DIY Photo Board

When it comes to Mother's and Father's day, I'm all about the DIY. I don't like the idea of Mother's Day becoming another reason to spend a bunch of money (save that for my birthday and Christmas). I would rather it be about honoring the special women in your life.

There is something special about a gift from your own hands. (Here are some other simple ideas).

This photo board is pretty simple and the result is something beautiful and functional. I learned how to make them from a woman in my small group.

You will need:

• scissors
• measuring tape
• staple gun with staples
• hammer
• scotch tape
• decorative nails or push pins
• quilt batting (20" x 14")
• fabric (22" x 16")
• ribbon (2 pieces 28" long; 4 pieces 20" long - exact measurements will vary depending on thickness of wood - you need the ribbon long enough to cross over the board and be stapled on the back)
• thin piece of plywood (20" x 14")
• picture hanger

1. Cut batting to size of wood (in this case, 20" x 14")

2. Iron fabric if creased, and cut 2-3 inches larger than the wood (22" x 16")

3. Lay batting over the wood and then the fabric over the batting. Flip over. Staple the fabric down (I am liberal with the staples, using one every 2 inches or so). Fold the corners down (like you would on a present), and staple down

4. Measure out and cut your ribbon (I like to tape down the measuring tape for measuring). You will need 2 pieces at least 28" long, and 4 pieces at least 20" long

5. Start with the two long pieces of ribbon and make an 'X' across the board and staple down on the back. Don't pull it too tight. 

6. Run the shorter pieces parallel to the X. Use scotch tape to position them. Once you have them where you want them, staple them down on the back

7. Use your thumb to push nails or tacks into the ribbon intersections and then hammer in with the hammer (if your tacks go through to the other side, use the hammer to bend them over so you don't have sharp ends sticking up)

8. Attach picture hanger

Voile! Who wouldn't love this?

Mini-Egg Thumbprint Cookies

Happy Easter!

The kids and I made this fun little Easter treat today. I found this recipe on pinterest (where else?). They are short-bread cookies and they were good, but I think next time I would add an egg white as I found the dough quite crumbly which made it difficult to roll into balls. They were also a tad on the dry side when finished.

But look how pretty they are!

You will need:

• 10 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/2 C confectioner's sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 C flour
• (1 egg white)
• 1/4 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1.5 tsp corn syrup
• 1 bag of mini chocolate eggs (I used Cadbury)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

With an electric mixer, beat butter, sugar and vanilla until whipped.

Add the salt and flour (I would try adding an egg white at this point) and beat until well mixed and dough-ish.

Roll dough into small balls and place evenly on un-greased cookie sheet. 

Cook for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and using thumb, press down in center of cookie to create an indentation. 

Put back in oven for 2-5 minutes (until bottoms are turning golden).

Remove from oven and and let cookies cool completely on cookie rack. 

While cookies cool, in a small sauce pan melt the chocolate chips and mix in the corn syrup, stirring constantly. Let cool for a minute and then using a spoon or knife and add a dollop of chocolate to the center of the cookies. Top with a mini-egg. Makes ~24.

Dad Birthday Card

My husband's birthday was this month. I modified this pinterest find into a birthday card. The original appears on Brilliant Beginning's blog, where you can find other great ideas. 

My two kids and myself each got to choose and color a tool. On the back of the corresponding tool, I wrote out one thing each of us loved about my husband. He was pretty touched by the card. 

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Look at the mess I woke up to this morning! Apparently Leprechauns visited us last night! My children are running around the house looking for them. My daughter is positive that if she sees one, she can keep her eyes on him until he leads her to gold. She's been practicing.


St. Patrick's day always gives me spring fever. Earlier this week, I thought it would be fun to make some spring-inspired sugar cookies and let the kids decorate them. (We colored them green for St. Patrick's day). 

And St. Paddy's day would not be St. Paddy's day without some green pancakes;

"May the Lord keep you in His hand and never close His fist too tight". Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

For the sugar cookie recipe, go here (note: I didn't want "poofy" ones this time, so no creme of tartar), and for the icing recipe, go here. 

12 Cheesy Easy V-day Gift Ideas

With Valentine's Day only a couple of days away, I thought I would share with you the easy and admittedly cheesy, v-day gifts I've been leaving for my husband since February 3. My kids were able to get in the action too, helping me pick out treats and make the cards.

I didn't put enough forethought into this to think up items for a "12 days of Valentine's" song, so maybe that will be my challenge for next year.

1. "I Love You" card; a Pinterest find
2. Fun Bite snack ("You're a FUN dad!")
3. Nibs ("Nibbles" of Love)
4. Old Spice antiperspirant, Fiji scent (Our honeymoon was in Fiji)
5. Fly-Fishing Magazine ("You make my heart FLY")
6. Sweet and Sour Lifesavers ("Being with you is a lifesaver, even if some days are sour"
7. Energizer Battery ("Our love keeps going and going and going...")
8. Fruit n' Nut Bar ("I'm Nuts for You")
9. Burt's Bee Lip Balm ("Bee Mine")
10. Bear Hugs, another Pinterest find - I also used this idea for the kids in my daughter's preschool class
11. Box of Smarties ("From the Smartypants who was wise enough to marry you")
12. I love you this much card; also from Pinterest (for this one, I used one of my daughter's hand prints, and one of my son's)

There you go. 12 simple, cheesy ideas to remind your partner how much you love them.

Linking to Serenity Now

Snowman Popcorn Wrapper Favors

Every year my husband and I host an Ugly-Sweater Holiday party.

The winner(s) this year if you were wondering, looked like this. They scored big points for carrying around battery packs in their pockets:

This year I wanted to send our guests home with a party favor. These are another great Pinterest find and were easy to do.

Source: My Crazy Life as a Farmer's Wife

You will need:
8.5 x 11 paper
a printer
glue stick
microwavable packs of popcorn
twist ties
dollar store gloves
medium to thick width ribbon
scissors

I found 8.5 x 11 paper at Staples that resembled brown paper bags.

I downloaded the printable from the website and imported it into my digital scrapbooking program, sbc from Creative Memories. I used sbc to add the wording, "Wishing you a Merry Christmas", (but if you don't have a digital scrapbooking program you can print them without the words).

I then printed out (landscape) the number I needed and cut them to 6.5 inches long instead of 8.

I wrapped the print-outs around packs of microwavable popcorn and glued the back.

Using twist ties, I bunched up the fingers of both gloves.

I then tied a ribbon around the twist tie to hide it (I just did a basic knot, nothing fancy).

I then slid just the glove in front (both gloves were too tight) over the top of the popcorn package.

So cute! I think I will adopt them for my daughter's preschool Christmas party this week and use them for boxes of smarties.

I love Christmas!

A train wreck with Candy-cane cookies

One of the biggest things weighing on my heart is my relationship with my husband. I know I am the source of a lot of unnecessary conflict and frustration. And I just know that things could be better.

In my quest to be less selfish, I am also trying to minister more often to my husband. I hate the way that sounds by the way, but it sounds better than "serving" my husband. The point is, I want him to see me as a place of comfort and support, and less as a place of agitation and annoyance.

I failed miserably in my quest today.

We decided to decorate our Christmas tree. Everything started out well enough. I made the fluffiest pancakes I've ever made (I think the secret was Our Compliments buttermilk pancake mix and the small soup ladle I used to pour the batter onto the skillet), but once we started decorating, things went downhill.

My husband likes to fiddle around with the settings on our camera. So while I tried organizing the decorations and putting them out for the kids to hang, he was fiddling. As soon as I opened the box of decorations, the kids dove in like maniacs. During the commotion I told my husband to forget the camera and just help with decorating. Instead he started snapping pictures of me.

My husband takes the worst pictures of me. Instead of getting the camera out when I'm all dolled up for a date-night, he gets it out when I'm in my pyjamas, my hair is frizzy from my shower, and I'm covered in pancake batter. What's worse, I look like a downright hag because I'm frowning and in the middle of telling him to stop taking my picture. "Stop being grumpy, like you always are!" he yelled accusingly.

Being told I'm "always" grumpy is a hot button for me (maybe because it's a little too close to the truth at times?), so I launched into the "what about you!?" sequence of our typical argument. Yay! What's more fun than a good game of "no I'm not, you are!"? Joy to the world...

Anyway, after wrapping that up we continued decorating the tree in stony silence. I know, the holiday cheer is overwhelming.

Feeling guilty about the lack of Christmas goodness, after the tree was done I decided to make some candy cane cake-mix cookies. The kids and I had been to the Santa Claus parade the week before and had accumulated quite the stash of mini candy canes. No one in our house cares for candy canes. I thought chopping them up and putting them into a cookie with chocolate might make them more appealing.

What are cake-mix cookies you say? Only the EASIEST cookie recipe out there! Remember when you bought like four boxes of cake mix at Safeway because they were buy one, get one free? Well now you have a way to use them!

Candy Cane Cake-mix Cookies

You will need...
- 1 box of cake mix (white or chocolate)
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 C oil
- 1 C (or more) of chocolate chips
- 1/4 to 1/2 C chopped candy cane pieces

Mix together cake mix, eggs and oil with a wooden spoon for one minute. The dough will be stiff. Stir in 1 C of chocolate chips and 1/4 to 1/2 C chopped candy cane pieces. Bake 8-12 minutes at 375 until just set. Cool on sheet for 1 minute then on cookie rack.

If you like chocolate and mint, you are going to love these.

My daughter doesn't like chocolate and mint, so she took one bite and made a big production of spitting the candy cane bits out. Feeling a little downcast, I turned to my husband for his reaction. He doesn't like chocolate and mint either, so his reaction was,  "Ummm...". Now I'm feeling really annoyed, so I resorted to "you never like my baking!" (yes, I am guilty of making my own "always" statements). It's also a clear over-reaction stemming from my frustration over the lack of cheer I was managing to create.

And that's just it. The whole day was about me. I had a picture in my head of how I wanted the day to play out, and when it didn't go according to my plan, I got frustrated with the players. I also took it personally. I was trying to "create" Christmas cheer so I took their rejection of my fabulous cookies as a reflection of my ability to do something fun and Christmassy with my family.

Can you imagine how much more fun we could have had if I had just hammed it up for the camera instead and took their rejection of the cookies as a blessing because now I would get to eat more of them? I can. And it makes me wish I could kick myself in the butt.

Toast Strips

Ease: 4/5     Kid-friendliness: 5/5     Taste: 5/5     Time: 4/5

Happy Father's Day! 

This recipe is perfect for getting the kids involved in preparing something for someone special. In our home, my husband is the pancake guru. In all honesty, he's way better at getting them just perfect than I am. So I didn't want to touch his well-earned title of Pancake-Extroidinaire. Toast strips are a fun alternative to pancakes and french toast. I found the recipe in Blender Baby Food: Over 125 Recipes for Healthy Homemade Meals.

What you'll need:

Toast

• 1 egg
• 2 Tbsp milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp grated orange zest
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp butter/margarine
• 1 slice bread cut into 1 inch strips
• Strawberry yogurt dip (see below)

In blender, on high speed, puree egg, milk, vanilla, orange zest and cinnamon until smooth. Transfer to a shallow bowl or pie plate. 

In a skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Dip bread strips in egg mixture, turning until well coated. Arrange in a single layer in skillet. Cook, turning once, until both sides are golden (~3 min/side). Serve warm with fruity yogurt dip. 

I doubled the recipe, which soaked 3 slices of bread. 

Strawberry Yogurt Dip

• 1/2 C plain yogurt 
• 1 Tbsp honey
• 1 banana
• 1/2 C sliced strawberries (fresh or frozen - I used frozen)
• 2 tsp lemon juice

In a blender on low speed, blend yogurt and honey until smooth. Add banana, strawberries, and lemon juice and puree until smooth. (In place of the banana and strawberries you could use almost any fruit combination. The recipe also suggested using 1 C chopped peeled pear and 1/4 tsp ground ginger, which I haven't tried yet, but sounds good).

Serve with fruit fresh (which also tastes great dipped in the strawberry yogurt dip), and you've got a nice breakfast. 

Sugar Cookies

Ease: 4/5     Kid-friendliness: 5/5     Taste: 5/5     Time: 4/5

First, hello fellow Blog-hopp'in Friends! Thanks for stopping by...

I have been talking all week about the main event at my daughter's 3rd birthday part - cookie decorating. It worked out really well. The kid's loved it! (Warning: if you are concerned about getting your floors dirty, this idea is not for you).

I have tried a couple of different sugar cookie recipes, and they have always turned out...meh. My mother-in-law gave me this recipe years ago, and this was the first time I used it. I thought these sugar cookies turned out better than any previous ones I had made. They were fluffier (probably because of the cream of tartar!).

I was able to prepare the cookies ahead of time and I made the icing the morning of the party. Instead of goodie bags, I bought plain aprons from Michael's for the kids to take home and jazzed them up with soccer ball iron-ons for the boys (it is FIFA, after all), and cupcakes for the girls. I also had take-out boxes for the kids to take home uneaten creations. A bunch of decorating sprinkles, jube-jubes, and mini chocolates, and we were ready to go!

To help the mom's ensure our kids ran off the sugar, once the cookie decorating was complete, the kid's played outside. We had a soccer field set up, and a bubble blowing station. We were blessed with beautiful weather. All-in-all, I would absolutely do this kind of party again.

What you'll need:

• 2 eggs
• 2 C white sugar
• 1 C shortening (melted)
• 4 tsp cream of tartar
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/4 C milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 C of flour
• assorted cookie cutters

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

Mix sugar, soda, cream of tartar, salt and nutmeg with 4 1/2 C flour. Stir in shortening, milk, and milk. Mix until thick and smooth (a nice dough-like consistency - you may need a little extra flour). 

Use the other 1/2 C flour to roll out the dough. Roll out to 1/2 inch thick. Use a cookie cutter and cut cookies out to desired shape. Place on cookie sheet and bake for ~ 10-12 minutes.

Other party menu items included sandwich trays pre-ordered from Safeway, a veggie platter, pretzels and:

• mini cheesecakes
• cranberry almond punch
• icing

Happy Friday!

Cheater French Toast

Ease: 5/5     Kid-friendliness: 5/5     Taste: 5/5     Time: 5/5


Easiest French Toast!

Here's hoping the mother's out there were properly celebrated today for the true heros that you are (My daughter came and wished me a "Happy Valentine's Day", but I felt special nonetheless).

110 years ago, approximately 44 hours a week were spent on preparing meals and cleaning up after them (Bowers, 2000)! Yuck. Post- World War II, most magazines portrayed the ideal wife as, "intelligent and well-educated, could cook delicious meals, did housework efficiently, and spent lots of time nurturing her children." (Bowers, 2000). This doesn't really sound all that different from the ideal wife in many of today's popular magazines, does it? (Only, in addition to the above she also has an exciting career and makes her delicious meals from scratch using nothing but organic, locally produced ingredients). A tall order! Before letting myself get all anxious about how far from the ideal I am, I made incredibly simple, but absolutely delicious cinnamon french toast for Mother's Day brunch with my Mother-in-law. It's not particularly low fat, not organic, and not locally produced, but when you see how easy it is to make, and how good it is to eat, you'll still feel like a rock star in the kitchen! I've tried a variety of methods for making french toast and it usually ends up soggy. This version is hands down the best yet.


What you'll need:


Raisin Cream Topping

• 1/3 C sultana raisins
• 1 C boiling water
• 1 C whipping cream (I used low fat)
• 2 Tbsp instant vanilla pudding powder (I used light)
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Stir raisins and boiling water in small bowl. Let stand for 10 minutes, until the raisins plump up. Drain and blot raisins with paper towel. Cool. 

Beat whipping cream, pudding powder and cinnamon in medium bowl for two minutes, until soft peaks form. Fold in raisins. Set aside until french toast is cooked. 

Cinnamon French Toast

• 3 large eggs
• 3/4 C milk (I used skim)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp hard margarine or butter
• 6 day-old cinnamon buns without icing, cut horizontally into two layers

Preheat oven to 200F, then turn off. 

Beat the first 4 ingredients in medium bowl until smooth. 

Melt 1/2 the margarine in large non-stick pan over medium heat until sizzling. Reduce heat to medium-low.

Quickly dip the cinnamon bun halves, one at a time, into egg mixtures. Cook, about six at a time, approximately two minutes per side (until lightly browned). Keep warm in the oven until the remaining 6 buns are cooked. 

Top with raisin cream topping. So good!

Recipe from Weekend Cooking: 40 Menus for Casual Entertaining (Company's Coming Special Occasion)


Bowers, Douglas E. "Cooking trends echo changing roles of women". Food Review Vol. 23, Issue 1(2000): 23-29 . 


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Kitchen-inspired Mother's Day Ideas

With Mother's Day right around the corner, I can't help but notice the increase in advertisements for such things as spa packages, appliances,  and jewellery for your mom. I enjoy the spa and something shiny as much as the next person, but I can't help but feel what many of us feel, and that's the commercialization of holidays. Did you notice that the Easter isle in Walmart this year, was bigger than ever?

At the end of the day, what I want most is to know that I was thought of on Mother's Day, and to have my family spend a little time with me. I think Mother's Day, the same as Family Day or Father's Day, should promote connecting with loved ones, and not annoy people by reminding them they have to run out and buy yet another gift.


So here are seven simple ways to make your mom feel thought of this Mother's Day:

1. Cook your mom's favourite dish and have her over for lunch or dinner (pretty basic, but you can make it special by putting some real thought and planning into what you make)
2. Compile yours, your mom's and some of your mom's mom's recipes if possible, into a recipe box or recipe binder (which you can easily decorate yourself for an added personal touch)
3. Buy some fabric paint and decorate an inexpensive plain apron (enlist your kids for help!)
4. Sign yourself and your mom up for a cooking class
5. Start a little boxed herb garden that your mom can maintain in her kitchen
6. Do a surprise clean-up in your mom's kitchen. Include tackling some of those more annoying jobs like shining up the kitchen sink and pots, organizing her cookbooks, tupperware drawer or pantry (unless she has a system going - never mess with a woman's system!); cleaning the fridge, and washing the windows
7. Make your mom some homemade soup, lasagne or casserole and stock up her freezer to give her a few nights off from the kitchen

Know of other simple ideas?

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