Kate's Kitchen

valentines center piece

2012-02-03T08:40:00.000-04:00

Here is a quick decoration to use as a center piece on the table. All you need is a nice vase, dowl, scallop punch, circle, love stamp and ribbon. Oh and some beads which are just a pearl necklace of mine that broke.

Here is how I put this together. I actually had the "love" part done from something I put together last Valentines day. So take your scallop and add your circle stamped with love. Using high tech scotch tape attach it to the dowl (which you can buy a whole bag at the dollar store), place dowl into pretty vase that has some beads (also purchased at dollar store) in the bottom and add some ribbon. Ta-da all done and its a beautiful center piece. Oh and can you see my pretty heart garland hanging up in the back!!

For more Love day crafts and goodies follow my Love month board on pinterest.

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Valentines scrapbook layout

2012-02-02T08:29:00.000-04:00

Here is a very simple way to decorate for the holidays. I really love using my hobby of scrap booking to use as decorations around the house and you can read all about that here. So here is one layout I am putting up for LOVE month. These pictures were taken of the kids last winter during a snow day. They were having "scuddle" time. Scuddle is a word we invented around the our house. Its a a whole lot of squeezing and cuddling at the same time.

So get out some heart paper and black a white photos and great creative. Its such a cheap way to add a little love to the house durning this month. And don't forget to follow my LOVE board for more creative valentines ideas!

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heart garland

2012-02-01T10:02:00.000-04:00

Welcome February 1st. The first day of LOVE month!!!

I love Valentines day cause I love all the colors, hearts, decorations and of course TREATS!!! And this year Pinterest isn't helping my small love addiction since there are so many ideas on there. I won't try them all because I don't really want to gain 20 lb in the next two weeks eating too many goodies but I will share with you decoration ideas, special meal ideas, lots of heart shaped ideas and of course a few treats to try. So why not follow my LOVE month board and get creative with me.

So lets start the month off with a heart garland to put up around the house. This is a good activity for kids and since its a snow day today here in our neck of the woods it might be a good craft to keep the kids busy for an hour or so.

First start off with some different colors of card stock paper. If you don't have any colored card stock you could get the kids to paint white paper the colors you would and then cut that into strips.

I cut some strips 1/2" and some 3/4". Once you have a strip (I am so bad at not taking pictures of the whole process but if you want a better understand pop over here; where I originally found the idea) fold them in half and bend the two ends into the center to form a heart shape. Using a stapler (and colored staples) staple the heart together.

When all the hearts are made simply string a needle and thread, I used a pink colored embroiders floss, and thread through one half of the heart like this.

Then hang! I hung this in the corner of the kitchen. It was so easy to make and didn't take much time at all so I think I will do a few more to put up around the house.

Hope you enjoy! And let me know if you make this garland, I would love to see pictures of everyones creativity.

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Valentines pop tarts

2012-01-29T11:27:00.000-04:00

I always enjoy baking with the kids so the other day when we were snowed in Eben and I went through my sweet treat board on pinterest and he decided he wanted to make home made pop tarts from bake me more blog.

photo from bake me more blog

The recipe was easy to follow but it is more complicated to do with little hands that wanted to help and of corse eat. Here are my alterations to the recipe but for the original recipe or even how to make them with pre-made pie crust go here.

Homemade Strawberry Pop Tarts

Ingredients:

Pie crust (recipe below)
Strawberry and blueberry Jam
Icing sugar thinned with milk
Sparkling Sugar

Peabody’s Pie Crust Recipe

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups sifted flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup unsalted butter
3 tablespoons cold water

Directions:

Combine flour and salt in bowl. Add shortening and butter and blend with fork, pastry cutter or your fingers until mixture is fairly coarse. Add water, 1 tablespoon at a time, gently mixing dough after each addition until dough forms a ball. Place dough on a lightly floured surface and roll into a square/rectangle. Using a heart shaped cookie cutter cut out shapes and repeat until you have no more dough.

Take one pie crust heart, fill with a 1/2 tsp of jam. Cover with another piece of pie crust and crimp edges. Bake at 450F for abou7-8 minutes or until slightly brown. Set aside to cool. Once cooled, pour glaze on to Pop-tart and decorate with sparkling sugar.

To Make the Glaze:

1 cup powder sugar
milk to thin

Place powdered sugar in bowl. Pour milk slowly until it has a consistency of really thick syrup.

Some things to note. These were very yummy but next time they aren't a project to make with little helpers. I will stick to things like muffins, banana bread and cookies for when the kids are helping me. They were very good but it was pretty stressful trying to roll out pie crust when they just wanted to cut shapes and Lady J just wanted to eat it. So I will save these kinds of treats for nap time. I think they would be great to make in advance, freeze and bake in the morning.

For more creative ideas jump on over to I heart nap time and check out what others are making this week.

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Pinterest Projects

2012-01-27T10:12:00.000-04:00

Hi readers today I want to show you some of my recent pinterest projects. These are project that I saw on pinterest and then created my own version.

First I think many of you have seen the play kitchen that my parents and us (Micah and I) made for Jaelyn for Christmas. Here is the original pin I got the idea from. This little kitchen has created hours of entertainment for the two kids and even their friends who come over love to play with it as well.

I knew from the first time I saw this pin that I would be making it for my husbands 30th birthday that just passed. Eben and I had lots of fun picking out all the different suckers and it made a great center piece for his birthday.

Here is my frist attempt to making potato chips in the microwave since we were Daniel fasting I figured we could still have potatoes, olive oil and salt. My second attempt was much better but of course I didn't get a picture to show you.

Now if you know me you know I LOVE LOVE day!!! Here are a few post of previous valentines days in our house. This year we have lots of valentines crafts to do and create. Yesterday I made this picture...well I didn't really do anything besides put this printable in a pretty frame...oh and I inked the edges red to make it stand out.

And last night while hubby was out I created this easy project. It was pretty cool that I had the same vase they used the only thing different about mine is my little light is red instead of white. But I did pick it up at the dollar store which is sweet that this easy project only cost me $1.00.

These are my no heat curls that I love to do at least once a week. Usually on a day that I am not going out of the house. I call them my house work curls. They help me get my house work done faster. There is something about feeling good that makes house work that much funner!

So that is what I have been busy doing in all my mommy spare time! hehehe. I have a few more projects on the go that I will post about when I get them done.

Shutterfly photobook

2012-01-24T13:43:00.000-04:00

My family photo book came last week in the mail and I am so happy with how it turned out. I really love doing a year in review book for our family to look back through and see all the fun adventures we had that year. This year I called our book the year of New Beginnings. This book is an 8*8 21 page book that can hold a lot of pictures and is from Shutterfly.

The cover is hard and I just love the picture on it. It was taken at an amusement park by our friend (the glare on it is only from the sun). Its a great picture of the fun to come.

Here are some pages that are in the book. I took the book and did a month by month approcah highlighting some of the fun things we did.

The back also has pictures on it and says we look forward to 2012!! I also love how you can put a title on the spine of the book that way when placed on a shelf we can tell which book is which.

I have used some other photo book companies and I have been impressed with them! I do enjoy shutterfly for a few reasons. One is the story board you can create. So I can take all the pictures I want to use in my book and place them on a page in a story board layout. Then when I am ready to work on each page the pictures are already there waiting for me to edit them, move them and add text to the page. That way I am not digging through all the pictures trying to find which ones I wanted for that page.

Some tips I have learned from making photo books is that in our iphoto (which is where all our photos go) we keep different albums. One is always labeled Shutterfly year end review with the date. That way when we have pictures we really like that we feel capture an adventure we put it into that album and at the end of the year we are ready to get started with our book. If we keep up with the album shorting it makes it so easy to throw a book together FAST if photo books are being offered for free or at a discounted price!

Hope you enjoyed and let me know if you have made any photo books or what your favorite companies are.

curly hair

2012-01-20T14:27:00.002-04:00

I love pinterest. Mostly because its just so awesome and you can find some much cool stuff on there. Everything from homeschool stuff, to hair do's, cooking, decorating, scrap-booking and the list just goes on and on. One board that I have is a hair board cause I love doing different things with my hair. Here is one pin that I have tired before but didn't turn out as nice as it did this time. These are the no heat curls. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the process just the finished product.

The curls stayed in all day. However the curls in the front where more formed and defined then the ones in the back.

If you have tired them please send me a picture of how they turned out!

Daniel fast Groceries week 2

2012-01-19T17:42:00.002-04:00

So here we are week 2 of the Daniel fast. Last week we did so great and are really enjoying eating more fruits, veggies and nuts. So here are the groceries I picked up this week. Remember that we are including grains and dairy in our Daniel fast which usually isn't allowed but since I am preggo I am trying to get all my vitamins from food!

You may notice some food items in our grocery order that don't fit in the fast...like the box of Chicken nuggets. Let me just say we won't be eating them this month but they were on sale for such a good price I couldn't pass them up so they are in the freezer. Also there are some boxes of Kraft Diner. I know its so bad but the kids really love it and eat it all up so I give it to them once a week.

Since we try to stick to a tight budget and this month was a little different; moving into a new house and having to buy some stock up items I was trying to do the next 2 weeks on $70. I am so pleased to tell you all these groceries this week were $45. That means I still have $25 for next week. I think I can do that since I have all that we need now and will only get some fresh produce. I got all this for so cheap cause I used PC points. I love that master card. We collect points so fast and more points means more money off our grocery order.

Once recipe I want to highlight this week is our homemade pita bread that we made. First off I want so say how much I LOVE my kitchen aid mixer. It did all the work for me and when it was done I just left it to raise well I was at moms space.

I punched it down and made 10 balls and let them raise for 20 minutes or so.

Then I rolled them out on a lightly floured surface and put them into the oven. Some tricks for getting them to puff. Always preheat the stone, keep the oven really hot, put a pan of water under the stone, roll dough thin and use a spray bottle and spray the stone in between pitas.

There you have it and if you want the recipe go here.

Mexican Salad

2012-01-16T19:58:00.000-04:00

Welcome to week number 2 of the Daniel fast. So how are you all feeling?? Bloated, gassy, extremely full??? Well keep pushing through I think the body will get use to it all and don't forget to drink LOTS and LOTS of water. You will only feel worse if you don't consume liquid. We have been enjoying smoothies for our afternoon snack. The kids really love them and even last week Eben made us one all by himself.

Here is one meal from our menu last week. The original recipe is from this website and I would encourage you to try it out. Also remember that we have included grains on our fast due to kids and pregnancy cravings! heheh.

If you want some inspiration on meal ideas don't forget to check out my pinterest. Here is what I am hoping to be on the menu for this week.

Monday: Pile high veggie pot pie

Tuesday: Falafels, homemade pita and lots of veggies

Wednesday: Broccoli Quiche

Thursday: BBQ lentils and Marble Potatoes

Friday: Baked Beans with homemade bread

Saturday: Korean New Years Party

Sunday: Clean out the fridge soup

DIY play kitchen

2012-01-13T08:50:00.000-04:00

So I am taking a break from blogging about our Daniel fast only for the day to show you the play kitchen myself and my dad made for Jaelyn.

First I found the idea to transform a night stand into a play kitchen from a blog somewhere out there in cyber space and pinned it to my DIY board on Pinterest. Now all I had to do was find the prefect dresser and ask my dad for some help. It was a busy summer so I didn't get out garage shopping as much as I would have like to but my super duper friend Elisabeth did and her and her husband found the PREFECT dresser for my project and purchased it for $5.00 !!!! I was so excited when she came over with it this summer.

When November came around we took it down to my parents house or grampies workshop and got to work changing it around a little bit to make it work as a play kitchen.

Here is the kitchen before and one of after. I don't know why I don't have a picture of what the dresser looked like when it was first bought. But the top part where the "oven" is was really the drawer and where the drawer is was an open space. I also don't know why a dresser would come with the top piece but it sure makes a great kitchen window. I really love the original color and wish it didn't have so many scratches on it but I think the new color looks fun as well; giving it a brighter look.

For the sink I used an old bowl we had laying around the house. The faucet is a wooden J painted sliver and the stove elements are just painted on black circles. We also spray painted the inside of the oven black to make it look more real and my dad put in a little wire rack.

The curtain was made from some scrap fabric my sister in law gave me and the chalk board that we put on the side came from the dollar store. So beside our (or my dads) hard work it was a fairly good priced Christmas gift.

The most expensive part was the sets of wooden food we bought for it.

But it has been worth it. Here is Jaelyn playing with it just a couple of days after Christmas. And its been fun watching different kids play with it when they have been over to our place. I couldn't be more happy with how it turned out!

For more awesome craft ideas check out I heart nap time.

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Daniel Treat

2012-01-12T10:33:00.001-04:00

Here is a little treat to share with you all today. I made some of these up the other night to have around the house as snacks. They also came in so handy to take with us last night to small group. They are so delicious that you feel guilty for eating them on a fast but all the ingredients are part of the the Daniel. I hope you enjoy them.

Here is the original recipe

Almond Butter Bites

½ cup almond butter

¼ cup raw sunflower seeds

¼ cup raisins

¼ cup chopped almonds

2 tablespoons unsweetened shredded coconut

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

Mix all ingredients in a bowl until well combined. Use a 1/2 tablespoon measuring spoon or a large melon ball scoop to form mixture into small balls. Place in an 8 by 8-inch baking dish, and freeze until firm. Serve frozen or just slightly thawed. Makes about 18.

Yield: 6-8 servings (serving size: 2-3 balls)

and here is what I did instead because I didn't have al the ingredients.

Peanut butter treats

1/2 cups of natural crunchy peanut butter

1/2 cup of craisins

1/4 cup of chopped almonds

1-2 Tbsp unsweetened coconut

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Instructions are the same as above.

Hope you enjoy your treat today. Tonight for supper we have Taco Salad on the menu. So I will let you know how it turns out.

Family Mission Statment

2012-01-11T13:32:00.000-04:00

So first let me start off by showing you a picture of last nights supper since I managed to get one during the cooking process....don't all the colors of those veggie look great!

And another picture of the finished product. This was just what I was craving. I thought the flavour was delicious and the veggies still had a crunch to them!

So now onto something really cool about the fast. The fast isn't just about eating healthy and depriving ourselves of foods we enjoy but we are fasting with purpose. We really want to see God heal two of our friends who are young and suffering from Cancer so we are thinking about them and their families throughout the month but something else we are focusing on is a family mission statement.

I had found this blog post many years back and copied it into our google docs but with each year we seem to get busy and don't get around to filling out the questions and putting together a mission statement. Then I have seen some of my other friends posting their family statements and thought that is awesome and as the kids get older we want to move in the same direction as a family so this year we will complete our statement by the end of this fast.

I was able to find the original blog I found years back with all the same information on it to share with you readers. The Blog is called Simple Mom and the post is here. I have copied a few of the main points for you to read but I would encourage you to head over to her blog and check it out.

I love one of her reasons why each family should have a mission statement.

"All the canning, ironing, and meal planning in the world will matter a hill of beans if they’re done out of obligation, or accomplished aimlessly out of not knowing what to do next."

So here is how we are starting our family statement. We are taking time in the next week to answer these questions.

Questions

Plan an evening this week to sit down over tea as a couple, and answer a few questions. These questions are not comprehensive — feel free to elaborate on your own, to skip some that don’t seem to apply, and to focus on what’s important for your family. Mostly, these are meant to serve as a springboard to get your thoughts flowing.

1. What are a few strengths of each member of our family?

2. Collectively, we are at our best when we are…

3. Collectively, we are at our worst when we are…

4. If we had a completely free day together as a family, how would we spend it?

5. What are practical ways we can serve each other?

6. What are practical ways we can serve others outside our family?

7. Name three things you think you could do better as a family.

8. What would people say today about our family as a whole?

9. What would we like people to say about our family as a whole in 30 years?

10. If our home could be filled with one emotion, what would it be?

11. Name three adjectives we would like people to use to describe our home environment.

12. If we could name one principle from which we want our family to operate, what would it be?

13. What are the top four priorities we want our family to value?

14. What is the main purpose of our home?

15. What is the secondary purpose of our home?

16. What is the individual purpose in life of each member of our family?

17. What is one way we are unique as a family?

18. Describe the status of our family in 10 years…

financially:
intellectually:
emotionally:
relationally with each other:
communally in our environment:
physically:
spiritually:

19. Where are you as a family in 10 years? What does your home look like?

20. What is the purpose of life?

So for this week and probably some of next week that is what we will be working on. I will post more as to how we put it all together to have our own statement but if you want to know more about that right now. Head over to her blog where she gives all the details.

Daniel Fast: Getting the groceries

2012-01-10T14:17:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a big day in the Peterson house as we started our 21 day Daniel fast. I had the no no food packed away, a meal plan made and a grocery list in hand as myself and the kids headed out to the grocery store. We were able to gets LOTS of fruits and vegetables, along with some whole wheat bread, natural yogurt, lentils and few cans of beans.

I think with all these grocery's we will be able to do LOTS of the meal ideas I have pinned on my Daniel fast board. The great thing about meal planning is that you can look at all the different things you have planned and as long as you have the ingredients for it (because you made a grocery list and stuck to it) you can change your meal plan around according to what you are feeling that day.

So last night we were suppose to have broccoli quiche well I changed my mind and we enjoyed a delicious red lentil soup. Tonight is suppose to be Mexican Salad but I am going to whip up a veggie Spaghetti using some of these yummy veggies I got.

So this grocery bill was $100 and I am going to see if I can do the rest of the fast for $70 because I think I only need to get little things here and there. Lets see if I can budget and plan so I am able to do that.

Something else we enjoyed yesterday was smoothies. I had a mango cut up in the fridge from Christmas that didn't smell to bad so I throw it in the blender along with a banana, yogurt, apple juice, and frozen blueberries. This was one of the BEST smoothies I have had. It had such a delicious mango taste. I guess I will have to let my mango's sit in the fridge more often to get that scrumptious taste.

This morning for breakfast we enjoyed a new baked oatmeal recipe from this website. She has a lot of great Daniel fast recipes as well. We enjoyed the oatmeal even though it was different from what we are use to the kids really ate it up with blueberries and yogurt on theirs.

One thing I am finding so helpful is that I have the lettuce all cut up in the fridge for salads so they are easier to grab. It seems if we have things prepared we are more likely to eat it cause it doesn't feel like too much work. We also have a large fruit bowl out on the table. If we see it we are more likely to eat it. And I bought some mixed nuts (the ones in the shells) yesterday as well since they are going on clearance now that the Christmas season is over. This makes a great snack as well so we have those on the counter. One thing we have done is switched to natural peanut butter so we have lots of celery sticks, carrot sticks and apples ready for the dipping! If you find the peanut butter is a little too hard you can also heat it up a little bit in the microwave. It helps make it a smooth and creamy dip that we really enjoy.

Well I am off to cut up the veggies for my spaghetti tonight! Let me know how your fast is working out.

Daniel Fast

2012-01-08T20:34:00.002-04:00

So its that time again when our family takes the month of January (not the whole month since we aren't starting until Monday) to take part in a Daniel fast. This all started a couple of years ago when the church we were attending challenged us (the congregation) to participant. Ever since our family has taken the month to do some kind of Daniel fast. Here is some information about a true Daniel fast.

Foods to Eat

All fruit - fresh, frozen, dried, juiced, or canned.
All vegetables - fresh, frozen, dried, juiced, or canned.
All whole grains - amaranth, barley, brown rice, oats, quinoa, millet, and whole wheat.
All nuts & seeds - almonds, cashews, macadamia nuts, peanuts, pecans, pine nuts, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, and sunflower seeds. Nut butters are also included.
All legumes - canned or dried; black beans, black eyed peas, cannellini beans, garbanzo beans (chickpeas), great northern beans, kidney beans, lentils, pinto beans, and split peas.
All quality oils - canola, coconut, grapeseed, olive, peanut, and sesame.
Beverages - distilled water, filtered water, and spring water.
Other - herbs, spices, salt, pepper, seasonings, soy products, and tofu.

Foods to avoid

All meat & animal products - beef, buffalo, fish, lamb, poultry, and pork.
All dairy products - butter, cheese, cream, eggs, and milk.
All sweeteners - agave nectar, artificial sweeteners, cane juice, honey, molasses, raw sugar, syrups, stevia, and sugar.
All leavened bread & yeast - baked goods and Ezekiel bread (if it contains yeast and honey).
All refined & processed food products - artificial flavorings, chemicals, food additives, preservatives, white flour, and white rice.
All deep-fried foods - corn chips, French fries, and potato chips.
All solid fats - lard, margarine, and shortening.
Beverages - alcohol, carbonated drinks, coffee, energy drinks, herbal tea, and tea.

So those are the basic guidelines but because I am pregnant and have 2 small children at home we still allow dairy (milk, eggs, cheese and yogurt) during this time and also whole wheat grains such as bread and tortillas. I do not however cook recipes with cheese in them its only for a snack. And we do our very best to stay away from all things processed. And we don't eat any baked goods during this month or things we would enjoy such as muffins and sweet breads. So with those basic guidelines to follow tonight I am packing up all junk food and processed food and packing them away for the next 21 days.

The first day (or 3 I should say) is usually the hardest as our body try's to adjust to a new way. But there are so many advantages to doing this type of fast. For one where we live the weather is very cold and this time of year people are always fighting off colds and viruses. What people don't always know is that viruses feed off of sugar so when we cut out that you may find that you feel healthier. Another good thing is your focus changes and so does your taste buds. As you change over the next 21 days it's like our body doesn't crave those things anymore. Last year after doing our fast we stayed away from chips and pop for almost 6 months. Of course when the summer came they become staples to accompany BBQ foods.

So for meal planning ideas I will do my best to post recipes and pictures of what we will be eating for the next 21 days. It will be different this year with 2 young kids; 1 who is very picky and won't be satisfied with a salad. But I will try my best to expand his taste buds and keep him nourished during this time. So here's whats on the menu this week

Monday: Crustless vegetable quiche

Tuesday:Tortilla salad bowls (whole wheat tortillas)

Wednesday: Red Lentil Soup

Thursday: Chef Salad

Friday: Veggie pizza (this is for son :)

Saturday: Veggie Chilli

For snack ideas we are doing lots of fruit, vegetables and nuts. I think for breakfast I will do smoothies made with fruit (or spinach) and greek yogurt.

If you are looking for more ideas and recipes check out my pintrest board here

Our New House

2011-12-30T11:12:00.002-04:00

Hey Readers if you want to check out our new house head on over to our family blog and take a tour. Hope you enjoy our new pad. Stay tuned for decorations, new paint and lots of organization tips.

So come on in and take a tour!

Girls night

2011-12-12T13:53:00.000-04:00

This weekend I had a few new friends out for a little Christmas girls night, even though we had the boys with us to, it was still a girls night. We started the night off with a yummy feast. My friends brought some delicious shrimp and noodles and we made homemade baked chicken wings a this new appetizer.

They are called poppers and they were so delicious. I will for sure be making them again for our Christmas gatherings this year.

After supper we did a craft together making these paper trees. I saw the idea from one of my friends blogs (scrap and doodle) and thought I would give it a try.

They turned out very nice. I am so happy with the paper pack I picked up that day at Winners. It was an American Crafter pack called Jolly. All the paper is so beautiful and I can't believe that it was so cheap. I didn't realize how good of deals you can find at winners on scrapbooking stuff.

Christmas Cookies

2011-12-05T09:26:00.001-04:00

Last week or maybe it was two weeks ago we had a big snow storm here so we decided to take the day and decorate the house for Christmas. And how can you really decorate without any Christmas cookies to snack on!

Hubby is the best at rolling out the cookie dough so that is his job.

This year Jaelyn got to help out by making her own cookie. Daddy gave her a little piece of the dough they patted it out together and then put the cookie cutter on it.

Once the dough was all rolled out Daddy and Eben worked on cutting the cookie out. They do such a great job of making use of all the cookie cutters.

Now all we need is some pictures of the finished cookies but they still aren't iced yet. Maybe we will get that done this weekend.

DIY Christmas Cards

2011-11-10T09:55:00.000-04:00

It seems early to be thinking about Christmas cards but I like to have mine done early that way when there is a 10 cent sale at a local print shop I can be ready to print them out. For the past 4 years I have been doing our own Christmas cards. Here is our Christmas card from last year. I simple took a picture that my talented friend Kait took and used a free Christmas card template.

This year to find my templates I did a search in Pinterest and found some great templates. Here are 3 that I really like from one site called Simple as that.

Now all I need to do is find the picture that I really like. So that you wonderful friends and family can stare at our pretty faces all year long! hehehe Enjoy making your own Christmas cards this season!

Movemeber

2011-11-07T08:40:00.002-04:00

Our whole family is getting into the Movember mode as we work together raising money for prostate cancer. If you would like to donate to our family please visit my hubby's Mo space HERE.

Now on to the crafty part of this post. I made these cute little stach's using a template from easy makes me happy blog. She suggested using stiff felt but since I didn't have any I just used black card stock. For the stick I used a small skewers with the sharp tip cut off and to attach it all together I used a glue dot cause I can't find my glue gun.

We had lots of fun laughing together yesterday as we took these shots. Here is Eben and daddy.

Lady J showing us her stash

We even got the photographers on the other side of the camera and got them involved as well.

Don't forget to give some cash to someone for their stash!!!

Sweet and Salty Cookies

2011-10-25T10:20:00.003-03:00

I love love love sweet and salty things so when I saw this on Pinterest I knew I needed to try them. I was not disappointed. They were as delicious as I knew they would be. If you like sweet and salty things head on over to Sugar Cooking for the recipe. I didn't add the peanut butter chips but added more pretzels instead.

Shutter mail holder

2011-10-06T08:59:00.000-03:00

Summer is a time for weddings and like every other summer we had a few weddings to attend. Weddings are always such a fun time for gifts and I always use the excuse to make or create new projects.

I love the idea of using a shutter to hold mail. I first saw this creative idea back in 2005 we I was planning my wedding and was hoping to make one for the wedding to hold wedding cards in. I didn't find any shutters so my idea was put on hold. Then about 3 years ago at a 50% off sale at value village I scored this shutter. I can't believe I had been hanging on to this gem for that many years but I have been so finally this summer I got it out and made my project. First I painted it up, sand papered it and then I applied the couples Monogram on it using vinyle and my Cricut.

And here is the finished product, hanging on the couples wall, complete with the shelf hubby added to it and the key hooks.

Mini Album

2011-10-04T09:11:00.002-03:00

Today we are going into one of my craft room projects. This was my first mini album I put together for my mom as a Christmas present last year. We decided for a Christmas gift we would get our awesome friend Kait to take our family photos. With the photos I would make a scrap book for my mom. It was my first time doing that many layouts so to get a little help I used page maps mini maps to help me with my layouts.

So here it is the front cover. This book is double sided so I started off with the Family and then continued on with my mom and dad and me with my parents.

The next way the book opened I wanted to do the kids so I did from Generation to Generation.

I add the kids into these layouts.

I am really happy with how this book turned out. I used K&C company paper pack of raspberry something along with some fall harvest paper I had. I think with all this rain that we are having I will be spending my free time in my little craft space I have at my in laws place.

Pasta with Zucchini Sauce

2011-09-29T09:10:00.001-03:00

I saw this Pasta with Zucchini Sauce recipe from friend who found it on the net. She has two little girls who loved it so I thought with lots of Zucchini growing in the garden I would try it to. With bacon in it I was sure it would be a hit.

You can find the recipe and directions over here. Along with some great step by step photos. This was the only one I got! heheh

The only changes I made to the recipe was I saved some bacon to crumble on the top of the pasta and I added some left over chicken to it. I also may have added some fresh herbs do to the pressure from a friend and my mother in law. But it did turn out. We were very happy with the outcome. Everyone eat it all up!

1st birthday

2011-09-19T21:29:00.003-03:00

This month we celebrated our little Jaelyn's first birthday. There are really only 2 things that will make Jaelyn happy. 1 swimming and 2 ice cream. So we combined those two things to have a FUN family birthday party for our little girl.

I searched pintrest for lots of ideas and loved this party hat idea so I had to make one for Jealyn. I started with a sugar cone. I glued the base of it and rolled it in ice cream sprinkles. Next I poked a hole in the top of the cone and stuck a few ribbion curls in there. For the base I used funky designed cup cake holders then glued the hole thing onto a small head band.

I think it turned out so great! She actually wore it when we sang happy birthday and maybe it was cause she was so distracted by the ice cream that she didn't bother with it.

here we are on Jaelyn's actually birthday signing happy birthday and letting her have a little piece of chocolate cake with real whipping cream.

We started the party off with some swimming. The kids had lots of fun having canoe rides and playing in the water.

Next it was time to pray and dig in to yummy BBQ burgers and corn on the cob. You see the pink pom pom in the top of this picture I made those to. They are so easy to make!!!

So then it was time to dig in to the ice cream...you can tell that Lady J is VERY excited to see the sundae buffet.

We had waffle cones and sugar cones. Some of the cones where dipped in chocolate and rolled in sprinkles. Then we had an 11.4L jar of vanilla ice cream, banana's, peanuts, Reeses, M&M's, score, sprinkles, peanut butter cups, Oreo and chocolate, caramel and strawberry sauce.

We put a scoop of the ice cream in the cone stuck a candle in a sang again to her. She screamed the whole time until the ice cream was in her hand!

And what would a party be with out presents. I couldn't believe how animated she was to open her gifts. Thank you everyone who celebrated with us.

Frozen S'more

2011-08-04T10:47:00.004-03:00

So I saw this awesome treat on Pinterest and knew I had to try it for a dessert some night. These frozen smore treats where so simple to make.

First I started out with the crackers, marshmallows, mini chocolate bars, Popsicle sticks and chocolate for melting. The chocolate I melted was a solid Easter bunny.

First you lay out your crackers and place your chocolate on it. Next I placed the marshmallows on top of that. The original recipe used flat marshmallow but since I didn't have any I decided to cut the marshmallows in half and placed them cut side down on the chocolate.

Next you melt them in the oven for about 5-8 minutes until the marshmallow is goooey and the chocolate is soft. Then place the top cracker on and stick the Popsicle sticks into the marshmallows. Put smores in the freezer for a couple of hours.

Now I don't have a picture of the next step but we melted the chocolate Easter bunny down and dipped our frozen treats into the melted chocolate and placed them back into the freezer for a couple more hours.

Here is Eben enjoying one of our yummy yummy treats!!!

What is Pinterest

2011-07-26T21:53:00.010-03:00

Just a quick note today to tell you all about Pinterest. Pinterest is a virtual pin board that lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web.

so here is how it works you are surfing the web and you come across something totally cool

Like this cake and you think wow I would love to make a 6 layer rainbow cake someday so you pin it to your yummy treat board.

These yummy cinnamon buns are quick and easy recipe that need to be tried in your home so they go onto that board as well.

Or this totally awesome looking bike and you think I would love to spray paint a bike that color some day so it goes into your DIY board

or how about these cute capes for your next birthday party...so it gets pined onto the Party board.

OH but there are so many more boards you can have

Kids fun board with lots of frugal fun ideas on it like this side walk paint

Or a home decor board where you see a stylish room like this and think I would love to have that color and our monogram over our bed.

and come on I seen these cute hair clips on there, pinned it to my get into the craft room board and made some that night with my friend Grace.

So what are you waiting for go search for me at pinterest.com (Katie Peterson) and start following me today. I have lots of boards you might be interested in.

*on a side note this is not only good for women you know. My husband has been very sneaky checking my boards to see what recipes I want to try, crafts I am going to make and camera's I am looking at. Its been awesome to have him make some snacks for our family or date night that are ones I have pinned to a board!!! He is scoring lots of brownie points!!! hehehe

Side walk paint

2011-07-20T22:47:00.002-03:00

Here is a fun activity to do with the kids this summer. We had a fun day in the sun painting with side walk paint. I found the recipe here at this site . And we decided to write daddy a message for when he got home.

If you try it out let me know what messages you write!!!

Here is the recipe

1/4 cup corn starch

1/4 cup water

food coloring.

I only made blue cause that is Eben's favorite color but other ideas I saw where to put different colors in spray bottles and let them "spray" paint.

hair clips

2011-07-18T12:53:00.004-03:00

Here is a fun and simple project my friend Grace and I did the other night during our craft night!!

We used this tutorial which was so easy to follow to create this beautiful creations.

They can be put in your hair to dress up any due or you can use them to clip onto little girls hand bands or hats.

peanut butter chocolate chipe cookies

2011-07-15T09:07:00.006-03:00

Yesterday I let Eben make cookies almost all by himself. I had the ingredients all out and he put them in, mixed them and then enjoyed eating them. Here are some pictures from our adventure yesterday. He always puts on his cute chef hat which I made him a few Christmas' ago and his apron when he is baking.

Start with favorite spoon. Which was used more then once during the baking as a drum stick.

Get caught eating the peanut butter straight from the jar.

Mix all ingredients together.

Jaelyn really wanted to help to.

Enjoy warm cookies out of the oven.

want the recipe

1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter (use 1/4 natural and 1/4 regular)
1/2 cup margarine
1 egg
1 1/4 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
As many chocolate chips as you like

1. Mix sugars, peanut butter, margarine and egg in a large bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients. 2. Let sit in the fridge for 20 minutes (this helps make the dough easy to work with)
3. heat oven to 375
4. Shape dough into balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet.
5. Flatten in crisscross pattern with fork
6. Bake 9-10 minutes.

Makes ~ 2 1/2 dozen

Mango Popsicle

2011-07-07T13:47:00.004-03:00

Summer is finally!! There is nothing like waking up in the morning to the beautiful hot sun shine that last all day long. I love the summer...every single thing about it. One thing I really love about summer is the treats you get to enjoy. I LOVE LOVE LOVE ice cream and Popsicles. I would eat them probably every day but they are expensive and they contain a lot of sugar and food dye. So when Eben was around for his first summer I started searching for recipes to make my own. Some times the price is about the same to make healthy pops but that's the thing they are are healthy with no added dyes or extra sugar.

So far this summer our favorite is Mango! Lady J loves them so much. I have a list of Popsicle recipes that I want to try so hopefully I will have a few more recipes to add by the end of the summer. After picking some Strawberries this week I think I will do the strawberry version listed in the recipe as well.

If Mango isn't your thing try these blueberry, Spinach, or frozen yogurt.

If you have any great recipes that you would like to share please do so.

Super Why Birthday party

2011-06-27T09:43:00.010-03:00

Calling all Super Readers....

to the book club

This past weekend we celebrated Eben's 1/2 birthday. I know you probably have never heard of a half birthday before. Its not something every kid has but Eben does. That's because he was born on Christmas morning. Lets be honest who wants to add another party into the already busy December month and of coursing adding double the presents for birthday and Christmas just couldn't happen in our little house. Instead we just celebrate his 1/2 birthday in June, when the weather is nicer and his friends can come!

This year Eben wanted a Super Readers birthday. I am sure if you have younger kids you know all about this show. It was pretty easy to pull off cause they have a lot of great printables on PBS kids for birthday invitations and cup cake toppers. I also found a no sew super hero cape pattern and went for it.

So for decorations I was so happy that a friend of mine picked up the Super Reader dolls for me at the local dollar store!! I know $2 for each one...that's not bad and Eben was so excited to play with them.

While shopping around at a second hand store for t-shirts to make the capes out of I came across this puzzle...and yes I squealed when I found it.

Whats a super why party without the Y writer! They were easy to make I simply took a pencil and cut out a big question mark using my Cricut. A little bit of glue and ta-da all the kids were running around the lawn changing stories everywhere.

After all the kids arrived it was time to transform.

Each super reader got their own cape with their super letter on it.

Then they needed to run around the back yard in search for

Super letters. Once they found them they had to run them back to the computer to figure out the super story answer.

Which was Happy Birthday Eben.
After the game we snacked on reds basket of alphabets.

And what would a party be without cake...or cupcakes.

The cupcakes were such a big hit. All the Super Reader characters were on them so the kids wanted to pick out which one to eat.

And it was all over by 11:00 am!! I love morning parties. The kids are happy and full of energy so it was great that they could play outside.

Hip hip hoary the Super Readers Saved the Day!!!

oh and what would the party be without two very cute Princess Prestos!! heheheh

Pin It

Summer time fun

2011-06-21T09:20:00.002-03:00

Welcome to summer!!! Yesterday we made our summer time fun list of all kinds of things we want to do this summer. I am excited to get out side (hopefully it will get hot) and do lots of fun things this summer. Now I am off to finally get some summer decorations up.

Mono gram

2011-06-13T09:02:00.002-03:00

We just finished giving two of our rooms a make over. We now have a new den/office/craftroom and a new bed room. You can check out the makeover process over here.

For the bed room I knew I really wanted to put up our monogram over the head board. I just love the way these look. So this past weekend at our over night scrap book party at church I decided to cut one out using a large Cricut. I love love love how it turned out. All three letters are from Calligraphy. The P is done in 18 inch and the K and M are 10.

For more creative idea head on over to I heart nap time and see what others are doing.

Mothers club photo booth

2011-05-30T14:45:00.005-03:00

Sorry readers that I haven't been blogging in such a long time. First our computer had to go to the doctors which made it hard for up loading any pictures here and now with the nicer weather here we have been busy fixing up the house and spending lots of time outside in the beautiful sun shine...when its sunny here that is. We have had a wet May but this week is looking like we might get more then 2 nice days in a row.

With the school year getting ready to come to a end we had our year end bunch at mothers club. It will be sad not seeing this beautiful ladies each Tuesday morning. We do try to get out and do different activities together like play dates at the park, splash pad, zoo, beach, back yards and cottages. The bunch is always so much fun and of course this one did not disappoint. The hosting committee went with a picnic theme which was really laid back and fun. We also had one of the moms who is a photographer take some pictures of us ladies with different props.

mug shot
Light testing for the photographer....ok so I just love having my picture taken! hahaha

My sweet friends from church

A new mothers club friendship

The Photographer and my bestie!!!

Mothers club brunch May 2011

I love all the colors of our t-shirts in this picture. Everyone looks so good!!!

Fascinators

2011-05-09T15:16:00.007-03:00

After watching the Royal wedding I really wanted to make a fascinator to wear to church on mothers day. I wasn't the only one around this neck of the woods who wanted an excuses to dress up and feel fancy on mothers day so I hosted a Fascinator girls party on Saturday afternoon.

A bunch of friends got together with some head bands, clips, flowers, feathers, beads and glue guns...mind you there was glue every wheres when we were all finished. It was so much fun crafting these. Your personality and choice of outfit really influences the final product.

Each women did such different things its hard to explain. Many of them started with some felt and began to make (glue) their creation onto the felt. Once it was how they liked it you cut the felt to size and glue it onto the head band or clip.

This one that Miss Krista made is from an old hat that she cut. You leave the top on and begin to cut around in a sprial. She then made this fun design once it was cut. To fill in the back she used black ribbon that had wire on either side.

This one is made using a mason jar lid covered in black fabric. That is what the round piece is on it. Then she glued her flower to it and attached it to a clip.
These two are also attached to clips.

And here are some us Sunday at church celebrating mother's day!! We have decided that this will be a yearly thing.

After church I had a little photo shoot!! hahaha I was trying to be very serious in this picture. Its hard not to laugh at the fashion I have going on with the fancy fascinator and a homemade necklace that Eben made for me!

So to make the little hat I simple took a mayo lid and covered it in fabric. Then I glued on my beads and tool and attached a sparkly flower (which came on the head band I bought from the dollar store). I used a head band so I glued my hat onto the head band then covered the whole back in fabric! I really love how it turned out.

Here is my we saw it and we crafted it picture. Kind of like the army women picture We can do it!! hehehe

And of course here is me in stitches cause lets be honest I am just not that serious! hahah

For more creative ideas check out I heart nap time.

Head bands

2011-04-25T08:52:00.005-03:00

Happy Resurrection weekend!! We had such a wonderful weekend celebrating God's love for us. We are so thankful God loved us so much that He sent Jesus just for us. Now I am sure in many homes Easter Sunday is a special dress up day. As a little girl it meant a new dress and hat. Luckily hats went out of style (well at least in this house) but its still fun to dress up on Easter and of course Nannie bought Lady J her first fancy Easter dress. Since both her and I had black and white dresses I decided to make us matching head bands to go with them.

So here they are

Luckily I had the stuff around the house to make these. I did use this for the inspiration though. I started out with two bra straps! Yes that's right these were straps that were on a strapless bra that I don't wear any more. I cut them to get the clips off of them and sewed them together to fit around our heads. Next I used a old white belt I had to make the flower and the center is a black button I had in my scrapbook stash. I also thought it would look cool to add a piece of tool under it.

So there you have it Mother daughter matching head bands. For more cool craft projects check out I love Nap time.

Rainbow Cake

2011-04-23T20:59:00.005-03:00

So tonight we went out to serve at a Easter Supper and I was asked to bring a dessert. Right away I knew what "cake" I was going to make. Ever since I seen this cake at the idea room I really wanted to make it...but its a lot of cake for our little family so this was the prefect opportunity to make it.

So I started off with two white cake mixes. Then divided the batter up into 6 bowls. It was about 1 1/2 cups of batter. I mixed in the food coloring and poured into cake pans. You only have to bake the cakes about 15 minutes. Then let them cool.

Once they are completely cooled you can stack them up putting a thin layer of icing between them.

From looking at this picture I can tell the lean all started around the yellow layer. Anyways that was a side note. Next put it into the fridge to let it cool then do a crumb coat...this process is way to long to write about (and I didn't take any photos of this step) so just google it! heheh

Once all the frosting layers are done you can decorate with lovely sugar balls also known as Skittles and Ta-da cake complete!

I wasn't able to get a picture of the cake cut like I had hoped as it went so fast but I did mange to bring one home and get a picture of Eben eating a little bit before bed. His favorite color is blue and can you guess which color went first??

Sweet Cinnamon Biscuits

2011-04-20T16:04:00.004-03:00

I have been craving cinnamon buns since last week when I bought some Betty Crocker cream cheese icing; on sale for a buck of course. This morning was a prefect day to make cinnamon buns for some lovely ladies I had coming over to do some crafts with.

I really love this recipe. Its more of a biscuit then a bread; but the recipe is so quick and simple you just can't go wrong.

Sweet Cinnamon Biscuits

2 cups flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 vegetable oil

3/4 cup buttermilk

Melted butter (1/4 cup)

3/4 cup sugar (always mix brown and white)

1 tsp cinnamon

1. Combine flour, baking powder, salt and soda. Mix well. Stir in vegetable oil and add butter milk. Stir until just combined.

2. Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface and roll into a 15*8 rectangle.

3 Heat oven to 400 and grease 9 inch round pan (I usually do two pans and do them a little smaller)

4. Spread melted butter over dough and combine sugar with cinnamon. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture over dough and roll up jelly style.

5 Cut into 1 1/2 inch slices. Arrange on pie plate. Bake until brown 15-20 minutes.

I put together this video to help with the cutter process. It makes making cinnamon buns a whole lot easier.

Serve warm with cream cheese frosting and a hot cup of coffee...

Power Cookies

2011-04-11T13:26:00.000-03:00

These delicious Peanut butter power cookies get two thumbs up!!! They are a nutritious snack packed with lots of good fats. I did pretty good sticking to the recipe using wheat germ instead of the flax seed and because I didn't have enough Kraft peanut butter I used what I had (maybe 1/2 cup or less) and the rest was Krast natural peanut butter. I really like using the natural pb because it has a more intense peanut taste. These little goodies hit the spot with the little guy...and the hubby!

Spaghetti Squash

2011-03-29T14:16:00.000-03:00

I can't believe that we are only trying spaghetti squash now!! Where has this secret treasure been my whole life. I had heard so much about it but never really understood its goodness until I tried one. So readers now I share with you so you wait NO longer to try out this delicious vegetable.

First I started with a the spaghetti squash. After giving it a little wash I sliced it in half and took out the seeds from the middle. Inside the middle I rubbed a tad bit of olive oil and placed it face side down on a large cookie sheet that had a tiny bit of water on it. From there you simply pop it in the oven and let it cook for about 1 hour or until your fork can slide in nicely.

While it was cooking I whipped up a delicious pasta sauce starting by frying up onions, garlic and some spinach we had in the refrigerator that wasn't any good for salad any more. Once it was cooked down I add that mixture to my pasta sauce and using my hand blender pureed it so the spinach would not be noticeable.

When the squash was finished I turned it over and filled the middle with the sauce, added some Parmesan cheese and baked for a little longer until the edge turned a nice golden color!

We (hubby and I) couldn't believe how much this was like spaghetti noddles. It comes apart just like spaghetti. Can't you tell from this awesome picture that Micah took!!! It was a BIG hit in the house and we have enjoyed it a couple of times now since our first try! The best part was the spinach in the sauce never affected the taste one bit and I had to tell Micah it was actually in there!

So here is my Kate's Kitchen Question...do you enjoying spaghetti squash and if so how do you prepare it?

Pancakes

2011-03-28T09:49:00.002-03:00

Some nights it is fun to have breakfast foods for supper and one of our favorites around this house is pancakes. And of course this special night we got real whipping cream and topped our pancakes with it and fruit.

So what are some yummy breakfast foods you enjoy for supper??

Dino gift

2011-03-27T08:08:00.001-03:00

This is a gift I created last week for one of Eben's little friends birthday party. His mom who is an awesome party planner had a total Dino-mite party for her 5 year old little boy. The decorations looked great and the games included a dino egg hunt where the kids (and some crazy mama's) ran through the house looking for hidden eggs that were filled with lots of candy.

For the cake she did a great job of putting together a green dino with brown spots (mini pepper mint patties) and his "spikes" where Hersey kisses. It kind of looked like this picture

So of course for a rocking Dino- mite party like that I knew I needed to make him a gift using the theme. My idea came from puzzle time with Eben. Usually everyday he likes to sit down and do a puzzle and of course his dinosaur one is a favorite. While he was doing it I got out the camera got close to some of the Dino's in the puzzle and took some pictures. Than I printed them off (in larger sizes 5*7 and 6*8) and modge podged them onto canvas. When they were finished I hot glued some string on the back so they could be put up in the little guys room!

It was a fast and simple gift that made him very happy!

For more crafty ideas check out I love nap time.

No Whine with Dinner

2011-03-22T20:09:00.003-03:00

So tonight I got out my new cook book No whine with dinner to try some new recipes. First off I started with Coconut Chicken Fingers(not the exact same as the new cook book). These were so easy to coat and they smelled so delicious when cooking in my cast iron pan! We served this with roast vegetables (potatoes, sweet potatoes and carrots) and asparagus. Oh ya and the little red sauce is sweet chili sauce we used for dipping.

Hubby loved these and so did the little guy!! Yippee it was a hit.

For dessert we tried the Carrot Patch Cupcakes which was another BIG hit in the house. Eben ate his up so fast and hubby thought it was the best cup cake he had ever eaten! I can't wait to keep trying recipes in this book and adding them to the Peterson's favorite recipes.

Scrap book layouts for decorations

2011-03-22T09:52:00.000-03:00

So one thing I want to do this year is scrap book some of our favorite memories through out the year and use them as decorations around the house. Yes I love doing cards and I am still selling Scatter Joy Cards but I want to move up to a bigger canvas (12*12 to be exact) and I also want to use my supplies and gifts as gifts to friends and family members.

So here is my collection so far. New Years day snowman!

My new hair cut

A gift for a friend

A gift for my husband

A fun spring layout for our living room wall

And a fun spring layout for our mantal

So what do you do during nap time. Check out what these ladies do at I love nap time

Spring decorations

2011-03-15T09:55:00.000-03:00

I love that the sun is shinning and the snow is finally starting to melt! We have now changed up our decorations from valentine hearts and love sings to things of spring!! So take a little look at our spring mantel.

I have up a cute layout of Jaelyn that is spring colors along with a egg tree that I pulled together. Of course we have our pastal Easter eggs and a little jar of bubbles. Even though the sun is shining its still pretty cold out there so we have been blowing bubbles in the house. Eben loves having a bubble party. It works great to get the floor all wet and soapy for a good moping afterwards.

Eben and I created this little robins nest decorations out of jute and blue foam eggs. And what would spring be without chalk.

Of course the other side of the mantal has a pot of tulips and the gum ball machine!

Oh I can't wait for the weather to get warmer, to be outside more with the kids, to be riding our bikes, planting our garden and the list just goes on and on. But for now I will enjoy the warm sun shinning in the window as I hangout on the couch.

Hat make over

2011-03-13T06:57:00.000-03:00

For some reason when the sun is brightly shining I love to clean and organize. Maybe its because we see more mess in the light! hehe....So while organizing lady J's stuff the other day I came across this hat that was handed down to her. Its a cute hat that says its 18months. Unless she has a very BIG head for her age it fits nicely now so I decided to spruce it up a little bit by adding a rosette that I made the other day.

I hot glued the flower onto the hat to make it stay on there good and the little red button matches great as well!! I am very pleased with how it turned out.

* it was hard to get a good picture of the finished product on a squirmy 6 month old but she did have a good photo shoot! Even got a picture of her with her two new bottom teeth (top picture)

For some more creative projects check out I love nap time

cookie pizza

2011-03-11T09:00:00.000-04:00

On Sundays we like to have family movie night; complete with popcorn of course. This week we decided to enjoy a fun cookie pizza with our movie night. This little treat was so delicious and simple to make. It was a lot of fun picking out the toppings and putting them on the pizza together.

Here is the cookie crust recipe I used.

INGREDIENTS:

- 1/2 cup of softened butter
- 1/3 cup of firmly packed brown sugar
- 1/4 cup of white sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla
- 1 1/3 cup ofunsifted flour
- 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1/4 tablespoon of salt
- 1/2 cup of chocolate chips (more if you wish)and/or nuts

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Grease a 13inch round pizza pan
3. Measure butter and sugars
4. Cream butter and sugars with mixer
5. Beat in egg and vanilla; mix well

6. Reduce mixer speed and gradually beat in flour, baking soda, and salt until well mixed.

7. Fold in chocolate chips (and/or chopped walnuts)
8. Spread evenly on pizza pan. Dough must cover pan to the edges.
9. Place in oven and bake 15-20 minutes or until dough feels set and dry to the touch.

When the pizza came out of the oven I spread peanut butter all over it. Then we added for our toppings crushed peanuts, smarties, and crushed butter fingers!!

Oh man it was good and the topping possibilities endless. What kind of toppings would you use???

Taco Night

2011-03-09T21:16:00.001-04:00

We love taco night but since the Daniel fast this night has changed just a bit! Instead of using meat we have been using mashed black beans. It still taste very yummy and with all the fixing in the soft taco shell you can't even tell your missin the meat!!!

So how do you dress your taco?

Closet Makeover

2011-03-06T06:54:00.001-04:00

For some reason I have started to get a house makeover bug. I just want to change things up by painting and move things around! But I know for now I need to wait for a better time to paint (like when we can open windows) and until spring when I can give everything a good cleaning a move around. So for now I will just add stuff to what we already got.

I love in our bed room we have two closets. So with that I decided to spruce them up a little bit by adding some brown vinyl letters (cut out from my Cricut) to put on the doors.

I love how it adds a fresh new look to our room without costing a cent.

For more great craft ideas check out I love nap time!!

Bread Machine Bread

2011-03-03T09:16:00.004-04:00

Everyone around here loves the taste of home made bread!! I really love it but I don't always enjoy the mess of kneading the dough and getting flour all over the place. So instead of me doing it I cheat by placing all the ingredients into the bread maker and putting it on the dough cycle. When its done I punch it down and place it into the bread pan, let rise a little more then bake it. Fresh delicious home made bread.....yummy. So here is my favorite bread recipe that I use; it came from my brother in law.

1 1/4 Cup water/milk (I do about two parts water to one part milk)
1/3 cup oil
1 egg
2Tbsp sugar
3 cups flour (I do 2 white 1 whole wheat)
1 tsp salt
1 3/4 tsp yeast

Place in bread maker in order listed. Put on dough cycle. When finished
punch down and place into bread pan. Let rise and then bake in 350 oven
for 30 minutes or until bread sounds hollow when tapped.

Craft room decoration

2011-02-26T13:59:00.009-04:00

In my spare bed room is where my little craft desk is. I love being able to go in there and whip something up when creativity strikes. Usually its a mess in there by the end of the day. Someone once told me that where creative people do there work its usually a mess. Ever since then I use the excuse when it is a mess to say oh it was a Creative Explosion!! After this phrase left my mouth I knew I wanted to put it over top of my desk. So I came up with this temporary decoration. Its temporary because I would like to paint the room a different color but also I love the frame so much and want to keep it available for fun photo shots like this!

The words are cut out of bright card stock and stuck to the wall and the frame got a little spruce up with these fabric rosettes. I love the way it gives character to my little space in there!!!

For more fun ideas check out I love nap time and find out what others are doing during nap time!!!

Delicious Red Lentil Soup

2011-02-25T16:43:00.006-04:00

This Red lentil soup was a recipe given to me by a great friend for when we were on the Daniel fast. It was so delicious that it made it on our regular meal plan night and I thought I should share the recipe with you wonderful readers

Red Lentil soup
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger root
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 cup dry red lentils
1 cup butternut squash OR sweet potato- peeled, seeded, and cubed
4 cups veggie stock
1 (14 ounce) can coconut milk
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 pinch ground nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
cilantro for garnish

Directions

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat, and cook the onion, ginger, garlic, until onion is tender.
Mix the lentils, squash, and cilantro into the pot. Stir in the stock, coconut milk, and tomato paste. Season with curry powder, cumin,cayenne pepper, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer 30 minutes, or until lentils and squash are tender.

Garnish with cilantro and enjoy.

We served this soup with whole wheat croissants and honey garlic sausages!!!

Hobby Decorating

2011-02-25T16:32:00.003-04:00

I really love being crafty and one of my favorite things to do is scrapbook pages to use as decoration around the house. I have been doing a scrap book layout for my mom on special holidays and I love the idea that it can always be changing. Right now I have one winter lay out and one of my boys!

Before lady J came along I did a Big Brother page for Eben. I framed this and put it over his bed in his room!

Another thing that makes them so frugal is that I got the frames at the dollar store for only $2.00.

For more frugal ideas head on over to life as mom

Chocolaty Pumpkin Bars

2011-02-22T14:17:00.002-04:00

Picture from bake at 350

This weekend I decided to try our a new recipe on the family which turned out to be a BIG hit. The recipe, Chocolaty Pumpkin Bars, was taking from Meal Make Over Moms and is featured in their newest cook book No Whine with Dinner. I have just discovered their website and love it. This is only 1 of the many recipes I will be trying off their website until I receive my own copy of the new cook book! After tasting these yummy treats I can't wait to try more of their stuff. I have planned to try the coconut chicken fingers later this week so I will be sure to let you know how they turn out.

Scrapping on Canvas

2011-02-21T10:28:00.002-04:00

The kitchen is my favorite place to be as long as I am not cleaning it or doing the dishes. But of course many of you readers know that my second favorite place is my craft room. I find it so relaxing to be in there being creative. I love being locked in with my worship music making projects to decorate our house with or to give away as gifts.

Here is one of my lastest projects which was also used to decorate our house for love day. Its a scrap page of me and hubby. I started off with a black and white picture of the two of us. I knew that I wanted to use a black and white back ground but to add some elegance to it I wanted to use a splash of red.

To get the black and white picture to stick out I placed it on the red paper. To keep the embellishment simple, because this was a gift for my hubby, I made this rosette from a scrap of the paper and the swirly thing is cut out from the Cricut (home decor I think)

For the journal block I used Song of Song 1:1-4 (because it talks about kissing :)

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth

for your love is more delightful than wine pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the young women love you! Take me away with you—let us hurry! Let the king bring me into his chambers.

Then for the title which is also from Song of Songs and what we had engraved inside our wedding bands; My Lover is Mine and I am His

So great looking scrap page eh....well its not finished yet to make this a decoration cause lets be honest its too nice to put away into a book that will hardly get looked at I decided to put it onto a canvas.

I really love putting pages on to canvas cause its a cheap way to decorate your house. I purchased this canvas at the dollar store for $1.25. I used black paint to paint around the sides of it (giving it depth) then using modge podge I glue the page to the canvas and put a thin coat all over the page. Oh and one last thing I added the embellishment after I did the Modge Podge!!

So for more creative ideas check out I love nap time.

No Whine with Dinner

2011-02-18T12:33:00.004-04:00

Ok readers I want to share with you an awesome cook book and website that I just stumbled across this week. Its called Meal Makeover Moms!! I am in love with a lot of their recipes and all the information they have on there to offer.

I have been in contact with these two lovely ladies and have decided to order their new book No whine with Dinner. If anyone else would like to order from them please let me know. We can order the book online for $15 (if we have 10 people who would like a book).

So what are you waiting for go check out their site and try some of the recipes they have. I can't wait to make their coconut chicken nuggets!

Valentines Party

2011-02-14T10:10:00.008-04:00

I love LOVE!!! So what better way to celebrate then with a love themed party. Guest were asked to bring snack foods that were white, red, pink or brown and what a spread we enjoyed. The table just kept getting fuller and fuller.

Since there was so much food I decided to use jars to put our snacks in instead of laying them out on plates and bowls. I was hoping to save some space but it really created a cool candy shop effect.

The window that hangs above our table got decorated with hearts cut out from the Cricut and some sharpie markers. The verse in the middle uses VALENTINE as an acronym within John 3:16. I think its pretty cool that God is our first love and our very own valentine!

For drinks we served a cranberry punch, cream soda and root beer. The glasses were embellished with Love birds!! Which were also used during the game time to tell between two different teams.

Thanks for a great girly game night ladies!!!

oh I almost forgot about the parting gifts that everyone got. One lady brought pink reusable bags that fold up and got into your purse. Also everyone who left got to take a little coupon with them (you can see the jar in the first picture on the table that says love). These coupons have little special ideas on them (special treat, trip to a fun park, 25 kisses) so the ladies could give them to their hubby's as a valentines day present for him to redeem at any time.

Soft block letter

2011-02-11T09:40:00.004-04:00

My friend Sera really helped me with this baby block project. We started off by cutting out letters on my Cricut machine. We traced the letters onto felt. We used 2 pieces for each letter. Once they were cut out my friend Sera did all the sewing (by hand) and stuffing.

These make great little play toys. We just stuffed them with fluff but you could also put in bells or crinkling paper so they will make noise.

Hope you enjoy and for more frugal ideas check out life as mom

Valentines Decorations

2011-02-02T10:11:00.003-04:00

Now that February is here its time to break out the "lovey" decorations!! I love all the pinks, reds and blacks. Here is just the start to my valentines decorations. From the left I started out with some framed subway art. I got the pattern over here but because we don't have a coloured printer I decided to print it black and white on pink card stock. The pink paper makes the ink look brown so it goes great in this brown 8x10 frame.

I also used the scrabble pieces to spell out be mine on one and valentine on another. The xo xo blocks were some cubes that I have painted white, inked in red and the xo xo are puffy stickers from the dollar store.

The frame in the middle of me and hubby is my valentines gift to him. Its a scrap layout that I put onto a canvas which was bought at the dollar store. I painted the outside of the canvas black used modge podge to put my scrap layout onto it.

The other frame is a collage from that I cut valentine paper to fit into and used my circut to spell out L O V E.

Now of course you need some candy for the special day so I made this cool gum ball machine with inspiration from i love nap time. Eben sure had a lot of fun painting the pots red and he was even more happy to see it filled with candy when he got up this morning. It still needs to ball for the top so I will have to check around the house today to see if I can find anything.

So for some more really cool Valentine ideas check out we are that family

Chili

2011-01-24T13:31:00.004-04:00

This was a very delicious meal that was used for a couple of days of left overs and is now stored away in lunch containers for Micah to take to work.

Here is the basics of what I did.

Fry up onion, garlic, peppers, and celery

In a crock pot put in some crushed tomatoes, water, bbq sauce, chili powder, taco seasoning, a little brown sugar and add your fried stuff. Then add a can of rinsed black beans, kidney beans (really any kind of beans you would like) . Also I cooked up 1 cup of green lentils according to the package and added them into the chili to give it some thickness.

Towards the end of cooking I added some frozen corn.

This was very yummy served with my favorite corn bread recipe

Taco night

2011-01-21T14:04:00.001-04:00

Ok so here we go week three. We are still doing great on my no meat cooking we are enjoying lots of new recipes that will be added to our monthly meal plans. Let me know by leaving a comment what recipe you and your family have enjoyed the most that you made!!!

Here is a special post from my friend Kristi. Its her version of veggie taco night at their house!

All the yummy fixing you and your family like. Here is Kristi's list

Yellow Peppers

Green Peppers

Tomatoes

Cucumbers (our kids love those on tacos)

Lettuce

Corn

Sour Cream

Cheese

Mild Salsa

The "meat" part of these taco's is black beans. To cook them you can drain them (if you are using canned and make sure you rinse them to get some of the added salt off) and fry them up in a frying pan with onions and garlic. For the taco seasoning if you aren't using packaged stuff you can make your own taco flavoring mix with this recipe. When the beans are a little soft mash them up a bit.

Add your meat mixture to warmed tortilla shells and let the family serve up their own! If you aren't eating grains simply make a taco salad with all the fixing.

Thanks Kristi for the idea we will be serving these up at the Peterson house this week!

broccoli quiche

2011-01-20T13:51:00.002-04:00

Last night we enjoyed a delicious broccoli quiche. You can make this without a crust as well.

Here is a basic recipe that I used

stir fry
onion
green peppers
sweet peppers

Whisk together 4 eggs and 1 cup of milk ( I used skim milk and some cold water mixed together) and 1 tbsp flour*. Add stir fried vegetables (once cooled) and cooked broccoli. Pour mixture into pie plate and bake at 350-375 for 50 minutes or until egg is set.

* When you add the flour it looks clumpy but don't worry it will turn out yummy!

Tonight's supper is one of our favorite breakfast foods. Baked Oatmeal with yogurt and blueberries!!

Week 2

2011-01-17T16:38:00.003-04:00

So here we go week two into our vegetarian life style. So far we are enjoying the meals I have been making. We do feel a lot fuller (from all the vegetables and beans) and a lot more musical! hehehe

Yeserday I cooked a crock pot of beans for supper that we enjoyed with scalloped potatoes. Now tonight I will use the left overs to make rice and bean quesadillas.

So how is everyone else making out?? Any one want to share a delicious recipe for me to guest post. Let me know I will put it up for ya!

Red Lentil Soup

2011-01-16T12:19:00.002-04:00

Last night we attended an international pot luck so I thought since we loved the BBQ lentils so much that I would double the recipe and take them. My doubling lentils attempt failed and I was left with a pot of mushy looking red lentils and I quickly remembered a recipe my dear friend Mel gave me so it quickly turned into red lentil soup.

This is a fast and delicious recipes. As we were finishing up the last of this today for lunch hubby said..."this is so good I would buy it at a restaurant"

Red Lentil soup
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger root
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 cup dry red lentils
1 cup butternut squash - peeled, seeded, and cubed
1/3 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
2 cups veggie stock or water
1 (14 ounce) can coconut milk
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 pinch ground nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
cilantro for garnish

Directions

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat, and cook the onion, ginger, garlic, until onion is tender.
Mix the lentils, squash, and cilantro into the pot. Stir in the stock, coconut milk, and tomato paste. Season with curry powder, cumin,cayenne pepper, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer 30 minutes, or until lentils and squash are tender.

Garnish with cilantro and enjoy.

Pad Thai Noodles

2011-01-14T15:54:00.003-04:00

So no picture of last nights meal but it was very very delicious. We stir fried some vegetables (carrots, ginger, garlic, onions, spinach and peppers) then we added some ingredients to make a sauce (natural peanut butter, lemon juice, ketchup, soya sauce, sesame oil, red curry paste and crushed peanuts) and finally throw in some rice noodles that have been soaked in water!!

Quick, easy and delicious.

Hope everyone is enjoying the fast

Marbled stuff potatoes

2011-01-13T13:27:00.003-04:00

Here is our delicious supper from last night. These potatoes were SOOOOOOO yummy I can't wait to make them again. They are called Marbled stuffed potatoes. They are orange colored because you mix sweet potatoes with the white potatoe. Also we enjoyed BBQ lentils. Both recipes are posted at the bottom! These two things will go into our menu planning.

Marbled Stuffed Potatoes

Large baking potatoes

large sweet potato

1/4 sour cream (due to fast we used natural yogurt)

3 Tbsp margarine or butter

2 scallions, thinly sliced (we didn't use these either; not due to fast though! hehe)

3/4 cup shredded cheese

pinch of nutmeg

salt

olive oil

1. Bake potatoes and sweet potatoes until done

2. Peel sweet potato and transfer to a bowl. Mash lightly with fork until smooth

3. Trim a thin slice off the tops of the potatoes and hallow out the inside (leaving the skin intact) and place into larger bowl.

4. Add yogurt, margarine, scallions, cheese, nutmeg, salt and pepper

5. Gradually fold in sweet potato

6. Brush the potato skins with oil and salt and place on cookie sheet

7. Generously fill with the marbled potato mixture

8. Bake at 375 until golden brown, 25-30 minutes

BBQ Lentils

Cook 1 cup of lentils (we used green) according to the package directions. In a small bowl mix together 1/4 cup BBQ sauce with 1-2 tsp brown sugar. Add to lentils when they are done cooking and enjoy!!!!

So let me know how you are making out and some delicious recipes your making!

Spring rolls

2011-01-12T12:52:00.004-04:00

Ok so last nights supper of spring rolls was so yummy and fun to do. This recipe is for sure going to be added to our meal plans (cause you can add meat to them) once we are done our fasting.
We started off by chopping up lots of fresh vegetables and even some fruit. Our platter consist of carrots, onions, green peppers, orange peppers, tomatoes, spinach, avocado, apples, eggs and the center is pineapple. Then when we were ready to eat we took rice paper (which you can find in the ethic food section at the grocery store; also its dairy free and gluten free) and dipped it in water to make it soft. When the rice paper is soft you carefully put it on your plate and add whatever combination of vegetables and fruit you would like. You need to be careful not to add too much stuff cause it doesn't roll up properly and will fall apart, right Micah! hehehe

Here is one of my creations. Egg, spinach, carrots, peppers, and avocado. Also we made a delicious peanut sauce to dip them in. It was made from natural peanut butter, sweet chili sauce, and lemon juice.

They were so delicious I ate 6 of them!!! If you are looking for a recipe you can Google Vietnamese french spring rolls. Here is a recipe I found for anyone who would like to try. Also remember those yummy rice cakes I was telling you about yesterday while they got heated up and we enjoyed them for supper! I really love these and will be adding them to the menu as well. Its such a great way to clean out the fridge of left overs!

Also with our fasting we have decided to join up with CBC's Life right now campaign.and do some of their family challenges to stay in shape. So after supper we got up and danced around the house (yes country dancing!) with the kids for 15 minutes! It was so much fun and great exercise for all of us.

Keep the comments coming I love to hear your recipes. Also if you have ever used rice paper before let me know what you stuff yours with!!!

rice cakes anyone

2011-01-11T13:17:00.004-04:00

So we are having a lot of fun this week on our Daniel fast because a good friend of ours from Korea is living with us and is pretty much doing all the cooking!!! She has made so much delicious food for us we will be sad to see her go. Sunday when we got home from church she whipped up this rice dish for us (and to answer Kristi's comment we are using a white Korean rice for now). This dish was like fried rice minus the meat, additives and loads of sodium.

She fried up (you don't always have to use oil to "fry" you can put in some vegetable stock or even just a little bit of water and lemon juice) some garlic, onions, carrots, and a potato. Then she added some rice, sesame seeds, and peas. Once it was fried up she cooked some eggs like thin omelets; loaded them with the rice mixture and flipped them onto plates!! Yummy they were very good and a great way to use up the left overs in the fridge.

Now this morning when I got home form mothers club she was cooking away using up the left over rice from Micah's birthday. In this bowl she put rice, carrots, peas, sesame oil, egg, garlic and a little bit of cheese and she was frying them up in the cast iron pan.
They were the best rice cake I have ever had!! I can't wait to eat more of them at supper time and to enjoy some yummy spring rolls that she has made for us! Check back tomorrow to see what spring roll creations we have made.

Hey readers please feel free to leave comments and some recipes that you have been trying. I would LOVE to hear from you!!!

day 1

2011-01-10T08:57:00.004-04:00

So yesterday we started our fast of no meat and no junk food. We did really well but the Christmas season sure left us feeling very snacking last night. But we pushed through and had some fruit instead of junk food.

Here is what our menu looked like yesterday

Breakfast: whole wheat toast with natural peanut butter (so proud of hubby that he didn't put any butter on it first!)

Lunch we had rice with vegetables (garlic, onions, carrots, peas and peppers)

For supper I made Eben home made mac and cheese and we ate potato cakes I made out of some left over potatoes we had in the fridge.

Now today we are starting the day off with baked oatmeal, blueberries and yogurt. And for supper we will have crock pot falafels in home made pita bread with lots of vegetables.

Tips for the fast

2011-01-06T15:07:00.002-04:00

Ok so this weekend starts our fast of no meat (along with lots of other junk food) for the rest of the month. So here are a few tips that will help us succeed.

First I just went through the flyers to see what fruits and vegetables are on sale for the week. Use that to put together a menu for the week. Without a menu its hard to be organized to know what to cook and will cause a lot of back slide. Go grocery shopping with a list of ingredients needed to make your meal plan.

Now when you get home from the grocery store its time to get to work. Because I stay home and have lots of time on my hands I buy large bags of vegetables and cut them into sticks myself. If you are working or too busy to do that then get snack size ones that are already cut up. Have these in the fridge ready to eat makes us want to eat them when we need a snack. Also have you ever found that you eat more vegetables then normal when you are out and there is a vegetable tray??? Thats cause we eat what we see so be sure to put out a large fruit bowl on the table and even in the afternoon make up a nice vegetable tray to leave on the table. You will be surprised how much gets eaten when left out like this....cause lets face it no one is sitting around thinking ~ wow I could really go for some cauliflower right now~ oh and one more thing because we are trying to cut out processed foods we will use either yogurt or hummus to dip our veggies into!

And the last thing we will do on Saturday night is box up all the junk food left in the house; pop, chips and chocolate and hide them in the basement until next month!!

Stay tuned for our first recipe coming this weekend. Its falalefs and homemade pita bread on Monday!

Going Vegetarian for 1 month

2011-01-04T13:00:00.003-04:00

Hello readers and welcome to the New YEAR!! As a family we have decided to fast meat for the month to go along with our Church's annual 21 day fast. Along with cutting out meat from our diets we will also not be eating sweets, cookies, chocolate, chips, pop, ice cream and any other really good junk food. Also for the month to get the noise out of my head I will be fasting from face book in hopes to use that time (aka children's nap time) to listen to a series called the Agape Road by Bob Mumford; in hopes to go deeper with God finding new strength and vision from Him.

So starting Sunday this family is going all Veggie!!! Being a Dietitian I of course have read a lot on the subject and here are a few good things to prepare for our fast. (Hope this is helpful for our church family reading this)

The food guide principles we will be following is as follows:

Eat Most

Grains: such as wheat, rice, barley, corn, oats, rye, millet and buckwheat

Food made from Grains: pasta and bread

Fruits and Vegetables

Eat Moderately

Dairy: Milk, yogurt and cheese

Pulses: peas, beans of all kinds and lentils

Nuts

Eggs

Eat Less

Sugar, Honey, butter, cream, margarine and oils

Just like meal planning and making things from scratch on our regular diet I will do the same on our new fast diet. This will help make it easier for me to shop and stay on our budget. We haven't set a new grocery budget for this year but until we do our year end budgeting I will say that we will eat as vegetarians for $62.50/ week.

So today when I was out shopping I stocked up on clearance items such as breads (only whole grain. When we say whole grain it means that when you look at the 1st ingredient on the label it should ready whole grain), buns, flat bread. I also picked up some Balkan style yogurt which is filled with probiotics and is all natural. Remember if you are cutting back on sugar all those yogurts that are no fat are full of sugars. Now for the pantry I picked up pasta, canned beans, dried beans, tomato paste, canned tomatoes, and a few different sauces to add flavor such as sweet chili sauce.

* A side note for Moncton shoppers: the Co-op had some great sales on veggies and dried beans this week and don't forget if we are starting the fast on Sunday to check the market this week to get some other great deals on local produce!

So with all that said this week will be a slow start to our fast cause I am not sure how well the guts are going to handle going on just beans!! heheheh.....So we will integrate that stuff slowly. Here are some meal ideas that I am thinking for the fast. I will post recipes every couple of days and Micah has agreed to be the food critic on them! hehehe.. Let me know if you have more foods to add to the list.

Meal ideas for 21 days of no meat!

Veggie chili

Falafel with homemade pita bread

Honey baked lentils

BBQ lentils

Nacho salad in tortilla bowl

Chef Salad

Omelets

Quiche

Vegetable soup

Lentil soup

Veggie pot pie with sweet potato crust

Rice and bean Quesadilla's

Minestrone soup

Veggie pizza (for Eben)

Vegetable stir fry

Sweet and Sour Noodles with veggies

Winter Vegetable casserole

Greek Salad

Quinoa pilaf with cranberries and almonds

Tomato soup with pasta and basil

Spaghetti Primavera

Veggies Nachos (using baked tortillas for chips)

Weeknight Dinner

Crockpot pineapple beans

Potato and Pea curry

Bean salad

Carrot soup

Red lentil soup

Baked beans on toast

Hummus sandwiches

Tomato and Basil salad

Potato salad (no mayo)

Sesame spinach salad

Avocado egg salad

So there is a list of some of the ideas I have gotten from many friends. I will post the recipes as well try them out!! Hopefully you can enjoy along with us as we fast to get closer to God and hopefully shed off some of the excess weight we are carrying around.

Tradition

2010-12-09T09:26:00.001-04:00

Here is one way we keep our kitchen table looking festive. Putting together a Christmas puzzle is my husbands families tradition. Its a fun night to invite friends over to make the Christmas puzzle. First I put a nice Christmas themed table cloth on the table (purchased last year on clearance), then we do the puzzle and top it off with a plastic see through table cloth!

A Tradition turned into a frugal way to decorate! Do you have any traditions that spruce up your home decor for Christmas?

Christmas photos

2010-12-09T09:25:00.005-04:00

Christmas cards can add up and be expensive if you don't get them on clearance the year before and with a growing family everyone usually wants a photo in their card. So what we do it put the two together. WE take a nice picture (this year we included my parents), find a free Christmas card template and ta-da our family Christmas card. All you have to do is save it as a jpeg and you can print if off at any local print shop. We had these done a while ago when Costco had prints for 10 cents~ This price sure does beat the more expensive prices of 1.00 per Christmas card print.

My cousin this year had a great idea on how to save some money and some trees this Christmas and found a sharing template (I think you can do it on picnik or even shutterfly) and put her pictures in and emailed out there greetings!

Now for the kids Christmas pictures I have been messing around with my camera so I dressed them up and took some pictures and used picnik to do the editing! I really love that site cause it allows you to add text to your pictures.

You can use lots of props for the kids Christmas pictures without taking them any where's (stockings, wrapped boxes, strains of lights, Christmas bulbs, Christmas PJ, milk and cookies, stuffed snowmen) or spending lots of money. I love how the little guy needed to have monkey Peterson with him and that he even put a tie on him! hehehe.

Keepin it together

2010-12-09T09:22:00.002-04:00

So one thing that helps to stay on budget is first off having a budget and second being organized. Before Christmas season even comes around its a good idea to sit down and figure out how much you want to spend on gifts, food, and decorations. That way you wont be in total shock when January rolls around. A cool thing to think about is the average Canadian spends $587 on Christmas each year. That's one person so usually one house has 2 people which doubles that amount. This year I challenge you to see if you can be under that stat. Now for the organizing part I usually use Google doc for that kind of stuff but recently I put together this little book to help stay organized for the Christmas season. Plus it helps that I can take this with me shopping; since it does have all my list in it.

Its my Christmas organizer to help keep track of December events, meal plans, baked goodies, gift and decoration ideas and also the list of things to buy for gifts.

I got the idea for this lovely book over here at eighteen25. You can check out their site for full details on how to make it. I love how you can make your own tabs depending on you own list. I have one for gift ideas, goodies (like new recipes I want to try), meal plan and grocery list, the list and a whats happening section to keep track of all the get togethers.

We actually just did this as a craft at our moms club and the creations were awesome. Some women made them for gifts (not bad a gift for $5), others used them as recipe books.

Another thing I love is that I can keep track of things I want so when I am out at yard sales this summer or second hand shopping I can keep my eye open for things that I could use to make gifts out of.

So how do you stay organized during the holidays?

Christmas eats and treats!!

2010-12-06T12:58:00.004-04:00

Christmas is a time for parties, get together's, company, and goodies. So how do you keep your food budget on track for the month of December with so many activities going on? Here are some ideas that have help us stay on our $62 a week food budget during the month of December.
The first thing to do is make a list of all the baked goods you make during the holiday season. For ours I made it on google doc. From the list I made an ingredient list of all the different ingredients that are needed in the house to make our holiday treats. Both list have been printed off and placed in my awesome Christmas planner; which I will blog about later this week!

In November I start looking at my ingredient list and picking up the ingredients needed for baking in my normal grocery pick up. For example they had chocolate chips (the good kind) on at a local grocery store 3 bags for $4. 98; so I picked up 6 bags. Also other things like Chip dip which is my hubby's favorite Christmas treat was on sale so I got a couple of those and put bright yellow stickers on them that say DO NOT EAT!!! So they would be around for the Christmas holidays.

Another way I save on food around the holidays is to keep meal planning so I am not running out and getting things. Having a meal plan to look ahead at helps me to buy my ingredients on sale. Another good things is in my calendar of events for the month I have the days booked off for parties that I need to bring something to; that way I could see how many things were needed for our nights out and pick up say bags of chips (which were on sale for 99cents!), chips dips, crackers or appetizers. For baking this year I am actually in a cookie swap (I think this will save on grocery money as well). I made 10 dozen cookies and get 10 dozen different kinds of treats. This will be used to take variety plates to parties with us, offer to guest when they come over and maybe even give away as gifts.

So what do you do to save on the grocery bill during the holidays

Decking the halls

2010-12-01T09:11:00.004-04:00

December 1st is here and only 25 more days before Christmas is over. I am sure many people have had their Christmas decorations up for almost a month now but this is where the Christmas season usually begins in most homes so lets talk about how to decorate beautifully yet frugally.

The first step to nice decorations begins AFTER Christmas...thats right after Christmas. There are always such great deals on all those nice decorations after the holiday season is over. So start watching for the sales after the big day and into the new year. Also yard sales through the summer are another great place to get decorations. Even if they are tacky and from the 80's you can always make new things out of them.

I always start the decorating with my mantel. This year we put up a new wall collage to display all our beautiful family pictures that are talented friend Kait did. So for Christmas I decided to put in some pictures that we took last year of our family and neighbors making Christmas cookies. Also for the 4 5*7 frames on the corners I put in decorative scrap booking paper. The top 8*10 frame is patterned paper with the words A Very Merry Christmas cut out from my cricut.

A side self is decorated with tin cans; which will soon be filled with goodies, A glass bowl with cookies cutters, and a dip bowl which looks like a giant Christmas mint.

The mantel has lots of fun things that came from around the house. I have vases filled with pine cones and acorns, sticks, cinnamon sticks, mixed nuts and shinny ornaments (which I got on sale last year).

I love those little frames I have had for years from the dollar store. In them is a piece of off white paper stamped with some Christmas stamps I have. I love the recipe cards (cookies and sweets) which I did on my Cricut. And new to my collection this year are the 2 beautiful glitter trees which I did myself. I bought the cone shapes in this floral department at Wal-mart, painted them with glue and coated them in the pretty blue glitter I got at Michaels in the $1.50 bin.

There are so many things you can use around the house to give it a Christmas feel without spending a lot of money.

Most of the vases I have were bought at the dollar store or at yard sales. There are many different things you can fill in them for Christmas things like cinnamon sticks, Clementine's, ornaments, mixed nuts, Christmas candies, buttons, Christmas colored ribbon, cookie cutters, strands of beads...the list is endless.

So todays challenge is go around your house see what you got and try to use it to "deck the halls".

I'm Back!!

2010-11-29T13:31:00.004-04:00

So we have had a busy fall with the birth of our daughter. Its been a fun time adjusting to a new little one around the house. But now I am back to blogging and you readers should be excited! For the next couple of weeks I am going to focus on how to spend less during the holidays.

It all started when I heard about the advent conspiracy which focuses on spending less and giving more. I think this is a great idea and so hubby and I are going to give it a try this year. I did some research on how much the average Canadian spends on gifts, food and entertainment and found an estimate of $587 a person. That means between husband and wife that would be $1174!! We definitely won't be anywheres near that figure. So this Christmas I challenge you and your family to think about what you are spending. Set up budget categories and try to sick with it and to help with that I will be posting may different tips and ideas that I have collected over the years on how to have a beautiful frugal Christmas!

Fall decorations

2010-10-08T08:45:00.003-03:00

I love fall so much; the colors and the foods are my favorite! This year we decorated the mantel with lots of fun fall themed things. I started out by framing some of our family pictures that were taken in the fall. Also I used my cricut to cut out the word FALL and framed that as well. The garland I made with my cricut as well.

for extra decorations Eben and I went on a treasure hunt in the park and picked up these sticks, pine cones and acorns. Placed in a nice vase they look beautiful. We also filled a vase up with some pop corn kernels.

Now the mini pumpkins and gourds we picked these up at the apple orchard last weekend. I love the white ones on top of the candle holders!

Its a frugal but very beautiful way to decorate. For more frugal ideas check out life as mom

Pumpkin chocolate chips muffins

2010-10-01T12:51:00.002-03:00

I love fall time and all the harvest foods that go with it! One of my favorites is pumpkin. I always buy pie pumpkins to cook up, puree and freeze. Here is one of my favorite pumpkin recipes.

1/2 cup margarine
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup pumpkin
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger (or you can just use 1/2 -1 tsp pumpkin pie spice)
1 cup chocolate chips (more if you would like)

Cream together the margarine and sugar. Add egg 1 at a time. Stir in pumpkin. Mix together your dry ingredients and add to margarine mixture; mix until everything is combined and add chocolate chips. Bake 350 for 15-20 minutes.

Hope you enjoy! You may also want to try these pumpkin recipes

cookies
waffles
dip
lattes

Getting ready for Peterson #2

2010-08-18T13:04:00.004-03:00

What a busy yet relaxing summer we have had so far. I mean these past couple of months have really picked up for us as we are preparing for baby #2; which should be here in the next 10 days or so!!!

We started off the summer having some maternity photos taken by our friend Kait. You can check out some of her other work here. We really enjoyed our session with Kait and her husband. She is a very creative photographer!!

I just love the pictures so much that I have been busy scrap booking many of them to get them up and around the house.

Here are 4 shots of my baby bump at 34 weeks!
These are some pictures of Eben the Big Brother!! I actually framed this one to placed it over his bed in the nursery.

The nursery was the next thing to get figured out. How do we put two kids into one room. After my friend Krista gave us some advice this is what we turned out!

Now just the other night we put up a little baby hammock so the little one has a place to rest well mama is focused on Eben or house work. Right now we are trying to teach Eben to be gentle with it by using puppy the giraffe. I only caught Eben swinging in it twice yesterday...not bad for the first day up.

So now we play the waiting game to see if the baby will be a he or a she.

Baby blocks

2010-07-20T08:52:00.002-03:00

Here is another batch of baby blocks I put together this week for my friend Elisabeth's new little girl Ellora!

I really liked how they turned out using two different colors that coordinated with the paper I used. After the blocks were all painted and dried, I cut out the letters using story book Cricut cartridge and modge podge to stick them on.

Wall art

2010-07-19T07:02:00.000-03:00

This was part of a wedding gift that I did just the other week! It was so easy to put together and very inexpensive to make. I actually found the frame on clearance at Micheals for $2.49 and the paper was marked down 5 sheets of double sided card stock for $1.

So here is what I did.

I cut the paper (white with flower design) to fit the 8*10 frame. Next I took the scraps of paper that were left from the 12*12 piece of paper, turning it over so now I was working with the orange side, and used my Cricut to cut out the letters to say Welcome. I used pop up tape to put on the welcome to give it some dimension and ta-da wedding gift of great looking wall art complete!!!

I know my girl friend I made this for is totally frugal so I don't mind saying that I made this beautiful gift for $2.69 and maybe 10 minutes of my time!!

baby girl head bands

2010-07-16T07:20:00.000-03:00

This was a little project I decided to do for my friend Stacey's baby shower, since she knows they are having a little girl.

It was very easy to do I just followed the directions found on this blog. Its a good thing my cousin Pam and her little girl Maggie came to visit the day before the shower cause I just didn't feel right having Eben model these for me! hehehe.

Baby blocks

2010-07-14T07:01:00.000-03:00

It seems like this year is the year for babies!! So far at our church we are expecting in 2010 17 new babies!!! That means a lot of showers and lots of gift giving. So I have been getting creative with my gifts and have been having lots of making our gifts.

For my friend Nancy, who knew they were having a boy, I decided to make some baby blocks with the little guys name on them. I still have so many 2*2 cubes from when my husband made them for me for this Christmas project. Eben and I had so much fun doing this project together.

First we painted all the blocks baby blue, then when Eben went down for his nap I painted some wooden letters that I had purchased white with blue polka-dots and for the final step I glued the wooden letters onto the wooden blocks.

When the blocks where all dried I put them in order and wrapped them up in a piece of ribbon. My friend Nancy really enjoyed this present!!

Blueberry popsicles

2010-07-13T11:27:00.003-03:00

This summer we have been into making our own Popsicle's around here! It seems to be much cheaper and lot more healthier!! We started off by making green Popsicle for the little guys 2 1/2 Sesame street birthday party and now we have moved on to purple ones.

This recipe is so easy and can be done with any kind of fruit. We of course used blueberries.

1 1/2 cups blueberries (ours were frozen) or any kind of fruit
1 cup plain yogurt (we use bulkan style 6 % MF)
1-2 squirts of lemon juice
A little bit of water to get the blender moving
A little sugar for taste (optional)

Put all ingredients into the blender and blend until liquid. Pour into molds and freeze!

We really enjoyed this treat this afternoon!!! They are a very flavorful Popsicle...with way less sugar.

Sesame Street birthday party

2010-07-07T12:03:00.007-03:00

My little man was born on Christmas morning and right from that day I knew that I wanted to make sure he still got a special day to celebrate his birthday on. So we decided that June 25th (which is exactly his half birthday) would be the best day to celebrate him on!

So welcome to Eben's 2 1/2 birthday party!!! * Sorry I don't have too many pictures at the moment. My lovely friend who took all the pictures went into labor and had a baby before she finished editing them; so as soon as I get them I will add them to the post. *

I spent the week before Eben's party cutting out all his favorite Sesame street characters using my Cricut machine and the Sesame street and friends cartridge. On the day of the party we placed our chalk board at the end of the drive way with balloons.

The party was an outside back yard party. We decorated with balloons, letters and numbers. You can't tell from this picture but the alphabet was hanging from the clothes line and the numbers 1-10 posted on the fence. Also the table was decorated with all the Sesame street characters you saw in the first picture. I simply used a nice yellow table cloth. Placed the characters on that and then covered them with a see through plastic covering so they wouldn't get damaged.

We had lots of snacks all with Sesame street names. We started off with Dorothy gold fish, big birds bird seed granola bars, cookie monsters oatmeal cookies, Telly's iced tea and Oscar the grouch sludgicles.

Here is Eben enjoying his Oscar sludgicle with his friend. This was such a great treat that the kids really enjoyed. They are really spinach Popsicle. I had to make a few batches before the party so I could get the color to stay green but here is my final recipe I came up with.

In a blender puree
2 cups spinach
2 squirts or more of lemon or lime juice
1/2 can or more pineapple in its juice
2-3 ripe bananas (this adds the flavor)

When finished place into molds and freeze. Just as a side note if you add other fruits such as berries they will turn brown. They are best if once you are finished pureeing all the stuff you can add some cut up strawberries, raspberries or blueberries to the mixture (do not stir too much) and then freeze. They will look great speckled all through the Popsicle.

For the cake I decided to do cup cakes so here are our Cookie monster, Big bird and Elmo cup cakes. I also made some mini cup cakes for the smaller kids and just wrote the letter E on them.

These cup cakes were fun to make! I used a basic vanilla cup cake recipe, color coordinating cup cake liners, butter cream frosting, marshmallows and Oreo cookies.

For the treat bags we sent everyone home with Sesame street coloring pages

rolled up with this little note.

Some crayons and of course a couple of suckers.

Best Strawberry shortcake recipe

2010-06-15T13:54:00.002-03:00

So I need to share this recipe with you for strawberry shortcake cause it was the best one I have ever tasted. The biscuits were so sweet and delicious.

The recipe comes from Joy of baking and you can get it here so head on over and whip this up the next time you are craving this dessert!

Explosion Box Album

2010-06-01T11:11:00.005-03:00

I love this new creation for a scrap box! My friend Susan came in to teach a group of wonderful ladies how to put one together so here is what mine turned out like. I put it together for my mother; kind of as a brag box!

Here is the whole box.
remove the cover and ta-da out comes a mini album

Bottom pictures
Bottom pictures

right side

right side
Left side

left side

top pictures

top picture

So there you have it. It only took some coordinating papers, small pictures (which I print off at Wal-Mart using the collage setting) and lots of embellishments! It was a simple way to make a great gift!!

heart shaped pizza

2010-02-26T07:12:00.000-04:00

Ebens favorite food is pizza so for valentines day we decided to make heart shaped pizzas. After we made a big pizza for hubby and I; hubby used the left over dough so Eben could use our heart shaped cookie cutters to make his own pizza.

He had lots of fun cutting out the dough and more fun eating the pizza.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

2010-02-24T06:43:00.000-04:00

The other day I was really craving chocolate chip muffins so I started search Google for a recipe and found this prefect treat in the first hit! After reading the recipe it seemed pretty delicious basically a cake with chocolate chips but then seeing that the recipe had over 350 reviews (all good) I was sold and made the recipe right away.

The recipe can be found here the only thing I did different was I didn't add a whole bag of chocolate chips from the reviews it seemed like a lot so I didn't add that many. Our family LOVED these muffins they taste better then store bought muffins. All they were missing (says hubby) was large sugar crystals on the top!

Hope you enjoy this recipe as well as we did!

Second hand shopping

2010-02-19T06:46:00.000-04:00

So this week me and two friends had the great idea to pack up the van (3 adults and 5 children) and head to a local second hand shop that is about 25-30 minutes away. They only reason we decided to go to this Frenchy's was because they were having a special day where once you get to the register you get to pick a ball out of this box that has a discount on it from 25%-100% off your entire purchase.

So here we are in the van with all the kids I got stuck in the way back with two kids, the middle row had 3 kids and my lovely friends sat comfortably in the 2 front seats.

The kids were so well behaved there. Its a good thing they have a play place for them. I filled our stroller up with lots of things and prayed the entire time to get a big discount.

When it came our turn at the register I drew a ball with 50% off so I got this stuff below (~26 items)for $23

New toddler jacket
New toddler snow pants
toddler shirt
2 pair maternity pants
skirt
3 maternity shirts
14 baby onies/pjs and cute little brown girl hat....just in case.
3 books
1 movie

So days like these usually happen at our second hand stores about once every 3 months or so. They are great days to take advantage of. I mean I was able to get all this stuff for ~ $1.00/ item!!!

For more frugal ideas check out life as mom

chef hat and apron

2010-02-17T07:37:00.002-04:00

Since I love to bake and cook I have someone around the house who just loves to get up on a big chair and help mommy. So for Christmas I thought I would try to make him a little chef hat and apron so he won't get as dirty while cooking with me. I really love how the chef hat turned out (Thanks to my cousin Pamela!!). I followed a free pattern found at you can make this; the pattern called for making the hat out of double weave cotton which is just a stronger cotton so it stands up like a real chef hat but since I found the cotton at a discount store $1.99/yard I just used iron on interfacing to make the hat stiffer. Then Pamela helped me and sewed the pieces together. And thanks to my mom for her patience as I dug through a basket filled with different styles and colors of letters we finally found EBEN to put his name on the front of the hat.

To match his little hat I made an apron for him as well. You can kind of see it here its the colorful alphabet and numbers. I looked a bunch of different patterns and designs on line and just gave it a shot. He really loves to cook with mama now and gets excited to put on his special cooking wear!

For more works for me ideas head on over to we are that family

Homemade Blizzard

2010-02-15T16:39:00.000-04:00

So I am not really back to being 100% normal as I am still not able to meal plan again. So I will just tell you what I have been making. Here is my first little pregnancy creation. A homemade score blizzard.

1-2 cups ice cream
1 crushed up score bar
a little bit of milk

let ice cream get a little soft by letting it sit on the counter for 10-20 minutes. Add just a little bit of milk to it and stir it all together with a spoon. Add in the score bits and enjoy!!!

These were pretty tasty and if you want it to be a little harder you can put it in the freezer for about 20 minutes. Also I read that you can add some chocolate syrup if you would like.

If you enjoy homemade blizzards please share you recipe with us!

Valentines

2010-02-12T06:41:00.000-04:00

Readers please forgive me for being gone for long. Some of you probably don't know but Baby #2 is on the way and for the first trimester nothing much has been happening around the kitchen or the craft room. I have been just trying to make it through the day! I didn't think anyone wanted to read much about eating white toast with peanut butter or cereal.

But now that I am starting to regain some strength and energy I have been getting back into the swing of things.

This is my little guys first year in a little "pre-school" type class so I needed to make some valentines for him to take to his friends.

Mr. Monkey (who is now the little guys bestest friend) has the butter fly valentines which can be found over here at skip to my lou

and the flower can be found here.

For more great valentine ideas check out these links

The long thread

And here

And here at the mother load

And for more frugal ideas head on over here.

Curried Chicken

2009-12-21T14:55:00.003-04:00

This is the best curried chicken that we have ever had!!

Hope you enjoy.

Curried Chicken

1. In a plastic bag, shake chicken pieces in flour, paprika, salt and pepper. (It's supposed to be a whole chicken, cut in pieces with the skin, but I usually use boneless, skinless thighs or breasts as well...you just don't cook it as long.)

2. Fry coated pieces in oil to brown on both sides, remove the chicken and place in a baking pan.

3. To the chicken drippings, add the following: fresh, crushed garlic, one diced red or green pepper, one small diced onion, 4 tablespoons of curry powder or paste (I use medium hot paste), 4 tablespoons flour, 1/4 tsp of cayenne (or more, to taste), 2 cups milk, 1/2 teaspoon thyme, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 1/4 teaspoon ginger, , 2 cups chicken broth, 1 teaspoon lemon juice.

Simmer sauce to a gentle boil and just thickened. Pour over chicken and bake at 350 degrees until tender. Nice over coconut rice.

Eggnog Latte

2009-12-16T10:13:00.003-04:00

Here is a yummy treat to enjoy over the holidays. I think I am a little to addicted to this sweet treat but thats ok; it will only be a holiday treat!!

Recipe and picture come from Savory Sweet Life

For more great holiday ideas check out we are that family