Homemade Pizza Sauce

[homemade pizza sauce]

The second part of HOMEMADE PIZZA DOUGH. Making the pizza sauce is easy too. I love making, cooking, baking with fresh ingredients  I know what my family is eating and they can truly enjoy a meal without worrying about what's in it. So here it is...

What You'll Need:
Bowl

Can of tomato paste
1.5 cups water
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic [minced]
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons of honey
3 tablespoons of parmesan cheese
3/4 onion powder
1/2 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano leaves
1/2 tablespoon chopped fresh basil leaves
1/2 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary leaves

Pretty much just add everything in the bowl and let sit for about 30 minutes for ingredients to mix. Then add on top of the pizza dough. All that there's left to do is adding the desired toppings...Let your imagination take control and let your taste buds enjoy!

Easy Homemade Pizza Dough

[homemade pizza dough]

Who doesn't love pizza?! Well I actually hate ordering pizza. Except when its freshly made. I decided to make homemade pizza dough because Max and Dean love pizza. Also a fun quick activity to do with the kids. BEWARE: it does get messy when children are involved! :D

What You'll Need:

bowl

3.5 cups flour [a little bit more for rolling]

teaspoon of honey

1 packet of dry yeast

2 teaspoons of sea salt

1.5 cups lukewarm water

2 tablespoons olive oil [2 teaspoons to coat the bowl]

This is the quickest way to make dough so make sure to wash your hands. Throw dry ingredients together: flour, yeast, and sea salt. Mix well together with your hands. WORK IT! lol Then add honey olive oil and continue kneading  Add the water and knead some more! Make sure while you kneed the dough have that extra little flour on the counter or whatever work space you're using. If its still sticky add a little more flour. If too hard add a little bit more water. Make a ball. Coat the bowl with 2 teaspoon of olive oil and put the nice soon to be yummy dough ball in the bowl and cover the ball with a damp towel. In an hour split the ball into two and place each dough in a olive oil coated bowl and cover with damp towel again but this time let it rest for just another ten to fifteen minutes. This is the start of a delicious pizza...enjoy!

Newborn Disposable Diapers Vs Newborn Cloth Diapers

Okay Nathan is now two weeks old today :D Happy two weeks "Squirt!" He has grown pretty quick and I am ever so in love with him as the each day passes. So, disposable diapers vs cloth diapers...We decided in the beginning to have some disposables to wait for Nathan to finish his meconium tar poop, then proceed to newborn cloth diapering. I couldn't wait to use it on the boy and went and used it the very first day.

We of coarse used up the disposables first. Today my husband was going grocery shopping and I told him we are about to run out of disposable newborn diapers and wanted to know his thoughts on it. "I am NOT buying diapers. Use the newborn cloth diapers when its all done." :D Made me smile. When we further talked about it...a pack of newborn pampers swaddlers 36 costs $10.00. Squirt's a pooping machine! Every diaper has poop in it, like a bonus surprise lol. Dean and Max were not at all like that.

A newborn cloth diaper I have 36 in total and we can wash it with no problems quick. I am exclusively breastfeeding Nathan...no surprise there. Breast milk poop is easily washed away. Run under hot water, wash, and hang dry. Easy peasy! We would and could use it as many times and not worry about buying any more...SPENDING cut down! The best thing about these newborn cloth diapers are that there are two sizes within that one diaper. Since Nathan was pretty small he can wear it longer and once he grows chunkier I can adjust the size to continue fitting him. You can't do that to a regular disposable. You would end up buying a size one and paying more...

So all in all...I'm glad we are continuing cloth diapering with our third and final child. I super happy my husband agrees and shares my thoughts on using them. To save money and it's better for the environment! Nathan can wear the living crap out of them and we can make money back by selling them. :D Money well spent and time too!

Me Vs The Kids: Week 1

So this is week one. My husband and mother in law returned back to their normal work schedules and I'm ALONE!...with the kids. So this whole time I was pregnant I was scared to be left alone with a 4 year old, a 14 month old, and a newborn. I dealt just fine with two, now three...how will that turn out? Lets see...

Monday:
Today was a God sent! I slept well the night before...THANK YOU NATHAN! Such a great newborn like Dean was slept so well at night. Day time hit husband didn't go to the gym I guess to let me settle in more before he goes back to his usual routine. Nice of the man I thought...since his other girlfriend is the gym lol. Anyways...the day went well had breakfast played a bit. Dean and Nathan fell asleep at the same time right after. Awesome! I got to watch my missed shows on Hulu and two DVDs from Netflix. They napped another time after lunch. So did Max. Somewhere between lunch the only exciting thing that happened Dean's poop leaked out of his diaper lol. Had to give him a bath mid day and it was a mess. Nathan cried a bit but somehow Max got Nathan to stop crying and fall asleep. Max seriously has the magic touch! Love that boy! I got through the day tandem nursing the boys and playing with Max arts and crafts time. It continued to be a smooth transition so I brought all three boys downstairs to start dinner. Juicy baked crispy chicken breast, corn and mac and cheese. They all did well and Daddy came home...THE END!

Tuesday:

Not so much of a kick ass day as yesterday. I ran out of the newborn disposable diapers and had to use the size one from the hospital and it was just a mess! Major spillage had to change Nathan's outfit three times one poop mess leakage. So I finally got the cloth diaper for newborn and it was too cute. It also worked a hell of a lot better than a size one disposable. Ughk. Lunch is running late, Dean has yet to nap and Nathan is on and off with his nap. Had a little mishap Dean face planted on the ground. He decided he could fly off the bed and continue doing so...good thing Max had laid out pillows on the floor before hand. Again Max mommy's helper to the rescue! So Late lunch but after that Nathan and Dean are napping. Max and I are having arts and crafts time. He sure loves drawing and creating things!

Wednesday:
Today Max goes back to school. So I guess having one less kid is going to be a breeze. He went to school and I seriously had nothing to do. I did everything the night before or yesterday. Due to my highly organized OCD "skills" I HAD NOTHING TO DO. I had both Nate and Dean napping. So as I stared at the ceiling for 10 minutes I decided to unpack my hospital bag, clean out the soup pot my dad gave me, plan dinner for tonight and thurs and fri! So now I definitely had nothing to do. I cut up fruits for Max and Dean to share when he came back. Thank God Max came home and my dad stayed over a while. So much better I hate not being able to do anything. I'm a busy body I like it that way. It happened again after lunch well around 3 pm younger boys napped. Max was busy playing legos so I decided to nap. Ten minutes later I woke up and I couldn't take it...the boys woke up and I was happy again. SOMETHING TO DO! lol I made dinner Rad came home early and we had movie night! We watched Wreck It Ralph and had buttered popcorn. A great night! Let's see what tomorrow will bring.

Thursday:
Picture Day at Max's school today! I got him dressed up cute! Now again nothing to do. Laundry was done last night by my awesome husband and we even watched three episodes of Archer season 3. Nate's asleep nothing new. Dean is running a muck throwing things all over the place and laughing...Well Max came back home and he cried for my Mom to stay over. lol Nothing really happened after that. For some reason I was a little tired than the other days. I took a nap with the younger boys. Only lasted 10 mins but better than nothing I guess. The day progressed, everything was pretty chill. I made dinner for the boys and Rad had left over from our lunch my Mom ordered earlier. then we slept. Pretty boring. hehehe

Friday:
Friday...something fun should happen today. You know because it's FRIDAY. NOPE! Today went really slow. Not only that Max stayed home because I still can't drive and my parents went to do something. My Dad came over for an hour and then him and my mother stole Max for a good part of the day. I was left alone with Dean and Nate and I found out...I NEEDED MAX! Dean was a little harder to please and calm down. While he was all over the damn place Nate was crying. I truly had a trying day without my main little big man. And when the boys went to nap either one was up and the other asleep. I kept putting one kid on the boob and off. lol When Max finally came home I was relieved. Until he started crying and my parents took him to their house and back out to buy him toys. Sweet crapper he came back home later with $50 new Lego Ninja Turtles for Mommy to assemble. Don't get me wrong I love putting the little big man's Legos together but $50?! NUTS! Well dinner was late and the rest of the night was a blur. I was tired and still had to take a shower because I was lazy in the morning to take one and give all the boys a shower. Then once all of it was done I died in bed. Saturday tomorrow I hope my day will be better :D

Secret Of How To Be A Super Mom

[Dean and Max]

So I've been asked by close friends after a week of giving birth to a baby, having a 4 year old, and a 14 month old how do I DO everything that I do? [ex: cook home cooked meals 3 times a day, have time to sit and do whatever I want like NAP/PAINT MY NAILS/WATCH A MOVIE barely uninterrupted  have house cleaned...HOW?!] I'm super mom duh! No! I am not super in any way. I am but a simple stay at home mom of three boys. I love to cook and I love to bake. I have things cleaned up and laundry done when it's supposed to. I want to take care of myself too. I am a bit of an over achiever.

Okay,...so you wanna know my secret? I have OCD and I organize everything right down to the very bills in my wallet. There's nothing super about me in fact I'm all crazy! As I said I have OCD. I have things organized to where if someone where to touch something in the room and I come back I'd know what they touched/moved/ or took. My husband even tested my crazy with my DVDs back when I didn't have kids. He took two DVDs and switched it and told me to take Gone In 60 Seconds out for him to watch. So I did. He was screaming saying I was looking when I wasn't even in the room and when I picked it out I was confident enough to have him cover my eyes.

He did not tell he switched it. I told him I knew he moved it because the placement was wrong so I felt until I touched the other "moved" item. You see I placed my DVDs a certain way also I put them in alphabetical order. He said I was crazy and HE STILL MARRIED ME...who's the crazy one here?! lol I also told him everything in my room is organized so well if I were ever blind or no power I would know where to get things. My closets organized this way too and in color and type of clothing. It's a sad sickness but I use to my advantage for raising my mini Eurasian army! :D

So I plan my children's outfits ahead of time looking into the next day's weather. I plan meals a head of time too. When things need to be done I do it right away...assuming the kids done have a melt down. It does happen, there are times they go way too crazy for me to do anything. It's life as controlling as I am with every single thing in my life, nothing is perfect. Not even me. I take things day by day. More like I charge at life day by day. I am aggressive and I like things done even ahead of schedule. It's best when I do this because I have plenty of time to spend playing with my children. Doing arts and crafts with Max.

I multitask to the point where Rad questions if I had 4 to 6 arms. lol Like this morning I breastfed Nate he was laying on my left leg I'm sitting Indian style, on my right leg Dean was sitting where I was feeding him and myself oatmeal and bagel. Max was feeding himself...thank God. I was also texting my mother what time to pick Max up for school. With multitasking I practice odd skills that only mothers and some waitresses do. I can literally carry 3 plate full of food in each arm, while going up the stairs. It's good I only need to carry four plates lol.

I also keep a to do list. Whenever I think of anything to do or anything that needs to be done I write it down immediately. Also with groceries. I have lists for lists...it's sad. But yes organization, multitasking, and lists help me run my family towards happiness and bonding time. At times where all is quiet in the house, kids are napping...I actually look forward for them to wake up to play. I love to be busy and a family of five now certainly fulfills my sick twisted fantasy of busy body-ness lol. Good luck other mamas...you can all do it and have it all even if it's just one day out of the week!

My friends also asked how my kids behave so well. TO HELL THEY DO! They definitely do not also behave. Max is crazy all over the place like I have him a bag of sugar to inhale. Dean screams when he talks and when he's pissed. Nate...well Nate just poops a lot! lol I like that they're are crazy and very active. I seriously don't like boring kids who just sit and cooperate. I like a little challenge. It makes me into a better mother to know how to help my kids when they have their fits and whatnots. Max pretty much is independent, Dean still loves attention, and Nate needs all the attention. Dean loves Max and they hangout a lot and play together well. So I can't wait to inter grade Nate into the mixture of Max and Dean.