Billy the Cavity

Back in December when I attended a Provo District Dental Meeting with Jared, I was cornered into helping with the annual puppet shows during the month of February. February is the National Children's Dental Health Education Month and the Provo District travels from elementary school to elementary school across our county and puts on a 25 minute marionette puppet show.

Of course at the time, I patted my belly and said something like "oh, I wish I could but, you know I'm with child and in February I'll be very pregnant........" However, it was returned with the comment "I've done it for 17 years, several of the years I too was pregnant......"

So, puppet shows I did! I think I went to 9 puppet shows over 4 days. It was a lot of fun and a lot of work. By the final few shows I was singing the songs and dreaming of Billy the Cavity!

It felt great to get involved with the community and to teach some of the elementary kids about the importance of oral health. Thankfully I have great family members who helped me with the kids.

We were thanked at a luncheon at the yummy restaurant Brick Oven where I enjoyed myself immensely chatting with the ladies.....without my kids! Ah, it's the simple things in life that make the work all worth it!

Dental Days

Last week was the Utah Dental Association Conference. I went up for one afternoon and we ran into our good friends the Scholzens. I was able to sit and enjoy an afternoon chatting with Laurie while the guys attended seminars. We later met up and went to dinner and a little cheesy music show. It was such a fun time reconnecting with them.  Made us miss our carefree days of being in dental school and the fun times we had trying to survive four years in Cleveland!

We only live a few hours away from each other but life is life and we rarely see them so this was an extra special treat! Love you guys!

Give Kids a Smile

Last week Jared participated in our local Give Kids a Smile Day. A day where dentists, hygienists and assistants donate their time for needy kids. He had a very busy morning as 9 scheduled dentists didn't show up and the dentists that did saw over 100 kids. 

Valentines Day Projects

I saw this adorable Valentines gift in Family Fun magazine and we made it for Gibson's preschool teachers. We just traced his hands on foam paper, wrote "Hands down, you're the best" and attached it to some body cream I got on sale. Simple, simple!

His Valentines for his classmates are 50% done. His attention span wore out so we'll need to revisit those later in the day. We made those simple too. We cut out hearts from colored paper, stapled some heart shaped fruit snacks to them and Gibson is decorating them with stickers. 


We also made sugar cookies for Jared's office.  It may have taken all day thanks to my helpers but they're delicious and the boys loved taking them and giving them to dad and his friends at work! 

I've included the recipe below. It's from my sister-in-law Jen and it's a keeper. I even over cooked a few batches and they are still soft! Of course sugar cookies wouldn't be as good if you didn't make homemade buttercream frosting so I've posted that recipe too. It's never treated me wrong:) It's a great every occasion recipe. 

Sugar Cookies

 (this recipe is the large recipe, I halved mine today and still got almost 3 dozen large hearts)

8 1/2 Cups Flour

2 t. Baking powder

2 t. Soda

1 1/2 t. salt

1 1/2 t. nutmeg

 

Mix all dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.

 

Cream in mixer

2 cups butter

3 cups sugar

4 t. vanilla

4 eggs

 

Alternately mix in 1 1/2 cup sour cream with dry ingredients

(a little flour, a little sour cream until it is all mixed together)

 

Roll and cut out (I roll mine pretty thick)

 

Bake at 450 for 8-9 minutes.  They are just light brown around the edges when they are done.

Buttercream Frosting

2 cups butter softened

3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1-2 tsp vanilla

3-4 tsp whipping cream {add more until you get desired consistency} 

Mix until smooth and creamy. 

Dinner Done Easy

Within the past hour the temperature has dropped, the sky has darkened and it's now a wintery mess outside. I'm so glad I was feeling lazy this morning and made a crockpot meal! {Since it was so super easy, I made some for Aunt Emilee who's been sick the past few days}

Taco Soup has been a favorite for years. Growing up, there was two meals we could count on if Dad was in charge of making dinner. Pancakes and Taco Soup.  I still have a love for "brinner" {breakfast for dinner} and Taco Soup is a quick easy meal that most likely I always have the ingredients on hand to make.

There's a million recipes out there, this is mine....give or take.

Taco Soup

1lb hamburger cooked with taco seasoning

1 can corn

1 can diced tomatoes

3 to 4 cans beans...whatever I have on hand. Today I used black, kidney and garbanzo and white.

1 can olives, sliced

1 can green chilies {today I used a can of diced tomatoes with green chilies}

Don't drain anything, just open and pour into a crockpot. Simmer on low if you plan ahead or high if you need it done quicker!

Serve with scoop tortilla chips and cheese with a dollop of sour cream! Enjoy.

{retail} THERAPY

The other night I was awoken for the 5th time needing to use the restroom. This time I couldn't go back to sleep so I decided I was hungry. I ate a fruit cup and then had heartburn which left me up until it subsided.....it was then that I started to think.

I started having anxiety that I'm totally unprepared for this new little babe. I know I have 7 weeks left which is plenty of time to get a few outfits and baby stuff but still, the simple fact that I didn't have one outfit, sleeper, diaper, etc. Starting to freak me out.

I immediately started to plan. My plan included a day of shopping with my sister and my mom.  We headed to Park City and spent the afternoon shopping {sales and clearance racks} and filling the car with bag after bag. 

It didn't help the trunk space when the first store we went to {KB Toys} was going out of business and they had these great sandbox toys for $1.50! Score! 

I now feel almost ready to have a baby. I have clothes. I have THE blankie. Gibson and Easton have some new clothes for spring and I scored big on clothes for next fall.

We ended our night with a fabulous Mexican dinner where I completed the night with heartburn.......thinking about it, isn't that how this whole day started???

Oh, Yeah.....I'm a WINNER!

{photo from flipflops and applesauce}

So I "entered to win" at flipflops and applesauce and I totally won! 

I won some great coloring pages and a nifty crayon holder which I couldn't be more excited about. Imagine the possibilities of that thing.....restaurants, church, Jiffy Lube to name a few. 

Yeah for me and yeah for blog giveaways!

Food For Thought
{artwork by Easton. He is for hire}

I sit here waiting for a batch of cookies to finish up their baking process in the oven. I told Jared that I'd make him cookies for work tomorrow and since I have extra frosting from some cookies I made a few days ago, I'm once again making homemade oreos which seem to take longer than the average cookie.....so here I write.

My little basement apartment is quiet. That is other than the dripping coming from the kitchen sink that has been driving me nuts for over six months now. It wouldn't ring in my ear if I hadn't left the faucet turned toward a metal cookie sheet.....oh, the sound of water on metal.

My brain is rambling. I don't think I've finished a complete thought in my head for quite some time tonight. Where do I begin.

Let me begin with something that I honestly have been shaking my head about. I have been making cookies for the past 40 minutes or so. My kitchen is in a "U" shaped with the stove on the left, the sink in the middle and the counter space on the right.  There has been a stepstool at the sink, a toy in the middle, one shoe, a pair of socks and a candy wrapper the ENTIRE time I've been making cookies.  I've tripped over the step stool, I've kicked the shoe around and stood on the candy wrapper. I really don't know what I expect or WHO I expect to remedy the situation but I've gotten aggravated at something that would literally take me 30 seconds to remedy.....

I started a literacy class tonight. It's a class to help parents be more involved with reading to their children and finding ways to make reading fun and to read in such a way as your children will love to read and learn to read easier {it's free in my school district so if you want more info, let me know, I'll pass it along....comes with free books, free food and free childcare! Need I say more}    Anyway, tonight the main thing that stuck out was that 85% {eighty-five percent} of your child's desire to read is based on the FATHER! If they see their dad reading, they are 85% more likely to pick up a book and read! Interesting eh?

Back to laziness. I wear compression socks for some vericose veins I'm sporting due to being pregnant. I never understood compression socks until I had to put them on. I'm talking 20 minutes with a break to breath is what it takes me. Seriously.  I was too lazy to put them on today. I'm currently paying the price for my laziness. Burning, aching legs folks......not fun.  

So I've up and joined Facebook and I still don't "get it" but it's been highly entertaining on the nights I can't sleep or I'm stuck being silent because I have a sleeping child and I live in a tiny, tiny apartment and the sound of me sneezing causes him to stir.  I have loved reconnecting with faces from the old neighborhood growing up, high school, Cleveland, etc. but the thing I have really loved is learning people's ages!  You know, there's always the person you meet that you KNOW is older than you. Wiser than you. Of course, you never dare ask but she's been married longer, her kids are older than yours, she's just more mature or just has the "look" about her that she's older than you are and then you find out that your the same age or she's younger! Makes me want to instant message my BFF and scream "did you know so and so was born in '81 which makes her 3 years younger than me" Fascinating people. Just fascinating. 

Honey Bunches of Oats with chocolate clusters. Delicious! You should try.

Speaking of trying.  Back to homemade oreo cookies. A few weeks ago my sister-in-law was making them and she wanted to double the recipe {since they are so yummy} but we only had one chocolate cake mix on hand. So, we {I can totally use we because I sat and watched her the entire time} decided to try a different flavor of cake mix. I had strawberry so we used the same recipe just switched things up a bit and put a strawberry cake mix in instead of the called for chocolate. Yummy!  I don't know why I hadn't tried that before. So tonight, I'm totally switching it up and made a batch of lemon. They are going to be delicious, I just know it.

Homemade Oreo's

1 box devils food cake mix

3/4 cup shortening

2 eggs

Roll into balls {or use cookie scoop if you're lazy like me} and bake for 8 minutes. Let cool completely and use cream cheese frosting in the middle of two cookies.

The cookies are now done and cool enough for me to frost. Jared is home from the gym and Jay Leno....I mean the Simpsons.....wait, King of Queens......oh, Jared has the remote,  so my brain is once again rambling.

I shall now go move the stepstool, frost cookies and elevate my burning, achy legs.