What would you do with Gingerbread?

Today is the second Wednesday of the month so Aubrey and I have our link up for what would you do!

We made our annual pepparkaka hus (gingerbread house) using a set from IKEA and leftover candy from Halloween!  A few days after Halloween I went through the candy bucket and pulled out anything I thought would be good for our ginger bread house.  I wanted to buy some peppermint sticks to use also, but we didn't get around to it.  Oh well!

Adam doesn't like to waste frosting.  So he made it snow at our house!  Hahaha!!

Then I wanted to make my "clean" pumpkin bread into gingerbread.  This was not super successful.  Oh it's totally yummy, just not very gingerbread tasting.  More like really rich spice cake.  I swapped the pumpkin for applesauce, the honey for molasses and the spices for ginger and a little pumpkin pie spice.  And I still put in chocolate chips!  Any ideas for making it taste more like gingerbread???

Next month we're rocking chic winter fashion by styling our yoga pants or basic black leggings.  Join us!!

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Five Little Confessions: The Holidays

Once a month Aubrey, Carrie, Jacquelyn and I team up to bring you the 5 Little Confessions link up!  You can confess anything your little heart desires.  And link up!

1. I love Halloween, until I don't.  That's usually a few days before Halloween (not very convenient!) but this year it was right about perfect.  And I think it's because Halloween landed on a Friday.  When it falls on a Monday or Tuesday we celebrate the weekend before so I feel like it should be over, but it just. Keeps. Going.  Glad it's over now ;)

2. Every afternoon nap time and at bed time I pick out four or five mini candy bars and eat them.  I haven't gained any weight, but I haven't lost any either.  I've got to knock it out pronto!

3. I love Thanksgiving, but I don't love the gratitude posts on social media.  Gratitude belongs to the person who gave it to you.  You're thankful for your husband?  Say a prayer and tell your husband.  Write it in a journal.  Otherwise it feels like bragging to me.  And I think some things we're grateful for can really hurt others who don't have those things.  It just makes the comparison problem of social media easier to get sucked into.

4. Not only am I listening to Christmas music, but Olivia is watching The Year Without a Santa Claus right now!  I'm actually impressed that she remembered it from last year and started begging me to watch it.

5. Adam keeps begging me to get a new Christmas tree.  I don't know why!  Ours is small (5 foot, $20 special from Wal Mart like 6 years ago) but our space is small too, so it fits.  I don't think it's the size that makes a tree, but the beauty of it. 

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What would you do with. . . a yard of burlap?

This time last year we were working on packing our apartment and getting ready to move to our house!  Our closing kept getting pushed back, and so by the time we got in and got everything painted, it was time to set up Christmas.  I've been looking forward to fall decorating ever since then.

So when Aubrey suggested burlap, I was excited to make a decoration for fall. 

I picked out this darling burlap with gold foil circles, only to discover it was $15 a yard!  Eek!  I hoped that I would have enough for a little triangle garland if I just got 1/3 of a yard.

Enough and then some!  Why do I always think I need so much more fabric in the store than when I get home???  And it turns out I have enough for several!  So I would like to give two away.

If you're interested in making your own, there are LOTS of tutorials.  I will tell you that I made my triangles five inches across the top and six inches from top to bottom.  

Anyway, on to the pictures:

Aside from the fall decorated shelves, we've got this fun action going on on our door (they didn't stick to the wall very well.  Falling spiders, that wasn't freaky. . .) 

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And as always, link up your posts!!

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Easter Weekend

One of the first things I ever bought Olivia (before she was even born) was an Easter dress from Old Navy.  But other than her yearly new dress, we haven't really celebrated Easter at our house.  I just knew she wouldn't care about an Easter basket and I didn't want her to have any candy before she turned 5 (obviously I caved).  This was the first year the Easter Bunny came to our house.  And since I have a phobia of masks, we may never visit the Easter Bunny like we do Santa.

Saturday Olivia and I were still in bed at 8:30 (Olivia had been up since 6:30), Axel was still sound asleep, and my friend texted me to see if we wanted to meet at the city Easter egg hunt.  I wasn't planning on it, and getting two kids ready so quickly seemed like an impossible task, but it was so nice out we gave it a shot.  We were actually early and got to play at the park a little bit before the hunt!

She was really happy, despite what this picture seems to convey!

Olivia was really amused with this mom and her DSLR. 

Okay I admit, so was I.  Her daughter could seriously not care less.

Later we went back to the park with Adam.  That is one thing about Axel quitting his morning nap that I actually like.  We have a little more time to do things during the day.

She thought it was so cool to wear dad's hat!

Axel hasn't done is mean face in a long time, I was happy to capture it on camera!

And this is our Easter Bunny haul:

The nice thing about having 1pm church is that there is a little time for pictures before (because after church the kids clothes are practically falling apart and they don't have any hair left) Being on time to church (instead of 15 min early) meant that we had to sit in the chairs instead of the pews and I spent all of sacrament meeting chasing Axel.  But these pics are worth it!

I guess if we were going for that 80's trend of looking off into the distance. . .

No sibling love here.

Axel got stood up.

Axel's face in this picture is my favorite thing ever.

Waiting to get off the rock.

Happy Easter everyone!! 

What Would You Do With. . . 1 Dozen Eggs????

It's April!  It's spring!  I love this time of year and remembering my sweet Olivia as a new born.  I honestly have very little memory of her as a baby, but I remember the spring when she was new.  New life. . . Easter. . . Easter eggs.

So we thought it would be fun to see what you (and I) would do with 1 dozen eggs.

I wanted to try the ideas from this pin and make some natural dyes.  But time got away from me and I found myself at the grocery store on Saturday before this post was due.  And so I turned to my usual PAAS coloring kit.

It. Was. So. Fun.

But first let's account for the dozen eggs.  1 got used for crepes on Sunday morning because we needed four eggs, and I only had three left in my carton.  So Adam stole from my blog project.  1 egg broke while boiling.  That left us with ten eggs to color.

After they were colored I ate a few with my lunches, and Olivia ate a few with her lunches.  Let me tell you the yummiest egg salad ever.  Mix one perfectly ripe avocado with one or two diced hard boiled eggs.  Spread on whole wheat toast.  Perfection.  I keep wanting to call it vegan egg salad, because no mayo, but then I remember that there are eggs in it.  So. . . not vegan.

Olivia is at a great stage in life where she really enjoyed this.  We put the tablets in the vinegar and the fizzed and she just thought it was so cool.  She was also pretty content to let her dad do the dying, which I'm sure will not be the case in future years so I was happy that it was fairly mess free!

Our cups of dye all set out.

The little brother.  So content now that he doesn't have an ear ache.

So excited to dye Easter eggs!

In her plastic craft apron.

1. My egg, I was going for a coral and it turned out more orange :(  2. My other egg, I wanted a light blue and bingo.  3. Yellow with stickers.

1. Adam's half and half egg, with stickers courtesy of O.  2. A solid green egg that we let soak for a loooong time.  3. A solid red egg.

1. Giving your child a white crayon on a white egg is one of those times you can feel like you know magic.  Olivia was so impressed with what happened when we dyed the egg she colored on!  2. Adam did this one too and I think it turned out beautifully!  Half green, half purple and they overlap in the middle.

1. Adam's idea to dye an egg in three different colors. (yellow, blue and purple I think) 2. Half purple, half blue.

Don't you wish that hard boiled eggs didn't need refrigeration?  Well, don't worry, this was just for a picture. I put them back in the fridge.

Funny story before we end.  As a kid I spent the night at my best friend's house, just down the street a lot.  One day I came home after eating breakfast with her family only to find out that my family had made hard boiled eggs for breakfast.  What!?!?!  With out me?  How rude.  I went on and on about how jealous I was.  When my dad asked me what I had for breakfast I said, "Only pancakes and bacon and hash browns." (or something equally yummy, I can't really remember) So yeah, I really like eggs.

And next month the theme is flowers.  Yep, just flowers.  Real, silk, paper, fabric. . . super general so you can make it what ever you want!!

We would love to have you link up ANY Easter egg posts, not just recent ones and not just specific What Would You Do posts.  

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How to have a Valentine's Day date at home

Two years ago we celebrated Valentine's Day by going out to eat.  It didn't go well.  We made an agreement that we would never celebrate Valentine's Day on February 14th.  There are so many other days we can go out that aren't going to be crazy busy. 

But I'm no Valentine Grinch!  I love the holiday.  Even when I was single I loved the holiday.  I would celebrate with some fresh salmon, steamed veggies and roasted potatoes.  After dinner I would eat a pint of Ben and Jerry's while watching a chick flick and painting my nails.  You know what?  That still sounds like a nice evening. 

So I've decided to make it a fun evening at home. 

1. First, plan a nice dinner.  Last year I did a London broil with stuffed mushrooms, fresh green beans and mashed potatoes.  Right when we were about to eat, Adam's parents came over with cookies.  So if you're planning a nice dinner, make sure company knows when to visit! 

2. Treat.  What is Valentine's Day with out chocolate????  Last year I planned to make Hot Fudge Pie, but made M&M blondies instead.  No matter what I choose this year, I know it will have chocolate in it! 

3. Activity.  It would be fun if you had some couple friends that wanted to get together and play games (the newly wed game would be so fun for V Day!!) but I'm thinking a movie night is more likely to happen for us this year.  To make it a little more special, set up your living room a la Bachelor style.  You know how they do, all those blankets and pillows and candles all artfully arranged. 

How do you like to celebrate Valentine's Day? 

Valentine's Day party for kids

Because I do not enjoy going out on Valentine's Day, I thought I would host a little party for my nieces and nephews on the 14th so that my brother-in-laws and their wives can have free child care that night (except for my 9 month old nephew, we decided to have a 2-year-old age limit on our cousin parties) But one of Adam's brothers is going to Hawaii that week with his family (wah wah, I feel so bad them!) so I decided to have the party a week early. 

So I thought I would share some of my ideas, and maybe see if you have any to share also?

First, we're going to assemble our personal heart shaped pizzas!!

VIA

Then after dinner I want to have a game.  I'm thinking Valentine's Day bingo or something similar to an Easter egg hunt.

Once I have (hopefully!) gotten them a little worn out, I'm going to hand out popcorn and we're going to watch Despicable Me 2.  I'm thinking it's got enough romance for V-day and enough silly for the kids who are less romantically inclined (all of them? haha!)

I'm thinking about giving them something to look for during the movie, like jumping jacks each time a minion is on screen.  But I don't want things to get that crazy, so I might need to rethink that one! 

So any great Valentine's Day party activities for kids?  Obviously I'll be checking pinterest in the mean time. 

Food Friday: Party food (and my famous guacamole recipe)

Isn't it funny how Christmas parties all end up on the same weekend?  A few weeks ago I planned my second annual "Cousin Christmas" for this Saturday and then I offered to take a friend dinner on Friday (yay for new babies!) and a breakfast casserole to our church breakfast on Saturday and then I was asked to bring pineapple and apple slices to Adam's family party on Sunday!  That's a lot of food.

First of all, we did a Costco run for things like tortillas (the raw tortillas you cook yourself, once you try them you will never go back) and chips and then on Thursday I shopped at Smiths.  I got away with spending only $67!!!  I am goooooood. 

For the new mom dinner on Friday, I'm making lasagna.  I was inspired by Megan's post about lasagna, but I used a version of my lasagna recipe (The only lasagna recipe you'll ever need).  I wanted to put in some sun dried tomatoes, but I totally forgot!  I made two, because making two lasagnas is just as easy as making one!  So that took care of one of our dinners as well.

For Saturday's breakfast I'm making this breakfast casserole.  I don't have a favorite breakfast casserole because pretty much every ingredient is bad for you (I'm a vegan at heart so a pan full of eggs, milk, cheese and meat. . . well thank goodness for the potatoes), but I do prefer hash browns to those with bread.  Wow, a whole paragraph about breakfast casserole, did not know that was possible.

For my party I'm providing the "dinner".  Since it's not a sit down dinner party, I decided for more finger foods than a real meal.  I'm making my favorite ever chicken taquitos with cilantro lime dressing, BBQ sauce little smokies and chips and guacamole.  Which reminds me that I haven't shared my guacamole recipe on the blog!  I'm pretty much famous for it, so you really need it :)  (If you've lived in Provo for any amount of time, you probably ate at Los Hermanos at some point, right?  Well my dad and his brother are the original hermanos [brothers] and this was their recipe)

Los Hermanos Guacamole (they may have changed it since it sold over 20 years ago. . .)
Avocados
Sour cream
4 parts salt
2 parts garlic powder
1 part pepper
juice of a lime

Mash your avocados (I usually use about 4) and add some sour cream.  I like there to be more avocado than sour cream, but other than that you can add however much you want!  Then add salt to taste, but pay attention to how much you're adding (don't just sprinkle it in) because that will give you the measurements for the garlic and pepper.  So lets say you use 1 tsp salt, you would use 1/2 tsp garlic and 1/4 tsp pepper.  Just be careful with the salt because chips are really salty so you don't want the guac to be too salty on it's own.  And then I added the lime, it wasn't part of the original recipe.  I say 1 lime for every three or four avocados. (when I make it on Saturday I will take a picture and update the post, but I didn't want it to turn brown by making it too early!)

And then for Sunday I'm just bringing pineapple and apples.  I was lucky to find pineapple for $1 at Simth's!  Otherwise my mother-in-law's suggestion was to cut one pineapple into 40 little pieces (I was asked to bring pineapple and apples for 40 people!  Not by my MIL, by her sister-in-law)

What food are you planning for parties this season?

What would you do with. . . a box of candy canes?

Yay!!  It's What would you do Wednesday again!  Aubrey and I are getting together (virtually) to see what we would/could do with a box of candy canes! 

First, I bought the 24 pack at Target, because it was like 20 cents more for double the candy canes, so duh.  Then I noshed on one while reading blogs one night because 24 is a lot. 

I knew what I wanted to do from the moment that Aubrey suggested candy canes (she comes up with ALL the ideas, I am so grateful for her awesome ideas.)  I came up with a plan of attack and a list of needed supplies.  Then I thought I would check pinterest just for the heck of it (but know in my heart that I came up with the idea by myself even if there were others out there.)  When I searched "candy cane garland" there was a super cute one on the very first row.  I knew just from the picture that it was Dana's (from MADE).  And duh, I've been reading her blog for over two years so obviously I saw this post last Christmas.  But I guess I can pretend I still came up with a candy cane garland all on my own :)

I did mine a little different than Dana, but it's seriously so similar that I'm not going to bother with giving you steps and just go ahead and refer you there. 

Okay so I originally hung up my stockings with tape, which held up better than I expected.  But I didn't really center them and they were a bit to the left.  So when I put nails in for them I went a bit to the right.  Obviously I went too far to the right.  So. . . I should just measure next time. Also Axel's stocking is actually my old stocking so it's a bit of a different size than the others.

We could pretend that Axel doesn't have a stocking yet and this is what the arrangement would look like!  Much more centered.  PS, do you like my wall color?  It usually looks white in my pictures but you can kind of tell it's gray in these.

Next I still had 14 left and a cookie party to attend.  Peppermint is okay, but pair it with chocolate?  Amazing.  So I googled "brownie cookies" and the first recipe had awesome reviews so I made them.  Honestly I hate baking, so if it wasn't for a party I would have just used oreos.  But since I taught high school Home Ec I always feel the need to prove myself.

I wanted the cookies to hold up to dipping, but wanted them to still be soft, so after the cookies came to room temperature I stuck them in the freezer.  That way they were brick-like for the dipping and then soft when thawed out.

I melted some almond bark and added peppermint extract and then dipped the cookies in the candy coating and then into crushed candy canes.  This took 6 candy canes.

I still have some candy canes left and I really want to try making peppermint ice cream, but I'm already fighting off Christmas goodies at every turn, so I'm going to just leave that one for another holiday season. :)

I soooo can't wait to see what Aubrey came up with!  I just know one of these months we're going to end up doing the exact same thing!  Haha.