Monday, February 13, 2012

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to You!  These were the goodies that were requested this year by Luke.  He was very specific... pink hearts with smiley faces on them!  Cute, right?!  We had fun making the cookies and filling the chocolate heart molds!  Hope your day is filled with lots of sweets and treats!


Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Lego Organization

 
I just discovered these photos so I just had to document them because, quite frankly, I'm able to laugh about it now.  At the time that I discovered the mess I wanted to cry.  It all began in early November last year.  It was an innocent enough request on my part.  I had asked Luke to go to his room and clean up his Legos so I would be able to walk through his room without causing serious damage to my feet.  Well, that night I went up to say goodnight and this is when I discovered that instead of picking up he decided to 'once and for all' organize his Legos!  The first problem was that his idea of beginning the organizational process was to dump all of his Legos out in the center of his room.  The second problem is that his thought process didn't go any further than this phase.  The third problem was that within days of this Lego Dumping incident our family was in the midst of a very-serious-extended-family-crisis, so organizing Legos was put on the lowest priority list!  This Lego pile stayed right where it was for about three weeks before we were able tackle it!   

Soooo, after a little measuring and a few small plastic tote purchases this is how Luke and I spent our four day Thanksgiving holiday!  It doesn't seem like it would take this long, but I tracked it and it took us approximately nine hours!  There's actually one more large tote that is filled with all of those miniscule pieces that I refused to divide upWe're both much happier and, after living with this color coded organizational system, I would highly recommend it! 

  

We also had two of these hardware organizers that weren't being used.  We thought they were perfect for all of the Lego body parts, weapons and accessories.

These containers happen to be two sided, so we're using that side for tires and wheels.

This one still needs to be organized, but you get the idea.






Sunday, December 25, 2011

Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies (Day Eleven)

Okay, this is another super simple cookie, but they are soooooo delicious and easy to make that I had to whip out a batch for Santa!  I got this recipe from a fellow drama mama when we were working the concessions booth during the KLHS run of the production of Phantom of the Opera this past spring.  Her m&m cookies were so popular that we made her keep bringing them each night.  They were a huge seller!  Since the spring, I have probably made these cookies at least six or seven times!

m&m Cookies


1c shortening
1c brown sugar
½ c sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 ¼ c flour
1 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
1 bag of m&m’s (recipe said 1 ½ cups but I used a lot more!) 
Blend shortening  & sugars.  Beat in vanilla & eggs.  Mix dry ingredients together.  Add sugar & egg mixture.  Stir in ½ c m&m’s.  Decorate with rest.  So here is the trick – you literally cover the entire blop of dough with m&m’s.  It looks like you could just put 5 or so on top and it will be fine, but the cookies spread when they cook so they look way better if you just cover them with the M&M’s.   Bake 375 degrees.  Normal size cookies I only do for about 8 or 9 minutes – we like them soft!  If you want them really big use ¼ cup of dough per cookie – the batch will only make about 12 or so this way.  If you make them smaller like I did the recipe will yield about 4 dozen.


Christmas Wishes...

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!