Caring for My Chaos

See that guy on the right? He's my favorite father in law and it's his birthday! He turns 83 today! This man was born to be a papa and I am so grateful he's in our lives! Happy birthday Pa!!!

 Merry Christmas from my family to yours! I hope every one of you have a fabulous day and that Santa was good to you.  Give your loved ones lots of love and cherish the time with them!

This gorgeous girl is 23 today! I can't believe it! She has grown into such an amazing young woman. We are so proud of her! Happy Birthday Izzie! We love you!

If you follow my Facebook, you know we got home yesterday. We had such a wonderful time. It didn't rain and wasn't too awful hot the whole time we were there. We got our fill of roller coasters and even got to see a couple of shows. We saw an a capella group sing fifties music, a show all about different birds of prey, including the barn owl and the eagle, and a bluegrass band. We did get soaked on a couple of the rides, which I did not enjoy, but overall had a fabulous family vacation. Now, we're looking ahead to Izzie's 23rd birthday this weekend! Her and her friends are going to camp out at our house. It's going to be so much fun! Then we'll start getting ready for back to school. This summer has gone by so quickly! Where did it go?

I don't know if I've ever posted my recipe for plain ol' chicken cutlets. This is as easy as recipes get and it tastes soooo good. Hubby has to put Devil's Spit BBQ sauce on them but that's only because if it's not hot, he doesn't eat it. Here is my super simple easy peasy delicious recipe! 1 lb thin sliced chicken breasts- you can either buy them already cut or you can slice big ones in half. If you do it that way, you need to pound them out a little bit to make sure they are thin. Also I use 2 lbs just because I have teenagers. Italian style bread crumbs 1 egg beaten milk salt and pepper After opening and pounding if need be, sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Take beaten egg and mix about 1/4 c milk, give or take, with it. Then in another bowl, pour the bread crumbs in. Just eyeball it. You will need enough to dredge all the chicken through and cover both sides of each piece. Then, in a skillet, heat olive oil, enough to cover the bottom of ...

Happy 14th birthday to this kid! He is turning into such a wonderful young man. He keeps us laughing all the time. (He's going to kill me for this pic) I can't believe my baby is 14! Happy birthday Bubby! Have a wonderful day!

Tonight, as I cooked dinner for Bubby and I, I realized how hard a concept this has been for me to get used to. After years of cooking for 5, most nights, it's just Bubby and I. You would think it would be easy to get used to cutting recipes down and lighten my workload, but for some reason, it has been an obstacle for me. One that usually ends up with us going out to dinner. But, I have resolved that this isn't going to happen as often anymore! (Notice I did not say ever. Gotta keep my options open.) Like tonight, I cooked one of my fall back reliable recipes that I adapted from a recipe for Beni Hana chicken that I had found years ago in a restaurant copycat recipe book my dad gave me. I easily cut back on the amount of rice and meat that was used and it came out perfect. I think I might get the hang of this cooking for two idea yet. Here's my recipe if you were wondering. Easily adaptable to feed a crowd, here's the amounts for 2 people. I also substituted bee...

Who else has their garden all planted? Hunny and I have ours just about done, just need a few more seeds and plants. We have a few different kinds of tomatoes, including cherry, cucumbers, pole beans, hot peppers, green peppers and we are going to plant lettuce, radishes, squash and maybe some melon. We even finished the fence around it to keep the deer from having a buffet! They ate just about everything last year. As soon as a plant would get a bloom, they'd eat it. Hopefully, this year our plants are protected. I'm really enjoying our little project. It's great together time. I could take less bugs, but that comes with the territory. I can't wait to see the fruits of our labor! And Hunny can't wait for the tomatoes. He is such a tomato snob. Very picky about them. I don't know how many bacon and mater sandwiches that man would eat if you let him. I'll post pics when the harvest starts coming in. Let me know in the comments what all you have planted!

What a weekend! As you already know, Izzie is all officially graduated. The ceremony was nice, but hot. Afterwards, we had a lovely time with friends and family at the house. We were up until God knows what time and had a lot of laughs. It was wonderful. She had a great day that she'll remember for a long time. I'm so thankful everyone got to come out and celebrate with her. She deserved all the love!  Mother's day was quiet. We just laid around and recuperated. Doodle gave me two new gnomes for my collection and Izzie is making me a remembrance book. My day was lovely. I couldn't ask for more. I hope all you mamas out there had just a great day as I did and got to love on your babies too!

This lady is graduating college!! Yep, our baby, Izzie, is going to graduate tomorrow and we are so proud of her! (This pic is from her 4th grade Christmas play so I expect she'll hate me for using it. lol) She has had a rough go of it through college, almost dropping out twice, academic probation, only to rebound and come out with over a 3.0 gpa and an honorable mention! Get ready because I'm going to post LOTS of pics tomorrow of her in her cap and gown! There are no words to describe how proud we are and how much she is loved. Congratulations Izzie!

This is what all my spoons, spatulas, tongs, etc were housed in. The utensils were falling out or my kids would just shove them on top because they were filled to the brim. I had decided I wanted to find a bigger thing to house it all in, but wanted it to match my kitchen that I had just finished redecorating in June. I had painted it pink and off white and covered the outlet covers and switch covers like this-- I covered them with shelf paper that I had found at the Dollar Tree. Well, I got an idea this afternoon to find a big coffee can and cover it to match the covers. Well, I had no big coffee can, which was surprising since I drink A LOT of coffee. I had only little ones. But then, I found this-- I had bought a big bucket of cookie cutters a while ago but the top broke to it and the bucket was just sitting there. So I put all the cutters in a big Ziploc bag, which was better to keep the dust off anyways, cleaned out the bucket and cut the shelf paper big enough to wrap aro...

I found this recipe off Pinterest on Silverlinings and in my house, Nutella is sacred. Both my daughters have had jars squirreled away in their rooms. I actually had a friend of mine yell at me because she said it was my fault that she had gained 10 lbs back on her diet. When I asked why it was my fault, she said because we had introduced her daughter to Nutella and she couldn't stop eating it! Seriously, if you have never tried it, you must. These brownies sound downright sinful, which is the best kind, isn't it?   1 cup (2 sticks) butter 2 1/4 cups sugar 1 regular sized jar of Nutella 4 large eggs 1 cup cocoa powder 1/4 cup dark cocoa powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon espresso powder, optional 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 10 ounce package mini chocolate chips   Directions: Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 9×13 baking dish with nonstick spray. In small saucepan over low heat, melt butte...

(This is a repost but I thought it was helpful with all the creeping crud that's going around this time of year!) This, as you know, is Bubby, my youngest. All of my kids have seasonal allergies, but for some reason they hit Bubby really bad. We didn't know he had allergies until he was in kindergarten and he woke me up one night about 2 am with what sounded like whooping cough. Come to find out, allergies can do that. So, every year, before the pollen makes it's major comeback, all my kids get put on Claritin. That seems to help. With Doodle, I have to put her on Nasacort also because the Claritin just doesn't get rid of everything. Well, Bubby last night began complaining that his ear was hurting really bad. No fever, which tells me that his sinuses are backed up again and is causing pressure on the ear drum. Along with decongestant, I also do home remedies to combat the pain. My favorite one is dipping a cotton ball in olive oil, heating for a few seconds in the...

This is seriously one of the easiest recipes known to man. But oh, my Lord, one of the most delicious. I only make these once in a while because my kids eat them as soon as I make them. The recipe calls for milk chocolate covering but I buy the white candy bark and cover them in that. I think the milk chocolate would actually be too much and I like the contrast in colors too. My sister in law told me I'm not allowed to make them for her because they always blow her diet! =) I got this from Kraft and it's on the Kraft website. 36 OREO Cookies , finely crushed, divided 1 pkg.  (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese , softened  4 pkg.  (4 oz. each) BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate , broken into pieces, melted   RESERVE 1/4 cup cookie crumbs. Mix cream cheese and remaining cookie crumbs until blended.            SHAPE into 48 (1-inch) balls. Dip in melted chocolate...

Christmas was fabulous! A day full of family, food and presents. And today, I put the house back to normal. It felt good to clean everything up and organize! How long do you leave decorations up? I put mine up so early that I'm more than ready soon after Christmas. My best friend leaves hers up until the Epiphany in January. This picture shows where the tree had been standing. Now, we look toward New Year's! My father in law's birthday is New Year's Eve so we have a party and this year my brother is coming down for New Year's! I tell ya, it's always busy around here!

This recipe is for my brother. This is his favorite pie in the entire world and I remember when we were kids, my mom and aunt would make it every once in a while and he would go INSANE! It's Strawberry Rhubarb Pie. Rhubarb is a weird looking vegetable and I really don't know any other way to fix it, to be honest. You only use the stem, not the leaf part for this. It's very sour, which is why you pair it with the strawberries to even it out! 3 cups rhubarb stalks cut into 1/2 inch pieces (Trim outside stringy layer of large rhubarb stalks; make sure to trim away any and discard of the leaves which are poisonous; trim ends.) 1 cup strawberries, stemmed and sliced 1 cup sugar 3 Tablespoons of quick cooking tapioca 1/4 teaspoon of salt 1 teaspoon of grated orange peel 2 unbaked crusts for a 9 inch pie Preheat oven to 400.  Mix the rhubarb and the strawberries with the sugar, tapioca, salt, and orange rind. Let sit for 10 minutes.Pour into a prepared crust lined...

Other than the to die for Chocolate cake, this is my middle daughter's favorite cake. I use the Paula Deen recipe on Food Network every time and it is wonderful! And you MUST use the cream cheese frosting with this cake. It's a sin not to. Red Velvet Cake is a southern staple from what I understand. (I am a transplanted Yankee, remember.) The first time I made this, the kids went insane. So, make this to drive your family insane! The only thing I do differently than in this recipe is I don't do 3 layers. I only do 2. It still comes out wonderful. For the Red Velvet Cake: 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon cocoa 1 1/2 cups sugar 2 eggs 1 1/2 cups oil 1 teaspoon vinegar 1 (1-ounce) bottle red food coloring 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup buttermilk For the cream cheese frosting: 1/2 cup butter 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese 1 box confectioners' sugar, sifted 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup chopped lightly toasted pecans Di...

This is little man's favorite brownies. I actually got asked this week to buy cocoa to make these. I'm not sure where this recipe came from but I think it was from the Hershey's cocoa canister. I always cook it just under the time it says so they are gooey and more fudgelike. Expect the entire pan to be gone quickly. They will not last. I have been making these for years! 1 2/3 c sugar 3/4 c butter melted 2 T water 2 eggs 2 t vanilla 1 1/3 c flour 3/4 c cocoa 1/2 t baking powder 1/4 t salt Heat oven to 350. Grease 13x9 pan. Combine all ingredients in bowl. Mix well. Spread into pan. Bake 18-25 minutes. Enjoy!

This girl turned 20 yesterday! I can't believe it. I'm a day late, but I wanted to wish her aa happy birthday again! She astonishes us with all the things she accomplishes every day. She's kind, warm hearted and we wouldn't trade her for the world. We love her very very much and are thankful she is a part of our family! Happy birthday Doodle! (PS She's gonna kill me for this pic!)

I love pie. This one is apple. There is just something so cozy and warming about a slice of pie, no matter what kind you make. I always use the same pie crust recipe which is from my mom's Better Homes and Gardens cookbook from the 60's, which is my favorite cookbook of all time. 2 c flour 1 tsp salt 2/3 c shortening (I use butter because I think it tastes better) 5-7 T cold water (I put ice in mine before I pour it in.) Now the original recipe does it the old fashioned way but I use my food processor which makes perfect crust dough every time. I put the flour and salt in first and pulse to just mix. Then I cut my butter into little chunks and put that in. Then I pulse until the butter resembles crumbs. Then I turn the machine on, and dribble the ice water in the spout thingy and just dribble until the dough balls up on its own. There you have it. Just separate, roll out, and fill! This is the apple pie recipe from the same book that tastes WONDERFUL! 6 c tart apple...