Best Ever Garage Sale FInd

I paid $2 for this cute little guy! My kids love to do puppet shows, but more especially it's something for BayLee to do in my house filled with Boy's Toy's. We had homemade puppets until just recetly when Kris loaned us a bag full of cool ones! Thanks to Kris! I love this picture with Piper peaking out! Too cute!

Thriftstores and yard sales are so much fun! What a great way to be frugal and oh the treasures you will find. Sometimes I have to look beyond the appearance to what it may become. Bring it home, clean it up, paint it, fix it and you have an amazing treasure!

Easy Cup Memory Game

This was so easy! I got the idea from World Preschool Mom. This cost me $2 to make!! I went to the dollar store and bought 1 pkg. of cups and 1 pkg of 2 sheet stickers. We used Pirate of the Carribean stickers. All you do is stick the stickers in the top of the cups.

Tyson loved looking inside the cups for the match.

He also loved setting them up.

And he loved cleaning them up.

And what a space saver!! They stack right up and take up very little space. Super fun and super easy. We also used them to build towers, knock them over and my 1-year-old loved just stacking them inside of each other. The kids played with them all day, in fact as I type the neighbor boy, Carsyn and Tyson are playing memory!!! Loving it!

Just a Fun Cooking Idea

I found a great sight that you should all go check out. It's called Freeze Happy! Does the name give you a clue, what it might be about? It's all about freezer meals. Something that I know a lot of people are interested in. The recipe's itself are worth it, but I do lilke the idea of having a casserole or two tucked away for those off-the-wall day's when you just need a break from cooking. (Those seem to be my normal days anymore!)

Emilie started to do some research on this subject and shortly afterwards, her sister was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. So she set out to help by making up some freezer meals and made up enough main dishes, side dishes and desserts to last 6 weeks!!! Amazing. This is a fairly new sight, I belive she just started it up in June, but what a find!! Go check it out.

I stumbled across this blog while checking out My Crazy Life. She has a fun little contest going on right now, she is holding a cookie recipe contest! Two lucky winners will recieve a digital copy of her personal recipe album! And the girls crafty so you know it's gotta be cute!

6 Braids into a Messy Bun

I had so much fun doing this little hair-do!!!! I am so glad that I have a little girl that loves to get her hair done. :) She doesn't really like the process but she loves it once she is done.
Hair tip:Give them something to play with while you do it. Toddlers love brushes and toothbrushes. I let BayLee bring her barbies to the bathroom and she does their hair while I do hers.
Anyways, First: I put mousse in her hair (did this wet). I then made six little braids around the crown of her head. Using little elastics for each braid.
Second: Pulled remaining hair into pony tail then added the braids into the ponytail.
Third: Made a messy bun and used pomeade on the bun and curled loose ends. Finished it by putting a ribbon around the bun.

Braids into pony tail

Messy Bun
Front view.

Taking Water Colors to a New Level

I am always trying to think of different ways to do crafts outside the box. BayLee is my little artist and is always wanting to do art. She spent two hours doing this yesterday and will probably want to do it again today. I had done this with Logan when he was her age but it just became a mess. :) It just washes right off when she was done and she did it all on her own. After each drawing was done she would just spray it with the water bottle and dry it off with the towel. I think she liked it because normally you wouldn't say to your child,"Hey, why don't you go color on the window". So, step out of the box and let your child do water colors on the window. Just make sure it isn't acrylic paint-learned that the hard way. Doesn't come off as well!!! :)

Materials: watercolors, paintbrushes, cup with water, spray bottle, towel
A serious artist at work
Mom is letting me do what??????
I think this was her favorite part!!

Wheat Bread

Okay, so I posted white bread yesterday, I thought I would post my wheat bread recipe. I tweaked several diffrent recipes until I came up with this and this is the bread that I prefer. It's more hardy and holds up better for sandwhiches or just even butter and honey.

Wheat Bread
(2 batch recipe)

1/2 cup warm water
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. Yeast

Brew together until bubbly

3 cups warm water
1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar
1/4 to 1/2 cup canola oil
2 Tbsp. Dough Enhancer (optional)
4 cups wheat flour or ground red wheat
white flour

Brew yeast in warm sugar water. In large bowl combine water, sugar, oil and dough enhancer. Add wheat flour and stirl. Then add yeast mixture. Add enough white flour to get dough manageable. I do leave it a littel sticky and add more flour after it has risen the first time. Raise until double. Bunch down and shape into loaves and place in greased bread pans. Let raise until bread it just starting to show over sides of pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Brush tops with butter for soft top.

This recipe is very easy and very flexible. You can adjust sugar and oild depending on you liking. You might could even use applesauce in place of the oil, but I have yet to try that out.
Good luck!!!

Homemade Bread and Freezer Jam

I love homemade bread. I usually make bread every Sunday. I usually make wheat bread. So it's kind of heavy, but it holds up well when making sandwiches and when you drench it in honey!

My kids won't eat homemade bread! J.D. calls it fake bread and asks for the store bought. So I thought I would make a couple of loafs of white bread and see if I could trick them into eating it, because it is still healthier than what you get at the store. No such luck! This was really good bread, but I prefer my wheat bread. This is well worth trying though. Mine came out a little too fluffy, it wouldn't even hold up to putting butter on it, but I did add dough enhancer, which it did not call for, so that may have been it. Anyway if you feel adventurous go ahead and try to make some up. The jam is absolutely divine and my kids did like the jam, alot!!

Basic White Bread Recipe:

1 & 1/4 cups warm water

1 Tbsp. yeast

2 Tbsp. Canola Oil

2 Tbsp. sugar

2 tsps. salt (I never add salt to my baked goods, but it calls for it)

3 to 3 1/2 cups white flour or ground white wheat

Add sugar to warm water. Add yeast and let sit until bubbles. (If you use SAF Yeast you can just add yeast with dry ingredients). Add oil, salt, and 2 cups of flour to yeast mixture. Mix by hand or by mixer for 5 - 10 minutes adding a little flour at a time until dough is light and pliable. Make sure dough is a little sticky rather than dry! Place in a covered bowl in a warm place until dough has doubled in bulk. After this rising, punch down and form dough into desired size. Let rise again until double in bulk and bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 20 to 30 minutes until light brown. This recipe will make 1 loaf.

Strawberry Freezer Jam:

5 cups diced, uncrushed fresh strawberries (I used frozen ones that I let thaw and it turned out)

2 cups sugar

3 Tbsp. clear jel

1 pkg. unsweetened strawberry Kool-aid

1/2 cup light Karo syrup

Mix sugar, Instant Clear Jel and Kool-aid well. Add to washed and diced berries. Put in Karo syrup and stir until well blended. put into containers and freeze.

Fabulous Websites to Help You Spend Less

I love saving money! I must admit that I am a thrift store and garage sale shopping mom.

One place that I cringe every time I visit is the grocery store. FOOD IS SO EXPENSIVE! If you don't already know, I am a food storage nut. I started selling for Alison's Pantry about a year ago and have got into buying bulk and have recently really started to watch my coupons. You can save a ton if you do it right.

I have found several websites that will help you save money when shopping at the grocery store. I had to share these with you.

Way More 4 Way Less ~ What a great blog. They have lots of ideas on saving money, but the amount of resources they have available for coupons is AMAZING!!

Pinching Your Pennies ~ You have to sign up to access this sight, but it is free. They have forums where people post the best deals of the week and where you can find coupons to save you a little more money!

Coupon Cravings ~ Another great coupon sight.

Box Tops 4 Education ~ Agian, you have to sign up but it's free. This website let's you print off coupons for items that carry Box Tops. It also let's you track how much money your local school has made from box tops! Kind of neat.

Thanks to all you ladies and gents who run these sights and for sharing your knowledge and insight with us!! Now lets all go save some money!!

Brownsugar Chewies

Oh my heavens!!! This is such an easy recipe!!! I found a new cooking site today and it has so many great ideas. I REALLY needed a quick recipe for something yummy to eat while I read Twilight and this was perfect. You should go check Taste Buds out and you will find so many other recipes I can't wait to try. Thank goodness for eachothers recipes to make our lives complete. :)

1/4 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray an 8-inch square pan with cooking spray.In a small saucepan, melt the butter. Turn off the heat, add the brown sugar and stir until smooth. Stir in the egg. Stir together the flour and baking powder and stir into the brown sugar mixture. Stir in the vanilla. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes. When cool, dust the top with a sifting of confectioners' sugar.

This is from a post that I did in March on my family blog, but thought it would be a good to share it here on this blog. It's a great activity for boys.

Isn't it funny how boys can be entertained with a simple paper airplane? J.D. and his grandad Ward used to play with paper airplanes every Sunday when we would go and visit him. Grandad would save the advertisements out of the paper and build airplanes for J.D. I hope this is something J.D. will always remember about him.

Mine are probably nowhere as cool as Grandads. After several failed attempts to make a plane that would actually fly and withstand a 3-year-old, I finally got on the internet to find out how to make one that would fly. And amazingly enough these did fly very well. The boys spent the whole afternoon playing with their paper planes. For all you other moms who have boys and want to impress them with your airplane flying abilities, check out this link for a short little video that walks you through the process step by step.

Spiderman Memory Game

Tyson loves Spiderman! Loves him. I wanted to find a way to put that love into a game that he could play and something was affordable. One of my favorite websites is Executive Homemaker. It is full of great ideas and free printables. You have to sign up in order to get the printables, but it's free!!! They have lots of ideas for birthday parties and crafts for kids. I printed this memory game off on white cardstock, cut them out and contact papered them and we now have a way fun spiderman memory game. I know she also has transformers, High School Musical, the American Dolls, and I am pretty sure there is lots of other ones.

Tyson loves this game. He carried it around for weeks after I first made it. Lot's of fun!!!

Thank Heavens for Crayola!

BayLee came home so excited yesterday from school! She had earned five stickers meaning she had been "good" at school for five days. Mrs. Murphy lets them choose from the treasure box and boy was BayLee thrilled with her treasure. I am going to get her more of this stuff. It is awesome. The fingerpaint is magic and messy free. I have seen the markers but haven't seen the finger paint. I think it is great for kids that are younger (honestly-probably to young for Bay but she loved it.). It was really easy for her to do all on her own. From getting it ready, to doing it, and the cleanup. Thank heavens for Crayola!!!!!!!

The pack she got only had two colors.
Happy Artist

Bemboszoo and Bubble Wrap

What a fun sight! I found this over at I Never Grew Up. I am doing this for Tyson today. It's a sight that has the whole alphabet listed. When you click on a letter it names an animal word to go a long with it. Then the letters morph into a picture of the animal. Amazing! I had a lot of fun playing on it and I am an adult. Check it out here!

Okay, I had to come back and add one more link. I have been trying to teach Tyson, who is 3 how to use a mouse on a computer. Bemboszoo is awesome! We have done that today for quite a while, but here is one I completely forgot about. Check out this Bubble Wrap Page. What kid doesn't like popping bubble wrap? Tyson did this today for about 30 minutes and he was giggling and every time he would pop one he would say, Spiderman, Peter Parker, Venom, Cops, Tyson and lot's of other random words. So cute and so much fun. How boring would life be if we didn't have our amazing kids?

Vanilla Cinnamon Rolls

One of the things that I love about blogging, is that you find so many talented woman out there who love to share their lives. I found a fun blog called My Crazy Life. She has lot's of great ideas for little girls hair and recipes. OH MY, her recipes. I seriously printed off every single recipe she had. I had to try these out Saturday morning and was shocked at how good they turned out. How pretty they were!! I love it when food looks good.

The reason I had to try it was because they have vanilla pudding in the dough. Yes, you heard right, vanilla pudding. They were the moistest cinnamon rolls I have ever had. I make cinnamon rolls off and on, but nothing like these. I have found a recipe that I will use forever.

Here they are all warm and gooey, with the divine frosting on top. J.D. didn't really like the frosting, but everyone else did. They were gone so quick. I only wish it were a little quicker to make them, but well worth the sacrafice of time! Click on this link to go directly to the recipe for these cinnamon rolls. She even has all of her recipes done up way cute on digital scrapbook pages. Oh, she's cute!! I love her sight and will visit it often.

Teething....Arg......

I have entered the teething stage with Mia. I have to admit something. It has been six years since I have had to deal with teething, or with anything baby related so I have felt like a first time mom and research every little thing to death. Fevers, sleeping too much, not sitting up at six months, not rolling over at four months, not gaining enough weight (Mia not me- I am gaining plenty of weight. :) . Well, I have now moved on to the teething. I know the time is here because my once happy go lucky sleep through the night baby has turned into a crying, hold me, wake up in the night baby. Her bottom two teeth come right to the surface and then disappear, I am not kidding. So, we have now moved into the ,what can we do to sooth her, stage. So in my alotted time for blog surfing (which gets longer and longer each day) I searched for teething stuff. This article was awesome. It answered almost everything. So, if you are going through this right of passage, check out the article!!!

Fun Hairdo

First I parted the hair down the middle and put one side in a clip while I worked on the other side. I made a topsy-turvy ponytail first by pulling a little lock of hair into a pony tail, split in half below the rubberband, tuck the pony tail through the split and pull through (will take picts next time). then pulled that into the rest of the hair and made a ponytail. I then braided the ponytail and started all over on the other side.
View from behind.

And from the front!! Such a cute girl!!!!

Please forgive me on the quality of this post. This is my first "hair" post and I thought of it AFTER I was done. So the step by step photos were an after thought. It was really super easy and looked really cute. BayLee hates her hair curled so "Updos" are very popular in our house. I want to do more of these kind of posts because I know I am always looking for new ideas and love to share the ones I find. Next time I hope to put flowers at the top of braid.

Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

When I got married I got a fabulous cookbook from my friend Lindsay and her dad. It's called the Rob and Maud Gleave Family cookbook! I LOVE IT. I will have to take a picture and post it one day because it's in sad shape, because I use it all the time. It originated in Piute County, Utah. A lot of my favorites are found in this book. This is where I found the BEST sugar cookie recipe ever.

I needed sugar cookies for my young women's lesson the other day and they were so yummy I thought I would share.

Cream Together:
1 c. shortening (I use real butter)

2 eggs

2 c. sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

Add:

1 c. thick sour cream

2 tsp. soda

6 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp. salt

Roll out dough and make sugar cookies. Bake at 425 degrees for 12 minutes.

Buttercream Frosting

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

2 Tbsp. milk

Beat butter at medium-high speed until creamy.

Add powder sugar and beat to combine. Add the vanilla and milk and beat until combined.

These make the softest most yummy sugar cookie ever!! I swear that it is the sour cream. You can also use this dough to make candy cane cookies at Christmas time. Just color half the dough red with food coloring.

What's your favorite sugar cookie recipe? Post it as a comment and share it with us!!

Ranch Chicken

I didn't take any pictures of this meal because the presentation wasn't too great. But the taste was awesome. This is one of my familys favorite meals actually. Instead of using egg to coat the chicken before the breading you use ranch salad dressing. It is wonderful and a huge hit with the younger Dovers. SUPER EASY too.

1 lb. chicken tenders
1/4 ranch dressing
1/3 cup dry bread crumbs (I prefer Italian seasoned ones of course)
2 Tablespoons olive oil

Dip chicken into dressing, then coat with bread crumbs. In 10-inch skillet heat oil over medium-high heat. Cook chicken in oil 12-15 minutes, turning once, until outside is golden brown and juice is no longer pink.

I serve this with stuffing and steamed brocolli. We always fight over the last piece. Enjoy.

Chunky Crayons

What a fun project!! I originally got this idea off of Make and Takes. I wanted a fun project to do with Tyson today, and so we picked this one. If you have a minute check out Make and Takes as she has a ton of great ideas.

What you need is all your old crayons. This is a great time of year to do this project because Crayons are so cheap and easy to replace at this time of year. You'll want to tear the paper off each crayon and break them up and put assorted colors in you muffin tins. Be sure to spray your tin first with vegetable oil. I FORGOT to do this and it made it really hard to get the crayons out.

I let Tyson put some in a bag and use the rolling pin to smash them up.
It was a lot harder to get the paper off the crayons than I thought it would be. I finally took a paring knife and used that to carve a thin strip of the paper off and then Tyson could peel the paper off easily.

This is prior to baking. Sorry it's so blurry, but I didn't realize it until I loaded the photo's. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Place tray in oven and let crayons melt for about 7 to 8 minutes until melted. It happens pretty fast.

Here is our finished product. It does take a little while for them to cool enough to take them out of the pan. The edges are chipped because I forgot the vegetable oil. We had a lot of fun and it is a fairly easy project. I wish I would have waited to do it with J.D. also, because I think he would have had a lot of fun. A 3-year-olds attention span is only so big.

Stretching Your Food Dollars

Aren't food prices getting ridiculous? I started to get into food storage about a year ago. Food storage is no longer a matter of convenience, but a matter of necessity. Check out this article at Deseret News for 101 tips for stetching your food dollars.

One of the best tips I can give you is to cook at home. Pull out your cookbooks and try new recipes and experiment.

Fried Ice Cream

If you haven't noticed Mandee and I both like to cook. I think there will be lot's of recipes on this blog, but we also do craft. We are working on posting a few easy and fun craft idea's in the next week or so! Enjoy and please leave comments. We would love to know what you think!!!

This is the yummiest dessert I have ever had. I can't take credit for it, because I got it from my friend Jayma. She made this for a fireside that we did at church and it was divine. I made this up for my mother-in-law's birthday party the other night and everyone loved it. It's so easy to make and a good recipe for a crowd.

Fried Ice Cream

2 cubes butter

2 cups brown sugar

4 cups rice crispies

2 cups walnuts, chopped

2 cups coconut

1 gallon vanilla ice cream

Melt butter, mix with sugar, add all other dry ingredients, mix well. Press 2/3 of mixture in the bottom of the bar pan. Slice ice cream and layer on top of mixture. Add remaining mixture on top of ice cream. Freeze. Cut into squares and top with ice cream toppings.

We use strawberry, chocolate and Carmel toppings to put on top of this. The Carmel is divine with it. We let everyone choose their own toppings. I should have gotten some pictures of it when it was ready to serve, but I was to worried about eating it, because it is so good!!! It makes a ton so it's a good chance you will have left overs.

Better Than_ _ _Cake-You fill in the blank

Finished Project
Happiness is licking the bowl. I was trying to be sneaky in the kitchen by keeping the bowl to myself but after I licked the spoon two times I felt really guilty. So I called for them to finish the job. It won't be to many years before they won't be around to lick the bowl. They liked the bowl of stuff but weren't too keen on the cake. Silly kids.

1 box devils food cake mix

caramel topping

Heath candy bars(Crushed up)
chocolate cool-whip

Bake cake according to directions. Let cool for a few minutes. Poke holes with fork all over the cake. Drizzle caramel over top. so it starts to melt into the cake. Put it in the fridge to completely cool. Add cool whip to top of cake and top with heath candy bar.

Frog Eye Salad

I will warn you all now I love to cook and LOVE to try new recipes. I finally got up the nerve to make a Frog Eye Salad. I found this salad at http://www.justmade.blogspot.com/. A great site-check it out. Next time I make it I will eliminate the pineapple chunks. My kids would have eaten the salad if they wouldn't have been in it. BayLee had fun helping me make this and loved licking the mixing bowl when we were done. I know this is popular in Utah so I thought I would share it with people that may not have heard of it before. Enjoy. Perfect for a barbeque. Even better the next day!!!!! Enjoy.

1 cup ronzoni acini pepe, uncooked
2 -11 0z cans of mandarin oranges,drained
20 oz pineapple chunks, in juice, divided
1 3/4 cup milk
2 cups cool whip, thawed
1/4 cup sugar
1 small box vanilla pudding
8oz pineapple, crushed
3 cups miniature marshmallows
1/2 cup flaked coconut

Cook pasta according to package directions; drain. Rinse with cold water to cool quickly/drain well. Drain juice from pineapple chunks, reserving 1/4 cup. In large bowl, add reserved juice, milk, sugar, and pudding mix; beat with wisk or electric mixer until well blended, about 1 to 2 minutes. Add pasta to pudding mixture; stir gently. Let stand 10 minutes. Add crushed pineapple and chunks, oranges, 2 cups whipped topping, marshmallows, and coconut;mix gently and thoroughly. Cover; refrigerate until cold. 12 servings (about 1 cup each)

Rainbow Play Dough Cookie Pops

These cookies were so fun to make. I saw the idea on the My Sister Cucina. We made these on Friday and they turned out so cute. We originally started to make them in the Lollipop form, but Tyler wanted to change them up and made flowers of them instead. Then we added a few sprinkles and Tyler wanted to add chocolate chips. They were pretty tasty, but I think I might just use my plain old sugar cookie recipe, which I will be posting here later this week. Check out this link to see how to make these awesome cookies!

Greatest Easel

BayLee was given this Easel from Grandma and Grandpa Boggess for her fifth birthday. Let me tell you, this is the greatest easel EVER!!! It comes with a great big roll of paper that you can drape over the top, it has a whiteboard, a chalkboard and it opens creativity levels up. We have painted, colored, done math, spelling. She loves to play "school" with her dolls with it. My parents got it at IKEA (BEST store ever) and the best part about it is it folds up really well and makes storing it way easy. Check it out at www.ikea.com. What would we do without art projects????

Painting With Pudding

This is a simple and easy project to do. The other day we were bored so we mixed up a batch of Vanilla pudding. We then separated it into four bowls and added food coloring to each bowl to give us an assortment of colors. As you can see Piper had a lot of fun squishing hers in her hands.

And then we finger painted. We didn't get the assortment of colors that we wanted because each of the food colorings mixed differently with the slightly yellow pudding.

What a fun easy boredom buster. The kids had a lot of fun making a big mess and eating it to.

Welcome to Our Blog

Who are ManDee and Brandy? We are two best-friends who are also mom's. ManDee has 3 children, Logan who is 10, BayLee who is 6 and Mia who is 7 months. Brandy is the mom of J.D. who is 6, Tyson who is 3, and Piper who is 14 months.

We have been friends for 8 years. We have been through a lot together. Friendship is one of the best blessings that we have in this crazy world. Being a woman is hard. It's hard because the expectations are so high and do you know who places those expectations upon women? We do!! We look at other women and whether they be moms or not we compare ourselves to them. We compare houses, clothes, kids, careers, money, and everything from A to Z.

We are both blog addicts. We love to find crafty ideas and we both LOVE to cook! Originally the idea was that we would start a cooking blog together, but there is so much involved in being a mom that we decided to share our crafts, hobbies, recipes, and lots of fun with you.

We each have family blogs and you will find those links on the side bar. We have also listed links for women who inspire us. Who bake, who play, who craft, who have good idea's. There is a little of everything here. And thus the name of our blog, Some of This and Some of That, because that is what you will find here.

We are excited to be sharing this blog with you and hope you find it fun and entertaining and also that you find lots of good ideas to make being a mom easier and fun!