Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Outdoor spaces...

I have a deep love for front porches/entryways.  It is lots of fun decorating.  This is one of my favorite things to check out on pinterest!!  So many fun ideas.  I didn't have a ton of time/energy to spend on our front porch this summer with moving and all the inside projects, but I did notice some ferns that were growing randomly and decided to transplant them into pots.

Note the white door...soon to be black.  I think it will pop with the shutters!

I obviously did not sweep my porch before snapping this picture!

I. Love. Fall.  I plan on hunting for some unique items for next year (one item is a vintage/antique wagon).  This year we kept it pretty basic and my mums finally bloomed last week!
Door is painted!!


Happy Fall!!

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Chicken Pot Pie

Yesterday I decided to cook up some good ole' comfort food and had purchased all the ingredients for a chicken pot pie recipe I found in this month's Bon Appetit magazine.  It was one of those things that the "picture" looked really good so I thought I'd give it a whirl.  I had glanced through the instructions and was banking on an hour to prepare...totally miscalculated that one.  I started dinner around 4pm and it was 8pm when we ate!!!  Pretty much a bedtime snack - ugh.  I think I used as many pots and pans as I would on Thanksgiving.  It was insane.  Needless to say the description of this recipe is accurate, "If you're only going to make one pot pie from scratch in your life, this is the recipe to use"...should that have been a red flag or what?!?!  Granted it was ahhh-mazing, my ability to enjoy it was diminished as I looked at the pile of dishes and chicken carcass awaiting my clean-up.  I almost took a picture of my kitchen...I should have, let's just say it wasn't pretty!
On the positive side, this dish is packed full of flavor and the herbs really add great flavor.  It was a great culinary learning experience!  You can view the recipe by clicking on the link below:
http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/10/chicken-pot-pie

The sauce thickened up quite a bit too, but we had no time to spare as this puppy came out of the oven at almost 8pm!!  It was a good thing the hubs was out late working on a remodel project and didn't get home until 10pm...dinner was still warm. ;)

Spelling City

 I have to share this website!!  We use it weekly to practice our spelling words.  It generates printables for practice writing (in cursive or manuscript), it will play word scramble games, vocabulary games...all with your child's personalized spelling list.  There are all types of curriculum on here...just look up your child's lesson via the search engine and voila! It is great and has saved us on a couple nights when the spelling book got left at school. The following list is the Abeka curriculum from 1st-3rd grade (other grades available!). 

Abeka 1st List 1 Nicole Patterson Nicole Patterson Liberty MO