Change is in the Air

Change always comes to our home with the arrival of spring. Cleaning out cupboards, closets, rooms, etc., it is one of the most fulfilling times as I love clearing out clutter and organizing. 

Having this "cleaning" mindset, I've been thinking of what to do concerning our family blog. 

When I started this blog almost 6 years ago, its purpose was to keep our out of town families up to date on the happenings of our family. With the passing of time, our lives have changed so the blog has changed. Over the last few years beside family information I've been sharing recipes, craft projects, personal changes, God moments, etc. Even more recently I've been including projects from an arts and crafts class I've been voluntarily teaching at the kid's school.
For the last month, I've been trying to decide if it is all too much! Too much information, too much to do resulting in not being able to be consistent, too much to read? Mulling all this over I've come to the realization that I miss writing and sharing all that is happening in our lives. I'm excited about the recipes I've been "testing" on the family, the crafts I've been teaching, the changes and events that our family has been experiencing, so I want to share.
I'm hoping in the near future to get together with a more computer savvy person and find a blog format where I can create specific "menus" allowing readers to choose the posts they are most interested in (recipes, family life, arts & crafts projects, etc.). However, in the meantime, I'll be writing, posting and labeling which will help with selecting reading options.
Change is a good thing and I look forward to what will come our way! I hope you will continue to join me on our life's journey as we live, love and laugh (notice the name change of the blog from "the busiest place on earth"). Oh and please bear with me as I go backwards for a little while and post items and events that occurred during my short "hiatus" as I contemplated this blog and the need for change.
As always, thanks for stopping by! 

A Hearty Success!

I have to tell you it is so nice to have another new family approved recipe! 

Yesterday, I showed Matt the 3 new dinner recipes I had shopped for this week and told him he could select tonight's dinner. Matt chose Spicy Sausage Pasta which I found at the website Kevin and Amanda.

The recipe is so very easy to follow. I only made 3 changes. Instead of heavy cream, I used light cream in order to cut some of the calories. Also, I didn't add the scallions mainly because I forgot to buy them but it was probably for the best as Matt is not a big fan of onions and I already included the onion required in the recipe. Lastly, I chose to use gluten few penne pasta. Barilla now has a variety of gluten free pasta choices (penne, elbow, etc.) and I have to say it is one of the best tasting gluten free options I've sampled. 

The only thing I would do differently is cook the sausage (I used Hillshire's turkey kielbasa) a little longer to get a nice browning to it and a little more caramelizing of the onions. Other than that, it is a keeper!

Everyone here gave it a thumbs up! Try it for yourself and let me know what you think.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Go to Meal

Late afternoon Monday was exceptionally rough for me.

I had been fighting a migraine the week before and the weekend brought another set of unknown aches. I thought for sure Monday would provide a bit of a reprieve and took it easy working out at the gym that morning. My day's schedule was light with just a hair appointment. Sounds like an overall good day but things were about to change!

Of course, about an hour before heading to school, another migraine started to take root. The bad part of this was that it wasn't a normal pick up day, Emily had a "make up" basketball game. UGH!!! 

I didn't want to pull Emily from the game so Matt and I sat in the hallway outside the gym while she played. Thankfully the muting of the sounds emanating from the gymnasium and the coolness of the hallway (I was sitting near the side entrance) helped to ease some of the tension. 

Heading home I wanted to take the quick way out for dinner and just pick something up but I knew I had a pound of ground beef that NEEDED to be used that day. Thankfully I already had a quick and easy recipe in mind to use. 

I found this recipe for Grands Unsloppy Joes at the Pillsbury website. I've tried several ways of serving sloppy Joe's - on rolls, in taco shells, etc. It seems that one person will like it one way and one another but never did we have a united "approval" of the sloppy Joe. So, this would be my latest attempt. It is so very easy. I used the reduced fat whole wheat Grand biscuit for the "pocket". You do need to roll each biscuit out to about 6 inches but that is the extent of the "work" of this recipe. The sloppy Joe mix was prepared as usual and then pocketed inside the biscuit with a little cheese then baked. I explained to the kids it is like a sloppy Joe empanada. 

Well everyone LOVED it and as a matter of fact Matt asked the next day at dinner time if we were having the Joe pockets again. Finally, we all approve on a sloppy Joe! Go ahead, give it a try and let me know what you think.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Scalloped Hearts on Sunday

As most of you know, I teach the 4 and 5 year old Sunday School class at my church. 

This past Sunday's lesson was about Jesus loving the children and what an appropriate lesson with Valentine's day being this Friday. 

Although the lesson material does provide a coordinating weekly "craft" project, I've been trying to do a special craft with them once a month, especially around the holidays. This month's craft was all about the LOVE!!!

The craft itself, scalloped hearts, I found from my main arts & crafts source Pinterest through the website Alana Jones-Mann. 

I purchased from Michaels heavy card stock precut hearts. Then, used my Cricut cutter to cut 1 inch circles from red, purple and pink card stock purchased from JoAnn's. Now, I love JoAnn's for many things but I have to say I prefer Michael's Bazzill card stock. I have found that it cuts much cleaner on my Cricut machine than JoAnn's line of card stock. Just saying! 

We used glue sticks to adhere the colored circles to the heart shape. It is best to apply the glue to the back of the circle as you need to overlap the hearts. When we started the project, we attempted to do a pattern of purple, pink and red. A few of the kids were able to stay with the patterning but most of them did their "own thing" which was perfectly fine. The circles go off the sides of the heart, so at the end of the project scissors are use to cut the excess off defining the true heart shape. 

On the back side, I wrote for each of the kids (mainly for time purposes) who their heart was for and their message to them. Some were for mom & dad, brothers and sisters, even pets.

Here are a few of the kids with their hearts:

Daniela - age 4 

Violet  - age 4 

Anthony - age 5

Because our lesson was about Jesus' love,  I gave the kids a "love" project for Valentine's day. I told them to go to every person in their family give them a big hug and say, "I love you and Jesus loves you too" and that I would check to see who remembered to hug their family next Sunday. The funniest thing was one of the kids said she was going to do it right after church because she will forget to do it on Valentine's day. Love these kids!

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Strings and Hearts

It was so great today to be able to get back to teaching my Friday Arts & Crafts class. 

Due to our NJ weather and a few scheduled school events, I haven't been as organized as I'd like to be when it comes to completing projects in a timely manner. Today however, with the approval of the art teacher, I was able to have class with both the 3rd and 4th grade where we created and completed a Valentine's day project. Yay!!! 

I pulled this woven heart idea from the website Family Chic. I made a sample heart so that the kids would know what all their hard work would accomplish. Now, I did quite a bit of prep for the classes today mainly so we could complete the project in one 40 minute session. 

The heart frames are created using floral wire that is wrapped in craft paper. The site I took this idea from shows a large coil of the wire which you need to cut to length but I was able to find some already pre-cut at JoAnn Fabrics. In order to save class time for weaving, I structured all the hearts needed at home.  

I also pre-cut the yarn needed for both classes. The kids had the option of choosing this multicolored yarn which has varying shades of red, pink and purple and a dark garnet red yarn. The yarn was cut into lengths of 6 yards per heart. I would probably recommend cutting the yarn into 2 yards, giving them 3 piles each just so it is easier for the weaving process. Of course, they would need to knot each new section to the heart frame and then continue the weaving process. 

This project does require a lot of manual dexterity and patience. I did alert each class that this was going to be a little difficult but to just hang in there and pay close attention to the directions I gave them. As with anything in arts & crafts, some were able to get the hang of it easily, to some it came with time and for others it proved a little difficult. All in all though they did a great job. Thankfully one of the 4th graders took very easily to it and she was given permission to assist me in helping the 3rd grade with their hearts. 

Here are some of the students creations:

Curtis' heart - 3rd grade

Annabell's heart - 4th grade

Rachel's heart - 3rd grade

Jesreal's heart - 3rd grade

I was very pleased with how all the students did even though some of them felt they didn't do so well. Of course, I  tried to encourage them by saying when you do something the first time it may not be exactly the way you want it to be but you tried and that is the first step. You can always try again. Also, the more you do something the easier it becomes and you'll get the results you want. 

One of the best things that happened in these classes today was that when some of the students completed their heart they asked if they could help another student who was having a little difficulty. Helping one another, a byproduct of weaving hearts, now that is what I call a successful class!

As always, thanks for stopping by!