Homemade Bread… Yum!

You know the best thing to do while you’re making bread?  Drink wine :).  Then text your friends that you’re drinking bread and baking wine.  Sure, why not 🙂   Hey it happens!

1 cup scalded milk
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp yeast (1 Package)
3 beaten eggs
4 1/2 cup flour

Combine scalded milk, butter, sugar & salt; cool to lukewarm.  Add yeast and stir well.  Add eggs, then flour; mix to a smooth, soft dough.  Turn your electric mixer on and let it run for 10 minutes.  (My grandma always said that was key).  Knead lightly on a floured surface.  Place dough in greased bowl; cover and let rise until at least doubled in size.

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It's Time to Revolt

You know, I’ve tried fitness programs all along.  Remember Billy Blanks and Tae Bo which was fun but when you’re doing DVD’s you do the same routine over and over which gets boring and your body gets used to.

Same with Jillian Michaels and the 30 Day Shred.  It’s a bit different, but not really.

Then I’ve tried the whole P90X and while you switch up your routine and it kicks your butt, who wants to devote an hour to an hour and a half every night 6 days a week if you’re busy and on the go?!?!

That’s one reason why when they asked if I wanted to try Revolt with Nichole Huntsman I kind of scoffed at it at first.  I thought, oh geez, another thing I’ll try and won’t stick with.

I stuck with P90X for 3 weeks and gave up.  That was a lot of time to devote to fitness that I really sadly didn’t have at the time.  Jillian Michaels was allowed to kick my butt for 3 weeks as well.  So when I finally decided to start Revolt I sadly gave it and myself 3 weeks.  I’m at Day 25 though.  That’s 4 days over the 3 week mark and I don’t see an end in site.

Nichole does the workouts right along side you, you do them on the computer and from what I can tell she video’s them that day.  So every day you’re doing a new workout pretty much with the exception of Thursday being a repeat of Monday’s workout.  But that’s only doing the same workout twice.

And to say this is kicking my butt would be a bit of an understatement!  Don’t worry, I have the before pictures and hubby can already see a difference between the before shots and now.  I plan on when I’m done with this total a**kicking program to show the before and after photos.

So stick with me for this ride.  And please keep me accountable.  I’d like to break the “3 week” cycle :).

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Get Your Welding On

If you were to ask me one thing I would wish upon my kid(s), my answer would be this… I would wish upon them the kind of childhood I had growing up.  Yes, my parents and I butted heads a few times, that will happen when you have different/similar personalities together, but I had a great childhood.  I only hope that I can bring some of the things that my parents did for me or taught me to my kids.

Now, as most of you know, Tbug is my {step}daughter, but I don’t like that word step.  She’s just as much a part of me as if I would have carried her for 9 months, I just got mine walking talking & potty trained.

One thing that I did at an early age is help my dad, mom, grandparents, whomever out in the hayfield or while they were fixing equipment.  Late last fall we got one more round of hay for the season to feed our critters, but in the process the mower conditioner broke down and has been sitting in my mother-in-laws shop waiting to be fixed.

A couple weekends ago while Tbug was over, we headed to my MIL’s house to fix the mower and her daddy gave her lessons on welding.

Now normally, here is where I would remind you about safety, i.e. making sure the mower is turned off, making sure the tractor is turned off, making sure everything is raised up, not being in water if you’re welding, etc.  but we were in a shop on a “clean”, dry, concrete floor.  The mower wasn’t even hooked up to the tractor, therefore nothing to worry about there.

After hubby crawled around and investigated what he needed to do to the mower,

It was time to give Tbug lessons on what to do while welding.

  • Wear a welding helmet
  • Don’t look at the welding arch with your bare eyes (ie wear the helmet)
  • I’ll give you the signal on when to pull the helmet down
  • Pull your hair up (ie Nicole pulls hers down so Tbug has a ponytail)
  • Turn your hat backwards (out of the way and helps protect your hair)
  • I’ll give you my coat to put on for extra protection
  • etc etc

And then they were off.

She didn’t actually do any welding, she stayed back and watched from a very close, safe distance.

When they fired up the welder I turned my back to them to shield my eyes and this is what the wall looked like.  That’s how bright the welder is…. and I know it doesn’t look bright in this photo, but the big overhead door was open too so we had outside light in there as well.

When we were done we asked her what she thought and she said she had fun.  That’s my girl!

Easiest Hard Boiled Eggs Eva

via

Are you dying Easter eggs this year?  How about making Deviled Eggs for Easter?  Try this tip on getting them just right…in the oven!  So so EASY and they turn out great.  This has already changed my life for the better.

Place eggs in a muffin tin and bake at 325 degrees for 28 minutes. After cooking, transfer to a bowl of cool water and let sit for a few minutes. Change the water if necessary to keep cool.

Peel and serve!

Sunday Night Dinner – Zebra Girl Style

Welcome back for round 2 of Sunday Night Dinner :).  This time was a bit different because we were celebrating Zebra Girl’s 11th birthday.  It was a Partay!

And of course, you can’t have a birthday with out presents.  Ah, to be 11 again!  When I saw some of her presents, I contemplated it again, but then decided I didn’t want to be 11 again after all, but she got some awesome presents!  The funniest part to me was we had Tbug help us pick out her present, you know, being 10 and all, and she didn’t know what to get her.  It was funny.

This weeks theme was Chili.  There were 3 different types of chili too; Ald, Earl and hubby contributed their chili.  I’m still not a huge chili fan so I didn’t try any of them.  Again, I suck, but I hear they were good.

They also made hot dogs for the kids or if the adults wanted a Chili Dog.  I ate a hot dog, does that make me a kid?  Well remember I contemplated wanting to be 11 after seeing Zebra Girl’s party….

Divergirl brought Corn bread muffins.  And look at the cute muffin wrappers.  Now Zebra Girl loves Zebra’s, hence the name… so Divergirl helped out!

TB played hard at the Spring Gathering and was exhausted come Sunday.

I jokingly called this the “liar’s corner”.  And Earl just happened to walk into it.  lol.

The kiddo’s were all having fun with each other.  This picture on the left, they grabbed on to grandma’s leg and formed a chain being drug across the floor.

Then it was time for the cake.  Now originally they made a cake that was a balloon covered in whipped cream but it kept sliding off the balloon so they covered it in snow.  Yes, I said snow, it snowed on Sunday.  Anyway so Zebra Girl was supposed to cut into it and it was supposed to explode but it didn’t. 

Then it was time for her real cake.  She tried to peek so Uncle Pokey wouldn’t let her.  I think she liked it though, what do you think?  Apparently she drew the Zebra herself and then Price Cutter put it on the cake for her.  The cake was half vanilla, half chocolate.

Once the candles were blown out, then it was time to dish up the cake & ice cream.

Earlier that day Hubby, Tbug and I made Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup cookies and decorated Easter Sugar cookies.  So we contributed those as well.  Divergirl brought Blueberry Muffins, Triple berry Muffins and another type of muffin.  You know in addition to birthday cake or instead of, depending on how you felt about it.

Then it was time for presents.  Like I said, she got some awesome presents!

And that Girls and Boys was our Sunday night dinner this week.  I’m so glad you were able to join us!  Hope you have a wonderful hump day Wednesday.  We’re now halfway through the week.  Breathe easier!  Especially if you get Friday off from work.  I know I do 🙂

Breakfast at Hardee’s

Two weekends in a row Tbug has been with us on a Sunday morning.  And oddly enough both Sunday mornings we ate breakfast at Hardees.  It was on our way to where we were going both days.  Please don’t tell my diet about this!

Last weekend Tbug got the Biscuits & Gravy. Truthfully you can’t go wrong with a good biscuit & gravy and I swear out of all the places I’ve tried them, Hardees has to be my absolute favorite.  Why I didn’t get this, I still keep asking myself!  Don’t worry though, I cut it up for her and then stole a bite.  Tried to convince her it wasn’t any good and I just needed to eat it myself ;).

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10 Things to Smile About – March Edition

Holy Cow!  Where did March go, can someone please tell me.  Seems like just yesterday I was smiling about February and now it’s already time to smile about March.  Yikes!  I swear, some days at work it feels like time is actually standing still, but when you look at the big, whole, overall picture, I think someone hit time warp speed accidentally and life is flying by!

So today I’m linking up with EmmyMom for her 10 things to Smile about

And with Shawn & IA for Talk to us Tuesday
Seriously Shawn
And Stacy at for Random Tuesday Thoughts
Stacy

And in no particular order

1.  I started doing the Revolt Fitness as well as a Biggest Loser Competition among friends.  And even if the scales aren’t moving as fast as I prefer they would, I am starting to feel better about myself and hubby said for sure he’s seeing definition in my arms.

2.  We finally got snow, even after Spring supposedly sprung.  Mother Nature had other ideas.  And I may not be a snow person, but… it’s good for the ground, especially since last summer we were in drought conditions.  Every little bit helps!

3.  Tbug went and spent a Saturday with us at the Kansas City City Market {Farmer’s Market} and she loved it as much as we do.  We also went out to lunch & dinner and to Cabela’s & Trader Joe’s.  It was a fabulous weekend!

4.  This chicken cracks me up!  It was an email I got at work and shared here, but truthfully I feel that way some days as I’m sure we all do!

5.  We had the first baby of the season born.  She’s now a couple weeks old and a big ball of fire!

6.  I’m finally starting to adjust to this time change, but every now and again it’s still kicking my butt!

7.  The 6S we performed on my pantry is still lookin good!  Made it almost a month and everything is still “in its place”.

8.  Sunday Night Dinner‘s always make me smile

9.  The fun time we had at the Spring Gathering.

10.  And this still makes me smile.  And sorry it has a dirty word in it, but I didn’t pick the song, I just think this is awesome though.  Dressage is pretty sweet style of riding, especially to music like this.  They say generally they choose classical music.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knCj92zA0tU]

Gettin Down MO Style

This last weekend there was a huge gathering of friends and family and we were invited.  Hubby wound up having prior engagements that took him most of Saturday.  Tbug and I got tired of waiting on him plus he’d entered his chili in the chili cookoff; so Tbug and I decided to go without him, take his chili and he could meet up with us later.

We really weren’t sure where we were going after we got on the main road we were told so I plugged the address into my iPhone’s maps for directions.  BIG mistake, Siri dumped us off in the middle of the woods.

So we turned around, back tracked and I called Earl.  She wasn’t answering so next I tried Pokey.  Turns out we missed the turn by about a mile.  Not bad, right?  Don’t worry, Tbug and I finally got there, just in time to get hubby’s chili there for the judging.

There were 4 judges judging 6 different chili’s. 

After the judging was over then everyone got to eat.  Of course you had your choice of 6 different chili’s, gumbo, nachos, tacos, taco salad, and lots of other goodies, plus dessert.  You can’t forget the dessert.

After everyone had a chance to eat dinner they announced the winners of the cookoff.  Earl had also entered her chili in the contest.  She needed a “support” group.  And as you can tell by this photo, she placed.

Congrats to Early and her 3rd place win.  Her secret ingredient, Cinnamon.  Hubby apparently was the only one to guess this.  I’m not a huge chili fan so shame on me, I didn’t try anyone’s, but I hear they were good.

After the announcement of the Chili Cookoff Winners, then they had an adult round of Hula Hooping.  Wow, most of us haven’t done that since we were kiddos, and a bunch of the guys were signed up.  I’ll let you observe how this all went.  And I’m going to point out, there was no alcohol involved at all.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUKRUQAMZ_Q]

After we finally had a winner for the adults, then they had a Hula Off between the adult winner and the Kid winner.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un4GN2t9ttI]

Even though Saturday was a cold and rainy day, it was a blast and everyone had fun.  It was a great day to get together, have great food, great conversation and lots of fun!

Weekend Traditions: Sausage Tatortot Casserole

I’m all about traditions, but I also like to make my own such as a photo of hubby & me a month on a scrapbook page or breakfast, mmmmm breakfast! For a couple of months while we were dating we had the same dish every Sunday morning.  Yup, it’s that good.  Now we don’t have it as much as we used to, but this is still one of our favorites. Sunday Morning Breakfast!!

Ingredients: Sausage (you can buy the types that have seasonings in them… they are good as well) Hash browns or tator tots (our favorite are the tator tots) We selected Mushrooms but you don’t have too Cheese. We use Mexican blend or Fiesta Blend or whatever but Cheddar is good too. Salt & Pepper & seasonings… we chose Sage 1/4 cup chopped onion or onion flakes if you realize you don’t have onion… 2-4 tbsp butter And we’re off! Fry up the Sausage with the onion. Sausage is browned add the salt & pepper & sage, now add the butter.

Melt the butter in. This is to help fry up the hash browns or tator tots. We prefer tator tots, you just have to chop them up. They cook up better though than the hash browns in our opinion.  Since we chose tator tots, we have to chop them up while they cook.  This part takes a little bit.

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