Sunday, February 17, 2013

Spicy Chicken Crockpot Recipe

Super Easy!!  Super Yummy!




Ingrediants:
Frozen Chicken Breast
Can of Salsa
1 cup of Orange Juice
Rice

Combine the chicken, salsa and OJ in your crock pot and cook on low for 8 hours.  The OJ helps to make sure there is enough liquid in the pot.  When you're almost ready to serve the dish make your rice.  I made 1 cup of it and then when the rice was cooked, I poured it right into the crockpot and served it that way. 

That's it! 

Friday, February 15, 2013

Flooring

We did this the Friday/Saturday/Sunday after Thanksgiving.  (I know... I am really far behind!  ... I'm sorry!)

After we finished painting the main parts of the house. (We still have the 3 other bedrooms and the hallway to paint) We started ripping up the carpet and scrubbing down the floors.
















This was our make-shift bedroom for the night  :)


After all of the prep work, it took a sold 2 days to put in the flooring with 9 people hard at work.  Shout out to my Mom, Dad, Sister, Father-in-Law, Mother-in-Law, Mama Joe and Daddy Joe, We couldn't have done it without you!!  We got the Living, Dinning and Master done in 2 days!





Sunday of that weekend, We brought all of the furniture that had been stored in Marc's (Father-in-law) garage.



Hard work, but totally worth it in the end!

Monday, February 11, 2013

Painting

After the deep cleaning, painting was on our to-do list.

We started off by priming the main parts of the house.  We primed the entryway, study, dinning room, living room, kitchen, breakfastroom and master bedroom and closet.  We used the scent blocking primer to help get rid of the curry smell.  This did a ton! 






 
We own a HUGE thanks to our small group.  One of our Tuesday Night Small Group time was spent priming the house.  It is amazing how much faster it goes with 8 sets of hands working instead of just 2.  We got pretty much everything but the master bedroom and closet primed that night.  It made moving in not seem nearly as scary. I meant to take pictures that night (my father-in-law even told me I should) and I forgot.  Everything you see above is from our small group! 
 
 
 
This was our hang out space for a while!  What a beautiful den!  It has come a long way!

 
 
Next, the painting began.  We had to choose a color... this was harder than it looked!
 
 
It took some convienceing and several trips to the store, but finally... we went with "Mineral Deposit"  and we LOVE it!
 
 
 
 



 





 
 We had many different people helping with this.  The pictures don't do everyone justice.  Marc and Lori, Mema and my family were big helps with this.  I don't think we would have had everything painted before move in day without them!  Thank goodness!  To be honest, it was really hard to be a work everyday when all I wanted to do was go to the house and get it ready!


The master bedroom might be my favorite!

 


 
You can see it comeing together in a later post! 



Sunday, February 10, 2013

How to Clean your Oven

Remember... foreign gentleman living a bachelor life... not very clean.  This is what we moved into... not what we are like now!

Cleaning the oven
 
We scrubbed down the outside really well, and when we finished... we did it again.

 






For the stove top, my mother-in-law found a stove top cleaner that included a scrub, a cleaning agent and a razor blade. That is really what made the difference. I don't think I could have gotten the curry off without it. A little polish on the stainless steal didn't hurt either :)

 
Looks good on the outside... but when you open it up...


 

Cleaning the oven:
 
- preheat the oven to 150 degrees (or as low as yours will go)

- while preheating, boil a pot of water
- pour 1 cup of ammonia into a baking dish
- when the oven is preheated and water boiling, turn off the oven. Place the ammonia on the top rack, and water on the bottom. Close the oven and leave over night.


- in the morning, take everything out of the oven and let it air out (about 15 minutes or so)


- add 1-2 teaspoons of dawn to the ammonia and a quart of warm water.


 - using a scrubbing sponge and gloves, begin to wipe down the oven. The grease/grim should come right off.

 
 

 
 

- if you need to repeat the process, you can.

 
- sprinkle some baking soda onto the glass to help clean that out too.



 
 

 
If you wanted to repeat the over night step, you could.  But I was satisfied with what I got.




 



This is what was left of that blue dish soap/ammoina combination:


Finished Product: