper and gave her one of those to paint telling her it could be Piper's special bottle. Well, hello, you need special paint to paint on glass! Duh! Needless to say, even after all my warnings to Ambry to NOT give Piper the bottle, when I checked on the two of them today, this is what I found. Notice the purple tongue? And if I could get my flash from not going off, you would be able to see a nice purple mustache above her little mouth and just a dab of purple on her nose...and even some purple little hands!


Ambry's response? "I guess I'm not allowed to play with paint anymore, Mom." Poor girl. She doesn't even understand that it is Mom who is the guilty one this time! A few minutes later she went up to Piper and gave her a hug and said, "I am so sorry for turning you purple, Piper!"

Labels: Ambry and Piper pics, crafts

It has been a while since I last posted. Sorry! :( The last couple days have been a little crazy. But anyway, here are a couple pics of some "eggs" Ambry and I made. They are sidewalk chalk. I found a recipe on another blog and thought it sounded like fun. Ambry loves them! And they are so nice and hard so they don't break into a million little pieces when they get thrown down or dropped, which is nice. I don't know if they are much cheaper than just buying the actual chalk pieces, but I think they will definitely last longer. Even if they don't we had a blast making them. As you can see by the pic, they didn't turn out the greatest, but at least they work! :)

Here is a pic of Ambry having fun cleaning all the eggs. That was her job once we got done making the chalk eggs and taking them out of their 'shell'.
Hopefully tomorrow I can get up some more pictures of the girls. Have a great rest of the day!

Labels: Ambry pics, crafts

Here is part of our pile. You can't see the other box on the sink, but it is full of books that we went through and are getting rid of. I love getting rid of stuff! I usually am not very good at it. I have the mindset of "I KNOW I will need that someday!" So I just don't really get rid of too much stuff...ever.

Just thought I would show you this pic. I can't remember if I put it up before or not. Anyway, here is a before and after of our basement. Gotta love the blue shag carpet and the wallpaper on the wall is the fabric kind.
Here is what we have done differently. New floor(although that was not a big priority until our basement leaked. Then we didn't really have much of a choice!), new paint, new light fixtures, and new countertops. You can't really see it on the pic above, but they had pink formica countertops down there. Lovely. :) Can you see how the light reflected so much off the wood wall? That would be from the furniture polish I made! Looks pretty spiffy, huh?


That is about it from over here. I now must go and try to get some rest. My arm feels like it is going to fall off again from all that scrubbing and polishing. And I still have the hallway down there to do! Ugh! Oh well, at least it doesn't have to be done too often. Hopefully tomorrow I can put up new pics of the girls and show the 'new' toy we found at "The Love Store" as Ambry calls it. :)

Labels: redo basement, Spring Clean 2007, stuff

Everyone is finally feeling 100% better. We went out for dinner on Saturday night for my mom's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN!!!) to this great Japanese place. The cooks cook the food right in front of you complete with knives tossing and food tossing and everything. Very fun. Thank you to Jeff for a great dinner! Then we all went up to their house for cake...which I think I ate half of the entire cake! No lie! I think cake is my all time favorite food. Soooo bad! (I still lost 5 pounds though my first full week of dieting! Yeah!!!)

This weekend was absolutely gorgeous! It felt like it was in the fifties. Our house made it up to 68 degrees, which for us is very warm in the house. (I usually keep it around 63.) Anyway, the girls and I went for multiple walks up and down the street. I wish I would have brought my camera. Ambry looked so stinkin' cute in her water boots and big rain coat. She was bound and determined to wear anything water related because she wanted to splash in all the puddles from the melting snow. Let's just say we still switched outfits many, many times this weekend. Oh, well. She had a blast and it was so nice finaly getting out of the house and not having to wear five layers of clothing to stay warm.

Only one new picture right now. (Thanks KK for the great pic!) I very rarely let anyone take pics of me and the girls but I have decided that I need to get over that. So here is one that I thought turned out fairly well. Can anyone find Piper's wrists? They seem to have disappeared! :) Have a good Monday!

Labels: Piper pics

Here is Ambry with her snow and measuring cups and 'buckets'. I brought in snow again today and was able to snap a pic real quick of her playing with it. Such a good idea to keep her mind off not feeling too great! Piper wouldn't even look at me for the pic...she was enjoying watching Ambry play! :)

Labels: Ambry and Piper pics, crafts

WORKS FOR ME WEDNESDAY

My tip for today is a recipe for Taco Soup. My sister-in-law Esther made this for me when I had my first baby and it was the (and I still think is) the best soup ever. You can either cook it on the stove or in a crockpot on warm.

Ingredients:
1. 1 lb. of hamburger or turkey burger
2. 1 can of corn, undrained (15 oz)
3. 1 can of stewed tomatoes, undrained (15 oz)
4. 1 can diced tomatoes, undrained (I use two because I love these kind of tomatoes) (15 oz)
5. 1 can tomato sauce (15 oz)
6. 1 can of kidney beans, drained and rinsed (15 oz)
7. 1 pkg taco seasoning
8. 2 cups water (You can add more if you don't like it too thick)
9. Shredded Cheese
10. Frito chips
11. sour cream

Brown your hamburger and drain. Throw everything into a pan and bring to a boil or into your crock pot and turn on low. This soup is sooo good. You can add or subtract from the ingredients above and it will still be delicious. Pour some into a bowl and put a little shredded cheese, then Frito chips, then sour cream on top. My mouth is seriously watering just thinking about it. I think I will have to make this tonight for dinner. :) I probably make this once a week and it never gets old.

This is what works for me. For more great tips go to Rocks in My Dryer.

Labels: Works for me Wednesday

I have joined this challenge over at The Homespun Heart. I think it will keep me motivated to keep on going. I sometimes get overly excited about cleaning and organizing everything and then burn out. But here are pictures of the rooms that I have done so far. Probably very boring to most, but for me, it is a huge feeling of accomplishment.

First up is Ambry's room. In here I did:

*the woodwork--polished all of it.

*dusted everything.

*sorted and cleaned out her closet.

*went through all of her clothes and got her spring/summer clothes out. Put away anything that did not fit right for Piper.

*went through all toys and put away in proper spot. This is a huge pet peeve for me. I can not stand it when toys are not in the proper bin. I also went through all her books and they are also sorted.
*vacuumed everything and did all over wipedown.

Piper's room:

*polished all the wood in her room as well.

*went through all of her clothes and sorted out anything that didn't fit anymore and put in storage. Took out her spring/summer wardrobe and hung up/put in drawers.

*dusted everything.

*vacuumed under furniture and did all over wipedown.

Caleb and my room:

*polished all wood. (By this time my arm was seriously numb and ready to fall off!)

*went through all of our clothes and tossed a bunch of it into a sell pile.

*vacuumed under everything that I could reach--my furniture is WAY too heavy to move all by myself.

*general wipedown of everything.

Main bathroom

*wiped down everything

*polished all wood

*scrubbed floor with soft scub to get out the icky brown stuff that had settled into the grooves. Nasty! I'm not sure what the stuff is--probably hair spray and such that is harder to clean off with just vinegar and water.

*I went through the drawers, but still need to make some sort of organizing system. I can't stand it when stuff is just thrown in there, so that is something I still need to do.

Kitchen/dining room

*polished all wood--except for cabinets. I'm hoping to redo those this spring.

*cleaned table--dusted all the pieces. The hated job of removing dust from all the nooks and crannies.
*scrubbed tile. Literally got down and dirty with a toothbrush and a cup of bleach and scrubbed every square inch and centimeter of tile grout. I can't believe that the actual shade of grout is supposed to be a light tan--not the brown that it was. Then mopped with bleach water. Then went back over with plain water to make sure there wasn't leftover bleach on the floor. This job alone was spread over my whole Saturday and took about a total of four-five hours to complete.

*dusted light above table.

Basement/Storage room

*went through all of clothes bins and sorted.
*Caleb swept out and sorted everything so now it is nice and organized.

Living Room:


*poished all wood.

*dusted everything.

*moved couches and tables and vacuumed under them.

*also polished stairwell going to the basement.

That is basically as far as I have gotten so far. I still have the laundry room to do, the pantry, clean out kitchen cabinets, and then the main basement room. I just did the toy room and the ping pong room. The room that is left is Gerrit's and there is no way I am going in there! Once I have everything completely cleaned and wiped down and scrubbed down and every other bit of clean then I will start on my projects again--painting the closets, touching up paint, etc. So get started on those spring cleaning projects because before you know it, spring will be here and you aren't going to want to be stuck in your house cleaning! Head on over to The Homespun Heart and be inspired there also to get started on cleaning.

Labels: Spring Clean 2007

Things are lookin' up...


I found out what the random charge on my bank card was. Apparently Costco will charge a card a hundred dollars when you get gas to protect themselves. It never goes through, it just sits on there until the gas charge goes through and they get their money. Then they take it off. What a relief!


I also have caught some kind of spring cleaning bug. Not the full blown, air out the house bug, but a smaller one. I have sorted the girls clothes and mine, and set aside stuff for a garage sale in the spring. All of our closets are nice and organized now. I love that! Next item on the to-do list for our rooms is to paint the closets. I would have already started, but I have no more white paint.


I found a recipe for homemade furniture polish on another blog (can't remember whose though). Just mix one part lemon juice to two parts vegetable oil or olive oil (or whatever kind of oil that runs in that line) and mix really well. I got my woodwork done in the hallway, 3 doors, and my 2 bi-fold closet doors in my room. Let's just say my arm feels like it is going to fall off. But at least my wood is very shiny. The polish works really well. But it does leave things a little greasy. I didn't follow the exact directions though. It said to rub it on with a lint free rag and then rub off with another clean rag. I only rubbed on. The wood on the doors and closets won't matter because that stuff was so terribly dry it felt like sand paper. The wood on the stairs though is a little bit greasy. Gerrit was not too impressed. I still think it looks really good though. I just threw the leftovers in the fridge since I didn't know what else to do with it and will have to finish all the rest of the wood in the house another day. I never realized just how much wood there is in here. Oh well. A day at a time I suppose. But for how much it cost to make that polish, I will definitely use it again. It got my wood ten times more shiny than pledge or anything else ever has. And for a fraction of the cost...even better!

And, finally, here are some pics of Piper last night. This girl is the HAPPIEST baby in the world. Honestly. She only cries if she is hungry or needs a clean diaper. This was taken downstairs last night, so not the best lighting. Grandma M., I don't know if you remember this toy, but this is one that you gave Ambry when she turned one. Piper absolutely loves it! I will turn it to the song setting and pull the handle and she goes crazy. Kind of like she is doing here. It is hillarious! She pushes herself up and just rocks back and forth with a huge grin the entire time the song is playing. Too stinkin' cute!


Hopefully I will have pictures of Ambry later. She hasn't been cooperating too well though, so we'll see. :)

Labels: Piper pics, Spring Clean 2007

What do you think of the hair-do? Cute or crazy? Caleb thought she looked hilarious, but he liked it. It cracks me up, because how can you take someone seriously with hair like that?

Check out the one socked foot. This girl can lose a sock in 2.2 seconds. No joke. It is pretty bad.

Labels: Ambry pics

The bad gets worse...

It started raining yesterday and just didn't stop. Apparently our basement liked it so much, it decided to invite the rain in to have a little party. I am not happy about that party. I mean, come on! We went over this same problem last year. One would think they learned their lesson then. Apparently not. Now it is on to Plan B. Plan B is even more expensive than Plan A. But since Plan A didn't work all that well, it's time to move to Plan B.

Caleb's Plan B entails putting a huge cement patio all along the back side of our house and angle it up to the house. The idea is that when it rains, instead of settling next to the house, it will run off the patio and drain out away from the house. Good idea...hopefully. Because Plan A was also a good idea. I was just happy that Caleb is holding off from taking down the wall downstairs because that paint job makes me so happy. I don't want to see it go. I know I could do it again, but it was a lot of work.

Then, because the basement wasn't bad enough, I discover a hundred dollar charge on my bank card. WHAAAT??? And of course this is discovered at 10:30 last night and too late to do anything about it. Just stick a fork in me. I am done! Not to mention I have been spending way too much time on the computer trying to sell anything and everything that I can to try to make some extra $$$. I have made $10.00. Think Positive. That is ten dollars I didn't have before, right?

I found this song on the this blog and have been playing it over and over. Ambry loves it. Take pleasure in the small things, I suppose. It could be a lot worse. At least everyone is healthy, Caleb still has some work, and God is providing for us. Now I HAVE to get off the computer. It is so bad, I sometimes don't even know where the day goes. Have an awesome Friday!

Labels: redo back yard

I have been busy sorting tubs of clothes over here for the last couple days. (This is the girl's clothes--not mine) I had no idea I had accumulated that much stuff! I managed to get it all in just 4 tubs downstairs and then they each have one in their room for the next season. Is that too much? I just don't know. Piper has her spring/summer stuff in her dresser and then a tub for fall/winter. Ambry is the same. The tubs downstairs I have sorted into infant--the stuff Piper outgrew already, 3T--there are two of these, and then 4T. I don't know if I am just a packrat or if I just have a lot of clothes for them. I just love having different clothing options I think. It is the greatest thing ever getting hand me downs. THANK YOU MOM!!! I honestly can say I don't remember the last whole outfit that I bought for Ambry. I did buy her another snowhat, but that was only because it was on clearance and so stinkin' cute! I also hang onto everything that she outgrows because Piper will be wearing it someday and will be in the same season as her.

I also went through all of my clothes. Some of it I just don't know what I was thinking. I mean, were my b**bes ever small enough to fit into some of those tops??? I highly doubt it. Hence, what in the world was I thinking? I have a really hard time getting rid of clothes--I have the mentality of it WILL fit someday--but I forced myself to get rid of a bunch. I wonder if anyone on craig's list will buy adult clothes. Right now I have a huge pile of it on my dining room table and all the girl's clothes that I am trying to sell surrounding my computer and sorted on both of my couches. Can anyone say PACKRAT? I don't know if Caleb was happy/mad that I was taking out all the tubs and sorting and getting rid of stuff or if he just saw a huge mess of clothes laying around. He did say he was happy I was finally getting rid of stuff, but that he knew he was going to be the one hanging it all up for the garage sale in spring. I think it will be one of the biggest garage sales I have had so far. LOTS and LOTS of clothes--from myself and from the girls. If I can't get some of this furniture to sell on craig's list, then I will also have a lot of that too. Oh, well. It is all fun for me. I love having garage sales. I actually want to try to find one of those spinner things like the professional garage sale people and be able to hang all of the clothes on that instead of trying to rig a broom handle across two ladders. I have enough stuff this year that Caleb just might help me find one. Too fun! :)

Ever notice baby's eyes in some pictures? Like they just experienced the most scariest, horriblest, terriblest thing in the world? Or maybe it is just my baby that looks like that. Anyway, here are two pics that I thought were so cute even though she has the scared look on her face. Hope everyone has a good Thursday!

Labels: Ambry and Piper pics, Spring Clean 2007