Simple Homemade Pasta Sauce

So today I want to show you how to make the EASIEST homemade pasta sauce-hands down! It is so simple & so yummy!! Plus it is cheap to make....sounds too good to be true huh?

Well it's not. Here we go:

You need:

A blender or immersion blender
A stock pot with lid
4-6 (28oz.) Cans of whole tomatoes (or the equivalent in fresh from your garden/farm stand)
6-10 cloves of garlic
Olive oil

That's it.





Promise.

To make:

Open all your tomato cans and either use the immersion blender or put them in the blender and purée.

Pssst. There are those pesky DIY Painted countertops again!


Finely chop garlic. In stock pot heat about a 1/4-1/2 cup of olive oil over medium heat. After about a minute or so you will want to add your garlic. Stir and don't burn the garlic!! Only a minute at the most!

Then add just a 1/2 cup or so of your tomato purée. Stir it around for a couple minutes.

Next you'll just dump all your purée in the stock pot (as much as will fit- mine holds 5 cans) and simmer on medium-low or low heat for at least 4 hours. Stir it whenever you think of it.

Then we get to the part I love the best: take a big thick slice of homemade bread (if I'm really on my game I make them the same day so I have fresh-from-the-oven-homemade-bread)and dunk it in the sauce without anyone seeing.

Place it on a plate and smother in warm homemade-y goodness. Devour before your family catches you.

You're welcome for that secret.

Now back to the recipe. Take the pot off the burner after 4-6 hours of simmering (and who knows how many dunks of bread) and let cool completely. I usually make this starting at noon and remove it from the burner around 5pm let it stand on the stove until after supper then I place it in the fridge- pot & all- overnight. In the morning (or when it's completely cool) divide it up into large freezer ziploc bags and lay flat until frozen. Then you can stand them up like little files in your freezer. Cute, eh? If ziplocs filled with sauce were cute I mean. But anyway if you do it like that you will fit more in less space and they will thaw faster than if you put them in containers.

What I do is divide them into the exact quantities my recipes call for. So if I do my menu plan every two weeks and there are 4 dinners that need sauce- I make it, divide into those amounts, label it the recipe name & freeze. It's SO easy for Military Man to pull the one he needs and there is no measuring or leftover sauce that needs to be used up.

Yum yum yum!!
Also feel free to add your spices or a bay leaf or what have you. I don't only because we add those to the dish we are making with the sauce and we also use this as a pizza sauce for our homemade pizza night!

Thank you so much for stopping by, please leave me a comment so I know you were here! I comment back, I swear!!

Have A Happy Day,



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Pro-CRAFT-ination. Do you have it?

I tweeted earlier today that I had 'pro-CRAFT-ination' and it really got me thinking. I have a LOT of projects 'in process' right now and I can't seem to finish them before starting a new one.

I once heard that procrastination is the worst form of perfectionism- it's the paralyzing fear that if it's not going to be perfect why even start? Or you are too nervous it won't turnout perfect you can't even start. I believe I have pro-CRAFT-ination because I'm not afraid to start a new craft project but once it is underway I can't finish it because of this underlying fear that it won't turn out exactly as I envisioned it- aka: perfectly.

Yeah totally realized all that from a tweet.

SO I've decided to list all my unfinished projects here in a post and I hope to check in with you all weekly and be able to cross a project off! I need motivation to get 'er done! (ok that was totally lame and cheesy but I'm leaving it in!)

Here is my monstrous list:

1. Bathroom floor to be painted & sealed
2. Completely empty old craft room & put it into windowless room.
3. Move Lil Man into old craft room
4. Strip & repaint nursery room door & frame (lead paint detected)
5. Paint nursery walls.
6. Lay nursery floor. (currently plywood)
7. Try to reconfigure crib.
8. Make curtains for nursery
9. Make mobile.
10. Make Lil Man curtains
11. Finish lining living room curtains
12. Make playroom curtains
13. Finish fabric storage for playroom
14. Sew Velcro to play kitchen curtains to hang them.
15. Tank top refashion
16. Maxi dress refashion
17. Doggie door painting & install
18. Train table
19. Old window into craft room storage
20. Paint new countertop to match my painted laminate counters.
21. Finish sanding & sealing kitchen floor.
22. Paint trim, stair risers, & railings in dining room
23. Paint kitchen
24. Paint new light for dining room & hang
25. Make Miss E some dresses
26. Strip wallpaper & paint on hallway.
27. Type up & digi-scrap my recipes.

Ok there is more than that but I can't make you read forever. Just a note- most of the curtain projects & paint projects I haven't started yet so maybe I don't have pro-craft-ination on those.
Do you ever have pro-craft-ination? What one project have you been putting off just finishing??

Alright that's all I can type out on my iPhone right now lol! Sorry for the lack of photo- it wouldn't let me add one because I'm using a phone. Hopefully I'll remember to log onto my computer tomorrow to add links & pictures!


Oh and in case you noticed the slow down of posts: I took an unofficial and unplanned bloggy break & rested up while enjoying my babies!!

Have a happy Day,

I’m Guest Posting over at Top Notch Eats!

Hi all! Today I am guest posting over at Top Notch Eats!
Kaleena is a college friend of mine and boy if I knew the girl could cook when we were in college I would’ve hit her up for her leftovers at lunch! ;)

Please go read the post and check out the yummy recipes she posts!! :)
Have a happy day!

Real Honesty.

This post has been sitting in drafts for a few days. I’m nervous and scared and relieved all at the same time to be publishing it.
I am writing this post not because I want sympathy or pity. I’m writing it because I want someone….maybe you….to know you are not alone & you are better than you think you are. Really you are. Yes YOU.
This will be long and wordy and full of errors because if I don’t just write it as it comes out I will never publish it.
Ok here goes (big deep breath & pray my entire family isn’t reading this because my mom will call me and give me that concerned voice “Are you ok?” which will make me cry and will make me mad all at the same time for some reason):
House duties:
You know those blog posts that are like “I’m going to show you the real mess my room is” and then it’s a picture like this:

So yeah…that’s my house on a GOOD day. No, that’s my house on a FANTASTIC day.
Here’s my craft room:
And actually that is much better than it looks now. At least you can see some of the guest bed/futon in this one. 
yeah. I know. you don’t have to tell me. it’s the biggest mess ever. It’s so overwhelming I can even begin. I know, I know if I just do 15 minutes at at time it will be done in no time….ugh yeah thanks FlyLady…NOW I have to find an extra 15 minutes to work on it.
Edited to add: After I wrote this I came across this post in my Google Reader. I love it bc it is simple.
Personal:
I laugh when I read “get up an hour earlier than your kids and have ‘me’ time” HA! (actually I cry but that’s a different story) my kids get up at 5am. Consistently. without fail. every. single. day. and actually my Little Miss E wakes up to nurse at 4am- nurses for 20-35minutes and then gets up again when Little Man comes in demanding a cereal bar and to go downstairs. Speaking of little Man he doesn’t want to nap anymore and it’s a whole big struggle to even get him anywhere near a bed after 1pm everyday. IF I can get him there (kinda hard considering he’s 40lbs and very good at flopping around so you can’t pick him up) he *might* fall asleep IF I lay with him (hard to do if Miss E needs to nurse or is crying.) At night he won’t go to sleep until after 8:30pm IF I lay with him in our bed. Trust me I’ve tried the whole put him in his bed and keep putting him back until he stays thing….that’s a fantastic idea IF he would fall asleep-EVER- using that method and if after a long, long LONG night of putting him back he would sleep past 5am. Which he doesn’t. I swear if I put him to bed at 4am he would be back up at 5am- just crankier. And that’s another thing: Why does he wake up cranky no matter what? Even from naps (2+ hours if he falls asleep)? He’s cranky…even when I don’t wake him up.
Anyway so ‘me’ time does. not. happen. at. all. ever.
I would LOVE to have my mom come up and watch them both so I could nap but I’m nursing Miss E and when we try to give her a bottle of pumped milk she chokes on it and just doesn’t ‘get’ it. and if my mom would take Little Man and I would sleep when Miss E does (to avoid the whole bottle issue) I’m never tired then (again WHY is that??) or I feel like I should get stuff done that I can’t do otherwise. Plus my sister lives with my mom right now due to personal issues and has a 2 year old and one due in Sept. so my mom has her hands full already…I’m lucky to get 2 hours out of her when she comes to visit…and usually then she shows up before I’ve really woken up and hit my ‘stride’ for the day so those 2 hours are NOT productive. Ever. haha. But I appreciate her offers to help.
Weight:
This one never used to be an issue for me. Well let me rephrase that- I was always ‘bigger’ than my peers and according to those stupid BMI charts I was always ‘overweight/borderline obese’ which by the way is stupid. I was 5’4” in high school running cross country 145lbs and considered borderline obese? C’mon! Even I know that wasn’t true!
After having Little Man I nursed him and was pre-baby weight (145lbs.) by the time he was 3 months…then continued to lose because of the stress of my husband’s deployment..I still only got to 130lbs. and those stupid BMI things told me to be 115lbs. to be within the ‘healthy’ range. Honesty: even at 130lbs. my jeans size was still a 14. Which apparently shocked my friends when I told them. They all thought I was at least an 8 if not a 6. I’ve never been a 10 let alone a freakin 6! I wish lol.
So anyway right now at Miss E being almost 10 weeks I haven’t lost a pound in almost 2 weeks. I’m at 181lbs. 181. this is uncharted territory for me. I have no time to work out (see above about no me time) and I thought nursing would help again this time at least get me back to 150lbs. 
I don’t want to buy clothes that fit this body because I don’t want this body (read money/budget section below to also know why I can’t buy clothes in all the sizes I am/will be- sorry Stacy & Clinton but I just can’t and if I could they would be those cheap ones you hate!). I know I’m not supposed to say that. I’m supposed to be all “love your body at any size” but I don’t. I don’t love my body at this size. I don’t love seeing 181 on the scale. So I wear yoga skirts and tank tops that I wore when I was pregnant just to get by. Until I get to that place…if I ever get to that place. I am continually amazed that my body made two babies…that it knew where to put the nose and the fingers and all those organs. That they are healthy because of my body. That I fed/feed them with my body. But that doesn’t mean I love what happened to my body. I would not give up my kids to get back to 135lbs but why can’t I have my cake and eat it too?
Money/Budget:
I love reading blogs-especially thrifty ones. I love a good thrifty find or dollar store re-do. Love ‘em. But I can’t participate all the time. My husband and I have written out our budget and are trying to follow Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover but we get stuck on step 1 then when we get that done we get stuck on step 2 so long that we use up the emergency fund and have to go back to step 1. This means that I don’t even have $1 to go to the dollar store and buy something to spray paint. If I DO have a little extra for some reason I either want to spend it on stuff my kids need or I can’t seem to GET to the store or yard sales (see above with no time for me) and I can’t take Little Man because he asks for everything and throws a tantrum if I say no and now that I have Miss E I can’t carry him out of a store kicking and screaming while holding her or her car seat. So I don’t go to the store. (Hubs grocery shops when he gets out of work) So I’m trying to somehow make this blog maybe possibly make me $10-$25 a month to help off set our budget (since it covers all the necessities) so I can have a crafty endeavor once in awhile still. But this blog is about those crafty endeavors and if I can’t afford to keep doing them I won’t have loyal readers so I won’t  be able to get advertising so I won’t be able to do the crafty endeavors….vicious cycle I tell ya. Vicious. lol (Also the lack of ‘me’ time makes it hard to blog let alone craft! whew!)
Hubs:
My husband is in the military (deployed twice already) and I hate it. I’m proud of him but I just want it to be over with already. That is hard to say for many reasons a few being: it’s his job and it’s how I am able to stay at home with my kids and how we survive, it is also very un-American to say I wish my husband didn’t serve. But I get a nervous/throw up feeling when I think of him deploying again- I felt that way every single day of the year he was gone last time and I am so scared I’ll have to raise my kids on my own for the rest of my life if something happens to him-that they won’t know their daddy. I am not made out to handle that. I sometimes wish someone else would serve so he wouldn’t have to and then I feel sick/guilty that someone else would have to feel nervous/throw up just so I didn’t have to and so I feel like it’s my duty to feel that way so that maybe you don’t ever have to know that feeling.
Having it all together:
I get “you have it all together” or “you are so much more domestic than me” or something similar- a LOT. I’m here to tell you that most days I don’t shower, I wear the same thing that I slept in and brushing my teeth is probably an after thought not a priority. If I do shower it’s at 3pm and shaving just doesn’t happen anymore. I haven’t baked bread since Miss E was born (except for once and I was rushing and it came out bad). Yes I cloth diaper but it’s because I can’t afford to buy that many diapers all the time.
On this blog, on twitter and on facebook you see what I want you to see. You see what I think YOU want to see. No matter how many times someone says they want to know the real you- they really dont. I mean I have so many issues I’m trying to deal with I don’t want to feel bad after listening to your problems that I can’t find the 5 minutes to help you too…I don’t need more guilt on my plate haha.
So because I have so much to worry/stress/throw up about I’m worn out and I’m a bad friend. I forget to get gifts or can’t afford to. I forget to call you and when you call me I’m too tired to form complete sentences so you get “uh-huh” “oh really”  “that’s nice” etc. and you feel like I’m ignoring you. I’m not. really I’m not. I’m trying so hard but nothing is seeming to match up.
My son eats cereal bars (organic brand), chicken nuggets (Tyson because we can’t afford the organic kind anymore-there’s only like 10 in a $8 box and he eats 5 at a time! yikes!), peanut butter toast, hummus & crackers, ice cream and chocolate. I can’t get him to touch a veggie or fruit (TRUST me I’ve been offering it to him since he stopped at 18 months….he’s THREE so that 10-15 times exposure thing is CRAP-OLA)  and we even planted a garden this year trying to A) save some money and B) get him involved in the process to try and get him to eat some veggies…so far we have ONE cucumber to show for our efforts and he wouldn’t even touch that. UGH. Yes I know if he is hungry enough he’ll eat it. But with little sleep, no nap, waking up cranky, etc…wouldn’t you go the easy way too? at least the ice cream and chocolate is only after he poops on the potty.


Whew. So there it’s all off my chest and if you’ve read this far…I’m sorry for putting my stuff on you. I’m sorry for wasting 10? 20? minutes of your life lol
So if you feel the same way as me on even only ONE of these things: I don’t have any advice and I don’t have a solution…I can’t even say “It will get better- it’s only a season in your life” because so far it’s the only season I know. But just know that I’m there with you. No matter how it seems on this blog…I know and I’m there. We can be there together- not solving anything but just knowing the other is there with us.

ok, I am prepared to lose some subscribers on here and have some friends on facebook avoid me because of all my ‘issues’ but I got sick of reading other “honesty” blog posts and thinking that it would be a great day if my life was their “messy/bad/ unorganized” life! lol!
So I’m hoping some of you feel that way too. Thanks for reading Miss E needs to nurse and Little Man is begging for nuggets…so REAL life calls!
Love,

P.S. I just want to state that I LOVE my kids and my husband and I KNOW we could have it much worse and I am thankful we don’t. Really I am very thankful and VERY aware it could be different. I just needed to vent and let someone else know that it’s ok she/he feels this way too. Because I wish someone would’ve written this post to make ME feel better too.

Pirate Birthday Party

So after sending out the pirate party invitations I got to work on creating some pirate decorations for the party!
I use Martha’s instructions for tissue paper pom poms (as you’ve seen at the tea & cupcakes baby shower & the Dr. Seuss baby shower) but I’ve noticed some confusion as to how exactly they are made so I wanted to show you a little visual as to how they look before you ‘fluff’ them.

I use twist ties (those freebie ones in with your trash bags- I just tie the bag closed I never use a twist tie so I have lots!) and monofilament thread but fishing line would be cheaper, you’d get a lot more (A whole reel!), and it works just as well!
Just layer (6+ layers works the best) your tissue paper on top of each other (you can alternate colors to get a multi-colored pom) and accordion fold on the ‘short’ side. When you reach the end of the tissue paper twist a twist tie around the center and then tie a length of clear thread (monofilament or fishing line) around that center also. This is how you want to transport them if you need to bring them somewhere other than you made them. If you fluff before travel you will have smooshed sides on your poms.  Also make sure you cut the ends before you fluff- into the shapes you want- I do either curved edges (seen on the tea & cupcake party poms) or pointy ones like these.
Ok on to where these poms ended up for the party!
In the playroom corner:

Over the food/cake table:

I also used vinyl cut from my silhouette machine to decorate a few places
The play room window:

The kitchen mirror as you walked in had a vinyl pirate ship & a banner:

Those pirate banners were super easy! They were pirate boy foam crafts that came 6 in a kit ($1 a kit at JoAnn’s)- I bought 2 kits and put them together. The pennant was a freebie from the Cottage Industrialist (also got the pirate hats and eye patches there) and printed them on cardstock.
Here is the pirate dress up station you saw the sign for before:
 
Those parrots are printed on cardstock after being colored in Photoshop (you could just use markers after printing) with a clothespin on the tail to clip on your shoulder. I got the parrots from Family Fun.  Besides the pirate hats and parrots there are eye patches, red & back sashes (just plain bandanas) and tiny ‘party favor’ telescopes.
I made pirate themed food signs which you can sort of see in this picture of the food table:

I kept the food simple this time and did a ranch veggie dip with veggies and a really yummy fruit dip with cut up fruit (not pictured) as well as cheese and cracker platters (also not pictured). For drinks I did raspberry iced tea from a mix and a super yummy lemonade.
I also bought two ($2 each at JoAnn’s) pirate ship foam activity kits and put them together- one was on the buffet with the drinks:

Outside I buried pirates treasure (some of which is scattered on the food table above) in Little Man’s sandbox for the kiddos to search for and we also tied a piece of wood to two cement blocks for a ‘plank’ to walk. I did buy some ‘water bomb’ balloons that were shaped like- you guessed it- cannonballs but we didn’t do those. All of this is not pictured because I didn’t take pictures of it without kids in the pictures and I don’t share pictures of my kids or other’s kids on the blog…sorry!
Last but not least was the pirate ship cake I made for Little Man:

The sails & waves are paper and the pirate and treasure chest came from a toy Little Man had.
Here is a list of pirate party ideas I used to help me come up with all the fun ideas!
Pirate Ship Cake & This cake also
Buried Treasure & Invite Ideas
Pirate hats and eye patches
Steph’s Pirate Party blew. me. away. (walking the plank idea came from here)
Every pirate needs “dress-up” station came from here.

So thanks to all these people for sharing their ideas online and for Google for bringing you to me so I could throw a cheap & fun pirate party for my Little Man!!
I hope you all enjoyed this ‘walk’ through my Little Man’s 3rd birthday!
Have a happy day,

I am linking this post up to:



Pssst! I'm trying to reach 100 followers (see over there on the right sidebar?) so I've decided to try a little giveaway. 
If I reach 100 followers by Tuesday August 10, 2010 (one week) I will giveaway the pirate banners, pirate 'coins', little party favor telescopes, the un-opened package of cannonball 'water bomb' balloons, a small package of pirate themed foam stickers (opened but I didn't use them), and possibly the 2 foam pirate ships if I can figure out how to ship them without breaking them. I will choose one winner randomly from the comments on Wednesday Aug. 11, 2010.
You would have an almost complete decorating kit for YOUR pirate party if you win...just by following me and leaving a comment here. Make sure you tell your friends because I have to be at 100 followers in one week or the giveaway doesn't happen :) (see? incentive!) This is open to USA readers only but if you are from outside the US feel free to follow anyway you'll be helping out!

Pirate Birthday Party Invitations!

I was going to wait and show you the Pirate 3rd Birthday Party when it was all over with and complete but then I thought- why not just show you the invitations and the rest in another post? It will break it up so you aren’t reading a huge long post (unless you like that….?) (Here's Pirate Birthday Party Post 2)
So Little Man is turning 3 and I decided last year (at his Thomas the Train Birthday party) to do a Pirate theme this year! Next year he’ll probably help choose his theme.
I started by searching for any Pirate parties online and found a bunch that had good ideas! I took the invitation in a bottle inspiration from here.
Here is what the invite looked like from the front:

I blurred out our names/address/etc. but it does say “Join us on the good ship our last name”

Here is the back:

I always like to give present suggestions, mostly because I hate getting a bunch of plastic, noisy toys that I’m going to have to ‘hide’ after he goes to bed because they aren’t something we want him playing with, but also because sometimes adults just don’t know what a kid likes or wants. I always appreciate it when I get an invite with suggestions on it because it makes MY life so much easier…I won’t have to worry that the birthday child won’t like my present.
These invites were designed in Photoshop Elements and all the images you see came from that program.
So I had Military Man stop by the store and pick me up a 6 pack….of IBC root beer. We drank a couple, made root beer floats and then poured the rest into a pitcher. I rinsed the bottles out and dried them. Then I printed my invites on resume paper I had (it was almost linen like) to give it a authentic ‘lost map’ feel. I also burned the edges with a lighter. I rolled them up and stuck them in the bottle. I tied some twine around them and used a free tag printable to write the names of who they were to.
Military Man took 4 to work to hand out and the other two went to others. I ended up mailing 6 more invites (no bottles lol).
Here is the finished product (sorry for bad iPhone photo- my camera batteries died just as I was about to take the pic!):

So there is the beginning of the Pirate Birthday Party!(Pirate Birthday Party Post 2)
Let’s try something fun: leave me a comment telling me what your favorite party theme has been (could be yours or a party you went to)!
Have a great weekend,


Linking up to:

Prepared.

Hi all! I'm back! This is my first post since having my baby girl "E" on June 6, 2010! She was born at 6:02am weighing a TINY 6lbs. 9oz. (My son was 9lbs. 4oz so she is tiny tiny to me!) she came into the world after only two pushes and only 6 hours of contractions that hurt (I was contracting all day the day before but they just were tight-not painful) She is healthy & D and Hubby both love and adore her!

Ok! Now onto the blog post! First a thank you to all the ladies who helped me out and did guests posts for me these last few weeks! Please go visit them soon & thank them! Kaleena @ Top Notch Eats, Birdie @ A Chirp in the Forest & Karen @ Saving the Family Money. Thanks so much ladies!

So a few weeks ago I decided that I wanted a bag in my vehicle that would allow D & I to just go to the playground or somewhere fun without any planning (an example would be: we were out running errands and just decided to stop by the playground). So I pulled out a tote bag I had and started to throw some things together. Here's what I ended up with in the back of my suv:

and here are a few pictures of what I included:

This is the full bag (above). The bag on top is the 'emergency supplies' bag which has band-aids, tissues, neosporin, bug spray, sunscreen, anti-itch spray, and travel sizes of advil and purell.

Then I added a bag of toys which as you can see included Mr. Potato Head. It also has bubbles, chalk & a small playground ball.

Then in the bottom is a change of clothes for him, a sweatshirt (in case it's colder all of a sudden), an empty sippy cup, two beach towels (one to wipe off the wet slides if it's a rainy day) and 1 washcloth. 

Then not pictured is a folding camping chair, a flashlight, our folding travel potty and my picnic blanket that is waterproof on one side.
I am going to have to add in clothes & diapers for little miss E now but other than that we are all prepared for those spur of the moment 'let's go have fun' times! Another bonus is that I don't have to worry my new 'mommy brain' will have me forget something important!

Have a great weekend everyone!