Meatballs with homemade "barbecue sauce"

My mom made meatballs for my nephew's 3rd birthday party earlier this month. They were so good and, the big crockpot she made, was gone by the end of the party. So, I decided that I wanted to make them at home. It is so simple to make them and the outcome is so delicious.


2 lb of frozen meatballs
16 oz jar of grape jelly
1 bottle of chili sauce

Put the meatballs in the crockpot. Add the chili sauce and grape jelly and mix it together. Turn on high and let sit for 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.  Turn on low and let them sit for another 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally. Serve and enjoy!

See how simple it is? Let me know if you try it and what you thought!

Cleaning a pack n play!

Several months ago, we received a used pack n play from my sister's friend. I was extremely grateful for this because pack n plays can be kind of pricey. I never thought about cleaning it until I opened it up. It was covered in stains and the thought of putting my baby on that made me cringe. I love Google when it comes to these things. I searched "cleaning a pack n play" and found a bunch of directions involving cleaning products that I didn't have and were far too expensive. Finally, I came across a small post that used only three ingredients; Laundry soap, baking soda, and vinegar. While doing a little happy dance about finding one with things I already had in my cupboard, I grabbed the pack n play and started filling the tub. Here are the directions for cleaning a pack n play:

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1 cap of laundry detergent
1/4 cup of baking soda
A splash of vinegar
Extremely hot water
A bath tub

Fill up the bath tub with as hot of water as you can get it. Add the detergent, baking soda, and vinegar to the water and mix it together. Place the pack n play into the water. After some time flip the pack n play over and let it soak some more. After about an 1-2 hours, remove the pack n play from the water and set it up outside. Spray it down with a hose and let it air dry.
***

I frequently checked on it because I was worried that it wasn't going to work. There were so many stains on the pad, and I just didn't know if the recipe would work. Every time I checked it, the water was a little browner. At one point, I lifted the pad to see if it was working, and the amount of brown water that came out of it was so gross.

After about 1 1/2 hours, we took it outside and rinsed it off. The pack n play is now stain free, however, the pad is so grimy that I'm going to have to soak it again. A lot of stuff came out of it but there are still some stains on there that I'm sure will come off with another soak or two. I will definitely do this every couple of months just to keep it clean.

Babies!

In January, we found out that we are expecting our first child! While scared, we were so excited. We soon found out that our baby would be a boy! We are due at the end of September and we get more excited every day!

In light of our exciting news, I have decided to give the blog a little makeover. It will be more family oriented and will be about our growing family. I will continue to share recipes and such. I'm so excited to bring new life to my blog and I hope to bring new people into my little world.

Wedding dresses, cowboy boots, and tiaras

Today was my first time trying on wedding dresses. It was exciting and scary all at the same time. I went by myself and I'm actually really glad I did. It was a very stress free experience. That is until I found my dress and realized I didn't have the money to buy it right now. I'm hoping that work starts giving me more hours or I won't be having a wedding at all. After getting injured at work, I had to take some time off to heal and now I'm not getting many hours.

Anywho, I tried on 3 dresses. The first dress was beautiful but not really my style.
The second one, I liked and I thought that it might be a contender. I loved the front but I didn't really like how the back looked. The girl assured me that it wouldn't look so bad once it came in my size and was altered, but I wasn't so sure.

The third and final dress I tried on was beautiful. It was simple and short. It looked perfect with my boots. I wasn't quite sure about it still, so my consultant put a veil and a tiara on me. I stepped in front of the mirror and almost cried. It was so perfect for me.

I felt so pretty. But then she put a belt on me and I knew that this was the dress. I was so happy.

So, now I just have to get the money to buy it all. I can't wait to marry the man of my dreams and wear this beautiful dress.

The newest member of our little family

Meet Ginger!

Eliza No More

Hey everyone. This is a short story I wrote a few months ago for a writing contest. I didn't win but I wanted to share it on here. Hope you like it.
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Eliza Ripper didn’t have much in the way of friends. She was one of those girls that nobody really cared about. She didn’t even get picked on in school because no one really knew she existed. She wasn’t really a talker. She kept quiet whenever possible to avoid the inevitable look that she liked to call “the crazy look.” She always ended up saying something that warranted that look so she chose to keep her mouth shut. She lived alone in a one bedroom apartment and hardly left her apartment except to go to work, stocking shelves at the local bookstore. It was the perfect job for her. The only time she ever had to talk was if someone asked her where a book was. Although Eliza wasn’t good at making friends or talking, she was good at one thing. It was really the only thing she thought she could do. That was writing. She would write till her fingers hurt and she couldn’t think anymore. Then she would put her writing on her blog. She used a fake name. She was Penelope Benson to the online community. Eliza wasn’t loved by many, but Penelope was adored by 100’s, maybe even 1000’s of people. She had sent her book out to publishers and had gotten letter’s back from half of them saying how much they loved the book and how they would love to sign her on. Her stories were on their way to the best seller’s list. Eliza didn’t think anything could ruin the life she was leading.

One day when Eliza came home from work there was a note taped to her door. She ripped it off the door and unfolded it. It said, “I know who you are pretending to be. I will make sure that you never go anywhere with your writing again.” She scrunched up her nose thinking this was some stupid joke one of the kids in her building was pulling. She opened her door and stepped inside to find her apartment trashed. Her jaw dropped. Who would do this? She walked to her room and found her computer laying on her bed. Another note was on top of the computer. It read, “You probably didn’t believe me before. So I took the liberty of deleting your writing for you. Hope you don’t mind.” Eliza started to cry. She wrenched her laptop open and went to her blog. It didn’t even exist anymore. She went to her documents to find all of her writing gone. Her life was over in her eyes. She was never going to get that back. All that writing, gone just like that. She grabbed her house phone and dialed the police. She silently vowed to never let anyone walk all over her again. She would grow from this and no one would dare mess with Eliza Ripper again. She swore that no one would even know her as quiet little Eliza ever again. She would become Penelope.

Sunday dinner: Chicken Pot Pie Crumble

Tonight we went to my future mother-in-law's house to watch The Big Game. So, I made dinner at her house. It didn't go so well first try. I was not used to her oven and burned the crumble and had to start over again. But I got it right the second time and it turned out so good. This is definitely something you should try. You can find the original recipe here.

Ingredients

• 20 oz. boneless skinless chicken breast halves 
• 1 (14.5 oz) can low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 cup peeled and diced carrots (I use canned carrots. Me and my canned veges....)
• 3/4 cup diced celery (about 2 large stalks)(I didn't use this because we forgot it at home. haha)
• 3/4 cup finely diced yellow onion (about 1/2 medium onion)
• 2/3 cup frozen peas
• 3 Tbsp butter
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 1/2 tsp dried parsley
• 1/4 tsp dried thyme (I didn't use this because we thought we had it and didn't. It turned out just fine without it.)

 For the crumble:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder 
• 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
• 1/4 cup butter, cold and diced into small cubes
• 2 oz. finely shredded Parmesan cheese (about 1/2 cup packed)
• 3/4 cup + 2 Tbsp heavy cream

Place chicken in a slow cooker, pour chicken broth over chicken. Cover with lid and cook on low heat about 5 - 6 hours until chicken is cooked through. Remove chicken from slow cooker, dice and set aside. Strain broth from slow cooker through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl and reserve broth (if you don't have a fine mesh strainer just try to remove the pieces of fat). 

To prepare crumble
Preheat oven to 450 degree. In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, pepper, garlic powder and optional cayenne pepper. Using your finger tips, cut butter into mixture until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. (I actually used a pastry blender the second time and it worked a lot better than my fingers.) Stir in Parmesan cheese. Pour in heavy cream and mix just until combined. Break and drop mixture into pieces onto a wax paper lined baking pan. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes until golden. Remove from oven and set aside. (This is the part where I burned it. If it's not golden on the top but it is on the bottom, it's okay. It'll cook more later.)

To prepare filling
Heat olive oil over medium high heat. Once hot, add diced carrots, onion and celery. Saute vegetables, stirring occasionally until lightly golden and tender, about 5 - 6 minutes. Pour vegetables into a bowl and set aside. Reduce heat to medium, melt butter in saucepan (I like to brown it a bit for and extra layer of flavor), then add in flour and cook, stirring constantly for about 20 seconds (it will be very thick). While stirring, slowly add in milk followed by reserved chicken broth, lemon juice, parsley, thyme and season with salt and pepper to taste. Bring mixture just to a boil, then slightly reduce heat and allow to cook about 1 minute longer until thickened, stirring constantly. Remove sauce from heat and add sauteed vegetables, frozen peas and diced chicken to sauce, then toss to evenly coat. Pour mixture into a 9-inch pie dish and sprinkle with baked crumble topping (mine fit perfectly in my pie dish but if yours is coming close to the top edge you may want to sit it on top of a cookie sheet to prevent spills in your oven). Bake in 400 degree oven until nicely golden about 12 - 14 minutes. Serve warm. Enjoy!!

Let me know if you tried this and what you thought!