You say goodbye and I say hello.

I was listening to The Beatles on my way to work this morning. Such a great way to start the day. The song Hello Goodbye (one of my favorites) came on. Which made me automatically think about the fact that today is the last day of 2013 even though the song isn't about that. That led to rememberance of the many Facebook statuses I've already seen on the subject. Most are a variance of "new year, new me", "2013 can kiss my ass", "2014 is going to be the BEST EVER!!!!"... yeah, the same ones all of you have seen and possibly posted. The very same ones that I saw last year. And the year before that. And the year before that. And the year before that...

This is how my 2013 felt. Bright and shiny.

It just seems like everyone is so ready to say Goodbye to 2013 and Hello to 2014. I'm afraid to post a status on Facebook about it because I see a huge backlash coming from it as in I think I'm perfect and better than everyone else. Not that a fear of backlash would stop me from posting it. If I want to I will. I just think it's sad that I have a valid reason to think a happy post would make some people cringe. Well, start cringing because this is why I'm saying Goodbye to 2013 with no hopes of things having to get better, just that they stay the way they are because I'm happy. Happy! People, did ya hear that? Some people in the world are happy! There have been times I haven't been but I am now. And I don't want to feel bad for that.

I'm not perfect. My life is not perfect. I don't want it to sound that way. My husband and I both work very hard for what we have. I'm a great friend. I'm honest. I'm there if you need me. I try to be the best mom I can. I yell. I get angry. I try to be as good of a wife to my husband as he is a husband to me. But even with all the faults I am still happy because I make the best out of it and spend as much time with my family as possible because that is what keeps me going. There are things people can't control but you can control whether or not to be happy with what you have and at the very least make a conscious decision to TRY to make the best of it. I wish you the best of luck on this from the bottom of my heart because everyone deserves to be happy.

This is how my 2013 went. A lot of it in pictures. It started off busy as always after the holidays and the kids being out of school. We started paperwork on selling our house. It took FOREVER. It was also bittersweet. I mean, we were ready for something bigger but still... it was our 1st house.

This was taken while we were buying it.
Goodbye house. :'(

We went to the circus.

I made my 1st cake for Easter.

I felt like this a lot.

Ate some sushi.

I felt like this ALL the time.

Got my hair to do something I wanted it to one time.

Took the hubs out for Father's Day.

I felt like I should since this happens.

Even though that happens I feel this way about him every day.

I made these faces WAY too much.

My baby girl turned 4.

I said things I probably shouldn't.

Got Bacon off to her 1st day of school EVER
 & B to 3rd grade.

Enjoyed our new backyard.

Went and saw some animals.

B joined Cub Scouts.

We went to a fair.

My husband made these faces. A lot.

Took both the kids on a Cub Scout
camping trip.

Dressed up for Halloween.

And had an awesome Christmas with all of our family.

I honestly cannot complain. 2013 was good to me and I hope somewhere out there it was good to some other people too. I can't imagine it being any better. I will say that I hope we find more time for things like camping and traveling. We've come to realize we all enjoy those things, and even more so when we get to do them together. So Hello 2014! I hope you treat me as well as 2013. And Goodbye 2013. You were great to me. I will truly miss you.

Happy New Year!

Baked Chicken and Rice

Last night I got home and the hubs had my new dining room table put together (WOOHOO) and most of the chairs. We took a "short" trip to IKEA Sunday (by short I mean due to issues and traffic we left at 10:20am and got home after 7pm) to pick up the couch and bed for the kids Christmas bedroom redo. We wound up getting a table that is extendable up to 10 people and 4 chairs. We're still looking for 2 end chairs because he wants a "captain's chair" as he calls it. Boys... *sigh* Anyway, he was getting the table together and then taking B to Cub Scouts. I make my menu around the Cub Scout schedule every week and had found a recipe a while back for this chicken. It said you could cook from 1 1/2 - 3 hours depending on temperature so I thought it would be perfect timing for when they got home from the meeting. And since my baby girl was asleep in her room because she wasn't feeling too great this recipe wound up being perfect. I was able to pop it in the oven and hang out with her while it cooked.

Ingredients:
4 - chicken breasts
1 - can Cream of Chicken Soup
1 - can Cream of Celery Soup
1 - can water
2 - cups uncooked MINUTE rice (I would not use regular rice. I don't think it would cook well.)
1 - pkg onion soup mix
Aluminum Foil

Prep Time: 3 minutes
Cook Time: 1.5 hours

Directions:
1. Mix both soups, water, and rice in a bowl.
2. Pour into a greased casserole dish. I used an 11X13 but a 9X13 would probably work too.
3. Lay completely thawed chicken on top of rice mixture.
4. Sprinkle onion soup mix over the top of the entire dish. (If you have picky eaters you could hide this in with the rice mix to still get the flavor.)
5. Cover with aluminum foil. (DON"T forget this step or your rice will burn.)
6. Cook on 250 for about 3 hours or 350 for 1 1/2 hours. Times vary by oven. (I actually cooked mine at 300 for 2 hours.)
7. Remove and enjoy!

This is the next day when I brought some of what was left for lunch.

*This is not the healthiest recipe with the processed soups, but there are lots of homemade recipes for these soups as well as the low-sodium versions in the grocery store if you're trying to cut back.
**Better pictures to come next time I make this. I always forget. :/

This was honestly delicious. TJ kept eating the rice right out of the dish. He even claimed it was the best rice he'd ever had. The chicken was a little more dry than I'd like, not terrible, just not juicy, so next time I will probably find a mild marinade (maybe garlic...) and let it soak overnight in the fridge. You could serve a salad and cornbread with this if you wanted more but for us just the dish was good.

I was told to definitely leave this as a good recipe in the box since when we aren't fond of something we just toss the recipe so we don't use it again. We had some Halloween candy for dessert then hung out with the kids and furbabies in front of the first fire we've made in our new house.

I am in LOVE with this fireplace. 

Roscoe just kept staring at it like it was going to get him. He's a big ol' fraidy cat.

Hope everyone enjoyed their night as much as I did and that you enjoy this recipe as much as we did if you try it.

Paperwork Chaos Undone.

My kids started back to school earlier this month. They are loving it. My 4 year old, Bacon, seems to love everything about Pre-K but she especially loves the bus. I never let my 8 year old, B, ride the bus before, but since his sister wanted to this year we decided to try letting them ride it home. My anxiety level was through the roof for the first week but I've gotten over it now. They enjoy it and honestly it saves us some time and hassle. It comes by much too early in the morning for them to ride it to school. Thankfully B is liking the 3rd grade. He changed schools this year to a MUCH better district and it seems to have done him well. A huge difference is this school actually sends home paperwork. Looots of paperwork. Mix that with the mail that has been coming in and I've got a mess. Staying at the MILs is helpful money wise but we don't have a lot of space. One bedroom for us, one for the kids to share.

The kids have a good setup and have done surprisingly well in the same room.

Our pit bull, Roscoe, LOVES to photobomb. You'll probably see a lot of him.

Here he is again. At least he takes some of the attention off the mess.

I can't seem to break the hubby's habit of dropping everything right beside the bed, including his horde of Girl Scout cookies. (He's a Thin Mint junkie.)

Our YorkiePoo, Baylor. She does not sleep with us. Our dogs are inside but aren't allowed on the furniture. As you can see, she got an opportunity and sneaked right into Dad's spot.

As you can see we've done well with the space provided. Other than the t-shirts my husband refuses to throw anywhere but everywhere and the desk. Oh, the desk. It has been the bane of my existence for the past month and I have been ignoring hoping it would just clean itself. Didn't happen. So I took all the papers off and got them in a pile.

This is just part of them. They're everywhere.

That is what I got. That doesn't include all the papers I've been storing at work and in my purse. Papers everywhere. I also have refund checks from every bill we had. This is good news for us. My system of paying every 4 weeks instead of once a month has paid off. Woohoo! Maybe a post on budgeting sometime... Anyway, then I went shopping for supplies. Let me tell you, I'm a cheap shopper. If I can find a deal, that's what I'm doing. 

My steps were this: 

1. I got 2 plastic milk crates (1green, 1pink)! from Walmart for $3.97 each. I also "borrowed" some recycled file folders and tabs from my office. (My boss is great.) 

2. Decided to make one file for each grade per kid. 

3. I make binder covers every year, so I printed off an extra copy to put in the front of each file in case the tab pops off.

Bacon's binder cover this year. She loves
purple and stars.

B's binder cover this year. He loves
green and skulls.

4. I made tabs for the folders.

5. I put a couple of folders in each crate with tabs on them labeled with their current grade.

6. I put an extra folder in one crate so that we can put our paperwork in it while we're at the MILs. I'll move it to my normal filing spot when we get settled. 

My baby's first tag from school ever. *tear* We picked them up every day for the 1st week. 

The crates look empty but at the moment  they both only have one month of one grade in them. I figure that by 12th grade they'll be full.I thought about getting a box with a lid but for now it's more convenient to just drop stuff in. I may change later on. If so, I'm sure I'll still be able to find a use for these crates. I'm much happier with this than the method of "throw it on the desk and hope you can find it later".

Look at these little almost empty crates. B's will be half full by the time I put his paperwork from the past 4 years in it.

One big HUGE upcoming project for me is to create a homework command center. The kids aren't big enough yet to worry with a family command center. I know where they are at all times no matter what and I keep track of all appointments on my phone. But the homework command center will be a big help I think. Bacon brings home a monthly homework calendar and B has a weekly one in conjunction with the daily assignments he has to write down in his planner. They also have different lunch menus and memos from their schools, so I think one place to keep all of it central will be great. We'll see I guess.

**Afterthought: Isn't it CRAZY how much homework kids have these days? He has as much in 3rd grade as I did when I was in high school. Sometimes I just feel like they don't get to be kids anymore.**

-jFree