July has officially left us, and I am a little sad, summer is closing it's gates soon. We had a fabulous month over all, treats at Cold Stone, swimming with friends, trips to the local parks, lots of garage sale shopping. O still has not found a job teaching, he had four interviews in the past week, and we know for certain he wasn't chosen for two of those jobs, he's pretty sure he won't get the third one as it requires a fluency in Spanish, and while he was fluent, he hasn't really used it at all for the last two years, so he was quite rusty at the interview. That leaves Fairbanks, we haven't heard anything from them yet, talk about cutting it all to the wire. Another job did just open up in Kodiak, and he put his application in, so fingers are crossed! Meanwhile he has employment through O'Reilly's and he is thinking of putting in his applications to be a substitute teacher for Mat-Su and Anchorage. We will make it, somehow, but it is requiring a lot of cut backs on our parts, and I won't lie, I like having expendable cash, I like being able to go to a store and afford to buy all organic veggies, and stock up on organic fruit. I love cooking with exotic and expensive ingredients, but for now my likes and desires will have to wait! So what have the Miller's been up to since our last update? Well J went back to Missouri for a visit, she comes back on the 13th of August. E is coming home Saturday, Yeah! We have missed her, and Papa (what she calls daddy O, she calls me Mama)keeps saying the house doesn't feel right without her here! Last weekend was super hot, we hit 70*! So we spent a day at the lake, and I wore a swimsuit for the first time in two years! We had so much fun, made some new friends, and even Mom got into the water and swam a bit, Mom needs to remember to do her inhaler next time, the icy water caused my lungs to seize up pretty bad and I had problems breathing the rest of the day, but it was still so much fun! We played football, Frisbee, and chase each other around like crazy people. We had lots of people come join us for some fun, and others turned their lawn chairs away from the lake so they could watch our crazy group! I love this town, have I said that yet? I love that everywhere I look are mountains, I love that there is always something to do, I love the people overall they are super friendly, and I love shopping!
I have two recipes to share with you today! One is a super easy Pizza for an at home pizza night, this takes minutes to prepare, and if Mom wants a night out of the kitchen, this is a recipe that even the little ones can almost do by themselves (you will have to help with the actual baking part of course!)
English Muffin Pizza:
Ingredients:
English Muffins (I do one whole English muffin per person)
Favorite Pizza Sauce
Mozzarella Cheese
Cheddar Cheese
Favorite Toppings
We went with just straight up pepperoni pizzas, although a couple of the boys opted to make one of their pizzas cheese only.
Directions: Preheat oven to 425* Split your English muffins with a fork and lay out on your pizza pans.
Liberally cover in pizza sauce, because the muffins are super spongy, they will absorb a lot of sauce so don't be stingy with it!
Add toppings, I prefer doing cheese first, then the pepperonis on top of the cheese, so the pepperonis get kind of crunchy and yummy during the baking.
Bake at 425* until cheese is melted and the muffins are toasted (you can also make just a few in a toaster oven, for a quick after school snack that kids can make themselves!), about 10-15 minutes depending on your oven and the number of pans you put in there. I don't time, I just eyeball it!
This has become the number one requested dinner at our house, we have used bagels instead and the boys love it like that, you can also use biscuit dough, really when it comes to fast make at home pizza... your imagination is the limit as to what you use for the crust. This was so popular, an official request was made to have a pizza night each week!
I wanted to share another recipe with you all, I found this off of pinterest, if you don't know what it is, Google it, it's amazing! I get so many wonderful ideas for my kids, for meals, for household decorating, it's a cornucopia of delight! This recipe and a few others I will be trying soon came from one of my pins! I know cold oatmeal sounds about as appetizing as eating cold porridge..wait it is cold porridge! Trust me, it's amazing, every one of my boys are crazy about it, as is O and J, they love this for their breakfast, and I love making it for them, it's super quick to make up and really really good for them!
Vanilla Yogurt, Greek was called for in the original recipe, but on our budget we can't afford Greek so we use just normal vanilla yogurt. If you choose to use Greek yogurt you will need to add just a bit more liquid to your recipe.
Milk or Milk Substitute
Frozen or Fresh fruit (I imagine canned would work, but try to get it without syrup as you don't need the extra sugar, it's plenty sweet!)
Peanut Butter
That's it, that one apple you see, and those two bananas, will do 8 breakfasts, without scrimping on the fruit at all!
Directions: Place 1/4 cup whole oats in bottom of jar Place 1 tablespoon of peanut butter on top of oats (just plop it in there, it will get stirred in before they eat it!) Add 1/4 Cup vanilla Yogurt Add slightly less then 1/4 cup milk Top with 1/4 cup apples and bananas diced. seal with lid, and place in refrigerator overnight. Stir before eating!
That's all there is to it, You can make enough for up to three days in advance, and your imagination is the only limit. We have done strawberry banana, peaches and cream (I used a splash of non-dairy creme brulee dairy in that batch), mixed berry, chocolate banana, chocolate strawberry. If you or your kids can dream it, you can make it into refrigerator oatmeal, and every single one tastes amazing! Of course my crew's favorites are any with chocolate (just add a bit of chocolate syrup, or if you are wanting to really watch the sugar, a little bit of cocoa powder, the yogurt will provide enough sweetener for it!) The boys actually complain now if they don't have their cold oatmeal because it fills them up so well, even O is satisfied with his one jar for breakfast! You can adjust the amount you make to suit your family, just keep the measurements equal.
Speaking of O, yesterday we celebrated 18 years of marriage, it's so hard to believe I'm old enough to have been married that long! Yikes! I am so thankful for this man, he works so hard and gives so much of himself for me and his family, and I know the day will come when we are celebrating our 50th anniversary together! O took me out to eat Sunday, there was a Mexican place that we wanted to try out and they had a cheap buffet on Sundays (did I mention we are on a budget, it doesn't include money for these kind of things). Yesterday we grilled chicken, had scalloped potatoes, baked beans, and corn on the cob.. and for dessert, I tried out my new Cuisinart Ice cream machine I bought at a garage sale for 5.00.. did I mention it was brand new? It worked wonderfully, and we all really loved the ice cream, and I loved that it took me less then five minutes to make up the mix and pour it into the machine! After dinner we took everyone to a park we discovered near our house, this place is wonderful, so much for the kids to do there, and it's completely enclosed so there is only one exit from the playground area, and only one exit from the park, both exits require you to walk down a small fenced hallway of sorts single file. Make me feel just a little safer!
We may be broke, but we are still living a wonderful and blessed life!
I was taught by my grandmother the importance of good table manners. Ok so maybe I didn't see the importance, but the lessons stuck. I can't stand when people chew with their mouths open, and even worse is talking with your mouth full, and burping at the table, or any other bodily functions is a definite no go! Other manners I'm less picky about, but still feel it's important for my children to know, things like asking for items to be passed, instead of reaching across the table, saying please and thank you, and eating with elbows off the table. I became a member of pinterst a while back, and through that stumbled upon a blog that talked about using a piggy to reinforce table manners. The basic gist of it is, who ever uses bad table manners gets the piggy set in front of them, the child with the piggy at the end of the meal is in charge of clearing off the table, washing it down, and rinsing the dishes. Well I don't have a piggy, but we do have a little Yorkie figurine, so it became our table manner mascot. If you have porky yorkie at the end of the meal, you have table clearing duty. If no one gets porky yorkie then everyone is responsible for rinsing their own plates, and whoever has evening dish duty is responsible for wiping down the table. It has worked wonders, within a week we saw huge improvements in table manners. No one likes getting the porky yorkie!
The Porkie Yorkie...dreaded table guest
M looks thrilled about getting it doesn't he?
As I said, no one wants to have the porkie yorkie visit their plate, poor M's brothers watched their manners so they wouldn't get it moved over to them, so he got the job of clearing the table! Of course in our new home, we don't have space for a dining room, or even a kitchen table, but that is no excuse for lack of family meal time, or poor table manners!
First I have to mention how wonderful two of our friends from Akiak have been since we arrived. Julie and Beth have made this transition so much easier! Beth has driven up from Anchorage three times now to help haul us from the airports, and help haul our stuff with her truck, and then again to help us pick up beds! Julie kept her promise and made sure we had not just one six pack but two six packs of Alaska Ale for our first day here, and thanks to her son and daughter-in-law we also have a twin bed frame for E's room, and the Queen size bed for ours! Most of our time, since we have arrived, has been spent trying to get acquainted with our new town, and trying to find furniture for our home.
Of course we also had to put a bit of furniture together, before O arrived I bought a cheap t.v. stand and a computer desk, A helped me build both, and then M wanted to help out with the t.v. stand. I think he figured the quicker we got it done, the quicker he could plop his behind in front of it! We had a bar-b-que for O's 41st birthday (wow hard to believe we are getting that old, where did our 20's go?), poor O had to spend the day picking up beds. Thanks to two friends from Akiak, Julie and Beth, we were able to get beds for everyone in one day!
Julie invited us over for the day last week, and what a wonderful day it was! We spent it up at Big Lake, and the boys all had a blast! Her grandsons are absolutely adorable!
Views from two different angles of the lake
The boys spent more time in the paddle boat then they did actually swimming, they absolutely loved it!
Apparently Julie's grandson loves to pick lily pad flowers. I had never seen one in person and found them to be so beautiful and strange!
Another favorite activity, swimming around on the raft, which happens to have a clear window so they could float and watch life under the water. The water was so clear in the lake you could see the bottom!
W got his first trip in a canoe, A taught him how to paddle it and they enjoyed some time away from the younger kids.
Of course where there are kids, there must be snacks, Julie provided some super yummy juice pops, and Capri suns,and we provided apples, bananas, and some not so healthy koolaid bottles...I was so impressed with all the kids, they behaved very well, and they all had so much fun playing together! It was an amazing day..and to finish the amazing day, we got another amazing beautiful ride home
Yeah, life is pretty sweet right now! I get to stare at mountains everywhere I go! Have I mentioned lately how beautiful Alaska is? Every state has it's beauty, but there is definitely something special here!
So on to news about the new blog. Mostly I will be posting about life with my crew, but I will also be sharing some new things we are trying, and will let you know how well they work for my crew. Take into account, I am in a household of Alpha's, with maybe the exception of D, all my children, every single one of the seven, all want to be leaders. That means they don't take orders well, and they do love to boss each other around. It also means changing behaviors is rather challenging. They are stubborn, but so am I. I love my alpha children, and I know they are all going to do amazing things in life, but it is a challenge raising them. I've been asked a lot recently how I can be so patient. Well I'm not, patience has never been something I am good at, but my stock answer is; "I asked God to give me patience, so he gave me seven strong-willed children!" I do the best I can, and often I don't feel like it's enough. I am always looking for opportunities to teach and guide. On that note, we are starting some new ideas I have picked up recently, and I have already started a few, and am excited to report that the first, the Porky Yorkie, is a huge success. I will post details about it in another separate post. I will also share some favorite recipes that I have created, or found and let you know the families rating on them, as well as how easy or fast they are. In short I'll experiment, and hopefully you will benefit from my failures and success! I am also planning on posting weekly, I would promise to, but my Grandma would say that is a pie crust promise, easily made and easily broken. Instead I will just promise to do my best at keep this sight up to date!
