Day 21: Daddy's home tomorrow!

Okay, so I love my kids, but all four of them home all day? Well, it gets old. I've been enjoying Bubs being at school all day (although the girl is developing a MAJOR attitude, and I'm convinced it has to do with being around other kids all day...just means more reminding her to be respectful.) and Chubs being gone half-day? HEAVEN! I like having just the two little boys. They're SO cute together, but as soon as you add the older two there's chaos. They have their moments, so I still like 'em. ;) Anyway, I'll be glad to have the Hubs tomorrow to help out a bit with all of them.

 Although, we will have our hands busy since we're painting the basement bathroom tomorrow. The drywall guys finished putting up drywall today, but they'll be starting mud and tape on Monday so painting the bathroom is about the only thing we can do for it tomorrow.  I'm thinking that I'm going to do a vintage Mickey Mouse theme in the basement bathroom. It'll be right off our media room and I think it would be fun to put some movie reels in there as decorations. Everything will be black and white with a dose of red thrown in (mostly because I don't believe in handing my kids white towels! I know you can bleach them, but I'd be doing it ALL the time!) so we'll just be painting it white. I'm excited though. We're really hoping that getting the bathroom faucet in ASAP will stop the pipe banging that's been going on since we worked on plumbing down there. It's really loud and we're all kind of sick of it, so it'll be nice to get rid of that. Hopefully it works.

Also, did you know that Sunday is Mother-in-law's day? I saw it on facebook (yeah, I look for excuses to have a holiday celebration!) and I have an awesome mother-in-law, so my sister-in-law and I are going to make some special treats for our usual Sunday dinner.  I guess my mother-in-law will be making pulled pork for dinner, I'll make some potato salad, and my sister-in-law is making cupcakes that we're getting together to decorate tomorrow. She's got a book that'll show us how to make them "gardening" cupcakes, so we're excited about that.  I figured I'd share my potato salad recipe today. It was actually from my sweet grandmother-in-law who passed away in June. She was 90 1/2. (Everyone thought she'd think it was really neat that she died on her half-birthday...I guess!) She made the potato salad SUPER yummy. I went over to make it with her one day and have been making it ever since.  It was hard to pick up, since the original recipe was in German. (I'll share more about this sweet lady sometime. She had an amazing story!) But she walked me through how to do it. She would cut one potato and then make me cut the rest of them, telling me the whole time that I was doing fantastic. It was a great memory of her. I even took her shopping the day before so that we could buy all of the ingredients that she swore made the best sauce for it. So, I'll share her tips as I go. (It's been easiest for me to share it in paragraph form so that I can explain things better. Also, I absolutely recommend making it the day before you want to eat it so that the sauce can sink in to the potatoes...but it's still super good the day you make it!)

Oma's Potato Salad

Cook about 6 medium potatoes.  (Potatoes should be tender, but still harder than mashing potatoes.) Peel potatoes after cooking.  Cut potatoes in half lengthwise, then cut one half into thirds.  Cut it horizontally to cut in half again, then cut it in thin strips vertically widthwise.  Place in one medium bowl.  (Add about ½ tsp. salt between each potato as you add them to the bowl.)  Pour ½ - ¾ c. pickle juice over potatoes (enough to make them “juicy”) then let them sit while you prepare the sauce.

To make sauce, add ½ - ¾ c. (2 large spoonfuls-wooden spoon size) sour cream (Kroger’s All Natural is best).  Add approximately the same amount of Best Foods Real Mayonnaise (more if it doesn’t look like there’s enough sauce to cover your potatoes).  Add about ¼ c. pickle juice.  Stir well. Taste.  Add vinegar if it’s not “sour” enough.  Cut 2-3 small pickles in the same way you cut the potatoes.  Add to sauce and stir well.  Add 1 slivered slice of onion, cut into tiny pieces, and stir well.  Stir in potatoes a few scoops at a time until all the potatoes are well covered in sauce.  (If there’s not quite enough sauce, add a bit more pickle juice.)  You can also add a little more salt and pepper at this point.  Let the salad rest a day, then garnish with hard-boiled eggs and paprika.  (You can add diced hard-boiled eggs to the salad if you’d like, or ham or bacon.)  Chives and/or parsley can also be used to garnish.

Enjoy the potato salad! I'll make it tomorrow and see if I can get a picture of it...and the yummy cupcakes!