Merry Christmas Neighbor Treats

Some of the most beautiful people in our lives are our neighbors. Even when we try our hardest we can not catch up to them when it comes to yummy treats that they supply us with throughout the year! At Christmas time we try to come up with the cutest, yummiest, fun Christmas gift and we have tons of fun doing it. Here are some of our ideas. Hope you have fun spreading Christmas cheer to your neighbors too!

 We made cake balls that turned out sooo yummy!

 A tip on these suckers put a dab of chocolate down to hold the stick and then fill the rest of the way. We filled gallon zipper baggies and then cut then corner off. To add a little more flair we sprinkled red crystals to the tops. Then we put them in sucker bags with twisty ties. Adorable!

 Can you tell we love chocolate? These are chocolate flavored rice krispie treats and then we made stars with white chocolate. I drew stars on a piece of paper and then we put it under the parchment so we could keep our star shapes nice. We also added vanilla snowman marshmellows marshmallows Too cute.

August Canning!!!

Papa grew a fabulous garden - he always does! We get to be the recipients of all the yummy treats he grows......being recipients comes with responsibility too. =) We get to be the harvesters and the bottling committee. Jami, Breonna & Bryce came over and we all worked together. We bottled tons and had fun with some experimental recipes and things I have never bottled before like jalapenos, jalapeno jelly and eggplant chutney. They all got rave reviews so we did something right. In the process we learned new stuff and had fun.

Re-purpose Dresser/Entertainment Center

I have so much to catch up on! We have been busy re-painting, re-finishing & re-doing. This was our first project and we still have "stuff" to do! It has been great getting LOTS done.
I needed a new entertainment center but of course the ones I love were way more than I wanted to spend. My sister and  friend of mine re-purposed dressers so I decided that was they way to go. Jordan did an AWESOME job re-purposing this dresser into an entertainment center. We are sooo happy with the way it turned out that I thought I would share.

BEFORE

 Jordan removed the top two drawers and the hardware for them and then sanded the entire dresser. We drilled two 2 1/2 inch holes in the back so that all of the cords could be hidden. Then he painted it with BEHR exterior semi-gloss enamel. (I love BEHR paint!) I lightly sanded the edges and added a swipe of walnut stain. I bought a piece of trim that we nail gunned on to the front and distressed that a little as well. I also purchased new handles. We put a power strip in the center of the opening so that everything could have an easy plug.

Working on it =)

 Isn't it beautiful! I love it!

AFTER!

Dragon Fandango!

Karlie wanted a Dragon party. We have read The Care and Keeping of Dragons and she wants to own a mountain and raise a dragon or two. Ideas, ideas - it took some work but it worked out great and was a super success. I came up with the name because of a mix up with cascarones, fiestas & fandangos. In a way they all go together and it sounded good so we kept it. The cake turned out awesome! Karlie thought it should be a little more fierce but after Kaity turned it into a fire breathing dragon she decided it would do. I got my instructions here. I used vanilla cake mix and made homemade icing with this recipe. It turned out really yummy. I used snackwells cookies for the scaley back-bone, a jumbo marshmallow cut in half for the eyes with candy dots left over from decorating gingerbread houses and chocolate marshmallows for the nose. I covered orange slices with green fruit roll ups for the eyebrows.

For the invitations I used the pattern here. I printed our party information on the center paper and used bamboo skewers cut in half for the sticks.

For our first activity everyone made some dragon bones! They loved this activity. I gave each child a piece of tinfoil and sugar cookie dough that was previously divided into plastic bags. They made the bones on the tinfoil and I cooked it on the tinfoil. (I wrote each child's name on the tinfoil before baking so they wouldn't get mixed up.) I like this recipe it stays nice and moist and it doesn't have to be rolled out.

This is what Karlie's turned out to look like. I wish I had taken a picture of all of them - they were pretty cool. We had skulls and all kinds of amazing bones, we even had one egg.

For our next activity we made cascarones. I saved up egg shells for a few weeks prior and blew the out every time I cooked an egg dish. Before the party the girls and I dyed the egg shells. We made homemade confetti out of paper grass we had left over from Easter and paper left over from making the invitations.

Then I cut circles out of crete paper and we glued them over the holes with glue sticks.

After that we were going to have a hunt to find the Dragons nest of eggs but it rained that morning so we didn't hunt but everyone got an egg. This project needs started a few days before you need them so they have time to dry. Here are the steps to out of this world dragon eggs.

7" balloons blown to desired size. Strips of newspaper. A mixture of two cups water, 1cup flour and a bottle of Elmer's glue (partially used.) Dip the strips in the mixture and layer them on the balloons leaving a hole at the top to insert the treasure.

We layered ours with two layers of newspaper and one layer of colored paper and then added spots of shiny tinfoil. Then we popped the balloons and pulled them out and filled them with candy. I thought it would be cool to put a Safari brand miniature Dragon in them but candy worked for us.

It was work and took a little planning but it was a pretty inexpensive party and was an absolute hit!

HaPpY BiRtHdAy to my future DrAgOn TrAiNeR!

Things that matter MOST

It is not so much the major events as the small day-to-day decisions that map the course of our living.

Pres. Gordan B. Hinckley

Flower Pot Dessert

"Every Mother Is a Working Woman!"

I love this Mary Englebriet piece of art. I have the magnet and my kids gave me the resin one year for Mother's Day.

This year for a fun different Mother's Day gift we made this yummy treat. I also made them for the Mother Daughter Activity Day Luncheon. Our Kitchen and freezer were filled with fake dirt, flowers and ice cream. Yummy combination!!!

I first saw this idea on The Pioneer Woman and couldn't wait to try it. I made a few revisions of my own and then we gave these to our Grandma's, visiting teaching lady's, and favorite mom's in town. There are a few widows in town the girls have adopted and we delivered to them as well. (they always get our best goodies!)
                         You will need:

Pots - I got my pots at the dollar store 4/$1.00.

Small chocolate donuts

vanilla ice cream (or any flavor you choose)

generic brand cream filled cookies (oreos)

straws (cut a bit shorter than the pot)

fresh flowers (I got a bundle of about 40 blooms at Fresh Market for $4.00)

Place a donut in the bottom of each pot and a straw in the middle of each donut.

Fill with ice cream leaving the straws sticking out and then put in freezer overnight or for a few hours prior to serving.

 Place cookies in a Ziploc baggie and crush into dirt.

Just before serving fill pot with dirt. Because I had so many to make for our activity I put most of the dirt in them and then put them in the freezer. Just before serving I put another spoonful or so of the dirt to cover the straw.

TaDa! They are almost to pretty to eat - but really too delicious to resist!!!

Happy Spring!

I, of course, am always on the look out for pretty, fun, gifty things we can make super inexpensively that we can also make someones day with. This month I found just the thing! I went to Walmart and they had tulips and daffodils that had bloomed in 4" pots for .50 a piece. This was also the after Easter sale time so they had Easter gift bags for 50% off which ended up being 5 for 1.25 and paper grass for .66 a bag. Here is a little sample of what I ended up with. (I did wrap the pots with tinfoil before I put them in the bags.)

Hitty's Tiny Easter

 We had so much fun for Easter we musn't forget the Hitty's tiny Easter. They had fun too!



Our Easter Bunny left extra tiny gift bags to give to our friends and cousins for their "Hitty" dolls. It was fun to fill them with candy and give them away.

Our Hitty's are still waiting for their home to be built so they are living in the book shelf and the books are having a temporary stay beside the shelf stacked in a big stack. Everyone seems comfortable, we haven't had any complaints as of yet. :)

A teeny tiny basket of eggs.

A teeny tiny bag of dinnerware! Our Hitty's can't wait for another tea party - they will be dining in style.

Easter Treats (surprise!)

These darling carrots are filled with prizes and goodies! We made them for our cousins and friends this year for an Easter treat. I saw the idea in a magazine somewhere and then did my own thing with stuff we had.

First we gathered small prizes and candies, plastic rings and bracelets, little yoyo's and tops, plastic snakes and lizards all fun things little.

Then we cut yellow and orange tissue in strips. This would have probably worked a little easier to use crete paper because it tightens but we had lots of tissue left over from a few years ago when we made candy filled pumpkins and we are really into using up what we have. :) We also cut green crete paper into carrot tops. We very unprofessionally eyeballed it, I don't think you can go wrong here as long as you have long green grassy type pieces.

Next I started at the top and placed little candies inside and wrapped around them. I put the long skinny toys in the bottom and then the rounder things in the top. I started wrapping around an item and then kept wrapping adding toys and candies into the layers. I tucked the end under a layer of tissue and then glue gunned the green on the top.

They were a HUGE hit! The kids loved breaking them open and finding all the fun treasure.

When You Wish Upon A Star!

Karlie's dream has been to go to the beach. For a few years now she has asked on a weekly basis "When are we going to the beach?" So we were so excited when our friends called up and invited us to go to California. We had a 10 day BLAST!!! I can't believe how much we fit into 10 days!

CALIFORNIA BEACHES!!!

DISNEYLAND!!!

AMERICAN GIRL STORE!!!

We thank our lucky STARS for good friends, and great times!!!