Little WORTH-while moments

Poor Max

2012-01-30T19:01:00.007-06:00

Our sweet, adorable furball Max went to get groomed today at Petsmart.

It was his third trip there.

Last time, he came back looking like this;

Which was perfect and adorable.

This time, he came back looking like this:

His hair is like 1/4" long...he looks like a poodle, not a ShiChon. Our little teddy bear furball is... NOT at all a furball now. They even shaved his legs. He's supposed to look like a woolly mammoth.

Not happy. I called to complain and did get a full refund. I will go back to them again I'm sure...but I'm taking these two pictures to show what he SHOULD and SHOULD NOT look like.

Seriously. Poor baby.

Find Sydney Austin

2012-01-26T14:06:00.004-06:00

This post originally had on it the flyer for missing girl Sydney Austin.... But today (January 28th) I can change it to post that

SYDNEY HAS BEEN FOUND! SHE IS HOME!!!

Talk about answered prayer. SO MANY were praying for her and her family. Don't know any details, but really all that matters is that GOD IS GOOD, and SYDNEY is HOME after being missing for 5 days!

And that, my friends, is why we call our God an AWESOME GOD.

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I'm posting this here and pinning it to Pinterest...since I don't have a workplace to hang it up. PLEASE Pin this...Pass this... etc. A family here in town are in a world of anguish and distress searching for their daughter. Take a look, keep your eyes peeled, and pray your hearts out for her quick and safe return. I know this family personally, not well, but I know them. Thanks

Raspberry Cheesecake Wontons

2012-01-25T18:17:00.005-06:00

I made the taco cupcakes that I posted about earlier tonight. They were yummy. (Greasy, but yummy).

I had a bunch of wonton wrappers left so I thought "what could I make with these?"...not that I couldn't just wrap them and put them in the fridge/freezer, but I was just really in the mood to create something.

And so....Raspberry Cheesecake Wontons were born. I suppose you could call them Raspberry Rangoons?!

Here's what you need. This made one dozen: 4 ounces cream cheese, lemon juice, sugar, frozen raspberries, and wonton wrappers.

Soften the cream cheese, stir in 1/4 cup granulated sugar and 1 teaspoon lemon juice.

Here is the beauty of frozen raspberries. You give them a little squeeze, and they pulverize into little balls. Perfect for this so you're not getting a giant bite of raspberry at once. So, pulverize some raspberries with your beastly strong fingers.

Put 1 tablespoon(ish) of the cream cheese mixture in the center of a wonton. Sprinkle on some raspberries. Wet your index finger in water and run it around the outer edge of the wonton wrapper. This will help it stick/seal.

Fold opposing corners to a point in the center and pinch together.

Then bring up the other corners and pinch around the first two.

Here they are on the sprayed cookie sheet ready to bake. I did a very light egg-white wash over mine but that is totally optional.

Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes or until they are starting to turn golden brown.

Remove from oven and cool on cookie sheet about 10 minutes.

Serve warm, sprinkled with powdered sugar. DELISH.

Oh How Pinteresting Wednesday

2012-01-25T10:18:00.006-06:00

I'd say it's been a quiet week but that's never the case around here. It has just been an "I don't know what to blog about today" kind of week.

It has been a little quieter than usual which is nice. My brain as always is on overdrive though. Always so many things I need/want/would love to do.

I dreamt in list-form the other night. Isn't that crazy?

Threat of the week for the soon-to-be-four year old "If you don't stop ____________, then you are NOT going to get a booster seat when your birthday comes!!!" She is so ready for a big girl booster seat in the car instead of her carseat. It's the biggest threat I can make right now.

Speaking of little girls, pray for Sydney Austin to come home. This family goes to our old church, and no one has heard from their 16 year old since Monday at 3p when she was seen getting into a green van by the high school in Haysville. Assumed she is a runaway. Like the FB page, spread the word, and PRAY for her to come home. I can't imagine what they are going through.

SO....It's Wednesday and time for Oh So Pinteresting link-up at the Vintage Apple. I don't have a lot to share this week because my laptop died on me and that was where I did my pinterest time. On the couch, after the kids went to bed, watching stuff on the DVR with the hubster. Oh well. Here's what I've got:

Love this take on famous lines from Disney:

Making these Taco Cupcakes tonight, will let you know how they turn out!

These are gorgeous and I'm sure they will be great this summer! Can't find the original link but the note on pinterest said to pour capri suns into popsicle molds then add in fresh fruits.

And I pinned this picture onto my board called "that which has no category" just because I thought it was darn cute!!

(source)

Courageous

2012-01-22T18:13:00.002-06:00

I've been hearing from some friends on facebook how fabulous the movie "Courageous" is.

It's from the creators of the movie "Fireproof."

"Fireproof" was a powerful Christian movie about firemen, marriage, commitment, etc. It was really a great movie.

But 'Courageous.'

This movie was about fatherhood. Though, really, you could broaden a lot of the spectrum to parenthood in general. It was about four cops and another friend...and their struggles as fathers, their desire to be the dad that God intended them to be. It was about turning regret into something bigger, better....about learning from it and growing from it.

I gotta tell ya....this movie wrenched your heart out one minute, and had you laughing the next. I had a headache from trying so hard not to bawl my head off, and yet felt my heart swell at the poignant sweetness of other moments. There are a few movies out there that touch you deep within your heart.... this is one of them.

Check out the trailer here. Seriously, check it out.

Go get it from a redbox or buy it at Walmart. Get some popcorn, mm's, and kleenexes.

It'll make you look at parenthood in a whole greater light. You'll be sitting closer to your spouse on the couch by the end of it, and checking in to give the kids one more kiss on your way to bed.

Friday musings...and a blonde recipe

2012-01-20T18:47:00.005-06:00

My brain is all over the place today. Do you have days like that? I think it is more the norm for me than not. Here are some random ramblings from my brain to you....

I wrote up my 'bio' today for the website of the travel agency I work under. Part of it said "I got to service millionaires while their planes were being fixed." The guy doing the website seemed to think it was hysterical...me 'servicing' millionaires. Naughty, naughty boy. Funny, and mildly embarassing.

I spent 10 minutes yesterday looking for the yeast for the cinnamon rolls that I was making. I knew I had bought some.... and found it laying right in the middle of the island in the kitchen. 10 minutes gone...can you say 'burning candle at both ends?'

I had Chipotle for dinner, and my tummy is not thrilled about that. Bummer dude.

I'm trying to figure out what to do for the girls for their little Valentine gifts. I don't want to go overboard, with Christmas just past, and birthdays right around the corner. I also hate most of those gifts you find in the Valentine aisle...Lord knows we do not need any valentine stuffed animals, or pillows, or toys, or trinkets. I like useful, not cluttering little gifts. Any ideas?

I'm itching to go to the new casino. I know it's nothing fabulous, but hey, I can get there a lot cheaper than I can get to Vegas!

My laptop seems to have died and I don't know if I can resurrect it. It's several years old, and usually getting it even looked at runs about $100. I'd almost rather just put that money towards a new laptop. I gotta tell ya, the death of the laptop is cramping my Pinterest style in a major way.

Do blondes have more fun? I'm not so sure about that...but I can tell you, these Blonde Brownies were fun to make with Hannah and funner to eat. This recipe is a good base recipe for Blonde bars of any sort. We put chocolate chips in ours, but I think they'd be divine with some Heath bits in them too. In the past 36 hours I've made a 1/2 batch of cinnamon rolls (for a customer), homemade noodles for chicken/noodles, biscuits, cookies to take to Brooke's class, and these here Blondies. Good thing I hit the treadmill this week (and did my first 5K ever--well, my first treadmill 5K!).

Have a great weekend! Make some Blondies!

In large bowl, beat together 1/2 cup margarine (softened), 1 cup brown sugar, 1 egg, 1 tsp vanilla.

Stir in 1+1/3 cup flour, 1 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt. Add in 1 cup of goodie of your choice...nuts, chocolate chips, heath bits, etc.

Bake in greased 9" square pan at 350 for about 25 minutes.

Eat one. Just one today. It's all about control, people!

Or eat two, and then go work out!

Another great author

2012-01-19T13:47:00.002-06:00

I'm on a bigtime book kick lately. Thought I'd share another author with you that I really like, Lisa Kleypas. She has both historical and contemporary romances. You can read an excerpt of her new book by clicking here:
http://www.lisakleypas.com/bookRainshadowRoad.asp
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I am one of "Lisa's Divas" - a group of select fans who share info & content related to Lisa's novels and get sneak peeks & swag in return.
--

Another quick book plug would be this; The New Phenomenon by Chris Raabe. I graduated with Chris' sister, and he was two years older than us. He wrote a great teen fiction novel and it is set in my hometown. Another great read you should check out!

That's So Pinteresting Wednesday

2012-01-18T10:55:00.004-06:00

Another week gone by, another several hours lost to pinterest. Here are some things I found this week that I've pinned and hope to do!

A great back to school gift for your teacher, the school supplies cake. Find it over here.

(source)

Have been checking out Valentine ideas, and thought this Rolo Valentine was cute.

How easy are these ornaments? This blogger has some cute ideas, and I love these!

(source)

Finally, I gotta say... I loved my own post about the sensory table, and how to make colored rice, so I pinned it! :)

What have you found pinteresting this week? Link up at Vintage Apple, or leave a comment here and tell me!

New Recipe/New Product review

2012-01-17T18:17:00.002-06:00

Went grocery shopping today. As I pondered this week's cheese purchase, I saw a new product. Kraft Fresh Take.

It's kind of like a shake-n-bake with kraft cheese in it. The price was not too bad, and they had a variety of flavors. I decided to give one a try. I chose this one:

When I went to prepare dinner this evening, I was pleasantly surprised to see how ridiculously easy this made meal time. I had some chicken breasts thawed out, so I pounded them out so they were thinner and a more even thickness. (I hate waiting for big fat chicken breasts to cook in the oven). This Kraft Fresh Take packet is actually a big bag that is sealed, and inside are the pockets of cheese and seasoned bread crumbs. You open the big bag, and unseal the little packets inside so the cheese and crumbs can blend together in the big bag. Then you add your chicken one at a time and shake it up. Spread it on a sprayed cookie sheet, and sprinkle some of the extra on top as well.

Bake.

Eat.

While it appears we had a very monochromatic meal, I am pleased to announce that it was delish! We gobbled it up. Well, we being everyone but Hannah who just likes ABC's with meatballs. Brooke loved it. Matt thought it was yummier than our visit to try out Buffalo Wild Wings last night. I was pleased not only with the flavor, but with how easy it was. I'm anxious to try some of the other flavors.

Note: Kraft didn't ask me to review this product. I just bought it and thought I'd share my opinion with you. I wish Kraft knew me and supplied me with freebies, because I spend a lot of money on cheese in this household. That being said, they do not, and yet, I still liked this product. Have a great day!

Weekend nutshell

2012-01-16T16:14:00.003-06:00

Well the weekend is over. I'm too tired to mess with pictures, so thought I'd just do a quick recap of life in my world.

We had my brother's family here over the weekend, it was great to have them. The girls loved having their 2 year old cousin Brayton and 1 year old cousin Kenna here to play with. We did a little cake for Kenna's first birthday, had our Christmas together, and just hung out.

They left today, and the girls and I are sad. Matt had to go back to work today, and I think that made him sad too--lol. I think everyone was worn out from the fun weekend though. Hannah had a little meltdown about an hour before they began their five hour drive back home.

I'm trying to figure out why my blog is acting wonky. All the stuff that is usually on the right hand sidebar has fallen down below the posts and I have no idea how to fix it. Thoughts?

I also don't know why, while I'm writing this, I have about 3 line-spaces between paragraphs. But when I hit post, it will probably end up all smooshed together. Why is that? Thoughts?

Hope you all had a great weekend!

DIY Sensory Table in a Tote with Colored Rice

2012-01-13T20:40:00.013-06:00

I'm so excited about this post!

My niece and nephew are coming this weekend. That's had me thinking a lot about toddlers. I started thinking about one of the things that kids loved the most when I worked in daycares and preschools through college.

The Sensory Table.

As an adult, it was always my favorite thing to do with the kids in my care. The options for a sensory table are endless. One time, the teacher in the toddler room I was in filled it with water and put goldfish in it! The kids had pulled off most of their tails by the end of the day, but they had soooo much fun!

Most of us, however, do not have room for a sensory table, and they aren't a cheap purchase. With winter upon us, there's always those days where we get desperate for something different to do with the kids. My brother is a fireman and his wife a nurse, so they have weird schedules, which include one or the other of them being on kid duty for long periods on their own. I thought it'd be fun to make them a Sensory Table In A Tote

Also known as "Mom's (or Dad's) Rainy/Cold Day Sanity Saver". Here's how I did it.

My favorite thing for a sensory table is colored rice. It's so fun. Super easy, here's what you need

Rubbing alcohol, a gallon sized ziploc bag, white rice, and food coloring

Put desired amount of rice in your baggie. I did 2 cups at a time. For each cup of rice, add a capful of the rubbing alcohol. Seal bag and mix well so the alcohol coats the rice.

Then add in 2 to 3 drops of the food coloring.

Seal bag again and mix mix mix until color is evenly distributed. Spread out on waxed paper so it can dry. I love these colors

While the rice is drying, take three pounds of dried beans (of assorted types) and mix into a gallon sized ziploc bag and seal shut (removing all the air).

You will also need some measuring cups or any kind of small cups.

And I think it's fun to include some little plastic animals or other treasures for the kids to dig around in the tote and find.

This next item is a must if you want to a) minimize cleanup for your own sensory tote and b) stay friends with any parents to whom you might give this tote as a gift for their child. A shower curtain. Spread it out on the floor before proceeding with Sensory Tote play will allow for a much easier clean up!

Now it's time to check on the rice. Mix it all up. Look how beautiful it turned out!!!

Put the rice in a clean gallon sized ziploc, remove air and seal.

I printed these instructions, glued them on cardstock, stuck it in a plastic sleeve to 'laminate' it, and used packing tape to tape it on the inside of the box lid. My favorite instruction is the idea of filling the tote with snow on a day where it's too cold to go OUT to play in the snow. I brought in a big tote of snow last year for my girls and spread out towels on the kitchen floor...and they had a blast! Mittens and snow in the middle of the kitchen!

Put the lid on, decorate the top as you choose (I was busy working on 2 cakes today so this is as fancy as I got). Store away for a long, house-bound sort of day. I really think this would make a really fun gift for an 18 month to 3 year old, maybe even older. I know my two girls (almost 4 and 8) love when I get stuff like this out! Make one, put a bow on it, and give it to someone!

Total cost: $4 for the tote at walmart. You want one BIGGER than the plastic-shoebox size. $2 on rice, $2 on beans, shower curtain, frogs, and measuring cups $1/each at Dollar Tree. Total project price $11. If you already have totes like this sitting at home, it'll be an even cheaper project!!

That's So Pinteresting-Wednesday

2012-01-11T09:28:00.005-06:00

Alright, alright, I give. I've been totally sucked into Pinterest. AND I've actually done some of the things I've found on there (teacher Christmas gifts, recipes, etc). Here's some stuff I've pinned this week that just love....

For those of you who don't know what Pinterest is, here is my best attempt at a description. It's like an online bulletin board. You know when you're surfing the web, you can bookmark things? Well this allows you to 'pin' things to virtual bulletin boards that you have created and keep it all in one place. You can see what your friends are finding nifty by checking out their boards, and they can see yours. You name your boards what you want, and off you go. You can 'repin' other people's findings from their pinterest pages, or you can even pin stuff you just find while you're toodling down the internet highway.

Check it out.

It's all so Pinteresting....

Found a pin for homemade Olive Garden Dressing.

A Cute way to hang streamers for a party, loop them all around a hula hoop in the center of the room. You can find this here

I have a variety of bulletin boards. Some of them are titled "recipes" "things I'll never get around to making" "Party On" "Christmas"

And.... "Easy on the eyes" This guy is in that folder (along with Ryan Reynolds, Joey McIntyre, and a few others!) Really, this is pretty innocent...considering I saw someone who had board called "things that are yummy that are not food". Hahaha.

I've been hunting for Valentine ideas and birthday party ideas lately as well. I thought this was so cute:

This and other cute Valentine stuff is found on this blog.

So many ideas to be tapped into, or to look at and think "yeah, I'll never get a chance to do that. But what a cute idea"

I'm linking up at the Vintage apple for It's So Pinteresting... If I figure out how. :)

BBQ Chicken Tacos - Yum!

2012-01-09T18:25:00.003-06:00

There are these brisket tacos at On The Border that I just love. They have crispy onion straws on them, a smoky bbq sauce, and I don't know what else. I decided to create a chicken version here at home for dinner tonight.

BBQ Chicken Tacos is really not an adequate name to describe these bundles of yummy. Read and learn.

First, you will need some cooked shredded chicken. This my friend is why God gave us the grocery-store-rotisserie chicken. Busy mommy's best friend in the kitchen at dinner time. I only recently started throwing these in the cart on occassion. One of the few perks of being the person stuck getting groceries each week and preparing the meal is getting to sneak some of this chicken while pulling it off the bone. As a matter of fact, I shredded it and put most of it away to use tonight, but not before throwing some on a plate for my lunch! Yum.

Off subject already. So, get some chicken. I suggest using one of these:

And let me tell you, little fuzzball was going nuts when I was shredding this chicken. Apparently the smell makes puppies hungry too!

One of the key components of these tacos is the crunchy onion straws that are on them. I use Pioneer Woman's Recipe, it's quick, easy, and delish.

One of the few perks to being the one making dinner every night is getting to sneak onion strings off the plate as you are cooking. I only did that a few times. Really!

I randomly picked up this block of chipotle cheddar at Target today. (see the gorgeous onion strings in the back!?). I hadn't intended to use it on these, but baby did it make them yummy. For the girls' I used regular colby-jack shredded cheese, but for us grown ups who can handle a little bit of kick, I shredded up some of this stuff!

Okay so how do you make these? Easy peesy.

Put about 1/2 cup bbq sauce into 3 cups of shredded chicken.

In the middle of a warmed taco-sized tortilla, put about a 1/2 cup of the chicken, a generous sprinkling of cheese, some onion straws, and another drizzle of bbq sauce.

Roll it up tightly (leaving the ends open), and spray both sides with Pam. Place seam side down in a hot skillet (I used the griddle actually), and cook on each side until lightly toasted, about 2-3 minutes.

While they're cooking, mix some sour cream and bbq sauce together...I did equal proportions. Drizzle finished tacos with the bbq-cream and sprinkle with more cheese.

As a side note- the drizzle was meant originally to be a garnish but it actually added a lot to the final dish, so I would suggest doing this or putting it inside the tacos or having a dish of it to dip the taco in!

Enjoy!!!

And the weiner is.....

2012-01-08T19:59:00.003-06:00

Great job on the entries my peeps! Thanks for sharing the love, the link, all that fun stuff.

So... using random.org after listing all the entries on a numbered spreadsheet.... the computer picked

Aunt Debbie V!!!!!!

YOU, oh aunt of mine...YOU are the weiner of the cookbooks and cookies!

Let me know if you want the cookies just anytime (ie with the cookbooks) or if you want to save your dozen for a special occassion (calendar permitting!).

Whooohooo!

Oatmeal Choc Chip cookies-and a Giveaway!

2012-01-05T20:17:00.004-06:00

It's time for the first give-away of the new year! First though, I wanted to share a good recipe that I just tried out. Literally these things are still on the cooling rack!

I love Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies of any kind. I've found that the recipes where there are more brown sugar than white sugar are the best ones. My one complaint about Oatmeal cookies is that they seem to dry out quickly. Good thing we are cookie gobblers around here. I also tend to always make the smallest batch I can (I reduce most cookie recipes down to one-egg ratios!), so I usually only bake about 16-24 cookies at a time when baking for our family.

Anyways, these are yummy and simple.

Cream 1 cup margarine, 1/2 cup sugar, and 1 cup brown sugar. Blend in 2 eggs. Then add 2 cups of flour and 1 tsp. baking soda. Stir in 2 cups oatmeal, 3/4 cup chocolate chips and 1/2 cup peanut butter chips. Drop by large teaspoons (or, use the Pampered Chef medium scoop for nice even cookies) onto baking sheet and bake at 350 for approx 10 minutes, till just starting to brown. Cool on cookie sheet for one to two minutes then remove to cooling rack.

And now onto the giveaway....! Even though Christmas is over, I love to see the spirit of giving all year through. I didn't get a chance to give all the 'little things' type gifts to friends and neighbors that I usually do. I decided that doing little things can just happen all year long.

Today I'm giving away two cute paperback cookbooks from Gooseberry Patch. I found a good deal on them and ordered a few extras just for you! :) The first one I thought would be great to have on hand to inspire you when you are wanting to do something nice for someone. It's called "Recipes for Warming Hearts". Looking through it, I can't wait to try the apple scones and a few others! Since we are all busy, I thought the "Quick and Easy Family Dinners" might be handy to have around too. It's got a variety of good old-school type recipes in it, including a new meatloaf recipe I'm anxious to try!

SO, the winner of this giveaway will get these two sweet cookbooks AND a gift certificate for a free dozen sugar cookies made by me! (See my facebook page here). This gift is even open to out of towners, I will SHIP you a dozen cookies!

There are a few ways to enter.

1) Be a follower of my blog. Leave a comment saying you are. One entry.

2) Leave a separate comment telling me what your fave Christmas gift was this year. One entry.

3) Leave a link to this giveaway on your facebook page or your own blog, and leave a comment telling me you did. Two entries

Three ways to enter! You will enjoy these cookbooks, and I promise you'll enjoy the cookies too! Winner will be selected at random on Sunday!

Cake highlights in 2011

2012-01-02T17:10:00.003-06:00

I was so blessed to have a great year in my baking business! It kept me super busy, and was a good thing to balance with my travel business, since that is so up-and-down on 'busy times.' That being said, I also so enjoyed helping many more friends and clients plan magical vacations, particularly the Disney ones!

I thought I'd share some of my favorite cakes that I did in 2011. In no particular order:

Tangled cake with fondant crown:

I did my first wedding and groom cake this year. The cake was just white with red ribbon around it, then the florist topped it off.

A superhero cake

A very big snake:

One of my favorites, and one of the rare times I got to actually eat a cake that I did! This was for my Zumba instructors birthday, and I was so proud of how it looked on the table!

My first cake of 2011 and one of the cutest, a cake for a first birthday! LOVED it.

This one was just fun and girly:

The OSU groom cake that went with the wedding cake above.

One of my favorite cakes of the year, the entire thing is edible. Loved it. Of course it being Disney helped. :0)

A friend of mine always gives me pretty much free reign on what I want to do for her cakes. She asked for a bridal shower cake, a couples shower, and this is what she got. And I adored it. This cake was actually for the sister of the bride who's wedding cake appears above. Mother of the bride had this shower cake and then called me to do the other daughter's wedding cake. Fun!

Hannah is still talking about this cake and apparently I'm doing one for her birthday:

Another baby shower cake. I love how the bow turned out looking like leather.

Sweet baby dedication cake

An ariel cake for the daughter of one of our local meteorologists. I bought the Ariel cake topper, and she is sitting on top of a huge cake-ball rock.

A sweet froggy cake for a sweet four year old girl.

So thankful for the love and support of friends and customers in both of my business endeavors throughout the year. Please continue sending your friends to me for their vacation and cake needs! And if you aren't a fan of my Sweet Shoppe on facebook yet, head on over HERE and like me! Wishing you many Worthwhile Moments in 2012!!!

Highlights of 2011

2011-12-31T09:35:00.013-06:00

Here are my favorite moments from 2011 for you on this New Year's Eve...

In January, it snowed...and we were happy!

In February, we celebrated Hannah's 3rd birthday

In March, we went to Iowa for part of Spring break, and met our newest cousin, Kennady (born in January). It's always so great to get together with family.

Hello sweetie pie

April brought us Brooke's birthday and a girly party with pedicures, lunch and Orange Leaf. It was a great day celebrating my 7 year old!

In May, we set sail on our 3rd Disney cruise. You can read all about it in the posts that I have on my sidebar.

While on that cruise I met Chuck, who has become one of my dearest, best friends this past year. I'm so blessed to have met him...definately one of the highlights of the year! And Mark is pretty great too...but I didn't have a pic of him :)

The cruise was May 28-June 3rd so I get to use it as my June highlight too....Because our day on Castaway Cay where we had a private cabana for the entire day was by far the best day of the entire year. Picture perfect. Awesome.

The most important moments of 2011 came at the end of June, when both Matt and Brooke decided to be baptised. It was the highlight of the year that has eternal impact, and it was awesome.

Not to be outdone by June, July had some pretty awesome moments too. We had another trip to Iowa for a family reunion. Below is my grandma with all but two of her great grandkids.

Me and my fellow Goonies. (My brother and cousins)

Papa Terry and Grandma Diane playing at the park that I always used to play at.

On the way home from that wonderful Iowa trip, we added to our family. We picked up MAX, a Shichon puppy (bichon-shihtzu). It was a BIG DAY and a SURPRISE for the girls.

And still, July continued to be fabulous with a mommy weekend away to KC to go to the NKOTBSB concert with my cousin!

Joey. Be still my heart.

Danica and I at the concert. Cousins...your first best friends.

Nothing says August like the start of school! We were thrilled beyond words to get the teacher we wanted, Mrs. Henry. She is WONDERFUL and it has been a fabulous school year!

A week later, Hannah started preschool!!! Three afternoons a week.

In September my mom came to spend a few days with us and we had a gorgeous morning playing hooky and going to the zoo.

October just would not be October without a trip to the Pumpkin Patch, always one of my favorite days of the year.

But one of my proudest moments of the year was when Brooke got her Principal's Honor Roll award!

In November, we got family pictures taken for the first time in about 4 years.

And my December highlight, other than Christmas eve at our church and Christmas morning with the girls (the pictures which I have not yet downloaded), was seeing my little princess sing in her program at preschool, and being at Brooke's school while all those kids sang Christmas songs. It was awesome.

I am so thankful for 2011. It was a really great year in so many ways. I pray that 2012 is just as great for you and for me! Happy New Year!!!!

What was the highlight of your 2011? Leave a comment and tell me all about it! oxox

A little creepy

2011-12-29T22:26:00.001-06:00

Here's kind of a creepy story for you.

Bought a Wii game on Tues.

Couldn't find it tonight anywhere. I was sure I had put it away but it was nowhere to be found. Decided I must not have gotten out of Walmart with it.

Called them and they didn't have it in the "left behind" book but if I came in with my receipt they said they would replace it.

Go in with my receipt. Obviously it'd be a trusting practice if they were just to replace it, so of course it was not that easy. The customer service guy gets on the phone with a manger back in some office somewhere.

He tells them the purchase time and register number from the receipt.

Waits a few minutes while the manager pulls up VIDEO of the transaction.

Looks at me and says "the cashier put it in a bag and gave it to your oldest daughter who then put it in your shopping cart."

I gotta tell ya, kind of creeped me out! Makes me rethink my "run to walmart with no makeup on" practice lol!

So I went back home.

Found the Wii game on the Wii shelf in the living room. Exactly where I had told someone to look when we were hunting. So glad I lost that 30 minutes of my life to being creeped out by Walmart for no good reason.

Chicken Enchiladas

2011-12-27T19:59:00.006-06:00

Consider this a belated Christmas gift. Today I bring to you my recipe for Chicken Enchiladas. They are fabulous. I've been told they are 'restaurant quality'. You will love them.

(disclaimer, some of these pics were taken when I was experimenting with my regular recipe...so follow my text and not necessarily what you see in the pic!).

You will need:

1/2 a diced onion

3 to 4 T. butter or margarine

Shredded chicken

Salsa

8 oz cream cheese

1 can cream of chicken soup

Shredded cheese (I use cheddar or a montjack blend)

Flour tortillas

Melt butter in large skillet. Saute onion until tender. Add in about 4 cups shredded chicken (a rotisserie chicken is handy for this!), a block of cream cheese, and about 3/4 cup salsa. Heat till cream cheese is melted and it is all well blended.

(You see in this pic below I had shredded cheese in the meat mixture. Didn't like that as well as my original recipe, so don't put shredded cheese in the meat mixture).

Warm your tortillas in the microwave so they are a little easier to work with. Put 2 serving-spoonfuls of meat mixture down the middle of a tortilla, roll tight, and place in a greased baking pan. I usually get about 6 or 7 tortillas in a 9" square pan with this recipe.

Leaving a bit of the meat mixture in the pan, stir in the can of cream chicken soup and another cup of salsa and heat till well mixed. Pour over enchiladas.

Sprinkle with some red pepper for a little color and flavor. These are NOT spicy enchiladas, so if you really want some kick, you could put some of this in your meat mixture too.

Cover pan with foil and bake in a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

If you took your 'nice mommy' medication, while the enchiladas are cooking, you can make some quesadillas for your picky three year old. To do so, you may have needed to think ahead and set aside a wee bit of that rotisserie chicken. Toss a tortilla in a sprayed pan, sprinkle with chicken and shredded cheese, top with another tortilla. Once lightly browned on one side, flip it over. Press down a few times during the cooking process with a spatula. I do have a quesadilla maker but if I'm just making one, this is much easier.

Remove foil from enchiladas and cover with about 2 cups of shredded cheese. Return to oven, uncovered, until cheese is melted.

We usually eat this with corn, and chips and salsa. These are fabulous enchiladas.

If you make them for a friend who just had a baby or is having a rough time, they will feel loved. You can make them up and put them in a foil pan, then all they have to do is throw them in the oven.

We had hotdogs for dinner tonight, and just posting this made me hungry!

Hope you had a great Christmas!

Fa La La La La...La La La La

2011-12-23T13:51:00.004-06:00

Happy Christmas Eve Eve! I said I'd post this yesterday but not sure where the day went!

Wednesday was Hannah's Christmas program at school. It was so so precious. Since she's our baby (and our last one), I really try to soak up all these little moments.

Here she is in front of the tree before we left for the day.

Walking into the sanctuary ringing their bells.

They did several songs and most of them had actions. Hannah did great!

Hannah swears the little blonde boy next to her is on the naughty list because he always takes toys. In this particular photo, he had just picked a booger and was checking it out.

I can't remember what song this is, but I know they are doing the sign for 'please' right here and it was such a sweet little song. The blondie next to her is her BFF Jordan.

Once the program was over, Hannah and I took off back to Brooke's school for the sing-along they have there. Hannah loves getting to sit with Brooke at their assemblies whenever we are there for one of them.

I can't tell you how much I love hearing 630 students plus the staff sing Christmas songs. It is awesome. It sounds like that final scene in Polar Express when the thousands of elves are singing. It's so sweet. And they sing everything from "Silent Night" to "Up On the Housetop."

The last song they sing is "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and during the song, Santa arrives! Look at those faces as the kids catch their first glimpse of him walking into the gym!

After the kids were heading back to class, Hannah and I caught Santa, and he swooped her up for a picture. (And proceeded to hold her while I cleared some pics off my memory card to make room for the shot!). She didn't mind at all!

Now let me tell you.... Brooke has never wanted to go anywhere near Santa. I've never gotten a picture of her on his lap. One year, I got a picture of her clinging to grandma's arm standing next to Santa. Another year, Santa came to a Christmas party at our house and she took off to the kitchen and proceeded to stay in there and watch the other kids visit Santa.

Finally. This being her EIGHTH Christmas, I got a pic of her with Santa. I said "What, you're not going to pick her up too?" and up she went. (I was totally kidding Santa!). It was quite a moment! So behold, the first ever picture of Brooke with Santa, on her own. Not walking by him. Not being held by someone else. Brooke. In Santa's arms. (The funny thing is, she has always, since her first trip to WDW when she was 3, ran right up to every Disney character with no problems at all!).

Teacher stuff

2011-12-21T18:37:00.004-06:00

Whew!!! The last day of school before Christmas break is craziness for this PTO mom. In addition to teacher gifts, the staff luncheon we put on for the entire staff, and the all-school sing-a-long I had to also zip up to the little girl's preschool program. That was entirely too cute and will get blogged about in the next day or so!

I blogged recently about remembering to do something for your 'specials' teachers at school. This is an idea that one of my friends on facebook did for some of their teachers. We got Brooke's teacher some Kstate PJ's, the bus driver got a gift certificate, and then the specials teachers, preschool teachers, and office staff got these post-it holders:

Acrylic frames from the Dollar Tree:

Scrapbook paper.....

Cut the scrapbook paper to fit the frame. Wrap a ribbon around the top and tie a bow. Embellish how you choose. I had some flat floral marbles downstairs that I hot-glued to these. Stick on a post-it pad and you have a handy little post-it holder!

The PE teachers were harder because they are guys...and they are, well...PE teachers. So I used a basketball themed scrapbook paper, got rid of the bow, and glued buttons on instead.

Those all got delivered on Monday, and then I focused on the luncheon we do for the staff at our school. There are about 75 staff at our school...that's a lot! We always do a Christmas luncheon for them where they all get together to eat and parents cover the classrooms for a bit.

I found these cute pink, green and white striped boxes on clearance on stumpsparty.com for 5 cents each several weeks ago. Ordered a bunch of them. We decided to do a little gift for every person and these boxes were perfect. Inside the boxes were:

Little jars of Festive Cranberry Honey (made by my co-chair and found in one of my Gooseberry Patch books), Hershey Kisses, mixed nuts, and individually wrapped Triple Chocolate Mini-Bundt Cakes (made by me).

Then we topped them with Cozy Cocoa Spoons (made by me with Ghiradelli chocolate). Here's what 75 wrapped/tagged cocoa spoons looks like:

We did white plastic tableclothes (because we were tired and didn't feel up to dealing with fancy ones), with green paper runners down the middle. Stacked the little gift boxes in sets of three.

I found this cool stretchy meshy silver sparkly ribbon on sale at Michael's for 40-cents per yard. So we stretched that and wove it down the tables.

Then I stopped into Dillons and said "I need something inexpensive we can use to decorate tables at a luncheon!" She had just marked down some red roses to $2/dozen, and some bunches of daisy/spider mums/carnations to 50-cents per package. SCORE. Peeled off some not-so-pretty petals, and they were good enough for a luncheon that is for sure!

The meal was great, I heard everyone enjoyed it, and it's all done.

We had a great day today and I will post more about the preschool program and the school sing-along tomorrow!

Late Monday Musings

2011-12-19T23:40:00.001-06:00

Some current random thoughts

1. The last few weeks have kicked my butt on busyness
2. Yes. Yes I have finally got sucked into Pinterest. So many craft ideas, totally no time or budget.
3. Can I tell you that I'm ready for Christmas to be here solely because I'm tired of the damn Elf on the Shelf? Coming up with new ideas/hiding places is frying my brain.
4. There is nothing quite as grotesquely satisfying as pulling Chewbacca out of your bathroom drain. Really. Is it not triumphant? Booyah.
5. Here was my day after Brooke got on the bus and Hannah went to grandmas: Zumba, groceries, Christmas project, take H to preschool, call dr for hubs, Christmas project, other grocery store, party at preschool, make chicken enchiladas, make snacks for B's class for tomorrow, make 70 chocolate spoons, tuck kids in, make tags for spoons, send 20 reminder emails, write a scavenger hunt for a neighbor to use on her kids on Christmas morning, blog. Think I'm tired? You betcha.
6. There is no chore I hate more than getting groceries in the rain. Today I did it at two stores. In pouring rain. Not awesome.
7. If this rain had turned to snow and snowed until about noon on tuesday, I'd be a happy camper. Because we got a ton of rain, which would've been a tonner more snow ;) (yes I know that's not a word.
8. Conversation repeated 6 times today: H: my nose hurts
Me: keep your finger out of it!
9 I have got to crash. You are not getting a number 10.

Homemade Gingerbread Playdough

2011-12-17T15:36:00.006-06:00

Christmas fun is in full swing around here. A week ago we had Jingle Jam at our church, which is the kids' Christmas program. It was a ton of fun. The girls were part of the 150-kid Jingle Jam Carolers, and that was cool. They did 'Silent Night' and a jazzed up version of 'Joy To the World.'

Here the girls are in front of the stage in the main auditorium. They do a different set for each sermon series and they are always amazing. It's (almost) all made from styrofoam. Wow.

Waiting for the show to start.

Getting ready to sing

Silent night...looked so pretty with all their star lights.

Now onto the blog post title. Homemade gingerbread playdough! I saw this post and thought it'd be a fun project to do in Brooke's class. I wanted to do it in cute jars but a)jars are expensive, b)I didn't have enough old jars of my own and c) they would probably break on the way home. Off to the dollar tree I went.

I found plastic containers 6/$1. Awesome. Found cookie cutters in a pack 5/$1. Awesome. Bought some 3"x4" Avery shipping labels and printed them up with the words Gingerbread Playdough outlined on there for the kids to color, along with the directions.

In class, the kids decorated their labels, then came to me to make their dough mix. In their container they put 1 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of salt, 2 tsp cream of tartar, 2 T. cinnamon, and several shakes of nutmeg and ginger. We put the labels on the lids, let them pick out a cookie cutter, and tied it all together with a ribbon.

Off to their homes they went with their box of dough mix. To complete it, you just stir the ingredients in a saucepan with 1 cup of water and 2 T. oil. It gets kind of clumpy but you just keep stirring and once it comes together in a dough, you knead it and turn the kids loose. My hands still smell good from kneading it. Will store in an airtight container for several weeks.

Fun gift for friends and neighbors, right?! You can go fancy, like in the original post, or you can go Dollar-Tree version like I did for the class of 19 kids.

A Guest Post about Hanukkah!

2011-12-15T09:51:00.005-06:00

Please give a warm welcome to my friend Wendi. She's a Jewish girl from New York planted in Kansas! (Though I wish she still had a NY accent. That'd be fun to listen to!). Anyways, her post gives us a little insight into the world of Hanukkah, which I never fully understood before! Take it away Wendi!

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Thanks Angie for asking me to be a guest blogger! I’ve never blogged before. I read a bunch of them, but this is a first for me!

My holiday traditions are a little different than all of those that have been posted here. I’m
Jewish and my family has always celebrated Hanukkah! The traditions are somewhat similar because growing up; we always spent the holiday with family…..grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. They are different, well, because I didn’t celebrate Christmas. I celebrated the Festival of Lights. The 8 days of Hanukkah.

For those of you who don’t know about Hanukkah, I’ll give you a condensed history lesson.
Thousands of years ago, the Jews were prohibited from studying their sacred texts and celebrating their holidays. Any violation of this rule was certain death. Along with this, their temples were destroyed and they were ordered to start worshiping other Gods. A small army of Jews fought and won! After that war, they only had enough oil to last one day. Miraculously, it lasted 8 days! And there you have it, the 8 days of Hanukkah!

When I was little, we always celebrated at my grandparent’s house. Everyone came and we ate potato latkes (potato pancakes), played dreidel, and opened presents. The one year that stands out was when I actually missed the big family celebration. I was home sick with strep throat.
My dad and I played board games all day. I think I enjoyed that year the most….just me and my daddy.

Several years later, my grandparents moved to Florida and we all starting celebrating at my cousin’s house.

Now, my family has new traditions. We are an Inter-faith family because my husband is Christian. We now celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas. My children love it! We have a Christmas tree and we also light our Hanukkah Menorahs every night during Hanukkah. When they were little, they would get 8 presents. Now, we usually get them one big present for Hanukkah.

Every year, we celebrate Hanukkah with my mom, my brother and his family. We have a big meal, open presents and spend the day together. We also go to our Temple for a service and Hanukkah dinner. I love that my kids have friends that share the same traditions as them. My children are learning to read and speak Hebrew. My kids are also able to teach their “school friends” about Hanukkah which is a great learning experience for all of them! Talk about teaching tolerance and opening minds!!

Well, that’s a little peek inside our Inter-faith home! I’d love to hear what all of you do! Please leave a comment about your special family traditions. Happy Holidays!

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Thanks Wendi! Loved the post. Merry Christmas ;) lol.

Insta-Friday--Tues/Weds edition

2011-12-14T10:07:00.002-06:00

This is my version of Insta-Friday....pics from my Tuesday...posted on a Wednesday.

I had to run an errand last night....in the dark. In the rain. With poor night vision. But the lights were pretty.

We got this awesome Jim Shore Tinkerbell decoration a few weeks ago (through our Disney Movie Rewards account).... Apparently she cannot fly. Not when mommy's arm knocks her off the shelf. Hoping for a super glue miracle.

I had two migraines yesterday. Was wishing for an IV drip of this.

Some goodies I was working on for some peeps in between migraines. Cozy cocoa spoons, cranberry white chocolate biscotti, and peanut clusters.

The children programming has taken over the DVR. Scooby, Beauty and the Beast, Good Luck Charlie. Thank God I don't have any Caillou episodes taking up important space. There's a bunch of those on Netflix. :)

Guest post tomorrow! See you then!

The Other Teachers - ideas

2011-12-13T09:14:00.004-06:00

Just a quick post before I run out the door to take care of about 643 things. Story of my life.

I'm sure most of you who are parents give a gift of some sort to your children's teachers this time of year. Whether a gift certificate, a homemade goodie, or something your kid picked out, most of us take the time to do something nice for our teacher at Christmas.

But do you remember to do something for the music, art, PE, etc teachers? I encourage you to do so.... often times the kids most love these classes. And those teachers take care of the entire school. Think about it...the art teacher at our school has to do grades for 630 kids...not just a class of 20. I've spent some time with her recently and she is often at school till 8p.m....she often comes up on the weekends. Many times in our holiday bustle we forget the other teachers who make a difference in the lives of our children.

I will be the first to admit that I cannot afford to get them all a gift as 'big' as the one we get our classroom teacher. I do know that they appreciate being thought of in any way. Here are some ideas of small things you can give those 'other' teachers:

*A packet of your favorite hot chocolate tied to a good magazine with a ribbon.

*A $5 Sonic or Starbucks gift card tied to a candy bar or slipped into a nice card from your child.

*Find a great deal on a small Christmas-y paperback book and give one to each of them.

*Make a CD of great music...whether a mix of relaxing stuff, music to keep them going, or
Christmas songs.

*Give them a brownie mix in a jar so they can have a good later: In a quart sized large mouthed jar, layer; 1/3 cup cocoa powder, 2/3 cup granulated sugar, 1/2 cup chocolate chips, 1/2 cup white chocolate chips, 2/3 cup brown sugar, and 1 cup + 2 T flour mixed with 3/4 tsp salt. Decorate the jar and attach the directions: Mix with 1 tsp vanilla, 2/3 cup oil, and 3 large eggs. Spread in square pan sprayed with cooking spray. Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes.

*Get some cute little 1/2 pint jars. Make some Festive Cranberry Honey: 1 can whole berry cranberry sauce and 4 ounces of orange marmalade heated in the microwave together. Stir till melted then add 1/2 cup of honey. Pour into jars, decorate with a ribbon, and refrigerate. Tag can say: Festive Cranberry Honey: Great on toast or rolls, or as a glaze on ham. Keep refrigerated. This is yummy stuff I tell you.

I just want to encourage you to remember all the teachers who touch your child's life when doing your Christmas giving this year!
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And now, a side note to clarify a little something about my last post. I just want you to know that I do not have anything against people who do not celebrate Christmas for Jesus reasons. The whole point of my frustration in that conversation was someone telling ME what I should say. I don't tell anyone what THEY should say, and I don't think anyone needs to correct me. I'm giving a greeting from my heart based on my belief, and I am fine with other people saying what they so choose. I'm not going to change what I say because of the company I am in, and I don't expect them to do so either. You'll even see a peek of the fact that I have nothing against the 'other holidays' when you read the guest post this week. Stop back by, I bet you'll learn something new.

An email conversation about Christmas

2011-12-10T20:29:00.003-06:00

So I have debated about posting this but after part of the sermon at church tonight was nearly this EXACT conversation, I decided to go ahead. It is my blog after all. I had an email conversation the other day with someone that basically ended up being the "Merry Christmas versus Happy Holidays" debate...which left me frustrated to no end. Here is the conversation, with names / organizations removed just to be somewhat respectful of the semi-private conversation.

The background is that the conversation started with my email to some co-leaders regarding a meeting we had scheduled last week. We are going to call the other person 'Frosty'.

Me: I've got a busy day tomorrow but if I can get it accomplished, I might try to do
some little "Merry Christmas from the {organization}" type thing for all the attendees

Frosty: I think the Merry Christmas should be Happy Holidays as we represent the entire
{organization}. Otherwise, I think it is a super idea.

(I will insert a side note that I get tired of people trying to take God out of the equation, and I get tired of all the 'being culturally sensitive' when we are a country that was founded as One Nation Under God. you'll get the point).

Me: I'm just going to be bold and say this b/c it's the mood i'm in. If i'm going to do something, it would say Merry Christmas. Even people who do secular based gift giving in December... they can deny it all they want...the celebration is because of the birth of Christ whether they want to proclaim it or not. So, I guess I'll just bring the freebie coupons. :)

Frosty: I think it is fine to say Merry Christmas, from yourself

At this point, I replied just to her instead of copying all the leadership in on it. It had become a personal conversation and was no longer about the agenda, right?

Me: I find it very aggravating that people are so concerned about not 'offending' anyone by saying merry christmas but no one seems to care about offending Christians by denying
them the usage of the phrase 'merry christmas'. Sometimes 'politically correct' is not all that great. I'm just saying. I'm pretty offended and upset about this entire conversation. Wanting to do a nice gesture gets 'tweaked' because of p.c. annoys me. Sometimes it's okay just to let something come from the heart without putting too much thought into the PC side of it. That's the way things go when they are from the heart. .

Frosty (copying the rest of the group in again!!): To the contrary, I believe that respecting other
people's beliefs and rights preserves our own. I am not trying to anger you. To me it is more
than political correctness. It is correct.

Me: (NOT A HAPPY CAMPER AND TRYING TO THINK OF SOMETHING NICE TO SAY WHILE STILL STANDING FOR WHAT I BELIEVE...didn't reply at that point).

Finally a reply from one of the other gals to the whole group: "I think Merry Christmas is great!" (God Bless you friend!).

Frosty: I am not a Christian and do not want to be associated with any message that presents a non-secular, religious statement. So, please if you present a Christmas card make it voluntary to sign and do not associate the {organization}, with a religious denomination. We were committed to getting new people to join the {organization}.... To do that we cannot alienate our fellow {organization} present and future. I am Unitarian Universalist. My husband is pagan. I have friends that are Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, Agnostic, Buddhist, Humanists, the list goes on and on. They are loving, caring people that are fantastic parents and responsible members of the community. It would be against my very core nature to openly offend their beliefs. How would you feel if you simply said, "Good day", to someone and their response is "Praise be to Allah." If it would in any way offend your sensibilities or change your perception of that person, then we have to agree not to make a religious declaration as a secular group. To say "Merry Christmas" to a Jewish person is insensitive. I don't understand why you can't just give a Christmas card from yourselves and not make it from the {organization}. I am not oppressing your rights as an individual in any way. Balanced relationships are based on mutual respect and valuing each individual's rights. I love and respect you as people and support you on your chosen spiritual paths.

Me: {I couldn't decide what else to say without being rude or unloving. So I said nothing. But I wore my "Got Jesus?" tshirt to the meeting that week. Passive aggressive move? yep, pretty much}
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So here are all my thoughts on this conversation that have been rolling around in my head

1. I'm sad for her.

2. I don't think that 'respecting other people's beliefs' has to go with suppressing your own.

3. If a Jewish person says "Happy Hannakuh" or someone says "Happy Kwanzaa" to me, I'm not going to correct them, I'm just going to say Merry Christmas in return. And if someone says Happy Holidays... I'm going to say Merry Christmas too.

4. I think people fail to realize that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus... that came first...then the secular version came around much later. So the secular Christmas exists because the celebration of the birth of Jesus first happened. So whether you really believe or not.... a tree, gifts on December 25th, Christmas lights.... it's all there because that baby was born, whether you love or accept the gift of that baby or not.

5. Guess what. I love you whether you love that baby Jesus or not. I might pray a little extra for you. I may strongly desire for your heart to turn to Jesus. But I'm not going to deny my love of Jesus or my belief in Christmas just because it might bother you, and I hope you are going to love me anyway.

6. I think sauerkraut stinks something horrible. It is offensive to me. But I'm not going to tell someone they can't serve it in the cafeteria. I'm going to deal with it, and love them even if they are eating something icky.

7. Iowa State (my alma mater) has a longstanding tradition called VEISHEA. It started out as a celebration of the original colleges of study within the university. Now basically it's one big giant party weekend. When I was attending school there, one year VEISHEA parties got out of hand and there was some destruction that went on, etc. The next year the University proclaimed that it was going to be a "dry VEISHEA".... to which most everyone guffawed and said "You can call it whatever you want, but that is not going to change the fact that people are going to drink and party the third weekend of April in Ames...!" You can call it Happy Holiday if it makes you feel better, but that's not going to change what it is.

Whew. That's all I got to say about that. :) oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS! :)

Christmas Traditions Guest blog- Jodi!

2011-12-08T10:37:00.003-06:00

It's Christmas Traditions guest-post Thursday! Today I introduce you to my friend Jodi... if you've hopped over to her blog via my side bar, you know that she is a super sweet gal who is a great mom to little preemie Olivia. I started reading her blog right around the time she delivered Olivia and her angel brother Logan at 23 weeks. Give her a warm welcome!
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Wow, I’ve never been asked to be a guest blogger before...I’m honored and suddenly at a loss for words. As I think back on all of my family holiday traditions, I realize that some have come and gone and other traditions have continued throughout the years. One of my favorites was when my mom would bake Christmas sugar cookies and my brother and I would help frost them. Of course, I was never good at frosting cookies and it’s a skill that I actually never acquired. Maybe Angie could offer some pointers.

Every Christmas Eve as a child was spent at my grandparents’ house. To me, that was almost as
exciting as Christmas morning except we had to wait until after dinner to open presents and the grown-ups seemed to eat as slow as snails. (I still remember that every time I tell my daughter, “Wait until after I’m finished eating.” Those memories are especially fond this year as we lost my grandfather this past January. I’m fairly certain that he had every Christmas Eve recorded on his enormous camcorder. On our way home, my brother and I would look for Santa’s sleigh in the sky and I could swear that we saw him a few times. Every year, we had the annual picture in front of the Christmas tree.

Actually, now that I think of it, my parents still insist on a picture of all of us in front of the Christmas tree.

My parents always made Christmas so special and magical while always reminding us what Christmas is really all about, the celebration of Jesus’s birth.

Once you get married, those traditions and blessings multiply. As newlyweds, my husband and I
attempted to create some of our own traditions. . .like, placing a candy cane on the tree for each Christmas we’ve been together and a bell for each year we’ve been married. One year we realized that we had forgotten the words to Frosty The Snowman, so we vowed to learn at least 2 Christmas carols each year. Unfortunately, I still forget the words by the next time Christmas rolls around and our tree no longer has the correct amount of bells and candy canes. Sometimes traditions are a work in progress. When you become a parent, however, you experience your traditions through your child’s eyes and that makes them all the more cherished. Every year
my 4 year old daughter, Olivia, receives a carved ornament from her grandpa ofsomething special from that year just as my husband received as a child. What an amazing way to look back at your childhood!

I wonder, however, what exactly is a tradition? Webster’s dictionary defines a tradition as an inherited, established or customary pattern of thought, action or behavior. I say that a tradition can also be a beautiful memory recreated over and over again. They are those meaningful things that we anticipate each year, those things that make my daughter smile so brightly that I want to do them every year. They are unique to each family and make this time of year so special. Not
all traditions, however, can be anticipated. I decorated my son’s grave this afternoon who passed away a little over 4 years ago. Putting out his Christmas tree, Christmas flowers, and a stuffed
bear has become a tradition in our family, yet it’s one I wish I didn’t have. It is a tradition, however, that I will carry out through the rest of my days.

I recently read an article about the two things children most remember about growing up. . . family vacations and holiday traditions. Wow. So, make it count and make it special! We recently started a family devotional called The Children’s Nativity by Marti McCartney (a local author.) Each day, you build up your manger scene and move Mary and Joseph closer and closer to the stable. After your children go to bed on Christmas Eve, you place baby Jesus in the manger to be found Christmas morning. Wouldn’t that be awesome if your child’s anticipation was not just for the presents under the tree, but for the baby in the manger? I’m hoping this can become
a very memorable tradition. What are your family’s special traditions? Please share them in the comments section below and enjoy those special moments with your family as you celebrate the birth of our Savior.

Where's the line to see Jesus?

2011-12-05T09:06:00.002-06:00

My stepdad sent me the link to this video. Important words this Christmas season, when people are getting stressed by the hustle, bustle, and expense of Christmas. When people say 'I hate Christmas' because they can't figure out what to buy everyone. Or they don't have the money for it. Christmas, the REAL celebration, is not stressful. Check out this video.

Where's the Line to see Jesus?

The Giving Tree- Our tradition

2011-12-04T15:17:00.002-06:00

In case you haven't noticed, I've been in Christmas mode lately! That spills over to the blog! I've been loving the guest posts on Holiday traditions, haven't you? I decided that it's time to share one of mine with you!!!

This idea is something I started probably about eight years ago. I'm not sure I recall where or why the idea first came to me. I'm sure it had something to do with the fact that we love to host Christmas gatherings at our house. We used to have a big party at our house with coworkers...until one year someone puked on the carpet. Grody.

Then we decided to have smaller, intimate dinner parties with small handfuls of friends at a time. Then those friends started having kids, so the parties grew again.

Now we have a family here, a family there, a mommy game night, an Open house, etc. Our Holiday entertaining has changed a lot over the years.

But one thing that has remind the same....the Giving Tree. Every year, we adorn this tree in our dining room with ornaments that we give away. Every person who comes to our house during the Christmas season gets to pick an ornament off of it to take with them. It could be a customer stopping by to get travel documents, family visiting for the weekend, or attendees to my open house. Whatever the case, I always say (when I remember before they head out the door) "Come get an ornament off the tree to take home!"

Over the years I'd say I've given away hundreds of ornaments. They're nothing terribly fancy. One of the favorite ones I've given away were these little snowmen from Oriental Trading. I can really get some good deals on some great little glass ornaments there.

Even the Dollar Tree, where everything is $1, has some cute ornaments. I had to restock the tree after the open house I recently had, and got some of these cute glittery mittens to go on it.

Last year, a friend messaged me and said "hey, Walmart has cute cupcake ornaments, you need to get them for your tree!!"...so I got a bunch of those to put on the giving tree.

Why do we do this? I love the people in my life with my whole heart. Every person who comes to our home over the holidays is precious to us for one reason or another. The giving tree is our little way of saying 'thank you for sharing some time at Christmas with us'. Over the years, there have been the occassional repeat visitors...and I heard a few comments such as 'I love that you do this' or 'I still have my ornament from a few years ago and I think of you everytime I put it on the tree' or 'I've got several ornaments from you on my tree now!'...and hearing that makes my heart warm.

The Giving Tree is currently in our dining room. Every year when I have a group of people here, some get out the door without me reminding them to get an ornament. I think I need to move it to a different spot so it is right where I can see it when people are leaving. So if you come to my home this year, I'm telling you now...get an ornament!!

Maybe you will start your own Giving Tree tradition! It's such a fun way to spread the love at Christmas.

Ho Ho Ho-Welcome guest Julie Miller

2011-12-01T08:23:00.005-06:00

I mentioned earlier in the week how thrilled I am to have award winning (and my favorite) author here today to guest blog! Give a warm welcome to Julie Miller!!!

Ho-Ho-Ho!
Thank you to Angie for inviting me to blog with her today about one of my family’s holiday traditions. I always appreciate hearing from readers (especially when they like my books!)

But she’s the first reader to invite me to blog with her, and howcool is that? Thanks, Angie!

I grew up with several Christmas traditions—my dad reading us “The Night Before Christmas” on Christmas Eve; my brothers and I each choosing a Wise Man to move a spot closer to the Nativity scene on the mantel each day in December (like an Advent calendar); being allowed to go through our stockings first thing on Christmas morning to appease our excitement—but having to stop and eat some breakfast before we could open the gifts because of a hypoglycemic brother who would snarl or pass out (both are mood killers ) if he didn’t eat early in the day; and so on.

But the holiday tradition I want to share with you today are “Ho-Ho” gifts. Ho-Ho gifts were
the brainchild of my mom’s fertile imagination. As our family grew and expanded with in-laws, nieces & nephews, grandkids, etc., we opted to draw names for gifts so no one had to struggle with finances to get everyone a gift—especially when we all live so far apart, and travel expenses take up a sizable portion of the Christmas budget. We set a price limit, talk to the person we have (or, more likely, sneak behind their backs to find out what they really want or need ;)) and buy or make them a really special gift or gifts. There is the added bonus of having fewer gifts under the tree, which means it doesn’t take four or five hours for all of us to unwrap our presents (we like to watch each other open gifts and ooh and ahh appropriately).

Ho-Ho gifts may have stemmed from my mom still wanting to shop for all of us and having the pleasure of finding the right something for everyone. At any rate, everyone in the family gets a Ho-Ho gift, no matter who has your name—sometimes Mom gets them; sometimes, I do; sometimes, one of us finds the perfect thing for another family member and steps in to present the gift that year.

Ho-Ho’s are small, inexpensive gifts (garage sales and flea markets are great places to find
these!) that are unique to each member of the family. It might be something we know will make the person laugh—perhaps reminding them of a childhood adventure. It might be something for a person’s collection (my hubby is into Star Trek, and his Ho-Ho gifts often have to do with the Enterprise and its crew). It could be a memento from a trip one of us has taken in the past year.
Usually, they’re silly. Sometimes, they’re sentimental. But they always require a minimal (sometimes free) cost, some clever thinking and a story to share with the family.

Some favorite Ho-Ho gifts over the years? My mom is a big fan of the movie THE CHRISTMAS STORY. My hubby found a string of lights made up of the “Fragile” leg lamp award for her. I have a couple of smart-alecky nephews (and a son!) with a terrific sense of humor—all bright young college men who tend to pooh-pooh the family’s downhome ancestry. I found them “hillbilly flashlights” at a craft fair—basically, they’re a stick with a match glued to the end. Not only did
they laugh, but they lit up their flashlights at the same time and searched the house for snipes—making the rest of us laugh, too. My son, the Star Wars nut, got a Yoda Halloween mask one year. I had a “dumb blonde” experience fixing a stopped up drain one year (I forgot to unlock the stopper—worked on draining the tub for hours—sigh). My brothers, more entertained than they should be by my misadventure, gave me a can of Drano as a Ho-Ho gift that year.

Get the picture? My family exchanges one gift that makes us go, “Aw, you shouldn’t have” or which fulfills a real need. And then we all get a gift that makes us laugh together and reminisce, and brings us together in the very best way. That, to me, is one of the very best parts of the holiday season!

So what’s a funny or sentimental gift that you’ve received? Share about a special gift, whether it’s
a Ho-Ho or not. I’ll give away a copy of my brand new release from Harlequin Intrigue,

NANNY 911, to one lucky commenter.

Happy Holidays!
Julie Miller
***Upcoming Books from Julie Miller***
SHADOW OF THE HAWK--Sept 2011
NANNY 911--Dec 2011
ICE LAKE--Jan 2012
THE MARINE NEXT DOOR--May 2012
www.juliemiller.org

---Thanks Julie for that great post!! I think this is a tradition we need in our family!! Remember to take a moment to leave a comment telling your favorite gift to win Julie's new book, Nanny 911, straight from the author herself!!! Please come back Sunday to see the winner!

Wordless Wednesday - Sneak Peek

2011-11-30T08:02:00.003-06:00

$3 Cupcake Stand, and guest blog sneak peek!

2011-11-29T09:54:00.006-06:00

I must say, I am still NOT totally sucked into Pinterest yet...but I have found some great stuff on the few occasions I've had time to pop over there and stalk my friends pinboards... And this is one of them.

It's cheap. It's easy. It's cute. It holds cupcakes. Perfect to try for my Open House I had last night. Here's the $3 Cupcake Stand.

You need:
Two candlesticks from the Dollar Tree, $1/ea.

A 2-pack of the ugly burner covers from the Dollar Tree, $1.

Spray adhesive, which you can get at Michael's. I didn't count this in the total price because theoretically, any crafter should have this stuff. It is handy dandy. If you use your 40% off coupon I think this can costs about $4.

I was out of spray adhesive so I thought I'd use this decoupage gel that I had on hand instead. For the record, it DOES NOT WORK for this project AT ALL. I ended up going to get a new can of spray adhesive after all.

Pretty scrapbook paper of your choice.... which you may have already stashed in your house, or you can pick up two sheets for about 50cents on a sale day. (Okay, so if you don't have scrapbook paper, and have to buy it, that would make this a $4 cupcake stand maybe).

Trace your little burner on the piece of paper you want on the top tier. Cut it out. Repeat with Bigger burner cover and the paper you want on the bottom tier.

Go outside with your burner covers, paper circles and spray glue. Best when it is not windy and the dog is not out there to try to eat the spray glue.

Spray the top of the burner cover with adhesive, position paper circle, rub it on good. Be mindful of the "made in China" markings on the burner cover... if your paper has a pattern where direction is important, just make sure your "made in Chinas" are on the 'back' of both tiers.

Use Gorilla Glue or E6000 glue or super glue, whatever monster glue you have on hand to glue a candlestick to the bottom of each burner cover. Leave upside down for several hours while glue sets.

Glue little tier/candlestick to the top tier with same monster glue. These cupcake stands are not excessively big or sturdy, so stick something on the top in the middle to hold in place while the glue sets. I used a mug and told the kids to stop running around the island. :)

And joila'! Here is the finished product! So cute !

Here it is doing the job it was made for- holding cupcakes!

And here it is in the midst of my spread for my sweet shoppe open house last night. It worked perfectly!!

Now..... a little sneak peek on my upcoming guest blogger. I am so excited!! I am a Harlequin romance/Harlequin Intrigue junkie and my favorite author is Julie Miller. She has written over 35 books and I love them all! You can find her booklist here. My favorite series is the Taylor clan series....she writes them so well, it makes you fall a little in love with the leading man each time, and makes me wish I was from a great big family. I LOVE her books. Anyways... JULIE IS GUEST BLOGGING HERE on THURSDAY!!!! How cool is that? I mean... I think someone who has published that many books is pretty much a celebrity... and she's way more exciting and talented to me than...like... Justin Bieber. And she's coming to my little blog. I've been so blessed with awesome guest bloggers on my "Christmas Traditions" quest, and I can't wait for Julie's post! I hope all my readers give her a warm welcome! :)

My Christmas List - and - Scooters Winner

2011-11-26T15:17:00.004-06:00

Back on Christmas Traditions Guest Post #2, I had a Scooter's gift card giveaway...and am pleased to announce that Shelley is the winner! Shelley, please check your email/junk mail and contact me with your address.

Jennifer...your necklace is being mailed this week. :0)

I'm done shopping for the kids. Have no idea what to get the hubster. Pretty much got all the ideas for parents in my head, just have to execute them. (the ideas, not the parents). But, just in case you were wondering, here is my Christmas wish list... in no particular order. Feel free to get me anything on the list your heart desires.

1. Massage gift certificates from Serenity.
2. A plane ticket to go see my friends Chuck and Mark in Philadelphia. (Or, a surprise visit from them would work too).
3. World peace
4. A monthly date night with the hubster
5. A gift certificate to CakeStuff
6. A kitchen remodel /redecorate. I'm thinking something fun and vintagey--like an old fashioned soda shop. Doesn't that seem so "me"?
7. This bracelet from The Bradford Exchange.
8. Shoes. Shoes. Shoes.
9. Undies and bras, bras and undies.
10. Referrals and your patronage to my baking and travel businesses.
11. Barnes and Noble gift cards, so I can read all the smutty romance novels my heart desires.
12. Diamonds are always good. I could use a pair of diamond stud earrings. I don't have any.
13. Cupcakes shipped to me from Georgetown Cupcakes. I want to see how they ship the darn things.
14. Love, affection, and prayers from friends and family.
15. Dinner. That I don't have to plan, prepare, clean up, or purchase.

And what is on your wishlist?

useful craft for big-dinner kind of day

2011-11-25T18:11:00.003-06:00

I'm pretty crafty, but don't always think to post things I've done.

(for the record, right this second, there is a puppy and two girls running crazies around this house. It is mass chaos, and here I sit, ignore, and blog)!

Anyways, I don't know about you, but I think the kids not having school the day before Thanksgiving is a little bit of torture to parents who are trying to get things ready for the big day. I planned my arsenal of survival tactics the night before. This including giving the girls some cleaning jobs, letting them each make something in the kitchen for the meal, and a craft.

But seriously, I didn't really need one more turkey or pumpkin craft thing sitting around on my counters. I decided a functional craft would be nice.

So we made coasters for the Thanksgiving table! This can be easily done for any big meal if you need something for the kids to do while you do some kitchen prep.

The idea started with the fact that I have a bunch of this self-adhesive foam core board in my laundry room. Go buy a sheet of it, or even the non-adhesive stuff, and stick it behind your dresser or somewhere that it will be handy whenever you get desperate for a project.

Cut the board into 3" squares. I did NOT cut it before I did the rest of the project, and I had some issues with gummy scissors, etc. So take my word for it, cut it from the beginning.

Google for a coloring picture of the item you wish to use. Here is the turkey I found. This would make a lovely Christmas coaster.

I right clicked on the image to save it to my computer. Then I opened up my PrintMaster program (I'm sure you could use Word) and pasted several copies of the image onto one page, sizing it to fit the coaster. Then I added a name to each turkey.

Print the images and have your little artists start coloring. Cut the images into 3" squares to match the blocks. Peel the paper off the foam core board and attach your pictures.

You know, you could even get fancy and do actual PICTURES of your guests to put on these. that'd be kind of funny.

I'm not one of those people that has a little personal laminating machine. Nor am I even a person who keeps clear contact paper on hand. I am, however, a person that almost always has clear packing tape around here. Let me tell ya, it works great for a little laminating project.

Two pieces laid carefully side by side perfectly covered the little coasters.

Here is the finished product. A personalized coaster for each person eating Thanksgiving dinner in our house. About 25 minutes of time that the girls were entertained. A functional project. Not one of the turkeys bled from the glasses because the packing tape protected it.

Not meant to last forever, but hey, it was a good little project nonetheless!

A little late for your Thanksgiving feast.... but I bet you all will have a few days before Christmas where you are looking to entertain your munchkins!

If you haven't had a chance to read the guest post from my friend Mark, scroll on down and check it out!

Holiday Traditions Guest post - Mark Kingsdorf

2011-11-24T08:39:00.002-06:00

Today I introduce to you my friend Mark. He's a big time wedding planner out in Philadelphia, and he gets invited to speak at conventions of all sorts. He's a great guy. I met Mark and Chuck on our Disney cruise and they are precious friends to me. Rarely have I met two such giving souls. So happy to have him stopping by my blog to share some family traditions....
******
‘Twas the night before….

I’m so excited that Angie asked me to guest blog.

As a Master Bridal Consultant, I get to design fun events and help couples start their own family traditions – and most of my enjoyment of this comes from being raised in a family of people who LOVE celebrations and especially CHRISTMAS… so picking just one tradition for me will NEVER work.

For starters, my Mother LOVED Christmas – lots of decorations, going Christmas Caroling, homemade cookies, going to church on Christmas Eve, opening presents on Christmas morning…

We picked out our tree (ALWAYS a fresh tree) a few weeks before Christmas and it stayed outside tied up until Christmas Eve when we put it in the stand and left it for Santa to decorate – still one of my favorite holiday memories.

My mother was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer when I was 8 – so EVERY Christmas was special for us (I was blessed to have her for nearly 20 years after that diagnosis) so celebrating family and life is always a big part of our Christmas.

Giving back is a big part of the holiday season for me – every year I play secret Santa for a local cancer charity – I always ask for a woman with breast cancer who has small children and love to work with my family and staff to surprise them with a great Christmas. We’ve also done a holiday open house where we asked everyone to bring canned goods for local food pantry – we were OVERWHELMED With the amount of food friends and family brought.

My partner and I started a tradition where we buy a Christmas ornament every place we go – vacation, museum, amusement park…it doesn’t matter. And as we decorate the tree we get excited about the places we’ve been and the memories we have.

I really enjoy baking Christmas cookies, I make the BEST chocolate chip cookies and gingerbread men…one year in my 20’s when things were lean I baked 100 dozen cookies and that was what everyone got for Christmas…

One year when I lived in Washington DC, I had friends over for Christmas Eve dinner and was determined to start a new tradition with my family and friends. I made a Roast Goose (from a local farmers market) stuffed with black bread, sausage and apples – my friends LOVED it….but my family is less enthusiastic about trying this…

Bottom line is keep the spirit of Christmas alive with your own family traditions –( I REFUSE to abbreviate Christmas no matter how many times I need to type it) – we celebrate with good food, sharing with other, treasured memories and keeping family and friends close by and in our hearts…
*******
Thanks again Mark for the awesome post. I cannot believe you didn't put your tree up until Christmas eve...and Santa decorated it?! And I think you should give me your chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Be sure to leave a comment with a hello to Mark! And if you're visiting Worthwhile Moments, thanks for stopping by!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my blog readers! May your heart be filled with gratitude the whole year thru.

A recipe-- Fried Rice

2011-11-23T09:07:00.002-06:00

Thanksgiving is tomorrow and I figured I'd share a recipe today. Is it for your Thanksgiving repetoire? Nope. Because if you haven't figured out what you're doing by now, just order out from a local restaurant.

THIS is... Fried Rice. Super fab fried rice. As in, those expensive fancy restaurants where the guy cooks all the stuff right in front of you has got nothing on me, fried rice. Save yourself some moola, and make this instead.

Cast of characters:

Brown rice (or white if you prefer, but let's have a little health included here!), frozen peas/carrots, onion, eggs, butter, oil, and soy sauce.

Begin by melting 1/2 a stick of butter (or margarine) in a big skillet with about 2 T. of oil. Keep in mind though, that I'm using the amount of rice that came from the 'six servings' directions on the side of the box.

Once your butter is melted, put in 1/2 of a finely chopped onion. I like yellow. If you want to be like {Sumo} then put in about 3 minced garlic cloves, but keep an eye on it, it cooks fast. Once the onions/garlic have started to brown, dump in your rice.

Stir well. You want each piece of rice to have touched that oil/butter mixture. Cook, stirring frequently, for about 6 minutes. Then push all the rice over to one side of the skillet.

Crack yer two eggs into the skillet.

Scramble them up good. Super good.

Once the eggs are cooked, stir the eggs/rice all together. Add 2 cups of rinsed frozen peas and carrots.

Then, stir in 1/2 cup of soy sauce. Yes I said a 1/2 cup. Don't plan on wearing your wedding ring tomorrow because your fingers will be all puffed up from all that sodium.

Turn the heat down, put the lid on until the peas and carrots are hot.

This is one happy pan. It goes great with the (vietnamese) neighbors' awesome eggrolls that they give us at Christmas.

It also goes great with this Teriyaki Chicken. (Bonus recipe; marinate chicken breasts in a blend of 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup water, 1/3 cup soy sauce, a few dashes of cinnamon, a few dashes of ginger). Grill. So yum.

Have a wonderful pre-Thanksgiving day! I'm heading into the kitchen with my little sous chefs. Pray for me.

Whole lotta stuff going on 'round here

2011-11-22T13:30:00.003-06:00

I was chatting online last night with my cousin Danica... and told her I think that I will look back on my 30's and describe it as the age of exhaustion. Who knew life could be so busy!! Here's a little peek into what has been going on the last several days around here.

Brooke's class had a little 'popcorn company.' They created their company, named it (Perfectly Perfect Popcorn), interviewed for jobs (Brooke got Junior Executive of Manufacturing), sold it, bagged it, etc. Mommy was popcorn getter-girl and volunteer bagging assistant. This was on Friday.

Our class sold 515 lunch bag paper sacks of popcorn. That equated to 5 LARGE garbage bags of fresh popped popcorn from the theatre. I went to pick it up. Have you seen the movie "Real Genius"? You may remember this final scene: Real Genius Popcorn

I was totally wishing for this song to play on the radio while I drove with my Denali full of popcorn to the school. I almost had to leave Hannah at the theatre. :)

Then I helped in the classroom packaging all of our popcorn into the bags and preparing them for delivery. It was an exhuasting day, but I sure was glad I was not the janitor.

We are in full fledged decorating mode around here....

Some days, this is totally my kind of day....

Do you think I could sue them for false advertising? Tell them that peanut butter is a hot commodity around here and I don't have time for the jar I open to NOT be chunky?! Total perfect depiction of my day. Hey, see my manicured thumbnail? Got fake nails put on the other day. Driving.me.bonkers.

Experimenting with a raspberry recipe.....

Some of my latest creations....

Love this one. It's all edible! (well, except for the three toothpicks holding the ears and bow on!).

Thanksgiving Feast at preschool yesterday. The kids had jello cups and about three of them were like "what is this stuff?!" because they had never had it. Jordan, hannah's little friend, said "well, what do you DO with it?!" So cute.

Got family pics taken this weekend. You can't see them yet. But I can tell you this...they involved 2 girls, 2 grandparents, 2 30something parents, 1 puppy, red, black, denim, and pretty trees...

Funny things heard around this house lately:

Matt: "Hannah needs to leave that damn dog alone so he can go sh*t!"

******

Hannah: "My baby is named Jesus."

Matt: {laughing}

Hannah: {very serious face} "Jesus does not like people who are laughing."

******

Matt and I had a date to see comedian Tim Hawkins last week. So funny. I leave you with this clip.... 100% true. True True True. Have a great day!

Tim Hawkins

Christmas Traditions Guest Post #2

2011-11-17T08:56:00.003-06:00

Today I introduce to you my wonderful friend, Kristin. We met clear back when my firstborn was 6 months old and her firstborn was about three. I was scared that rambunctious boy was going to trample my sweet baby. Years later the children survived and she is a treasured friend! She's known for stirring the pot with her opinion on facebook, but everything she says and does is in love if you really know her :) SO... here's Kristin!

****************

When Angie asked me to blog about my favorite holiday tradition I have to admit that the first thoughts that ran through my head were about all the holiday traditions I despise. It seems I’ve become quite a cynic where holidays are concerned. As a culture, we Americans have become so infatuated with the commercialism and meaningless hoopla surrounding the holidays that we have all but forgotten what it is we’re celebrating in the first place. Case in point: St. Patrick’s Day. We adorn ourselves head-to-toe in green in order to avoid being pinched and instead collect unwanted kisses. Then we spend the entire day skipping work and hopping bars. According to the 2008 US Census Bureau, less than 12% of Americans can legitimately trace their ancestry to Ireland, yet the vast majority want to jump on the St. Patty’s bandwagon. I have to wonder how many of these party-goers have a clue who St. Patrick was. As it turns out St. Patrick wasn’t even Irish for crying out loud! He was a British missionary who traveled Ireland preaching the gospel of Christ. I’m pretty sure St. Patrick is looking down from heaven shaking his head in sour disappointment over the disgrace that has been made of his name. And don’t even get me started on Cinco de Mayo!

Sadly, in the same way, I have almost come to loathe the Christmas season. Although most Americans can tell you that the Christmas holiday is the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus, so few actually partake in the true celebration, forgoing any religious affiliation for the more modern traditions. Even here in Wichita, the very bosom of the Bible belt, celebrating the birth of our Savior has become a near-extinct in most homes. Instead we prefer to spend hundreds of dollars to temporarily transform our homes inside and out into winter wonderlands and hundreds (if not thousands) more on purchasing gifts for our loved ones whom we have raised with an arrogant a sense of entitlement to receive them.

By now you’re probably thinking; “Geesh, this lady is a real Scrooge!” I can hear your faint accusations; “But, Kristin, what about the children? What about the sense of wonder and excitement on their faces Christmas morning as they behold Santa’s heaping bounty? We do it for the children!” Okay, okay. I admit that I too get pleasure in witnessing the sparkle in my children’s eyes and their squeals of joy as they unwrap each gift. But my greatest delight by far is the joy found on their precious faces in the weeks before Christmas…

And here is where my favorite holiday tradition comes into play…Giving. My husband and I have developed a financial tradition of giving an equal amount to charities each season as we spend for ourselves and our family. Each year, as a family, we select one or more charities for which we choose offer our time, our money and our gifts. In the past we have participated in everything from Toys for Tots, Angel Tree and Adopt-a-Family to The Salvation Army, City Union Mission or a local hospital children’s ward. The charities change each year depending on what strikes a chord with us at the time. However, there is one charity in particular what we remain faithful to year in and year out. Operation Christmas Child is a program operated through the Samaritan’s Purse organization. The program collects shoeboxes full of toys, candy and basic essentials to deploy to impoverished children in third-world countries. From the time my boys were old enough to point their chubby little fingers, I have taken them on an annual excursion to a department store at the beginning of each holiday season with the sole purpose of allowing them to select the gifts to fill their Operation Christmas Child boxes. I love nothing more than watching their little hearts expand and overflow as they focus on something beyond themselves and learn about the blessing of giving. They have so much fun discussing and debating which toys their recipients might enjoy and what items (things we Americans take for granted like toothbrushes and wash cloths) that they might need. Each year I have to reign in their generosity as they try to cram the entire catalogue of merchandise into the disappointingly limited space provided by their box.

We had our opportunity to partake in this particular annual tradition just last week. To my amazement the boys were able to keep a lid on their own personal wants and focus on the task of giving (quite an impressive feat for children ages 5 and 9…or persons of any age for that matter!) As we were finishing up our shopping and making our way to store’s check-out area – shoeboxes filled to maximum capacity – my oldest son Truman turned to me and said: “Mom, I love buying these gifts. It makes me feel so good inside.” I nearly burst with pride as I tousled his hair and replied; “I know, Baby, me too.” Holiday tradition accomplished!

*******

Thanks Kristin for that great post! We too participate in Operation Christmas Child. For more information you can go to www.samaritanspurse.org I know our church is still collecting boxes this weekend, so it's not too late for you to do one! You can always give it to me and I can turn it in for you!

In honor of Kristin's post, I'm going to give away a $5 gift card to Scooter's Coffee Shop.... Kristin loves that place and until recently was a barista/manager there.... so it's the great giveaway for her. Just leave a comment on this post saying "Amen" or "You're Silly" or whatever mostly nice thing you want to say, and you'll be entered to win!!!

Awesome Biscuits-and a Tiny Prints contest!

2011-11-16T17:50:00.003-06:00

I saw a recipe on Pinterest the other day (and let me just say, I have not yet fully gotten sucked into the vortex of Pinterest.... but I do peek around in there a bit!)

It was for 7-up Biscuits. Then I couldn't find the pin, so I just did a search for a recipe of that name. All the ones I found had Bisquick in them. I never have Bisquick around here. So with a little more searching, I was able to create them without Bisquick. These biscuits are super good.

In a mixing bowl, stir together 2 cups flour, 3 tsp baking powder, a little less than 1 tsp of salt. Drizzle in 2 T. oil and stir it around in there with a fork. Add 1/2 cup sour cream (not 'light') and stir it in with a fork. Should get crumbly like when you're doing a pie crust. Add 1/2 cup 7-up (I used Sierra Mist). Stir together with a fork.

The dough will be really sticky at this point.

Sprinkle 1/2 cup of flour on your countertop. Dump your dough on top of it, and knead some of that flour into it until the dough is no longer sticky.

I then formed mine into a thick square and cut it into 9 pieces:

In the bottom of a 9" square pan (or whatever you've got), melt 1/4 cup of butter. Place your cut biscuits into the pan and bake at 450 for 9-14 minutes. When they're golden, they are done. And they are GOOD. Give them a try!

And now... a Tiny Prints Contest! Tiny Prints is a great website for customized cards for many occassions! Right now they are doing a Talent Show contest
with categories such as Cutest Baby, Cutest Kid, Cutest Family, Cutest couple. Entries can be submitted until the 19th and the grand prize is $1000 plus a $500 Tiny Prints gift certificate! How sweet would that be for the holidays? Go to the contest link to see how to enter...and if my pics make the finals, I'll be sure to let you know :)

Have a great day!

How do you "do life"?

2011-11-11T15:04:00.002-06:00

Last weekend, the sermon at church was about "Getting off the sidelines and into the game." Our pastor has been doing a series about Revelation and end times.... amazing (God-sent?!) timing considering we had EARTHQUAKES in KANSAS last weekend.

He talked about whether you want to spend these {last} days on the sidelines of life, or do you want to GET IN THE GAME?!

Think of all the athletes in this country that we spend billions to watch each year. Do you think they sit on the sidelines and think "yeah, this works for me. I'll just sit and watch the game from the sidelines." NO! They want IN THE GAME!

My take on the concept of getting in the game of life.... God did not bless us with the people around us, the world we live in, the life on this earth....so we'd watch from the sidelines. Or the couch. Or thru the boob tube. God gave us this life to LIVE it. He gave us friends to enjoy time with them. He gave us the ability to BE the church so we'd go BE the church, not so we would warm the pews. He gave us enthusiasm, life, and vitality, to go and spread it to others. To share ourselves with our family. Our friends. The world. He has given us His love so that we will show His love to others... whether thru a random act of kindness, volunteering at the school, helping at church, giggling with your kids.

Giving of yourself is one of the most important things you can do.

Life is not about the time you spend running the vaccuum, doing dishes, watching TV. Yes those all have a time, a place, a purpose of some sort. We don't want to live in an episode of "Hoarders" or "Intervention." But life is about GETTING IN THE GAME, and sharing your heart, your soul, your time... with the world. With your little world in your walls, your neighborhood, your church, your town....the world.

So, are ya gonna get off your butt and start sharing life with people, or are you going to watch it with a bowl of popcorn in front of your big screen day in and day out?

Christmas Traditions - Guest Post!!!

2011-11-10T08:04:00.003-06:00

Today I am happy to have my new friend Megan joining us for a guest post! I met her recently through my women's group, Hannah Circle, and she's a sweetie. Plus she's a total Disney nut like me which is always a good thing. Say hi to Megan....!

Coming straight to you from http://www.lovingthelittlethings.com/, I'm here to talk about Christmas traditions.

Ahhh, holidays. A source of joy. Family. Happy moments.

via

But also, stress. Yes, my friends, it's inevitable.

via

My parents divorced when I was a child, so my Christmas experiences probably aren't typical. Fortunately, I had parents who both cared about making the holiday season special, and there were times when I felt lucky that I got double the holiday fun instead of feeling bummed that I had a broken family.

And because of this, it meant that I was exposed to lots of fun holiday and Christmas traditions, since different things were important to each parent.

With that said, here are 5 fun things I could count on every Christmas. If you don't have any special holiday traditions with your family, feel free to borrow a few of mine. Believe me, your children will remember them for years to come, and will treasure all those special memories.

1) We watched a lot of Christmas movies. On a cold winter night, there's nothing better than snuggling up in the living room with lots of cozy blankets, buttery popcorn, and deliciously rich hot chocolate. Some of my favorite Christmas movies include:

If you don't have any of these, order a couple for your family. Seriously.

2. We attended midnight mass. Jesus is the reason for the season, and midnight mass was always a beautiful worship service. (and for a kid, getting to stay up that late is awesome!)

3. We always made it a point to remember those less fortunate than we were. We participated in various food drives and we always selected children to purchase gifts for from the Salvation Army Angel Tree.

4. We made Christmas cookies. Don't feel like you have to be a whiz in the kitchen to attempt this with your kiddos. If homemade dough, and beautifully decorated cookies are your thing, that's fabulous, but if refrigerated slice and bake and way too many sprinkles is as good as it gets, your kids will be just as thrilled!

5. We didn't know what gifts were ours. Kids are notorious for doing whatever it takes to figure out what's inside those festively wrapped packages. My mom was quite the trickster when she came up with creative ways of labeling the gifts under the tree. One year, all the gifts has a number, and on Christmas eve, she revealed that even numbered gifts were for me, and odd for my brother. Another year, all of one color were mine, and another color was his. Tricky! And fun :)

Now that I'm grown, I celebrate Christmas with my husband, and my two daughters, Kaylee and Isabelle. You'll find me blogging about them, posting lots of cute pictures, sharing my favorite recipes, all kinds of random things at http://www.lovingthelittlethings.com/. Come visit my blog, take a look around, and feel free to follow along!

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thanks Megan for your post!! Leave her some warm Worthwhile Moments loving in the comments section!

2nd Post of the Day?!?! Soft Pretzel Bites

2011-11-08T20:02:00.003-06:00

I've lost track of where I am on the Worthwhile Challenge recipes, but I'm still trying to post them! Look at this-- 2nd post of the day! I had to post this, because it's a darn good recipe.

My friend Jodi has been on a cooking kick lately. Which benefits me because she likes to post her recipes to facebook and she has discovered some fun food sites that I have not discovered before.

Recently she posted a link to a recipe for Soft Pretzel Bites. I can't find the link she got it from, so I'm just recapping it from my experience making them today! These are ADDICTIVE. And their main ingredient is one of my freezer staples - Rhoades Texas Rolls. I use them for lots of things!

Before we begin...check out my white-trash window in my kitchen. Yep, the blind broke the other day and we haven't fixed it yet. We're so awesome.

This recipe is easy peesey. The hardest part is waiting. Thaw out some Rhoades Texas Rolls, and cut into fourths. Allow them to rise until double in size on a greased cookie sheet.

Bring a pot of water to a boil. And I don't mean get the water hot, I mean get it boiling. Toss your dough balls in about a dozen at a time and boil them for about 1 minute, turning to make sure that all the sides get boiled. This is where you're bringing in that chewy factor. Using a slotted spoon, set them on a paper towel lined sheet/plate.

Here's what they look like boiled. Nothing too exciting.

Once you've got them all boiled, spread them out on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and brush them with melted butter.

Now, you can choose your own adventure, or split the batch in half. You can mix some cinnamon and sugar in a gladware and toss four or five of the buttered balls in at a time, put the lid on, and shake it if you want a sweet treat. You can get fancy and make an icing glaze to dip them in (melted butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, bit of milk). Here's that yummy goodness.

OR if you are wanting savory, you can sprinkle them with a mixture of parmesan/garlic powder/italian seasoning. SO good. Would be good dipped in spaghetti sauce too. Brooke LOVED these, she's a savory kind of girl. Hannah LOVED the cinnamon ones, she's a sweet kind of girl. Matt and I loved them BOTH. SOOO good.

You should totally make these.

A List of Thoughts and a Winner too

2011-11-08T07:41:00.002-06:00

1. Good morning

2. Kansas yesterday had torrential rain, lightning, and earthquakes. Jesus is coming soon, I tell you! Ironically our minister is in the middle of a sermon series about Revelation and the end times....and this craziness with earthquakes sure has us sitting up and taking notice! Get in the game people, get in the game!

3. I have decided that the nails-on-a-chalkboard frustration of a three-year-old's fits is not so much the fit itself, but the fact that it is usually about absolutely NOTHING whatsoever. The child can be fine one minute, and crying like their toes are being chewed off the next and you have no idea why. This was my alarm clock this morning.

4. Thank God, in light of #3, that I bought two cases of diet dr pepper yesterday. Yeah for sales!

5. We are a little late in starting our Christmas decorating. We usually put up about 8 trees, and so far all we've done is unload the Christmas closet. TODAY I shall get the ornaments-a-rolling.

6. The weiner of the gorgeous Poema Creations necklace is JENNIFER GRAGG!!!!! This girl up and moved to Texas on me so she's gonna have to send me her mailing address and wait patiently for me to mail the darn thing....lol...

7. Did you decide to participate in the Happy Day project? Even if you can't do it everyday, I encourage you to try to do as many as you can. I made no-bake cookies yesterday, and finally got them delivered last night to my neighbors. I'm sure they thought I was on crack because it was pouring rain, I had on shorts and flip flops, my husband's big work coat, my glasses, and wet hair because I'd just gotten out of the shower. But I was determined to complete the assignment on time! Today is hand-written note day.... if you don't have someone to send a note to, feel free to send one to me :) lol...

8. Have a great day!

The Happy Day Project

2011-11-06T20:54:00.003-06:00

One of the blogs that I follow is Julie over at Joy's Hope. She seems to be one of those uber cool, talented, adorable type chics that I have always wished I was!

Right now, she's in the midst of starting the Happy Day project...doing something good each day leading up to the holidays. I'm still not totally sure how it is going to work out, but I know that I'm totally down with trying to hop on the bandwagon....!

Feel like doing some good in this world? Feel like getting in the game of spreading some love (especially Christ's love) instead of sitting on the bench? This just might be a good place to start. A preview of what is to start off for the week so you can be prepared? Monday-Treat a neighbor. Tuesday- Handwritten Note Day. Wednesday-Giftcard to homeless.

Come along....I'm sure the water's fine.

Traditions: A Christmas Vacation Tribute

2011-11-05T20:23:00.003-05:00

Alert: This post includes many youtube video links. To get the full effect of this post, please view the youtube videos. It will increase the funny-factor of this post ten-fold. Thank you. (and if your computer doesn't open the youtube links in another window, you should be able to click the back arrow after each clip to get back to the blog post!).

If you know me even a teeny weenie bit, you know that I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas.

With that, you should also know that I LOVE LOVE LOVE "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation"

Love it.

That being said, we started our annual 8 weeks of watching that movie a week or two ago. Total nerds. We turn it on in our bedroom and snuggle down in our bed and giggle our hearts out. 'We' being the hubster and me.

Love that movie. It's inspirational. More on that in a moment.

The real life application of this movie is amazing. Hubster said that I had to post the "kiss his ass" scene....because every morning where he works, a group of management walks through the hangar to review the status of every plane. And he watches them, and thinks about this scene....Check it out:

Chevy Chase - Kiss His Ass

Last year, I had one day in particular which was just a really crappy frustrating today. (Funny tho, that I don't recall at all what the problem was. See how insignificant things can be in the grand scheme of things?). I sat down that evening, and pulled this link up to post to my facebook. While I didn't have a boss that sent me into a fit such as this (though, so many people do, right? Can I get an amen?), my day nearly sent me into a hissy fit like this:

Where's the Tylenol?

You may be wondering what the heck this post is all about? Well, this scene here inspired an idea in me. Clark Griswold is all about traditions

Old Fashioned Family Christmas

I love traditions, old and new. There's something about traditions that makes the Holidays so magical. I love hearing about other people's traditions. SO, thanks to our friend Clark Griswold, every Thursday from now thru Christmas, I'll be featuring a guest blog post from a bloggy friend sharing their favorite holiday tradition. Maybe it will inspire a new idea for you. Maybe it will just be nice to share a glimpse of what the holidays look like for other people.

While I fully expect these posts to incite warmth, joy and happiness into your lives this Holiday Season, I must leave you with a clip of one of my favorite "funny" Christmas songs. It totally cracks me up. (Tho, honestly, none of these things bothers me. I love it all!).

The 12 Pains of Christmas

Tune in Thursday for our first guest post!

------PS--LAST CALL FOR THE JEWELRY GIVEAWAY! Go HERE to enter!-------

Donating Blood

2011-11-04T08:44:00.002-05:00

I'm sponsoring a blood drive at our school tomorrow.

I'm a little disenchanted though.... because out of the staff, staff spouses, and parents of 630 kids....I've only got 22 people signed up to give. How terrible is that?! AND...6 of those people are my husband and I, and four of our friends that are not even remotely associated with our school.

I did the math and if you figure there are about 1000 adults associated with our school.... and if Five percent of the US population gives blood (Five percent, how pitiful is that), then we should have had at least 50 people willing to jump in and give. I've got 22. And I had to beg for those.

It really makes me sad. What is up with people? Especially those that a) have given before and did fine but just 'don't feel like it.' and b) those that have never TRIED to give blood. How do you know you're gonna pass out if you don't TRY?!? I personally have TRIED (and failed) twice already, but damn it, I'm gonna try again.

According to the Red Cross, one in ten people entering the hospital needs blood. 38% of our population is eligible to give blood, but only 5% do. On average, someone in the US needs a transfusion about every 2 seconds. Kansas' blood bank is very low.

If your child ends up in the hospital needing blood...you can't just stick your arm out and say 'here give him some of mine' if there's a shortage. It takes three days for blood to be screened and processed, etc. So if your child needed blood today to save their life, it would have to come from someone who was willing to give a few days ago.

What if it was you? Your kid? Your grandkid? Your spouse? What if it was someone you loved, sitting in the hospital, needing blood and having to wait for it to come in from Omaha because the supply here is too low? I'll tell you what- you'll have wished you were a donor. You'll have wished you had done everything you could to make sure the blood bank was full.

You'll have wished that someone would have signed up to give blood at our school blood drive. Don't wait until it's too late. Give blood NOW. If you try and whanny out because you have needle issues, at least you TRIED. That's all anyone can ask.

If you're local, go HERE and put in Seltzer and fill one of our open slots for our blood drive. Tell your local friends. I need peeps.

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The jewelry giveaway is still going on. I really want to see more of you enter for a chance to win! Go HERE to find the post to enter. Winner drawn on Sunday. Thanks!

Tap Tap Tap...don't you want to win JEWELRY?!?

2011-11-02T10:28:00.002-05:00

So, only three peeps want to win the awesome necklace from Poema Creations? Really? Are you all crazy? :)

Check out the previous post and get entered to win! And I'm going to do a bonus entry if you share the link to my blog on your Facebook and comment that you did so!

Remember even if that cool stopwatch piece isn't your style....it's make a nice Christmas gift!!!!

A Giveaway - Poema Creations Necklace

2011-10-29T11:27:00.002-05:00

Since it's almost time to shop for the most wonderful time of the year.....

Since it's been a long time since I've done a giveaway on this blog of mine.....

I think it's time for a GIVEAWAY!!!!

Today I introduce you to my friend Missy of Poema Creations. I gotta tell ya, this girl is talented at making polymer clay creations. You look at her stuff and can't imagine that it is handmade jewelry. I love it. I need more of it. (You hear that missy? I need more!). Check out her stuff. She is a local artist and I think the best Christmas shopping is done by supporting local peeps.

Because she's awesome, and because I'm giving her some of my goodies from my Worthwhile Moments Sweet Shoppe for her open house, She is giving me this awesome necklace to give away!

It is a 1" Stopwatch Pendant on a 16" chain. It is so cool and unique. She MADE it. Check it out:

There's lots of fun ways to enter. Do them all for the best odds of winning!

1. Leave a comment on this post answering this question: Who is the hardest person on your list to shop for? That will get you ONE ENTRY.

2. Post a link to this giveaway on your facebook page and leave ANOTHER comment telling me you did that.... that gets you another TWO ENTRIES

3. Tell the world about me, and my blog in a post on your blog and that will get you FIVE MORE ENTRIES (but leave another comment saying you did that too!).

4. Become a Follower of this blog (and comment that you did/ or are) and get TWO MORE ENTRIES!

5. Go 'like' my Worthwhile Moments Sweet Shoppe page on FB. Tell me you did/do. ONE MORE ENTRY

So you've got a chance to get TEN ENTRIES to win this gorgeous necklace. Keep it for yourself (oh, yeah baby!) or give it as a gift and cross someone off your shopping list (I won't tell).

Worthwhile Challenge #42 - homemade goldfish crackers

2011-10-26T20:39:00.002-05:00

I saw this recipe for Homemade Goldfish Crackers over on Tasty Kitchen -- Pioneer Woman's food/recipe website. Thought they'd be a lot of fun to make with Hannah one day. I decided that today, since the cold front finally came thru and it was windy and chilly, would be a great day to give it a try. Easy peasy.

All you need is:
a food processor. new or old seems to work. this one is one we stole / got from Matt's parents, and I'm pretty sure it is at least as old as I am. It's pretty worse for the wear, but for the like three times a year I use a food processor, it gets the job done!

Five ingredients: 8 ounces shredded cheese, four tablespoons cold butter cut into cubes, 1 cup of flour, 3/4 tsp salt, and 2 tablespoons (give or take) of cold water.

A super cute little helper is also nice!

Pulse everything in the food processor until fine crumbs. Slowly pulse in water, a tablespoon at a time, until it comes together like pie crust dough. Form into ball, and chill in the fridge for a bit.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out. The first batch I don't think I rolled out thin enough. I had fat fish. (well, actually, fat hearts, circles, and pac mans). Cut out lots and lots of little cracker wannabes. Put them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment (or waxed paper) and bake about 11 minutes at 350. Let cool.

Joila'! Now, keep in mind that these are NOT super duper crispy like the goldfish we get from Pepperidge farms. Crispy on the outside with a little chewy on the inside! But Hannah LOVED them. She loved making them, thought they were so good, and said "Daddy is going to LOVE these!"

Fun little thing to do on a dreary day, as most people usually have those 5 ingredients floating around the house. If you make these and use margarine instead of butter, let me know how they turn out!!

Coming soon..... a giveaway! I'm excited!

Brooke - a Photography Journey

2011-10-25T09:17:00.004-05:00

Everytime we have school pictures, I try to snap a few shots myself before I send the kiddo off to school. Brooke is usually a dream to photograph. She's not camera shy, she's fun, she is gorgeous.

But, alas, she is also seven, with an attitude, with a mother who is not a morning person. Here's the photo journey we had on school picture day.

1. Me: Brooke, smile so I can get a picture before the bus gets here.
Brooke: (see pic below).

2. Me: Come on Brooke, you can do better than that!
Brooke: (see pic below)
Me: That's not a smile, that's a grimace!

3. Me: So, who's your boyfriend?
Brooke: MOM!!! (see pic below)

4. Me: Is it Cody? Tanner? Dallas?
Brooke: ~laughing~ (see pic below)

5. Me- more guesses....
Brooke-- ~lots of giggles~ MOM!!! (see pic below)

6. Me- Come on, tell me! Is he your age?

Brooke ~I'm not telling!!!~ (see below)

7. Me - Well geez give your mother a hint!!!

Brooke - ~I'm just going to tell you he's in 2nd grade!~

Me- Thank God for that.

Brooke - Stop talking about it ~giggle~

8. Me - more guesses.

Brooke - It's Chase!

Me - Chase, who?!?!

Brooke - Debbi's Chase!!! (mommy's BFF's son, they went to preschool together. She hasn't seen him for months).

Me - Does Chase know this?

Brooke - Well, I'm not going to tell him!!!

9. And finally, she warmed up to the camera, and stopped giggling just enough to get this shot:

10. And this shot....

And we didn't even miss the bus!

I'm Just Sayin'

2011-10-22T20:58:00.003-05:00

I'm not usually one to discuss politics/religion/hot topics on my blog, or even in general. I'm a pretty grey-area kind of thinker actually, or one of those people who can see many sides. But I thought that I'd make an exception to this usual way of operating to share my thoughts on some things. Not to make any friends or enemies, not to make ya a hater. Just to tell ya what I think. Since this is my blog and all....!

Heaven or Hell? I believe in Jesus Christ 100%. He was sent by God to this earth to save man from sin, he died on a cross and triumphed over death to give us eternal life. I know that my salvation is in Jesus, believing and accepting His gift assures me of eternity in heaven. If you don't believe in Jesus....? Well....guess that one is up to God. But I think you should, because I'd love to see you up there.

Republican or Democrat? While on social issues I would err more to the side of republican, I usually vote democrat because I've never really seen anything good happen to the economy from a Republican's work. I feel that a majority of the problems today and that Obama is fighting are still aftershocks of G.W.B.

Pro-life or Pro-choice? Well, I'm totally for LIFE of course. Babies are too precious to be disposed of. However....and here is where I hit the grey area... if the mom's life is in danger...then that's one thing. I would never encourage someone to have one in anything but a life-threatening circumstance, and I think it should be illegal for sure for third trimester, and I think women who use them nearly as a form of birth control need to be punished.... I don't think it's the government's decision. It's a personal one. Just one that I would choose NO to. Make sense?

Homosexuality: I don't know if they are 'born this way' like Lady Gaga says, but I know that I have several homosexual friends who feel that they were born that way...they say 'why would i choose this life of discrimination!?". Here's what I think...I don't really care what they choose. If they are a good, honest, loyal, caring person that contributes to the benefit of society, that's all I need from someone. I'm not here to judge, I'm here to love. It's not my business. That's all up to God. I'm just here to love others.

Blood or water?: Weird one, I know. I just want to say that I think blood is thicker than water. I don't think you should choose your friend over your family. I think you should always have your family's back, be in their corner. I told Brooke tonight that if she was ever in a room full of people with her sister, her cousin brayton, etc...that her family is always her priority. That's just what I think.

Popcorn. Oh you're right, this is not a political topic. But I do have to say that it cannot be eaten without a carbonated beverage, a little salt, and chocolate of some sort. The best being MM's dumped right into the popcorn bag/bowl so they get a little melty/salty.

Love me or hate me? It's your choice. I am who I am. I wear my heart on my sleeve, just want to be loved, don't want to be jerked around. I can be super sweet and thoughtful, and I can be a little bitchy and abrasive sometimes too. Sometimes I'm passionate, sometimes I'm passionately bossy. Love me or hate me, I don't care...but don't make me feel little, or play hot and cold with me, or be my friend one minute and ignoring me the next. This girl prefers consistency. :)

So there are some of my random thoughts on various 'hot topics.' Now ya know.

Crazy.Busy.Insane.Week

2011-10-20T21:08:00.003-05:00

Crazy.Busy.Insane.Week. CBIW. That's what I have had.

Like, my usual week times 100.

I am pooped.

Monday was a pretty routine day. But since then...here's my week:

Tuesday morning get up and do some baking for an order that I have to do. Run with Hannah to the bank and the store, while talking on the phone to Matt about the problems we are having with the car dealership getting his truck that he wanted up here from another dealership. Speak to owner of dealership. 10:30a.m., call Matt and tell him we are going to go get the vehicle ourselves. Make arrangements for Grandparents to babysit. Go home, feed hannah lunch, get a rental car booked, call a cake customer, call a travel customer, do a travel quote, call a PTO person. Get Hannah to grandmas. pick up rental car. leave town at 1:20. Drive 4.5 hours to Arkansas. Spend 10 minutes at Dealership getting Matt's Avalanche picked up. Spend 10 minutes dropping off rental car. Spend 30 minutes eating at Jimmy Johns. Spend 4.5 hours driving back to Wichita. Go to bed at midnight. Up with drainage-pukey kid at 3:30 in the morning. Long long long long day.

Wednesday morning, get up to get Brooke off to school. Spend all morning baking the remaining 14 dozen mini sweet treats for a customer that did not get baked on Tuesday. Take a shower at 12:15. Take hannah to preschool. meet a travel client at preschool. go to Brooke's school to help with fundraiser delivery. leave brooke's school and go pick Matt and Brooke (early release) up at the house to go 'close' on the truck. forget checkbook. go to the bank for a cashiers check. go finalize truck. leave Matt and Brooke there to get the new vehicle delivery completed while I go get Hannah. Take Hannah with me to Brooke's school to help a PTO parent with conference meals. Meet Matt outside of school to pass off Hannah. Go to Brooke's conferences (she's rocking it all!). Pick up dinner. Give kids a bath. ice/dip/decorate the 14 dozen minis that I baked that morning. Finalize Disney cruise booking for family of 9. Go to bed.

Thursday....Brooke on bus. Hannah and I deliver order to Serenity Massage Clinic for their Anniversary Open House. Go to Hannah Circle Women's group. Leave there, go to bank and post office. Come home. let the dog out. eat lunch. put hannah down for a nap. play with dog. more travel stuff. wash dishes from frosting trifecta the night before. Brooke and Matt get home. Go to pumpkin patch. have a lot of fun at pumpkin patch--one of my favorite events of the year. eat dinner in El Dorado. Come home. shower. tuck girls in. sit happybutt on couch to watch something on the DVR and blog.

My head is spinning. Is yours?

Week in Review and Worthwhile Challenge 40 &41

2011-10-14T21:36:00.004-05:00

It's Friday night at 9:40 and I can tell you these things for sure:

1. Everyone in my family but me is asleep in bed already. Even the dog.

2. A girl I know is at Walt Disney World right now, and keeps facebook statusing each ride she is at. It's driving this Disney nut crazy with 'iwanttobethererightnow-itis'

3. I've decided that 'busy' is just my permanent state of being these days.

4. I get a date with my hubby tomorrow night.

5. Jesus rocks.

And here is what my past week included (among other things):

My talented friend Abbe whom I've posted about many times in the past few years, has a great business going of repurposing furniture and giving it some life. You can find her facebook page here, and you can find this cute table she did in my entryway!

I've been looking for years for just the right table to go on this little wall inside my entryway. It's located cattycorner, kiddiecorner, across the tile, from this project. I haven't decided exactly what I want to put on this yet, but it will be cute. Kind of dragging my feet because I know in a few weeks I'll be putting some Christmas stuff on it anyways, so in no big hurry to accessorize it. That spot has waited years for a table, it can wait a little longer for decorations. However, HANNAH quickly claimed the little cubby on the side for random things. The first night, I found her PJ's in there after we put her to bed in a new pair. Along with a stuffed animal she was later looking for. And Brooke thinks it's a place for her to leave things when she gets home. Must accessorize it and claim it as mine!

Brooke didn't have school on Thursday, and about 3p.m. the came in from outside wanting to do a lemonade stand. We did about an hour before dinner and 30 minutes after dinner and made $6!! Brooke learned the lesson that most people don't take the time to stop and give a little attention to kiddos in their busy day, and decided that we need to make sure we stop at lemonade stands when we see them in the future.

This precious furball can still fit through the fence. We love him too much to trade him in for a bigger model though. Honestly he's really been perfect for our family. Except when he comes racing up to my room at 7:15 in the morning after the girls take him out to go potty. He races in and whines next to the bed until I flop my arm over and rub his little belly. He loves me.

Life is busy in my little Worthwhile Moments Sweet Shoppe right now.... which is good because this is typically a little bit of a slower month or two in my travel business. This weekend I'm doing my first wedding cake / groom's cake.

Here is half of the groom cake fresh out of the oven this morning.

Here is the completed groom cake. It is a big chocolate cake. Big as in 19"x24". Lots of black and orange icing. 16 eggs. Two batches of buttercream (which means, 16 cups of powdered sugar). Big. Cake.

Can I take a moment to say, thank you to those of you who are my cake and travel customers. I appreciate each order and each booking I do for you. Thanks for supporting me!

I bought these pop up thingys at a garage sale several years ago for about $2. Usually they are stuffed between the garage wall and the garage fridge, but every now and then, I drag them out. Since they don't come out often, they provide a good long bit of entertainment for these girls. This morning, the pop up thingys kept them occupied while I was baking Big.Cake.

That's the bulk of the week around here. PTO. Cooking. Baking. Baking. Baking.

Two new recipes for the Worthwhile Challenge:

Candy Corn Roll Up Cookies

(they are basically sugar cookies with an orange/yellow swirl baked in them).

In large bowl, beat 1 cup butter or margarine, 1.5 cups powdered sugar, one egg. Mix in 2.5 cups flour, 1 tsp soda, 1 tsp cream of tartar.

Divide dough into thirds. Tint one portion orange and the other yellow. Flatten each into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate 20 minutes.

On a sheets of lightly floured waxed paper, roll each portion into a 12x9" rectangle. Place orange on top of yellow, and plain dough on top of that. Roll up into a cylinder (like a jellyroll).

Wrap in plastic, refrigerate 1 hour (or freeze 30 minutes like I did).

Heat oven to 375, cut dough into 1/4" slices, sprinkle with coarse sugar, bake 7 to 8 minutes or until edges are set.

Review: very soft, decent cookie but I thought it was a little boring. I'm pretty picky about cookies though! They did look pretty!

I also made Chicken Bacon Ranch Paninis from The Pioneer Woman. You would think that since my kids love bacon, ranch, chicken, and grilled cheese sandwiches that they would love these. Hannah picked out the bacon and ate it, then ate the part of the bread with the cheese on it. Brooke picked out the chicken and ate it. Matt ate the whole thing but could take it or leave it, I personally liked them a lot! To each his own I guess!!

Share my blog with your friends... I'd love more followers. It makes me feel special. Or something. :) Have a great weekend!

Testing

2011-10-09T21:57:00.001-05:00

So, I just discovered that there is a blog app for my phone! Speaking of which, RIP Steve Jobs, your iPhone makes me get so much more done! (well, except when I get sucked into games!). Anyways, new blogger app. Cool. Testing it out.

Today I also tested out a new recipe (that I'm not sharing!) for White chocolate raspberry scones. Divine!!! Here's a pic!

Hmmm ok not sure how to put the pics where I want them. I also played around with cakeballs this weekend. Still not a huge fan.

This week, I'm doing a wedding cake!!! I'm a little nervous!!! Wish me luck!!!!

Seven recipes Worthwhile Challenge #33-#39!

2011-10-03T19:20:00.006-05:00

I'm SEVEN weeks behind on posting newly-tried recipes? Really? SEVEN WEEKS? how did that happen?

Hmmmm.... about 7 weeks ago, school started. Perhaps that is what happened! Is anyone else still trying to get their school-schedule groove on? Because my routine is strikingly....routineless!

Well. excuses excuses.... here are SEVEN recipes to get me caught up.

I discovered the Crock Pot Girls page on facebook, and the first recipe I tried was Slow Cooker Chocolate Lava Cake. It needs to be done in a big crockpot, one of those oval ones. And you should NOT leave it in the crockpot overnight because you don't feel like washing it. According to Matt, if left overnight, it's puke worthy stinky. However, hot and fresh out of the crockpot with some whipped cream on it...totally good. Here's that recipe: Mix one package of Devil's food cake mix with three eggs, 1/3 cup oil, and 1 2/3 cup water. pour into greased crockpot. Mix one small chocolate pudding mix with 2 cups milk and pour over cake mix. Sprinkle with 1 bag of chocolate chips. cook on high about 2.5-3 hours.

Around the time school was starting, my friend Chuck was celebrating his birthday in Pennsylvania. I wanted to send him a cake, but haven't figured that whole shipping cakes thing out, so I sent him some chocolate cake in a jar. I followed this recipe.... and while it was yummy, I didn't think it was quite as fabulous as my usual chocolate cake. He'll have to come visit us to get that! I also sent him a icing bag full of buttercream icing and a baggie of sprinkles :)

I have cooked more than desserts around here.... I made this Cheeseburger Pie and did NOT really like it. NOT a keeper in our house. I even made the meat layer more sloppy-joe-ish and still didn't think the dish had enough pizzaz.

A recipe/meal long forgotten is Beef and noodles. I make homemade chicken and noodles all the time, but rarely do beef. I put 1 lb of kabob meat (any kind of roast cut into cubes would work) in a crockpot with 1 can cream of chicken, one can of cream of mushroom, salt, pepper, about 1/2 cup water and a beef bouillon cube. Let that cook for several hours, then shred the beef and return to the sauce. Serve over buttered noodles. 'Twas good!

The other night I had it in my head to make "Oreo Brownies." Took my favorite brownie recipe (take yours), chopped up about a dozen oreos and bake as normal. Let cool completely, then serve with a dollop of buttercream and some crushed oreos on top. It was yummy. You probably want a buttercream recipe.... butter...vanilla....powdered sugar....bit of milk. Cream. butter cream. for the most part. :)

Last night I had some chicken breasts to work with. Started out making chicken parmesan but decided I wasn't really in the mood for that. Ended up doing breaded chicken cutlets with baked beans instead. Pound your chicken out (in a big ziploc bag) to even it out and help it cook up quicker. Dredge in flour, shake off excess. Dip in whisked egg. Dredge in panko bread crumbs. Fry up in an skillet with some oil and butter. I ate mine with 57 Sauce (my favorite condiment), Matt and the girls dipped theirs in ranch. If I wanted to be unhealthier, I could have made a gravy and called it chicken fried chicken. I love working with Panko Bread Crumbs, because they really give a good crunch.

Is that seven yet? No? One more? Finally, about a month ago, we were in a big strawberry kick in this house. I made a yummy strawberry glaze with some strawberries I was trying to use up while they were at their peak. We had it on ice cream, I put it on pancakes for Brooke, we had it on cake. Muy deliciouso. I used this recipe for that.

Whew. Caught up. I told ya i'd still be cooking...just haven't been blogging. I'm trying to get my routine going on. really I am.

Have you tried any new recipes lately?

Lessons from God

2011-10-02T20:02:00.002-05:00

I've had {another} insanely busy week. I don't know how my weeks are so crazy, but they are.

Fortunately, I always make time for church, and this year I've decided to make time for Hannah Circle, a women's ministry at a local church. This week, I was reminded WHY I make things such as this a priority to me. Because God does great things and speaks great truths when you have your heart open to learn.

At Hannah Circle this week, we talked about the Fruit of the Spirit LOVE. We see the perfect description of God's love in 1 Corinthians 13. I learned, though, these five things about loving Jesus and loving others: it's an act of will, it's an ACTION, you should use it to reach the unlovely, we need God to help us love, and honest love expects nothing in return. (that last one is very tough for me. I feel like I give give give/love love love/ reach out reach out reach out and am always left wondering when the reciprocation is going to happen. but if I'm TRULY loving, I'll stop wondering about that).

The most profound thing I learned at Hannah Circle this week was this: when you choose not to love someone (even the butthead neighbor, or the arch rival from high school, etc), you are telling God "I don't love you enough to love that person." Wow. So the next time you have a hard heart towards someone...or act in hate or resentment towards them.... think about that statement.

Even more amazing this week was the sermon at church. We go to a huge church here, and honestly love it. The pastor is gifted in the sermons he delivers. Right now we are in the middle of a message series called "Intensive Care"...about when life really is tough and you need some major help. Saturday night he talked about what to do when you are in a really tough place in life. He spoke on Jeremiah 29:11, one of my all time favorite verses; "for I know the plans i have for you', declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans for hope and a future." That verse is one that many hold strong to in tough times. But Mark talked about the context surrounding that verse. The people that are being spoke to were Christians who had obeyed God and moved from their happy place of Judea to Babylon...a not so happy place. They were ready to get out of that tough place. They didn't know what to do in that difficult place. God said basically, sit tight, brace yourself for the long haul, put down roots, live your life. This is where I have you now, but don't worry, because I know what I have planned for you.

What God is saying when you are in a tough spot is; just keep going. Mark said "just function." When you are in a difficult place of loss, of heartache, of betrayal....just function. Get up, get dressed, breathe. Just function, and get through each moment...because God is there, and God is also on the other side...and He knows full well the blessings He has for you around the corner. I had a friend sitting in front of me that got woke up by her husband a few weeks ago at 4a.m. and told that he was 'done' with their 13 year marriage and totally blindsided her. She visited our church for the first time this weekend. You can't tell me that God didn't perfectly design that moment...for her to be sitting there this week, for that message. Just keep going.

God's promises are huge. Love others like He loves us. And just keep going, because He has great plans for you. Open your heart to His love, and His plans, and you will be blessed eternally.

crickets

2011-09-25T22:04:00.000-05:00

Dear little blog,

I promise to blow the dust off you this week and get a post done.

I cannot promise I'll get caught up on the one-new-recipe-a-week posts, but I will try.

In the meantime, have a great week and enjoy the weather.

Love,
Blog mommy

Life at the Zoo

2011-09-15T19:21:00.004-05:00

My mom came to visit for a few days.

We decided to spend a morning at the zoo.

Thought you might like to come along!

It was a cool, gorgeous morning...with virtually no one at the zoo. That means we didn't have to wait for a turn to take pics climbing on any of the statues.

Mom and the girls.

The girls and me.

The giraffes were hanging out very close to the fence.

I think we could have fed them from where we were standing if we really wanted to!

The lion was c-r-a-n-k-y. He came down from his Lion King boulder and paced back and forth and was roaring like a madman.

I like flowers.

Love the hairdo on this bird. I so could not pull off that look.

The gorillas were one of the highlights of the day. We've got a great gorilla exhibit here, and they always seem to come hang out by the windows, which is fun. I think this was Virgil. He and Hannah spent a lot of time checking each other out.

Contemplating something serious.

Love this picture.

The tigers were pacing around a lot too!

The other highlight of the morning-- the baby chimp!! She was a year old! There was a sign up that had the birthdate listed and below it, it said Sex with the symbol for female next to it. Brooke thought it was the birthdate and the name, so she goes "Ohhhh...look at Sex. She's so cute". It was hysterical. Don't tell her I told you that story!

The baby chimp (whom we later decided to name Hannah) was climbing all over the fence. Then she began her descent....

And plopped down right on top of a sleeping adult chimp. We thought, "uh oh, sex, you are in trouble now!"

Then we decided it must be her mommy, because they cuddled right up to each other for a nap. It was super sweet.

So far behind!

2011-09-13T14:08:00.004-05:00

Not enough hours in the day.

Not enough attention span in my head!

I'm a little behind on blogging, PTOing, cleaning, whatever-ing.

I know I owe you several recipes. I'll get caught up again sometime, I promise! In the meantime, we went to see Toy Story on Ice this weekend. Our third Disney on Ice show, it was, as always, fun and cold :) We were in the 4th row.

Hannah and I before the show:

Brooke and Matt before the show:

hannah wearing the foam alien hat that was attached to the $10 bag of cotton candy.

Our buddies Mickey and Minnie were there

And obviously all the Toy Story gang. It was a compilation of all three stories.

Loved the barbies. Barbie and Ken kinda stole the show! But my pic of them is blurry.

And the trolls were funny!

The aliens were a hoot too. "ooh. The Claaawwwwww"

We love taking our kids to things like this. Not only does it give us a Disney fix in between trips, but it's just fun to watch them taking this kind of stuff in!

My weekend via Instagram

2011-09-05T19:54:00.003-05:00

Some of the cooler blog chics post their life via instagram every Friday. I'm not cool, nor am I that organized. I do, however, love the Instagram app on my iphone. Here's a glimpse of a bit of my weekend via Instagram

Dirty Dancing on Netflix streaming. Irritated with Netflix, always in love with "Dirty Dancing". And I think it's a total travesty that they are thinking about remaking it. I'm not one who usually cares about remakes, etc...but that one is a C-L-A-S-S-I-C and I think remaking it is an insult to our belove Patrick Swayze. Like they will ever be able to TOUCH the perfection that is the original version. Yeesh.

Brooke loves art. I love Brooke. I love Brooke's art. Especially when it has narration to it. If you can't read the pic, it says "A small island at the cribian sea with fish and a shell." Girl after my own heart.

Baked some of these. Reverse peanut butter cups. They are yummy.

HALL-LE-LU-JIAH. Hallelujiah. Halle Lay Lou Yah. Praise be to God. I swear, it's like a double-shot of Zoloft in the form of a weather forecast.

Many moons ago, I watched this show on TLC called "A Dating Story". Like "baby story" and "love story" but instead, "Dating Story." A couple went on a date. The restaurant had these, for S'moores desserts. Not such a rare find these days, but harder to find back then! My inlaws' neighbor at the time owned a Chinese restaurant, and he had one of these pu-pu platter things in his back room that he gave us. We love breaking out the pupu platter for Smoore's night.

Went to what's left of Beech lake for a picnic today. Enjoyed the new playground, and went exploring around the old shooting range. Even picked up some non-broken clay pigeons. We decided it was like hunting for seashells in Kansas.

Had Matt's folks and our good friends the Houser's over for dinner. We've known them and done things with them for a long time. Brooke has loved Greg for-ev-er, and apparently Hannah loves him too. Here she is sneaking a smooch on him. He's such a good sport about it!

I've got a few recipes to post for you too, coming up soon, I promise! Have a great (short!) week!

What are you going to do with vintage doorknobs anyway?

2011-09-04T20:47:00.008-05:00

I've had this project idea floating around in the back of my head for a few months. I think I might have seen something like it at a friend or acquaintance's house and thought 'I can make that!' I don't remember where I saw it, but I shuffled it back in the back of my head.

The project involved this space:

And vintage doorknobs. First of all you should know that I HATE going to garage sales. Hate hate hate. Sometimes, like every 5 years or so, you might see me hit one of those neighborhood-wide garage sales because you can check out a lot of stuff at once. But you will never see me randomly driving around looking for a garage sale. I hate it. The closest I come to buying stuff from a garage sale is ebay or craigslist.

So for this project, I put on facebook "I need a few vintage doorknobs. Anyone have any laying around?"

My first comment was from my Aunt Debbie. She says "what are you going to do with vintage doorknobs anyways?" to which I replied 'wait and see!'. I had several other replies such as craigslist, the habitat for humanity Re-store, and --thank you E.R.P- Hobby Lobby.

Fake vintage works for me. Look what I found at Hobby Lobby:

Exactly what I was looking for. The set of two brown knobs were on clearance for $9 and the clear glass ones were on sale for $14 for the set. I brought my finds home and explained to Matt what I wanted to do. He was onboard with his part of the project so I proceeded with mine.

I bought a pine board at Hobby Lobby too. Their wood stuff was on sale 40% off. Whoohoo!

If you paint it with a sponge brush and some acrylic paint, you can make it look like an aged oak board instead of a pine board.

I should have done the same instagram finish on these two shots so you could see better, but here is the board painted with a coat of brown-ish (cappucino?) colored acrylic paint.

After that dried, I used a wash cloth to rub some black acrylic paint over most of it, especially in the grooves, etc. Then I quickly rinsed the wash cloth out and wiped off most of the black paint...leaving this kind of finish behind. I loved how it looked.

Time to enlist Matt. The girls and I enjoyed a gorgeous morning outside while he went off to Lowe's to get the hardware we would need. Three bolts to countersink thru the back to screw the knobs onto on the front side, and two long screws to go thru from the front (in the middle).

Do you know what it is yet?

A place to hang backpacks/bags behind the front door!

I love it when a project comes together like I planned!

First week of Preschool

2011-08-27T10:25:00.004-05:00

It's been a busy week in the Worthwhile moments household. First full week of school for the big kid. Lots of baking orders for me. And the little big kid started preschool on Wednesday!

It was an exciting day. She's going to afternoon preschool three days a week...which is okay since she pretty much fights me every moment of every nap attempt.

Here she is outside her school.

Hannah and her lead teacher, Mrs. Amber.

Hannah and the asst teacher, Mrs. Thee

Hannah and her mommy.

The drop off went well. Usually we will just pull up in the front and drop them off (they walk to the door themselves where a teacher greets them). On this day though, we walked them in. Hannah did just fine because her class is actually where she was for Mom's Day Out this past year. The biggest confusion for her is why she didn't eat lunch there! I got by with no tears, probably for the same reason. It's really kindergarten that's the heartbreaker!

After I left, Hannah's little BFF Jordan arrived and her mom snapped a pic of them. There's only 6 or 7 kids in the class, so it should be a great little group. We're glad to have Jordan in there!

Worthwhile Challenge #32

2011-08-20T15:23:00.003-05:00

After this I'm all caught up on the Challenge. Thank you for loving me thru my slackerdom. I don't think it's lack of doing the challenge (new recipe each week), it's been the lack of posting about it!!!

#32-- Southwest Chicken Pasta. Quick and Easy.
1) cook and drain about a 1/2 box of pasta. I used ditalini for this, but any small-ish pasta would be fine.
2) While that is cooking, cut 2-3 chicken breasts (depending on how well-endowed the chickens was) into bite size pieces and cook in a large skillet until done.
3). To the chicken, add 1 cup salsa, 1 can cream of chicken soup, and 1 to 2 Tbs taco seasoning (add to your preferences). After heated thru, put in the cooked pasta and a whole bunch of cheese. Get it all hot and melty.
4). Serve with corn. Its actually good all mixed together (with the corn) too, so you could put the corn right in the casserole. That being said, you could probaby put some blackbeans in there too...but I have found that blackbeans in cooked dishes does have a wonky effect on how well the leftovers taste.
5). Enjoy. This was definately a 30 minute meal or less. Went together super quick and easy, and it is something I always have all the ingredients on hand for. Two thumbs up from everyone but Hannah...who just wanted to eat the grapes out of the fruit salad I served with it!

Second Grade

2011-08-17T17:54:00.005-05:00

Today my big girl started second grade! It is already looking to be an awesome year, because we got GREG back for our bus driver, we got the teacher we requested, and we have a lot of cool things planned for PTO. Including a blood drive, which I was inspired to pitch as an idea from this little girl's battle. Anyways, we're all stoked for an awesome year.

For PTO we decided to do Back to School goodies for the staff and bus drivers. I made these little pocket things to hang on water bottles for all of them. In the pocket is a "looking forward to a great year" note and one of those kool-aid flavor packs for your bottled water. We delivered them to the staff before "Meet Your Teacher" night yesterday, and met the bus drivers after school today. It was blazing hot today, so the bus drivers were thrilled to get them! I also made the classroom teacher Backwards Peanut Butter Cups and sugar cookies for the bus drivers.

This morning we had an early start so I could set up the Boohoo/Yahoo breakfast at school. Both girls were up before 7:00 a.m. anyways, so early start was really no big deal.

Here's my 2nd grader before we left the house

She was most concerned/upset about leaving Max behind.

She's sure growing up fast!

for comparison; here is her first day of kindergarten picture.

Here she is with her new teacher Mrs. Henry.

We're looking forward to an awesome year!

Summer fun at Miss Linda's

2011-08-14T18:15:00.004-05:00

I have a good friend named Linda. The girls call her "miss Linda"... I've known her for about six years. She is wonderful. Say hi to Linda:

She's a cool chic. She has an awesome backyard with some great landscaping, including this gorgeous sunflowers:

A wonderful Koi pond/waterfall and deck (no pic, sorry)

and a swimming pool. Hallelujiah. Every year she is sweet enough to open her pool up to a group of us to come swimming every Tuesday. It's always a lot of fun and a highlight of our summer activities. Every now and then, we pop over as a family for a little swim time too. I snapped some pics on my phone of the fun:

Going after daddy:

Down he goes!

The girls are fearless about going off the board, which is fun!

Hannah has been a little crazy woman since she started with the life vest. She had her first year of swimming lessons, but this life vest lets her toodle around the pool all on her own. It's lovely.

Brooke's been working on learning how to dive at Miss Linda's.

The big boy looking for his torpedo.

Chilling in the deep end.

We had a lot of fun with the noodles. Here Hannah is trying to imitate Matt who seemed to think he was pretty talented blowing water thru the noodle at me. For those of you who think he's quiet and 'not' full of hot air...you're wrong. :)

What we didn't get pictures of was the Noodle Horse Races we played. That was fun. And 'unfortunately' no one documented the 17 tries it took for me to get on a raft and stay there without flipping over.

It was a fun way to spend the last weekend before school starts. Thanks Miss Linda. We love you! :)

Worthwhile Challenge #30 and #31

2011-08-10T15:42:00.002-05:00

I tried two new recipes this week.

One I like to call Crack Toffee. Because it's addictive like crack. Super simple, about five ingredients, and so good. Beware, you may find yourself eating the entire pan. Here's the link:

Crack Toffee

The other thing I tried was a Ranch Pasta salad. I didn't have the tomatoes, black olives, or green onions. And I didn't measure the ranch. Had I done all those things, this would be a really good recipe. Without those things, and with too much ranch, it was a little salty and a little boring. Follow the recipe on this one, and you will like it. If you're a ranch person!

Bacon Ranch Pasta

Have a great day!

Worthwhile Challenge #28 and #29

2011-08-06T16:13:00.002-05:00

Oops! I missed my recipe posting last week! And I think I'm behind one or two, so I'm giving you a double today.

You would think with all the banana muffin recipes that I post here that I'm a big banana fan. The truth is that, apparently, we are not...because I always have an abundance of bananas that end up turning black before we eat them. Hence, the many muffins.

This is the link to the best banana muffin recipe I've tried so far. Really be generous with the crumb topping on each one. I'd tried this recipe years ago and it didn't turn out so great. This time, it really did. I think the key was making sure your butter in the crumb topping is quite cold...and I just use my hand mixer to 'cut it in' to the flour/sugar mixture.

Challenge #28 Banana Crumb Muffins.

I made the philly cheesesteaks again this week. Matt and I are loving them. Didn't have any provolone so i just used velveeta. I do prefer the provolone for sure. I bet pepper jack would give it an interesting twist too. Anyways, since the temp was only 99 instead of 109 at the time I made dinner, I decided to make some Ranch Potatoes. Super easy.

Take 3-4 potatoes. Leave the peel on and slice them about 1/4-1/2 inch thick. Put them in a bowl with a lid. Drizzle about 2 T oil over them, and then dump in a pkg of dry ranch mix. Put the lid on and shakey shakey. Spread on a (sprayed with Pam) cookie sheet in a single layer, and bake at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes. They're done when they get golden brown-ish. Browner they are, the crunchier they are. We like them when they are on the edge of turning crunchy. Very easy to throw in the oven while you make the rest of your meal.

Anyways, it appears that I am about 2 recipes behind schedule. I think I should be at #31 or so. I'll crank out one more bonus or two this week to finish catching up. This summer has just sucked for cooking, it really has!

Have a great one!

Today in pictures

2011-08-04T13:27:00.003-05:00

So far today....

I got this cute picture of a girl and her dog. Have you ever heard of "green eye" in pictures? weird.

I made a bunch of little fondant flowers with edible pearl centers for some baby shower cupcakes I'm making tomorrow...

Hannah has gotten out nearly every game we keep under the coffee table.

Hannah is on a "Beauty and the Beast" kick which is driving Brooke crazy. I tell Brooke "It's better than that dang annoying 'Caillou' crap" (If you don't know Caillou, be thankful. If you do, I feel your pain).

Do you know what this picture is of? It's of two things....one being the slide/climber thing that got blown over by some hellacious wind last night. It's also a shot of two girls playing outside for longer than 10 minutes for the first time in nearly a month! Isn't it a lovely shot? And what you cannot see, is that the grass is muddy, because this strange thing they called 'rain' fell out of the sky last night. It was amazing!

And that, so far is my day. My not-yet-100-degree-isn't-that-amazing?- day. I didn't take a picture of the fabulous muffins we gobbled up (that I baked early yesterday). And I didn't take a picture of the treadmill that I ran a mile on. And I'm not taking a picture of the couch I'm hoping to veg on for a bit. Nor of the dinner I am making.

What did you do today? Thanks for stopping by for a visit :)

Seven Reasons to Use a Travel Agent

2011-08-01T20:08:00.003-05:00

I know, 10 might sound better, but this is what I've got right now.

I'm sure you all know I'm a travel agent. I'm sure you all know how to use the internet. But do you know seven reasons why you should use a travel agent? Well... I'm going to tell you!

7. Personalized Service. Travel agents are not some impersonal voice thousands of miles away. I am your neighbor, your friend, your blog author. I take the time to get a good feel for you, your family, and your travel needs. Travel agents really work to understand what you find valuable in your vacations.

6. Professional Advice. Agents are experts in making sure people get to where they are wanting to go...for the best price and the most pleasant way. Providing personal insight on details that you may not have thought of yourself makes for a smoother trip.

5. Time. Agents have all the resources at their fingertips. They know the best tour companies to search for your requets, and can save you a lot of time by digging up the best deals and promotions for you. It is their job of course!

4. Choice. Once learning the basics of what you are looking for in your vacation, travel agents can easily suggest and quote a variety of options for you to choose the best package for your dream vacation. I personally love presenting my customers with a variety of fun options to work with!

3. Best Value. Agents work hard to find the best pricing for the packages requested. They can usually meet, if not beat, internet pricing. We are aware of what specials are being offered by various tour companies. They are there to help you get the best value for the dollar! Agents are paid commissions from tour companies. I personally do not charge service fees, so it does not cost you extra to use me! And you know what? If you find something online that I just cannot touch price-wise..i'm going to tell you! I understand needing to get the best price for the same thing!!!

2. Customer advocate. In the event that you have any problems (because we live in an imperfect world!), I am there to help you get things sorted out and corrected satisfactorily. While they do not have control over the properties, tour companies, etc; we travel agents do all we can to ensure everyone is taking care of our customer.

1. Supporting local business. If it is going to cost you $3000 to book a vacation online, or $3000 to book it with me/a travel agent...why not support a local business person/friend and let them earn a commission? Whether you find figuring out all the details yourself to be fun and you really get into it...you can still let an agent book it for you. For example, you could call me and say "I want to go to Disney for 5 nights starting November 11th and I want to stay at Caribbean Beach in a preferred room with 6 day tickets and dining plan. Online it says it is $XXXX. Can you book that for me?" My answer "I'd LOVE TO! Thank you for the opportunity!!!" Otherwise...are you just saying 'I don't want you to have that money. You're not worth it"...?!?

Let me just tell you, I write this as a woman/mom/travel agent living in a tough economy. Prices of things are going up, but paychecks are not...right? Can I get an amen? Just wanted to share some food for thought as to why you might find a little value in using me for your travel plans. Because.... this is my gig to be able to stay home with my girls. It's not a gig I want to give up. I want to help people plan wonderful vacations, and let it pay for Hannah's preschool. I want to give you a fabulously planned Disney vacation-which will overwhelm you with precious memories...let me have some fun with you...and help pay a bill. I have a lot of repeat customers...a lot of referrals... and I need them to keep on coming. Your support means a lot to me... and I ask that you keep it coming!

Can I get "Woot Woot?"

Are you there?

2011-07-30T21:43:00.002-05:00

So, the hubs and I have been discussing who, if anyone, is out there reading my blog.

are you there? just curious!

If you do pop by here on a regular or irregular basis, leave a comment on this post saying hello!

then I know if I'm writing all for my own (and hubby and inlaw's) entertainment, or if anyone else is still hanging around!

don't know how to leave a comment? click on the little word 'comment' below this post and go from there.

flood me with hellos. please? i need to feel some love!

Giving Opportunities

2011-07-27T09:17:00.002-05:00

I just came across an article about a family...they were driving back to Texas from Colorado on July 3rd and were hit head-on by a vehicle that had crossed the center line. The parents were killed instantly. The three kids became orphans instantly. The youngest sustained several broken bones, and the two brothers (all under the age of 10) are paralyzed and face weeks and weeks of rehab. The doctors doubt either will ever walk again. How tragic... to lose your parents and your 'normal' life as you know it. Please pray for these kids. There is a website set up to take donations for their ongoing medical issues, educations, etc. It is www.showyourhearts.org

On a completely different side of things, I have an old friend. One I grew up with and graduated with, Jeff. He and his wife are going on a mission trip to Sierra Leone, Africa through an organization called "The Raining Season." Here is what they wrote to me in a facebook message:

'Sierra Leone is considered one of the poorest nations in the world. Years of civil war have left the country with 60-80% unemployment and horrendous living conditions. Sierra Leone is the size of North Carolina with a population of 6 million people. Freetown, the capital, has a population of 2 million, even though it only has the infrastructure to support 200,000. Due to poverty and civil war, Sierra Leone has a staggering 350,000 orphans.

Sierra Leone has two seasons, one is rainy and one is dry. The rainy season is a constant struggle for the people of Sierra Leone. Roads are impassable, labor jobs are difficult to find, and disease is rampant due to stagnant waters...' '....we have friends who started The Raining Season...and opened The Covering, an orphanage that is a refuge for 87 orphans. It's the goal of the Raining Season to Help Hope Rain Down on the children and families..."

As you can imagine, a trip like this is expensive. If you can support them as they go to the U.N.-dubbed 'hell on earth' where they will give of their time and love to the people of this devastating place, please consider doing so. You can mail a check to Jeff Rodgers, 8655 NE 110th Street, Kansas City, MO 64157. You can support them with prayer. And you can learn more about the whole thing at www.therainingseason.org

We're all pretty lucky here, for the most part. Sure, it's hotter than hell, we'd all like extra money, our kids give us grey hairs. But after reading stories like this.... kinda hard to even care about the 'little things' that are plaguing us, don't you think? Please consider sharing a bit of yourself in one way or another with either or both of these missions.

Worthwhile Challenge week #27 - It's HOT out there

2011-07-22T20:53:00.008-05:00

It's hot hot hot here.

Is it hot hot hot there? hot hot hot sucks for a baker. Baking for customers has been quiet the last week or two, which is actually okay when you look at the temps. But that doesn't mean my Texas-sized sweet tooth has gone anywhere.

Here's our forecast. Notice that the time on this picture is 8:05p.m. and it is still 102 degrees. Suck suck suck.

So what do you do when it's this friggin hot? Well, you stay inside and watch movies.

You go to the pool. Here is me travelling incognito...wearing a hat is not my usual thing. For the record, hats are hot. not as in sexy. as in, make your forehead sweat.

And if it's 100+ degrees, you have a sweet tooth the size of Texas, you find no-bake recipes. I've made a few batches of no-bake cookies the last few weeks. Decided it was time to try something else.

Enter this week's Worthwhile Challenge Recipe: No Bake Peanut Butter bars. I googled that, and after reading a few recipes, made my own concoction.

Here you go:
Grease a 9x13 pan.

In a mixing bowl, blend 1 and 1/4 cups chunky peanut butter with 3/4 cup butter or margarine.
Mix in 1 cup of powdered sugar. Set aside.

The main recipe I was looking at called for graham cracker crumbs. They were not sounding good to me, so I decided to grind up some oatmeal instead.

Quick-oats straight outta the box just looked too big for what the bottom layer was supposed to be. Put three cups of oats in a blender

and pulse till it looks like this:

dump the ground oats into the butter/peanut butter mixture with another cup of powdered sugar and one cup of chocolate chips (I used minis).

Here's what it looked like mixed up.

Press into pan.

In a clean bowl, microwave 3/4 cup peanut butter and 1.5 cups chocolate chips for 30 seconds. Stir and nuke another 30 seconds. Should be well melted by then. Spread on top of crust layer:

then put in the fridge to chill for about 45 minutes, until the chocolate layer is set up.

Go chill for awhile...read a good book, read my blog, play with a 9-week old puppy who needs a bath, has popsicle on his fur from cleaning up after a three year old, and who does not want to sit still for a picture.

After the furball settles down, or you finish reading my blog, or whatever it is you do while your bars are chilling....go cut yourself one, put it on a plate, and get a glass of milk.

these bars were a little messy to eat....fork is optional...but they were good. they were no bake, they had peanut butter and chocolate, and they hit the spot. Would I rather make cookies or cake or brownies? Probably...but these certainly do the trick when you are sitting in the national 'heat advisory' zone!

Stay cool, friends!

Vaca recap #6- the final vaca post!

2011-07-20T08:46:00.009-05:00

Whew! There's been a bit of a lapse since I started this vaca recap! Sorry about that! I'm behind on blogging! Here's the final Disney Cruise 2011 post for you!!!

If you missed any of the other posts, here they are
Vaca Post 1
Vaca Post 2
Vaca Post 3
Vaca Post 3.5
Vaca Post 4
Vaca Post 5

After we got back on the ship, we showered and got changed to go to the matinee of the final show "Believe". During that time we also did some packing. The crazy thing about the last night of the cruise is that while you are wanting to go do lots of fun things, you also have to get all your stuff packed up! You have to put your suitcases out in the hallway by 11p.m. for the porters to take, and keep a carryon bag behind so you can have your pjs, etc to put in there. So you are trying to get everything thrown in the bags, while setting aside the clothes for the next day and making sure it doesn't get thrown in the bags, etc. It is craziness!

It is especially crazy when they are going to take your suitcases and check them at the airlines for you. That means, with the liquid restrictions, that you have to put any of your big toiletries in the suitcase and do without the next day or just leave it behind. Fortunately, we were going to a Disney resort, so we just threw everything where it would fit, and planned to do some laundry and repacking at the hotel that night!

Anyways, so we went to the matinee of 'Believe'. This was a very sweet show. A girl wanted her scientist dad to just be silly with her and believe in magic for just a few minutes. Of course he couldn't, and she was upset. He got some help from some magical visitors... imagine if you will the three ghosts of "A Christmas Carol" being replaced with three magical figures brought to make him "Believe." At the end, the last visitor showed him a vision of his daughter all grown up and dancing with her Prince Charming. That was a good kick in the pants for the dad to go back home and enjoy the sweet young imagination of his little girl. It was really good!

The guy who played Hades the first night was the Genie in this show, and again he did a great job!

He called upon Mary Poppins to stop in and visit.

A fairy godmother of course was involved.

And at the end, a very magical Birthday party for the little girl ensued.

Then it was off for our last night at dinner. I wasn't really psyched about the menu, nor the long table service...but I wouldn't miss a chance to say goodbye to our waiters. Romy from India and Emmanuel from Mexico had taken such great care of us all week. They were so great with the girls, and you could tell they really had a desire to make us happy. Wonderful guys. By the end of the week, you kinda feel a little attached to them, so it is sad to say goodbye. I hope God blesses them 1000 times over in their life.

Our room hostess, Wana, also took excellent care of us and was so sweet. They work so hard!!

We dropped the girls at the kids club for awhile so we could finish the packing. When we picked them up, Hannah was busy playing with her friend Anna and did not want to leave! It was so cute! We said goodbye to a few other people we had met, then went back to the room.

A Disney cruise would not be complete without getting some Mickey Bars delivered from room service. We ordered those, and some cookies to pack in our carry-on to snack on the next day. Their cookies are sooooo good.

Debarkation comes early. They need you OUT of your stateroom by 8a.m. and off the ship by 9a.m. We ran up for some breakfast around 7a.m., then came back to the room to grab our stuff and go find a place to relax in the lobby. Once the ship cleared customs, the line to get off was so long! So we just people watched and saw some friends, etc. Once we finally got off, we saw this sign. This sign always makes me sad:

We took the Disney bus to our resort for the night, Saratoga Springs. Thank the LORD that they had a room ready for us when we got there, because we had some VERY tired girls on our hands. We had planned on going to downtown Disney to spend some time, but we really needed to get Hannah a nap before my grandma came to visit and do dinner with us. Brooke went to DTD with gma and gpa, and the three of us snoozed at the hotel after lunch for awhile.

My grandma and her 'friend' john came. Hannah was in a squirrelly mood and wouldn't take a picture;

We hung out in the villa for awhile, then went down to the pool. Great Grandma and john watched the girls swim for awhile and we chatted some more. Then we had a yummy quick service dinner there at the resort. After they left, we finally got a chance to go to downtown Disney for awhile.

Waiting for the bus:

The Lego store. We let each girl fill a cannister of legos from this giant wall of bins of every lego under the sun. And then, Hannah dropped hers and legos went everywhere. I'm sure it wasn't the first time that has happened! So we picked them up, got them TAPED SHUT at the checkout, and left.

Our pool area. After we were done at DTD, we took the girls back to the pool for awhile. It was dark, and we had it nearly all to ourselves, which was so fun!

The next day, we just flew back to KC, got a rental van and drove home. It was a nonstop flight, and I can't tell you how great THAT was. I wish Wichita offered nonstop service to Orlando.

And THAT, my friends, ends the 2011 vaca recap. I would think you all want to go on a Disney cruise now too! Hey guess what, I can book that for you ;)

Hot Hot Hot

2011-07-15T15:51:00.002-05:00

It's hotter than shit out there.

That's what my dad would probably say.

I say it's hotter than hell out there.

Whatever it is, I do not like summer. Pools are fun. Vacations are fun.

Hot, humid weather. not fun. So hot you don't even want to play out in the sprinkler? Not fun. So hot you feel that if you are going to bake or run your clothes dryer, you better do it at 7a.m.? Not fun.

I like to bake at nap time. Hasn't been happening around here lately!

Speaking of hot hot hot... I'm going to see New Kids on the Block (and Backstreet boys) in concert tomorrow night. I'm going with my oldest friend-- my cousin Danica! We went to see them a few years ago together, and we're going tomorrow night. I've got to get my iron-on rhinestone NKOTB letters ironed onto my black tank top that I'm going to be wearing. Because I'm cool like that.

You gotta do what you can to stay cool when it's this hot. right? :)

Worthwhile Challenge Week 25 and 26!

2011-07-12T14:03:00.006-05:00

I didn't get ANYTHING accomplished last week except our trip to Iowa and getting the new member of the family settled in! I might have made a new recipe but I cannot honestly remember it! So today I am giving you a double!

First up, Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches. I've been having a hankering for them for awhile now. I decided to ask my philly friend, Chuck, how to make them.

Say hi to chuck!

My tools for this project were my big electric griddle thingy (that is usually only used for pancakes), and this big metal pampered chef spatula. That way I could continue chopping the meat while cooking, etc.

First step was going to the local grocery store that has a meat counter. So I went to Dillons. I picked out a package of Ribeye steaks (the cut Chuck suggested). Then I went to find the nice meat man and asked him to slice them up super thin for cheesesteaks. I had chosen a package of two large-ish steaks. He sliced it up, rewrapped it, and i was off to the checkout.

I took a vidalia onion and sliced it super-thin. I took a moment to wish that I had not sold my pchef Mandolin slicer so many years ago. It would be very handy for this. Turned the griddle on and got it good and hot. Butter toasted some hoagie buns. Then I put about 1/2 a stick of butter on the griddle and got it melted, and I threw on the meat. I ended up only using one of the steaks and froze the rest. One steak made three decent sized sandwiches. As the meat cooked, I salt and peppered it, and threw the onions on. Stirred and chopped while it was cooking to your desired doneness. I am a fan of no-pink. Many people do peppers in their cheesesteaks..but not us! Matt thought some grilled mushrooms would have been a nice addition.

This is the meat about half done:

Warming the bun back up a bit before I topped it off.

Now when the meat is to your likeness, put several slices of provolone cheese on top. Apparently true Philly folk use Cheesewhiz and slather it on the buns, but Chuck said provolone, so that's what I did. Let it melt. (I helped it along by putting a large skillet lid over it to trap in the heat/steam.

Scoop a spatula full onto your spatula, set it on your bottom bun, put the top bun on and hold the meat in place while you slide that spatula out. (That was my Diners, DriveIns and Drives move there).

The finished product; fabulousness.

A great dish to go with this is a pasta salad. Years ago...probably 8 years...I made little cookbook of recipes that I had a bunch of friends contribute. I made copies for everyone. My friend Nicola recently moved and emailed me to see if I had a recipe from the book, because she had misplaced it in the move. I thought, "if this recipe is so good that Nic has been using it for 8 years and would ask me for it, I think I will try it!". It never really sounded good to me before.

Very simple. Cook and drain 16oz of penne pasta, pour 1/2 cup vegetable oil over it in a large bowl. In a blender, put in 1 cup white vinegar, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 Tbs parsley flakes, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp pepper, 1/2 tsp yellow mustard (not dried), 1 small onion and one peeled medium cucumber. Blend all in a blender until smooth and pour over pasta. Marinate over night and stir occassionally. Add black olives, chopped tomatoes....veggies of your choice really. I did carrots and tomatoes and it was good. Broccoli would be good too! The nice thing about this dish is that it is not Mayonnaise based so it would be nice for a potluck!

Enjoy my friends!

New Addition

2011-07-10T08:30:00.008-05:00

Do you remember this post about our family wanting to get a dog? If you haven't read it, you should go read it to see the background of this post.

After YEARS AND YEARS of wanting to get a dog, we girls finally had Matt starting to think about giving in.

A few weeks ago, we went to Petland for one of our "let's go play with a puppy" outings. Usually on these outings, Matt would just stand outside the puppy play area. This time, he went into the cubby with us. First they brought out a husky. Gorgeous dogs but known to be hardcore chewers.

Then they brought out a ShiChon. It is a cross between a Bichon Frise (as seen here in a picture I found online):

and a Shih Tzu (also found online):

This is the dog they brought out for us to see:

he was about 9 weeks old, VERY playful, super cute. When we reached out to pet him, Matt and I both said "oh, wow." SOFTEST DOG you'll EVER touch. Feels like the softest stuffed animal you have. Score.

The girl at the petstore told us things like this:

Hypoallergenic - SCORE

Does not shed - DOUBLE POINTS

Not Yappy- BONUS

$750 - Uh, no.

Plus we would never get a dog from a petstore. too many horror stories about Puppy Mills, Kennel Cough, etc.

We went home and I started researching ShiChons. Found they are also called Zuchons, and Teddy Bears (appropriate). Googled pictures. Ooohed and Aaaahed. Started looking for breeders with available puppies. Not any in Kansas. Found a puppy in Oklahoma that I just LOVED. Spoke with the breeder, checked her references. Thought we could drive down after we got back from Iowa and get him. Then Matt said "I am not driving 5.5 hours home from Iowa one day, and then turning around driving 9 hours round trip the next day to get a dog." Um....okay. I see that point.

I thought, "well, we ARE going to Iowa over the 4th. I wonder if there are any breeders up there?". BINGO. YES...there was a breeder up there! Not even too far out of our way! AND she had a black and white male puppy that would be ready to go!! Her daughter was actually scheduled to come to Kansas on the 9th...so we were going to have her bring him down so that we wouldn't have to deal with the girls and the puppy for a 5 hour drive. However, the night before we left for Iowa, we found out that her plans had changed. So at the last minute we found out that we would be picking our puppy up on our way back home on the 5th.

The girls didn't know a thing. We had wanted to go to the petstore and get some dog toys, collar, etc. So we said "Uncle Ryan's dog Turbo is having a birthday when we are up there! let's get him so gifts!"...and then we "forgot them" at home.

I told the girls that we had to go see one of my friends from college for a few minutes on the way home. We had Brooke get out of the car and close her eyes. She was a bit skeptical.

A video of the big reveal: SURPRISE

Our family is complete!!!

The girls are loving him. So much so, that we find ourselves saying "Put him down" "Give him a break" "leave him alone" about every three minutes.

The drive home was kind of longer than usual...with overly-tired, quite excited children...and a little puppy who just didn't know what to think! He rode home in a basket by my feet. Everytime we'd stop, Matt would get him out to go potty while I took the girls in for their break. Then they would each get to hold him for a few minutes before we continued on our way.

I think there is a good chance that "the summer I was seven" will go down as the best year in Brooke's life for a long long long time. Oh, and his name is Max. Brooke has planned to name her dog Max, whenever she finally got one, since she was three. Kinda like I had planned to name my daughter Brooke since I was in Junior High.

We got him on Tuesday. Today is Sunday. In that time he's gotten fluffier, more playful, and the rest of his super-sharp puppy teeth have come in! He's also gotten a check up at the vet, lots of toys, and lots and lots of love. We put him in a kennel at night, and the first night he whined and cried and sounded like a cat in heat for about 20 minutes.... now he only fusses for about a minute at the most. The girls wear him out. When they finally go to bed, he crashes and you could probably set a bomb off next to his head and he will just give you a look between a pair of barely opened eyelids.

He is a fun little ball of fluff. I think he's even gotten Matt wrapped around his paw a bit already too :)

Thank you Matt, for finally "caving" as everyone has said.

And welcome to the family, Max!

Worthwhile Challenge Week#24 - Spanish Rice

2011-06-28T15:38:00.005-05:00

Needed a quick, easy, small meal the other night. It was like a jillion degrees outside and we'd had a big lunch, so dinner was kind of an afterthought... It was also close to grocery day meaning we did not have much in the house.

Enter this:

I always have some of these in my cupboard of varying flavors. Makes for a great, easy yummy side dish. That night, I discovered on the back an easy main dish. Easy spanish skillet (or something like that). I've since of course thrown the package away so this recipe I will be winging it, but if you go buy this rice, chances are the recipe is on the back!

Brown one pound of hamburger in large skillet and drain grease.

Add in 1.5 cups water and bring to a boil.

Stir in one can of corn (undrained) and the rice package.

Bring back to a boil, then simmer, uncovered, until the rice is tender and most of the liquid is cooked off. Stir in 1/2 cup shredded cheese until melted. Top with more shredded cheese. Eat it up!

Matt, Brooke and I liked it considering the fact that it was a quick, easy, mostly packaged food. Hannah had spaghetti-os. :)

Vaca recap #5...and a winner!

2011-06-27T14:53:00.014-05:00

Whew! It was a crazy busy weekend! But now, I am choosing to sit here and blog instead of take a shower. That's saying a lot, because I went to Zumba this morning and sweat profusely. You should really appreciate this blog post!

Before we delve into the "BEST DAY EVER!", I should announce the 300th post giveaway winner! ELIZABETH NOLTE! She has like, a jillion kids, so she might have to get a personalized necklace/magnet of her dog, but whatever the case may be -- get in touch with me Elizabeth :) Congrats!

So when we got back to our room and ready for bed on the night of the "at sea day" -- this is what we found...

I had asked a guest services person at DCL to help us try to get one of the private cabanas booked (long story). They are a huge splurge...$500 for the day for six people. An HOUR before we got on the plane to fly to Orlando, we got a call from DCL that a cabana had opened up! We debated for a few minutes, shuffled some other things around, and took it! There are only about 24 cabanas on the whole island, so they are a hot ticket for sure!

$500? What are we getting for $500 we wondered the day before cabana day. This little hut and info sheet left on our bed answered that question: Private cabana for the day with comfy furniture, ceiling fan, music. Private beach area reserved for cabana guests. Fresh fruit, unlimited sodas and bottled waters. Complimentary Coppertone products. Complimentary sand toys and snacks. Bike rentals (which we didn't use), tube rentals (which we did use), snorkel equipment (which we didn't use). We were happy just vegging in our very own corner of paradise, we didn't want to go ride bikes or snorkel and leave our happy ($500) spot!

Before we got off the ship, we ran into this good looking couple!:

We stopped just off the ship for the token Castaway Cay in-front-of-the-ship picture. The line to have the Disney photographers take it was a bit long, so we had one of our friends take it for us! Good job, Kev!

A ride on the island tram, and a personal golf cart shuttle, and we arrived here:

We were some very happy campers!

The corner just inside the cabana. In that closet was a safe where we could store our cameras, etc. Plenty of extra towels, and along that right side under the table was also the stocked mini-fridge that you can't see.

Plenty of comfy places to sit, magazines to read, snacks to gnosh on.

Outside the cabana, we had a lot of beach area to enjoy! Here's the view from our spot on the beach over to the "rest" of CC.

The view from our back porch!

The water was crystal clear!

Matt, Grandma, and the girls spent a lot of time hanging out on the floaties.

Papa and I spent a lot of time wandering the beach, and sitting in our little chairs with our feet in the water!

This was all part of the "reserved for Cabana guests" area

This is pelican plunge, the fun 'play area' they just built here at the island recently. we never did get over there to play, but it sure looked like fun!

We did a lot of shell-searching and collecting,

We had to DRAG Hannah away from the beach when it was lunch or rest time or time to leave.

Good picture, huh?

The tide went out, and you could probably walk out about a 1/2 mile with the water not coming past your knees!

A family of beach bums and Disney nuts!

The day consisted of playing at the beach, floating in the water, digging in the sand, and taking pictures. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. :) We threw in lunch at Cookies again (and I would have to say that I was a little surprised/disappointed that they didn't offer a different menu than they did our first day at CC). In early afternoon, Matt and his parents headed off for some jet-skiing. The girls and I relaxed in the cabana for awhile. I thought they would 'rest'...but I was pretty much wrong. Basically, I got them to drink something and have a snack and get out of the sun for a bit. Then we were back out to the beach.

To the left of our back porch was a little lagoon area that we weren't really supposed to go out too. To the right was our main beach area where we spent most of our time. There was a rope going out into the water that we weren't supposed to go past. As the day went on, more of the sandbar area started to appear. I asked one of the concierge staff if we could walk out on the sandbar past the rope to look for shells. They said yes, just not to park it out there and have a party or get in the water. The girls and i took off across the sandbar with our sand buckets, shovels, and camera in hand. It was awesome being all the way out there all by ourselves!

I found this kick-butt huge conch shell. I was so stoked! Shortly after I found it, I saw another DCL employee making her way across the sand to us. I said "you're not coming to take my shell are you?" She said she wasn't going to take my shell, but that we werent' supposed to be out that far. I told her I'd asked permission first but she seemed to think I was mis-informed. She also told me that I probably would not be allowed to take my shell onboard. Dang it. So we took a picture. It would have looked so nice in my beach-themed 1/2 bathroom:

I took more pics of the girls. Here's the best shot from the entire cruise:

Matt and his parents came back much earlier than i expected them. The jetski excursion had been cancelled because it had gotten windy.

There was a hammock by our back porch, along with a fresh water shower. Brooke and I both soaked up some serious hammock time, and I'm really wanting one in my backyard now!

By about 2:30 we were all pretty hot and sandy. We wanted to go back to the ship in time to make the matinee show that afternoon. We relaxed in the cabana for a little while and cooled off with these nice, damp washcloths that were in the fridge. Ohhhh they felt so good!

Hannah apparently loved her washcloth, because if you look closely (under Matt's thumb) you can see she stuffed it down her swimsuit. We were halfway back to the ship when I said "Hannah? What is in your swimsuit!?" and she pulled out her washcloth. It was so funny!

We ran into Daisy on our way back to the ship! It was at this point that somehow the camera got turned to some strange setting that makes everything look blue-ish. Happens every trip. I try to edit it back to happiness, but some pics are harder than others to recover from the blue-hue!

It was a wonderful day. Every day we've spent on Castaway Cay has been heavenly, but throw in a private cabana....and it ranks up there as one of the top 10 days of our lives I think! Shoot, it may be in the top 5, only behind getting married and having babies! :) It was such a wonderful day. And worth the $500? You bet.

I'll fill you in on the last bit of that day/night and our last day before we flew home in the next post! Have a great day!

hang tight!

2011-06-25T22:32:00.002-05:00

i've not disappeared nor have I forgotten one of the last sentences in my most recent post...

"tomorrow..." meaning I was going to post the next day and didn't.

it's been a little crazy around here! Two cakes, 4 dozen mini cupcakes, 5 dozen whoopie pies and 2 dozen lemon bars since Thursday. Along with one birthday (MIL) and two baptisms (daughter and hubby).

I've got whoopies left to fill and a birthday party to attend tomorrow. Then, hopefully, I'll get another trip post done and announce the prize winner.

hope you are having a great weekend!