Party Pizza

I've made this a few times now and all the kids love it, Chris and I enjoy it, and any meal that isn't met with even one child complaining is a major win in our house!

You can use premade pizza dough if you want, I prefer to make my own. Makes me feel better about feeding my kids party pizza for dinner! Pizza dough is pretty simple to make. I've seen this recipe, or similar ones, all over the internet - this is my take.


You'll need:
1 1/2 c. warm (105-115 degrees) water
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. yeast
1/2 tsp. salt
3-4 1/2 c. flour

Mix the first three ingredients together and let the yeast rise until bubbly, about 10 minutes.


Mix the salt in, and then start adding flour. Of course I make this in Betsy.


Keep adding flour until the dough reaches the proper consistency. It will form a nice ball, and not be too sticky. It takes about 3-4 cups of flour.



Knead it or let your mixer knead it for a few moments.

Grease a bowl and turn dough in the bowl to coat with oil. Let it rise until doubled, about 45 minutes. This time of the year it's always a good idea to turn your oven on warm and place your bread on the stove. The heat will encourage it to rise.

While this is rising prepare your ingredients. I've used pepperoni and I've used pineapple before. Next time I may try peppers and onions. Any pizza topping, or really any topping in general will work great. Chop it smaller though. Cube your cheese (we use mozzarella).

Once the dough is ready pinch off walnut sized pieces and flatten. Some people prefer to roll out their dough and cut with a pizza cutter into "x" amount of pieces. This seems like unnecessary work to me, but it's whatever you feel is easiest.

Place your toppings on the top of your dough. Bring up the sides and pinched closed. Place in your greased pie/cake pan seam side down.

If you have spare pans, or if you want to purchase throw away pie tins, these make great Make Ahead Meals. I have 4 pie tins, but I think I'll still purchase a few more. I'd like to have 6 or so of these in my freezer for easy meals. I only have 2.5 tins in there right now.

Make your topping. I mix oil, Italian Seasoning, maybe some garlic powder. Whatever works best for you. I think the Italian Seasoning is a must though! Pour over the top and brush to evenly coat. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan or Italian cheese mix. I prefer the Italian Cheese mix, it has Parmesan in it plus a bunch of other yummy cheeses.

Bake at 400 for 10-20 minutes.

Serve with sauce on the side for dipping. This is oh so very yummy, and a great meal to make ahead for nights where you are busy and can't cook!

My happy campers (Anthony wasn't there for dinner that night which is why there is no picture of him, but he loves it too!)

Anastasia

Charlie (what an odd expression)

David (as you can see these pictures are a few weeks old, but it's such a hit around here it will become a staple!)

Day - Get back on track!

My house was destroyed this weekend as 13 little, adorable, children ran through it for two days. I have only half-heartedly tried to get it back in shape, but today I did a good portion of it. I figured we would clean for 45 minutes and thats what we did. Amazing what a little family can accomplish in 45 minutes.

This was what my garage sale money went to

This is the new bin for my diapers. All of my diapers, minus the pile I'm giving away to friends, fit in here! I was surprised! Chris doesn't like the set up as much because he can't easily see what he wants - but I was tired of seeing the diapers spilling out all of the time. The little basket on top was given to me at Anastasia's baby shower! It holds the diaper accessories, such as snappi's, pins, diaper cream, and baby powder. I have to have everything in order. It took me a long time to figure out a way to make the colors work. There is a pattern there.

Here's Chris helping me set up for the yard sale

And my sunburned face. It got much worse after this picture was taken. My whole face blistered up. After a full day with neosporin on my face it is beginning to heal and most of the blisters popped.

MAJOR raccoon eyes! See how messy this room is? It needs a good cleaning. This room is the scariest of them all.

And this is the man who makes it all work in our house. We've been married 7 years now!

And just to show the rest of them off....

The Bear

Anastasia

Anthony

David

And.... Jovi!

Day FREAK OUT!

Yes, this is why I didn't blog yesterday. I am in full freak out mode. My house is in shambles and I try to make it cleaner (why does that always happen?!?!) and I have to get it back in order for the party on Saturday while still caring for 4 kids, a husband, and a very naughty dog - one of these children is in a very much must touch mommy at all times stage, and the other three are full on destructive. So tonight I will provide you with much cuteness, and leave it at that.

I caught my middle two today doing this:

How crazy inventive, and scary, is that?!

Day out with the girls, and day out with my little girl

Last Wednesday my girlfriends and I had one of our frequent Girls Night Out. We try to do this a few times a month to get away and have adult conversation, and an uninterrupted meal. This time was a more sullen occasion as we were trying to cheer a friend up who, sadly, had a miscarriage. We went out on Wednesday night because she was having her D&C on Friday and I really wanted to take her out prior to it. So we all headed out to Chili's. Chili's is my ultimate favorite restaurant and normally we do a semi-sit down restaurant but this time we wanted a full on sit down.

We stayed an awful long time. One of my friends said we were getting death glares from the wait staff, which made no sense as the place was half empty. Charlie wasn't the most happy baby in the world, but he does pretty well when we go out. All in all it was awesome - until the very end. I tapped my knee on the pole under the table and managed to severely dislocate my knee cap. I looked down at my knee when this happened and my knee cap was rotated to the back of my leg. I have never felt that TYPE of pain. I sort of threw Charlie at my friend and started trying to massage my knee back. My three friends didn't really know what was going on, which is what I wanted. I really don't like my health being upfront and center. The pain was almost an outer body experience. I could feel it, but it wasn't like it was my pain. I actually felt as if I was going to pass out. My head started swimming and my vision started tunneling. It took about 5 minutes to finish massaging it back into place and we left shortly after that. It was absolutely nauseating. My knee is not a joint I dislocate often, so it hurts a lot more when it happens.


Today I took Anastasia out to buy my friend a gift, and for lunch. My friends and I are doing another Girls Night Out this Friday at Paneras so we can do our $5 gift exchange. I was to buy a gift for my friend who miscarried. Originally when I got her name she was still pregnant so I was going to buy her a baby gift, but that would be quite tacky to do now so I went out and got her something else. Since we only had a $5 gift limit I went to the Dollar Tree and bought her stuff to make a bubble bath basket. I bought a basket, a loofah, bubble bath, a vanilla candle, and a book. I let Anastasia buy herself something too. She kept picking up toys and putting them back and finally decided on a blue ball. Thats my daughter! I let her get herself a white teddy bear with a pink bow too which she named "Soph". We now have dolls/toys named Sophia, Sophie, and Soph. Afterwards I took her to lunch at Wheatfields. I left Charlie at home because he was napping, and she was so thrilled to just be the two of us. I really enjoyed just having the two of us. We colored together and shared our food, and I let her get the biggest piece of cake I've ever seen. She hardly ate any and asked to bring it home to share with her brothers. So sweet :) I'm glad I was able to take her out. I'm definitely going to do it more often. She feels lost a lot of the time being the only girl with three brothers - I think it's important that she spend one on one time with me.

hmmm

I totally had a new post on here but I don't see it!  Thats a tad frustrating.

Not much is really going on at the moment - or not much I care to share with the world anyway.  Some things are just better left to myself.  I'm preparing for wrist fusion number 2.  Some people think that since I know what to expect it shouldn't be so difficult.  It's the exact opposite.  The recovery has been awful! I'm not looking forward to going through that again.  I had never experienced that amount or type of pain before. I guess having your bones scraped out, broken, turned around, and then having a large metal plate with 6 screws screwed into your hand and arm is quite painful and has a long recovery.  The post swelling was absolutely awful, and I was sure my skin was going to burst open.  I guess that's a plus to having EDS, our skin stretches well to accommodate things like that.  I had my pre-op physical yesterday and the EKG came back abnormal.  The doctor thinks it was a fluke and I shouldn't worry but if the other guy he sent it to disagrees then surgery is off.  EDS can cause heart issues so of course I'm worried, but my Echo 6 months ago came back perfectly fine, so I'm holding onto that right now as a sign that perhaps this was a fluke.

My nerves are getting the better of me.  When I get nervous I tend to ramble on and on and I get a little frantic.  I noticed yesterday I'm beginning to ramble (and you can tell in this post) and I'm trying to channel all of that into something constructive, like cleaning or playing with the kids, or even exercising.

The Bear is doing well.  He's beginning to thin out some.  He has a neck now!  He's rolling all over and trying to crawl without much success.  He has also begun sitting up for about 30 seconds at a time.  Each milestone with him is so bittersweet.  He's not our last child but he is one of the last.  We've spent so many years just having babies and now that our family is ALMOST complete we are cherishing each moment a little more than we have in the past.

Anastasia is doing awesome in soccer.  She loves playing!  She is learning more and more each day and is always so eager to help with the baby or learn something. We really do hope that one day we'll give her a sister but if she ends up being my only girl I'll be so grateful that I have her.  She really is an amazing daughter.

David is all eyes.  That boy is a charmer! He is so masculine looking already too.  Anthony and Charlie are both pretty boys, but David... he's as cute as a button but there is no denying he is a boy.  He has never been called a "her" like the other two have.  He acts like a total macho man too.  He loves to build guns (ugh!) and shoot everyone, he loves to climb, and boss the dog around, and beat up his sister.  But at the end of the day he's a total mama's boy.  He's always up for a cuddle and snuggle where he'll wrap his hands in my hair and lay his head on my shoulder.  He is truly one of those kids who is either making you want to rip your hair out in frustration or you just want to love and kiss on him - there is no in between with that child.

Anthony is going through a lot at the moment and I don't feel comfortable posting it for the world to see.  He's an amazingly gifted child and astounds me daily with the knowledge he accrues on his own.  Homeschooling is going... well it has it's moments.  We are going quite relaxed with him and teaching him fundamentals and then letting him guide his own way.  Trying to be too regimented with him was causing him to refuse to work.  By giving him the ideas and letting him process it his own way he is retaining so more more and working so much nicer.  He wants to try public school out again next year, but we are hesitant.  However, we told him it was always his decision, so we may be working towards that goal around Christmas to prepare him to reenter public school next fall.

Day One of Homeschooling

Today was our first day of Homeschooling.  It went really well, and went much quicker than I originally expected.  Except for a few minor melt downs we had absolutely no issues either.  We started with independent journaling.  Writing and journaling are skills we are really trying to instill in Anthony, and so far he really seems to enjoy it.  For Anastasia we got her a sketch pad and she draws pictures during journaling time.  After breakfast (a nice primal breakfast of eggs and steak!) we moved onto Language Arts.  Anastasia seemed really disinterested in sitting still today so I concentrated on Anthony most of the time.  We began reading, "Stuart Little" today, and Anthony read aloud the first chapter.  He did amazingly well and only needed help on 2 or 3 words.  Afterwards I quizzed him a bit on comprehension and surprisingly he retained all he had read.  He then composed a short paragraph about the first chapter in his book log notebook.

He only misspelled a few words, which we then added to his spelling list notebook as a start for this weeks spelling list.

After Language Arts we had health.  The first unit study is about our bodies so we decided we wanted to measure everyones height, weight, hands and feet.  The kids weights really surprised me!  Anthony is now 38.5 lbs! Anastasia is 28.5 lbs (which is amazing, she's been 23 lbs forever).  David is now 19.5 lbs, so still not quite big enough to turn his car seat around but growing.  Our chunky baby, the only child of ours who has ever had baby fat and rolls, is now 10 lbs!  We figure he'll get super heavy and then stop growing like Anthony did.  I must be making cream this time instead of skim milk!

After Health we had music.  I originally wanted to start with the recorder but I haven't purchased them yet, so we are learning about composers instead.  Today we learned about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and will continue to study him for the rest of the week.  This is where our major melt down happened.  After reading a short biography on him I gave Anastasia a coloring page of his face, and Anthony received a word search to complete.  Anthony didn't want the wordsearch, he wanted to color.  Out of 9 words he only found one without help, and 2 with help, before he gave up. Will keep in mind he does not like word searches, but I will still give them to him because I do think they teach valuable skills.

After Health it was time for Spanish, which is computer based.  Anthony wasn't feeling it today and didn't really try, resulting in only getting half correct.  So we will be repeating lesson one for a while.

Next was Science, one of the subjects I'm the most excited about this year.  Today was a really easy day for Science, basically an intro into this years subject and some journaling in his Science Journal followed by adding Vocabulary into his Vocabulary Journal.  Tomorrow we start our first lab using thermometers to show how certain objects conduct heat!

Then we had Social Studies where we just introduced our current unit - Geography.  We learned basic definitions for Latitude and Longitude, identified the on a world map, learned how to read coordinates, and discussed the equator.  I guess he learned a lot of this already by reading one of his encyclopedias, so we flew through this quicker than I thought.

Finally we had Math.  I showed him how to do the word problems, and gave him two sheets to complete.  He flew through them very quickly and got every question correct! I was so proud.

So far things are going smoothly, but today was pretty easy.  On days where Anastasia is more interested we'll be doing a lot of things with her as well which will make things a bit more complicated.  But so far, so good.

Here's Anthony working on his Language Arts journal.

Here's my homeschool shelf, and our dining room with the alphabet posters, and the "Mizzell Money" reward chart (more on that in another post)

And of course, pictures of the kids!  David playing with Charlie's playmat, he can't keep himself off! And David getting into the homeschooling supplies.

Anastasia dancing to her "Get Ready For School" CD

And some of Chunky Charlie Bear.  So cute, so sweet, looks like me, but has little baby rolls!

Picture update

I promised pictures, so here are a few. I promise to get some more up soon.

Heres some of Charlie.  I love this little jacket!

And here is some of David.  He wanted to wear his sisters headband.  I love how big his eyes are, and how long and dark his lashes are.

Here is Anastasia.  It's not as easy to get pictures of the older two, they constantly ham it up.

And here is Anthony.  He lost his first tooth on Saturday!

Here's David and Anastasia walking down to see the puppies

And here is the newest addition to our family, coming home in 3 weeks!!  And his little litter mates.