Sour Cream N Chives Potatoes

5-1/2 pounds potatoes, peeled and cubed
3 teaspoons salt, divided
1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream
½ cup milk
¼ cup butter or margarine, cubed
¼ cup minced chives
1 teaspoon pepper

Place potatoes in a Dutch oven; cover with water.  Add 1-teaspoon salt.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce hear; cover and cook for 20-25 minutes or until potatoes are very tender.  Drain well.  In a large mixing bowl, mash the potatoes, sour cream, milk, and butter.  Add the chives, pepper and remaining salt; mix well.   Yield:  10-12 servings. 

Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts

6 Boneless Chicken Breast Halves
8 oz. Of whipped ceam cheese with chives and onions
1 TB butter, cubed
salt and pepper
6 bacon strips

Flatten chicken to ½” thickness.  Spread 3 TBS cream cheese over each.  Dot with butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper; roll up.  Wrap each with a bacon strip.  Place seam side down, in a greased 13x9-baking dish.  Bake, uncovered, at 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until juices run clear.  Broil 6” from the heat for 5 minutes or until bacon is crisp. 

YEAH!!  It is Friday!!   I am doing a happy dance that is for sure.   I hope to really get busy on the basement this weekend.  I think hubby and I will purchase another two shelves since it was payday today. 

I checked our checking account this morning to see how much my payroll was and I was surprised to find our state tax refund in there.   We just did our taxes on Monday and have our state refund on Friday!  WOW!!  That went stright to our savings account. 

It has been a very busy week at work.  I have had numerous school and home visits each day.  Today I am working the entire day on paperwork.  I have a huge pile so I hope I can get it done.   ARGH!!

Have a great day!!

THINGS TO DO WEEKEND:

Make Menu and Grocery List
Get Groceries
Basement
Laundry
Pay Bills
Repot my plants from work
Photos for work

Nearly Valentine's Day.... I have not really come up with things to do yet.  ARGH...I do have to make a treat for the daycare party tomorrow.  I will be making......

Valentine Roll-Ups

Strawberry Flavored Cream Cheese
Strawberry Jam
Tortilla

Spread cream cheese and jam on tortilla.  Roll the tortilla into a log and cut into 1 inch thich slices. 

I hope the kids will like it .  I didn't want to send any cookies or anything as that would be too much.  

Hope everyone is having a good day!   I got to get busy here....later!

Busy, Busy day.....get to the office and have to leave for a morning meeting, have a client come in a noon to meet with me and another school meeting at 3:00.  WOW.. and the drive home was not great.  It took me 1-1/2 hours to get from the last meeting to the daycare to pick up Tommy. 

We got home at 5:45 and had to be at church at 6:00.  WHEW!!!  Good thing  I can call home and have Josh get supper started for me. 

Church was fine, we had a little Valentine's Party for the kids.  They made cookies too!

Tommy enjoying frosting with a friend and teacher.  See the mark above Tommy's Right eye??  He got bump at daycare the other day.

Then it was home again.  Daddy had a long trip home as well , so he didn't make it to church. 

THe killer icles have found our back door now too!!

So while Josh is taking a shower, I decide to do dishes.  Around 10:00 I go to check on TOmmy...and where was Tommy sleeping tonight at 10:00??

Yikes....can you see my little guy on the other side of the gate?  I have to gate him into his room at night.  He is a wild little guy!

Gee comfy looking Tom.  Do you think he will every like his bed!  Every night I check on him, I locate him in his room.  SOmetimes he sleeps under the bed, then I put him into bed for the night.   He usually stays in bed once he is asleep for a while. 

Cute Josh...Josh doing what Josh is always doing.  Listening to tunes and playing on his computer.  Don't ask me how many computers we have in our house....ARGH!

One last pic....Please Mommy, then I promise I will pick up those toys in the background!

Well that is enough for tonight.  I am off to bed.   Another busy day again tomorrow.  I have two appointments outside of the office.  And finally on Friday I am in the office and can attend to my pile of paperwork!!

Very busy day at work today.  I left the office at 9:30 for homevisits and didn't return to the office until after 3:00.  So little time to return calls and stuff.  I guess that is what I will be doing tomorrow in the morning before heading to an IEP meeting.  Thursday and Friday look like lighter days, so hopefully I will get caught up on office things. 

Great night at home this evening.  Hubby was a wonderful helper as always.  I am so appreciative when he helps with Tommy and stuff.  Tuesday is the night I do weekly cleaning since I work late on Mondays.  I used to clean on Saturday's but not anymore, it is so pointless.  First off why clean on Saturday when the weekend is the highest traffic time for your house??  It stays clean for like 2 minutes!   I either clean on Mondays or Tuesdays and it stays clean until the weekend.   I care little how dirty the hosue and floors get on the weekend now as I know I will be cleaning it in a day or so.  Smartest thing I ever did, too bad it took me a while to figure out that cleaning on Saturday was not the best idea.  I was just doing what my mother had done.  Saturdays now are library time and family time.  I also usually cook alot on the weekends for the week, etc.  And I relax and hang out with my children.  I still do laundry on the weekends and maybe some decluttering, mostly relaxing.

I actually even got all my weekly cleaning done tonight!  I completed the following:

Changed Sheets
Dust & Vacuum
Sweep & Mop (Bath and Kitchen)
Mirrors & Doors
Washed Dishes
Folded One load of Laundry

Tommy and Daddy played for the one hour it took me to do the chores.  I had bought Tommy a pak of play-dough at the dollar store today. 

WEDNESDAY TO DO:

Work on Menu
Balance Checkbook
Grocery List
Bills Paid
Errand List

** CHURCH NIGHT**

Got to scoot...need to write out 11 Valentines for Tom's class at church tomorrow!  OOPS!! Forgot!

I have finished the Miserly Moms book and moving on to Ask Suze, Suze Orman's book about wills and trusts.   We have an appointment on Monday to draw up our will.  I am going to call and see about the cost to also draw up a trust.  After all my reading, it is very important to draw up a trust to avoid probate costs, etc.  I want my meager estate to go to my heirs not probate costs.  I hope to finish this book by Monday.  It is very well written and easy to understand.  I feel like I am learning alot. 

It is nearly 10:00 and my little guy is in bed and even asleep, what a bonus!  YEAH!!  I am off to crawl in bed and read some more about Wills and Trusts...what an exciting life I live!  LOL!! 

I ended up taking today off of work.  I am feeling a bit better, but not perfect.  I did get a lot of things accomplished that Hubby and I needed to do.  We had a quiet afternoon to have the discussions we needed to. 

After hubby took Tommy to school, we went to get out taxes done.  We got to the place we made our appointment and they didn't have us down.  ARGH!!  I took off work to do this people...so they called over to a different H&R Block and we went there and got our taxes done.   They said we should get our refund in about 10-14 days.  That will be nice.  I am not one of those people that goes out and makes big expenditures with my tax money.  We put it into our saving and draw off of it throughout the year as we need to for auto repairs and other unexpected expenses.   I still had about 1,000 left from last years return.  We really do try to live within our means the best we can and not use any credit cards.  I don't have any credit card debt so this year I don't have to pay that off.  We do get large returns since we claim single 0 on our w-2's.  This is the easiest way for us to save.  It just works for us and we rather get the big return later. 

Also this afternon we completed the paperwork for our appointment with the lawyer next Monday to draw up our will.  I also completed the Quick Deed for our house so Paul is part owner.  All our major things are done!  YEAH!!  I will be very happy when our will is all complete and in our hands. 

It was worth taking the day off for us to have the time alone to complete all this paperwork.  Off to finish the dishes and take some aspirin.  Later!

Morning....I went to bed very early last night as I wasn't feel well.  I am still not feeling the best.  I did read most of the Miserly Moms book, so I will post more guidelines, etc.  I would reccommend this book if you are looking for ways to decrease your budget. 

Hubby took Tommy to school for me this morning.  I am doing a few things around the house before we head to H&R Block to have our taxes done. 

Last night I woke up at like 11:00 as hubby had the TV on too loud and what did I find???

Tommy up with Daddy at after 11:00pm. ARGH!!  And who was taking the pictures??? My oldest son who has school the next day.  Hubby was watching a movie with the oldest so let him stay up.  ARGH!!  I wonder why my children have terrible routine for bedtime.   Good thing I am generally in charge of bedtime.  Oh well.....

 
Mommy took this little man and put him in bed, he went right to sleep! 

Supper is in the crockpot.  I am making mscaffeineaddicts, Double Corn and Potato Chowder.  It looks pretty good.  THANKS for sharing the recipe!  I need more things that can be made in the crockpot. 

Well I best go finish the dishes before hubby gets home from school with Tommy.   I hope as the day goes on my tummy settles down.  I need to head to work this afternoon and work until about 8:00 tonight.  Monday's are always my late night.   Later!  Have a great Monday!

Hints from one of my homemaking lists.................