Monthly Grand Cleaning Goal

I know that I have at least a few more moves before I get settled down in one place for longer then three years.  I always dread the major cleaning that you have to do when you move out of a place.  I was given this kind of "schedule" awhile ago, that was to help out with a few things.  The first was to eliminate the need for "spring cleaning", second when you have to move it is a lot less stressful and third (my favorite) feel like your house is decent and mostly clean most of the time. 

I used this system in the last place we lived in and it was AMAZING!! I really didn't feel overwhelmed at all when we had to move, there was still cleaning to be done but not the serious deep cleaning like previous times.

So here is the basic idea of the "schedule"  you have tasks that you do every week, bi-monthly, and monthly while adjusting accordingly as well as a Grand Cleaning Goal for the month.  Its one room or just part of a room in the house that gets deep cleaning. 

The best part of all of this is that I'm giving you all the schedule as well as the tasks that go with it.  I will post what the grand cleaning goal for the month on the 1st of every month.  You are more then welcome to print off the Goal and tasks for the month and use that as your checklist as you clean.

This month you get two things, the sheet that has the tasks for every month and April's grand cleaning goal.  I'm going to start this all up again this month, some of it I can't quite do yet til the baby comes but I'm going to do as much as I can :)  I hope that you will all join me in doing it!!!

Here are the files for the month of April!!!  You should be able to click on them and print them off.  Before you print them off click on print preview and set the scale to 150%, it will make it bigger for you.  Now go turn on some fun cleaning music and jam out while you clean. (I'm still trying to figure out how to post a document for you to print this is what I have now thanks for being patient with me while I figure this out)

And here is April's!!

I'm linking up to these parties:

lil-luna-link-partay-19

Computer Vinyl

My birthday is coming up and my husband surprised me with a new computer.  Then I saw some cute ideas with putting vinyl on the back of it, I just had to do it with my computer as well.

Chocolate Crepes with Fresh Strawberries

My husband loves to make these for fun and to take to parties.  They are always a big hit!  He helped me out in the pictures and directions.  Thank you so much hun!!


This is the recipe that we used:

Ingredients

For the crepes:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 6 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 2 cups milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• Vegetable oil as needed

For the filling:

• 1 pound (2 packages) cream cheese at room temperature
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 cup pureed fresh strawberries

Mix the dry ingredients together, followed by the melted butter, milk, eggs, and vanilla. Be sure to mix it well and try to get any clumps out (I like to do it by hand with a whisk, but I'm sure any method will work fine.) Once this is done you will have a bowl of this yummy looking mixture.

On the stove heat a pan over medium heat. I don't have a crepe making pan, but I find that a small non-stick frying pan works just fine. Once the pan is heated give it a light coat of oil using a piece of paper towel that has some oil soaked into it.

Now it's time to cook the crepes! I use a little less than a 1/4 of a cup of batter for each crepe. Once it has been poured into the skillet swirl it around so as to evenly coat the bottom with batter, just be sure it doesn't go too high on the sides while doing this.

They cook fairly quickly: about 45 seconds (until the edges are cooked and just the middle is still gooey) it will look similar to this:

on one side followed by about 15 seconds on the other side once flipped. Turning them can be a little tricky at first. I use a spatula and start at the edge and gently shimmy it under the crepe. Lift it up and flip it over. Repeat until all the batter is used up.

 Before the flip

After flipping

Once the crepes are all done set them aside to cool while you prep the filling.

Beat the creme cheese until it is nice and smooth. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.

Be sure that the crepes are cool before filling, a warm one will turn the filling runny and make filling a messy job. Add a spoonful of the filling to each crepe, but be careful, too much and it will come out the sides as you roll it, too little and you will be left wanting more! I find it works best to add it on one side of the crepe (rather than the middle) and then start the rolling on that side.

The final product again!

You will probably end up with some leftover filling, but I like to use it for dipping strawberries in later on :)

Enjoy!

Lil Luna Link Partay

Spring Craft with Kids

I was looking around for some ideas of things to do with my daughter and found some ideas with melting crayons in wax paper and then hang them in the window.  These are the materials that you need add glue and scissors to the group as well.

I began by tearing a piece of wax paper off and fold it in half making a crease then opened it back up.  Then using a crayon that doesn't have the paper on it still I used the pencil sharpener to create shavings of the crayon.  My daughter loved doing this part.

When we got the colors that we wanted on there we put them in some kind of a design to see if it would melt that same way.

Put your iron on medium and then having paper on the bottom as well as on top of the wax paper, put the iron on top of the paper for a few seconds at a time and keep checking it often.  It melted really fast for me, next time I'm going to turn the heat down on the iron a little bit more.

This is what it will look like after ironing it.

We did two more of these, next time we are going to use less wax so its more see through as well as only use light colors.  While they were cooling we cut out some flowers and glued some stems and leaves on them.

I then cut out circles from the wax paper a little bit bigger then the holes I cut out, then glued them to the flowers.  My daughter loved helping me out especially when it came to the gluing part.

After they were dried we hung them in the window.  We have these windows that have a lot of character but are a pain to clean and hang things on them.  I would love to do a whole garden in the window with grass and stuff, but its a little hard with these windows.  It was also a cloudy day so the picture is a little dark, hopefully the next sunny moment I remember to get a better picture of it.

I'm linking up to these parties:

Lil' Luna Link Party

Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookies

We try to be healthy, but I'm not hard core health people.  I'm trying to cut some oil out of our food.  I substitute applesauce for oil in making cakes, waffles and pancakes.  My daughter asked me if we could make chocolate chip cookies a couple of days ago, and a thought came to me I bet that there is a recipe out there for Chocolate chip cookies with applesauce.  So I googled it and found this recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 1/4  cups  all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2  teaspoons  baking powder
• 3/4  teaspoon  salt
• 1/2  cup  applesauce
• 1  cup  packed brown sugar
• 1/4  cup  butter, softened
• 1  tablespoon  vanilla extract
• 1  large egg
• 1  cup  semisweet chocolate chips
• Cooking spray

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375°.
Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl; stir well with a whisk.
Spoon applesauce into a fine sieve over a bowl; let stand 15 minutes. Discard liquid. Scrape drained applesauce into a large bowl. Add sugar and butter; beat with a mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes). Beat in vanilla and egg. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed until well-blended. Fold in chips.
Drop by level tablespoons 2 inches apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray. Bake at 375° for 10 minutes or until almost set. Cool on pan 2 to 3 minutes or until firm. Remove cookies from pan; cool on wire racks.

Nutritional Information

Calories:

78 (33% from fat)

Fat: 2.9g (sat 1.7g,mono 0.9g,poly 0.2g)

Protein: 0.8g

Carbohydrate: 12.8g

Fiber: 0.2g

Cholesterol: 10mg

Iron: 0.5mg

Sodium: 87mg

Calcium: 20mg

 

I was even more excited to have the nutritional facts come with it, same with my husband.  I followed the recipe exactly, with help from my daughter.  I have to say they are very soft, and very yummy.  I'm going to have to make some more really soon.  Enjoy!!!

 

I'm linking up to these parties:

Lil' Luna Link Party