BBQ Pizza!

We made the BBQ Pizza on Wednesday night. I had it on my Menu Plan Monday to try out this week. It was so easy and I have to say it was probably the best pizza I have ever eaten! The pizza crust was good and so was the sauce and both were quick and easy. We did learn a few things not to do and next time will probably be even better. We started with only two crusts on the BBQ to start. My DH closed the lid and we were going to wait the ten minutes like the video said. Well, the mistake we made was putting the crust right over the hot colds. When he opened the lid just a couple minutes later it was starting to burn! So we moved them to the side and put the toppings on. The next two we placed to the side of the coals.

We added the toppings and then shut the lid for a few more minutes. We kept checking on the progress so we wouldn't have the same problem. It probably only took about eight minutes for them to be done.

This is before the cheese got nice and melted. They looked really good when we were taking them off the grill. And when we ate them they were oh so good!

And the DH of course got to have a cold one while he was doing the hard work of BBQing!

So here are some things that we will do differently next time:

1. Watch the coals so that they are not real hot and don't put crust right over them.

2. I will probably not roll the dough out as thinly as I did.

3. I did add extra herbs to the sauce to give more flavor. I added dried basil, garlic, onion and a little bit of sugar.

4. We will try different toppings and let the kids decided what to put on their own pizza!

If you have never done this before, you gotta try it. I would say from start (making the dough) to finish (eating at the table) only took about 40 minutes. That's only about ten minutes longer than Domino's Pizza guarantees delivery and this was so much better! Give it a try and let me know how you liked it!

Wordless Wednesday

Before .....

After!

Happy WW! For more great pictures check out 5minutesformom!

Swimming Fun

When we finished with the lovely piano recital, we were treated to an afternoon swim! The kids were so excited to be able to go swimming with their cousins. Even though my children are not good swimmers, they both need swim lessons, they could not wait to get out to the pool. With so many people in the pool to help them, they had a wonderful afternoon in the pool. Cousin T takes my little one out into the deep end, and she wasn't even scared. She loved all the attention from her big cousin! Since Cousin T is on the girls water polo team, she has really become a strong swimmer and a great goalie.

Hey mister, I got a camera in my hand! You're not suppose to be squirting me with water! Start practicing your back stroke! Leave it to the boy to want to play with the squirt gun.

Here is cousin Kae, taking it easy! All the stress and nervousness from the recital are long forgotten now.

And her little sister Jae who has turned into a fish. This girl can swim! I think she swam the entire time we were out in the back yard. She was diving for things and swimming here there and everywhere!

I can't believe how much Cee looks like my oldest niece in this picture; but she also looks a lot like her dad in this picture too.

We had a great time swimming, eating and hanging out with family. It was such a nice and relaxing day. I am so glad that we were able to spend it together.

Menu Plan Monday

Last week went really well, except for the day I forgot to plug in the crockpot! We stuck to the plan, except moved days around a little bit. We were also given some tamales so the orange chicken got pushed into this week. The crock pot chicken from last week was really easy and good!

Monday: Pulled Pork sandwiches, mac-n-cheese, and broccoli

Tuesday: Left over Pulled pork and salad

Wednesday: Homemade grilled pizza with homemade pizza sauce and salad. They have a video on allrecipe.com under budget cooking on how to bbq your pizza. We are going to give it a try!

Thursday: Crockpot Hash Brown casserole with ham and vegetables added.

Friday: Leftovers (leaving Saturday for a week of camping!)

Since this is late, I got to say the Pulled pork was really good! There is a lot left so I am going to freeze some for after vacation! I can't wait to report on the grilled pizza!
For more Menu plan Mondays, check out http://orgjunkie.com/

Letters to Heaven

I was driving home this evening with just my son in the car. He was asking me important questions, like "What is worse Mommy, lava or evil people?" I then had to explain all the benefits of lava; it can create islands, change the environment, the landscape and anything else I could make up that didn't sound made up. Next it was explaining that evil is evil and that nothing good ever comes out of evil.

After a few minutes he says, "Mommy I have a very important question I want to ask you."
I told him he could ask me anything he wanted to. He said, "Can we write letters to heaven and mail them?" I told him that our prayers are like letters to heaven and that anytime we said a prayer it was like sending a letter to heaven. "Oh" he said. I asked him who he wanted to send a letter to. "I want to send a letter to Chelsea to tell her that I miss her." he said. Yeah, I really miss her too!

A Story Worth Telling

Irena Sendler 1910 to 2007

I discovered today who this sweet little old lady was. She was a heroine. We should all know who this woman was. She was small in stature but large in courage and love. She is Irena Sendler, a Catholic social worker from Poland, who saved 2,500 children from the ghettos of Warsaw during the holocaust. She was nominated for a Peace Prize, but she lost to Al Gore, who made a slide show.

Irena was able to get herself placed in a welfare office inside the Warsaw ghetto. She then convinced the Jewish parents and grandparents to give their children to her, so she could smuggle them out, and save their lives. She then hid them in convents, gave them to people in the country who cared for them as if they were their own, or others who could keep them hidden. She then smuggled them out of the ghetto in gunny sacks, coffins, tool boxes, under the floor boards of the sanitation truck or any other way she could get them past the guards. She trained her dog to bark anytime a guard came near, so the children's cries would not be heard.

She promised that when the war ended that these children would be returned to their families. So she wrote their names down and also their aliases on cigarette paper. She buried the jar under an apple tree so that they would be safe. There were 2500 names in that jar. After the war, she dug up the jar and tried to match the children with any of their family that was still alive.

This woman had been captured during the war and beaten severely. Her legs and feet were broken. She was sentenced to die. A guard was convinced to let Irena go. She was dumped in the woods on her way to her execution. After the war, she was able to dig up the jar and try to reunite the children with their families, if any had survived; at the time over 5,000 people were dying every month in the ghetto. Most of the families were killed by the Nazi or starved in the ghetto.

Her story has been discovered by a group of high school students who wrote a play called "A Life in a Jar." They won a history contest in their home state of Kansas with their story. They traveled to Poland to meet this woman and their lives were forever changed. Years have passed, but they continue to do the play even though they have all graduated, are working and married. Her story is so important to them that they want to continue to tell it.

What a contrast between her and Al Gore. Irena saved the lives of 2500 children! She risked her life and her families in trying to save strangers. She put aside race and religion and saw the human faces of children and she did what she could. Her efforts saved so many. Al Gore on the other hand made a video slide show and made lots of money doing it. How did the selection committee get this so wrong?

Sweet Music

Last Sunday we were treated to a piano recital by my two nieces. We were invited to attend their afternoon recital at a piano showroom. They got to play their recital pieces on a beautiful Steinway Baby Grand piano. They both did a marvelous job and looked great doing it. It was a treat to hear their sweet music!

It is so hard to believe how fast these two little girls have turned into such accomplished young ladies! I do believe that Mr. Darcy would agree that the term accomplished would pertain to these two beautiful young ladies. They are as talented as they are beautiful.