The next 4 pages!

This little book has been so fun to make! Here are the next 4 pages. Derrick helped me figure out a pocket for the extra pieces. He said to put two pieces of paper together, laminate the sheet, then cut it in half. It created 2 half pockets. Perfect!

"Five Little Speckled Frogs"Super Hero page. A Batman suit, and a suit to change into.

I love these dinosaurs!
A fairy tale page. When Kaylee gets older there will be lots more dress options :)
Aaron had a great time playing with this morning and will be bringing it to church today. Stay tuned for more pages!

Cardstock Busy Book!

I have been wanting to make my kids a "Busy Book" FOREVER! I saw this book and it is so beautiful! She took so much care hand stitching around every page. But who am I kidding? I would never have time to do all of that. Even if I did, I'd get burned out really quick and never finish the book.

The other day I let Kaylee play with our Family Night Board. She loved taking the velcro shields off and on and I got the idea to make my busy book with cardstock! No sewing involved and by using my cricut to cut out the shapes, I'd save TONS of time!

Here are the first 4 pages. I have about 100 more that I want to do, lol. It will be slow going with 3 little ones and when Kaylee is awake it is virtually impossible to work on it, but it will be fun. The ones I will be working on next will be a super hero page, a princess page, a knight page, a leprechaun page, a farm page, and many more. General Conference is coming up next weekend, so it would be nice to have some more finished before then for the kids to work on!

Nativity Scene, Clock, Stop light, and a Halloween page. Each page is laminated and has velcro attached to the pieces.

I need to figure out some sort of bag/envelope to keep the extra pieces in for pages like this that have lots of options. I am going to put the book together with rings. It may end up being 2 or 3 books since it will be really thick. But I like that they won't be permanently bound in the book. I can take the rings off and the kids can take turns passing the pages around. Kaylee is already loving these pages. She especially likes the stoplight one.
Our dining room will look like this for awhile, but that's ok---as long as I am actively working on something, a small disaster area is tolerable, lol.

Fun with m&ms!

Aaron and I had fun with m&ms this morning. He has an alphabet chart and when he learns all of his letters he gets to go to the Dollar Tree store and pick something out. "M" was the last letter on the chart! First he dumped out his m&ms.
Then made a chart. One line for each color.

Sorted by color, then counted each line.

We had more blue candies than any other color (17) and only 5 brown ones.
The best part? Eating them! Educational and a snack all in one!

Kid's Cakes

We have two September birthdays in our family, so it is busy! I took a cake decorating class at Joann's in the beginning of the year. Wilton levels 1-3 and it has come in handy many times since then! I have always had fun making cakes and have always made them for my kid's birthdays, but now that I actually know how to do it right---it makes it SO MUCH EASIER!

This little ladybug cake was for my Kaylee-bug. She turned 1! I used an 8" square for the base. Fudge marble cake filled with fudge frosting. Iced in homemade butter cream and then covered in marshmallow fondant. I made fondant balls for the border.

The ladybug is a 6" round cake filled with more batter than normal for a domed look. I used a serrated knife to shape it even more after that. The head is half of a cupcake. Then star tipped the whole thing. It was a very simple design and was a lot of fun to make. I love the bright colors. Her party is tomorrow night and what a mess she will be! I am going to slide the ladybug cake off of the base and that will be her individual cake and everyone else will eat the base.

Dallin had a Super Mario bash. I got the idea for this cake here. She did it in butter cream, but I decided to do it in marshmallow fondant since I'm not that great at icing in butter cream. I'm not that great with fondant either, but there was going to be so many things on the cake that I figured I could cover my mistakes pretty easily.

The base is 2 10" rounds, filled with fudge frosting for a total of 4 layers. The top is 2 6" rounds, another 4 layers. I purchased the decorations on e-bay. The kids LOVED the cake! It was more time consuming than the ladybug, and a little more nerve-wracking covering two cakes in fondant, but it was good practice and the ladybug cake ended up being easier to cover. Practice, practice, practice!

A Couple of Fall decorations...

Call them whatever you want: apples, pumpkins, or gourds. I thought they were cute! I got the idea out of the Family Fun Magazine, October issue.
Aaron stamped our Fall banner and Dallin wrote out the letters. It was fun to make, and it makes our foyer look festive :)

The softest blanket on the planet...

(Of course I can't get this picture to turn around. Oh well!)

Kaylee is obcessed with all things soft. She loves the boy's blankets, piles of towels as I am folding laundry and pillows. She'll stop whatever she was doing and take a break to lay on something soft. For her birthday I decided to make her a blanket. The softest blanket that I could possibly make. I went to Joann's twice to get the fabric. I saved my coupons so that I could get the fabric 40% off. It was $13/yard and that would add up even for a small blanket.

The front is a white minky dot and snuggle flannel in pastel pink with elephants. The back is...well, I'm not sure what you'd even call it, but it is heavenly. People in line at the fabric counter were talking about it, lol. I made her a tiny pillow with the extra backing fabric which she found before her birthday. She loved carrying her pillow wherever she went. The blanket is waiting until her party on Friday night.

I hate making blankets, especially quilting. So I usually opt for tying instead. Even then, my skills have something to be desired. I love sewing, but for some reason blankets...not so much. This one turned out cute, even with it's flaws. I hope she loves it!

Canning Apple Pie Filling

We went back to the apple orchard for another 40 pounds of apples yesterday! This time to make apple pie filling. It was pretty simple to do! It was my first time and I made 12 quarts + 3 pints. As with anything new, there is always trial and error. Next time I will pack the apples in a lot more. I thought they were, but as you can see, they are floating. So next time I'd change that. I only used cinnamon to spice mine since that is how I make my apple pies.

I had a little left over so I put the apples in small ramekins, topped it with sauce and a little crumb mixture. I baked it at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or so (until it was nice and bubbly). Fast and easy dessert!

I decided to decorate my kitchen with my finished jars. It seemed like a great idea, but now I don't want to eat them! They look so festive for fall, so maybe we'll wait until December to start using the filling :)

I still have 25 pounds of Jonathan apples, so I think I will make more applesauce and also some apple slices to freeze. I just LOVE this time of year!

Raspberries!

We went and picked raspberries yesterday! It was a lot of fun and there were stained fingers, faces, and shirts afterwards :) Kaylee especially enjoyed smashing the berries in her fingers before eating them. This is one of my favorite things about living in Ohio. FRUIT! Fresh picked! We go to the same fruit farm for apples several times a year. I am going this Friday to get apples to can for apple pie filling. I've been wanting to do it ever since my friend told me that she makes it for her family! We've made lots of applesauce this year as well.

Tonight I made a batch of freezer jam---the no-cook kind! Talk about easy! Just mash the berries, add sugar (way less sugar than regular jam recipes), let it sit 15 minutes. Then add the pectin and stir for 3 minutes. Let set another 5 minutes and then ladle into the jars. Easy as that! I bought the BALL canning packet for no-cook freezer jam. So delicious!

Teddy Bread

My sister posted a picture of the cutest sourdough bear on her blog that a friend had brought her kids when she visited in San Francisco. It was so cute and I knew my kids would LOVE one! Nothing compares to San Francisco sourdough, but since I've never made sourdough (something I'd like to try soon) we used a regular yeast dough recipe. I made a batch of Portuguese Sweet Bread dough then let it raise an hour and a half. The recipe is a bread maker recipe, but since my breadmaker kicked the dust awhile ago, I made the dough in my kitchenaid. The only difference with the dough is I warmed the milk, added the sugar and yeast and let it proof for 10 minutes.

I separated the dough into 2 sections (1 for each boy) then divided the smaller sections into pieces for the head, ears, body, nose, and limbs. The boys had fun putting their bears together. Then we let them raise another 40 minutes, brushed liberally with an egg wash, and baked at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. The bread turned out PERFECT! The boys liked carrying the bears around and eating their limbs for dinner. We will be making these again.

They were so fun and easy! Maybe next time we'll make little bear shaped rolls, who knows. Thank you Megan and Stacy for the idea!!!!