Our First Sock Hop!!

The girls school celebrated the 50th day of school with a 50's sock hop!! That could only mean one thing!! This mama (and auntie and meme) were going to have to whip up so poodle skirts!! Tricia and I used a no-sew tutorial that we found on pinterest but quickly decided that sewing was going to need to be involved!! I didn't like the look of all the raw edges, not only that but the no- sew tutorial didn't really work with my girls sizes. So we did what we always end up doing with any craft project and just flew by the seat of our pants! The outcome was pretty awesome!! Probably one of our most complex craft projects yet! (well Tricia makes quilts so she may object to the complexity's of this project!) But I don't normally use a sewing matching because I believe in the forces that are a hot glue gun!! :) But in the way back of my dusty brain were the many hours of sewing lessons my mama gave me when I was making clothes for 4-H projects! and kinda like riding a bike it came back to me and now watch out world cause I am going to be unstoppable! and Meme taught me how to put in an elastic waist! OH BOY!!! everything is going to be elastic waist! It is wonderfully easy! I would love to put a tutorial on here on how we made our skirts but we didn't take pictures, some day we will get better about this, I am committing to it! But for now you will just have to look at my beautiful models!!

Pumpkin Patch Cuties!!

Pumpkins Pumpkins Everywhere!! We are having a great fall y'all!! Seriously we have done some super fun stuff!! We went to the Candlelight Tour at New Salem which is always fun for this mama! My girls aren't really old enough to apperciate it yet, but Carleigh's interest were definitely more peeked this year than last!! Then we went to pick pumpkins at a local pumpkin patch!!! It is only a couple miles from our house and is super cheap! Close and Cheap are two of my favorite things! LOL! Pumpkins must be the theme for us this year because then we went to the Carve for the Carillon, and The Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular! Both we a lot of fun! The Carve which is in preparation for the J-O-L is totally free and they scoop out the pumpkins for you!! The J-O-L was 16.00 dollars for the whole family again Local and Cheap! LOVE IT!!

on a totally un related note, I hate blogger's set up for pictures! It is annoying that they all line up and I am still trying to figure out a better way!  I hope you are soaking up these fall days too! The colors on the trees are AMAZING! Definitely Soaking up all the sun and nice weather we can before snow balls start falling!!!

Simple Beef Stew

So the Giggling girls contaminated our whole family with a virus!! Not just a little 24 hour virus like a 5 day virus! I AM STILL COUGHING!! Seriously way over it!! So hopefully we have payed our homage to this years sickness and will be healthy the rest of winter! Oh wait winter isn't even here yet.... yeah not looking good!! ANYWAY with sickness comes the need for some amazing warm dishes :) and I tried my hand at homemade beef stew, Now I must tell you that nothing in the kitchen intimidates me, not to brag but I have only made one dish that I burnt that we threw out and ate something else since I have been cooking for Tim, now he hasn't always loved every single dish but usually what he doesn't like I love! Seems to be the way our relationship rolls! LOL! (and now that I read that back it would seem I am bragging but really I am not I just said that so that you would not be intimidated in YOUR kitchen! You really can't do that much damage!)  So back to my warm dish! I have been craving beef stew and it was something  hadn't made yet in our ten years of eatiers! I have done roast, potatoes and carrots in the crock pot and I do all kinds of things with beef rump roast but I hadn't done the stew thing, but I got a craving and we rolled with it and it was AMAZING really I wish I had another bowl of it RIGHT NOW! So I thought I would share because it was truly SO simple anyone could do it!!! and I don't follow a recipe so these are pretty close guesstimations on what I did!! Just do what tastes good to you!

Ingredients

2.5 pound rump roast
potatoes ( I probably diced around ten medium sized ones)
1 can of sliced carrots ( I would have used baby fresh carrots but my picky husband likes canned better! )
7 beef bullion cubes
beef broth ( I had this frozen from my last roast)
water
salt, pepper, and garlic salt
Olive Oil

I used about 2 table spoons of Olive Oil in the bottom of my dutch oven and let that get pretty hot, while it was heating I generously salt, peppered and garlic salted my roast then once my dutch oven was hot I put the roast in and let it get a nice sear on it, I flipped it and did this on the other side, then I poured in my beef broth which was about 2 cups and let that cook for about 2.5 hours (ya know while we ran to the pumpkin patch and Dollar General which may or may not have been dumb because my roast boiled dry and used almost ALL of my beef broth cause I didn't turn it down low enough but I probably wouldn't admit to that...) then I added probably a good four or five cups of water brought it to a boil and tossed in around 7 beef bullion cubes once those dissolved I added my diced potatoes and my carrots and seasoned it with salt,pepper, garlic salt which are my go to spices and I but about 2 tablespoons or so of butter :)  let all of that cook for another hour or so while the rolls were raising and then while the rolls were cooking I thickened it with a little bit of milk/cornstarch and here is what we got!! Served with yummy hot yeast rolls! MMMMMM!

I am a horrible food picture taker person! Those potatoes look huge but really they were diced and there isn't much juice in this bowl because it was Tim's! LOL!!