My first baby turned 8!

I just can't believe it, my oldest turned 8 a couple weeks ago. It only seems like yesterday I was in the hospital scared to death being told I was going to be induced, 1 month early! It has been a long ride, but he has change me for the better. I would not be where I am today without him.

Enough of the sap. We are lucky enough in our school district to still be able to take homemade treats to school, so I of course had to dig deep to my inner Brea Vandekamp, as my sister calls it, to make something amazing. Bradlee has really I mean REALLY been into playing Mine Craft lately, so of course his treat had to include something of that nature. So I decided to make Creeper cupcakes, and let me tell you they were delicious. 

For these cupcakes I used one of my favorite go to chocolate cake recipes. You can find it on the back of the Hershey cocoa powder container. I like using this recipe, it's quick and easy and I always have all the ingredients needed. 

Chocolate Cupcake:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water

Heat oven to 350°F. 

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake for 18 minutes.. Cool completely. Frost as desired. I usually get between 26-30 cupcakes with this recipe. 

I have to admit this is the first time I have ever made/worked with fondant. I was actually surprised, it wasn't completely terrible, and a lot easier then I thought it would be. 

Marshmallow Fondant

1/4 cup shortening, divided 

1 (16)oz bag of mini marshmallows

1/4 cup of water

1 tsp Vanilla

2 lbs of confectioners sugar, divided

Start by coating microwave safe bowl with shortening, reserving about 1TBS of shortening for later. 

Add marshmallows and microwave on high in 30 second increments until all marshmallows are melted. Slowly add water and vanilla continuing to stir until smooth. 

Slowly add the confectioners sugar 1 cup at a time, until you have a semi sticky dough. Reserve 1 cup of sugar for kneading.  

Cover palms of hands with remaining shortening, and place fondant ball onto a surface dusted with powdered sugar. Work knead the dough until no longer stick and is smooth in appearance, can take about 5-10 minutes. 

Some say the dough needs to be refrigerated overnight. I just left mine on the counter for about 20 minutes and began to add the color and it worked just fine. 

Make sure when you are adding food coloring you use a gel food coloring, the liquid will mess with the consistency of the dough. 

You can roll fondant out with a rolling pin to desired thickness, or I used my kitchen aid roller attachment, I had enough of a workout kneading it. 

For the creeper cupcakes, I added green food coloring to the dough and cut it out in 2" squares using a ruler and pizza cutter. For the eyes and mouth I just used a small kitchen knife to cut it out by hand.  

Laying in bed last night I realized I cut his mouth shape out wrong. *Face smack* To my surprise my son didn't even notice, I don't think any of his classmates did either! *YAY*

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Cupcakes for breakfast! 

DIY Gel Air Fresheners

I go through TONS of gel air fresheners in my house, from the bathroom, kids' rooms and the garbage closet. I feel like I am spending tons of money on something that just evaporates over time, and personally I feel they don't last as long as they used to either. I happened upon this one day on Pinterest and instantly thought "Why have I never done this before!?!" 

Reading the directions it seemed easy enough, so I set out to make some. 

Ingredients: 

2 cups of water, divided 

1 oz. unflavored gelatin 

30 or so drops of essential oils, aromas of your choosing (I went with Lemon and Orange) 

1 TBS of Vodka OR salt, (I have read vodka prevents molding better than the salt)

Jars/Containers, large enough to hold at least 1/2 cup of HOT liquid each, or one large  (I used 5 small baby food jars) 

Food coloring, optional 

Stir sticks, (I used wooden skewers broken in half)

Start by adding essential oils to your jars. How much you add depends on how strong you want your scent to be at the end. I added about 30 drops to each of my jars and the end result was enough for me. You can also add the food coloring now. 

Boil one cup of water, slowly add gelatin stirring as you go to prevent clumps, until dissolved, about 1 minute.  Remove from heat and add the other 1 cup of water. Mix well. 

Pour gelatin mixture into your jars, stir to incorporate oils and food coloring. Let sit to firm up. I let mine cool for about an hour then placed in the fridge for 3 more hours and they were completely firm. 

Put them in a room/area you want to smell good and that is it! These are so cheap and easy I wish I would have found these sooner, Best of all they are all natural so I don't have to be as worried about one of the kids getting into one of them!

Tru MOO!

As you have read before I belong to a lot of product testing sites. Bzzagent is another great one I am affiliated with. This month I have gotten 3 new bzzkits!
The one I am currently working on is for Tru Moo, ya know the milk. I received some free coupons to try and review the product.
I have to say I really do like it, and so do my kids. They are also giving away coupons for $3 off any goosebumps DVD right now. You can also enter to win The Goosebumps Haunted Hollywood Vacation!

Stewed Beef with Gravy over Rice

It has been colder here lately. It went from 90+ to just above 60 in about 5 days. So I have been cooking more warm and hearty stick to your ribs kind of meals. I LOVE this stuff. I first came across this recipe while reading another food blog. I have made it a few times now and each time I think it tastes better than the last. I have adapted the recipe a bit for my tastes. Might I also add, I was so excited to make this I forgot to make the biscuits! :(


Stewed Beef with Gravy over Rice
1 1/2 pounds of stewed beef/beef tips-(Depends on where you live on what it is called)
2 TBS of Vegetable oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 packet of beefy onion soup mix
2 cups of water, keeping 1/2 cup reserved for later
3 TBS of cornstarch
1/3 cup sour cream
White rice cooked to box instructions

Heat oil in a medium sized stock pot. Season beef with salt and pepper and add to pot. Searing on all sides until brown on med-high heat for about 3-4 min.

Switch heat to low and add 1 1/2 cups of water and soup mix to pan stirring until combined. Add lid and allow to gently simmer for 1-2 hours.


DO NOT I repeat DO NOT let the liquid boil. The meat will turn into shoe leather. Believe me, I've done it.

After meat has cooked remove with slotted spoon and set aside. Turn heat back up to med-high. In a small bowl combine corn starch and remaining water. Once combined drizzle into liquid mixture in pot stirring continuously as you pour. Allow mixture to boil for 1 minute then reduce heat back to low. Once liquid has stopped boiling add the sour cream add the beef back into the mixture. DO NOT add beef to mixture while it is still boiling, you WILL have meat that resembles playground rubber chips.

Allow the meat to mingle with the newly thickened gravy for about 5-10 minutes then serve over rice.
You could serve this over egg noodles or mashed potatoes if you'd prefer, but why?

Peanut butter and banana chocolate chip cookies.

I bought WAY too many bananas the other day. I couldn't help myself they were only .10 cents a pound!

After about 10 loaves of banana bread and two gallon bags of sliced bananas later, I decided to try something else. Thus peanut butter banana cookies were born.

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter

3/4 cup of chunky peanut butter

1/4 cup of white sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 bananas

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups of flour

1/2 cup quick cooking oats

1/2 tsp baking soda

 1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup of chocolate chips 

Mix first 5 ingredients until thoroughly combined, add eggs one at a time once mixed in add vanilla. Next add flour, oats, baking soda, and salt. Once all combined add chocolate chips. My dough turned out slightly runnier than regular chocolate chip dough, but it tastes just as good! Salmonila shmalmonilla.

 I used my 1 inch cookie scoop to drop these onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes. Remove from baking sheet immediately to cool on wire rack. 

These look like normal plain jane chocolate chip cookies, but take one bite and you wont be disapointed. The banana flavor along with the peanut butter and chocolate is amazing.

The Mary Kay Look VoxBox from Influenster

Cookies and Creme Bars

These are amazing and I HATE oreos! I first saw them on another blog I follow Ring around the Rosies. She calls them Ninja crispies. Me I think they taste like cookies and cream so that is what I dubbed them in my house. These are super easy to make.

Ingredients:
1 bag of marshmallows
1 package of oreo/chocolate cookie
3 tbs butter

You will need to crush up the cookies, I used a gallon zip lock bag, as shown above, and a rolling pin, and set aside. This is amazing OHMYGODMYKIDSAREDRIVINGMEINSANE therapy. I might just have to take to cookie whacking more often.

In a pan over med heat add butter and marshmallows. Stirring constantly so you don't burn the marshmallows.

Once all the marshmallows are all melted add the crushed cookies to the pan while stirring to mix it all together.

Once it's all mixed together add to a lined 8x8 pan. I am not one that usually hassles with lining a pan, but this stuff is WAY sticky. I put mine in the refrigerator for about a half hour. Patrick was impatient and couldn't wait any longer. They were still a little gooier than I would've liked, I think another half hour and they would be perfect.

Do these not look amazing?!?! Trust me they are. Like I said, I HATE oreos, and these are really good.



Side Note: Who doesn't love a cute baby picture?? He loves to help mom in the kitchen.

He is currently teething and wants to eat everything! I am a firm believer that babies should come with teeth!

What's for dinner-Sausage and Perogies

I did this a little bass ackwards, but oh well!

Welcome to my new little creation! 

I have always thought it would be "fun" to start a blog so here I am. I know this is a little backwards since I already have wrote about the cute little rag quilt I made, but oh well, I have never followed directions in my life yet; why start now? 

After publishing my first post I was surprised to have had 41 people read it! That might not be impressive to some, hell many, but for me I felt like I was famous! :0 Doesn't take much to excite me! 

A little about myself. I live in a smallish town in western Iowa. I have three children (7, 2, and 5 months) and just recently became a full time stay at home mom. Most days I love it, some days I want to pull my hair out. Especially on laundry day, I HATE housework. Or on days it rains, kids won't melt....right??  In the end it is all worth it, I think.......

I am a self proclaimed AMAzing baker and an OK cook. I haven't poisoned anyone yet! ;)

In my spare time I coupon, scour the web for all things FREE, read, crochet, and spend time with my kids, and my new found love (again) sewing.

It's hard to say what this blog will be about. Who knows really. I don't want to really write about one thing in particular. So who knows whatever tickles my fancy that day, or week, or month. Hopefully I will remember to do this every once in awhile.........

Leave a comment! I would love to hear from all of you reading this. What would you like to see? Recipies, sewing, kid stuff? Let me know! 

My new Obsession

So I have been wanting a sewing machine for years, and I mean YEARS. I finally got one about a month ago. I was all excited when I got it went to Hobby Lobby and was looking at the fabric with the fam. And you know what they ask me to make........pillows........really, how boring. But I did it. I mean I had to break it in somehow.....right? So 800 pillows in every fabric design later I started something really cool last night. A rag quilt. I for some reason find these things amazing. They are actually quite warm also. I decided to start with the babies quilt because it would be the smallest. 

This is the fabric I chose for the babies rag quilt. 

I Cut all the fabric into 7in squares. Man did THAT take FOREVER! I then laid it all out in the pattern I wanted so the backs would be with the fronts and the batting would be in the middle and then pinned them all. 

All laid out

Once all pinned I sewed an X in the middle of each square not sewing all the way to the edge leaving about an inch at each point. 

X marks the spot

I really didn't get all hot and bothered if the fabric didn't stay perfectly even. Once all of the squares had the X, I then cut them again down to 6.5in taking 1/4 in off of each side. This took me awhile to get this down. for some reason my brain could not comprehend the math from 7in to 6.5 to make a square. I had to make about 4 squares over. :/ NOW my friend they are all perfectly even and square! I then pinned the squares in their rows and continued sewing. and sewing and sewing........and finally I saw the light! I was done.....or so I thought. Once you get done sewing you have to snip the edges to get the "rag" effect. Man that was boring and tedious. But trust me in the end it is all worth it. 

Finished!

To really get the "rag" effect it is best to wash and dry the quilt. With my leftover oopsie squares I got even craftier. 

Tada! 

I call it the raggy taggy cuz I'm cool like that. I also whipped out one of these crazy numbers. 

The Very Taggy Caterpiller

And after stabbing myself repeatedly because I had to repin this one a bazillion times because I kept pinning the legs on the wrong side of the fabric I called it a night.