One of Those Days

Have you ever had just "one of those days?"  Well, my past two days have been that way.  It started out showing up to Wal-mart with Miller and Sara Wells realizing I left my grocery list on the kitchen counter.  Surprising enough, I did pretty good getting almost everything on my list EXCEPT for a few key ingredients for a cake that I was making.  When I am baking (especially with little helpers) I try to pull out all of the ingredients before I get started.  I pulled out the sugar and continued to hold it instead of putting it on the counter to check the next ingredient I needed to pull out.  As I was standing there I felt something funny on my foot.  Looking down, I realized the bag of sugar had a hole in it and it was pouring out (literally, there was a mound beside my foot).  As I looked back where I had walked, there was a huge trail of sugar.  As I mentioned, because I forgot my grocery list, I had to make a few substitutions for my cake, instead of buttermilk I had to use whole milk.  And instead of shortening, I used butter.  I still felt like it would be ok.  When I pulled the cakes out my confidence starting slipping, but I kept my fingers crossed.  When we took the first bite, I knew there was something major wrong besides the substitutions.  Thinking back, I realized I left out the Baking Soda!  I tell you what, baking soda makes a big difference.  Thank goodness the kids did not mind.  It was VERY indicative of my day.  I woke up the next morning feeling confident that my "bad day" was over.  I realized it might not be the case when I stood up and felt the tie of my shirt dripping from toilet!  It just kept on and on!

THANK GOODNESS today was better!  I cannot think of anything major that went wrong today.  As many of you know, our house has been major project after major project.  The one thing that we just have not gotten to was our mailbox.  It was absolutely horrible!  Rotten wood, faded (almost all gray) and leaning.  I got inspired to finally do something about it when I saw my friend Sara's post about spray painting her mailbox (A Walk Through ).  We have spent the last two afternoons working on it.  No final pictures yet, the cement is still drying and Murray is trying to convince me to paint the posts.  We will see...

Of course the kids loved helping Daddy!

This is trust, holding the chisel while Daddy hammers.  I don't know that I could even do that without squeezing my eyes very tight.

I tried and tried to get a good picture of Sara Wells.  She was loving being outside today.  Running (well, not quite but running for her) laughing and loving it!  But she would not let me get a picture.

I just cannot get over how cute she looks in that little short dress!  And yes, Ella is in soccer cleats.  Ella's first soccer game is on Saturday.  Yesterday we got her cleats and shin guards.  She kept them both on all day yesterday.  She really really wanted to wear her cleats to school today, but I would not let her.  The first thing she did when we got home was take off her boots and put on her soccer cleats.    Her  cleats are very broken in for her first game.  

And for those of you out there having "one of those days," here is a easy crock pot recipe that the kids will love.  It is not gourmet, but who can do gourmet every night?  Sometimes we just need something easy where we don't have to think!

Creamy Crock Pot Chicken

4-6 chicken breast

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 package cream cheese (8 oz)

1 cup white wine

1 package of Zesty Italian Dressing mix

Salt and Pepper the chicken.  Place chicken in crock pot.  Whisk together the rest of the ingredients (warm up cream cheese in microwave).  You will not get all the lumps out, but try to get the big ones out.  Pour over chicken.  Cook on low for 6 hours.  Serve over rice.  Good, quick weeknight meal.