Slumpy mood

I keep seeing these 'great mom' and 'great house wife' posts on my Face book feed! It is driving me insane! I'm not the worst....I have four children, two that stay home and two that go to school! I should have some time to myself? No, in fact I have none...Hunter wants to eat and sleep and then be occupied the rest of the time, and Parker wants to play and have my undivided attention too! Then when the schooled children come they need to have this and that, and help with homework, and the baby is crying, and Parker is messing with things, dinner needs to be fixed, laundry is overflowing, toys are all over the place, no one is listening.....ugh! I just want to scream and run away!

If I want time, I must stay up late...then I am tired the next day....its just a vicious cycle! How/when does it end! It probably doesn't help that I am on my period and have awful hormones!

NOTD*: Grey Matter

I wanted to find a nice flat concrete grey. I succeeded at walmart of all places. I grabbed a rimmel 60 second polish.







* Nails of the Day - for those of you who aren't acquainted with the nail world yet.

I am waiting on China Glazes Fairy dust to get here, I ordered it off of Amazon. Should be here today. I am going to top it with that, although it is fabulous on its own, don't you think?

Look what I got in the mail today....

All the way from Singapore! Holy Moly!



I won this off of some website I had to like, then tweet about...
It will go very nicely with my newly acquired Bundle Monster plates I just received in the mail yesterday!



I tired the BM plates last night very quickly...



This is my latest haul. Most of it from Sally's Beauty Supply, the rest is from amazon.




I discovered www.head2toebeauty.com today....enough said!

I'm Addicted to Nail Polish!!

No, not the smell of it, like a high....come on now, I'm not that desperate....

Alright off with the joke, stupid joke at that!

I seriously am addicted to nail polish and the cute litte designs you can do. There are so many endless desins, colors, and and and .....

Ya, well you get it...

Here are a few pictures of some things I have done...

This is my first purchase of China Glaze!


This is my first water Marble it sucked!


This is my St. Patricks day water marble!


This was just a simple taped design, using chocolate brown, silver, and a deep red.


This is from CG Tronica collection: Did with a dotting tool.


These are my tosies, Minne mouse style, dotting tool as well.


This is a free handed chevron and some silver dots...didn't care for it too much.


This is OPI Shatter, love it!


This was my first taping experience! awesome, love the color combo!


My toes match my fingers:


I have some plates coming in for stamping, can't wait to try my hand at those!

Anxiety? Stress? Meltdown?

I have had a big problem lately with patience. I'm not sure why but anything Riley does is VERY annoying. He's very verbal so he starts his mornings off by running his mouth, just noises, I find them annoying so I make him stop. He fusses about anything and everything. He only wants to watch TV....When I say no, there is another fit....storms off to his room and says how boring it is or that he hates his room....I guess I am lucky that it isn't worse, like I'm running away, or I'm going to kill myself, etc. I don't know if this is just a phase for him or if he isn't feeling loved enough or what the heck is going on with him? I wish I could solve it, so there would be peace in the house...

Emma just kinda ignores everyone if they talk to her....specifically if we ask her or tell her to do something, like clean her room, she just ignores or pretends she doesn't hear you...She also talks back, or has 'buts' about everything. She is very loud, she needs to learn to talk in a quiet voice.

Parker is starting to act like both of them together....talks back, doesn't listen throws a fit....But he is better because I can tell him twice and he does it...unlike the others who I literally have to scream at them several times, threaten with a belt and bedtime before they pick up a toy or listen to me!

I'm afraid that if this continues that I won't get peace in my house at all...

I need to know how to get my kids to listen and behave properly! I'm seriously losing my mind!

Sillies ....

I was in the kitchen doing something, probably making dinner, and the kids were eating a little after school snack....

I heard giggling and turned around to find this:




Some one had stuck a snack bowl on Hunter's head!


Poor Hunter, His big siblings we're picking on him!

Homemade Chicken & Dumplings......For Real!

So I was browsing Pioneer Woman's website and came across her Chicken & Dumpling recipe. It looked so yummy. So I decided to make it. The prep time was 10 minutes and the cooking time was 30 minutes...OK that's do-able..........well that turned into 2.5 hours for me! Seriously! Between cooking and helping with homework, and making sure Hunter was happy it took forever....but it was Sooo So So So worth it! Except for the dumplings, I almost cried when I bit into one!

I started off with Chicken leg Quarters:


Took these spices and coated the chicken and then dredged them in Flour:




Threw them in a pot and browned them on both sides and set them aside:




In the same pot, added my diced up trio (onion, carrot, and celery-I hate celery but used it anyway) I also added a bit of red onion and lots of garlic cloves, also added in some Italian seasoning and some tumeric-never had this spice, smells good, makes the 'stew' a pretty golden color:



I let that cook for a few minutes...then I added in a little cooking white wine, chicken broth, and apple cider vinegar-yes its odd, but it gives it a great kick!:




Let it come to a simmer, then added the browned chicken leg quarters into the pot:



I then made the dough for the dumplings, cornmeal, flour, baking powder and kosher salt, then mix in half and half:





The chicken needs to finish cooking so I left it in about twenty or so minutes, at a light boil/hard simmer. Then took the chicken out and shredded it off of the bone:



This is the mess it makes (ick):


At this point I needed a helper, I was about two hours in at this point and my kids had had enough of it! Hunter was fussy so I set him in his Bumbo and sat him on the counter....Don't panic, I was right next to him the entire time!:


So after I spent a good twenty minutes shredding the chicken off of the bone, I added it to the pot, along with some heavy cream, Mmmmm heavenly! I let it cook for just a few minutes then started dropping in my dumplings.....



This is the end result:


Now above I mentioned I cried when I cut into one of the dumplings....
The recipe did not state I couldn't crowd the dumplings in the pot....
So my dumplings were hard and gummy....
I did notice that a few of the dumplings we're puffy so I cut into those, perfect, light, fluffy, and delicious!
So in the morning on the following day I boiled up some water, threw in some chicken boullion, and proceeded to make the dough again for the dumplings....
I put just enough in so they had room to expand and float around....
Let them puff and cook for about ten minutes, took them out and made the rest of the batch. Turned out perfect!!!! Added them to my leftovers and enjoyed the 'stew' for breakfast this morning!

I do have to say that this is more of a stew than the classic chicken and Dumplings, but it is soooo so so good! The kids raved over it and Kevin practically licked his bowl clean and went for seconds! (that is saying ALOT) Even with the unfortunate mishap with the Dumplings!