Crockpot BBQ Chicken...oh, the possibilities

What is easier than throwing chicken in a crockpot with some BBQ sauce in the morning and having a delicious dinner a few hours later?  Nothing!:)
I've recently become addicted to making BBQ chicken in the crockpot, because it is so easy and you can make so many things with it and it also freezes well.
Here is what you'll need:

~crock pot
~chicken-any chicken will do fine.  If it is frozen you can still cook it in the crockpot, it just needs to be on low and cook for about 6-8 hours.  If it is already defrosted, then you can cook it on high for 3-5 hours (depending on how much chicken you stuff into the crockpot)
~BBQ sauce of your choice

Pour some of the BBQ sauce into the bottom of the crockpot to prevent sticking

Put your chicken in the crockpot and cover with remaining BBQ sauce.  You can be as liberal with the sauce as you want.  It's all up to you and your taste and preference.

Cover, and cook on low for 3-5 hours.

When it's done it'll look something like this:  Just look at how tender the chicken it.  It is literally falling apart when I pick it up with the tongs.

Look at how much BBQ chicken I got from this dish

Let is cool and the pick the chicken off the bone, if you are not using boneless chicken breast.  It is so juicy that you really do very little picking, but rather pulling.

You can freeze the BBQ chicken after you pick it in zip lock bags.  Make sure to date and label it if you are freezing it for later. 
We made loaded baked potatoes with our BBQ chicken.  Just microwave a baked potato, add cheddar cheese, salt and pepper, the BBQ chicken, and top with sour cream.  Yummmmm!

I also made these delicious and low fat wraps.  My husband loves them for his lunch at work. 

To make the wrap I put the BBQ chicken, diced red onion, some cheddar cheese, and cilantro on a wheat tortilla. 


To make it look nice and keep it together I wrap it up in parchment paper and cut it on a diagonal and place it in a gladware container. 

Super healthy, easy, and way delicious!

Organizing Kids Toys

It seems like I reorganize the kids toys in the living room play area about once a month.  So, why would today be any different...
I also brought the toy baskets from my son's bookshelf in his room to make sure that all the small toys in the house were organized at once. 
Let the organizing begin.

BASKETS!  I have found over the years that baskets are the best way to try to keep toys contained and some what organized.  I tried great big toy boxes, but lots of little toys get lost at the bottom and some never even get played with because they are lost in the bottom of the cavernous toy box.  Book shelves are great for putting toys up and out of the way and off the floor.   If you add baskets into the organizing mix, then all is well in the world.

To start, we laid out all the baskets and toys and then started designating which baskets held what.  For example:  a basket for dinosaurs, a basket for action figures and army men, a basket for characters from the 'Cars' movie, etc.   By the way, I bought these blue and green baskets at the dollar store about 2 years ago and LOVE them!!!!!  They are a great way to organize, are durable, and have handles on them so the kids can easily grab a whole basket and take it to another location to play.  They work out great and for only $1 who cold ask for anything more. 

I had previously made laminated labels for the baskets to help the kids put the toys in the proper baskets when cleaning up.  The labels started to curl up on the edges so I made some new ones.

To make the labels I just went on clipart and copied and pasted some pictures for the appropriate toys on cardstock and printed them up.  Simple as that.

One of the labels I made a year ago-notice the curling of the edges

Here are the new labels

It doesn't look too much different than before because of my constant upkeep. 

Before

after

But, having all the baskets labeled properly and every toy in its place makes for easy play and cleanup.

What are your tips or ways to organize your kids toys?

Tents Make it All Better

When it rains, tears pour. 

At least on some rainy days that seems to be how my house feels.  Kids seem to be restless and nothing seems to entertain them. 

What to do, what to do?

Break out our wonderful Ikea tent and make sure to make things a little more different to peak the kid's interest in their toys.

So, I set up the tent (which takes 5 minutes) and added some play pit balls inside along with some blankets.  I also set up one of the dozen train tracks we have on the coffee table as apposed to the train table as usual.  I put Lilly's baby station in a different spot than normal.

Guess what happened?...Children played joyfully for the rest of the morning.  The same toys that were out minutes prior, that were so boring, instantly took on a new light once moved around a bit.  And, lets not forget the key rule to a rainy day...

Tents make it all better.