Parade of homes

I want to have these in a little girls bedroom!

This was the funnest boys bedroom!  I loved the firepole and the rock climbing wall up to a little cove near the ceiling

Cute way to have shelves

Don't really like the wall paper but love the dresser

This is something I am going to incorporate into my home!

I want to tile my basement bath tub like this

I want this quote in haileys room

Cute reading corner

Beautiful bedroom coloring 

Fun art room

I love this bedroom!

Beautiful but to elegant for me

Such fun painting!

My favorite room of all

What lucky grandchildren they have.  Here's a little up close in a few of them many stores

4H county fair

Last day of summer

Memories

Our August camping trip up manti canyon

Piano recitals!

Cinnamon Pancakes, yummy!

As you can see I am not a photographer, but these pancakes were so good!  

I found the recipe at justapinch.com but I did make some changes.  There recipe was just to big!  

Pancakes:

3 cups Flour

6 tsp Baking powder

1 tsp Salt

3 cups Milk

3 tbsp Vegetable oil

3 large Eggs, lightly beaten

Combine dry ingredients in one bowl and other in another. Mix each bowl desperately and then combine.  Cook on griddle heated to 325.  After dropping batter on griddle, swirl the filling on batter (as pictured below).

Cinnamon filling:

1/2 cup Butter, melted

3/4 cup Brown Sugar

1 Tbsp Cinnamon

Mix in disposable piping bag

Cream Cheese Glaze:

1/4 cup Butter

2 oz Cream Cheese

3/4 cup Pwdr Sugar

1/2 tsp Vanilla

Mix and glaze over cooked pancakes

(I will use a thinner recipe next time)

My girls and my hubby loved the pancakes.  This recipe was very filling and delicious!  I may try to convert my standard pancake recipe and see how this works with it, but they may be a little to thin.  We'll just have to see.  

Alyssa and her friend Aubrey wanted to do a mini cheer camp at the high school. They met with the cheerleaders and had fun for two days after school.  Let me say Alyssa is my limber child.  While this picture doesn't look good, she does have some great moves.

After their few days of practice, they performed for the half-time show at a TimpView basketball game.  Alyssa is right in the middle Azande she did really good.  She wanted to do a back walk over, when they finished but felt embarrassed so joined the other girls in a kick.

I recorded her doing one of her little tricks in slow motion, here it is:

19 freezer meals in 2 days!

At the beginning of January, I found some wonderful deals on hamburger and chicken at my local grocery store.  As for deals, I mean deals for our day, definitely not real deals.  I think the 93% lean hamburger was $2.99/lb and chicken breast were $1.59/lb.  Anyone living near days market, the hamburger has been on that sale every Monday for the past month.  I'm not sure how much longer that will go on.

My freezer has been free of freezer meals for a few months, so with these "deals" I decided to go to town freezing meals.  When I say 'go to town', I really mean it, in two days I made 19 freezer meals!!!  The recipes were found at random places and changed a little as they were put together.    

It really was easy to create this many meals and it didn't take that long.  Just make sure you have all the supplies and are not having to make last minute runs to the grocery store.  It kills the drive to get it done. You will need to see how many gallon sized freezer bags you will need and how many freezable containers for baked dishes you will need. 

 Monday was my beef day and Tuesday was my chicken day.  It helped by being able to cook all the beef and season it up in only two separate batches.  Just make sure your freezer bags are all pre labeled, labeling them after the food is in doesn't always work the best.  I know from prior experience.  It also helps to keep key ingredients, like vinegar, sugar... out on the cupboards.  

Here is my list:

Taco Soup- 2

Baked Ziti- 3

Mongolian Beef -1 

Beef Stew- 1

Sloppy Joes- 3

Orange Chicken- 2

Chicken Brocolli Alfredo- 1

Maple glazed Chicken- 1 (the only recipe I worry about)

Poppyseed chicken casserole- 1

Cilantro lime chicken- 2

Teriyaki chicken -2

I am not sharing all the recipes right now, because while I want to all taste wonderful, they are all new recipes to me.  I need to try them all out before passing on a recipe that isn't the best.  I have tried 4 of them so far and those I will share.  My favorite so far is the Teriyaki Chicken, it was awesome!  Most of the recipes I made are for the crock pot and the recipes say to thaw before cooking.  I usually will turn the crockpot on high for 2 hours if they are not thawed and then turn it down to low.  

Teriyaki Chicken (label bag: Cook low 6-8 hours, shred chicken and serve over rice)

3 chicken breasts

1 cup Teriyaki sauce (I used Yoshida's brand)

1 cup water

2/3 cup Brown Sugar

3 Garlic Cloves

1/2 tsp minced Ginger

Mix the sauce together good in the bag, then add the chicken breast.  Freeze  

Hawaiian Style Sloppy Joes (label bag: Cook low 3-5 hrs, Serve with bun)

1/2 lb bacon- Cooked

Cook together in 2 T bacon grease

1 lb ground beef

1 med onion, diced

1 green pepper, diced

add & cook another 2-4 minutes

3-4 garlic cloves

1 tsp minced Ginger

Place this in the bag

Add this to bag

3/4 cup Ketchup

2 T Brown Sugar

1 T Apple Cider Vinegar

1/2 tsp Liquid Smoke

1 T Soy Sauce

1/3 cup Pineapple Juice

This is for one recipe, which I tripled (minus the bacon)

Remember this is Hawaiian style and will taste sweeter than traditional sloppy joes.

Orange Chicken (label bag: Cook low 6-8 hours, shred chicken, Serve over cooked rice)

1-1/2 lbs Chicken

1 cup Orange Marmalade

1 cup BBQ Sauce

3 T Soy Sauce

Baked Ziti Penne (label 8x8 container: Bake 350 degrees 30 minutes with foil, 15 minutes without foil)

This recipe makes 2- 8x8 pans

1 lb Penne Pasta - cook 7 minutes
Brown- then add sauce
1 Onion, chopped
1 lb lean Ground Beef
2 jars spaghetti sauce

8 slices provolone cheese
16 oz sour cream
8 ounces Mozzarella cheese
3 T Parmesan cheese

Layer: 1/4 pasta, 1/4 Sauce, 4 Slices Provolone cheese, 1/2 Sour Cream, 1/4 Pasta, 1/2 Mozzarella cheese, and 1/2 Parmesan cheese

Remember this was for 2-8x8 containers.  Thaw before baking.

Abby's Big Day

We have had one excited little girl for the past few weeks!  She made a calendar at home depot kids whatever, the beginning of January.  This calendar is setting right next to her bed and she set it on January 24th, her birthday.  From there she went on to let each of us know all month how many days it was until her birthday.  Then, after her birthday she had a countdown to her next birthday (her friends birthday party)

For her birthday we had Grandpa, Grandma, and her cousins, Jennifer, Ashlee, and Tyler over for dinner and gifts.  Abby and Macey love when their cousins come over.  Macey has something with Tyler, I'm not sure why, but whenever he comes over she has to set on his lap.  She just loves him.  I don't know if she wants to do this because he's Brooke's big brother and she loves Brooke, but anyhow Thank You Tyler for letting her do this!  

Abby is just a typical kid and the highlight of her birthday is opening up her gifts.

She loved the books, clothes and toys she got for her birthday.  Her favorite gift this year was the glow pillow pet.  I really had to search through a lot of different stores for this!  Apparently after Christmas they got rid of them all.

My day was crazy and so I ended up buying a cake for her at the grocery store, bad bad mommy.  Yet I should say I was a good mom to get everything else done during the day and still pulling a party together.

The week of Abby's birthday was a little crazy.  (Well, who am I kidding, all my weeks are getting crazier as my kids get older.) It is her year to have a friend birthday party and so she has really be driving me on the fact that I throw her a fun party.  She came up with a list of 13 girls and has probably handed it to me 10 times during the month, making sure that I knew she WAS having a party.  I finally bought some cheap invitations from the grocery store but there was only 10 in a package so I only let her invite 10 girls.  Whatever happened to the creative mom that makes the invites and decorates everything so fun?   It just didn't happen this year.

Tuesday she and eight little 6-7 year olds, invaded my quiet home.  Well, sometimes I may wish it was quiet, but truly I love the loud laughters all these little girls bring with them.   They had fun with glow in the dark necklace ring tosses, bubble gum balloon pops, rainbow twist nail polish fun, bracelet bingo and 

Mustache mania photo booths!

Abby had a great time and thanks to her big sisters, Hailey and Alyssa, and her Grandma, the party was a hit.  

They had fun cupcakes and, at Abbys request, strawberry milk shakes!

If you notice, for Abby's birthday she wasn't missing any teeth.  She has lost her bottom two front teeth, but she hadn't lost any of her top teeth.  Well for her "big" party she was missing that front tooth, still our cute little ABBY!