An Advent Update

Merry Almost Christmas to my Family and Friends!! 

I just thought I would share a little of what we have been up to this month:

We made "sock snowmen" which I DID NOT get the idea off pinterest. A friend gave me the idea. Aren't they cute? Jacob's has all green buttons and Daniel's has a suckie.

We ate watermelon... BIG.

We made crowns (and lots of other things) out of these cool toys from the Camrose Toy Lending Library.

We played pictionary, which turned out really fun! The boys even got in on the drawing action.

We made chocolate pretzel bark, which was lots of fun, and delicious.

The Sun Always Rises...

... But not the bread. So my struggle to find the perfect loaf of homemade bread continues. I think I have a really good recipe going now. The boys requested PB&J today but we were out of bread so I promised to make some this afternoon for sandwiches tomorrow. I went to check on the bread one hour into the rise... Looks the same. Then I had a sudden realization I forgot to put the yeast in. So I threw the dough back into the mixer with some yeast. I don't know if it will work, or if it will taste good. Seriously, who forgets to out yeast in their bread? Me.

At least I know the sun will rise tomorrow, even if my bread doesn't.

The Boys Got Pet Turtles...

... Sorta. We read a book about Blue getting a pet turtle named Turquoise. And then we made our own pet Turquoise. We even made her a tank just like the books. And then of course we had to have a water dish and carrots and celery and lettuce. It was fun.

A closeup of Jacob's Turquoise. He drew the happy face himself!

Daniel's Turquoise. She's cute. And apparently she doesn't like lettuce.

Halloween Continues Giving

So Jacob actually wanted to be a monster for Halloween. But I had the whole easy iPad thing planned and a monster costume seemed like an awful lot of work. So we compromised and made these CUTE monsters out of milkjugs. They carried them around and collected their candy in these instead of a plastic bag.  Jacob's is the green one with lots of eyes and scary teeth. Daniel's has "Mater" teeth. 

FYI- Painting milkjugs with kids acrylic paint is impossible and doesn't work. After getting really annoyed after the second attempt (the first was to put a little paint inside the jug, shake it up, and let it dry... it never dries) I just took Jeff's advice and wrapped the peeling painted jugs in clear packing tape.

So Halloween is now long gone. The monsters have been well played with... but now are not recyclable... 

Last week we made toilet paper roll bird feeders and they were a HUGE hit with the chickadees. We could stand right under the tree while the birds were eating. It was cool. 

So this week I cut the mouths of the monsters open really big, filled them with bird seed and hung them in the tree. The birds aren't too sure yet, Jacob says they think the monsters are scary. 

Neat eh? We have now spotted chickadees, blue jays, some sort of sparrow, and woodpeckers in our little tree. 

Halloween Treat

First of all... Monster Popcorn. Or whatever you want to call it for whatever occasion. Here I made orange and green. So yummy. Tastes like the colourful Kernel's Popcorn. Want to know how to make it? I will share! 

First pop your corn. I have an airpopper and I popped 1/2 cup of kernels for each colour. I think it makes about 10 cups of popcorn. Put the popcorn in the biggest bowl you can find.

Melt 1/4 cup butter and 3 tablespoons of honey in a pot. Add 1/4 cup sugar and one regular package of jello (not the no sugar stuff). Any flavour will do. Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down and simmer for five minutes. 

Now CAREFULLY pour the mixture over your popcorn. Mix until all covered. Now you may spill or something, don't be fooled by the pretty colours and seemingly harmless popcorn. IT IS VERY HOT. SCALDING HOT. IT IS ALSO STICKY. DO NOT TRY AND CATCH THE FALLING POPCORN! Can you guess I speak from experience. Let the popcorn fall on the floor.

Now put the popcorn on a prepared baking sheet. This is another step with possible spillage.

I tried two different ways of prepping my pan. One was I oiled the pan with canola oil. The other I used wax paper. Neither worked great. I would try aluminum foil and oil next time. 

Bake your popcorn at 300 for about 15 minutes. I also wonder if you could skip this step entirely. 

Let it cool then scrape it off your pans. 

The pans will come clean... just soak them in water for a day.

Eat. Yummy.

I used orange jello (obviously) and blue jello with 6 drops of yellow food colouring to make it green. The store didn't have green jello. Personally I thought the orange tasted a little weird but the blue jello flavoured popcorn was delicious.

Our family costume was an iPad. Jeff was the calendar app.

No More Pretzels in the Bowl

This post is for my brother who has previously claimed that blogs about giant pretzels make him homesick. I hope tiny baby pretzels do the same.
Anyways, I made something delicious. Pretzel bites with cheese sauce. So good. I literally could not stop eating them. I made them for lunch, snacked on them all afternoon, and then had more before I went to bed. I am not going to give a recipe because I copied it exactly from here. I think the only change I made was that I used hard margarine instead of butter and sea salt, which I don't know if it counts as Kosher. I love it when a recipe turns out perfect just the way it is.
Note: Daniel took one taste of the cheese sauce and started crying. So I gave him tomato sauce instead for dipping. The cheese sauce was amazing but the pretzels tasted really good in the tomato sauce so it was hard for me to decide which to use.
Also, this recipe makes about 200. Make sure you share! I had a friend and her two kids come over to share the pretzel love.

An Update on Turning 30

I have been asked how our birthday challenge went. More or Less. As most challenges go we started out really strong. It was fun to get rid of one thing everyday. Sometimes it was just a lone kitchen utensil that had an unknown purpose, sometimes it was a pile of something being saved for some unplanned craft, sometimes it was the extras where we had multiples and multiples stacked it the cupboard. Anyways... We knew we were going to be away quite a bit over the summer so we had a few good PURGE DAYS. That way we wouldn't have to come back and say we were gone for 11 days now we have to find 11 things to get rid of. Our church had a garage sale so we donated a bunch of stuff to that. We now have a corner of our basement dedicated to next year's garage sale. By August our challenge petered out quite a bit. I still think however that it was successful. Have I missed anything I got rid of? Nope. But I still look around and see clutter.
And then I found this:

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. William Morris

Wow. That is so my goal for my house! I have said before that I want everything in my house to be something I love, and this kind of summed it up beautifully for me. This will be an ongoing struggle and challenge for me, but I know that someday I will succeed and be happy with the results.

In conclusion.... The birthday challenge was good but the lifestyle challenge continues!

On Learning Joy

Joy Spam Pass It On!!!

I hope these pictures make YOU smile.
So many simple ways to make the world a more JOYFUL place.
A SMILE is all it takes... and maybe a banana.
Do something TODAY to make someone smile and put a little joy in their heart!

Oreo Cake

If you come to my house on your birthday I will probably make you a cake. This is the cake I made my brother-in-law. This is also the best chocolate cake recipe ever. I should have used this cake for Jacob's birthday digger cake. So moist and delicious.

The original inspiration for the chocolate cake recipe come from Martha Stewart's Allergen Free Cupcakes, which are really good. My version makes two rounds. I think my pans are 8".

3cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 tsps baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup cooking oil (I use canola)
2 tbsps vinegar
2tsps vanilla
2 1/2 cups water

Preheat oven to 350.
Combine dry ingredients in one bowl and we ingredients in another, then combine.
Batter is very thin.
Divide into two pans and bake 25-30 minutes.

For the Oreo filling:
1 8oz pkg cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups cool whip.
Then add chocolate chips or crushed Oreos.

For the chocolatey top:
4 squares semi sweet bakers chocolate
1/4 cup butter
Melt in microwave.

The Very Hungry....

CATERPILLAR! I love the idea of reading a book and doing a craft to go along with it. This was my first try and it was a great success! At first Jacob wanted his caterpillar to have a red face and a green body but when I told him he was going to paint it himself and pick the colours he went with blue and black. 

Just for fun we made beetles out of the little ends of the egg cartons. Which turned out awesome because the boys discovered that the beetles can go for rides on the caterpillars' backs. We fed the bugs all leaves because that turns out to be what the "Very Hungry Caterpillar" liked best.

On Learning Love

We have decided to start some learning at home and are beginning by teaching the boys the fruits of the spirit. One of the ways we learned about love was by making heart shaped cookies and then decorating them and delivering them to our friends... because we LOVE our friends.

Don't the boys' cookies look awesome?
The cookies were painted with a food colouring and egg yolk mixture before baking. 

Painting the cookies looked like so much fun that I had to give it a try

And here is Jacob packaging up the cookies for delivery.

Sugar Cookies Betty Crocker Recipe Without the Cream of Tartar Because I Didn't Have Any and I Also Don't Ever Have Almond Extract So It Doesn't Have That Either

1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 cup stick margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda

Beat sugar, butter, vanilla, and egg together. Then add flour and baking soda.
Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 375. Roll out cookies, cut out shapes... Bake 7 minutes.


For the paint mix 1 egg yolk with 1/2 tsp water. Divide mixture into four small containers (I used measuring cups) and add 1 or 2 drops of food colouring to each one. Paint cookies before baking. Colours get nice and bright in the oven.

Mac & Cheese Made Easy

Who knew macaroni and cheese could be almost as easy as making it from the box? I have made homemade Mac & Cheese before but it usually involves butter and flour and making a roux. Then baking it to thicken up the sauce. Multiple pots and a baking dish means more mess. Anyways, I found what I thought was a brilliant idea and built my own recipe around it for the flavours I like.
The brilliant idea? Cook the macaroni in the milk! Genius.
So, take your milk and add the pasta. Cook over medium heat about 20 minutes. Stir lots. Try not to let it boil, if it does it might thicken too quick but then all you have to do is add a little more milk. When the milk is hot add a squirt of mustard. I know that is very technical, but I was trying to make less dishes not more. Once your pasta is cooked through then add the cheese and paprika and onion powder. Stir until all the cheese is melty and eat immediately. For some kick sprinkle some red pepper flakes on top. (That last ingredient is just for me, too spicy for the kids, but so delicious!)

Enjoy.

Mama's Mac & Cheese

2 1/4 cups milk
2 cups elbow macaroni
1 squirt mustard
1 cup shredded mild cheddar
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp onion powder
Sprinkle red pepper flakes (totally optional)

Monkey Bread/Boys

I don't know what makes the "monkey" in monkey bread... Is it the pull apart factor? Jacob requested moose bread next time so I guess I better get on that. Anyways monkey bread apparently comes in many flavours from savoury to sweet and when I saw the words lemon and monkey and bread together it was just meant to be. 

I used my cinnamon bun dough recipe since the recipe called for frozen ready to bake white roll dough. I hate when recipes call for things like that. I once got a cookbook from the library that ws supposed to be great fun snacks for kids and the first recipe called for Eggos. Then put peanut butter and an apple slice on top. How do these books get published? And, I digress. 

Bun recipe:

1 egg

1 1/4 cup warm water

1 tbsp oil

1/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

3 1/2 cups white bread flour

2 tsps instant yeast.

Mix, let rise a bit in bowl. Divide into 24 pieces and roll into balls. Place in buttered 9x13 pan and drizzle with 3 tbsps melted butter.

Meanwhile, zest a lemon. Now I have never zested before and thus I don't own a zester and it turns out that that other weird side of the four sided cheese grater is not for zesting. Zesting a lemon with only a cheese grater is a pain in the butt. Note to self: buy a zester. 

The recipe says mix the zest of one lemon with 1/2 cup of sugar. I did this, but in the end I felt like a had way too much sugar, so use your own judgment. Sprinkle only HALF of this mixture on top of your buns and let them rise a little more so the sugar/zest mix dissolves into the buns. 

Your oven should be preheating to 350. I always forget to do that! When the buns have doubled in size sprinkle with the rest of the sugar/zest mix and bake for 20-25 minutes. 

Now have the glaze ready so you can pour it on as soon as the buns come out of the oven. Mix 1/2 cup icing sugar with 1tbsp lemon juice, or more, until you are happy with the consistency. 

If you are brave enough to risk burning your mouth eat one right away. They are delicious, and to me tasted like perfect little lemon donuts. 

Something Random from my Kitchen

Fruit-Kebobs...

... Easy and fun and yummy... Need I say more?

Happy 4th!

So Jacob is four. Wow. Holy smokes. Crazy. I find this hard to believe, and yet here he is. My wonderful little boy. He is so excited to be four!

Here is my delicious looking iced cake:

This icing is so good! And way easier than buttercream.

1 pkg instant pudding (I obviously used chocolate)

1/2 the milk called for on the package of pudding

1 small container cool whip

Mix together for creamy deliciousness. 

Bonus recipe: throw leftover icing in the blender with milk to thin the consistency. Pour into popsicle molds for the best "fudgsicles" I have ever made.

Now, Jacob wanted a digger cake. So then I brought out the heavy machinery... CAKE DESTRUCTION! 

But look at that cute face! He loved it and had a great birthday.

There's a Hole in my Blue Kitchen

So thursday morning we woke up to a huge puddle of water on our kitchen counters, and there was water all in our cabinets. Weird. Our bathroom is right above our kitchen so we thought maybe the shower curtain was out of whack because we had had small drips before when the boys splash water out of the tub all over the floor. Anyways, so thursday evening we gave the boys a bath with strict instructions not to splash. They didn't and yet we had even more water in our kitchen. Hurray! Just what we wanted to deal with. So we cut a hole in the wall and this is what we found.

Okay. Well I loosened the trap, but see that ring hanging in the middle of the trap? That is only half of the piece that is supposed to seal the joint there.

Here is the other half. Nice, eh? No wonder water was pouring out of that joint.

So here is me trying to take the pipe apart. Awkward at best. (This should be a super model pose.)

This is the hole. What those wires are for, I don't know, but I found them sitting in a puddle of water. I don't think they are live, they don't pull out, and I have no idea where they go other than upstairs.

So that was a thursday night. Today is friday. It is fixed, we had showers and there were no leaks. Yes. Though I was secretly hoping maybe it would be something worse and we could gut our bathroom. Yet I am also so thankful it was something we could fix on our own and only took a few hours and 20$.

A very special thank you to my father-in-law for his advice over the phone that evening. We couldn't have done it without you.

Another special thanks to my neighbours on both sides. One lent us a drywall knife and the other lent us some pipe glue. 

A Yum and a Yum With Potential

So we decided to start a new tradition in our house: dessert on Sundays! It sounds crazy but usually Jeff and I wait until the kids go to bed to have dessert so now we are going to share it one day a week. Which means I get to maybe experiment on my family a little more! So I made what I am calling "Easy Mom's Apple Crisp."
You will need: 6 small apples cut in half. Scoop out the seeds. Lay them cut side up in a 9x12 dish.

Melt 1/2 cup hard margarine and add 3/4 cup each of rolled oats, brown sugar, and flour. Add 1/4 tsp cinammon. Mix together.

Put one big spoonful of topping mix on top of each apple.

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream and your Sunday dessert will be a hit, guaranteed!

So that was my YUM. My YUM WITH POTENTIAL story goes something like this:

Last week at church the ladies were talking about zucchini. Everyone has too much zucchini. So one lady tried 8 different zucchini brownie recipes. I asked which was the best and was asked in return if I have the original Canadian Lutheran Ladies cookbook. Why yes I do. Find the recipe simply title Zucchini Bars. Make that. So I did. Here is the recipe:

Beat together 4 eggs, 1.5 cups oil, and 2 cups sugar.
Sift together 2 cups flour, 2 tsps baking soda, 2 tsps cinammon, 1 tsp salt and 4 tbsp cocoa powder
Mix together.
Add 1 tsp vanilla, 3 cups grated zucchini, and 1 cup nuts or chocolate chips
Pour in greased and floured 15x10x1 pan. Bake 350 for 25-30 minutes. 

FYI that pan is just a big cookie sheet. There is an icing recipe with it but I was out of icing sugar. 
Anyways... I thought the batter had a strangely not chocolatey colour to it, but figured I was crazy since this was the best of eight recipes. It tasted good, the boys loved it, but I wasn't that thrilled with it. So the next day Jeff is organizing and pulls out the can of cocoa powder. It catches my eye because it is navy blue.... And the cocoa powder I had out in the brownies was not in a blue can but in a purple can. So I had to dig through the newly organized pantry to find the purple can.... That's right, I put hot chocolate mix in my brownies instead of cocoa. I think if I had made them right they would have been brownies and not just brown zucchini cake. Potential. 

Giant Veggies

God has blessed us with a bountiful harvest this year! 

We had:

 over 30 cucumbers, some of which were gigantic

lots of huge, delicious, crunchy carrots (and more than half are still in the ground)

tomatoes galore, with plants almost 5' high, cherry, beefsteak, and orange

more yellow and green beans than we could readily eat

4 types of lettuce

It has been delicious and amazing. We still have many more carrots and tomatoes to enjoy!

Happy Birthday To Me!

Yeah I am 30! Birthdays are fun. I made my own cake this year because I really wanted to try out a new recipe on myself. I found a recipe for white cake that called for frozen lemonade concentrate. So I wondered... what about frozen PINK lemonade concentrate?
So I made myself a pink cake. It was delicious. The icing was amazing.

RECIPE:

Take your favourite white cake recipe and add 3tbsps lemonade concentrate. I just used a Betty Crocker recipe. I also added 3 drops of red food coloring just to make my cake more pink. Bake normally.

For the icing you will need

1 tbsp butter softened

2 tbsp lemonade concentrate

1/2 tsp vanilla

4 oz (half block) cream cheese

1 3/4 cup icing sugar

Kids Love PB&J

My kids love peanut butter and jam. I was reading some old magazine while our car was getting an oil change and saw a recipe for pb&j popsicles. WHAT?!? When I got home this is what I made:

You don't really need a recipe.
I mixed 2/3 cup peanut butter with milk until it was the consistency I wanted. Thick but pourable.
In the blender I put 1 cup fruit (in this case a mix of blueberries, saskatoons, and raspberries), 1/2 cup OJ and icing sugar (maybe 3/4 cup).
Then I carefully spooned them into the molds. I didn't freeze in between doing each layer since both the PB and the Jam part were fairly thick I didn't really think they would mix up. And they didn't. The boys loved them.

Two Little Artists

My boys really like to paint. So when they asked to paint this morning I was almost prepared. I had found this cool idea on pinterest where you use tape to spell out a word on a canvas and then you paint over the whole thing, let it dry, and peel off the tape.

This is how our project went:

I just absolutely LOVE how these turned out. What a fun way to spend part of a morning!