Parental Rights

Little by little with out us realizing it our rights as parents are being striped away.   When we vote for our politicians we need to also check up on them to make sure that they are working on our behalf.  We sometimes tend to forget that THEY WORK FOR US.  We vote them into office to represent us.  Most times we vote and leave it alone, never checking up on them.  Everything that has to come up for a vote is public record, we can check to see if they are doing the job.  We can also send tons and tons of emails, letters,etc.. to get our voices heard.
What has happened is that we have put our trust in man.  We trusted these people to do what they said they would do, but as human nature would dictate they failed us.  Not being accountable is an easy way to go astray.  We as a nation are no longer accountable to the word of God, and this is the result.  
Here is a short video explaining how our rights as parents are slowly being taken away. Movie

Here is the main site    http://www.parentalrights.org/

Cool Find #8

For this weeks cool find I bring you another DIY for your home.

A name plate.

I think I will make this for our house using our last name.  I will hang it in on the wall in our foyer.
This can also make a great gift for someone.  I really like this project.  You can do just initials, use different colors, you can even put in the bathroom with the word bathroom in. The possibilities are endless.

Click here for the original post.

Homemade Iced caramel coffee

I was never a coffee drinker up until my 6th pregnancy.  During this time I tasted someones Ice coffee and have loved it since then.  I'm thinking its one of those pregnancy things.  You know its either you never ate it before until you got pregnant or you loved it until you got pregnant. Anyway, I make my husband coffee every morning, so I decided to try making ice coffee.  Now all I did was wait till it cooled added some milk and that was it.  I did not like it.  Recently I found out that I could make caramel using sweet condensed milk.  Basically you take the can, put it in a pot add lots of water and boil it for about 4 hours.  So I had the idea of doing this and adding it to the ice coffee.  I can say I will not have to buy it at DD any more.  This is soo goood.
After I make my hubby's coffee I wait till it cools some but not to much.  I put 1-2 tablespoons of the homemade caramel in my cup then add some coffee.  I put in enough ice cubes to fill up the cup then I add my milk.  I also add a little bit of vanilla extract.  It doesn't even need sugar.  It is so good.

Give it a try.

Whats for dinner #7

Today's dinner is one of my families favorite.  Lasagna.

I know this is tried and true for alot of you. But since my family loves it, I thought I should put the recipe here.
ENJOY!!!!
Ingredients
lasagna noodles
Meat
Pasta Sauce(your choice)
Ricotta Cheese
Mozzarella Cheese.
Seasoning for your meat.
First cook the pasta according to the box.
I make my lasagna with ground turkey.  I put it in the caldero (pot I use to make rice. check out this link)
I constantly chop the meat up while it is cooking with my trusted metal spoon.  I season the meat with sofrito , adobo, sazon, garlic and onion powder.  After it is all mixed up well I add the sauce.
Once the noodles are done I drain them and put them in cold water.
I then go on to start building the lasagna.
First I layer the baking dish with noodles I add the meat,  put in some ricotta cheese then sprinkle mozzarella cheese over the top.
I continue these steps till I come to the top of my baking dish.  Cover with sauce and mozzarella cheese.
Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for about 30-40 minutes.
I usually put my oven to 375*.  Just make sure you check your food.  Ovens all cook differently.  It is done once you see it bubbling on the sides.

Fall Challenge take 1

I am also thinking of adding gauchos, but not sure.  I really like how they look with boots, but I may just make the skirt for the Fall Challenge over at coletterie.

I don't want to go real big here.  6-7 pieces are a lot for me time wise.  Hopefully I can get at least half done in 8 weeks.

I want to make the short skirt in mustard, the pants in black, one shirt in Burgundy, the other shirt in brown with the dress in green.  The long skirt will be brown.  I was thinking, if I make the cardigan I might make it in green.  A nice dark green, still undecided.  I went to  MOOD the other day with my daughter again, and purchased the fabrics for the short skirt and the pants.  I am so excited to get started.

I am not going to make the first shirt on the board, I will post a picture of the shirt as soon as I can, the other shirt will be a knit shirt.  I will also try to post a picture of it.  This means the shirt I have up on my board is not going to be made.  I may save it for spring since it needs sheer fabric.

Cool find #7

For this cool find I bring you yet another craft for your kids.  Its important to my for my kids to keep busy.  I've learned that boredom can lead to a lot of arguments.  So I try to keep them as busy as possible.  Also my little girls need something to do while their siblings are doing school and I am trying to clean the house.

The answer : Homemade Puffy Paint.

If you use food coloring or Wilton's gel food coloring its safe for little ones to eat.  We all know how they love to put things in their mouths.
Click HERE to be taken to the original link.

Fall Challenge

I joined the Fall sewing Challenge over at Coletterie.  I plan on making 4 pieces.

1. skirt
2.cigarette pants
3. 1 blouse
4. one dress

Hopefully I can get it done.  We have 8 weeks to complete the pieces.  Week one is to gather your inspiration, fabric, patterns, etc.. weeks 2-8 are all for sewing.  This is the first time I have done something like this, so I am very excited about it.  Once I have narrowed down my pieces I will post them here.

Here are my colors.

Whats for Dinner #6

Today I am bringing you Yellow Rice (Spanish style).


Here are the ingredients for a basic yellow rice.  You will need 1 packet of Sazon. 1/2 a packet if you are not making alot of rice.  I make about 5 cups here for us and I use a whole packet.  A pinch of salt, a few dashes of Adobo, 2 tablespoons of Tomato Sauce, 2 tablespoons sofrito.  You can get the ingredients for sofrito here
and about 2 tablespoons oil (not pictured)

We cook the rice in whats called a Caldero.  Its basically a large quart pot.

OK so we put the pot on the stove to heat up then we add the oil.

When the oil is nice and hot we add in all the ingredients, no particular order, just put it all in there and mix it up well.

Once its mixed up real good we add in the rice.  You want to have the rice ready for this step so its a good idea to rinse it before you start cooking.

Mix it all up real good.  Make sure all the rice gets covered with the sauce in the pot, you do not want two tone rice.

Once its mixed up good, you add your water.  Add enough water to just cover the top.  About an inch of water covering the top of the rice.  A good way to measure is using your finger.  Put it in the water just on top of the rice, not pushing down onto the rice.  If the water level is at the first line at the back of your finger you have enough water.  Its a good idea to add the water a little at a time.  You don't want to put in too much water, then you get extremely sticky rice.

Put the flame on high and cover the rice.  Cook it till there is no water left in the pot, being careful not to burn the rice.

  Then I put the rice in a mound.  This step is not necessary just something my mom and her mom etc... would do.

Cook the rice till it is soft (done).  Once done serve it with what ever meat/veggie you made.
Here we have yellow rice with stewed chicken and split peas.  YUMMM

Miss-B's dress FINALLY done.

I don't know why but for some reason this dress gave me tons of problems.  It's not the first time I've made it either.  The top part, and the collar were just not cooperating at all with me.  I am just glad it is finished, well I still need to hem it but other then that it is DONE.
The pattern for this dress is posted here. 

Here is the dress. 

She choose the fabric for this dress.  She likes it and that is all that matters, since she is very picky. 

Cool find #6 Popsicle Stick Bracelets.

I saw this and knew I had to post it here.  This would make such a fun birthday party activity( maybe not so much for the boys, but girls can have a lot of fun with this).  You can prepare it ahead of time and just have the girls decorate them.
This is one that can really be done whenever.  Think of all the possibilities you could do.  You can make name ones, modpodge some with nice wall paper fabric, or even regular fabric.  You can even make some to match some of your clothes.  Like I said before the possibilities are endless.  If you want to give this a try, click on this link

Hope you enjoy this project.

Casanova from Project Runway season 8

My husband had today off from work so I went into the city with my daughter.  She works at Rockefeller Center. We went to Kinokuniya.  Its an Asian bookstore.  I think mostly Japanese, but I'm not 100% sure.  I went there to buy a pattern book called Pattern Magic by Tomoko Nakamichi, but instead I bought Patternmaking in practice by Lucia Mors.
I then went to MOOD.  Yes the same one the show on Project Runway.  When I stepped out of the elevator there was Casanova.  He was one of the contestants from season 8.   The first thing I did was call my daughter but she did not pick up the phone.  So I sent her a text.  I could not remember his name so I had her there trying to remember who he was.  When I finally did get to speak to her I remembered his name.  I did not go up to him or anything, no one else there made a big deal so I sure didn't want to.  Hopefully next time I go, she can come with me and some other contestant from PR will be there.

Whats for dinner #5

We are all feeling a bit sick around here, so I figured I'd post a nice soup dish.
Homemade Chicken Noodles.  The Pioneer Woman has great recipes.

Be Prepared always

When we heard about the hurricane that was coming our way, I did not panic.  A few years ago our Pastor had asked everyone to start storing food away since in times of crisis people panic and food is gone quick.  Well that is exactly what happened.  Complete chaos.  We were prepared because we took the advice of our pastor.  Every time I went food shopping I would buy to store in my basement.  Sometimes I would just shop for our basement.  We have saved enough not only for ourselves but in the event that people need to stay in our house.  I did not only buy food but toiletries, batteries, candles, flashlights, everything.  All of our important papers are in one bag ready to grab and go.

It was pure insanity, we went to the supermarket on Friday to buy milk and some snacks.  The shelves were already beginning to become empty.  The workers could not fill the shelves fast enough.  I heard of people being online for 45 minutes to pay for their groceries, others were on for longer.  One friend said she saw a line go out side of the store.  Another friend saw a lady take a can of tuna out of someone else's shopping cart.  Another friend was in Walmart at 1 in the morning, where she saw people fighting over the last case of water and then she had to wait online for 45 minutes, at 1 in the morning, can you imagine.

All this to say please be prepared, you never know when a calamity will strike.  Some things I am going to add are life vests.  Also we have a water cooler, I would throw out the empty bottles but I am going to keep them.  They are good to fill up with water in case the water gets shut off or if it needs to be boiled.  I can use the water in the bottles instead to use for things like rinsing hands, washing dishes, flushing toilets etc... potable water.  I also learned that you can add 1/8 teaspoon plain bleach to one gallon of rain water.  This is a great way to sanitize with out having to boil it.
A picture is worth  one thousand words.  Here are some pictures of the bread shelves at our local supermarket.

To think that there are still people who have no electricity, or their houses are flooded.
Again ALWAYS BE PREPARED.

Dress for Miss-B

My daughter wanted a dress, so I had her go through all my patterns and this is the one she picked.

Its Simplicity (Built by Wendy) 3835.  She wants the blue dress but just a little shorter.  I took her to the fabric store and she picked out a snake print fabric in black.  Its really nice.  I started working on the dress today.  I had previously traced out the pattern.  I am basically done, just have to redo the sleeves.  They were to tight and I cut out the wrong ones.  She wanted the ones that are on the blue dress but I cut out the ones that were on the black print dress.  So I guess that's good.  Besides that all I have to do is sew in the zipper and hem it.  I basted the zipper in.  I am learning that it is better to baste your garment and then sew, then to sew and have to use the seam ripper.  I literally have around 3 seam rippers.  I keep misplacing them.   Also by basting first I am able to try it on her with out pocking her with tons of pins.  It may seem time consuming but think of how much time you save without having to rip out the seams and resew everything.
I will post picks once its done.

Cool find #5

IKEA Kitchen cabinets in your bedroom.  I never would have thought of this,  I love it though.  Saw this over at IKEA Hackers.

The other dress

Sorry for the bad picture, but I could not find a picture of the dress online.  This dress is from Burda Style magazine 8/2011.  Its dress #116.  The cowl part of the dress is too droopy, so I have to take it apart and take some in.  I am also leaving out the pockets.  I will post a picture as soon as I am done.

Whats for Dinner #4

Todays recipe is not  a whole meal but more of a side dish.  Better yet its something you can eat everyday.

BREAD.

This recipe is so easy to make.  The best part is that you can store it in the frig and have fresh baked bread daily.

They also have other great recipes in their book.

Cool Find #4

I really like this find.  You could use any wall space that you may have.  The materials are cheap also. Found it over at pinterest

Basically you buy PVC pipe, cut them, stick them to the wall then put in your shoes.
You can even cover the pipes with fabric or contact paper. 

Feeling better

I am feeling so much better today.  I don't know what hit me the last 2 days but I felt really sick.  To the point where I could do nothing but lay in bed, it was horrible.  Today I was able to wake up, pray and do my exercise.  I feel good.  I went to my local fabric store and bought some fabric to make my Coffee Date Dress.  My daughter( Miss-B) also bought some fabric.  Its a snake skin print, for a dress she wants.  Since  I haven't been feeling well I have not done any sewing.  This means that I need to get 2 dresses done by Sunday. My dress and my dd dress.  Hopefully I will be able to get it done.  Fabrics are already in the wash.
Fabric for my daughters dress.

 

Fabric for my dress

cool find #3

I've been so busy I totally forgot that today is Friday.  Now we don't have cable so I watch Project Runway over at lifetime.com  So after this post I will be going to watch PR.

  On to my cool find.  This one I found at Ikea Hackers.  WE love shopping at Ikea.  My oldest daughter Miss-N is going into her second semester of college, so we decided to give her the basement.  I had wanted to give it to the boys since there are 3 of them sharing a room, but decided to give it to miss-N seeing that she is 18, working and going to school.  Sorry for rambling back to the cool find.

We plan on making this for her bed.  It's made out of 2 expedit bookcases and a bed slate.  They used a full size bed, but we are going to use a twin size bed.  After measuring her bed and using the measurements from IKEA, it might be possible for us to go with out the slate.  We haven't decided yet,  I guess we will see once we have the bookcases on hand. It helps with storage or even clothing, you can use that space for almost anything.  Its a great idea.  Check out the site.  Tons of ideas as to how to use IKEA furniture in different ways.
Even if you just shopping at their clearance section.

Potty training

Well the time has come/came to potty train my last child.  She is a hard one I must say.  The other children were fine and got it right away.  Miss-J on the other hand only gets the pee-pee part.  We are going on over a month of training and she still goes #2 on herself.  I thought that  doing  #2 would have been easy, it was for the other kids.  They had no problem figuring out that they had to go, but miss-J just cant seem to get it.  So this is the first time I have ever used training pants.  The 7 other children did not use them.  They got the potty training thing I tell you.  I guess miss-J knows somehow that she is the last one and seems to think that she can stay in her pull-ups.

Whats for dinner #2

For this weeks recipe we have Broccoli Chicken Stir-Fry.

You can get the recipe here

A dress for me..

I've been thinking lately that I should sew more for myself.  Most of the sewing I do are for my 2 little girls. I've sewn some for my oldest daughter, not much for the one in the middle and barely for my 3 boys.  I also need to sew more for my other kids besides the 3 girls.  B-girl(girl#2) is extremely picky, even with RTW clothes.  She is realizing that with sewing your own clothes you can pick out whatever fabric you want.
On to my dress.  I plan on making The Coffee Date Dress

You can get the Pattern for free over at Burdastyle.com.  You might have to be a member though, but membership is free.  This is a great site, lots of patterns.  They even publish some of the patterns from the magazine Burda.  The patterns are not that expensive.  The only draw back is that you have to print out the pattern pieces and tape it together .  This does not bother me at all, I don't mind.  For some patterns they also give you the option to print at copy-shops.

I hope to finish the dress by the end of the week.  Lets see how much I get done.

Cool find #2

Since today is Friday here is my cool find.  
How cool is this.  My girls would love to have this play kitchen.  I plan on making this for them once I find  one of these old tv units.  This one is my favorite, since it has the frig attached to it.
Here a some pictures of some more play kitchens.

How cool is this.  My girls would love to have this play kitchen.  I plan on making this for them once I find my one of these old tv units.  This one is my favorite one, since it has the frig attached to it.
Here a some pictures of some more play kitchens.

Till next Friday.....

Whats for dinner #1

I figure I may not be the only one who needs help with what to cook for dinner.  You can add them to your menu list.  If you try any of these recipes out please let me know.

For our first recipe I am posting one I tried.  Its called
Shrimp Pasta in a foil package.

I made this for dinner and my husband loved it.   By cooking it in the foil the pasta soaked up the taste of the shrimp.  It came out really good and was fairly quick to make.  It is a keeper in my house and going into my recipe book.  

Cool finds Fridays.

Welcome to the first cool finds Fridays.  Every Friday I will post something/s that I find cool and interesting.  It can and will be anything( a project to do with the kids, a quote, anything)

To start it off, here is a project that you can do either for your kids or yourself.  Its a great way to recycle.  It has so many possibilities.  All you need are some washed out tin cans, hot glue and a cookie sheet.  You hot glue the cans to the cookie sheet, then fill the cans up with crayons, markers, lego's, anything you want.  hang it on the wall where your kids can reach it and you are good to go.
You can even use this for yourself.  You can organize your sewing notions, or you can use it for odds and ends like batteries.  I never know where to store batteries.

Here is the same idea but using plastic cups, twist ties and peg board

The possibilities are endless. Till next Friday.
Here is the original link

Sofrito

Sofrito pronounced so-free-toe, is what Spanish people use to season most if not all of their food.  Some people even put it on top of their already  cooked food.  I use it everyday and add it to all of my uncooked food.  Even when I fry chicken,  I rub it on the chicken before I fry it.  Here is a picture of some I made.

  This is very easy to make.  You only need a blender or food processor.  The ingredients can be changed up any way you like.  You can add and even subtract from it.
Here is how I make it
1-2 yellow onions
3 heads of garlic ( we love garlic here, you can use less if you like)
1-2 red peppers (bell)
1-2 Green peppers (bell)
1-2 heads of Cilantro
a bunch of recaito (this is the base of any sofrito, its also known as culantro.  I buy it buy the bunch, not loose)
After rinsing off all the ingredients and chopping them up into smaller pieces, you put them in the blender/food processor.  I do not cut the onion into small pieces.  I just cut them in half(they make me cry).  I add them  first because when you blend them, you get a lot of onion juice.  This helps cut down on your need to add water.  Once all of the onions are blended then you go ahead and add your other ingredients.  After everything is blended mix it up real good and store them in some containers.  I use glass and plastic containers.  This also freezes very well, so you can freeze any extra you may have.  I fill a glass jar and freeze whatever is left.  This also defrosts quickly.

If you give it a try let me know how you like it.

Next will be How to make Spanish Rice.

Doll stroller fail

So my girls A and J have this baby toy stroller.

 

As you can see its falling apart.  They love stuffing their toys in it and sitting in it also.  I bought some fabric from Walmart to make them some dresses but I did not buy enough fabric.  So I used it for the stroller.  I did not measure correctly so its to small.  I know they will use it anyway, but I am going to fix it for them.  I decided to post my fail because it came out so pretty.

Here it is.  Isn't it pretty.  I think so.  I can not wait to fix it for them.  I had wanted to turn the stroller into a tram stroller but I didn't have a basket to use and they needed their stroller.  Play time is not the same without it.

pj pants

My son Zboy asked me to make him a pair of pants.  He said that I always sew for the girls, if I could make him something.  I had this batman fabric that I bought knowing that my sons would like it.  So I used it to make him a pair of pj pants.  He is very happy with his pants..  They were very easy to make, I used a ottobre pattern to make them.

Pinterest

I do not remember how I stumbled upon this site, but I'm glad I did. 
Its a fun site.  You can check it out by either clicking on the link to your right or Pinterest.

I don't have much stuff up yet but I will.  If you would like an invite just let me know and I will send you one.

Make Crisp, Even Hems

This is an ingenious idea. I do wish I would have thought of it :).  Of course leave it to Martha Stewart to think of this.  I will be trying this on my next project, for sure.  I wonder how it will work on skirt hems since they curve?  I'm just going to have to find out   :)

Organization and Sanity

I need to get a little bit more organized here.. I don't know about you but with 1 young adult, 2 teenagers, 2 kids and 2 toddlers I desperately need to be organized.  Lets not for get that 2 out of the 7 are extremely active.  I mean from the minute they wake up to when they have fallen asleep, all they do is run around the house, climb on/over everything or body.  Just getting them to clean in the morning(basic chores here) is a job in itself.

I have made up chore charts before, the problem is sometimes I forget to print out either the next days sheet or the next weeks sheet.  Well I seem to have found the answer to my problem... laminate chore cards.

You can read about them here, even check out her organization system.  I used to do something similar to the binder system back when I attempted to be a flybaby, you know from Flylady.com.   I still do shine my sink I have to say.  One day I will be organized, at least that is my goal  :)

I have come to realize that my kids do not bicker as much when they are busy.  So I must find things to do with them to keep them busy or even find things for them to do on their own to keep them busy.  Boredom is the evil that starts the sibling quarrels rolling if you ask me.  This is how I will stay sane.