Author: Lois Houston

I'm a sweet tea drinkin' southern gal who loves to cook, bake, crochet, and read. Check out my blog for posts about parenting, faith, books, crafts, planning, baking, cooking, and life in general.

Oh, Hello, Friday…

Hello, Friday. So glad you could make an appearance!

I really need the break that comes when you arrive. It’s been a crazy week. Not a bad week, just a crazy one. With all sorts of changes and alterations to our usual routine. And that is always a challenge for us… me, especially, being the creature of routine that I am.

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It started off with a doctor’s appt for Little Bit to get her poor feet checked out by the dermatologist since the meds the pediatrician had prescribed were not working. Thank goodness we went to the dermatologist! Turns out the pediatrician had diagnosed it incorrectly and was treating her for something she didn’t have. The dermatologist said her feet are suffering from a genetic issue – something she will live with forever. Good news is that he gave us copious amounts of samples/medicines to use on her feet and they seem to be helping. Bad news is that she will likely deal with this off/on forever.

That afternoon we had Little Bit’s visitor’s day at her dance studio.  So fun to watch them dance. You can see more of that here.

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Then, the GI doctor called about Big Girl’s test results and wanted us to come into the office on Wednesday. Again, not part of my plan for the week, but we adapted and went down to hear what he had to say. Good news here is that she has no ugly-scary-unpronounceable thing wrong. Bad news is that what is going on will take another couple months and more medicine to sort out.

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The same day we had to head to the doctor for Big Girl, my work laptop crashed.  This SERIOUSLY caused me to go into a tailspin! I have a huge project going on right now at work and being without my laptop was most definitely not part of my plan!  After a few hours of trying to troubleshoot it myself I realized I needed to get the super-tech guys from the office involved. The good news is that they are on the way to the doctor’s office and they were able to recover my files and I will be back to “normal” next week. (I hope)

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The rest of the week has been about triage and maintaining some sense of normalcy in what has been a non-normal week. I am really looking forward to the weekend – some time to scrapbook, clean the house, and a picnic on Sunday afternoon with good friends. Hopefully, next week will be a little less chaotic for us all (including my computer!)

Hope you had a great week and that yours wasn’t quite as “interesting” as mine has been!

life rearrangedLinking up with InstaFriday.

Beautiful Dancer

It’s that time of year – we’re gearing up towards the recital season …

Yesterday was visitor’s day at the dance studio. We got to see Little Bit go through her dances for ballet and jazz.  She got her costume (always exciting) and got to try it on.  Some alterations will be necessary (as always) but it is an absolutely adorable costume.  It’s a “convertible” costume, so we only had to get one costume for both recitals (yay for the pocketbook!)  She wears a tutu and some adjustable adornments for the ballet dance and then a sequined skirt and bolero jacket for the jazz dance. Too, too cute.

I thought I’d share a few pictures from yesterday…

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Here is a video of her jazz dance – so cute!!

 

And a few more pictures for you…

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Sweet girl. Smile

Project Life Tuesday ~ 10 April 12

The Mom CreativeHello and welcome to Project Life Tuesday!

If you are stopping by from The Mom Creative, welcome & thanks for clicking over!

If you are not, you might want to click over there when you’re done here for some more great Project Life inspiration!

This past week was Spring Break for the girls – I had thought I’d have a ton of pictures for this week, but the girls and I ended up staying home and we had a relatively quiet week. I worked, they relaxed and played outside and we just enjoyed ourselves as best we can – and I didn’t worry about taking lots of pictures. I just enjoyed my kids.

I managed to fill my pages, though. They are simple with mostly digital embellishments this week. I like the on-again/off-again decorating trend I have. The simpler pages balance out the more elaborate pages of other weeks. And I don’t feel so pressured to make everything fancy-schmancy if I don’t want to. Which is one of the things that I love so much about Project Life.

My pictures were printed at home and I forgot to turn off the borders on my print job. I wasn’t going to waste more ink to reprint them, so this batch has borders. Not sure I like it, but it’s not a big enough deal to go back and reprint – at least not yet. I may order prints next week and if I do I’ll reprint them then.

Anyway…

Here are this week’s pages: (remember to click on any picture to see it larger)

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Left side page:

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That’s an Ali Edwards freebie for the page title – and I added a little brad that I dug up in my stash. The journal card has some buttons from my stash that I stuck on for a little color. I used Ali Edwards’ days from Designer Digitals. I just cut the words out of the frames and added them to the photos.

Some close-ups:imgp4185

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I love the little swirls I added to the picture of Little Bit riding her bike. I have no idea where they came from (they were in my “freebie” folder) but I think that it adds a great touch to the picture.

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One more close-up that I love.

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Moving over to the Right side:imgp4182

Close ups:

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And the journaling for the week is a Cathy Zielske journaling card:

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That’s it for me this week!

Thanks for stopping by!

I hope I have some more craftiness to share with you later in the week.

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Menu Plan Monday ~ 9 April

Happy Monday!

… at least I think it is – my monkeys are not so sure, either. It’s the first day back to school after spring break and none of us wanted to get up early this morning.

One thing I do have in hand this week is our menu plan, though. Big Girl went shopping with me on Saturday and helped me to plan out what we’ll eat for the week. It was nice having her with me to help.

Here’s what we have planned:

I also made SuperMan some broccoli salad to eat on during the week and we have leftover honey ham from Easter dinner that we’ll have for lunches this week.

Hop on over to orgjunkie.com for some more menu plan ideas.

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Fajitas!

Fajitas are one of my family’s favorite dinners. I could probably serve it once a week without anyone complaining. They love it that much.

I’m not sure why – I don’t feel like I do anything special – but they absolutely love them.

I thought I’d share my recipe with you –  just in case you’ve never made these yourself at home before. I think they are better than the restaurant version.

The secret, to me, is two-fold: lots of seasoning and time. Time makes the meat tender. Seasoning makes it flavorful.  I don’t use any fancy ingredients; no special spices or exotic foods. You can buy any of this at the grocery store:

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I cut my chicken tenders into smaller, thinner slices.  Sometimes I do the same for the meat (depending on how thick it was cut at the store). I slice my onion thin and the bell peppers I leave a little thicker because I like that taste when I bite into my fajita. The refried beans I don’t put in the fajita meat when they are cooking, but I do heat them and serve them on the side to put in the fajita when it’s made at the table.

So, let’s get this recipe going here:

First, brown your meat in a little oil in your skillet:imgp4167

I put all the meat in together. It’s probably not how the Food Network folks would do it, but I (am lazy) don’t have time to cook each part separately and put it aside while I cook the rest. Just toss it all in, I say.

When the meat is cooked, I add the tomato and seasoning:imgp4168

Once I get that incorporated and let a little of the juices from the tomato cook off, I add the peppers and onion: (I don’t normally do yellow, just happened to have them on hand)imgp4169

Let it all simmer for a while – until the veggies are tender and you’re ready to serve. I love this skillet I inherited from my mom – I can set it to “Low” and let things stay warm under the lid until we’re ready to sit down to eat dinner together.

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Serve with warm tortillas, sour cream, cheese, lettuce, tomato, salsa, etc.

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Ingredients:

2 pounds steak, sliced thin
1-2 pounds chicken tenders, sliced very thin
2 bell peppers, julienned
1 large onion, julienned
1 can Rotel tomatoes with chiles
1 packet taco seasoning
Cumin
Chili Powder
Garlic Powder
Salt/Pepper

Instructions:

  1. Slice your steak & chicken into thin strips. Season lightly with salt & pepper & set aside.
  2. Slice your peppers and onion into thin strips. Set aside.
  3. Heat your skillet with some oil and add the meat.  As the meat is cooking, sprinkle liberally with cumin, chili powder and garlic powder.
  4. Sauté the meat until it is browned and then add the can of tomatoes and the taco seasoning.
  5. Simmer until most of the juices from the tomatoes has cooked off.
  6. Add the vegetables and cook until the onions are translucent.
  7. Serve with warm tortillas, sour cream, cheese, lettuce, tomato, salsa, etc.

March Roundup

Well, maybe this is a little late – but at least I got it done before the first week of April is over, right?

I’m not sure I’m happy with the page yet… something is just “off” to me but I can’t put my finger on it. I did take a less structured approach this time, so maybe that is why?

Anyway, here’s my March roundup page:

March Roundup

I liked including mostly pictures this month – less words. I figure the stories are in the Project Life pages for the most part. Still liking these roundups, though, to give a quick snapshot of the month.

Join in the roundup – over on Katie the Scrapbook Lady’s website!

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Project Life Tuesday ~ 4.3.12

Hello and welcome to Project Life Tuesday! The Mom Creative

If you are stopping by from The Mom Creative, welcome & thanks for clicking over!

If you are not, you might want to click over there when you’re done here for some more great Project Life inspiration!

It’s APRIL, people!

APRIL!

WOW. Just wow. The year is flying by. Earlier this week, I was afraid I wasn’t going to have enough pictures to fill the week in the album. Boy, was I wrong! I ended up with two inserts in addition to the usual weekly pages.  Part of that is because I devoted an entire page + to Little Bit’s newest attempt to ride a bike without training wheels. Big Girl took pictures (I was at the grocery store and I have trained her well – SuperMan said she told him “Mom will kill you if we don’t get pictures of this.”) I think she likes that her photos are featured in the family album and I love the help!

Add to that the beautiful weather and some silly critters and I had a lot of stuff to share. So, get comfy, you’ve got a lot of stuff to look at here.

(and remember to click on any picture you want to see larger)

The first two-page spread: (you can see the other insert peeking through) I used a smaller insert (on the right) with 3 4×6 photos – it was just enough to capture the rest of the bike pictures.

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Next, a close up of those photos:imgp4149

I am having fun  using up my “stash” and finding things to go together that weren’t meant to go together – like the Creative Memories’ pink die-cut and stickers to go with another scrap-pad paper and the PL grid journaling card cut down and stuck on top.

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And then the back of the smaller insert and the front of the second insert: (Silly puppy shots)

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And let’s all sing “Hallelujah!” for my new dishwasher! (hee hee)

Close ups:

The stickers on the puppy pictures were from a sheet from Jillibean Soup. imgp4148

I made the journal card on the bottom right using my PL Digital papers from Jessica Sprague. Sticker on the picture of Little Bit reading was a circle I cut in half from October Afternoon and the label on the yummy dinner picture is a Martha Stewart label from the Staples collection.

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Back of the second insert and the final page:imgp4152

Close ups:

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The polka dot paper is from My Mind’s Eye (I think I got the pad of paper at Michael’s) and the words on vellum are from an old Creative Memories pack I had.  More Martha Stewart labels on the other pictures and a picture of the book I’m reading right now.

And close up of the last page:

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The journal card is from Kate Teague (This Life collection) and I added the “This Story” to the top from another file in the same kit and dropped it on there. The paper flowers were more Creative Memories stuff I uncovered.  The Happy Spring page I used as my week indicator came from Ali Edwards and I edited it to change the background color to match the journal card and then added the week, the paper flower and some glitter poka dots with a Gelly Roll glitter pen. The “Hello Spring” came from Sprik Space. I just found that blog and love the designs! imgp4151_close up1

Because I thought I wasn’t going to have a lot of pictures for the week, I did a screen print of the audio book I’m listening to, the Daily Mile page to show my walks this week (yay, me!) and the poster of the movie SuperMan and I went to see Friday night. I like it, though. Bits of ephemera about our life.imgp4151_close up2

Well, that’s it for this week – hope you liked it and thanks for stopping by!

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