Family Fun is my Hero!

Anyone out there get the October edition of Family Fun magazine? Every time that magazine gets here in the mail, I devour it in about an hour. It's how I stay creative and sane. It is always full of activities and ideas for me to do with my children. I love it! October's edition is fabulous! I can't wait to do it all.

One of the ideas was these little nature pals. First, you go on a "fall" walk with your children and gather pine cones and acorns and other items that could be used to make a nature creature. Afterwards, you get creative and glue everything together to make your guys. My kids had fun putting them together, but I think they enjoyed the walk more. It's always more fun when you're looking for the signs of fall! I totally loved that part, too!

Oops, it broke!

Go make some nature creatures!

Yummy Goodies...

I've been doing a little baking lately and thought I'd share a couple of the recipes that I love!First of all, are these sugar cookies. I love the big chewy sugar cookies and this recipe is so good! For Young Women's we went to the high school Homecoming game and I made some of these cookies with the school colors. They were so good! I made 30 cookies for about 10 people and they were gone by the end of the night. Click HERE for the cookies and HERE for the frosting.

I saw this recipe on my favorite recipe website "PICKY PALATE". They are so rich and yummy! They didn't last long. Click HERE for that recipe. In the recipe it calls for baking the cookies in a small cupcake pan or cheesecake pan. I didn't have either, so I used mini baking cups instead. I'm sure you could make larger cookies and put them in a regular cupcake pan, but I wanted them almost bite size. Mmmm... I'll need to make these again!

It's Time!

We are getting ready for Halloween at our house! After Hayden's birthday (today) the decorations come out and the haunted songs come on and the scary movies are watched, and now...my blog is officially ready for Halloween! Enjoy the spooky music. More posts to come. We've been busy lately!

A lost love found!

I crave Olive Garden. And not just when I'm pregnant. It's always. I want that creamy fattening alfredo sauce. I want their comfort food bread sticks dipped in the sauce. Being on a very small budget, Olive Garden has not been a place I've visited for months! Really, months! Wanting an alfredo fix, I looked online for alternatives that would taste close. I found one that is as close as it gets. And, get this--it's called "healthified" alfredo! It has less fat. This recipe will get me through many cravings, I'm sure. Another great thing is that I had everything on hand except for the whole milk. I'm sure low fat would work, but I wanted to get as close to the real thing as I could. Try it for yourself!

"Healthified" Fettuccine Alfredo recipe

It's a good thing she's cute!

Lately I have been taking pictures of the naughty things Maya has been doing. Usually, I am just upset and clean it up, but I am realizing that I laugh about these things later. One thing that I need to take a picture of is what we do to her diapers before nap and bedtime. She is always taking her diaper off when she needs a diaper change and she started taking her diapers off when she'd go to bed. (I know she needs to be potty trained, but I'm waiting another month at least) She would never wet the bed for her naps, but in the night if her diaper was off she'd wake up in the middle of the night crying because all of her bedding was wet. So, we now duct tape the straps of her diaper so she can't get it off! The morning after we tried it for the first time, I got her out of bed and she pointed to the duct tape and said in a sad voice, "Daddy did it." She's a funny one indeed, and I finally feel like I'm figuring her out. We're getting along much better!These two pictures above are of Maya's attempt at a pedicure. I was putting my make up on, and left the bathroom for no longer than a minute to check on Hayden outside and Maya painted her toe nails. When I came back in, she knew she was in trouble, so she just said, "Look, Mom! Pretty!" Well, they were pretty. She didn't do too bad of a job, actually! And she didn't spill any!


And these two...I was on the phone with Eric for about a minute. Ah! And you're going to laugh. She just did it again as I'm sitting her typing. She got into my scrapbooking stuff and took out the ink and put it all over her face. I cried and laughed at the same time. It was funny, but I was thinking she was going to look like she had a beard for weeks. Luckily, it all came off with rubbing alcohol.

It's a good thing I love this girl!

Mustard?...

A few weeks ago, I made some homemade pizza (sauce, crust and all--you need this recipe!) for dinner. Hayden's job is to set the table and this particular night, Maya decided to help. Her contribution was mustard, taco sauce and butter spray. How thoughtful of her! You never know who might want some mustard to go with their pizza.One of my favorite lines from Alice in Wonderland came to mind as I saw the mustard on the table.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiX11DZA3Mg