THE cookie.

When I was first married I was making cookies for the first time as a wife. I was so excited to make cookies on the new cookie sheet, with my new mixing bowls, using my new spatulas and a bunch of other supplies I got as gifts from our wedding. I was so excited. It was MY kitchen in MY apartment with MY new husband. I was pretty sure I knew what I was doing and thought everything would turn out fine. I mean who doesn't know how to make chocolate chip cookies? Right?

For some odd reason during the process I decided to use I can't believe it's not butter spray as the butter. I don't know what I was thinking. I'm pretty sure I was out of butter and was just trying to make do with what I had but really, how did I think they would turn out?

Anyways, the cookies came out paper thin and super hard. They were gross. Not even good enough to pick out and eat the chocolate chips. My husband said they looked like frisbees and i'm pretty sure he even chucked one across the room to see if it would float like a frisbee. Ha! He has referred to those cookies every time I make anything that doesn't turn out.

Don't even get me started on the time I tried to make home made chicken nuggets. Chicken Nuggets? Who does that?!

Anyways, over the years I have made my husband plenty of cookies and slowly got back my confidence in making cookies. For the past few years I have been on the hunt for...

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe Ever!

Thanks to Sara and Kate at Our Best Bites, I found it. It's perfect! Not too gooey on the inside, crispy on the outside, holds it's shape, not too thin and... best of all, it's not a frisbee cookie! Yay! I use the ghiradelli chocolate chips. I like that they're big chips.

Here's the recipe...

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Delicious Apple Cider

I got this recipe from my sister this morning and couldn't wait to try it. It's so good! It was the perfect drink to cure my sweet tooth, warm my bones on a cold evening & made my house smell like fall. One thing that I love is that it tasted just like this smells. It's pretty much the same ingredients except for the cider and sugar. It's the perfect twist on cider.

2 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp whole cloves
1 tsp whole allspice
2 qts apple cider which is 64oz
1/c c brown sugar
1 orange sliced

enclose cinnamon sticks, cloves and allspice in cheesecloth, creating a little bag. In the photo can you see my bag floating under the oranges?

Pour cider and brown sugar into crock pot. Stir and let it warm up until brown sugar is disloved. Add cheesecloth bag. Slice up one orange and put slices in crock pot.

Cover and cook on low for 2 to 3 hours.

Discard spice bag and serve.

Pumpkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting

Cookies

3/4 C sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 Tbsp maple syrup
2 eggs
1 C canned pumpkin
2 1/2 C flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp nutmeg
pinch ground cloves
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350

Cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add maple syrup and eggs mix well. Add pumpkin and mix well.

In a separate bowl sift together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and cloves.

Add the dry ingredients to the batter and mix well. Don't over mix though. Drop spoonfulls of batter onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake for about 11 minutes. The cookies don't even out and become perfectly round. The batter pretty much stays the same shape and size as they cook so watch them closely. 11 minutes is pretty much all they need.

Cool on racks and then frost with this recipe...

Cream Cheese Frosting


In a mixer cream 2 (8 oz) pkgs cream cheese, 1 C powdered sugar, 1/4 C Milk,1 Tbsp vanilla and zest from 1 lemon. Not the whole lemon but 4 good sized spots. The lemon adds the perfect zing to the frosting but you don't want too much!

CTR Towels

Okay, I know this blog has been so dead lately. I'm slowly getting things back in order to get posting again.

I wanted to post this though. In our church I was just called to be the teacher for the CTR 7 class. That means that all the kiddos in my class are the ones that will be baptized when they turn 8. So, I wanted to find something special to make for them. A long time ago I saw this tutorial on one of my favorite blogs,
Made With Love and Glue and put it in the back of my brain (and also bookmarked it on the computer) as a fun thing to do as a gift for someone. Anyways, I made it for a girl getting baptized tomorrow.

It was such a fast easy project and pretty much the same thing as these but Rachel has a great tutorial here, and there is also a really cute poem that goes along with it, of course not pictured here. Here is the one Rachel did on her blog...

Such a fun gift to give!

Just peachy!

Okay folks. It's peach season and we have these beauties all over the house. I canned some but still have a lot left over. They were starting to get pretty ripe so the spouse and I went on a mad peach binge. Not kidding we made this, this and this within a 24 hour period. We don't plan on stopping anytime soon either!

The last 2 we made together one night while the kids were in bed.

Spouse and I both had never had peaches and cream before. You know the old fashioned way. We basically poored heavy whipping into a sauce pan added some sugar to sweeten it up and let it heat up a bit. It never got to the boiling point, just nice and warm. The heating up part was all spouses idea and he was pretty proud. Then poored it over fresh, sliced, peeled peaches. It really was a very delicious and simple dessert.

Oh, and the sour cream tart wasn't our favorite. Very sour creamy. Too sour creamy. I think it needed to be sweeter and maybe some cream cheese mixed with the sour cream or something. I'm just sayin'.

What are your favorite fresh peach recipes?

Hi it's me, Shawna's amazingly talented and beautiful sister Tifani........

Okay so now that I have you here I won't lead you on any longer!!! I really am not that Talented and Not very beautiful either but I try to find things that interest me and go with it!!!!
I love accessorizing with my outfits and when I find a cute and cheap thing to do I am always loving it!!!
This is cheap and oh so easy and there are endless things you can make these out of!!!

First you cut out 3 different sizes of circles out of felt, and one large circle about the size of a cup opening!!

You then find some ribbon of your choice or zippers, I have seen these done out of zippers and they are stinkin cute!!! You start on the outside of each felt piece with hot glue as you go and twirl your way to the middle,cutting off the xtra, tuck with hot glue in the middle and you are done!!! seriously that easy!!!

Then you position all three to the big piece of felt as you wish, I put a pin on the back of this one but you can also do an alligator clip and use it for your clothes, handbags or hair!!! Oh the possibilities they're endless, I need to scream!!!!

I didn't have a pic of me actually doing it so if you have ?'s go here! I hope to take pic's soon of more!!! SO go, go get some ribbon or zippers or what ever your fancy and start twirling!!!

Thanks to my Amazing sis shawna for asking me to guest her blog today!!!! Love ya shamom's

Happy Mother's Day

There's still about an hour left before Mother's Day is over. So, instead of cleaning up a bit before I go to bed, I'm blogging.

A cute friend of mine had to spend Mother's Day alone since her husband is out of town for a job interview. I thought she needed a little something on Mother's Day since she is an awesome mother and such a good example to me. I whipped up these little cups of goodness. I know they were goodness because I had 2 of them and spouse probably had 3. He knows a good baked good too.

The reason for this post is not to share some amazing cupcake recipe that I use. It is to give you a little trick that I have found that makes boxed cake mixes a lot better. Maybe it's not new to anyone, maybe it's not a trick, maybe it's not as good for you as I think it is. I don't care. It makes me feel so much better about eating a cupcake, thinking that is better for me.

Here's my trick: Whenever I am making a cake out of a box I follow a few rules.

* never add the yolk of the egg, only whites plus one more white

*never add oil, add applesauce

For example, the box my mix came from said to add:

1 1/3 C water

1/2 C vegetable oil

3 eggs

I added:

1 1/3 C water

1/2 C applesauce

4 egg whites

I also fill the paper baking cups to the top and bake it for the minimum amount of minutes. So, if it says to bake cupcakes for 20-25 minutes, I bake them for 20

I have used this on all different kinds of cake mixes and it has never not worked. They come out so fluffy, moist and light. Never undercooked. I don't know why, it just does. Try it!

Let me know if you have any questions...

The cute cupcake toppers I got from TomKat Studio

They just happened to match some cupcake liners I got from hobby lobby a while back.

I also used this recipe for the icing and it was delicious! I think it was from Wilton but I can't remember.

Icing

1 stick softened butter

1 stick softened neufchatel cheese (cream cheese)

4 C powdered sugar (1 box)

1 Tbsp. milk

cream butter and cheese until smooth

add sugar one cup at a time

add milk and mix until smooth (about 30 seconds)

This was the perfect amount for 18 cupcakes. Double the recipe and you'll get 5 1/2 cups of icing.

Sugar Cookies

My friend Deb posted this recipe on her blog. She really is an amazing cook so when she talked about how good these cookies tasted I really wanted to try them. She was right. They're amazing. They're thick, soft, moist and really good. Here's the recipe.

Sugar Cookies (Marcae R's recipe)

6 c flour
3/4 tsp salt
2 c salted butter (softened)
2 1/4 c sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
3 large eggs
4 TBSP milk


preheat oven to 375

whisk together flour/salt and set aside

cream together butter and sugar

add eggs, milk, vanilla

add flour mixture slowly and beat on low until combined

Divde dough in half and form into two balls. Flatten into a disk and wrap tightly in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour

On a floured (or p sugared) surface roll out dough to desired thickness (they will not puff up a ton so if you want them thick- as she made them- roll them out as thick as you want them to be). She used a big flower cookie cutter so they were delightfully giant.

Bake for 10-12 minutes- she usually takes them out early- like 8/9 minutes. Let them set on pan for a min or two if you do.

Cool and frost (delightful receipe to follow)

ICING

8 oz cream cheese (softened)
1/4 c butter (softened)
1 tsp vanilla
powder sugar

mix cream cheese, butter and vanilla til creamy then add powdered sugar to desired consistency.

I didn't make the icing but I will on the next batch

Valentine Jars...

If you've read my blog before you know I have a hard time throwing things away. One thing I keep a stash of is jars. Spaghetti, salsa, spices, you name it. There is so much potential. I made these jars pretty much like the Thankful jars here. Just different goodies. You really can't mess these up and can make them for any holiday. Cut a strip of paper wide enough and wrap it around your jar. I decoupage mine but you could use tape or a glue stick or whatever you have to make your paper stick together at the ends. Just make sure you pull it tight so it stays after the glue dries. Then do the same thing to the edge of your jar lid. Then fill jar with sweets. So easy!

Don't forget to give it a little bling bling. I used ribbons and chip board letters on these. I just used a hole punch on the chip board letter big enough to feed thin ribbon through and tied it.

I have a space in my cupboard that I keep my stash of jars. Some are ones I decorated a while ago, waiting to be used. And don't worry about the sticky labels on the jars. A little goo gone and they come right off.

What do I use the cinnamon jars for?

It just so happens that when you buy these on clearance after the holidays. Like cheaper than a quarter clearance.

You can mash them up into fine powder (or really fine chunks) and they make a cute little jar of something sweet to give away with hot chocolate or sugar cookies or whatever you can add peppermint powder on. It takes a good beating to get them powdery so it might help if you think of something really frustrating and let it all go as you're beating your candy canes.

They already come with the little tops for dispensing powder so it's perfect.

Next time you make spaghetti or nachos don't throw the jars away. Store them for a rainy day and [re]beautify them into something cute!

Help Me Say Thanks...

So, I have this super, awesome, amazing sister. Tiff...

(Tiff and Brian 11/06)

She has helped me in so many ways. She has bent over backwards many many times to help me out. I had a harder time than I thought while Ben was gone on his rotation. When I told Tiff that after him being gone for about a week she said, "we'll get you up there, we'll find a way".She came and got my kids for me and watched them so that I could make the trip up to see Ben.

While I was in Alamosa I went to shop after shop looking for the perfect thing to say Thank You! I couldn't find anything that really did the trick. I left bummed thinking I was going to make her something for the baby. The drive home from Alamosa was about 11 hours so she ended up bringing the kids back to me so that I wouldn't have to travel the 3 extra hours (on top of the 11 hours) to Safford to pick them up. She brought them all the way back to me. She is so caring. This isn't the first time she has helped me out either. She'll call and ask me when she can take the kids so that Ben and I can get away. Not only is she this way to me but she is this way to everyone she knows. She's a great example of serving others.

A very talented photographer, Holly Brimhall is having a little contest for a newborn photo shoot and I nominated my sister as a way to say thanks for everything she has done for me. Her baby is due in March and it was perfect timing to qualify for this photo shoot. I was so excited when I saw this morning that Holly had chosen her as a finalist in the contest. Here's where I need your help. Vote for her. Tifani Cluff.

She is an amazing person and has also endured a very tough pregnancy and she deserves this. She'll pee her pants if she wins. Not only from being 8 months pregnant but from excitement too! Help me tell her Thanks for everything she has done by voting for her!

Go here and vote

Thanks a million!

Tomato Cage Trees

Every year at Thanksgiving my mom, sisters, aunt and I do a craft. This year we did tomato cage trees. My sister's ward did them as a craft and we loved the idea. So here's how we made ours...

Start with tomato cages. I bought all of these at home depot for about $2.80 each. They were the larger 4 tier ones.

Then we started by bending down the points. This was a team effort. The purpose for this was to give a place on top of the tree to add the bow. It would just sit in the middle of the bent wire.

Then we found some garland at wal mart $4 for 9 ft. Later I found some for $2 for 9ft but it wasn't as thick. I bought it later and used and it worked fine though.

Start at the bottom and work your way up. We wrapped the garland around the outside of the straight sides and then every once in a while wrapped it around the round layers to hold it in place. Once you get to the top you can just cut the excess garland off with wire cutters.

They work perfect in kids rooms. As soon as we got home the kids each picked a tree and took it in their rooms to decorate. A strand of 100 lights filled the trees perfectly. I had other ideas for the trees but the kids were so excited about them that I just let them have them and decorate them how they wish. I had bought some pretty Christmas ribbon for a bow, some berry garland and red beaded garland but oh well.

Sorry for the bad photos.

A purple one for Sydney...

and blue lights for Theron. Seriously, how cute is this...

I think the total cost per tree was about $12 including the lights!

Awesome giveaway!

Totally want to win THIS! Check it out!

1. What 5 items are on your holiday wish list this year? cricut, pots &pans, wheat grinder, camera strap

2. What is your favorite handmade gift you have received? hand made ornaments from my son

3. What handmade gift have you always wanted to tackle? a quilt, the binding is scary.

4. What was the best Christmas gift you received as a child? my cabbage patch kid, I was sooo excited!

5. What items are on your kid’s wish list this year?scooters, leapsters and anything princess and star wars

6. What is your favorite holiday food? easy, mom's yams

7. What will you be hand-crafting for the holidays? necklaces

8. What is your favorite holiday movie? White Christmas & Miracle on 34th street

9. Favorite holiday song? All I want for Christmas is you

10. Favorite holiday pastime? Our Annual Family Xmas party

Cinnamon Roasted Almonds

I'm really sorry to anyone that checks my blog. I have been wanting to post for days now. If I'm blogging it's usually on my personal blog and even then that has slowed down. Child 1 had the swine flu and I can't get my husband healthy. He is going on 2 weeks of feeling awful. Urgh!

However I will post this awesome recipe for cinnamon roasted almonds. These are really really good!

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon cold water
1 egg white
4 cups whole almonds
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup white sugar

preheat oven to 250 and grease a cookie sheet. Preferably one with edges.
Mix the egg and water until egg becomes frothy. Add the nuts and mix it around until the nuts are coated with the egg. Mix together the sugar salt and cinnamon and then sprinkle it over the nuts. Toss until nuts are evenly coated. Spread into the greased pan and bake for 1 hour. I stirred mine every 20 minutes or so.

Tip: I think the nuts are a lot better once they're cooled. They're good warm but I liked them after they've cooled so the nuts aren't so soft.

Store in a air tight container.

Zucchini Bread

This recipe is amazing. Really it is! It's really moist, fluffy and filling. I don't think I'll ever use another recipe for plain ol' zucchini bread. Sooo good! I found it online and changed it a little to cut out some sugar. Here's the recipe...

3 C flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
3 tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
1/2 C olive oil
1/2 C applesauce
1/2 C white sugar
1 C brown sugar
3 tsp vanilla
3-4 C grated or chopped zucchini. I actually used close to 5 cups.

preheat oven to 325.
sift flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda & cinnamon together.

In separate bowl, beat eggs, oil, vanilla, applesauce & sugar. Add sifted ingredients. Mix well. Add zucchini. Bake in 2 greased pans 50-55 minutes. I think mine were done in about 60 min.

Tip: some recipes for zucchini bread say to squeeze all the water out of the zucchini after it has been grated. Don't do that for this recipe. All the water in the zucchini is what helps keep the bread so moist and keeps it from drying out.

If you're looking for a different zucchini bread recipe try this.

Here's a way to [Re]beautify something, give a fun gift and help keep kids germ free during this flu season. O.k. there is no such thing as a kid ever being germ free but you know what I mean.

These are going to Theron's teacher...

The funny thing is that This popped up on my google reader this morning. No way! Someone was totally on the same wave length or something. We have to be friends. I need to meet her! Our projects look way to much a like for us not to be friends. How cool is this?

Easy home made potpourri

This stuff will make your whole entire house smell soooo good. So good, you might just start licking your walls.

Here's what you need:

• 1 lemon
• 1 orange
• 3-3 inch cinnamon sticks
• 6 bay leaves
• ½ cup whole cloves

Combine all ingredients in a pan with water and simmer on low all day. Keep filling with water as needed.

One of my favorite things about this time of year is all the yummy smells. The cinnamon, vanilla, sugar cookies, fall, pumpkin, spice, fire places, hot chocolate, thanksgiving turkeys, Christmas trees. All of it. I love it! This is the perfect scent to welcome fall. Even though it's still in the upper 90's here, I'm doing everything I can to make it feel like the summer weather is almost over.

Thanks Jackie Lee and Stacey for the recipe!

Last fall I was busy with my enrichment calling and other things. I didn't get anything done that I wanted to. So, this year I'm starting early, to make up for lost time. First off, pumpkins...

Go here for the tutorial. Holly is so cute and creative. In fact go to her blog anyways so you can see how the pumpkins are supposed to look. Good thing I was going for the homemade look and not perfection. Mine turned out so ugly they're cute.

Hooded Towel

Hooded Towel Tutorial. Grab a full sized towel and a hand towel and [re]beautify it.

I'm leaving for the weekend and I should be packing and getting ready to go but I'm not. I'm sitting here on my big rear typing away & stressing about everything that still needs to be done. I'm excited about this tutorial though.

Here's how I did it...thanks to my friend Beth.

Start with a font you like and enlarge it to the size you want. I chose this font but it wasn't thick enough so I printed it and then drew an outer line to make it even thicker. Cut out your letters

Then I got some iron on adhesive. The one I used was Heat N Bond but there are others like Wonder Under. Make sure you get the one that allows you to sew after it's been applied. Next you're going to adhere your fabric to the heat n bond. Place together the bumpy side of the heat n bond and the wrong side of your fabric. Iron over it until it's stuck to the fabric. Here's a picture, bumpy side of adhesive and wrong side of fabric...

Next, you take your cut out letters and trace them backwards on the other side of your heat n bond. This way, you letters come out facing the right way. You'll see what I mean in the next step. So, trace your letters backwards on the paper side of the heat n bond and then cut them out again.

Next, get a hand towel that matches the towel you'll be using. Cut the hand towel in half.

Now, fold up the end of your (half hand towel) towel so that the letters will fit. This is where the letters will be sewn so make sure you give them enough room. Space them out and remove the paper side of the heat n bond. If you look you'll see there will be a shiny residue on your fabric and this is what will make your fabric stick to your towel so you can stitch it on there. Remove the paper and lay the letters back down on the towel...

and then iron those bad boys on there.

then you're going to stitch the letter to the towel. The zig zag stitch is probably the easiest to use, I think. Don't look to closely at my stitching, my poor old ancient machine has been giving me heck. My pedal has started sticking so my stitching gets a little crazy. Before you start stitching, make sure you unfold your towel. You don't want to stitch it folded yet. Stitch all your letters on!

Once all the letters are stitched on, then fold your towel back on the line and pin. Then stitch along the top of the letters like the photo. Don't worry about stitching straight. You won't even see your thread once you're done.

You're almost done with the hood of the towel. Now take your towel and fold it with the letters on the inside like so. You're going to stitch the top of the hood. Pin along the top and sew straight across.

Here's another photo. See the pins on the top? The letters are also on the inside of the fold. Stitch right across the top.

Remove the pins and fold the towel right side out. You made the hood. There is only one more step. You just have to attach it to the towel.

Okay, take your full sized towel and fold it in half. Pay attention to the half way point of the towel because that is where you're going to line up the hood. You want to attach the hood in the center of the towel. Put a pin or something there to mark it. Then take your hood and line up the center of the back bottom of the hood to the pin that marks the center of the towel. You'll line them up with the letters on the hood facing up. Pin it so it will stay in place while you stitch. Your machine will be sewing through a few layers of towel so it will be thick.

Here's another photo...

Of course I forgot to take a photo of the towel all done and unfolded so you could see it. I did however take a photo of how I like to fold them after they're finished. I made 2 towels. I bought 2 full sized towels and one hand towel. I just used the other half of the hand towel after it was cut for the other hood. I also buy all my towels at target when they go on clearance. I stock up.

They also look cute with a bottle of bubble bath tucked in there too!

There might seem to be a lot of steps and I hope I didn't make it too confusing. They're actually really easy. let me know if you have any questions or if I need to explain a little more. Go make one and send me pics. I'd love to see your creations!

Also, I took some good advice from Beth. I made a towel for my 10 year old niece too. Since she was so tall the hooded towel wouldn't really fit right. Her bum probably would have hung out the bottom. So, when I made hers I just put her name at the end of the towel instead of making a hood for it. Still so cute!

p.s. are you as excited as I am to get those picture of my toilet off the top of my blog?

If your toilet seat become loose, do you know how to fix it? I had no idea. After watching a plumber come and fix it for me and look at me like I'm stupid for not knowing how to fix something so easy, I learned. I'm going to spare you the embarrassment and share how to fix it. I'm convinced that after fixing things in the home all by yourself you should be called "queen of the castle".

You pop off the plastic cover to the thing on the back of your seat. I never even knew these things came off. I took the screw out in this photo because I was cleaning it off. Apparently it is a major trap for pee from a 5 year old that has a really bad aim. Gross! Just pop off the plastic cover so you can see the screw head.

(sorry, I didn't get it as clean as I wanted for the photo, and I scraped the crap out of it as I didn't realize there was a nut on the underside so I was trying to pop it out insetaed of unscrewing it. oh well!)

Then reach around the underside of the toilet and there will be the bottom half of the screw hanging down with a nut attached. I didn't realize in this photo my nut is missing because I took it off and didn't put it back on before I took the photo but there will be one there. (there was pee on the underside of the screw too) Just grab the nut and hold it tight while tightening the top part of the screw with a screwdriver.



Who knew it could be so easy? I'll be removing mine regularly for cleaning.

I'll post more about becoming the "queen of my castle". I have a feeling I will have to learn more as Ben will be gone a lot this year for rotations and I'll be on my own for repairs. This could get ugly!

I promise I am almost done with my bucket posts. I just needed to get on here and publicly thank my sister Tifani for her help. You see she helped me realize that I have an addiction. I really didn't know it was there, but it is. I had never really thought bout the way I feel when I get near my weakness. Something comes over me and I give in without even hesitating or even thinking about it. I am working on trying to fix it and I'm not sure there is a rehab for my sickness...

I am addicted to buckets.

Now that I think about it. Every single one of these were purchased at Target in the dollar spot. Go and get some, before I do.