Tasty Tuesday ~ Chicken Alfredo

I LOVE alfredo, especially the chicken alfredo from the Olive Garden.  I've tried a few recipes in the past, and none have come close to theirs, but I finally found a really, really good one.  Too bad my hubby doesn't like it so much.  (Actually that is probably good, so I don't make it too often, it's not exactly low fat.)

Ingredients
2 cups uncooked noodles
2 cups cooked cubed chicken (turkey works well also)
2 cups cream
1/2 cup butter
1 clove of garlic
2 Tbsp plain yogurt or cream cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

In a medium saucepan, start water heating to boil your noodles.  In a small saucepan stir together cream, butter, garlic, and yogurt or cream cheese.  Bring to a boil and turn down heat and simmer about 2 minutes.  Add Parmesan cheese and stir until melted.  Continue to simmer about 15 minutes until it gets thicker.  Meanwhile, add your noodles to the boiling water and cook according to the directions.  Drain noodles and add chicken.  When sauce is done, pour over noodles and stir.  Heat over low until hot.  Try not to eat the whole pan full by yourself.

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Love Food & Live Well {Review}

I recently read the book Love Food & Live Well by Chantel Hobbs to review.  Since I love food, but I am still working to loose the rest of my pregnancy weight, I thought this might be a good book with ideas for trying new ways of accomplishing this.  After reading the book, however, I was a little disappointed.  Most of it seemed pretty common sense to me.  Chantel Hobbs writes from her own experience of losing 200 lbs and how she is now maintaining a healthy weight.  She shares that losing weight is not only about the food you eat, but about the way you live your life and surrendering it to God.  Moderation is the key to losing the weight and we need to have disciple when it comes to eating.  But we don't need to totally give up the foods we love, just follow the 80/20 rule of eating healthy 80% of the time and allowing ourselves to splurge the remaining 20%.  She shares which types of food our body needs, some recipes, and exercises.
If you have trouble with dieting or keeping weight off even after you've lost it, I would recommend reading Love Food & Live Well.  It is very easy to read and really could be applied to many areas of our lives.

I received this book for free for review from Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group.

Quiet Time

Since having Peanut, I've really struggled to find a good routine for my quiet time.  I really prefer to have it in the morning, but Peanut is a pretty early riser and often it seems that no matter how early I get up, she (or one of the other kiddos) is up within minutes of me!  I think they just know when someone is up and need to be up too.  (I've often wondered if they conspire together to take turns getting up early and in the middle of the night.  They probably have a whole schedule planned out. "You get this morning, this morning, and this night, and I'll take these.  Maybe we'll give her a night off here, but then you can have this one again.  We gotta keep her tired, that's how we can get away with things!")  I have kind of settled into a pretty regular quiet time at night now once the kids are asleep, but by then I am beat and ready for bed!  Recently Jodi posted about having a comfy chair in her room for her quiet time and I think that I might have to give that a try.  If I can get a nice place set up in our bedroom, then maybe the kiddos won't hear me up and I can get my quiet time back to the morning. Even when I do find some quiet time, it can be hard for me to focus and not be thinking about what needs to be done around the house or something that is happening with the kids. This past Sunday our pastor said that if you have a hard time focusing, start asking yourself questions about what you are reading. I have tried this and it really helps, so I may start writing down more stuff also as I'm reading.I have been reading through the Bible chronologically this year and that has encouraged me to at least get that done everyday.  I have also been reading through A Wife After God's Own Heart, 31 Days to Clean, As Unto the Lord, and For Instructions In Righteousness (to plan out some character training to do with the kids.)  I have a journal to write prayers in and may start to use it (or another one) to write my reading notes/questions.  I have a couple other free e-books, Maximize Your Mornings and Mission Statements for Moms on my reading list.  I recently found this cute basket to keep all my books in so they are at least in one place and ready when I have some time.

Do you have a quiet time?  What works for you?  For other ideas, check out Jodi's post that I am linking up with.

More Butterflies! {A Lucky Horseshoe Review and Giveaway!} CLOSED

If you remember from last week, we've been fascinated with watching our butterflies for Sweetie's homeschool lessons.  Well, this week we were able add some more permanent butterflies to our house.  Last year when Sweetie moved into her new bedroom to make room for the baby, I painted her room a rather neutral green color.  Sweetie wanted it pink, but I really didn't want to have to repaint it if the boys ever needed to move into that room, so I told her we could find a cute stencil or something to add a nice girly touch to the room.  Well, baby came along and we just never got around to it.  When I received the chance to review one of the wall decals from A Lucky Horseshoe, I knew that would be a great time to give Sweetie the girly touch she wanted.  After looking around A Lucky Horseshoe, though, I knew it would be tough to pick just one thing for her room.  There are so many adorable decals that would look great in many different areas of our house! 

There are many different quotes that would fit in well around our family room

This quote would be great in our kitchen!

These safari animals would make great decoration for the school room

This one would be cute in the bathroom

And I know Buddy would LOVE these jets for his room!

We finally decided on the group of butterflies.  When the package arrived, I was even more excited to find out that A Lucky Horseshoe is a local business! I always think it's great to be able to support local businesses!  The pack of decals came with a very detailed instruction sheet for putting them up.  Following the clear instructions made it super easy to put the decals up and once I got the hang of it, they all went up pretty quickly.

They look so cute in Sweetie's room and she loves them!

A Lucky Horseshoe is owned by Rebecca, a 14 year old, who is trying to save up money for college.  She loves horses and doing horse shows so that is why she chose the name of her store.  She began her business in 2009 and loves the feeling of getting a gift when she receives an order.  I think it is great that Rebecca is already working hard for her future!  Her products can be found on her site or on Etsy.

Rebecca has also graciously offered one of my readers a $25 gift certificate to A Lucky Horseshoe!  To be entered, please take a look around A Lucky Horseshoe and let me know your favorite decal.  Please leave a way for me to contact you if you win. This giveaway will end on June 3, 2011 at noon and then I will pick a winner using random.org.  Open to US and Canada only.  If you have already won from another Mamabuzz review of A Lucky Horseshoe I will have to pick another winner.

This is a Mamabuzz review.  The butterfly decals where provided by A Lucky Horseshoe for this review.

No-Work Spanish Giveaway Winners!

Thank you to everyone who entered the No-Work Spanish Giveaway.  There were 4 entries, but last week when Blogger was down for a couple days some of the things on my blog where lost and the first comment (which was the only one at the time) was one of them.  That is why there only shows 3 comments, but I still have the email notification from Jacki for her comment, so hers is number 1 and the 3 on my blog are numbers 2-4.  Sorry for any confusion this causes. I used random.org and it picked number 2 and then number 1.

Congratulations to Cali and Jacki! Cali would like Yaks March on Washington, so Jacki will get Poster Girl.  I will email you and you will have 48 hours to respond.

Butterflies!

The caterpillar to butterfly transformation is amazing! This week Sweetie has been learning about butterflies for the letter B so we ordered some caterpillars to be able to watch the whole process.  We received 5 teeny tiny little ones.  I forgot to snap pictures of them, but it was amazing to see how small they were and how fast they grew!  After 2-3 weeks they climbed to the top of their little container, hung by their tail, and turned into cocoons.

Then we transferred them to a larger mess container to watch them when they were butterflies.  This little guy had crawled out of his cocoon about 5 minutes before I snapped this picture.  We fed the other butterflies this morning and our last cocoon was looking really dark colored so I told Sweetie he would probably come out today.  A few minutes later I happened to glance at it again and there he was!

Here are the old cocoons.  After they emerge, they sometimes have extra orange coloring that comes out their tails which is what all that coloring is on the white paper.

The kids have had lots of fun getting fresh flowers every morning for them and watching the whole process.  Unfortunately, I don't think the weather is ever going to warm up enough to be able to let them go outside so they will just have to live in their little home for a few weeks. But that just means we get to enjoy them longer, too.

A Sour Deal!

Check out this great deal I scored at the discount bin this week! 

A huge bag of lemons and limes for only $2.50!  You are probably wondering why I would want that much sour fruit, right?  Well, I often come across recipes that call for some lemon or lime zest and I rarely have any since I don't often remember to buy lemons and limes. I don't want to run to the store just for one or two (or for anything if I can help it!) and then just use part of the peel, so I like to grate off a bunch of the zest.

Then squeeze out the juice.

And then freeze the juice in an ice cube tray, and put the zest and the frozen cubes into freezer bags to keep in the freezer.  When I need a little zest or juice I can just pull out what I need, let it unthaw, and it is ready to go!

Tasty Tuesday ~ Super Easy Chicken Pot Pie

I made this pot pie last night and it was so easy and really tasty!

Ingredients:
2 cups diced cooked chicken

1 medium onion chopped
4-5 cups mixed veggies (I used a mixture of home canned and frozen beans, carrots, and corn)
2 cans cream of mushroom soup (or thick white sauce with a can of mushrooms added)
1 can cream of celery soup (or white sauce)
1/2 c. chicken broth
Crust:
1 cup of milk
1 cup of mayonnaise
1 cup of self-rising flour (or 1 cup all purpose flour plus 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt)

Place chicken and onion in a large greased casserole dish. Mix soups (or white sauces), broth, and veggies and pour over the chicken.  Mix milk, mayo, and flour and spread evenly on top.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 30-45 minutes or until crust is golden brown.

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National Day of Prayer

Today is National Day of Prayer and I just wanted to share a couple quotes that I recently heard or read that I really like.

First is one that I read in The Prayer Factor by Sammy Tippit. It is a quote by Andrew Murray: Prayer is the pulse of life: by it the doctor can tell what is the condition of the heart. The sin of prayerlessness is a proof for the ordinary Christian or minister that the life of God in the soul is in deadly sickness and weakness.

And second is one that I heard on our local radio station: When we get to heaven and see what prayer has done, we will be so embarrassed we didn't pray more.

Having young kiddos can make it difficult to find a few quiet moments during the day to spend in prayer, but the rewards of making the time for it far out weigh the ease of skipping it!

No-Work Spanish {Review & Giveaway!} CLOSED

Living in the agriculture industry, it is inevitable that we come into contact with Spanish speaking people.  If they don't speak any English we have a difficult time communicating with them, and this is especially challenging if they are one of our employees!  Needless to say, none of us speak Spanish very well.  Hubby and I both took Spanish in high school, and while I could read and write it quite well, speaking it was a whole nother story!  When I was given the chance to review No-Work Spanish Audio books, I thought this might be a great way to learn a little better and also get my kids started hearing it while they are still young enough to learn it more easily.  No-Work Spanish are audio books that are stories read first in English and then in Spanish.  This is done so that your mind can connect the English and Spanish without thinking about it.  After each chapter is read in both languages it is then read in just Spanish to help reinforce it. 
We received the books Yaks March on Washington and Poster Girl for review.  The first time I listened to them was really hard.  I didn't get anything out of it and couldn't understand any of the Spanish!  I thought, there is absolutely no way I am going to learn anything from this!  But Anne from No-Work Spanish let me know that this happens often the first time and will get easier and easier the more you listen to it.  And she was right! I've listened a few more times and have picked up a few of the phrases.  I am much more of a visual learner however and found it very helpful to print out the words, which are found on the CD or on their site.  My hubby and kids have also listened to them several times and seem to be picking up a few things as well.  Hopefully when we start some Spanish for homeschool, this will make it a little easier for the kids to catch on to it.  I'm not sure I personally could learn Spanish solely from the No-Work Spanish audio books, but I think they are a great addition to what I already know and will help with speaking Spanish and not just reading and writing it.

For more details, to learn how to try it for free, or to buy any of the audio books, please visit No-Work Spanish.

Want to win a copy of Yaks March on Washington or Poster Girl?  Anne from No-Work Spanish has generously offered to give two of my readers one audio book each!  One winner will receive Poster Girl and one will receive Yaks March on Washington.  To be entered, please leave me a comment letting me know which story you would most like to win.  Please leave a way for me to contact you if you win!  This giveaway will end on May 19 at noon, when I will pick two winners using random.org.  I will try to get the winners the book of their choice, but if both want the same book, the first winner drawn will get it and the second winner will recieve the other.  The winner will have 48 hours to respond to my email or a new winner will be picked.  This giveaway is open to US residents only. If you have won a No-Work Spanish audiobook from another MamaBuzz giveaway, I will have to pick a new winner.

This is a MamaBuzz review. These audio books were provided by No-Work Spanish for free for this review.  Thanks No-Work Spanish!

Wordless Wednesday - Sitting Pretty

Grocery Shopping in My Pajamas

I really dislike having to go to the grocery store.  Unless I can go by myself.  But having 4 kids pretty much makes that impossible unless I go late at night and I would much rather go to bed than the store.  So I have found a few sites online that have pretty much solved my problem and now I can do most of my grocery shopping in my pajamas (not that I really sit around in my pajamas all that often)!  I also think that shopping online helps me save money, because then I buy only what I need/what's on my list instead of seeing stuff at the store and being temped to buy stuff I don't really need! For those of you who prefer to stay home than haul all your kiddos through the store, I thought I would share with you my favorite sites.
First up is Amazon.  Did you know that Amazon has a whole grocery section?  Well, it does!  I especially like their subscribe and save option, which can make some really good deals.  I also love to use my Amazon gift cards that I earn using Swagbucks to get stuff even cheaper!  A lot of things have free shipping also.
Next is Alice.  It can have some pretty good deals on stuff and is usually very comparable in price to the stores.  You have to purchase at least 6 things, but shipping is always free!  One of the things they have that I always order is Rockin' Green laundry detergent, the detergent I use for my cloth diapers.  Most other stores have a hefty shipping charge since it is heavy, but not Alice.com! (And if you sign up through my referral link, you will get a $10 credit once you spend $50!)
My other main shopping site is Azure Standard.  They have a huge variety of stuff including fresh produce and frozen and refrigerated items.  This is more like a co-op though and doesn't ship directly to my house.   They have a set route with drop points and I happen to live only about 2 miles from our drop point.  This is still much easier than going to the store because everything is boxed together and ready to be loaded into the car.  If you like to buy organic, a lot of the stuff they carry is organic and still cheaper than non-organic at the grocery store!  They do have a drop-point and individual order minimums, so check out their site to see if there is already a drop-point near you or how to get one set up.
Costco is still one store that I need to go to, but it would be so nice if they would set-up a Click-n-Pull like Sam's Club does!
Do you shop online?  What are your favorite stores?