The kitten.

Recently, on a trip to Florida (July) we decided to adopt a kitten. I was still a mess after losing my Toby Cat, and I didn't really want a cat. Then, I met this cat...he looked a lot like Toby did when I saw him for the first time so I had to ask about him. I found out he was born on my birthday, and his name was Keith...(Toby Keith inspired Toby's name). Well, we adopted him for Goose and GirlBaby. The girls love him, and he loves them!

We had a hard time deciding on a name...I wanted to name him Feeny. (Yes, I love Boy Meets World) but it didn't seem to fit. Then we thought Desi..(Desi Armaz...Ricky Ricardo) but it just didn't click for me..but the baby would point and exclaim Kitty!! She did this one day and it reminded me of the movie Monsters Inc, so we ended up naming him Sullivan after the  James P. Sullivan character.

So here he is, meet our new kitty Sullivan. He has been with us a month and a half and so far so good!

My oPINion: slow cooker teriyaki chicken

Hi all! It's another recipe review for my opinion! A slow cooker recipe so it's even better!

I recently found a pin for slow cooker teriyaki chicken (find it here) I was intrigued and had a bunch of chicken to use so I made some plain chicken in the crock pot to use for other recipes, and in my other crock pot with the other half of the chicken I made the teriyaki chicken. I was actually surprised, it was pretty good! We served it over rice. Plus it took maybe 5 minutes to put together. So easy and I had the ingredients on hand!

Here is the recipe:

Ingredíents

1	lbs chícken, díced
1	cup chícken broth
½	cup teríyakí sauce
⅓	cup brown sugar
3	garlíc cloves, mínced

1. Combíne chícken broth, teríyakí sauce, brown sugar and garlíc cloves ín large bowl.

2. Add chícken to sauce, and toss to combíne.

3. Pour chícken míxture ínto crock-pot.

4. Cook on low 4-6 hours, or untíl chícken ís cooked through.

5. Serve over hot cooked ríce and spoon extra sauce íf desíred

What do you think? Is this a recipe you would try? If you try it, I'd love to know what you think!

My o'PIN'ion: Garlic/Brown Sugar Chicken

I always pin a ton of recipes, and wonder..are they really as good as they sound? Obviously opinions differ, but in my "oPINion" posts, I'm going to take pins from pinterest and review them, and you can decide for yourself, or feel free to comment with your opinions! I'd love to hear them!


So, the brown sugar/garlic chicken...in my head this sounded so good. I had pinned an easy recipe (see it, here) and was looking forward to trying it. I followed the instructions and got it in the oven and it smelled sooo good! I couldn't wait to try it...sadly, when I did try it, it didn't taste anything like it smelled. It was very bland, and the bites that did have flavor were just...odd. I was really let down because it honestly smelled SO good, almost like Chinese food. It wasn't bad tasting, it was okay, just really a let down compared to the smell. Even Pants said it was "different" and he will eat almost anything! We all ate it, but I probably wouldn't ever make it again. I did see a different slow cooker version of the recipe (check it out here) with more ingredients that sounds like it would have a lot more flavor, and taste more like it smelled, and I am considering giving it a shot. I will update this post when I try it.

Have you tried a version of this recipe? What were your thoughts?

Valances

I've been wanting some valances for our kitchen, but haven't found any that I love. So after finding some fun fabric, Pants and I made some valances! They took about 20 mins and only cost as much as the yard of fabric since we already had foam board. I used foam board left over from a home improvement project, less than a yard of fabric and straight pins!

First I measured the window, and we added 2 inches. We cut a piece of foam to go across the front of the window, and one inch pieces to box it in. Like in this picture:

Once the pieces were put together we ended up with this:

I then laid these on the fabric and cut it to fit and pinned it to cover the foam. I forgot to take pictures of this step, sorry! Once the fabric was pinned I ended up with this:

It was super easy, took no time at all, and we like how they turned out!

Week of 7/22/20113

What a  busy week so far! Goose started school (first grade!) and Pants started a new job, yay! I've been finishing up some projects (shirts for the girls, a bench for the entryway and a wall hanging) which I will post soon, and yesterday I opened an etsy shop! I really need to work on it some more but to check out what I have so far, click here.

I'm working my way through my to do list, keep your eyes peeled for some of my projects!

Stuffing mix meatloaf

I will start out by saying, I am not usually a fan of meatloaf. I just don't care for the tomato/ketchup/bbq sauce topping. I like the meatloaf but not the topping..and my mom and Gram always have that on top. Pants mentioned how much he likes meatloaf though, and so I thought I should find a recipe to make for him and the girls. I don't want to not serve them a meal because I can be picky.


Here goes:





One lb ground beef (or turkey!)
One egg
One cup of water
One box of stuffing mix (I use Stovetop Turkey Stuffing)


Mix together, put in loaf pan and bake at 350 for around 45 minutes. It was a hit! Plus it was super easy, yay!


*I was making this using ground beef but I've started using ground turkey and it's so good, better for you, and plus the ground turkey is cheaper than the beef! Now that I'm challenging myself with our grocery budget, that's an even bigger plus!


I hope that you'll try this and let me know what you think!

shop kick?

I've been hearing a lot about something called shop kick lately, which is a reward app for your smartphone. Apparently you can earn rewards just for walking into stores...after hearing about it daily for a couple weeks I've decided to give it a try and do a review!

So far I see plenty of stores near me, and once in a store you can scan products to earn more 'kicks' or rewards. I got the app last night and will update more as I go along!

If you want to join me (and help me earn points which helps me review!) click here!