Adventures in the Kitchen

We've been pretty active in the kitchen lately! I mean, we always cook, but Samir has been so hands on lately. He's also finally gotten rid of his stuffy head, so his appetite is back in full force. This kiddo has been eating everything I put in front of him, including (I'm proud to say) broccoli! Last night we made tacos. Samir helped make them, then ate one and a half.

Stirring the ground beef



Putting cheese on torillas for Daddy's
double deckers




Chowing down!

Today we got out of school early because of snow, so we had a whole afternoon to burn up. After nap and a little train playing, I decided we were going to make a chocolate cake from scratch. I should mention that I have NEVER, EVER made a cake from scratch, but I had the ingredients so I figured we would give it a shot. I found a recipe using my trusty google (see below for our adapted version) and we went to work. While the cake baked, we made the icing and cooked orange chicken and rice for supper.



The mixing begins



Into the oven



Licking the batter



Coating the chicken for orange chicken



Modeling the new Curious George
apron Grandma made for him




Our finished product



Samir approved!


 The recipe is originally from the Hershey's website, but I changed a bit of it up to simplify things and make it a little healthier.... okay, how heatlhy can chocolate cake with chocolate icing really be?!

Hershey’s Chocolate Cake



2 cups sugar (I used Splenda)
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup hot water


1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans. Set aside.


2. Throw everything in the bowl; With a mixer, beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes. Stir in hot water. The batter will be very thin. Pour batter into prepared cake pans.


3. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost with chocolate frosting.

Chocolate Frosting

1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter in the microwave or in a small pan on the stove. Stir in cocoa and milk. Beat in powdered sugar until desired consistency is reached (I used all three cups, plus some) Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla.

Let's Get Organized!

Sometimes, you realize you need to get organized much better than you currently are. Or maybe you stumble across a blog that is doing a 21 day get organized challenge and it inspires you. Or challenges you because you happen to be slightly competitive. (I clearly do not fit into the latter category. Right?!)
So here's my inspiration blog. It's called A Bowl Full of Lemons and they are currently doing a 21 day challenge. I found this around day #11, so instead of following her schedule precisely, I'm cleaning and organizing the parts of my home as I go. Some that they are doing I don't need to do, some they aren't doing I need to do. They premises of this challenge is taking before and after pictures of your area that you organize. Scary, I know! But I'm doing it, and I'm doing it full force! So here's some of my pictures of areas I've organized. Minus the laundry room, because I simply didn't take the before picture. Trust me, there's enough to scare you with what I have!

The freezer before.....



And after!



Under my kitchen sink (don't judge me!)



Look at these fantastically fabulous gloves I found!



After (notice the gloves stayed)



The dreaded pantry before




The lovely pantry after. I was horrified
at some of the expired food shoved in the back!



The inside of the pantry door. Notice I
put the healthy snack in Samir's reach.



The can shelf




The boxed shelf. Now let's see how long it stays
this way!



Snow Day Fun

It snowed here in Fort Smith, as well as much of the South. Samir and I got a snow day off from school because of it, so I wasn't complaining too much! Samir was very excited to play in the snow and I was excited to have a day at home to do some projects together. I was so excited in fact, that I woke up at 8:30 and Samir slept until almost 9:30! I didn't manage to get the camera out and ready for some of our adventures, so I'll just describe them and you can put it together in your mind :)

Watching the snow fall the night before

Snow paint

Snow paint is super easy. Just add some food coloring to spray bottles of water and spray away! The more food coloring you add, the stronger the colors.

Our finished masterpiece



Window coloring- we have some Crayola window markers that are awesome! Very much worth the money! They are non-toxic and come off the window with a wet paper towel.

We also experimented with shaving cream on the windows. I just squirted some and let him smear it around. We drew pictures in it and practiced some letters and numbers. This was a little messy, so needless to say, no camera was out for this one!

I thought about making some snow ice cream, but considering this was the first snow of the year and not deep enough to get some without dirt, I vetoed this idea. We did it last year and loved it, so here's to hoping for some more snow this year!

We didn't get around to making ice sculptures, but it sounded so fun, I have to share it with you! All you do is take various containers from around the house. We were going to do ice cube trays and some sand toys from the summer. All you do is pour some water in, let it sit outside, pop it out, build with it and then marvel at your sculptures! We were going to use some of the colored water that we used for snow painting. You can also put items in the water before it freezes.