Does your 2 year old take naps? Cause if so please give me so tips on how I can get her to sleep when we are at home. The car is the ONLY place she will actually take a nap during the day. When we are at home she will not take a nap but the minute we get in the car she is out like a light. When we are home and she doesn't take a nap she is usually in bed and asleep by 7 or 8 so it's not so bad.
Yesterday I officially started school. I have two nights classes Tuesday and Thursdays. I'm taking an entrepreneur class and principals of management class which both seem super easy and my teachers are both pretty nice so I'm not so worried about it. My Internet classes are Human Resources and Organizational Behavior which I've had both of those teachers before and know want they want and how they grade so I'm not worried about those classes either. And then my Saturday class is Small Business Management which is THE exact same class as my entrepreneur class. So what I learn during the week will be a repeat on Saturday. This is the only class that I'm concerned about because I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to sit in one class for 5 hours long on a Saturday. So we shall see!
Today Jaina and I went and saw my friend Rosie who had her twins on Monday. They were SO cute and tiny! I didn't hold them because I didn't want me or Jaina getting our sickly germs on them so I will have to hold them next time I see them. I asked her how she felt going from a family of 3 to a family of 5 over night! She said they were doing good so far but they will see when they get home tonight. I couldn't imagine having twins! That's twice the work!!! God bless her!!
Over the weekend I made a few new things. First I made my very first pie crust! It was really good and flaky and easy to make. I was a little nervous to make it but it turn out great. I decided to make a keish for supper and didn't have a pie crust and didn't feel like going to the store to buy any so I decided to make my own. I looked up a recipe online and just followed it. After making it I decided to make another one and freeze it. I'm probably going to make a couple more and freeze those as well because there have been so many times I've needed these on hand and had to run to the store to pick one up. Plus your saving money and gas by using materials that you already have at home and the prep time is seriously only about 5 minutes. I would encourage you to make some in your spare time!!!
You will need:
1 1/3 cup of flour
1/2 tsp salt
4 oz unsalted butter, sliced and chilled
3-5 tbsp of ice cold water
How to make it:
-I used an electric mixer but you can do it by hand too
-Add your dry ingredients first, add your flour and salt together
-You need to stick your butter in the freezer before hand and slice into pieces. Like the size of cheese cubes. After they have chilled then add to flour and mix together. Mix until flour looks crumbly then you want to add your water. The water needs to be ice cold so you can freeze it at the same time you freeze the butter or just add ice cubes to your water like I did to get it really cold. I added 5 tbsp spoons but just add want you think you need to get it sticky but no more then 5 tbsp. Then mix again and wa-la you got some dough.
-Then add a little bit of flour to your rolling pin (cup, mug or whatever your using) and add a little flour to your surface your going to roll the out dough on.
Roll out your dough and then add to your pie pan and use right away or freeze it for a special occasion.
* Remember the holidays are right around the corner so don't get behind and make some ahead of time so you will have them on hand!
* Also you will have left over pie dough so you can use a cookie cutter to cut out some shapes to place on top of your pies! Save them in a bag or with your pie crust, no need to be wasteful!
I also made waffle mix and pancake mix as well. It kinda irritates me to have to buy separate mixes just for pancakes, waffles, biscuits or whatever you are going to make when you can do it at home with all the ingredients you have on hand. Plus when you are buying all these separate boxes of stuff it really adds up!
So I went to wal-mart and bought a basic deep tupperware box with a good lid on it. Then I looked up recipes online and here's what I found. The pancake mix and waffle mix are in this same box. It's just the way you make them with the liquid ingredients.
Basic Pancake and waffle Mix:
-4 cups flour
-1/4 cup sugar
-2 tsp baking soda
-4 tsp baking powder
-1 tsp salt
That's it! So easy! Just put all the ingredients together and mix up with a whisk or spoon and seal it in a tight box.
Now to actually make your basic pancakes you will need:
- whisk 1 large egg for every 1 to 1 1/2 cups of dry mix
- add 1 1/2 tbsp melted butter or oil to your egg before you add it to the dry mix
- add 2/3 cup water to egg mix for every 1 cup of dry mix
and wa-la! Yummy Homemade Pancakes!
Now for your basic waffles you will need:
- 2 cups of dry mix
- add 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup water
- 1/4 cup of oil
-you will want to add all your liquid ingredients together and then add then to your dry ingredients. Then add to your waffle iron and wa-la! Now your husband will think your a true homemade cooker!! So easy and simple!!
And speaking of saving money! I LOVE stretching a dollar. Who doesn't now a days? I know it takes time and alot of patients and I probably wouldn't be this die hard if I was working a full time job but even when I do go back to work I probably won't ever go back to my old habits of spending ridiculous money on things that I can get for a fraction of the price! With that being said I headed out to 3 different stores and bought over 100.00 worth of stuff for 16.00 bucks!! And it was all stuff that we need and use. The most expensive thing I bought today was our lunch, lol. So if you haven't given couponing a try, you should! I have NO shame in it AND I did it with my restless 2 year old so you can do it too. I use all the inserts from the newspaper. I don't go crazy, I just buy 2 papers on Sunday plus I have one sent to my house everyday. And I print coupons off the Internet. I also use websites that are dedicated just to coupons. With these sites I would NOT be couponing. So you can visit:
Yesterday Jaina was feeling a little bit better. We had to run to my sister's house in Hutto to help her fix her couch that her dog chewed up! We managed to staple it back together so hopefully her boyfriend wont find out, lol. 
We stopped by the store before we headed back to Salado to pick up a few groceries. I promised I would let her ride the rides if she was a good girl in the store.
The toy factory was really neat. They had so much stuff in there for kids to do and see. I loved this giant boat as there entry way. It would be really neat to bring Jaina down here to see this store.
We had to buy her something while we were down there. So we picked her up this adorable purse/bag for her to play with since she loves to play dress up. Justin picked out the bag and I think he did a great job!
We walked around Mallory Square for awhile but couldn't decide what we wanted to do. We had day 5 & 6 open to do whatever we wanted. I did not book us a room for those two nights since we weren't sure where we were going to stay. I had intentions on leaving the keys and heading north to Ft. Lauderdale but Justin wanted to stay and book us a boat tour. So we stayed.
We drove around the island until we found a place to stay. We finally found a place at the Windsong Hotel. The property was really cute and had separate cottages for each room.
We had lunch at B.O's. Justin had to try their MF burger. It was a burger on Cuban bread and I had a fried hot dog. It was oddly good!
We drove around town and went by the last mile marker on hwy 1. I guess at this point you can't go any further south then this, lol. We also went by the seaport and booked our tour for the next day. Justin could not decide weather he wanted to go diving or not so we ended up booking a dolphin swim and snorkel tour.
That night we got dressed and headed out for dinner.
We walked to Duval street this time instead of taking the bicycle taxi. Walking was a lot better because it gives you time to look at all their neat houses they have. We went by one house that was literally falling down and a shack that was going for 2.5 million. Sooooo if your in the market looking in Key West get your pocket book out cause it's going to cost ya!
I love all the tropical plants and flowers they have. They are soooo pretty and wish I could grow them in my Texas hot backyard.
We ended up trying Cuban food. It was a must on our list.
The next morning we had breakfast at Camille's and it was amazing!
Then after a while the momma and baby dolphin woke up and started swimming faster.
Justin LOVES anything to do with the ocean. He is a certified diver and loves it. He loves seeing the fish, sharks and all the ocean life underneath the water. I on the other hand am totally opposite. I like swimming, I like splashing in the water, I will even swim in the ocean but I do not want to see what's below the water. Justin thinks I am so weird and it convinced he is going to make me like the ocean. I guess it's because I grew up in Galveston water where it's brown and you can't see a thing. I would just rather not know there are fish and sea creatures floating around me.
We headed back to our cottage to take showers and then change for our last night out in Key West.
We had dinner at the Conch republic. There food was out of this world. We had fish dip and stuffed shrimp.
It started raining really bad while we were at dinner so we hung out there for while
Then we walked across the street to grab a piece of Key Lime pie. Kermits are the BEST in the whole keys. It was so good!
We went back to Hog's Breath one last time. We met a couple from Austin who were really fun. We all went to Captain Tony's for a couple drinks. We had a blast telling jokes and stories. Then we ended the night early.
The next morning we got up early and had breakfast at Camilles again. We said our goodbyes to Key West and headed north for Miami. The 3 hour trip was bittersweet and we hated to see it go but I was ready to get home to my baby girl. We made a couple stops along the way to pick up a couple souvenirs and even stopped back in at Dj's diner in Key Largo so Justin could get a banana shake. Then we finally made it Miami. Justin and I could not believe how many sky scrapers there are in Miami.
I booked us a room ahead of time on South Beach Miami. We had intentions on going to the "Dash Boutique" and having dinner in South Beach. When we arrived we couldn't believe how "Hollywood" it was and how expensive everything was. It wasn't really our fit if you know what I mean.
Our hotel was an old Spanish style hotel. Very cute. When we got to our room I noticed right away that there was a fan in our room on the ground and it was extremely hot in our room. I tried pushing down the air in our room to make it cooler but it was stuck on 89 degrees so I called for maintenance to come to our room. Maintenance said "it must be broken" so they put us in another room which wasn't much cooler. So Justin and I decided to walk down to the beach to let our room cool down.
We walked across the street to the beach but they had flags up saying no one could get in the water because the jellyfish were so bad. What luck....so all together on our trip we got in the water about a total of 15 minutes, lol.
The beach was really pretty though. Lots and lots of buildings lineing the beach and white soft sand. The weather started getting pretty rough because of the winds off hurricane Irene. That would have been our luck if the hurrincane would have came to Miami or Key West!
We were able to leave that hotel free of charge and we wound up staying right down the road from the airport. We felt soooooo much better doing that even though we did not get to go to by the Dash store or have dinner in south Beach. Instead we got cleaned up and had a nice dinner down the street from our hotel. The next morning we got up early and headed to the airport. My dad picked us up in Houston and took us to their house so we could finally see our baby. We were so excited to see her! We had dinner with my parents and then finally went home as a family :)
I would have to say our trip was definatley fun, unique, and a learning experince. I think I had higher expections for this trip but it definatley didn't dissapoint me. I believe Justin fell in love with Key West more then I did because that's all he can talk about now and I'm the one that begged him for 4 years to go with me. I definatley loved it but 7 days is way to long to be away from my baby! I'm sure Key West is a re-do trip in the near future!