2 Pizzas

Let's talk about food for a minute.  I always need quick dinners that are kind of mindless to prepare. 

I love pizza because it requires little forethought, I'm relatively certain the children will eat, and it is fun especially during football games.

I tried out two new pizzas that we all loved instead of the usual marinara and mozzarella.  

Paneer pizza

This one was inspired.  I found out they sell paneer (an Indian cheese you can bake without melting) at Whole Foods.  Not having to make a second trip to the Indian grocery store is huge.  One less errand, one more shred of sanity saved. 

I use premade pizza dough which I now get from the pizza counter at Whole Foods.  It is better than most other places I have tried. 

I started out by marinating the paneer in yogurt mixed with spices. I use gatam Masala (a mix of cumin, haldi, coriander, mango powder)

Here is the recipe:
Pizza dough
Canned Crushed tomatoes
3 garlic cloves, chopped
One quarter onion and one bell pepper, chopped
Marinated Paneer
Mozzarella
Parmesan
Cilantro

Assemble and bake.  I set my oven at 425 for 20 minutes.  

The paneer gets all crispy around the edges and has just enough spice to make it interesting.  Avinash ate all the paneer off his pieces and left the pizza part alone. 

One other new pizza I tried was enchilada pizza.  This was based off a post by Elise Joy, click here for the recipe.

I modified it to be vegetarian.  I basically just added mozzarella in addition to the Cheddar cheese.  I truly loved it.  The use of enchilada sauce instead of tomato sauce tasted great to me but was not a huge hit with the rest of the family. 

Project Life: RAD

 This week: My brother came to visit.  We went to see the bat bridge together.  Ryan and I had a night out and I got to cuddle Nandini when we got back like I haven't done in forever. I included a few more pictures from Avi's camp week too.  Why not?

The full spread.

First side: This page is totally photo heavy.  I used a mix of Midnight cards and Studio Calico cards here.  I had a few of those MME date stickers left and I was determined to finish. a. sheet. of stickers.  Oh it felt so good to throw that away even if I was too lazy to go back and fill in the date for everyone.  HA! I used a few of these teal MME word strips too.

 Used a few stickers from the Hello Again collection from Carta Bella.  I love how the soft colors and general themes don't compete with photos too much. 

 Second side: More midnight cards.  A piece of this gold+kraft paper from the Atlantic collection.  I included a card with lots of little label stickers to hold unconnected little stories from the week.

If I don't know where to put my journaling I love to write around the edge of something.  This midnight card is perfect for that.  I am also really liking these wonky letter stickers from Studio Calico.

 More Hello Again stickers, with MME word strips and enamel dots.  I am really into those colors right now. 

 I put a KP sticker on a paislee press card because I'm different like that. 

 

 A die cut card from my shop.  One of the more simple designs.  Love adding bits of kraft or white to provide more white space on my pages (which tend to be jammed!). I had to highlight the word Namaste on this SC card.

 We did go back to visit his camp counselor on her birthday, so this picture is totally not out of place. I spanned the length of a photo with these big off-white letter stickers.

I am linked up with The Mom Creative for Project Life Tuesday. The PL kits I am using generally are the Studio Calico kit, Kelly Purkey kit and Midnight kit, with multi-pack page protectors.  Let me know if you have any questions.  Thanks for visiting, I appreciate all of your support.  Please, leave your links to any PL pages in the comments so we can check them out too.

Reading and checking out UT lab school.

Avinash had his first chance to see his new school, meet his teacher and new classmates on Friday.  We are just super excited for him and his new school.  Our expectations may be a little high but I think it is going to a much better experience for our family than his last school was.

Running into his room.

He's got his name tag on his back like the little test subject he is.  The school is run as part of the UT system.  His pre-K teacher teaches 4 year olds as well as undergrads.  I wonder if she finds the experience much different? ha!  They are always using new teaching methods and write research papers on their findings.  We are big supporters of scientific research and the program is supposed to be great for the kids anyway.  How could it not with such intelligent and motivated teachers?

I was super happy and relieved to see that he was making friends right away.  He is outgoing but I always worry anyway.  The other parents were also really warm and welcoming.  This was a wonderful change for us and just confirmed our feelings that Austin is a much more open and welcoming place.  There are children of all different backgrounds, including some mixed families like ours.  Trust me, this is already something that kids notice and can start to feel self-conscious about. 

Afterwards his teacher came over for a home visit.  After answering some questions with us, she spent time with Avinash alone.  Nandini of course had to join in.  I tried to give them privacy but I did peek in a little.  Just talking and getting to know each other. 

School officially starts next week and Avinash is counting down the days! So am I to be honest.  I know that he craves the extra stimulation and I just want to be able to breathe a little bit during the day.

 I also have a new layout up on the JBS site using the new Writer's collection digital brushes and stamps.  I love office themed stuff anyway, but it seemed to fit perfectly with a layout about Avinash's first attempts at reading.  I know that a lot of kids his age can already read, but it is still a big deal to us and we are so proud of him.  The first book that he was really reading was Happy Pig Day!  I got a few early reader books by Mo Willems and they seem to be helping a lot.  Teaching him to read was just another mysterious process like potty training.  How do I get him to put it all together? I just didn't know. 

Somehow, some way, last week was just the right time and Happy Pig Day was just the right book.  We sat down together and went over words and he started sounding things out and putting words together.  Pretty soon he was just reading.  I don't know why but it felt like something just clicked.  He can be more than a little active, so it was good to see him focus on something.
I may have also promised him a hundred pennies and ten quarters for doing such a good job.  Ooops. Hopefully we will not have to resort to bribery for every homework assignment in the future. 

Supply List
digital:
Pen nibs, protractor and ruler border brushes from The Writer's Collection
Letter Chart paper
Read Pocket Stuffers Digital Kit
phsyical:
Fishnet and Northstar Stencils
Printed Pockets - Vintage
Hear Ye Hear Ye Banner Stickers
Plastic Ribbon Classic
Doily Rub-ons Gold
Banner Stickers (tiny alpha)
other:
white cardstock
red paint dabber
gold ink and gold sharpie

Austin Bat Bridge Festival

Austin has this great tradition of celebrating the bats that live there every year.  Millions of bats live under the Congress St. bridge and fly out everyday at dusk.  One day a year the whole bridge is shut down and fills up with people going bat watching.  They also have tents of vendors, food trucks and bat costume contests.

 We paint our faces at home before leaving for festivals.  Avinash choose purple, blue and green for his bat mask.  Nandini picked purple and pink.

 We had to get water ices after I saw the Rita's truck. So many memories of high school and hanging out with friends there.

We got to stand right at the edge of the bridge and wait for the bats to appear.  We didn't want to miss them so we got there around 7 but the bats didn't show until closer to 8.

So protective.  (And, yes, we were doing the same thing to them the entire time.) The wind really picked up at one point and it seemed like a huge storm was coming.  It was so refreshing in all that heat.

Bats! Yes! They are awake and starting to fly.

Pretty soon they formed a dense line.  You can see the black cloud that suddenly appeared in the second picture.  You almost wouldn't know they were bats just from looking.  

Such a fun experience, but you can do go almost any time around dusk and watch the bats with less crowds.  I'm pretty sure you can dress up too and no one would look at you funny here.

Cleaning tips from a really unlikely source.

It is no secret that we recently moved.  Well, if you count four months ago as recently.  I really have no handle on unpacking and organizing stuff in our new place.  Technically there are more rooms (we only had two bedrooms for the four of us before) but there is way less built in storage.  I don't know what to do with all these little rooms and little closets with no storage space.

How does this huge Ikea Expedit not hold all of my scrapbooking stuff?

Suffice to say, living with this much disorganization leads to quite a few lapses in cleaning around here.  My favorite things to clean with are baking soda and vinegar. 

I use them on anything and everything.  I even wash my hair with them.  I see a lot of online cleaning recipes which direct you to mix them together before use.  To me, this totally defeats the purpose.  One is a base and one is an acid.  Won't most of their cleaning power be lost if you neutralize them by mixing them together?  I use the baking soda as a paste mixed with water and sometimes hydrogen peroxide (same stuff in Oxi-Clean).  Then, use vinegar to rinse.  I think it works great on sinks, countertops.  It even has been known to take off scribble marks on the walls (minus the rinse).  Vinegar alone is great for any type of glass.  Also is a great product to wash fresh produce in to prolong the shelf life. 

My favorite new trick however is for laundry.  I just can not stand to have one more thing to organize and have laying around in piles in this house.  My own closet is in complete disarray but that is another story (I am actually okay with it and live out of a single basket as well). 

Everyone else has their clothes nice and neatly put away.  I bought a couple of extra hampers from Land of Nod when they were on sale for the kids.  Now, Nandini has a cream one and Avinash has a red one.  I can easily direct Avinash (or do it myself ----> less likely to happen) to put his clothes in the red one and Nandini's in the other.  When one gets full that child gets her laundry done.  It goes back in the same hamper to be put away.  No sorting and no piles lying around.  I love this new system.  I also have a basket for each of us and the towels.  So far, so good!  Plus, it is better to wash towels separately at a higher temperature anyway. 

 For Nandini's clothes I also go the extra step and roll up outfits together, instead of sorting tops and bottoms separately.  This is fun for me because I like knowing I am getting good use of her well-appointed wardrobe.  Plus, it makes it easier for Ryan to get her dressed.  Win - win.  

I am linking up with Kelly's Korner today.  She has a ton of great tips there, so be sure to check those out also.

Project Life: Honeysuckle Summer

This week: Is a bit of a catch up week with bits and pieces from random things over the summer.  This was also the week of Avinash's dinosaur camp and the same week which held Day in the Life for the month.

The full spread.

First Side: I did this page for One Story Down, so lots of printable journaling cards.  I added a few embellishments here and there like wood veneer, enamel dots and a few letter stickers. 

I love these old sticky note arrows and speech bubbles from Studio Calico. 

Nandini loves to brush my hair so I tried to take a picture of it.  I probably should have journaled that on the photo but I couldn't find space..

Second side: A little bit of orange on this side too, but it really seems to add a lot of vibrancy to the spread.  I used one of my Kelly Purkey letterpress cards and a couple of Studio Calico kit cards.  Put in a picture of Avi's banner for camp.  A lot of pictures of Nandini mostly, but some weeks are just like that. 

 Midnight kit card, with last month's paintbrush stamp from SC with their cork stickers.  I added a lovely random wooden arrow from BG too because, why not?

I cut this photo in half and glued the wooden heart to one side.  I sort of like the weird effect it gives.  

 This random tab from Pink Paislee (50%off) fits 2x2 photos perfectly.  I just can't help loving a good crying baby picture (hi, have you seen my blog header?) so this had to go into the album.  So cute.

This is so Nandini.  So cute and just a little bit awkward.  Love it.  I use that Kal Barteski stamp from SC, and silver glitter letters.

I am linked up with The Mom Creative for Project Life Tuesday. The PL kits I am using generally are the Studio Calico kit, Kelly Purkey kit and Midnight kit, with multi-pack page protectors.  Let me know if you have any questions.  Thanks for visiting, I appreciate all of your support.  Please, leave your links to any PL pages in the comments so we can check them out too.

Two little monkeys jumping on the bed (and two layouts).

We love visiting Hill Country so much.  We planned a last minute trip this past weekend with some Austin friends and had the best time.

I was even more excited when I came home and saw all that great pictures I got.  Instead of just catching up on Project Life this week I decided to jump in and get some of these scrapped.

It felt really good to scrap something so fresh, even if I didn't really journal all that much.

Two little monkeys jumping on the bed. I love this layout so much.  Nandnini just seems to pop right out of the page.  The combination of kraft, white and silver was a pleasant surprise, and definitely something I will be trying again. It was just a joy to put together.

I have a paper organizer from Ikea that fits my expedit and 12x12 paper.  I have been using it to sort stacks of paper I think will work well together. I pulled these papers out from one of those stacks and just got scrapping, a mix of SC Valley High and Spencer's kits. I layered the patterned papers, stitched them down and then started playing with my new Studio Calico stamps and silver ink (from my Kelly Purkey kit).  So much fun. I had this die cut made from silver POW paper laying around in my scraps file so I decided to add that on as well.  The last silver element I used are these pink paislee luxe silver arrows, with even more silver ink on them. 
That chevron strip on the bottom is part of the background kraft.  I kind of like so I just left it.  I guess this means I need to trim off the top?
This layout almost but not quite fit within the 'tell a six word story' for Hello Story a few weeks ago (where I left off).  Definitely gonna give that another go.

I combined big off-white alphas, with some old BG basic white alphas and some newer alphas from Studio Calico.  I love the wonkiness of them!  I even like the vellum-look of the letter scraps I had to use.  I love long titles though and this was worth it. Oh, and that fabulous stamp is also Kelly Purkey. 

Hammock. I based this layout off the Glitter Girl challenge at Two peas this week.   There is something about watching Shimelle zip her glue runner over different papers that is just so calming.  I love her videos. 
The patterned paper I chopped in half is this campy sheet of camp paper from Pebbles. I also used the coordinating sticker sheet all over the layout.  I like Shimelle's trick of matting a page a few times so I added a sheet of dear Lizzy paper under the whole spread as well.

 I used some of this month's gold washi and wood veneers from SC. The chipboard is simple stories.  I think I could have hoarded that rainbow polaroid forever, glad I finally just stuck it down!

More silver.  Also, I wanted to add some softness to the layout and I have about 5,000 glassine bags lying around so I layered a bunch of those under my photo.  After I was done I grabbed my newest pack of enamel dots (love these new colors!) and dotted those around the page as well.

The glassine was also a convenient place to hold some word strips and journaling.  I love telling stories, but I honestly feel that with a little context the picture tells it all.

There you have it.  Two fresh layouts that were a lot of fun to create.  I think these will face each other in the album and should go well together.  I'd love to see if any one else is falling in love with silver too these days.  What projects have you been working on lately?