A New Recipe

***UPDATE. Thanks Julie for catching my mistake. I did a simple copy and paste from Rachael Ray's site, but I did not include the recipe for making the mashed potatoes she made with it. The mashed potatoes called for some of the lemon juice. I have corrected the recipe. The joys of blogging late at night is my brain doesn't work as well.***

First off, before I get into sharing my new recipe, I have to tell you why I have time to blog tonight. Jordan went to work today and will go tomorrow with two of my cousins. They own a roofing business and told Jordan if he didn't have a job this week that they could use some extra help. So he had to get up at 5:30 and be at work at 6:30 this morning. He worked all day in the Florida heat (thank goodness it was cloudy this morning). He came home around 5:00. He was beat to say the least. So he and Carson (who did not get a nap today because we went swimming and it through him off his routine) went to bed early tonight. It is kind of nice to hear only the faint sound of the fan in the living room. So after a nice relaxing bubble bath (when do I ever get to take one?!!), I decided to post a new recipe that we tried tonight that was really easy and delicious. I love trying new recipes (only ones that fall within my comfort zone that I am pretty sure I know I will like). These kind of recipes tend to be Rachael Ray's because of the level of ease and I usually love her food. This one was on her show last week I believe.



Roast Citrus Chicken

Ingredients
* 4 legs and 2 whole chicken breasts, cut in half (I just used all chicken breasts since that is what I already had at the house)
* 4 cloves garlic, smashed
* 10 fresh bay leaves
* 2 lemons, sliced
* 1 cup green Cerignola or Sicilian olives (I opted out on these because my boys do love olives, but these have pits and I was not about to take the pit out for Carson...he'd want to eat them all and I'd never get to eat)
* 1 large onion, chopped
* Extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO), for drizzling
* Salt
* Pepper

Directions
Preheat an oven to 450ºF.
To a roasting pan, add the chicken, garlic, bay leaves, lemon slices, olives and onion. Drizzle everything with EVOO, season with salt and pepper, and transfer to the oven. Roast, turning the chicken pieces occasionally, until they are golden brown and cooked through, about 30-35 minutes.

We had mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas, and rolls with the chicken. It was really yummy.

How Do You Keep Your House Spotless?

I feel like I am constantly cleaning and cleaning, yet never fully satisfied with the results. Carson is at the age where he can and will help me clean up, but as soon as he "helps", he undoes EVERYTHING! Whenever I go to my mom's, dad's, and grandma's, I always covet how clean and uncluttered their houses are. I know, I know. That's bad. I think having a little one around the house has something to do with why my house feels so cluttered. None of them have tons of little toys in every room like we do. Chance's (my youngest brother at 17) toys include the laptop, PS3, and his cell phone. Alice has a killer play room that is enormous to keep all of her kids' things. Maybe the spare bed should be a play room. It's small, but could work. Then again, baby #2 is coming and will need somewhere to sleep. At any rate, how do you guys do it!?! I need some tips on keeping it spotless with a little one! I think my problem is I want everything spotless and I get overwhelmed. I am going to try something new this week though and see how well it works. It's really just simplifying the whole cleaning process. Here's the plan...I am going to clean a few rooms a day and when they are done, then I can scrapbook, go to the pool, etc. without feeling guilty. I know...not a hard concept, but one that I think will really work for me since it's not so overwhelming trying to clean it all in one day and never having any me time. So here's what I'm going for:

Monday - The Kitchen
Tuesday - Laundry, Laundry, Laundry
Wednesday - The Bedrooms
Thursday - The Living Room
Friday - Laundry, Laundry, Laundry
Saturday - The Bathrooms

Can I really get all the laundry done in only 2 days without letting it seriously pile up?? We'll just have to see this week. I may need to make some adjustments, but I am thinking this will work!

Oh What Do You Do in the Summertime...

This summer we have had a lot fun so far. We've spent some time up at Pop's house. Where we have swam and rode 4 wheelers.

Carson has even learned not to eat everything that Pops gives him.

Carson has helped out around the house and earned some money by doing so.

Our gerber daises are in full bloom and gorgeous this summer thanks to Carson.

We have made, chased, and eaten bubbles.

Carson has tried his hand in photography.

I attended a 2 day AIMS inservice for school. It was great! I got paid for it and we got all of this free stuff!!

I can't wait to see what else the summer has to bring!

Tobacco Free at Age 2

Lately there has been an anti-smoking commercial on. I tried to find it so I could post it with this, however I could not find it. The commercial is a shoot 'em up video game that someone is playing. He kills everyone and it says level complete. After the level, he pulls out a cigarette, lights it, smokes it, and dies. Then it goes on to say that smoking kills 50% more people a year than hand guns. Whenever this commercial comes on, I always say something like, "Eww!! Gross!" when the cigarette is pulled out since Carson is normally watching. Carson has been on this dead kick. I don't know why or how it got started, but he likes to pretend he's dead or the bad guys are dead. (In a matter of like 3 weeks he's started this mess.) So I always point out that the guy is dead in the commercial and end by saying cigarettes are bad or yucky. I thought it couldn't hurt to start Carson off early. A couple of nights ago we were watching something and that commercial came on. I wasn't really paying attention until I heard Carson tell Daddy, "Ew! Yuck!" when the cigarette was pulled out. This was followed by an, "Oh no! He's dead!" I could not believe it! We were cracking up about it. Carson is only 2 and he is a tobacco free campaigner!

A Sense of Accomplishment

This is NOT my house, but I am too chicken to take pictures of my house and post them. So I lifted it off Google.

I started working back in February. Since then, my house has gone downhill. You can just imagine from February to June how horrible my house looks. I was planning to start Monday on getting the house back in order and getting some things done. Monday morning I slept in a little bit and then got up, showered, got dressed, put on my make up, got Carson ready, and was walking out the door to buy Jordan's Father's Day gift at 9:00 a.m. when Jordan called me. This is normally his break time, so I didn't think much of it. He told me he was coming home to help me clean (he was off the week before from work with only Monday paid and felt guilty about not cleaning that week). Come to find out, he was calling to tell me that he had been layed off. I freaked out and bawled. I just kept thinking that this could not be happening to us because we have another baby on the way. With Carson we weren't prepared because I was on birth control when I became pregnant with him. With this one, we were so prepared. Both of us were working. We had killer insurance (which we had already met the hospital deductible with thanks to the kidney stone incident). Then we found out that my ESE unit was being dissolved, so I have no job next year. Now Jordan has been layed off and our killer insurance is only good through the end of the month now. Anyway, now that I have totally vented and did not intend to do so when I sat down to blog...it has taken me a few days to get over this fear of unemployment and now I have refocused my energy back on getting the house in order. Today I have cleaned my kitchen. I promise we're not dirty people, but man there was a lot of work to do in our kitchen. Now my floors are nice and shiny. The room smells of cleaner. The stove top is scrubbed along with all of the cabinets and counter tops. There is not a dirty dish in the sink. It feels GREAT! We'll see how long it will stay that way with a two year old, a husband, and a wife that loves to cook.

Baby Callie?? Baby Porter??

Tuesday I finally went to the doctor for this pregnancy. Mom has been doing ultrasounds and gave me prenatals so I haven't neglected this pregnancy by any means. I just didn't want to take time off from teaching since I was out of leave due to the joys of getting the Waller Crud (pink eye, strep throat, and the flu). Mom asked the doctors and they said it would be fine to just wait until school let out. Insurance pays for an ultrasound on the first visit so I got to see mom during my appointment. She said we'd just measure and make sure the due date was accurate. It was, December 14th. The baby was being so good about spreading his or her legs so mom decided to just play around and see if we could see anything. She saw three lines, which means a girl!! She never checks this early because you really can't be sure for another few weeks. Mom kept checking and kept seeing the three lines. Then, she saw something that she said might be a boy. She only saw that image once so we'll see. In two weeks we'll know for sure she said. How exciting!! When we did the 3-D ultrasound, the pictures didn't come out so well because the baby kept kicking and kicking which made the pictures blurry.

Here is the view that looks like baby #2 is a girl.


Here is the 2D shot from the belly ultrasound. This baby is taking after Carson...look at the size of that head! (Mom actually said it was just the angle of the ultrasound.)

50 Moments

I love to scrapbook, but often times I get behind. When I get behind, I get overwhelmed and dread beginning again. Heather White recently had a great giveaway. She was giving away 5 copies of a brand new book called 50 Moments: Scrapbook the Pages that Matter Most. Here is the concept, "If you were only going to create 50 scrapbook pages about your life, what would they be?" Sounds like a great book! Guess what!? I won!! So I get an autographed copy!! I am so excited!!

These are a few of my favorite things...

I love that song! What would I change the words to if it was written by me? Well, I have signed up for another swap. I LOVE SWAPS!! I mean who doesn't love getting a package in the mail?! I saw the favorite things swap last year on Marie's Blog after the fact. This year, I caught it in time! Here are the rules, straight from Kelly's Blog.

it's really quite simple: as a participant, you will be asked to choose at least three objects (i don't think anyone would mind if you decide to send more) that are some of YOUR favorite things to send to your partner... maybe it's an apron you made, your new favorite book, or that favorite flavor of lip gloss. be creative & most importantly have fun with it! objects can be new or vintage, bought or handmade... just remember, it is best to send something the you'd be pleased & excited to receive yourself.

Sounds like fun! I cannot wait! It's not too late to sign up. Sign ups will be open until this Friday. Head on over and join the fun!
Click here to sign up!