Home Buying-Part 1

As promised I am blogging today about home buying! We start our REAL search with an agent in March, we are beyond excited
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The very frst step is to figure out what you can afford, and you will most likely need to create a budget to get an accurate assessment of what that it is. I use a spread sheet with formulas, but I used to use a notebook... but I lost it all the time and the Mr. would always have to find it! Oops! I would be happy to share a copy of my budget format if someone can tell me how to put it on here!

One tip I cannot stress enough:
                What you can afford does NOT equal what you will get approved for!
Lenders look at gross income (before taxes are taken out) and debt, student loans, cars, credit cards, etc. They do NOT look at your luxury spending such as groceries, fuel, heat! Which unfortuantely means you will have to be a grown up and restrain yourself, because a realtor will be more than happy to sell you a home you can't afford. The Mr and I look at pricier homes and say "we could buy that house... or we could go on vacation a few times a year or go on fun dates" we don't want to be struggling to make a house payment. Our lender asked us our price range and approved us for that but the Mr spoke to one lender one the phone and they gave us an estimate of what we would get approved for that made both of us say "something exasperative and explicit".

When buying a house as a couple both your credit scores will play a factor and it's not bad to look into what your debt:income ratio is, there are many online calculators.  Make sure your taxes from the last 2 years are in order, we ran into a bump with our first house and after several trips to the IRS office and the accountant's we were able to sort it out, but it was so not worth the stress. Needless to say we don't do our own taxes anymore!

Get an agent you know, this is one of those places you want to take your mom up on the always "Oh I have a friend..." you need this person to have your best interest in mind. We really feel our first agent was only out for himself but it was our first home so we didn't even realize that until we had to sell our house. Our agent works with a large firm that does a lot of investing so at first I was apprehensive, but he has already pointed out some great things we wouldn't have thought about  because he looks at home appreciation, after our last house we definitely want this house to appreciate in value!

Get an idea of what you want, what both of you want. We have tried several times to make a hard list but there are just too many factors! Close to work... unless it has everything else we want, 4 bedrooms...unless it has a bonus room, and the list of "unless's" goes on and on.

Take your family's advice into account... sort of... my dad is big DYI farm boy so when it somes to "how easy could we fix this, etc" he is my go to guy! However keep in mind they will shove advice on you whether they know what they are talking about or not, so if you don't think they REALLY have an answer, maybe just skip it. Also keep in mind things like will your family be there all the time, if yes it may be important to you that they are comfortable, if not then get what you and your spouse want for your family.

Lastly on a totally unrelated topic, there has been major snow in KC and I worked from home today so I thought I would share two lovely photos.

Hanky frolicking in the snow

 

AND

 

                                                                  Zoe in a wig
Have a great weekend!

 

Buffalo Ravs and BWW Worthy Boneless Wings

This past week I made two awesome meals, I almost hate to share them because I want to hoard the awesomeness, but I know how often I get recipes from blogs and how much I appreciate it.

I have realized I will never be a great blogger because I cook just like my Great Grandma Viv, no recipe, a little of this a little of that and you better know your way around a kitchen because I don't direct well, my poor Mr has quite the time getting cooking help for me because I can't wrap my head around the fact that not everyone loves to cook and has been doing so since they were 8!

Buffalo Ravioli

We discovered these at Stefanina's, a local Italian restaurant in Troy Missouri. The concept it so simple yet so tasty... toasted ravioli, in buffalo sauce, dipped in ranch!

You will need:
Pre-packaged toasted ravioli (I used the cheap brand from Hyvee and they were perfect)
3-4 tbs Butter
1/3-1/4 cup Frank's Red Hot
Ranch dressing or Bleu Cheese dressing

Recommended Materials:
Huge bowl w/ lid

I didn't plan on blogging this therefore did not take any pictures, so just use your imagination:

How to:
Cook ravioli's to directions on package
While they are cooking melt butter in pan or microwave... How much butter and sauce you use will make the sauce more mild or hotter, I used 4 tbs butter with 1/4 cup hot sauce and it was very good but almost too mild.
Using whisk or fork blend butter with Frank's (or any other buffalo sauce you enjoy)
Toss ravs and sauce in a large bowl, I have one with a lid so I put the lid on and shake the crap out of it!

Serve with celery, and ranch or bleu cheese. I used the Hidden Valley Ranch from the packet because the bottle kind just wouldn't cut it for these! Enjoy!

BWW Worthy Boneless Wings

No pictures one this one for the same reason as above, I also didn't plan on straying so far from the recipe or on them being so darn good!

The Mr. and I love Buffalo Wild Wing's Boneless wings and though I highly doubt this is how they make theirs, the coating on the chicken was so similar the only real difference was I always get honey BBQ there and I just used original KC Masterpiece on these.  WARNING after typing everything out I realized this is definitely one of those recipes for someone familiar with cooking chicken.

You will need:
1 lb chicken boneless/skinless chicken tenders or breasts (I like the tenders because they tend to be cheaper and you will be cutting them up either way)
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (why not right? But don't try to use more of this flour than regular because it's very grainy and won't stick as well)
2 tbs season salt
1 tsp sea/kosher salt
1/2 tbs black pepper (all of the additional seasonings can be adjusted to taste, or leave some out or add other seasonings if you want)
BBQ Sauce
Water
1 cup canola oil

Recommended Materials:
That big ole bowl again

How to:
Cut the chicken into bit size chunks
With a fork or whisk mix eggs and milk
Soak chicken in egg mixture in the refrigerator for at least 1/2 hour, the recipe said 10 minutes, but my husband wasn't home yet and I didn't like the idea of chicken and egg just sitting out that long so I threw it in the fridge

Preheat oven to 400 F.
Mix flours with your seasonings in large bowls. Remove chicken from egg mixture and coat in flour mixture, then place on a cookie sheet (I covered mine with parchment paper to make clean up faster). Once all pieces are coated and on cookie sheet refrigerate again. I wanted to make sure the mixture was really on there before battering again. After 20 minutes (that was how long it took until the Mr to get home) remove chicken then dunk in egg and re-flour. While doing this heat oil in a pan on about medium. We have a gas stove in our rental and it has a low and a high so this is a guess. Cook about 5 pieces at a time in hot oil using tongs to flip them until golden on both sides (cut into thick pieces if you are worried they aren't done). You will get lots of icky stuff in the pan from the flour breading, so after a few batches I turned the stove off and used a paper towel to blot out the junk!

Once all chicken is cooked, thin out your BBQ sauce with a few tablespoons water... KC Masterpiece is super thick and wonderful and I worried about it sticking to the chicken. In batches place chicken and sauce in bowl and toss with lid on. You can use a big bag or just stir in a bowl if you don't have a bowl with a lid. Place chicken onto a different baking sheet again with parchment paper or aluminum foil (or wash the sheet you used before). When all your chicken is coated cook in oven for 5 minutes, this will cook the sauce onto the chicken. Serve with celery and ranch or bleu cheese. Enjoy!

Gift Wrapping

I really wanted to wait to post this because I didn't want my sister to see the gift I am bringing to her baby shower but now that I wrapped a second gift I couldn't wait.

As I have mentioned I really try to limit waste and as much as I love wrapping paper and fun gift bags (I used to work at Hallmark, of course I love this stuff) it just ends up getting ripped through and tossed. I hit Pinterest up for gifts using brown paper and newspaper. We don't get the newspaper but we were given a UK paper by the Mr's mom so I have quite the stash now. I came across this great bow! So I keep clicking to find the tutorial, which is of course in German! However there were step by step pictures, and I am a pretty smart girl so I figured it out. I was too lazy to make a tutorial but I will list the steps.

-Cut strips of paper (to desired thickness) and make loops
-Use a dot of glue and press together, for big "bows" use your fingers to get the desired round shape on each side, for small holes use a pencil or paint brush/toothpick whatever.
-Keep making smaller loops and repeating the steps until you have the bow you want
-Cut strips with notches on the end for the ends of the bow

The one of the right I followed the tutorial exactly and wrapped a piece of paper in the middle of the bow, I made 3 loops for the one on the right and just glued them all together.

The paper was a little too boring for me so I used brightly colored paper for the blue one and a piece of craft foam to make the dinosaur on the left.

Now your paper can get one last use before hitting the recycling bin!

My Official Rant of 2013

Everyone is making New Year's resolutions, but my Mr. made a great point last night, why are we supposed to make resolutions when it is so stinking cold out? I want to be more active, but I am not that fond of being active and I don't like being cold... so I am going to say my getting more active won't be going down anytime soon!

Anyways instead of a resolution I have chosen to do a rant!

Here goes...

I am officially sick of girls (I'm sure there are some men too) who are in serious relationships but are constantly whining about not being married. I am not talking about those who have been in relationships and are not ready to be married or simply don't want to, but those who are desperate to be married and aren't.

                                          Being engaged was pretty fantabulous if you ask me?

Why would you want to marry someone who obviously doesn't want to marry you? Or keeps pulling you along saying "soon" it is not 1950, and it's not his decision alone. As soon as I met the Mr. I thought "I want that!" and a few months later I knew this was the man I was going to marry, and I told him so. I also told him if we weren't engaged before I graduated I was moving back to St Louis and that was that. So he had about exactly a year to decide if I was the Mrs. for him or not!  

I know that sounds terrible, but my actual thoughts were, "If he doesn't feel the same why about me why would I waste my time?" We looked at rings after 8 months, to my surprise on his suggestion and were engaged at 10 months. Now how we got engaged and married certainly isn't  for everyone, but my point is, don't settle if you aren't getting what you need or want.

A hair stylist told my grandma she was growing her hair out because she thought she would be getting engaged that year. We both thought... "you think you are getting engaged?" This isn't something you talk about? If you don't know I am going to assume that you probably are NOT going anywhere in that relationship!

Hope you enjoyed my rant of 2013, I would love to hear what others' rants are!

Freezer Meal Dont's

Thursday night I reminded myself once again how much I hate cooking on week nights, I work 8-5 so to come home and prepare a meal, by the time it is prepared, enjoyed, and cleaned up, I am left with litttle me or husband/pup time as I always try to be in my bed by 9:30.

So on that night I found 6 meals (I would make 2 of each) that could easily be frozen and served later, several were recipes I use often with a few newbies, I planned to do my shopping at Aldi, and say screw "antibiotic free, nitrate free, or organic" for one shopping trip to save the money. Around 3 on Friday I realized I didn't have a quarter and worse I didn't have my canvas bags! Around 4 I got a headache that made me feel dizzy and nauseous  So I went home and crawled in bed... those pre-made meals would have been really handy that night! We ate a cheap frozen pizza. :P

When I woke up Saturday I realized I did not want to spend my entire weekend grocery shopping and cooking, so my "don't" was I tried to make myself not only do too much but also do something I really didn't want to do to begin with!

I salvaged my idea to cook ahead slightly. Thursday at lunch I bought crescent rolls in a tube on my lunch break and hot dogs. It worked out perfectly that the hot dogs come in a pack of 8 and the HyVee rolls come with 8! 2 tubes of rolls and 1 pack of hot dogs made 2 super easy and way better than frozen pigs in a blanket (I even got my nitrate free hot dogs!) We will eat 1 batch tonight and am freezing the second batch individually and will toss them in a bag together once they are frozen. 

Pigs in a blanket! Yes in a bowl... don't ask.

My second meal, is one of out favorites. I almost always have most of the ingredients for tuna casserole, I usually don't have the cheese but I made mac and cheese the other night so I lucked out. My tuna casserole recipe is:

1/2 box pasta (bowtie or rotini)

1 can cream of mushroom soup + 1/2 can milk (even my rice milk works)

1 big can tuna or 2 little cans

about 2 cups of cheese (any kind, I used monterray jack/colby and some cheddar)

It fits perfectly in a 11/2 quart casserole dish, feeds both of us with left overs!

I usually like to freeze my casseroles in casserole dishes, but the throw away kind are going against my efforts to be green since you can only use them once, maybe twice if you are careful. So I opted to freeze it in a gallon ziplock, though this still doesn't solve my "green" issue it is cheaper and saves room in my freezer... and to be quite honest I will wash the ziplock and use it again because I am THAT weird. I went ahead and froze an extra cup of cheese in a baggie as well for topping since I don't always have shredded cheese on hand and taped it to the casserole.

I will take it out the night before then stir it up before putting in a casserole dish, topping with cheese and then cook! TA DA! Would love to hear what other wives do for meals to help them keep their sanity!

A Very Merry Christmas

Our Christmas this year was spent in St. Louis with my family... it was absolutely amazing but I will break it down into key things I think people might actually care about, or pretend to care about for my sake!

Saturday was the Moore Christmas, which is my mom, Grandma and aunts and their families, and we all got together at my sister's casa. I am cheap and therefore chose to make gifts instead of purchasing gifts.

I thought of cork coasters, not an original idea but I had seen them somewhere and hit up Pinterest for a tutorial. To be quite honest I didn't really follow the tutorial... glue cork halves to cork board...duh, and I opted for Gorilla glue instead of hot glue and was very safe about cutting the corks because Simon kept scolding me with "you're going to cut your finger off!"

How to safely cut the cork (I bought mine in bulk on ebay.)

This is the cork board I used, it's from Michael's.

For the party everyone was  asked to bring 2 dishes to share, I brought povatica, well I tried, I let it get too warm and so it fell apart when I was cutting it however I have only been married to a Croatian for a year and a half  so I get a little slack I think. My second dish turned out much better, crab rangoons, another pinterest find of course. I served them with soy sauce and they were all gone!

Christmas Eve the Rents and Grandma took the fam to a Japanese Hibachi and it was delicious, we even ordered a sushi roll as an app, at the request of my niece. She of course didn't actually want any sushi which was alright with the adults because we devoured that thing!

 My lovely sister and her mister.

Myself with my mister, yes my bangs are too short however I am letting the fact that the haircut was free soothe my ego.

All the kids take turns being the "star." Jack was the star that night, he almost fell off the table when he went to do his "sexy"pose. 

We went back to Mom's for Christmas jammies and played a Wii bowling tournament, which I of course won, despite my own mother making fun of me the entire game!

 My kiddos!

I am almost embarrassed to post this because we are such dorks! We had a blast though!

Christmas day was the usual! Good food, fun gifts and the best part was just being with the family. Really made me miss living 20 minutes away from my parents and 5 from my sister and grandma.

Thanksgiving!

This year we decided to skip St. Louis all together and stay in KC for Thanksgiving. However the last 2 years we were with my family for both Thanksgiving and Christmas there so it evens out. On Thanksgiving day we went to Simon's step brother's house and his Dad and step mom joined us. His step brother's wife had prepared a wonderful meal and I contributed a pie.

Not just any pie, the most stressful pie I have ever made. You see I have been making pies since I was 8, not only do I just love pie but my Great Grandma Viv was the best cook/baker/you name it in the world and I loved everything she made and did, I would make pies then take pictures and send them to her! She always told me how beautiful my pies were and whether it was the truth or her just being a good grandma it always made me feel so special.

This pie though was just difficult. Last fall we went to Eckert's Orchard in Illinois and picked apples, I made a huge batch of pie filling and froze it, so that was easy. However I like to use the Betty Crocker pie crust recipe from my mom's Betty Crocker book, however I am not driving 4 hours for a book and I knew my mom was super busy preparing for the feast at her house so I didn't want to take up her time having her find it and email it. So I Googled a recipe. 

-It took atleast 5 times of rolling the dough out then wadding it back up and trying again to even get it into the pie pan! The dough just wasn't working with me. 

-For the top I rolled out another circle and cut stars out with a cookie cutter, that to was hard to get on and it was hard to seal the edges together.  

-My Grandma June told me to cut a hole in a cheap metal pie pan to use as a crust cover, great idea right? Except my pie was in a glass dish that was bigger than the metal dishes, so I had to wrap additional foil around that for a crust cover.

-I used an egg wash, but couldn't find a pastry brush so used my fingers and a spoon...

Luckily after it baked I was not displeased with the results, but I was not pleased wither. The very edges of my crust were darker than I wanted and apparently the wash was not even because some parts got that perfect gold while the majority stayed almost white... can't win em all!

The next day we got Chinese food with Simon's mom and went to see Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2, AMAZING! 

Today we crafted (secret surprises for the Moore Christmas) and put out some Christmas decorations!

Tomorrow will be errands and cleaning, my favorite! NOT