Paisley Patchwork

2011-06-27T12:57:00.001-07:00

The Parenting Breakthrough: Real-Life Plan to Teach Your Kids to Work, Save Money, and Be Truly Independent by Merrilee Boyack

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A friend of mine told me about this book and said I had to read it. She loaned it to me and I am so glad I read it. It is full of so many helpful suggestions, particularly about teaching your kids to work. Like any parenting book, there were a few things I disagreed with or thought were a little over the top, but most of her ideas were extremely helpful. I thought the section were she listed by age what jobs kids should be able to do was particularly good. This book was definitely worth reading.

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2011-03-22T21:03:00.001-07:00

The Mother in Me: Real-World Reflections on Growing Into Motherhood by Kathryn Lynard Soper

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book has been sitting on my dresser for several weeks. I was looking at the "clearance" books at Deseret Book and found it for $2.99. I vaguely remembered reading about it on some websites and thought it was worth picking up. I'm so glad I did. The other day I stuck it in the car figuring that since it was essays, it would be perfect to read when I am waiting to pick up at pre-school or piano lessons. I started reading it today while I was waiting at pre-school, read through baseball practice and finished the last couple essays after the kids were in bed. I loved it. It was the perfect encouragement for the stay at home mom. The essays were honest and real, but encouraging at the same time. There is something so comforting about reading that other mothers struggle with the same things you do. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because it really only applies to moms, particularly moms of young children.

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2011-03-13T19:13:00.001-07:00

The Forbidden Sea by Sheila A. Nielson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was amazing! I can't wait for my girls to be old enough to listen to chapter books so I can read this to them. The story in this book follows a fairly typical fairy tale type pattern, until you get to the end. The choices the main character makes for her future are a little different than what you would find at the end of most fairy tales. I love the strength of the female main character in this book and I love what she learned about beauty and worth and how it important it is to recognize your own worth, whether those around you see it or not. There are so many great discussions you could have with daughters regarding this book. I checked it out from the library, but it is one I will be adding to my to buy list.

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Cleaning out the Closet

2011-03-01T13:00:00.000-08:00

I have had sick kids since Friday, and I am about ready to scream. I have been trying to make the best of it and finally tackled cleaning out my closet on Saturday. I ended up with 5 garbage bags to take to D.I. I am semi-horrified that I managed to get rid of this much stuff and still my closet is not empty. I have such a hard time getting rid of clothes. It is crazy because it's not like I feel any emotional attachement to them. I just always keep thinking I might wear it. This time I really tried to get rid of anything I don't regularly wear. I found a couple of things I had completely forgotten about, a sweater that I wore to church on Sunday that is especially cute and I had only worn 2 or 3 times. The entire time I was going through stuff I had to keep telling myself that getting rid of the stuff I don't or can't wear makes it so I can actually buy new stuff. It feels great to have gotten rid of that much stuff, now the trick will be if I can stay on top of it.

Favorites

2011-02-25T19:29:00.000-08:00

A friend gave the Paper Doll Game by eeBoo to my 4 year old daughter as a belated birthday gift. This has got to be the best game out there for pre-school age girls. It is so simple. You are essentially taking turns dressing up your paper doll. Games can be so hard for young children to grasp and this one is perfect. The focus is really on taking turns. There are no difficult rules to explain and it doesn't hurt that it is darling! I have no idea where my friend got it, but if you are looking for it, you can go here.

I ordered Hillary Lang's Kitchen Gnome Embroidery's for dish towel's here. I finished my first towel and I love it. My husband thinks I am strange, but I think the little gnome's are about the cutest things ever and I love the way the red trim I got to sew to the bottom of the towel's turned out. The only thing I hate about these flour sack towels is that they require ironing. I never iron, so the towel has not spent a lot of time hanging in my kitchen. I kept trying to tell my kids and husband not to use it, it was just for decoration, but you can guess how well that lasted.

I spent yesterday making cupcakes for the Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet and I tried piping the frosting on for the first time. I will definitely be doing this from now on. I bought disposable piping bags from Michael's (used the 40% off coupon) and got a giant tip. It cost a few dollars and saved me all kinds of time. Frosting 3 dozen cupcakes would normally take forever and there would be problems with the knife sticking to the cake and the crumbs getting all over in the frosting. None of that, slick and easy. If you haven't tried it, you must, they turn out looking fancy and take you half the time and there is no messy piping bag to clean, just a plastic bag to throw away.

Valentine's Day Party

2011-02-18T16:18:00.000-08:00

For Valentine's Day we decided to host a family dinner. The rule was the food had to be heart shaped or pink or red. We had a great time. Here are some pictures of some of the food we ate:

I made chicken patties and we cut a heart out of them with a cookie cutter. One of my sister-in-laws made the most awesome flourescent pink mashed potatoes. They will definitely be a stand-out in everyone's memory.

Another sister-in-law made these darling heart shaped jello's. She also made rolls in a heart shape, unfortunately I didn't get a picture before the kids dug in and ruined the heart shape.

For desert we had heart shaped chocolate waffles with strawberries and whipped cream and valentine sprinkles.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

2011-02-17T13:46:00.000-08:00

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I saw a review for this book on a blog I follow. I then happened to see it sitting out on a display in the children's section at the library, so I grabbed it. I absolutely loved this book. I definitely plan on reading it to my kids. It is a simple story, the author describes as being inspired by Chinese fairy tales she read as a child. The author of the blog I saw the book on said that she loved the book because it illustrated values she wanted to teach her children. I agree! This book focuses on finding happiness and contentment with your life. It also illustrates the joy found in family. It was a quick and easy read and would make a great family read aloud.

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Football Valentine's Box

2011-02-13T20:11:00.000-08:00

Coming up with a Valentine's box that is "cool" enough for a boy is not the easiest thing ever. This one worked out to be perfect. It was simple enough that my 3rd grader could really be involved in the design and because it was sports related, he was thrilled with it.

Supplies:
shoe box
white electrical tape (could use masking tape also)
green construction paper
popsicle sticks
sharpie marker

First cut a hole in the top of the box for the Valentines to be dropped in. Then cover the entire box with green construction paper. Don't worry about making it perfect, when you are done covering the box in green paper you will take the electrical tape and cover the edges of all the paper. This gives the box a more clean look and adds to feel of a real football field. Use the popsicle sticks to creat goal posts. You can glue them together if you want. For speed and ease, we just wrapped electrical tape around the corners of our popsicle sticks and then used the electrical tape to tape them to the ends of the box. Finally, I gave my son a sharpie and he went to town creating the field. He loved drawing all the lines and trying to make it look exactly like his favorite team's stadium. He even drew stick figure players and his own scoreboard.

My visiting teacher dropped this off this weekend. I have no idea where she got them, but I thought they were the cutest Valentine treat ever! The best part was they are just regular glazed donuts, none of that nasty cream filling they put in some donuts shaped like this.

Happy Valentine's Day!

A New Cookie and a Favorite Dinner

2011-02-08T13:36:00.000-08:00

I have to bring some cookies and recipe to share tonight for a church function. It was the perfect excuse to try these fabulous babies from Sisters Cafe.

The Sisters Cafe: Choco-kissed Cookies

submitted by Brittany - Sisters Cafe

adapted from: Family Circle magazine

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 large eggs

2 cups flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

48 Hershey kisses, unwrapped

Beat butter, peanut butter, sugars, and vanilla in bowl until smooth and creamy, 3

minutes. Beat in eggs. In a separate bowl, mix flour, cocoa, and salt. On low speed,

beat into butter mixture. Refrigerate 15 minutes.

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Roll dough into balls, 1 tablespoon each (size of a quarter).

Dip each ball into sprinkles, so one half is covered. Place sprinkle side up on ungreased

baking sheet, 1 inch apart. Bake until set, 9-10 minutes. Press an unwrapped Hershey

kiss into each cookie. Return too oven; bake 1 minute to set. Let cool slightly on sheet

on rack. Remove cookies to rack; let cool completely.

*If making M&M bites: roll dough into balls the size of nickels. Roll each ball in granulated

sugar then place on ungreased cookie sheet 1 inch apart. Bake 8-9 minutes then press

a single M&M into the center of each cookie. Return to oven for 1 minute.

My Notes: Have more sprinkles than you think you will need. I ran out and had to use pink sanding sugar for the final tray, it worked, but was not as cute. These would be the perfect cookies to make with kids because they could unwrap all the candy and roll the cookies in the sprinkles. Also, one small package of the Hershey's Hugs was more than enough. I had 10 or 12 left over. I think this would be really yummy with a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup on top too.

I realized last night that I made a dinner my entire family actually loves. This is a very rare thing at our house, so I thought I would post it here, because maybe there are some others out there who have picky eaters and get tired of hearing the complaints. It is pretty much a given that someone won't like what I make, so I generally just try to ignore the comments, but when everyone is happy with dinner I figure it is cause to celebrate. This is another recipe from Sisters Cafe. If you can't tell, it is a favorite around here.

Chicken and Dumplings

submitted by Erin (The Sisters Cafe)

3 c. cooked chicken, cut into large pieces

½ c. butter

1/3 c. flour

½ tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

3 c. chicken broth

1 can cream of chicken soup (98% fat free variety works great)

Dumplings:

2 c. flour

3 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 tsp poultry seasoning

1 tsp celery seed

¼ c. oil

1 c. milk

Blend butter, flour, salt and pepper in saucepan. Add chicken broth and cook until thick. Stir in cream of chicken soup and add cooked chicken. Put in a 9x13 pan. To prepare dumplings, mix all ingredients together and stir until moistened. Drop rounded spoonfuls onto chicken and gravy. Bake at 425° for 20-25 minutes.

We had this last night for dinner and it was the perfect thing for a cold snowy night. I should have taken a picture, but I forgot and my husband to the little bit of leftovers for lunch, much to my son's dismay. Of course tonight I am fixing a homemade tomato soup that I think all the kids will refuse to eat. Oh well.

My New Love

2011-02-06T14:56:00.000-08:00

My friend came to the door to pick up her girls from a playdate the other day and handed me this. She said, "I have a little treat for you, I hope you like dark chocolate". Let's be honest, I'm not too picky when it comes to chocolate, I generally enjoy it in all it's forms. Until this moment, I would have said that I prefer milk chocolate, however, this little treat has changed me. It is wonderful! I have to admit, I have only recently discovered the joys of European chocolate and it definitely beats out my beloved Hershey's bars. If you need to give a friend a special valentine, this is the stuff!

70's Fireplace Remodel

2011-02-02T09:25:00.000-08:00

Here is the final product for my '70's fireplace remodel. I am thrilled with it! I despised the white lava rock! The woodworking turned out exactly how I wanted and I am so proud of myself for doing the tile work all myself. I have never tiled before and am excited that I did this with no help. The glass tiles are exactly the look I wanted.

A Crazy Life

2011-01-26T10:14:00.000-08:00

My house is a complete disaster. We are finally done with our fireplace remodel, but we have a few loose ends left to tie up before everything is back to normal. My husband needs to wall mount the t.v. I need to seal the tile and build some shelves so that the cable box doesn't have to hang out on the floor and I need to figure out where I want to hang all the pictures and stuff back up. In the meantime, both my girls got a really nasty virus and passed it to me. Then everyone got secondary infections, Brynne ended up with an ear infection, Paige got croup and I think both Paige and I ended up with sinus infections. My girls have been completely miserable and as a result very needy and whiny and Paige had the steriod shot for croup which has made her completely grumpy on top of the sickness. It is been nonstop crying around here. I have to admit my patience level has been zero because I haven't felt good either. We did happen to have a couple books from the library that we have loved, so although I would really like to post a beautiful finished product fireplace remodel picture, it may not come for a little while. In the meantime, check out these fun princess books.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by Laura Ljungkvist

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I saw a review for this version on a blog and I absolutely love the illustrations. I love the simplicity of the retelling. It is not nearly as scary as the Disney version. The ending was a little different, but I think I like it that way. We checked this out from the library, but I definitely plan on adding to our own library.

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Walt Disney's Cinderella by Cynthia Rylant

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked this up on our last trip to the library because I loved the picture and because I am a fan of Cynthia Rylant. I'm so glad I picked it up. I love that the illustrations are reminiscent of the Disney movie version, but re-imagined. I liked Rylant's retelling. Again it was fairly close to the Disney version, but enough updates to keep you reading.

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A Winter Craft and a Snack

2011-01-13T20:41:00.000-08:00

Paige and I have been talking about what to do for an upcoming playgroup we are hosting and this snowman snack was one of the activities we have been planning on doing. When I was at the grocery store this morning and the little boxes of mini powdered donuts were on sale, I decided maybe we could have a spur of the moment test run for our crafty snack. Paige was thrilled when I picked her up from pre-school and told her the good news of the donut sale. The second we walked in the house the project had to begin. She and Brynne and I all got to work and created our masterpieces. It only took minutes, but the smiles and powdered sugar little faces were priceless! So here are the supplies you need:

powdered donuts (regular, mini's, or even donut holes would work)
pretzel sticks
chocolate chips (we used the mini ones)

For the play group, we think we will suggest the girls lay they donuts flat because they don't stay together real well, but it doesn't matter if you are eating them immediately, or if you are doing this with older kids, you could use toothpicks to make them stick together better.

My favorite Time Savers for the New Year

2011-01-05T19:33:00.000-08:00

I discovered this when I saw a video here. I have been using baby powder so that I don't have to wash my hair everyday, but this stuff is amazing. It has given me an extra day without washing my hair and I love it! It is Rockaholic by TIGI and is called Dirty Secret Dry Shampoo. The best part, I just so happened to find it in the salon at Wal-mart and it was buy one get one half off. It was right before Christmas and I didn't have time to go searching at a beauty supply place or regular salon. Wahoo!

I know, these are nothing new, your basic Clorox wipes, but I have suddenly discovered that my kids are far more likely to do chores when I give them Clorox wipes to do them. Don't ask me why that is so different, but I'm telling you, it works like a charm and they do a much better job. Even my 18 month old will "help" with a wipe.

Okay, so I am a huge fan of Becky Higgins' Project Life. I bought the kit last year and I have found that in 2010 I actually scrapbooked. I didn't take a picture and journal about it every day, but I did it a lot of days. I got a little behind at the end of the year and have been playing catch-up the last week or so, but I am amazed, I have a whole album full of stuff we did last year. It is the perfect way to make recording your family's day-to-day life simple. This is the first page in my new 2011 book. I have been taking pictures and will have them all printed every few weeks. It's no big deal if I get a day or two behind, I can just start where I left off. You don't need to get out boxes and boxes of stuff to use it. It comes with everything you need and if you want to make it fancier, you can add a few things here or there or you can just leave it alone. It is amazing!

My biggest time saver of the new year is that I got to take off my air cast! Happy dance!!!! (okay, so it is a very slow and careful happy scoot, but it is joyful). My doctor told me yesterday that I don't have to wear the boot anymore. I am getting around pretty good. I am a little slow and rather limpy, but I can do it! Happy new year to me! The next step will be getting to wear real shoes!

2011: Better Organization, Really, this time I mean it!

2011-01-03T14:22:00.000-08:00

I am a goal oriented person. Nothing makes me feel better than to set and achieve goals. My brother and sisters would consider me an over-achiever. I am a planner, I like to plan out vacations, plan projects, plan meals, the works, but somehow staying on top of organization in my house seems to be just out of my reach. There is nothing I hate more than going through closets and trying to decide what to get rid of. It doesn't matter if it is my closet or my kids' closets, so they are constantly overflowing. It doesn't help that I live in an old house with small closets but I should be able to get a handle on the situation. For crying out loud, I am well educated and bright enough, I am even a hard worker. The problem is with a husband, three kids and a dog, no matter how many times I try to organize things, it never stays that way. I feel like since about the week before Christmas I have done nothing but throw things away. You would not believe the amounts of garbage we have accumulated. I am completely embarassed because my husband has become that person who sneaks around the neighborhood at 10 or 11 p.m. on garbage night looking for cans to fill. I remember when we first got married we would watch out our window as one of our neighbors snuck around in his pajamas filling cans and we would laugh and laugh about how awful that was and now look at us! Seriously and do you know what we have been filling the neighbors cans with all month? Rocks! I am not even joking. You know all the awful lava rocks that were covering our fireplace? They had to go somewhere and it was into all our neighbor's half full cans. Lovely, I know, but I digress. The problem with my organization is not entirely that I don't throw away, the real problem is junk is continuously coming in. How do you fix it? Any amazing ideas out there? I am bound and determined to work my way through this house and junk more than I have ever done before, but how do I keep it that way? Here's what I started with today:

For the entire month of November I had to have help everyday with my kids. I have never been so embarassed. Friends and family came in and helped me get my kids dressed, but they couldn't even get the drawers open. Rather than have anyone see the drawers, I would try to make sure my husband picked out clothes for the baby who can't dress herself yet and put them on the bed. Seriously, pathetic! So a few days ago I cleaned out all of the clothes for my two daughters and got rid of a ton, boxed a bunch of outgrows up to put in the storage room and I thought I was set. Now this morning, my 4 year old is complaining that the drawers won't shut, there's too much stuff. AGAIN! It hasn't even been a week and I haven't bought any clothes! Is it just the folding? Do I have the worst furniture ever (okay, so that could be part of the problem). Someone tell me how you stay on top of it!

I am absolutely determined that 2011 will be the year that I SIMPLIFY. Send me all of your tips, PLEASE!

2010-12-31T10:39:00.001-08:00

Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart: A Novel by Beth Pattillo

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really liked this book. It was a quick and easy read and I liked the twists at the end of the book. It was an all around good, fun read.
Perfect relaxed read for Christmas vacation.

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Gingerbread Houses and a Visit to the Doctor

2010-12-22T20:15:00.000-08:00

Today the big kids got to go to Grandma's for a long anticipated chance to make gingerbread houses. My 18 month old got to stay home and sleep off the effects of a shot to get rid of croup. Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without someone needing a last minute trip to the pediatrician. I'm just glad our trip was several days BEFORE Christmas!

Tips for Decorating Christmas Cookies with Young Kids

2010-12-21T20:56:00.000-08:00

Nothing says holidays like decorating cookies, Christmas especially. We decorate cookies for most holidays, usually with extended family, but this year it was just me and my older 2 kids and a friend and we had just as much fun. That is one of the joys of cookie decorating, it is great for any size group. Here are some tips I have learned over the years of decorating cookies with my students while I was teaching first grade and decorating cookies with my own family.

1. Know your limits! Baking sugar cookies can be fairly difficult. Don't try to start from scratch all in one day. Make your cookies the day before you plan on decorating them. If you are going to bake your own it is absolutely necessary that you chill the dough, it is best if it can chill overnight. I am convinced this is the secret to getting the cookies to work and keeping yourself from tearing out your hair in frustration. Realize, you can order unfrosted sugar cookies in almost any shape from nearly every grocery store bakery, all it takes is a simple phone call. If you live in Utah, Macy's has them for super cheap. That is all I have done for years. This summer was the first time I was able to actually get a sugar cookie recipe to work. My kids don't know the difference all they care about are the sprinkles.

2. Make your life easy, buy the canned frosting. I know the homemade usually tastes better, but honestly, by the time your toddler is done dumping sprinkles all over the thing and has licked his or her knife several times, taste is not really going to be a factor. Simplify! Buy several tubs of the Betty Crocker stuff and call it good.

3. When you buy your frosting, always buy the "whipped" frosting for decorating with kids. It is soooo... much easier to spread. My personal favorite is the whipped cream cheese frosting. Then when you get it home, divide it up into multiple bowls and use food coloring to dye it different colors.

4. When setting up an area to decorate, realize it will be messy, if you are worried put a dropcloth or old tablecloth under your table. Sprinkles go everywhere and at least one kid will dump an entire bottle on their cookie.

5. Don't buy the peppermint sprinkles, they look cute but are nasty, same with the really cute mini candy pieces they make in holidays shapes. Stick to tastier things, regular sprinkles and colored sugar, mini chocolate chips (my personal favorite), and m&m's.

6. When you start, give each child a paper plate with a cookie on it. Give them their own plastic knife, or if they are really little, use a popsicle stick and then put spoonfuls of frosting on their plate. This helps prevent licked knives from going into the main bowl of frosting multiple times.

7. Lower your expectations. Most little kids will love decorating one, maybe two cookies, then they will either want to eat it or eat the m&m's and be done. Be okay with that. Get your camera out right when your child starts decorating and get a couple of good pictures and take a picture of the finished product. Your child has had a great time and you have the pictures to prove it. This is the reason I suggest taking the easy way when it comes to the cookies and frosting. If you haven't spent hours and hours slaving over making the cookies and making the perfect frosting, then you are not going to be mad that only a few cookies got decorated. If you like baking from scratch and have a recipe you like, then go for it, but realize kids are not really going to appreciate that part and be okay with that, recognize the from scratch part is for you, not for the kids.

Kids Christmas Craft

2010-12-16T20:02:00.000-08:00

My four year old is obsessed with crafts. All day long she begs for crafts to make and if I don't help her come up with things she takes matters into her own hands. I am all for creativity and I love crafting myself, but when I am not looking the supplies are left everywhere and lets just say crayons, markers, and scissors don't go terrifically with an 18 month old. Lately I have been going to Hobby Lobby and Michaels and looking for their cheap-o kids craft kits because they require little supervision and any leftover supplies can be tossed in the trash with no guilt. These beaded candy cane ornaments have been one of the better kits I have found. I got them at Hobby Lobby, but you don't need the kit at all.

Supplies:
pipe cleaners
red and white plastic beads (ones that have a similar size hole as the width of the pipe cleaners)
wire cutters (scissors will work, but it dulls them and is harder work)

Instructions: Fold the bottom of your pipe cleaner so that the beads can't fall off. String beads onto pipe cleaner in a pattern alternating between red and white. Fill to almost the top and then bend last little piece of pipe cleaner to hold the beads on and twist into a candy cane shape. Add to the Christmas tree!

December Daily Album

2010-12-14T20:30:00.000-08:00

I saw Ali Edwards "December Daily" scrapbook project last year and thought it was a great idea, but decided I was way too busy to attempt it. I saw her posts again this year during the weeks before December began and it got me thinking. I was worrying a lot about how my broken leg was affecting our holidays and was frustrated with the way it was holding us back from a lot of the activities we normal enjoy. I was worried that my kids would feel cheated and that I would feel cheated. Then I started thinking that maybe the craziness of my leg being broken was going to make this one of those Christmas' my kids would never forget, so I decided if that was the case I was going to make it full of as many happy memories as I could and since we were going to be required to take everything more slowly than usual because of my leg, then I was going to make the most of it. I hurried and put together this simple album. I bought Ali Edwards' downloadable overlays with each day on them and using paper and supplies that I already had in my stash did a little bit of decorating. It is not at all fancy, my goal was to make this easy enough that I would actually follow through with it. I bought a cute 1 inch binder at Target and have tried to make sure I take a picture of something we do for Christmas each day. If I forget to take a picture, then I make sure I write enough to fill the whole page. We haven't done big things, but as we are reaching the halfway point of the month of December I am realizing that we have more family traditions than I realized. I love the fact that when this Christmas is over, my kids will be able to look at this album and actually remember what we did. Next year we will be able to sit down at a family home evening before the month of December hits and look through our album from 2010 and talk about what things we want to make sure we do again in 2011 and then add any new things we think of. I am so glad I took the time to do this, I think it will quickly become a family treasure!

A Little Embroidery

2010-12-05T20:40:00.001-08:00

Here's a sneak peak at some embroidery I've been working on lately. I'm pretty excited about how it is turning out.

Simplifying Christmas

2010-12-05T20:33:00.000-08:00

This year out of necessity I have had to take a good hard look at how to simplify our Christmas. I still can't drive, which means our activities are limited. My doctor surpised me this last week and said my bones were healing well enough that this month I could start putting weight on my leg and gradually get rid of the crutches. He left it up to me how quickly I wanted to try going without crutches. Amazingly, I am able to go without the crutches already, which has made all the difference to our family. I am able to use my hands which is a wonderful blessing. Unfortunately, I am still slow because of the boot and moving around ups the pain some, so I still can't drive. Anyway, as a result of my limitations, early in November we sat down with the kids and talked about what things were most important to them that we do this holiday season, so we could make sure we did those things. We explained that some of our normal holiday activities might have to change a little. For example, we have had a tradition of going to the zoo first thing in the morning on Thanksgiving. This year the weather was horrible and there was tons of snow I just couldn't get around well enough to attempt it so we decided to put it off until next year, but we made sure that we stuck with our tradition the night before Thanksgiving to get new Christmas jammies and watch Elf together.
We had cut back in a big way on our decorating. As much as I love Christmas decorations, they are completely overwhelming to me this year. Everything requires so much more effort, so we put out the most important things and I have had to learn to take a step back. We had to break down and buy a new tree this year and when I sent my husband to buy it, the one he came home with had colored lights. I have always hated colored lights. I am an all white light person, but my husband didn't even look at the box to see what kind of lights were on the tree. I wasn't about to send him hauling it back, plus it was a Black Friday sale. Well, I have discovered my kids love the colored lights. They are thrilled and as I think about it, that is so much more important. The same sort of thing with the ornaments. Normally, I spend the whole time we are decorating the tree trying to move the ornaments around so everything is even and looks best. This time, I sat at the table and handed ornaments to kids (making sure my 18 month old got the right ones) and let the kids do all the work. Once again, they were thrilled. I hope in the future I can remember this Christmas and try and worry less about the unimportant things.

The picture on this post is of some of those cheap-o chocolate advent calendars. In an effort to try and make each day special in way that would work for me this year, I asked my mother-in-law to pick one of these up for each of my children. They cost next to nothing, but they have been perfect for my little children. Even my 18 month old can participate in this tradition. I don't know why I haven't done these before. I guess I have been too busy trying to come up with all kinds of grandiose Christmas activities to have time to think of something so simple. These will definitely be a new family tradition.

At the moments when I find myself starting to freak out about all the things I can't do this year, I am consciously trying to focus on the things I can do. I am trying to enjoy the slower pace, the quiet time I am spending sitting around in the living room with my babies. The opportunity we have to really focus on our favorite tradition of reading different Christmas stories throughout the month of December. I am grateful for the many visits from friends and family and joy that brings both me and my kids. My 4 year old leaned over to me in church today and asked me who was coming to visit us today. I said that no one was and she said, maybe someone will decide they really miss us and come to see us. She said it so matter of factly that it was obvious that she feels like all the people dropping by are doing it because they care so much about her. Isn't it amazing how even a 4 year old picks up on love! I am so grateful for answered prayers and a knowledge of a Heavenly Father who loves me and my little family and the knowledge that his hand is in my daily life.

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A New Fireplace

2010-11-27T15:50:00.000-08:00

I'm kicking myself for not taking a before picture of this, but previously, my fireplace was that seventies white lava rock, you know the stuff that people used to put in their parking strip as zeroscaping, just bigger rocks. I have hated it from the moment I set foot in this house for the first time. It was one of those things that I really had to convince myself to overlook when we bought the house. I'm sure it was fine when the house was built, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why it was ever the style. It was so uneven that there was no possibility for a mantle, which is the only thing I really want for a fireplace and everytime we tried to use the fire itself, it would shoot black soot all over the rock. Unfortunately, the fact that we bought an old house has meant that there are a million projects that need to get done, so this one has been on the back burner for awhile.

I have to say, at the moment I am completely convinced that my husband is "Superman". I am still hobbling around on crutches and essentially useless when it comes to pretty much anything! I can't carry anything, I can't chase after the 18 month old (she outruns me in a second...stinkin' crutches), I can't even get her out of bed if she wakes up during the night. I can empty the dishwasher or do the dishes, but it takes so long it makes everyone crazy to watch. Laundry is another task that I can do, but it requires large amounts of help with carrying and moving. Even getting the kids bathed and showered is a problem because the steam from the bathroom makes the tile floor so slippery that my crutches are completely treacherous. Needless to say, my husband is picking up massive amounts of slack for me. He has always amazed me with the fact that he is not a complainer, but with this situation it has completely blown me away. Never once has he complained that he comes home from work and has to do all the stuff that I normally do. He walks in the door and is kind of like a machine. He knows once we have eaten dinner he has to get dinner cleaned up and kids bathed and then we divide up reading out loud to the kids and he gets everyone tucked in. He usually manages to get some laundry started and fetch and carry all the stuff I need, like ice or phones or my ipad.

Why am I telling you this, well you have to know how surprised I was this weekend when he said he was still planning on tearing out the rock on the fireplace. We had planned this project before I had my accident and had found a carpenter to help us with the finish work, but honestly, I figured it would all have to be put on hold until I could help or at least until I was more help with keeping the kids out of the way. Not so, my husband and his dad knocked out all the rocks today and cleaned up all the mess. I am completely amazed! All there is now is a cinderblock wall and I am so excited I can't see straight. It is going to make such a difference to the look of my front room!

2010-11-21T10:04:00.001-08:00

The Frog Princess by E.D. Baker

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My friend recommended this book. She has 3 daughters and told me it was a must have for my two girls as they get older. The story was darling. A perfect little fairy tale. It is supposedly the story Disney based the movie "The Princess and the Frog" around. Unfortunately, Disney chose not to follow very closely. I wish they had followed the book exactly. It would have made for a much better movie. I'm anxious to pick up the sequels.

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2010-11-19T11:53:00.001-08:00

A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thanksgiving books are so hard to find. I would really love to have a whole collection of them that we could read all through the month of November, but there are just not a ton of great ones out there. One that I do have, that is an absolute favorite is called "A Turkey for Thanksgiving", by Eve Bunting. The story is sweet without being sappy. There are some humorous twists and best of all, the illustrations are amazing! Mr. and Mrs. Moose want a turkey for Thanksgiving, so Mr. Moose sets out to find one. It doesn't take long before all his forest neighbors are helping him. The story ends with what happens when the animals find a turkey.

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A Day at a Time

2010-11-12T20:24:00.000-08:00

I have spent the last 20 minutes trying to figure out how to add a picture to the post? I still haven't completely figured out how to use my iPad. I finally set up a new gmail account because I am having such trouble with my comcast account. I feel like I should have some sort of project or recipe to post, but in all honesty I'm focusing on more basic things at the moment. Today was a huge step for me, I pulled myself into and out of my shower without any physical help. I still required a spotter to make sure I didn't fall, but I managed the standing and sitting by myself. I was ridiculously happy about such a small thing. This afternoon has been a little tougher. I thought I was moving around pretty well, but this afternoon I started on my refill of my pain medicine and it is the downgraded version. It is harder than I thought. I can feel a lot more than I have been able to before. My leg is starting to itch, which I think is a good sign, but putting on lotion is a
Little creepy. I keep discovering places on my leg that I can't feel. It is the strangest sensation! A large portion of my time is being occupied by learning to use crutches.

2010-11-12T19:53:00.001-08:00

Accident

2010-11-08T14:38:00.000-08:00

Much to my dismay, my crafting and projects have been put on hold as of late. On October 29,2010, I took my three kids to the Farmers market to get one last box of apples. It was the last weekend for the farmers market, so there weren't many people around. after we got our apples, we went over to the playground to play for a few minutes. Next to the playground, down a little grass embankment was a small stream with ducks. There was a chain link fence to keep kids from falling in at the bottom of the small slope. My 18 month old was fascinated with the ducks, so I picked her up and started walking down the grass to get closer to the fence for a better view. Suddenly I felt my ankle bend and my feet slipped out from under me. My daughter and I both slipped to the ground and I strarted pulling my leg towards me to get my balance. I'm not sure if my foot was caught on a root, but Shortly I heard a snap. At that point I knew I was in trouble. I tried to get up but quickly realized that was not a possibility. I was carrying my cell phone, so my first thought was to call my dad because my pArents house is only a few blocks from the park and my dad works at home. He left immediately and I called my husband's aunt who lives on my street to come and get the kids since I figured my dad and I would be headed to the emergency room. By the time they arrived, the pain had intensified and they took one look at my predicament and said there was no way around it, we were going to have to call an ambulance, despite the fact we were directly across the street from the hospital. I had managed to wedge myself into a rather difficult corner. In the meantime my husband managed to arrive. The drive across the street to the hospital was grueling. The x- Ray process was more painful than I ever could have imagined. The end result was surgery and a three night hospital stay. I had broken. Both bones in my leg. Twice at the bottom above the ankle joint and once right below the knee. My leg is now complete with a metal rod, a plate, and multiple screws. I am not allowed to put any weight on my leg for 6 weeks and will spend some time after crutches with a walking boot on. I am completely irritated with my new limitations, but I am so grateful for the help and support of so many family members and friends. It is amazing! Thank you!

$0.47 Shoes

2010-10-28T19:45:00.000-07:00

I am not lying. I only paid $0.47 for these shoes. I wore them today and so far they are even comfortable. Yesterday just so happened to be the right day to wander into Old Navy. They had a rack of shoes, mostly flip-flops and sandals, with a few ballet flats mixed in and there was a sign saying everything was $0.47. I still had to ask a cashier because frankly, I didn't believe the price was right and there was a clearance tag on the shoes that said $9.99. $0.47!!! Deal of the century!

Canning for a Beginner

2010-10-23T14:37:00.000-07:00

I am so lucky to live down the street from my husband's aunt. She has recently retired and it is wonderful! I have really wanted to attempt canning, but although I have watched a friend once or twice, I just didn't feel like I was ready to attempt the task on my own. Anyway, Sherry went to the Farmer's Market with me Friday morning and said she would help me make applesauce out of my giant box of Jonathan apples. It turned out so yummy and it really wasn't hard, just time consuming. Although deciding to do a quadruple batch of a new green tomatillo Salsa recipe that Sherry got from another neice added a signifcant amount of time to the project. The salsa and the applesauce turned out amazing! I'm so glad she was willing to show me how to can and I think I will definitely be doing it again.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

2010-10-20T13:25:00.000-07:00

Just in case you haven't figured it out yet, my kids and I are big fans of anything pumpkin chocolate chip flavored. It amazes me a little because a lot of people don't like pumpkin flavored things and my kids tend to be picky, but anything I make that is pumpkin, they devour. Our latest favorite is this muffin recipe from http://www.melskitchencafe.com/ . Here's the link for her recipe.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

from Mel B.

1 2/3 c. flour

1 c. sugar

1 T. pumpkin pie spice**

1 tsp. soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1 c. canned pumpkin puree

1/2 c. butter, softened

1 c. chocolate chips

Mix ingredients well and then add chocolate chips. Pour into greased muffin tin (or use muffin liners). Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Don’t overbake or they will be dry!

**My tip: if you don’t have pumpkin pie spice, use the following combination: 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ginger, 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg and 1/8 teaspoon cloves. Mix together and woila! – you have the equivalent of 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (and it is much cheaper than buying it premade). So for this recipe, you would need to triple the above amounts to equal one tablespoon pumpkin pie spice.

My own tip with this recipe, be sure not to overbake these. They get dry really quickly and they cook much faster in my oven than the recipe suggests. I think you only want to cook them 17 or 18 minutes. My kids go through these so quickly, that the last batch I doubled and there were no problems with doubling. I always buy the big cans of pumpkin because they are cheaper and I still only used half a can, so I may try quadroupling the recipe next time to use up the entire can of pumpkin and then just freeze them.

Finished Product: Pottery Barn Style Headboard

2010-10-17T19:33:00.000-07:00

I finally finished staining and distressing my headboard. I am absolutely thrilled with the final product. The only problem is that now it makes the entire rest of my bedroom seem completely shabby. I have plans in my head for making a quilt and painting some of my other furniture, but thinking about it all at once has me a bit overwhelmed. Thanks so much to Ana White and her Knock-Off Wood website. This project was so much fun. I am starting to believe that all women need to learn to use a nail gun because it leads to a serious self-esteem high! I can't wait to settle on another furniture building project! Although perhaps I ought to take some time out to fold the massive pile of clean laundry on the chair in my room first.

Make Your Own Pottery Barn Style Head Board

2010-10-12T20:57:00.000-07:00

Here is my latest project from Ana White's Knock-off Wood website. I am in the process of sanding and staining it, but making it has been so much fun! I was really nervous to undertake this project because it involved using a nail gun, but my awesome friend Natalie said she would make one too so we could do it together. A big thanks to my great brother-in-law, Bryant, who was willing to trust me with his nail gun, I'm not sure I would have trusted me with it. The nail gun turned out to be the greatest part about this project. It was so fun to use, once I got past being afraid of it. If you don't believe Ana's projects are possible, you should. Natalie and I went to Home Depot on Saturday with our cut list and left it with them to cut. Then Monday morning after we dropped the kids off at school. Between the two of us we have 4 kids under 3 that were all with us. We started about 9:30 a.m. and were done by 1:30 building two queen size headboards and that included a trip to Home Depot because they cut one of our pieces and inch too short and move from the back deck to the garage due to rain. The wood cost us $60 each and the name brand version costs $800.

Halloween Children's Books

2010-10-10T20:21:00.000-07:00

My daughter and I put out our Halloween decorations this weekend. I have to admit, Halloween is not my favorite holiday. It may stem from the fact that I spent some years teaching first grade. Ask most any elementary school teacher and they will probably tell you they hate Halloween. Anyway, I have really been trying to focus on traditions lately with my family. I have been amazed how excited my young kids get by any type of tradition. My 3 year old daughter was on cloud nine about putting up decorations. The ones you see pictured are pretty much all I have, but I did buy a package of glittered cardboard Halloween cutouts and some vinyl window clings and you would think I had spent millions on decorations rather than pennies from the reaction they got. Tonight I decided that I needed to do what I had seen some others throughout blogland do. I needed to look through my book collection and find any Halloween ones I have and put them in a basket to read with the kids for the rest of the month. I knew I had a few, but I didn't think there were that many, boy was I wrong. Here is a list of what I found:

*Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich by Adam Rex

Haunted Castle on Hallows Eve (Magic Treehouse #30) by Mary Pope Osborne

*Mercy Watson: Princess in Disguise by Kate DiCamillo

The Witch Goes to School by Norman Bridwell

The Halloween Parade by Rosemary Wells

Ready, Freddy! Apple Orchard Race by Abby Klein

Alice Nizzy Nazzy: The Witch of Santa Fe by Tony Johnston

Four Stories for Four Seasons by Tomie dePaola

Fancy Nancy Halloween or Bust! by Jane O'Connor

Owl Moon by Jane Yolen

*Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

All About Owls by Jim Arnosky

*Bear Feels Scared by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman

The Spookiest Halloween Ever! by Teddy Slater

*Piggie Pie by Margie Palatini

*Sheep Trick or Treat by Nancy Shaw

*The Little Scarecrow Boy by Margaret Wise Brown

I Like Pumpkins by Jerry Smith

Five Little Pumpkins by Dan Yaccarino

The Runaway Pumpkin by Kevin Lewis

The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin by Joe Troiano

It's Halloween by Jack Prelutsky

*Frank was a Monster who Wanted to Dance by Keith Graves

The Littlest Pumpkin by R.A. Herman

Skeleton Hiccups by Margery Cuyler

2x2=Boo! A Set of Spooky Multiplication Stories by Loreen Leedy

Bats by Gail Gibbons

Jeepers Creepers: A Monstrous ABC by Laura Leuck

*Zoom Broom by Margie Palatini

*The Berenstain Bears and the Prize Pumpkin by Stan and Jan Berenstain

*Arthur's Halloween by Marc Brown

Our favorites have an asterisk next to them. I guess I like Halloween a little more than I thought. One thing I did decide as I was looking through my books, there are a lot of books that you can use as Halloween books that are not necessarily Halloween themed. For example, Where the Wild Things Are or Owl Moon or any non-fiction animal books that might qualify as creepy, like bats, frogs or lizards. I think my kids will be excited tomorrow to see all the Halloween books in one place.

Thanksgiving Craft

2010-10-08T20:40:00.000-07:00

I have been working on finishing up some unfinished projects. I thought I better hurry and get this one done before we hit Thanksgiving. I started it last year, but only got about halfway. I found the directions at this blog. I love hand-sewing. I think it is so relaxing. I am always on the lookout for a fun hand-sewing project and this one fit the bill. I also love working with wool felt. I love that Joann's has started carrying some wool blend felt. It feels so nice and soft, nothing like the acrylic stuff.

Children's Book Review

2010-09-27T21:28:00.001-07:00

Too Many Toys by David Shannon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book has been my daughter's bedtime story the past two nights in a row. I love all of David Shannon's books and this one is no exception. The illustrations are amazing! The Legos are a particular favorite in our house. The story is one that will delight both kids and adults alike! Every parent can sympathize with the mother who is trying to get rid of some toys, while every child knows what it feels like to have your parent insisting that you "clean-out" your toys. The battle between parent and child over exactly what to get rid of is hilarious and the twist at the end of the book is classic. If you happen to have a toy collector at your house, "Too Many Toys" is a must read.

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Creative Influence

2010-09-23T20:35:00.000-07:00

Paige goes to pre-school in at an in-home pre-school. As I was waiting to pick her up, I noticed a Grandpa and granddaughter dragging in the garbage cans together and then walking to the mailbox to collect the mail. The toddler-age granddaughter was skipping along with her grandpa in a way that made it obvious she was thoroughly enjoying herself. It instantly reminded me of time spent with my grandparents as a child. I thought of the way that even the most mundane of tasks completed with my grandparents was suddenly special.

As I reflected on time spent with my grandparents I thought of my sweet little grandma who passed away recently. She never had much self confidence and she was afraid of a lot of things so I don't think she would ever believe she taught me much, particularly about creativity, but I think she is a large part of my creative inspiration. She spent hours and hours embroidering beatiful pillowcases. She had 6 children and 22 grandchildren and created beautiful pillowcases for all of us and some to spare. Her work is delicate and precise.

Some of my first crafting attempts were at embroidery. Embroidery is still one of my favorite craft mediums and I find when I really crave calm, I am instinctively drawn to embroidery. My Grandma did not teach me to embroider. She was left-handed and grew up believing she was "dumb" so whenever I would ask her to teach me, she would tell me she couldn't. She regularly told us that she was not at all creative. I remember sitting at the foot of her lazyboy chair and watching her needle pop in and out of the fabric. She would take old magazines and use the pages to keep her strings of embroidery floss from tangling. I remember my sisters and I being enamoured by her gold and silver stork embroidery scissors. I have always secretly wished I had my own pair.

When I grew up and moved far from home and my Grandma and I began crafting, one of the first things I found myself trying was primitive stitchery. I was immediately drawn to it. I had a few demonstrations from salespeople at a stitchery store and I purchased and embroidery stitch guide. I knew a few stitches from my days in Young Women's, so I set to work. Now approximately 10 years later, I find that I am fairly skilled at embroidery. As I think back on my experiences I am confident that much of my skill development comes from the inspiration my grandmother provided. I watched her create perfect little stitches over and over again. I recognized, even at a young age the beauty she was able to create and I wanted to create something similar. By the time I started embroidering, my grandmother was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and could no longer remember how to embroider but there were times when she could remember that she once did it. I tried to talk to her about it a few times. I told her that I really enjoyed embroidery. It always brought a little smile to her face. Now she is gone and I have several beautiful pieces she created that I treasure, but what I treasure most is the inspiration she provided me with.

2010-09-21T19:43:00.001-07:00

Albert's Impossible Toothache by Barbara Williams

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have a copy of this book that we would read when I was little. My copy is actually called "Albert's Toothache". My daughter and I read it together tonight and she liked it so much she insisted we read it a second time. I had forgotten about it. The pictures are charming and the story is one every child can relate to. Everyone in Albert's family is sure he is lying about his "toothache" and he just keeps saying that no one every believes him. In the end, it is all one big communication mix-up. It is the perfect chance to subtly talk to your child about the importance of communication between parents and children and the importance of honesty. This is a classic well worth your time to read.

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Quick and Easy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Waffles

2010-09-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

I am so grateful to my cousin for introducing me to these! This is a mix you can buy at Target. If I remember right the box was maybe $2.99? My kids and I are huge fans of pumpkin chocolate chip anything, bread, muffins, cookies, you name it. My husband isn't quite as big of a fan. Anyway, when my cousin posted about pumpkin chocolate chip waffles on her blog, I knew I needed the recipe. I had no idea it would be something so great and so easy! She told me she bought this mix at Target and added mini-chocolate chips. They are perfect! You need to add them to your fall traditions. A couple of tips. Make waffles. We tried the pancakes and they weren't nearly as good. I think the pumpkin makes them hard to fully cook the middles without burning the outside. Also, be sure to use mini chocolate chips. The big ones melt all ove the place and are a mess and cause burning problems too. These are one of the few times when more chocolate isn't better, stick to the 1/2 cup suggestion on the box. I would also suggest using about half the butter the recipe calls for and extra milk. These smell fantistically fall-ish and taste even better. You definitely need to take a trip to Target immediately. Thanks Suzie!

A Ton of Flower Tutorials

2010-09-18T21:11:00.000-07:00

I just found this link and am thinking I need to make some hair accessories for my girls. Anyone want to join me?

One last post about the lockers

2010-09-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

I promise this is my last post about these, but I wanted to show them off accessorized. Knock-off Wood is really the most amazing website ever. The baskets on the shelf are from IKEA and the ones on top are some I already had, but got awhile ago at Hobby Lobby. I am so excited to use them for library books. The ones above the lockers are going to be for hats and mittens and stuff for winter and maybe for goggles and swimming stuff for summer.

Knock-off Wood Finished Product: Kids Lockers

2010-09-10T16:24:00.000-07:00

I am so proud of this project I think I might burst! I have always wanted to do this kind of stuff and I am so excited that I finally decided to try it! I made a few mistakes. I should have done major sanding. I should have listened to my husband and gotten the hooks like they use on school coatracks, rather than the ones that I thought looked cuter, but I feel like those are all pretty minor mistakes for a complete novice. I love the beadboard and I am so happy with my Ralph Lauren Faux Finish glaze that I used once again. I don't know why it doesn't show up better in the picture, but it really adds the perfect subtle finishing touch, plus it hides all kinds of mistakes.

Knock-off Wood Project

2010-09-09T13:25:00.000-07:00

This is what my garage looks like at the moment. Don't look too close at the corners. It desperately needs to be cleaned, but I wanted to show the project I have been working on for the last several weeks. I love the webside Knock-off Wood and found this project on it a few weeks ago. I have been dying to try my hand at making some furniture, but have been scared to give it a try. I have been going through project plans over and over again trying to decide if there was something I dared attempt. I saw this one and decided to go for it. I felt dumb as could be pushing my cart of giant pieces of wood around Home Depot and then having to ask the guy at the cut table to make my list of cuts. I had no idea if I was getting the right stuff, but I was completely surprised by how nice everyone at Home Depot was to me. In the past, when I have asked for help there, I have often felt like I was treated like dirt, but this time, when I really felt like I had no idea what I was doing, everyone was completely helpful and nice. I think it helped that I made sure to go at about 4:00 in the afternoon on a Saturday because my husband promised it wouldn't be crowded then and he was right. It has turned out to be easier than I thought it would be and my husband, dad, and father-in-law have been super helpful. At the moment I am having a terrible time waiting for coats of this:

to dry so I can show a finished piece!

Displaying Kids' Artwork

2010-09-07T12:33:00.000-07:00

I have had several projects in various states of being done the last little while. I finally finished this one the other day. It was actually quick and easy once I had all the components, it just took me awhile to gather the parts. I saw something similar to this on some blog sometime, I really have no idea when or where. I have been saving some old cabinet doors for just such a project. Anyway, all it took was one coat of red spray paint and some leftover Ralph Lauren Faux Technique Glaze that is tinted with brown paint. I used eye hooks to string the closeline across the bottom and got my sister-in-law to make me some vinyl lettering that said "masterpieces". I'm really happy with how it turned out. I wish you could see how awesome the glaze looks from the picture.

Free Printable Vintage Paperdolls

2010-09-05T22:39:00.000-07:00

I just found this link via a website called The Modern Hive. I think they are about the cutest paper dolls ever. I need to refill my colored ink for my printer immediately! Paige would love them and I know there has got to be something fun I can do with them.

Free Books!

2010-08-28T22:05:00.000-07:00

Please excuse the picture. No matter how many times I try to rotate this picture in different programs, everytime I upload it, it flips back. Does anyone know how to rotate a picture once it is in your post in blogger? LAME! It would help if I had an ounce of innate computer sense!

Anyway, I wanted to show this because this is how many free books we got today. The certificates are $5 gift certificates to Deseret Book. We went to the KSL sponsored Book Festival at the University of Utah this morning. I went because they were supposed to have some local authors there and because my kids had done the KSL reading program this summer. I was a little leary, I thought it would probably turn out to be a waste of time, but I really try to focus on reading with my family and I am willing to do just about anything that might encourage me kids to read, so we tried it. Boy did we luck out. I had hoped they might be giving each child one free book, but this was unbelievable. When we got home my daughter said, "that was so fun mom, thanks for taking us." I'm not sure where that amazing politeness came, but I am all about free, especially when it scores points with my kids. The really amazing thing was that it was hardly crowded at all. I think they are supposed to be making this an annual thing. If they do, we will definitely be going again.

2010-08-25T19:50:00.001-07:00

Winnie Finn, Worm Farmer by Carol Brendler

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My 3 year old daughter has recently fallen in love with worms. We have had several rainstorms lately and she is fascinated by the worms that appear once the rain stops. When I saw the book "Winnie Finn, Worm Farmer" on the new arrivals shelf at the library, I took it home. It proved to be a good choice. The illustrations are wonderful. The fictional story contains multiple true life facts about worms and it is the story of a girl who uses her brains and know-how to accomplish something that all the adults she runs into say isn't possible. This is a perfect story for kids!

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Another New Back to School Tradition

2010-08-23T20:19:00.000-07:00

I found this idea on a blog I was reading the other day and thought it sounded perfect for our Family Home Evening tonight, which also happened to be the first day of school. Here is the link for the origninal post. During the day I made these cookies:

They are regular old sugar cookies cut out in hand shapes. I found the cookie cutter at Spoons and Spice today, and it cost less than $1. Then you put a Hershey's Kiss in the middle of the palm while the cookie is hot. We read the book "The Kissing Hand" by Audrey Penn and talked about how no matter what happens at school our kids need to remember that we, their mom and dad, love them and we also talked about how their Heavenly Father loves them too. Then we got to eat the cookies. I was surprised at how much my kids liked the sugar cookies plain with the addition of the Hershey's Kiss. They were all about making these cookies a yearly tradition.

A New Tradition: Back to School Shopping

2010-08-21T21:32:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been trying to find ways to spend time with my kids individually. I remember as a kid, loving any time I had alone with one of my parents. Now that I am a parent, I realize how difficult that time is to carve out with each child. A friend of mine mentioned that one thing she does is try to take each child out all by his or herself and do some school shopping and have lunch. I thought that sounded like a great tradition. I decided I would try it. I don't buy a lot of school clothes before school starts because it is still usually so hot that my kids are still wearing summer stuff, but I do try to make sure that they get to pick out one thing to wear new for the first day of school and we always buy one new pair of shoes. I took my son first since his school starts first. We went last Saturday, so my husband could stay home with the girls. We decided to go to breakfast and drive to the outlets in Park City. We had a great time. My son hates to shop, but was excited to pick out his things. He is very to the point when it comes to choosing things. He does not waste time and I actually had to convince him to look at a couple of stores before he made his final decision. We had a great time and were able to spend some time on the drive talking, which is much more difficult to do with the younger girls around.

My 3 year old, Paige immediately started begging for her turn. So Tuesday afternoon I got a babysitter and headed out with Paige. I had taken a survey this spring that earned me a $20 gift certificate to the Grand America, so I took her downtown for one of their "teaparties". She was thrilled. We had a great time and kept taking about how we were just like "Fancy Nancy". I was a bit of a nervous wreck as we sat drinking our fancy hot chocolate in china cups and saucers, but amazingly, she didn't spill a drop and nothing got broken. She didn't love the finger sandwiches, but the tiny french pastries and strawberries with real whipped cream, were a huge hit. The best part was, including the cost for a tip and parking, I paid less than $10. After, we went to the mall to do our shopping. Paige takes her shopping seriously, she knows what she likes and it tends to be the loudest, and fanciest thing she can find. Already, I find we butt heads frequently when it comes to fashion. We had quite the stand-off from the outset because she was insistent that she needed the new swimming cover-up that she found. Let me just say, trying to explain seasons to a 3 year old is not easy. After multiple attempts and several hours of searching to find shoes that we both agreed on that they had in the right size, we gave up and headed to Target for the inevitable glitter sparkle shoes that I knew would satisfy Paige, but I could count on only setting me back $12.99. Now when you come to my house and it is covered in silver glitter you will know why and realize that the compromise was hard won!

Overall, I am excited to start our new school shopping tradition. I had a great time with both kids and am excited to continue next year (although next year I will make sure that Paige's shopping comes after a long nap, not during her normal nap time).

2010-08-19T13:39:00.001-07:00

Poppleton by Cynthia Rylant

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The series of "Poppleton" books has made my daughter's summer. My three year old loves the idea of "chapter books", but is not quite ready to move onto listening to books without pictures. The humor that Cynthia Rylant uses is perfect for a 3 or 4 year old, but not so obnoxious that an adult can't get through the book. There are a bunch of Poppleton books, so we could check out a stack from the library, but they are short enough that you can read several before bedtime. I have been reading them out loud to my daughter, because she can't read yet, but they are also the perfect book for a beginning reader too.

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2010-08-17T07:58:00.000-07:00

Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was fascinating! I always know when a book is well-written because I speed through it in a few days. That was exactly the case with this one. I couldn't put it down. The story is of a girl who loves to learn, but learning is not permitted for women in the middle ages. Joan finally gets around the problem by disguising herself as a man. Amazingly, she becomes incredibly successful, unfortunately, that means that if anyone ever discovers her secret she will be killed. The genre is historical fiction and I particularly loved the fact that the auther added and afterward discussing what parts of the story are historical and what parts are fiction.

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Forgiveness: My Burden Was Made Light

2010-08-13T20:49:00.000-07:00

Forgiveness: My Burden Was Made Light

AMAZING! This story has amazed me from the first time I saw it in the local news. What an incredible family!

2010-08-13T19:40:00.000-07:00

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book started out pretty slow, but in the end I really liked it. If you like Pride and Prejudice, you will probably like this one. It is a little long and wordy, but a great read.

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Cinnamon Biscuits

2010-08-09T14:27:00.000-07:00

Our church block ends at 12:30 each Sunday. By the time we get home and get the meal fixed it is usually about 1:30, so by the time dinner time rolls around we're not super hungry, but we need something. I found a new recipe this week as I was searching some new recipe blogs that I wanted to try for cinnamon rasin biscuits (you can find the original blog here). These were the perfect Sunday night snack. I have always like biscuits, but became particularly partial to good biscuits after living in the South. I have never really tried making them from scratch, but this recipe suggests using your food processor and boy did that make it quick and easy. These were so yummy and the perfect thing if you need a cinnamon roll fix but don't want to go to all that time and effort. Here's the recipe, followed by the few changes I made.

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

3/4 cup unsalted butter

1 cup raisins

1 cup milk

melted butter

1 cup sifted powdered sugar

1 - 2 tablespoons 1/2 & 1/2

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine first 6 ingredients in a food processor. Pulse several times to mix. Add cold butter cut into 6 equal parts. Add to dry ingredients in food processor. Pulse several times until mixture is crumbly. Transfer to large bowl. Add milk and raisins and stir until moistened. Knead dough on lightly floured surface 4 or 5 times. Pat dough to 1 inch thickness. Cut with biscuit cutter. Placed on greased cookie sheet. Brush biscuits with melted butter. Bake for 14 - 16 minutes until lightly browned. Drizzle with glaze made of powdered sugar and 1/2 & 1/2.

Yield 15 - 2" biscuits

I didn't add the rasins because I was out of them and I have a son who hates rasins. I didn't have half and half, so I just used milk which worked out fine and I added a teaspoon of vanilla to my glaze. These turned out awesome. Next time I might try adding some mini-chocolate chips because my kids would love them even more. They are amazing warm, out of the oven, but the leftovers were still good this morning.

Irony

2010-07-28T20:34:00.000-07:00

This week I finally broke down and bought a new point and shoot camera. You can see that I was finally able to take some pictures of the projects I have been working on lately. I found a great little camera that I got for $69.99, it is a Kodak Easy Share M341. It is teeny, tiny and will be great to take all those places that I don't want to have to worry about my big camera. The irony is that I finally got it and got it working so I could take pictures today. Immediately I got a call saying my lens was finally fixed and I could pick it up. Now that I have missed nearly the entire summer of picture taking, I have two working cameras. LOVELY!

In other news, these are pictures of two projects I have had a lot of fun with lately. The first is a garland I made to use on my decorative shelf for the patriotic holidays. It was super easy and turned out darling. It took a little time, but was the perfect brainless activity to work on in front of the T.V. I found the tutorial at The Crafty Crow and they got it from Saltwater Kids. I made my flags a little bit bigger, I used an index card as a guide and I also used my sewing machine to stitch the flags to the twine. Other than that, I pretty much followed the tutorial.

The second picture is a cedar chest I bought on KSL.com. A few weeks ago I decided that I needed something to keep my shoes in because my closet is so small. I thought a cedar chest would be perfect. I have always wanted one, so I headed to KSL.com . I quickly found the cheapest one I could find that was realtively close to my house. The outside was a little beat up, but that didn't matter because I planned on painting it anyway. I followed the tips found at http://www.allthingsthrifty.com/

I spray painted it with Kiltz spraypaint primer, then spraypainted it with Krylon aqua and used the tips for glazing and it turned out great! It was so much easier than I expected and I am thrilled with the results! I definitely see more furniture painting and glazing in my future. It was fun and completely rewarding!

Vacation?

2010-07-26T20:39:00.000-07:00

We took a little weekend trip to Park City this last week. The trip itself was great, unfortunately it did not end well. We planned to come home Saturday night. My 3 year old, Paige, was swimming at the hotel pool with my husband Saturday morning, while I was shopping at the nearby outlet mall. Mid-shopping trip I got a call from my husband saying Paige needed stitches. She had been jumping off the side of the pool and turned and hit her chin on the side of the pool. It was a nasty gash and really deep. I ended up taking her down to Primary Children's Hospital where she ended up with 3 interior stitches because it was so deep and 10 outside stitches. She was a trooper though and for her the worst part is that she can't go to swimming lessons or the pool for 2 weeks. Once we got home and started to unpack, we thought we had seen the worst of what the day had to offer. Boy were we wrong. That evening, my 8 year old started throwing up and didn't stop all night. Before I went to bed, I checked on my 1 year old. She had thrown up all over her crib and had to be woken up and bathed and her sheets changed. Then I finally fell asleep only to wake up and throw up myself! Why oh why must vacations always involve blood and throw-up! I think I'm staying home for awhile!

Broken Camera Lens

2010-07-20T21:03:00.000-07:00

I think I just may lose my mind if I can't get my camera lens back shortly. On the 3rd of July I realized my camera lens was broken. I have Nikon D40, nothing super fancy, but I love it and use it nearly daily. Unfortunately, I have never gotten any other lenses besides the 18-55mm kit lens that came with it. I about died when I found out it was broken. It took all kinds of research to decide if I should fix it or buy something new or what. I found out that the 18-55mm lens was a great versatile lens and only $100, so after debating for a week or two, my husband said, just go into Inkleys and buy a new one. Inkley's had told me that it wasn't worth fixing because a new one was only $100 when I went in to talk to them. When I went in a few days later, after searching online and realizing I couldn't find that lens anywhere online for anything close to $100, I was told, "You can't just buy that lens, it only comes in the kit with the camera, which is not even available any more". Are you kidding me! Anyway, the search started over. I have checked into every option, including buying an entire new camera and I have finally taken it to a place here locally that fixes lenses for a fairly reasonable price, but their wait time is at least 2 weeks and now they are waiting for a part to come from Nikon. I have essentially lost the entire month of July for pictures. I am realizing that I really need at least a little back-up point and shoot. I have several craft projects that I am dying to post about here and I can't because I can't take any pictures, not to mention the fact that I can't take any pictures of my kids and during this time my baby has started walking. When I talked to the camera shop today, they said the part only has to come from California, but Nikon randomly will have parts on backorder and it might take 3 or 4 weeks. I really don't know what I am going to do if it doesn't come soon!

Mary Elngelbreit's Nursery Tales

2010-07-13T14:03:00.000-07:00

Mary Engelbreit's Nursery Tales: A Treasury of Children's Classics by Mary Engelbreit

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I blogged about wanting this book back at Christmas time. I got it and I have absolutely loved it. Fairy tales have always been a favorite of mine and I love Mary Englebreit's artwork, so I was sure this would be a hit and it didn't disappoint. The thing that I really love about this collection of fairy tales is that the stories are fairly simple and there are lots of pictures. Three and Four year olds seem to always love fairy tales, but so many of the fairy tale collections have few pictures and lots of words. My three year old and I read this collection regularly!

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Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore

2010-07-09T08:37:00.001-07:00

Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen: A Novel by Susan Gregg Gilmore

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen is a great read. It is funny, sweet, and quirky, complete with several unexpected twists and turns. It is the story of a young girl growing up in a small town with dreams of experiencing more in life than her little town has to offer.

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Fourth of July Sugar Cookies

2010-07-04T23:30:00.000-07:00

Sorry that the photo is not great. I am having some issues with a broken camera lens. Sugar cookies have long been the bane of my cooking existence. I NEVER make them! Unfortunately, with young kids, they are a necessary evil. Cookie decorating is the joy of nearly every holiday. I have tried and tried to get them right and they just never work out. They are always falling apart as I try to cut them out and move them to the cookie tray. I never have the patience to chill the dough. They seem to require such a time commitment and they have always seemed so tempermental to me. So at my house, when we decorate cookies, I order them already baked from my local grocery store bakery, a solution that works out fine with me for the most part. However, there is this annoying part of me that is always bugged by the fact that I can't get something that is supposed to be such a cooking basic right. Anyway, since the 4th of July is not typically one of those "cookie decorating holidays", so the pressure for perfect cookies would be minimal, and because I have several awesome star cookie cutters. I decided that I was actually going to attempt some sugar cookie making. I figured that if I volunteered to bring them the the barbeque at my parents house for the fireworks, if they bombed, I could just make something else and take it for desert. I did in fact make some carmel popcorn to take along with these cookies because I was so unsure of my cookie making skills. I think I may finally have figured a few things out. I knew I had to actually chill the dough, which must be the true secret. I have also discovered that I tend to roll the dough too thin and to cook the cookies too long. Next time I will be a little more careful on both those points, however, note that I am suggesting there will be a next time. I started with the most basic. I got my recipe for the cookies from the Martha Stewart website. It was called "Ideal Sugar Cookies". The recipe was great, I did use milk instead of the brandy it gave as an option, but other than that, I followed the recipe exactly. Next time I would double the recipe, because it wasn't a ton of dough and if I am going to go to all the work of making sugar cookies, I am going to make plenty. Here's a link to the recipe. After the cookies had cooled completed I used a sugar cookie glaze recipe from allrecipes.com that was awesome. Here is the link and below is what I actually did (I read some of the reviews and made a couple of changes).

Sugar Cookie Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tblsp light corn syrup

2 tblsp milk

1tsp vanilla

Mix all ingredients together. Then dip cookies in glaze. (can add food coloring for varied colors)

After dipping my cookies in the white glaze, I dipped them in red, white and blue sprinkles. They were a hit and maybe now my kids will grow up thinking that sugar cookies don't have to come in a plastic container!

The Corinthian, by Georgette Heyer

2010-07-04T22:34:00.000-07:00

The Corinthian by Georgette Heyer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved this book. It was funny and face-paced. It was a romance, but not in the least bit "cheesy". Predictable, like all of Heyer's, but an all around fun read. Heyer is a favorite of mine because she delivers romances without smut. Perfect summer read!

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Motherhood

2010-07-04T15:55:00.001-07:00

2010-06-18T15:06:00.000-07:00

h, wow! Is this the cutest alphabet you have ever seen! I found it via this blog. Which is absolutely awesome by itself. I am a pretty big fan of owls. Anyway, this is a free graphic from this blog. Pretty cool isn't it!

Scrapbooking

2010-06-16T16:21:00.000-07:00

I have been using a scrapbooking system that I really like and that I feel like I can keep up with fairly easily and tells the story of our family. I posted about it here. Unfortunately, it is just one book, so there is no way my kids can have something of their own to take with them. I recently came across this post.

I loved this idea and decided to try it out myself. The author of the blog I came across calls it a combination of a journal and a scrapbook. I found some cheap sketchbooks at Wal-Mart and used some metal embellishments I already had, along with some rub-ons in my stash. I glued the embellishments on with E6000 glue (amazing stuff) and that was it. I also got a couple of my new favorite pens. They are fine point sharpies, that don't bleed through the page. Love them! Anyway, I have been trying to write something about each child at least once a week and if there is some little thing that I want to keep for them, I just stick on the page with some scrapbook adhesive. For example, Blake's teacher sent him a cute Thank-you note after school got out, I wanted to save it, so I just stuck in his journal/scrapbook. It is a system that finally seems to be working for me.

Baptism Pictures

2010-06-15T10:14:00.000-07:00

This is more of the work of my amazing sister-in-law. My oldest was baptized a few weeks ago and got his first suit. He is not into having his picture taken and gets a real attitude about the whole thing. I didn't want his memories of his baptism to be awful because I MADE him have his picture taken, but I wanted some nice pictures so that both he and I could remember him at that point. My sister-in-law was the perfect solution. The baptism was at 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday. Immediately after it was over, she and my brother drove him to the park between our house and the church. He was all dressed up in his new suit and feeling great. They drive a jeep, so all the kids love to go anywhere in their car. They spent maybe 20 minutes at the park so Amy could snap some pictures and then met us back at our house for a family lunch, where Blake immediately took off his suit and was completely absorbed in playing with his cousins. I am amazed at what Amy was able to capture in a few short minutes. I am thrilled that I will always have these pictures of him immediately after he was baptized. Thanks Amy! I'm so glad you decided to take up photography! Like I said before, you need to visit her website. She's amazing!

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

2010-06-11T21:48:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading the book, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. The book was amazing. I could not put it down. I had heard great reviews, several from people who I really trust when it comes to books. My sister-in-law loaned me her copy awhile ago and I have kind of been saving it because I knew it was going to be good and there is nothing I hate more than finishing a really great book because then I always feel like, what I am going to read now? That is exactly the feeling I am left with. In all honesty, it has been awhile since I had a book where I felt like that. I wanted this one to go on forever. We spent some time living in the South, so this book automatically grabbed my interest. It is about Southern Women in the 1960's and race relations. The relationships are complicated. There are no clear answers. The story makes you think. It is reality. The problems are not easy to solve and change is painfully slow. I am thrilled that the author chose to keep the book clean. There is some swearing that I could have done without, but the author was able to tell her story without have to fill the book with trash. I admire that so much! I think it requires a much more talented author to write clean literature. It means the author is not relying on sensationalism to sell his/her books. Anyway, if you haven't picked up this book, do. RIGHT. NOW.

Strawberry Freezer Jam

2010-06-07T21:08:00.000-07:00

I love freezer jam and I have made it multiple times over the past 10 years, but I don't think I have ever gotten it to set up quite right. It still tastes just as good, but it turns out more like syrup than jam. Finally, this weekend I got it to work right. I have been quizzing my mom because she makes it a lot and it always seems to work. First off, she told me that you can't use the low sugar pectin if you want the freezer jam to set up. Problem number one, I had been buying the low sugar version. Problem number 2, she says you always have to boil the pectin. I don't think I have ever had a pectin that said to boil the pectin for freezer jam. Due to my mom's warnings, I was very selective when I went to purchase my pectin. I think I have figured out the key. This time I bought pectin that didn't say it was for freezer jam. Here is the one I got:

Once I opened the package there were directions inside for freezer jam and those directions included boiling the pectin before it gets mixed with the fruit. Amazingly, my strawberry jam turned out perfectly! It made the best peanut butter sandwich ever today. I am so excited! I can't wait for peach season so I can try some peach freezer jam too!

First Birthday Pictures

2010-06-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

My baby turned one this last week. I can't believe how quickly this year has flown by! The 9 months of her pregnancy seemed like it would never end and now it feels like I have hardly blinked and she is one year old. My amazing sister-in-law has recently started her own photography business and she is amazing! She does the most fun birthday photo shoots. She came to my house on Brynne's birthday and took the most wonderful pictures ever of her smashing a birthday cake. They are the best keepsake ever. I struggle a bit with first birthday parties because the kids don't remember it, yet I feel like its something you should make a big deal about. Her birthday has been particularly crazy because it has coincided with Blake's birthday and his baptism. I have felt all kinds of mother guilt because I had to make the baptism the focus this weekend because that is so important and had to kind of let Brynne's birthday go for a few weeks. Anyway, Amy helped with my guilt by coming over on Brynne's actual birthday and doing the cake photos. Now I have a memory in pictures to show Brynne forever and I can do her first birthday party in a week or two when I have recovered from the baptism celebrations! You need to check out Amy's photography blog. Here's the link. Her prices are way reasonable because she is just starting out and she is amazingly talented! The cake smashing pictures are a definite must!

Baked Egg Rolls

2010-06-06T20:18:00.000-07:00

We recently joined a food coop where we never know what fruits and vegetables we are going to end up with. One of the items this week was bok choy. I had never even seen it, let alone cooked with it, but my friend told me that it works great in egg rolls. I did a few searches at allrecipes and some other online sites and found out that you can bake egg rolls. Wow! I am so excited that I know this now. I love egg rolls and never would have attempted them if I had to fry them. I am scared to death of using hot oil, not to mention the fat and calories. Anyway, baking them and spraying them with Pam tastes almost the same. I made vegetable ones, but I think next time I'd add some chicken or something for a little more flavor. I stir fried all the vegetables in a little canola oil. The bok choy turned out great. I also used carrots, mushrooms and green onions. I didn't have any terriyaki sauce, which I think would have made it even better, so I add a little fat free Italian salad dressing, some soy sauce and a little mustard, along with a few shakes of garlic salt. After your vegetables are soft, you just spoon a tablespoon or two of the filling into your already prepared egg roll dough(you buy these at the grocery store, usually in the produce department) and there are directions on the package for how you fold them and roll them. Spray a cookie sheet with Pam and then after you place the egg rolls on the pan spray the tops of the egg rolls lightly with the Pam too. Bake in the oven at 425 degrees for 14-16 minutes. Make sure you flip them over about halfway through. I think they taste better fairly well done. The ones I let brown a little more were excellent. Honestly, the only hard part about the whole thing was getting the wonton shells apart (that's what the egg roll wrappers actually are). If anyone has any great tips for making that job easier, let me know! I am excited to try these again, I think there are lots of possibilities. I love those Mexican egg rolls at Chili's, I think I might have to try some of those next.

Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner

2010-05-30T19:41:00.000-07:00

I realized today that it had been a long time since I posted about a favorite book. Lately the kids and I have been laughing our heads off about this one. I've had this book for a long time, maybe from clear back to when I was teaching and getting book order books, I'm not quite sure. I have heard great things about it off and on, but I remember trying to read it to Blake one time when he was little and thinking it wasn't that great. I really have no idea what was wrong with me! Paige picked it out to read a while ago and it is just hilarious! I don't know if the problem was that I just didn't get into it and try and do the voices and stuff with Blake or what. I can't for the life of me figure out why I wouldn't have just loved this book. It is a story about a siamese cat who thinks he is a chihuahua and does all kinds of crazy stuff. One caveat, if you are going to read this book you need to be prepared to really get into it. You need to be willing to read it doing the funny voices and everything or you will lose out in a big way. I am sure that must have been my problem previously. The more kids I have the less self conscious I become ( I have yet to decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing). I know there are several more books about Skippyjon that I haven't got. I'm thinking that will be something to check out at the library this summer.

Flower Bracelet Tutorial

2010-05-23T17:17:00.000-07:00

This was the easiest bracelet ever to make, but a little tricky to try and photograph on myself. Sorry about the weird angle. I made a bunch of these flowers awhile ago to use for a couple of different projects and I planned on getting some alligator clips and gluing them on for hairbows for my girls. I keep forgetting to buy the clips and in the meantime came up with this. I went to put some tights on Paige that were actually too small, but we needed white and that was what was clean, anyway, as we pulled them on, we discovered a huge hole and had to find something else. I was thinking about trying to use the ruined tights to make some head bands, so I just cut across one of the legs and made a strip about 1/2 inch wide, to see if the size was right. Evidently, when making baby or child headbands, you need to use adult size tights, this band didn't even come close to fitting Brynne's head (not that it matters because she hates anything on her head), but I noticed the itty-bitty headband was the perfect size for my wrist. I grabbed one of the flowers I had made for hair bows and wip stitched it to the mini-headband and ta-da, perfect bracelet that for once cannot be ruined by small children. Unfortunately, Paige has decided that she loves it and it has to be wrapped double around her tiny wrist and is now stretched out to the point it no longer fits me. We decided we will be going through all the old t-shirts in the house and looking for fabric to make more colors. The flower is just a strip cut from an old t-shirt, about 2 inches by 18 inches. Then use a sewing machine set to the loosest stitch length and sew down the middle of your strip. Then take the top string from one side and pull. the strip will ruffle and you just fold it in half. take a needle and thread and start rolling it in to itself until it looks like a rosebud then start whipstitching it together. When it looks the way you want, you are done. There are a million different types of flower tutorials online and any one would work for this type of bracelet. I also think it would be cute with 3 different sized flowers all sewn onto the bracelet.

Surprise!

2010-05-23T17:02:00.000-07:00

This is what I found on the kitchen counter the other day when I got out of the shower. When I asked Paige what was going on she explained that she only likes middles. Nice. I guess the sandwiches for Blake's lunch will be middleless! Just so you know, I love homemade whole wheat bread and make it in my Bosch fairly frequently, but my children will choose the nasty no-name loaf of white bread over homemade yumminess. I have no idea what is wrong with them! Brynne is my only hope. So far she really doesn't like the white stuff, but she will eat tons of the homemade kind.

A Home for the Mermaids

2010-05-14T11:07:00.000-07:00

We got mini Barbie mermaids in the happy meals at McDonalds yesterday. Paige was so excited. On the way home I mentioned that I thought I had some fabric we could use to make a sea for the mermaids. I shouldn't have mentioned it because of course to a 3 year old that means it has to be done immediately. After lots of asking, I finally got around to it this morning after Brynne went down for her nap. We used a bunch of leftover felt scraps and the "beach" is some leftover Warm and Natural batting. Trying to come up with stuff that mermaids use is rather difficult. When I first suggested that we make some "beach towels" that could also be pockets to store the mermaids in, I was informed that mermaids don't use beach towels. I finally convinced her that they sometimes need them to dry their hair. You can't really see it, but I sewed a ribbon on the back so that I can roll the whole thing up and tie it for storage and carrying around. By the way, I have about had it with the rain! I am smack in the middle of an outdoor spray painting project and the rain is really causing me problems.

Scholastic Warehouse Book Sale

2010-05-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

My girls and I went to the Scholastic Warehouse book sale this week. It is a dangerous place for me because most of their books are 50% off and they e-mail coupons that take additional amounts off. You never know what you may find, but they tend to have lots of the most current and popular kids books. I tried to focus on getting stuff for my 8 year old son to read over the summer and stuff that I could read aloud to him. I naturally stock up on books the girls will love because they tend to be the same things that I love. It is harder to try and think like an 8 year old boy. I was excited to find a cd of a bunch of the Flat Stanley books. I read a bunch of these to Blake when he was in kindergarten and first grade and his teacher this year did a project about Flat Stanley, so it has become a bit of a favorite here. I am hoping to have Blake listen to the CD's and follow along in his books some over the summer. He is at the point with reading where it would really help him to work on fluency and reading so everything comes together. He always wants to read stuff that is too hard and then he misses the story because he gets stuck on so many words. Scholastic holds their sales all over the country and they happen several times a year. If you haven't already, go to their website and sign up to get their e-mails. You will love all the book deals!

Mother's Day

2010-05-09T19:59:00.000-07:00

I had a fantastic Mother's Day complete with some jewelry from my favorite place, Brighton Jewelry and my daughter singing with the other primary kids for the first time in Sacrament meeting (there is nothing as great as watching your sunbeam sing in primary!). I also got what seemed like a ridiculous present at first. When I opened it, I looked at my husband like he had truly lost his mind, but the more I have thought about it, the more I have realized what a wonderful present it is, in fact it may be one of the best I have gotten. My husband and son went shopping just the two of them yesterday and picked out my jewelry and then they went to Barnes and Noble and my son picked out the book Football for Dummies for me. For those who don't know me very well, sports is not my thing. I don't hate sports, I just tend to see them as a social event. I happen to be married to and have a son that live, eat and breathe sports. There is always some sort of game on TV at our house. I have even caught my husband watching pool and bowling on TV a few times. I have learned to be sure to plan activities based around the BYU football schedule and Duke basketball schedule. Anyway, when I opened the book, my husband informed me that my son specifically wanted me to read it and learn all about the rules of football. In all honesty, I can think of very few things that sound more boring to me and the fact that he was saying it was important to my son meant I was actually going to have to do it. Later in the day, I was telling a family member about this gift and sort of rolling my eyes and she said, " you know in a way, it is really sweet". Well, that got me thinking and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that she was right. I talked to my son and said that what would make the book really great for me would be if we could read it together. He lit right up and said, "How about if I start reading it out loud to you for my 20 minutes of reading for my homework today". Amazingly, he read it better than the book his teacher sent home for his homework even though it is a much harder book and I didn't have to nag him about it for even a minute. Plus, he wanted to bring it over to his grandparents house for in case he had some extra time to read it and he begged to stay up just a few minutes later so he could finish a chapter. I realized that both Blake and my husband had thought about the fact that I love to read and had chosen a gift for me that involved something I love and something they love. On top of their thoughtfulness, I recieved an even better gift. I got to see my son loving a book and loving reading in way that I have been waiting for since he was first born. I love that for Mother's Day I got to see him begin to discover the same love of reading that I have and that I have been working so hard to help him develop! Thanks Kyle and Blake for making my day so special!

Ruby's

2010-05-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

One of my sister-in-law's first introduced me to Ruby's a few years ago. She grew up in Southern California where you can find Ruby's scattered along the piers up the coastline. We began our recent family vacation in the LA area and since my husband and kids had not experienced Ruby's we decided to head to the Huntington Beach Ruby's. It was only about 20 minutes from the hotel we were staying in and it was definitely worth it. It is the perfect place for kids. The only negative was the lack of public bathrooms! Ruby's is a '50's style diner located at the very tip of the pier. To get to it we got to walk out along the pier and see all the fisherman and watch them catching and cleaning their fish (3 and 7 year olds are fascinated by the gore), then we got to go up on the roof and eat our food looking out over the ocean. It was perfect! It was pretty cold that night, so instead of shakes, we got hot chocolate with our burgers and fries, but Ruby's is prepared, we got to sit next to a heater and were still able to watch all the seagulls. If you are headed to Southern California, Ruby's is a definite must stop!

Springtime in Utah

2010-04-29T10:42:00.000-07:00

This is the view from my front door this morning. You have to love springtime in Utah! The weather changes by the minute. It was snowing yesterday morning, but by 5:00 it was dry enough for Blake to have a baseball game. Unfortunately, it was not warm! My girls and I about froze sitting on the grass watching the game. We came directly home and had hot chocolate with our dinner.

As you can see, the weather has not been conducive to riding bikes and doing sidewalk chalk, like Paige has wanted to be doing, so we have been spending some time with one of Blake's favorite toys, that has quickly become a favorite of Paige's. Here's a picture:

It is a Lego set called Lego Mosaics. I got them for Blake a few years ago and luckily I though to laminate the instructions. They are so fun. There is a clear base that you put over the picture and then put legos on to make you creation match the instructions. If you wanted to make it harder you could just look at the picture and count to make sure the pieces ended up in the right place. I believe I eventually bought 2 different sets and I think they were only about $10 each. Back when I got them, they were available at Wal-Mart. However, yesterday after realizing how much Paige liked them and since there are a few pieces missing I thought I might try and pick up another set, but it seems like they may not make them anymore. I am having a lot of trouble finding them. I found this at Amazon, but that price is crazy! I am so sad that they don't seem to be making them anymore because seriously they are the best toy! If anyone manages to find them anywhere else, let me know.

My Latest Craft Project

2010-04-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

My cute sister-in-law got this quote by President Monson for me in vinyl. She has a friend who makes vinyl stuff. I used a blank cavas I bought like 2 years ago, that I had intended to do something with. I thinned out some acrylic paint and dry brushed it on the canvas. Then I used some scrapbook paper, ribbons and embellishments from my stash and some Modge Podge I had and put together this wall hanging. Total cost was free. I love the reminder it is right as we walk out our front door.

Girls with Glasses

2010-04-23T15:21:00.001-07:00

I Am A Girl - The Girls With Glasses Theme Song from The Girls With Glasses on Vimeo.

I am loving this!

Homemade Bagels

2010-04-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

I know this seems like a crazy thing to make from scratch, but they are seriously wonderful! They are actually surprisingly easy to make. The dough is one of the simplest I have ever made. You have to have a little time to wait for the bread to rise between the steps, but nothing about it is difficult. Honestly, I have the most trouble with making sure they don't burn because the recipe says to bake them for 30 minutes. Mine start to get burnt if they go past 20 minutes. Here is a link to the recipe. Like I said before, I don't let mine cook past 20 minutes and the last time I made them I made sure to flip them over halfway through and it kept them from getting too dark on the bottom. These really are so fresh and yummy you will stop wanting to buy them. I was at Costco this week and saw the bagels and they are cheap enough that I went to grab some and then I thought, naw, I'd rather just make some of my own this week, they taste so good!

Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood

2010-04-21T10:53:00.000-07:00

We just got back from vacation and since I have been doing nothing but laundry and cleaning bathrooms the last couple of days, I thought I would take a break and work on a project with Paige. She has been loving the book Quick as a Cricket lately. We decided that we would make our own version of the book. We made a list of animals that we wanted to include and then we did a search for coloring pages for those animals. We ended up finding all our animals here . We printed out all the animals and we colored them together. I grabbed some old cardstock and three hole punched it. We cut out our animal pictures and glued them to the cardstock. Then Paige dictated to me how she was like each animal, following the pattern in the story and I wrote it and the bottom of the page with a Sharpie. For the last page, she drew a picture of herself and wanted her name at the top. She wrote the "P" and I wrote the rest. We used 3 binder rings to make it into a book. She thinks it is fantastic and can't wait to read it to dad and Blake when they get home. Dictated books like this are perfect for introducing kids to reading. Since the child has come up with the words for the book they remember them more easily, so they can start to recognize words on the page. If you can get them to, have them practice pointing out specific words. They gradually begin to associate the words with the meaning of the story.

Paper Dolls

2010-04-10T05:38:00.000-07:00

This may be the cutest and easiest craft project I have ever done. I found this great fabric panel of old fashioned paper dolls at the Mormon Handicraft in Deseret Book the other day. I think it cost around $5. I think I have seen the same panel in a fabric catalog before, so it must be available quite a few places. Anyway, I went to JoAnn's and bought some extra thick fusible Pellon. I didn't buy quite enough Pellon, so I had to loosely pre-cut the paper dolls and clothes out of the panel to fit them all on the Pellon, then I ironed them down and during General Conference I cut out all the dolls and clothes. They are now heavy duty enough for playing will and my daughter thinks they are great. She picked out some fabric she likes, pink of course and we made a drawstring bag to put them in. I would show it to you, but she is currently not home and the paper dolls are with her. I love how it turned out.

A few tips. I think if I were doing it again, I would buy regular pellon and then use wonder under to iron it all together. The fusible pellon doesn't seem to stick quite as well. I actually had to iron each piece again after I did the final cutting and there was some slight fraying around the edges that I think you would avoid by using the wonder under.

March Visiting Teaching Message

2010-03-31T14:40:00.000-07:00

I have the best visiting teaching companion and she is constantly coming up with the cutest things to give our ladies. She has great websites that have fun ideas and has something darling almost every month. She had a baby this month, so I told her I would take care of things. Of course, I realize that today is the very last day of the month, but it is still March, so I knew that I had to come up with something today! The message this month is about studying the scriptures. Last night I was at Wal-mart and I kept trying to remind myself that I needed to get something I could drop off to our ladies. I was just going to get some Easter candy, but when I walked past the Easter sprinkles, I thought, that might be a kind of fun thing to give them. I am feeling pretty proud of myself. This morning I put a little label on the sprinkles that said, "sprinkle" the scriptures through your day, the results will be "sweet". I added some ribbon and a quote from President Monson from the lesson and I thought it turned out pretty cute.

Sun Hat Re-fashion

2010-03-30T11:16:00.000-07:00

This sun hat was Blake's when he was a baby. He hardly ever wore it and it is a Gap one, so it is still in perfect shape. We have a beach trip coming up and Brynne is the first child I have who is really fair-skinned. I know she is going to be a real problem to keep from getting sun-burned. This hat fits her perfectly and will be great for our trip, but nothing makes me more crazy than when people call my girls boys. They don't have tons of hair, but I swear people are crazy when it comes to clothes and babies. I took Brynne out to do errands with me the other day and she happened to have on jeans and a gray hooded jacket. The jacket was a swing style jacket with pleats and big girly buttons and the fabric actually has some glittery sparkles in it, but I cannot tell you how many people complimented me on what a darling little boy I had. Seriously, I was ready to scream by the end of my shopping trip. Anyway, I decided if Brynne is going to be living in this hat on our trip, I needed to girl it up a bit, so here is the new and improved girl sun hat:

What do you think? Will this keep her from being mistaken for a boy? I just cut a little strip of some fabric I had in my stash. I set my sewing machine to the largest length stitch and sewed a straight line along the edge of the fabric strip. I pulled the top thread on one end to make it ruffle (I am attempting to learn how to make ruffles, they are pretty easy, but pulling the string to gather them is pretty time consuming). Then I twisted it into a flower shape and hand sewed it together. I added a button center and some twisted green gingham ribbon for leaves. The whole project took me about half an hour.

Anniversary Quilt

2010-03-28T19:51:00.000-07:00

I have been a little busy working on this quilt the last few weeks. I have been so excited about the way it turned out that it has been hard to keep it a secret. We celebrated my in-laws' 40th anniversary last night with a surprise party for them. Kyle has one sister and she has been working on doing something for this special anniversary for almost 2 years. She created this amazing slide show including pictures from their 40 years of marriage and then my sister-in-law hosted an amazing surprise party for them. Unfortunately, I didn't come up with the idea for the quilt until the last month before the big party, so I have been scrambling a bit to finish it. I had each of the grandchildren draw a 5 inch by 5 inch self portrait. The 2 grandchildren who were too young to draw their own self portraits had theirs done by an older sibling. I told them to try to keep the pictures fairly simple and most do outlining, rather than coloring in. They all used crayola markers, so the colors were pretty similar. There are 4 grandchildren that live out of state, so their mom just scanned their pictures and sent them to me. I traced each child's picture onto a 7 1/2 inch by 7 1/2 inch piece of muslin. Then I embroidered each picture to match their drawing. I used fat quarters and more muslin to put the quilt blocks together. I got the idea from the book The Creative Family by Amanda Soule. In her book she suggests embroidering children's artwork and using it throughout your home. My mother-in-law actually makes a similar quilt for each child using coloring book characters, so I thought it would be fun for her to have her own quilt with the kids' drawings on it. At the last minute I was panicked about what to do about the actual quilting. I have hand quilted a few quilts, but my skills are sorely lacking and my mother-in-law is a true artist when it comes to hand quilting. I don't know what I would do without her sister, our wonderful Aunt Sherry. She agreed to machine quilt it for me with only days left before the party. She had never machine quilted before and used a brand new machine that she is still trying to figure out. Amazingly, she finished the entire thing is less than 24 hours and it looks professional! It was such a fun project to work on! I hope to create some more quilts like this down the road, only hopefully next time will think a little more ahead and not leave myself such a short deadline. I would love to create one for myself that shows my kids' artwork evolving over time. That would just require a fair amount of planning, so we'll see if I can be that organized.

The Paper Princess, By Elisa Kleven

2010-03-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

I found this great book on Amazon. There were a lot of good reviews, so I ordered it for Paige for Valentines. It was a great choice. She has loved it. The Paper Princess by Elisa Kleven, is the story of a paper doll who blows away from the girl who is making her before she is finished. The doll goes on a journey and eventually ends up back with the girl who created her. It is a sweet story and perfect for a doll loving 3 year old girl. Paige and I have had a lot of fun with this book, reading and re-reading it. One day after reading it, we decided to make our own paper dolls. They weren't anything fancy, but Paige was thrilled. We got out my cookied cutters and traced the gingerbread boy and girl and decorated them with glitter glue pens. After those were done, Paige started tracing all sorts of different cookies cutters and making all kinds of things. It was simple and super fun!

TLC's Hoarding: Buried Alive

2010-03-18T13:21:00.000-07:00

I am not the best at throwing stuff away. My youngest sister is really good at it. I was talking to her the other day about how she needed to come out and help me go through some stuff because she will be brutally honest with me about what clothes need to go and stuff. She told me that before I got ready to clean anything out I needed to watch the new show on TLC called "Hoarding: Buried Alive". I accidentally caught about 20 minutes of it last night. My sister was not kidding! This show will cure you of holding on to anything. I only saw 20 minutes and I swear by the end I was sweating, I was so uncomfortable! All day today it has stuck with me. I keep finding myself going from room to room throwing stuff away! My two biggest challenges for organization are paper and clothes. I have really got to get on top of those things. I also tend to be incredibly cheap when it comes to buying stuff for organizing. I never want to spend the money all at once to buy enough rubbermaid containers to keep the outgrown clothes and stuff. After seeing this show, spending the money on some organizational stuff seems a lot more worth it! Does anyone have any great organizing tips? What are your rules for saving outgrown children's clothes? I am pretty good with my oldest, he's nearly 8, so a good majority of his stuff gets really worn out before he outgrows it so I can just throw it away. It is my under 5 year old clothes that are such a pain! Something else I could really use some good ideas for is kids art supplies. I struggle because I want my older kids to be able to get to most of the supplies without help, paper, crayons, pencils, markers, but it is constantly a mess wherever I put it, plus making sure my baby can't get to it. Let me know if you have any great ideas!

My Fair Godmother, by Janette Rallison

2010-03-17T14:23:00.000-07:00

I had seen several reviews for this book, so I picked it up at the library. It is a young adult book, which tends to be my favorite genre. I have never read anything by this author before and wasn't sure I'd like it, but it turned out to be such a fun, cute story. I read it really quickly and felt like I smiled through the whole thing. Any girl who has survived high school would catch herself smiling at Savannah's high school experiences. Honestly, what teenage girl hasn't wished for a fairy godmother to pop in and grant her some wishes, particularly some that involve a prince charming. Savannah quickly finds out that all wishes are not what they are cracked up to be. After I read this, I though I need to remember this book because it would make the perfect gift for any girl!

Best Ever Pancakes and Syrup

2010-03-15T13:11:00.000-07:00

I have to start this post letting you know that as a teenager there was nothing I hated more than when my dad would decide to make pancakes or waffles on a Sunday night for dinner. I absolutely despised pancakes and never, ever wanted to eat them. It has only been the last couple of years that I have now decided that I love pancakes and I crave them all the time, especially on Sunday nights. My son has now taken over my spot and complains bitterly, especially if I fix them on Sunday nights, which happens to be when I most crave them. It's only fair right, I can't tell you how nasty I remember being to my parents about that Sunday night dinner choice. I tried this new recipe I found Saturday morning, because I needed to feed my family something and cereal was not an option because we were completely out of milk. Oddly, I happened to have some buttermilk in the fridge, so I could make this recipe. I was a little freaked out because the batter was so thick and I usually like my pancakes nice and thin. There's nothing worse than a pancake that is not cooked all the way through, but I am telling you, these pancakes are to die for and the syrup is even better. I have tried several similar syrup recipes and while I have liked all of them, this one is the best one I have tried, it is so carmelly and wonderful. I know, I know, they are not the healthiest things, but if you need a fantastic treat these are the ones. I do actually have a whole grain waffle recipe that is healthy and really great too, but this is definitely a recipe you need to try!

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

2010-03-08T12:09:00.000-08:00

I got the book Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford from the library. I saw a review for it on Homespun Light and thought it sounded good. I really liked it. It is about a Chinese boy and Japanese girl who become best friends during the time Japanese people in America were put in internment camps. Every time I read something about this point in history, I am horrified, but this book amazingly focus on how positively this particular family deals with being put in the internment camp. I cannot imagine being willing to fight for a country that has put you and your family in prison. What amazing spirit the Japanese Americans showed! My brother-in-law has a great aunt that experienced this exact thing and reading this book makes me want to hear all about her experiences. It is such an embarrassing part of American history, that my natural tendency is to want to pretend it didn't happen, but reading this book reminded me that it is not something we can avoid. We need to talk about it and remember it, so that the same mistakes are not repeated. I am glad that there are authors who will write about this subject in a very real way, so that the rest of us can be reminded of our history.

I have to add an update to this post. The more I have thought about this book, the more I have liked it. It is a love story, but not a traditional love story. It is not written in an overly emotional style, like so many other love stories. It is a much more true to life romance. The characters make mistakes in expressing themselves to each other. Life's circumstances get in the way of their budding romance. It is a much more realistic portrayal of romance and relationships than many of the popular fiction books available right now. I'm used to reading a more fairy tale portrayal of romance, which I enjoy too, but the more I think about it, the more I like this realistic perspective of romance. I think sometimes we forget that in real life, romance isn't perfect and people and relationships are not perfect. I think there is a tendency to think that love isn't real unless it is expressed like Edward and Bella, which in my book is ridiculous! I love a good fairy tale, but that is what it needs to be seen as, a fairy tale. I can't tell you how often I have heard people complain that their spouse doesn't act like this book or movie character and I just want to shake them and say, get a clue! You are comparing real life to fiction. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is a very real romance.

Henry and the Crazed Chicken Pirates

2010-03-03T13:38:00.000-08:00

Henry and the Crazed Chicken Pirates, by Carolyn Crimi is may not be exactly fine literature, but if you are looking for a book that will provide you and your children with some great belly laughs, this one may be for you. Beware, if the phrase 'parrot poop' is offensive to you, you might have a more refined sense of humor than our family and this book may not be for you. I saw a review for this book over at Homespun Light and thought I'd grab it at the library. Paige and I read it twice in a row before her nap this afternoon. Parrot poop is definitely hilarious to her! In addition to being funny, if you tend to be a worrier or have a child who tends to worry, this story is a case where it shows that it pays to worry some.

Real Simple Bean and Bacon Soup

2010-03-03T13:26:00.000-08:00

I found this recipe on the Real Simple Magazine website. I have adapted a few things, but I love it. It is as easy as can be and tastes lots better than the canned stuff.

Real Simple Magazine's Bean and Bacon Soup

4 strips bacon

1 large carrot, chopped (about 3/4 cup)

2 stalks celery, chopped (about 1 cup)

1 medium onion, chopped (about 1 cup)

4 cloves garlic, chopped

2 15.5 ounce can great northern beans, drained

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

In a large Dutch oven or saucepan, fry the bacon until crisp. Remove and drain on paper towels. Let cool, chop, and set aside. Over medium heat, add the carrot to the pan drippings in the Dutch over and saute for 5 minutes. Add the celery, onion and garlic, stirring well and cooking for 3 minutes more. Add the beans and 2 cups water. Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat to low. Let simmer for 10 minutes. Uncover and, with a potato masher or large slotted spoon, partially mash the bean mixture until it thickens slightly. Stir in the parsely, salt, pepper and bacon. Serve hot.

So that is the recipe the magazine gives. I have changed a few things to make it easier and I don't think it changes the taste. I take all the ingredients and dump them in my crockpot all at once. I use ready cooked bacon from Costco that I keep in my freezer. I just crumble it in frozen. If I have a fresh onion I'll use it, but if not I use my dried onion and it works fine. I rarely have parsley, so I either substitute dried or just leave it out. I don't pre-cook the vegetables, I just leave it in the crockpot on low for a few hours. Rather than mashing the beans, I use my immersion blender and just blend the whole thing for a few seconds. (By the way, the picture is of everything cooking, not the finished product. This is before it has been blended at all. The finished soup with have a much creamier texture)

Have-I-Done-Any-Good-in-the-World-Today?

2010-03-01T20:40:00.000-08:00

Have-I-Done-Any-Good-in-the-World-Today?
Seriously, can I just run this in my ear 24 hours a day!

Example of the Believers

2010-03-01T20:32:00.000-08:00

Example of the Believers
I saw this tonight and loved it. There are so many times in the news and everywhere else that you hear scary and awful things about teenagers. I love to see something like this and be reminded how many wonderful, amazing kids there are around us. I always say that I am scared to death to have teenagers, but what I'm really scared of is that I won't teach my kids enough and that I won't be enough of an example of a believer.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-02-26T13:02:00.000-08:00

I know it is sad to say, but really, these cookies practically count as vegetable at our house! I know it is pathetic, but I admit it, my kids are picky, especially my son. I'll take my vegetables where I can get them! I know everyone has heard of this easier than easy recipe, but sometimes I forget about it. I didn't make these cookies forever and then I remembered them and lately we have been making them regularly because my kids seriously shovel them in. I know, all you perfectly healthy folks who don't do sugar or chocolate will disagree, but in my book, these are as healthy a treat as you can get. All it takes to make them is 2 boxes of spice cake mix, one of the big cans of pumpkin, and some chocolate chips. A friend gave me the tip to use the mini-chocolate chips because you can get away with using less. I dump the cake mixes and pumpkin in a big bowl and use a spatula to mix it all. It takes a bit of serious mixing, but once it is all incorporated, add your chocolate chips. Use your cookie size ice cream scoop and drop the dough onto your cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes. You end up with about 60 cookies and happy kids!

Free Phonics Lessons

2010-02-22T22:09:00.000-08:00

http://www.starfall.com/ is one of my favorite kids websites. Some friends who have done some homeschool pre-school and kindergarten directed me to this website and it is fantastic! It starts with the very beginning phonics lessons and goes step by step to reading all with fun games and music. The very best part is that it is free! Phonics instruction is one of those things that is a basic necessity for reading, but is next to impossible to teach without a laid out program. It needs to work step by step which is difficult for parents to do at home on their own. I love the way this website allows you to come back to whatever stuff your child needs help with. My current favorite thing to do is to assign my 7 year old to spend time going through parts of the website with his 3 year old sister. He likes the time on the computer and it gives her some added exposure to the alphabet and frankly, any kind of phonics review is always good for my 7 year old. I feel like it really cements his understanding when he is trying to explain things to his sister, although I had to laugh when I overheard him trying to explain sound "chunks" to his 3 year old sister today. The best part is that she pretends to understand completely! Anyway, when you have a minute, sit down and go through some of the starfall activities. Although the graphics are not super exciting and the newest and greatest, the content is some of the best I have seen!

Knitting

2010-02-15T20:41:00.000-08:00

I am so excited! I have been trying and trying to learn to knit and up until this point have never been able to get any farther than a scarf and usually a pretty pathetic one at that. We had a Relief Society night the other night where they were teaching people to knit. One of the projects was baby hats. I finally was able to get it. I guess knitting is one of those things that it just takes quite a few times of being shown, before you really start to get it. I finished a very basic hat for my baby that turned out okay, but I didn't love it. This was my second attempt at a hat. A friend who works at the local knitting store gave me a few pointers and helped me find some patterns on ravelry.com and I did it! There are a couple little mistakes with the decreasing at the very top where I had to switch to double pointed kneedles, my counting got a little messed up, but overall there are no blaring mistakes. Of course, Paige is asleep, so I can't try it on her, hopefully it fits right. Thanks to all the people who have been helping me, now and in years past! My inspiration has been my mom. She used to knit the most amazing mittens. She made a pair for each of us girls and a couple for the oldest grandkids because they were the only ones around at that point, but then she started having too much trouble with carpletunnel and it hurt her wrists too much to do. I want to make those mittens! Now I am one step closer. I can knit a rib stitch!

Book for your Pirate Lovers

2010-02-09T15:47:00.000-08:00

Okay, so if you have a pirate loving little boy, which honestly, is there a little boy who doesn't love pirates, then Pirates Don't Change Diapers, by Melinda Long is the book for you. Long's first pirate book, How I Became a Pirate is great, but Pirates Don't Change Diapers is over the top funny! The great thing with Long's books is that they are funny enough that my princess loving daughter loves to read it. If you haven't met Jeremy Jacob and his little sister Bonney Anne, you need too! They have some hilarious adventures with a band of pirates and their treasure.

Olivia the Pig by Ian Falconer

2010-02-05T16:28:00.000-08:00

I've said this before, but one of Paige's favorite books is Olivia, by Ian Falconer. Today she was begging for a project "like when we made the mitten", so I did a search for 'Olivia the pig activities' and immediately came across this link. The link is to a pdf of Olivia paper dolls. We read the book and then went to work cutting. I cut out the paper doll and clothes and Paige had a great time using kiddie scissors to cut out the miniature Olivia book covers. Have you ever watched a child trying to learn to use scissors? It is amazing to see all the ways they attempt to use them. Paige is only 3, so of course I made sure to supervise, but I let her do it completely by herself, which she loves. She shredded the paper into little bits and then we spent some time trying all the outfits on Olivia.

McDuff Saves the Day, by Rosemary Wells

2010-01-27T13:21:00.000-08:00

If you are familiar with children's literature, you know you'll never go wrong with Rosemary Wells. Even Nickelodeon has figured that out with it's popular Max and Ruby series. Our family feels the same way. One of our family favorites is the McDuff series by Rosemary Wells. I was reminded just how wonderful the series is today, as I put my 3 year old down for her nap. The story she chose to have me read was McDuff Saves the Day. If you have a dog around you are sure to recognize your furry friend in the antics of McDuff. Well's storylines feature McDuff's personality and quirks and will grab the heart of any dog-lover! These books are a must have for your personal library!

P.S. I am still looking for any great book suggestions for my Valentine's!