Blueberry Scones, Chili and What We Did Today

I've just tucked my kids into bed and am ready for a little quiet blogging time before my husband, Jamie, gets home from work.  The kids and I are all feeling very accomplished today as we got a lot done and each had an enjoyable day.  I'm hoping that Jamie will have had a happy day as well!

First thing this morning, I cut up two cantaloupes and served them in my new cabbage bowl.  I found this at a yard sale in Pendleton, Oregon Friday when I was visiting my mom.  I saw one similar on a blog a couple weeks ago and loved it!  (In case you're wondering:  one cantaloupe fits in the bowl.  I served everyone and then cut up the other one for the fridge! :)

Then I cut up a bunch of fruit and vegetables so we will actually EAT them while some of the kids played a fun game they made up.

They made paper pizzas and opened their own pizza shop. 

The living room was trashed but they had a lot of fun!

After I finished my produce-cutting adventure, I made 3 batches of blueberry scones.  Two batches will be eaten at breakfast tomorrow while one went into the freezer.  Recipe at the end of the post...

Avalon said, "Take a picture of me, Mom."  After I took it she said, "Me see Avi."

Then, because the kitchen wasn't quite hot enough, I decided to make 5 loaves of banana bread!  Recipe is Betty Crocker's...just a basic one.  All of these went in the freezer.

While the bread was baking, I made the rounds with my camera again.  Here Avalon is feeding her baby some cereal in her high chair.

Cainan is making more messes pizza...

Elisha's got his pizza baking on books from the kids' bookshelf.

A Ha!  Here's Miss Lynzie Mae, the dedicated artist, busy copying a painting from an encyclopedia.  She spent the afternoon in the kitchen working on her paintings.

I believe Michael said this was a Papa Murphy's Cowboy Pizza....

More by Lynzie...

Oh!  More by me too!  I made chili and cornbread for dinner.  Cornbread recipe came from the side of the box but I'll put my chili recipe at the bottom of the post too.

Avalon said, "I just LOVE tornbed!" (That would be "cornbread")

Because we had some strawberries in the freezer, I decided we needed a quick batch of strawberry jam to go with our cornbread!  You can make this delicious freezer jam in 15 minutes!  You can find my easy tutorial here. 

After I got all the other little ones to bed, I had a chance to go in and look at the paintings Lynzie did today.  This is her favorite of her hero, George Washington.  Looking good, Lynzie!

I love being a homemaker and am so thankful for the opportunity to be home with my kids and care for my family.  This beautiful day in the life of our family was made possible by the selfless sacrifices of:

and ultimately, the Lord Jesus.  Thank you, God, for this blessed life!

Blueberry Scones

(makes 8 scones)

1 cup blueberries or other fruit
1/3 c. + 2 Tb. sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, in cubes, slightly softened
2/3 cup half-and-half or cream or cold buttermilk **TIP: (I mix a couple TB. of bottled lemon juice with regular milk and let it sit about 10 min. for easy cheater buttermilk)

Topping:
1 tablespoon sugar (I used coarse decorator sugar)

Preheat oven to 400.
Sprinkle bite-sized fruit with 2 TB sugar; set aside.

Mix the rest of the  sugar with the flour, baking powder and salt. Using a pastry blender, mix in the butter until it looks crumby...(not CRUMMY...there's a difference!! :)  Stir in fruit and then buttermilk.
 
When it's all mixed together, set it in a big blob on a cookie sheet and form it into some semblance of a circle about 3/4 inch thick or so.  Cut into 8 wedges and either space them out on the sheet or bake them in the cut circle and recut on the lines after they're baked.  Sprinkle with coarse or regular sugar.  Bake 15 minutes or until golden in places and no longer doughy.


Chili


(makes about 10 servings...you can half this or freeze the remaining if you don't need this much)


6 cans beans (We like to use black beans)
2 cans refried beans
1-2 pkg. taco seasoning
1/2 c. bbq sauce
1/4 c. dijon or spicy mustard


Rinse 6 cans beans in strainer.  Place them in a pot with the refried beans and all other ingredients.  Add 2-4 c. water.  You want to start out with the chili quite a bit runnier than you like it.  Cook and stir often until it has reached your desired thickness.  This could be anywhere from a half hour to an hour and a half...depending on how much water you add.  The more water you add, the longer you have to cook it and the more flavorful it will be as the beans absorb the flavors from the other ingredients.  If you're in a hurry, just add a couple cups of water so there's a buffer there to keep it from sticking to the pan while it's heating up and dissolving the seasoning and you'll be good to go in about a half hour.

I Won!!!

One of the really fun things about blogging is participating in others' giveaway parties!  I've held several giveaways of my own and have entered in many more!  I'm so excited to announce that I finally won one!!

Jacqueline at Purple Chocolat Home hosted a great giveaway for a gorgeous headband---handmade by her daughter, Audra, of Me Oh My Couture, an awesome Etsy store!  Lucky me, I've got four gorgeous daughters to share our treasure!

Avalon has been wearing it a lot since it first arrived in the mail a few days ago!  She calls it her "Pitty Fower".

I like it best in her ponytail!

Thank you so much, Jacqueline and Audra, for your generous gift!  We really love our new headband and love it that it's big enough for Mom to wear too!

Antique Store Finds

Yesterday was my husband's day off and he was so sweet to send me out to have a little quiet time at the antique store...yay!  Here's what I found:  

This little book, The Lively Little Rabbit was one of my favorites when I was little.  I bought it to put in baby Liam's first Easter basket this year!  I also found these sweet mouse shakers.  We needed new shakers and I thought the kids would think these were pretty sweet!  They're not vintage...but cute even so!

A few months ago, I saw a blog where a lady hung vintage hand mirrors all over her bathroom wall with plate hangers.  I thought that was such a creative idea!  So...I'm trying to collect a bunch to make my own little wall display.  I found the brush and mirror as a set so bought them both but would gladly trade the brush to anyone who might have a mirror they want to swap!

I'm also trying to collect a bunch of mini shaker sets to put at individual place settings for a fancy dinner.  (There are 10 of us so far so I'll be collecting awhile!)  The ones on the right on the little tray are not vintage...but cute!  I had to put the little hat pin holder in this picture because I saw three others throughout that store and all of them were marked as "salt shakers".  In fact, this one was only $2 because the vendor thought it was missing it's partner!  Ha! When I went to pay for it, the store owner said, "Oh, it's still got a little salt in it!"  I said, "Someone really used it as a shaker?"  She looked at me funny and said, "Yessss...."  I told her it was a hat pin holder.  Two holes = salt shaker.  Three holes = pepper shaker.  TWELVE holes = hat pin holder.  That would be some SERIOUS salting otherwise...Ha!

Here are a few sweet things I found for crafting.  I plan on decorating the little bottle to resemble Alice's "Drink Me" bottle as it's the same shape.  The one little earring will make a cute embellishment on something.  I LOVE my two glass bottle stoppers and am hoping to collect many more.  I also found these two Eiffel Tower pendants (not vintage) for crafting embellishments.

Visit Coloradolady for more Vintage Thingie Thursday! I'm also linking up with Blue Creek Home's Treasure Hunt Thursday and Thrifty Groove's Thrifty Things Friday for the first time this week!

Mantle Re-do for Spring

A few weeks ago, I asked my Facebook friends for ideas on how to redo my mantle for spring.  For the past four years or so, I've been going with the Primitive look but have lately decided it's time to switch over to a more romantic and nostalgic feel.

This is how it looked after I finished taking down everything after Christmas.

I had a brainy idea to paint this metal can white...but that was as far as I got.

I painted the can white a couple of months ago and hung the Easter eggs last month.

Today I finished it up and I love it!  It's hard to get a close up of the whole thing as it's a pretty long mantle and a short distance across the room but you get the idea.

I was so thrilled to have found these blue jars at yard sales this past weekend.  I picked up some cherry blossom branches at Michael's.  It's such a pretty contrast!

Vintage Whimsy Paper Book

I had a very busy day today and was hardly at home.  On my way home tonight, after being gone for nine hours, all I could think of doing was taking a relaxing bath and staying in bed the rest of the night with my book.  Lately I've been having these crazy crafting dreams at night (must be the pregnancy creative dreams kicking in...) and usually wake up with a great crafting idea.  Well, tonight it happened while I was in the bath and, as exhausted as I was, I just had to go and make my dream a reality...Ha! 

I began by using my kids' watercolor paints to paint a piece of cream-colored card stock.  I used red and orange.

Then I cut the paper down to the size I wanted (10x7 to make a 5x7 book) and antiqued the edges using a blade and chocolate-colored ink.

I used a pile of my kids' scrap paper for filling.

I used a couple of plain sheets for the first pages of the book and cut them just a tiny bit larger so they'd show past the scrap paper.  I antiqued the edges of those too.

Then I tied it up with raffia, added some glitter, and secured a dried rose to finish it off.  I'm not too sure how I feel about the glitter on the book itself, but I like it on the rose and overall, I think this is a pretty cute little project!

Now that I'm super, duper exhausted, I've got to go to bed!  Goodnight!

Yard Sales Woo Hoo!

Today was my first day of going to yard sales for the year!  There were quite a few in my area but I had no idea how far I would be driving in between!  I spent about 3 hours driving between 3 sales...but the kids and I enjoyed the beautiful scenery along the way!

At the first sale, I found these old blue jars (a couple of them have the handles on still), a set of rust-colored curtains that I plan to use for fall crafts, and this sweet little pink pitcher.  The pitcher is marked "Tunbridge Wells Nash".  I can't find a thing about a company that would have put this out but did learn that Tunbridge Wells is a place in Kent, England.  It's a mystery for now, I guess!

At the second yard sale I got all this for 10 cents!  There are a couple sheets and a rug that I won't be keeping but I loved the two pillows, the rose tablecloth and the table runner with the yellow flowers on it!  Pretty!

At that same sale I found another blue jar, 2 frames for crafting and this porcelain rose made in Italy.  I saw a blog last week with some of these on it and thought they were so pretty.  Now I have my own! 

Here's Cainan with my third yard sale find.  He has been wanting this exact Noah's Ark toy for awhile now.

It didn't come with any animals but Cainan had some things that went with his Baby Jesus set that he put into it to play.

At the fourth yard sale, I found a bunch of lace and trimmings.  I've got several projects in the works so it will be nice to add to my stash!

I usually give myself a $20 limit per day (this doesn't include the things I find that we actually need like clothes, etc.).  Today, I'm proud to report that I spent a grand total of $8.00!  Wonder if that means I can add the extra to next weeks budget?