the chicken pot pie recipe ... or use leftover turkey

Sarah requested my recipe for chicken pot pie from last week.


I thought I totally made this up... and have only done it twice.... so it is still in the experimental works.

Then I made it with turkey leftovers last night and realized my "made up" recipe is pretty much on the side of the Bisquick box called "chicken & dumplings" or the http://www.bisquick.com/ website has chicken pot pie too.... but I've never added an egg.

Here I was thinking I was so clever. oh well. it's not that hard. so it is easy to whip up when you are in the mood for old fashioned meal.

anyway, here is what I did last night...................

1 chicken breast BOILED, shredded or leftover turkey
1 can low salt cream of chicken soup
1/3 cup water
2/3 cup milk - we use 1%
1/2 package frozen mixed veggies
pepper

1 cup Bisquick biscuit mix
1/3 cup milk

in small pan mix the cold chicken and veggies with the water. while it is warming up make the biscuit and milk mixture in the bowl you are going to bake everything in.

I like it better like dough, not sticky. Roll it up in a ball and take out of the bowl.

pour the soup and milk into the pan with the veggies & chicken and bring to light boil.
Pour into baking dish. pepper to taste.

rip pieces of dough and lay on top of soup.

bake @ 350 for about 20 minutes... until dough is lightly browned and soup is bubbling around edges.

Enjoy!

This hurts me more than it hurts you....cleaning & packing

blogging is slow these days.
I spent all Friday afternoon cleaning out Katie's room. We took everything out and sorted out toys she doesn't want anymore.
I kept saying let's just throw all this stuff away and start fresh. It took a few times, but I finally convinced her.... OK really myself... that we could do it. I think I'm more attached to some toys than they are. Which proves that I buy the toys for me more than for them?
I threw out 2 huge bags of trash. We gave a way a bag of ponies and a box of stuffed animals.
We have a whole bag of polly pocket that I want to check through for the magnet ones to throw away. And a bag of naked barbies. who knew she had so many ... and that they all need clothes.

I found a great resource in my neighbor. She is a counselor at a jr. high school where there are many girls with toddlers. The facility has daycare for the toddlers, so the girls can stay in school. They NEED toys for the daycare and for the children to play at home.
It made the getting rid of all the toys so much easier. Derek's room is next....

However we must pause from the room cleaning to pack clothes and stuff for our trip to Hawaii.
Oh darn, Geoff has to work in Hawaii. A meeting and business meetings... so we all get to go.
This is our 9th trip to the islands, so we know what we like and where we want to go. But I'm ready to try some new things this time. The kids & I have lots of fun and adventures. You know... Homeschool Adventures :) everything counts.
We always go to museums. We have membership to the Bishop Museum. We've been there 2 times. They have a great volcano exhibit and we love the planetarium. We'll go this year to see an exhibit on the Brain.
We LOVE the children's museum. It is a little expensive I think, but the kids get to run around and this time I'll bring a book. We've been there 3 times.
This trip we are going to Oahu. We thought about staying in Maui, cuz we have to go thru there, but we stayed there last year and it was just OK. We like the Marriott resort on Oahu so it's time to visit there again this year.
Yeah, we only have to bring 1 booster carseat this year!
Oh, I have to go find all the cords. I can't believe how many I have to bring.
Cell phone, camera, video camera, laptop, kids' electronic games, dvd player.... yikes.
Well my luggage will be filled with cords and electronics hopefully not arriving in a tangled wad... alongside our swimsuits and sunscreen. :)
Well I need to go do laundry to pack some clothes too........

Turkey craft time

Check out the site at http://www.activitytv.tv/
We made our own T-Turkey artwork (orange paper, a turkey started off the letter "T") and puppets. I enlarged the pattern on the copier and printed them out on cardstock.
#1 mine is colored w/ crayon. #2 Derek's w/ marker & #3 James' w/ marker.
James followed the instructions in the video to attach a thread to the head so you can move it up & down. Gobble, gobble!

plastering the pool

water.... the pool has water!

after the plaster we were able to fill the pool with water.
It took all afternoon and into the night. Not as long as we thought. Until about midnight. We were thinking 2 or 3 a.m.
No one told us until today that we can't go in the pool for 4 WEEKS!
The dust has to settle, the plaster has the cure and then the salt & chemicals are added around 4 weeks.
Good thing we are going out of town for 12 days and it is way too cold to go swimming.
spillover from the spa.

the water feature along the back wall called a sheer descent.

Happy Birthday Karen!

Happy Birthday to Karen. I hope you enjoy your gift. A copper mesh cord with beads that have purple, yellow & gold sprials of color inside.

mosaics in the bottom of the pool

The mosaics we chose and were placed in the pool before the plastering starts.
There is also a dolphin, a starfish and some blue glass squares to mark the edges of the steps.

Aquarium field trip

Some of the kids in front of a tank. Katie & Thomas being eaten by the shark!


Sea Dragons Sunflower starfish

when you look back.... it was a busy Friday.

I just couldn't pull the kids inside today. They were having so much fun playing outside.
We were supposed to go to a homeschool Park Day at noon and the kids didn't want to leave home to go.?
James was inside playing playmobil/lego/lincoln log fort and he helped me put together my new 6 drawer cabinet. We also finished up painting from yesterday. He changed his treasure chest color. I painted the backs of my letters.



But the other 2 were outside playing, running, skateboarding, making mud pies, throwing leaves, swimming and who knows what from 10 a.m. to dark!

It made a good day for me to re-arrange furniture!
I moved our 3 desks around, the laser printer, the loveseat, coffee table & lamp.



Also I baked my own version of chicken pot pie. Then, since the oven was on, baked some cheater tollhouse cookies (from dough in a tub).
















Geoff was home working on the new fences.

I helped! I held the poles and align them with the level while he dumped the quick drying cement in the holes.

The sooner we Geoff gets the fences up and the alarms on the doors the sooner we will try will pass the saftety inspection of the pool. Once we pass they will plaster and fill it with water! Then it takes time for the dust to settle and filter the water........ THEN we will swim and jacuzzi in our own pool!



INSPIRED BY Dawn @ By Sun and Candelight I bought some wood letters and we spent yesterday afternoon painting.

Derek was sooo happy. He has been waiting and waiting to paint his birdhouse for probably 2 months.

Katie had the same birdhouse. James had a treasure chest.












Here is the final picture..for today... which I love because you can see the new pool outside the kitchen sink window above the word THANKS>>>We are truly Thankful for our pool this year!

makin' dinner

Derek's helping me pound chicken for "Chicken Cordon Bleu" ..... Italian style.

Learned this YUMMY recipe from Karen at her "make 7 meals in one night". We are using "Homemade Gourmet's" seasonings.
This flavor is called Italian Mozzarella Meatloaf.

I roll the pounded chicken breast around a thin slice of ham and Provolone cheese. Then coat in the seasoning mix which is also mixed with some Parmesan cheese. (see tall green bottle).
There are 2 done in the blue baking dish on the left.

Bake & Enjoy!

We made extra and put them in the freezer for another day.
This is also a good meal for a new mom (just did that with the neighbor), or a family that needs emergency meals.

**Notice the ill fated Aquadots dispenser and beads in the background. Too bad.
I never liked those things anyway. But the kids were lured in by the commercials. I said they could get them with their OWN money. But Derek rec'd this set for his birthday. It kept the kids happy for a while.

Wisdom. God Loves all things

I was very moved by the first reading today. Here is some of it:

"For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made;
for what you hated, you would not have fashioned. And how could a
thing remain, unless you willed it; or be preserved, had it not been called
forth by you?" Wisdom 11:24-25

I applied the reading from Wisdom to how our children came into our lives. All 3 are miracle children. James being born to an unwed mother and becoming our adoption miracle.
Katie & Derek being miracles of our infertility struggles after over 5 years.You don't know how your children are going to come into your lives.

Catholic Unschooler has a beautiful autobiographical post about her son turning 18 and her decision to raise her baby boy as a young, unwed mother with the help of her family.

The laughing game... & testing out the pool seats

The boys are READY for this pool to be done. They are 5.

Just before I took this picture they were cracking each other up.
One laughing, the other laughing more... back and forth.
I had to look out the window to see what was so funny.

I went for the camera, but of course as I turned it on they stopped the laughing game and started to get up and leave.

I'm anxious to see where the water line will be and if the they will be able to sit in these seats with water.

please leave a message.... we are at disneyland today

Derek's Day at Disneyland..... and California Adventure [DCA]. Further celebrating his birthday. No wonder kids don't know when their birthday ends.... it lasts over a week.
Real birthday dinner & gifts with family, birthday party with friends on weekend and after postponing the trip to DL because of the So Cal Fires and Halloween .... We finally made it.


Where he gets his picture taken with his favorites Tow Mater & Lightnin' McQueen.

We spent most of our day at DCA doing things we hadn't done before.
The High School Musical parade and plaza show.

The Aladdin stage show with elaborate costumes, great Genie jokes, an elephant, camels and the magic carpet ride swinging from wires.
The park still has lots of candy corn decorations. But not many Halloween ones. They are already starting to put up Christmas decor.


Here is FLick's Fun Fair where they have tree lights being strung and giant ball ornaments.

We just did the river rafting ride where everyone was soaked, but you can see Derek's back is dripping wet, as were my pants from waist to toe.

Time for some bumper cars!!

Derek's first ride on Flick's High Flying ride.
We got a raisin box. We were hoping for the Chinese food container.
I love this picture.
He looks so happy. He is cold from being wet but excited to go on the ride.
He's not giving me the cheesey.... mom you're taking too many pictures smirk.

FYI:
Go to Guest Services as soon as you come thru the gate and tell them it is your birthday.
You will get a Happy Birthday pin and the Cast Members will wish you HB all day.
The best was when the parade was going by the characters walking AND on the floats shouted out to the kids wearing pins.

Entering the squirting watermelon. It smells good but I don't remember it squirting so much liquid out.
If you can only have smell-blogging. Imagine fresh baking cookies... oh so yummy smelling as you go thru the tunnel of animal crackers.