Delicious Recipes to Keep my Family of Four Happy and Full
Ok, last week, I shared with you my massive sweater addiction. This week, I am opening the door to my closet a little wider so you can see another part of the growing population in it: shoes. Yes, I suffer, just as so many women do from a shoe addiction.
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| [Taste of Nowhere] |
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I feel like I should just make my decorating posts a series! I never seem to get to more than one room at a time. With my mantle complete, I turned my attention to the dining room!
I used to set the dining room table from the start of December with my Reindeer dishes BUT we host a fairly large Christmas party so I was always taking them back up for that. So, now the table stays free of actual place settings until Christmas Eve.
Less talk, more pictures is probably what you are thinking about right now.
I made this centerpiece using an old green wreath, an old sugar berry wreath (which I disassembled) and one of my homemade hurricane vases.
Little groupings of candles and vases sit on either side of the centerpiece.
On the light fixture above the table, I hung little gold snowflakes.
To the side of the table, we have a wine rack/buffet piece that I also like to decorate for Christmas.
Yes, that is the tag from the store around the reindeer’s neck. H is convinced it is his collar so she won’t let me take it off.
Now, I guess I should start thinking about what cook for the Christmas meal that will be eaten in this room!
Don’t forget that today is the final day to enter the giveaway for a Crocheted with Care Hungry Caterpillar Hat! I’ll be drawing the winner first thing Friday morning!
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
In early fall, I tackled the challenge of decorating my mantle. I had long avoided the task but was really happy I took the plunge.
Now that Christmas is upon us, my mantle desperately needed some new “clothes”. So, I dug through our sea of plastic bins to see what I could fish out of there to decorate it.
Of course, one thing I knew would go on there were our stockings. We all have stockings embroidered with our names and they hang across the front of the mantle.
From there, I grabbed my bay leaf garland (Pottery Barn circa 2004 I think) and a few other things and just started playing around with the placement.
I really love the mercury glass candle holders I scored at the Pottery Barn outlet this year!
Have you gotten your mantle all decorated for Christmas? Do you hang stockings by the fireside?
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Wow, can you believe we are up to 30 editions of WTCW? Let’s not waste any time getting into this week’s…grab your pens and grocery lists.
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| [Life is Great], [Skinny Taste], [Rock Recipes] |
Sunday: I’m not a big fan of bone-in chicken so I will probably make a little substitution in Spanish chicken with chorizo.
Monday: Can you guess what tool I plan to use today? If you guessed slow cooker, you would be right! Give yourself a treat (like some M&Ms) to celebrate. This time, I am going to give Carne Guisada (Latin Beef Stew) a try.
Tuesday: Kung Pao chicken sounds like a great meal that will also come together fast.
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| [Julia’s Healthy Italian], [Mango & Tomato], [Blue Kitchen], [Peas and Crayons] |
Wednesday: I’m shifting pasta day a little to the left and making rigatoni with pesto and arugula.
Thursday: I love shepard’s pie and I really love goat cheese. In this shepard’s pie with goat cheese potatoes, I get the best of both!
Friday: I’ll make a quick stop at the store on the way home to pick up my seafood for roasted shrimp with green lentils.
Saturday: Three words: Mexican pizza lasagna. Yep, probably as amazing as it sounds.
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Haha…I can’t believe it is almost 2pm on a Tuesday and I am just getting this post completed. I can only blame the most wonderful time of year for diverting my attention away from you dear readers. I promise that I have been working on some fun projects that I will share with you in the coming days/weeks.
Today, I am going to share a project that I had absolutely nothing to do with (well, except for providing 1/2 the stuff needed to create the little girl who did make this project)! H and her Grandma made a gingerbread house on Saturday (grandma did the baking…H did the decorating). It turned absolutely amazing.
Now, I am going to put a disclaimer here because, honestly, you are going to look at these pictures and think I am totally fibbing on how much input H had into this house. I promise you…she decorated it from concept to completion. All her. Grandma was simply the “assistant” handing supplies once the baking was done.
Didn’t she do an amazing job? I mean she is only 4 and her house looks much better than mine ever did.
Has there been any baking or decorating going on in your home?
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
I have a confession: I just can’t seem to step away from the yarn. I want to stop. I need to stop. My front door is begging me to stop. I keep saying: “this will be my last yarn wreath” and then I make another. This time, it was a Christmas wreath. Oh, and a Styrofoam wreath form (it was on sale and I now know why!)
Then, I wrap and wrap and wrap. Only this one was much more difficult. The yarn kept sticking to the Styrofoam which (honestly) sucked. But, I kept wrapping…
When I was tired of wrapping, I stopped to think about what I was going to do to the wreath. Obviously, I wasn’t planning to just stick a wreath form wrapped in yarn out on the door. I cruised around the web and saw all kinds of amazing wreaths! Some had felt flowers, some had beads, and some had very intricate scenes on them. I headed over to my craft room (a.k.a the basement) and took a look at what I had: random wood forms and scrapbook paper.
Oh, and clearly a ghost that was casting a shadow on my table. Yikes!
I traced the little wooden shapes onto the back of the scrapbook paper and hit them with some scissors.
I also painted the backs and sides of the shapes since some of that might be visible on my wreath. I picked silver because it pulled out the little silver threads that were woven into my yarn. I used their little wooden brothers to keep them off the paper so they wouldn’t stick while drying.
Next, it was Mod Podge time! I picked outdoor mod podge since my wreath would be handing outside. I brushed a layer of mod podge onto the wooden shape and stuck the scrapbook paper onto it. Then, I brushed a layer on the top of the scrapbook paper.
Merry Christmas!
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
I love Fridays! Not only is it the last day of the work week (and sometimes even a non-work day!) but it is also when I get to host the giveaway link party!
Got a giveaway going on? This is your place to share it!
The “rules” of this party:
1) Be sure to link to your specific giveaway post and not to your overall blog.
2) Put the name of your giveaway and an end date in your link title.
3) Please put my button (found over on the right side of your screen!) or a link back to here in your post so your readers will know where to come find yours and other fabulous giveaways each week.
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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| [My Life Stream] |
I was working on my Christmas list the other day and noticed the bulk of the clothing items on it are sweaters! There are cardigans, cowl necks, scoop necks and v-necks. I already have a dressers worth of sweaters and more so it isn’t like I am lacking in that department! H’s list is on the same page and I noticed that I had put several sweaters on hers too. I guess I am inflicting my sweater addiction on my 4 year old.
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Now that you have given your kitchen a good workout (or a good rest) over Thanksgiving, it is time to think about regular meals again. That means it is time for WTCW!
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| [Cheeky Kitchen], [Artsy Fartsy Mama], [Framed Cooks] |
Sunday: More veggies, less meat. That is my motto these days and butternut squash and red potato quiche sounds like a great option.
Monday: Is it just me or does almost every recipe for Monday start with the words “slow cooker” these days? This week, I am giving slow cooker bbq brisket a try.
Tuesday: I stumbled across this chowder bake and was quite intrigued. Hopefully, it tastes as good as it looks.
Wednesday: Beef and broccoli is always a great meal option. Toddler E loves broccoli too so that is a plus.
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| [The Kitchn], [Point-less meals], [Chef-n-Training] |
Thursday: Pasta day! This week, I’m trying spaghetti with marscarpone, meyer lemon and hazelnuts. Yum!
Friday: Beef Daube Provencal sounds yummy. I love pretty much anything you serve over egg noodles.
Saturday: I’m convinced Mathlete could eat an entire pineapple on his own if given the chance. I won’t go as far as to buy him a whole pineapple but I will make him Hawaiian haystacks which have plenty of pineapple.
Be sure to come back tomorrow for another fantastic giveaway!
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This felt like an exceptionally long weekend since mine technically started on Wednesday! Woo to the hoo! We spent Wednesday night with two of our favorite people doing one of our favorite things…drinking wine!
Junior found this really neat little place, Parallel Wine Bistro, that allows you to serve yourself wine by the taste, half glass or full glass. In all, I think there were at least 20 wines to try. The boys mostly stuck to beer but the Junior and I went down the line and tasted almost every one available!
Thursday was spent cooking and getting ready for Thanksgiving. We didn’t make our usual trip to visit my parents which gave me a pretty big case of the sads. We did get to the spend the holiday with Mathlete’s parents which was really nice!
We had all the traditional Thanksgiving things including a pumpkin pie that H made.
After stuffing ourselves with yummy food, we got to have a special visit with my parents! Isn’t the internet awesome?!
A little nap to get ready and then we literally shopped until we dropped! So, we spent most of Friday sleeping.
Saturday was the yearly Christmas decorating marathon.
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| [A Christmas Story House] |
We finished about 95% of the outdoor decorating and a good chunk of the stuff indoors too. I’ll be sharing pictures of all that once I finally get around to taking some. We capped off Saturday night with homemade pizza!
Sunday, Junior and I got up extra early and headed off to the mall for
One of the best parts of the class was the pre-store opening shopping and the 10% off discount. L-O-V-E!
The guys met us with the kids for our annual Santa picture taking. While we waited, there was lots to look at such as polar bears and snow.
We had a struggle getting all of the kids to look the same way at the same time. Santa was very patient.
Did you get an extra long weekend? Spend some time with Santa? Or maybe you just vegged out with family?
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.