Welcome!

We offer a great new warm welcome to our newest members

Maria, Atticus, and Rosie!

(Atticus not pictured)

We are very excited to have these delightful new additions into our group! Can't wait to get to know them better!

Canning 7/13/13

Amelia, Charity, and Stephanie had a great time canning apricot jam on Saturday! 

This is what we intended to make...

...And the reality!

The intended 4-5 bathes quickly became 16 with the number of apricots we had! Good thing we were planning to use them for visiting teaching and gifts!

Had a great time! Would totally do this again, only next time, we will measure first and prepare the food later. :)

Mommy Group 7/17/13

Awesomeness!  So, for Mommy Group tonight we had a "growing away party for Abby / blog kickoff party."  We had a bunch of different types of Muddy Buddies and Chex Mixes.

Churro Muddy Buddies

1 pkg. cinnamon chips

(Cinnamon flavored chocolate chips. I know it sounds funny, but they are real. I could only find them at Walmart.)

5 cups Chex cereal

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1/8 cup white granulated sugar

3/4 tsp cinnamon

Measure cereal; set aside.  Mix p. sugar, w. sugar, and cinnamon in a separate bowl; set aside. Microwave cinnamon chips until completely melted. (Mine melted thicker than I wanted, so I also added a bit of crisco to the chips to make it thinner.) Pour melted cinnamon chips onto cereal and mix until evenly coated. Slowly add cinnamon-sugar mixture, mixing as you add, until evenly coated. (I added a bit of extra powdered sugar because mine all melted and I wanted them to look more covered.) allow to cool and enjoy!

Reese's Pieces Muddy Buddies

1 pkg. chocolate chips (you could also use peanut butter chips, but chocolate is what I had.)

5 cups Chex cereal

Lots of Reese's Pieces :)

1/2-3/4 cups powdered sugar

Measure cereal; set aside. Microwave chips until completely melted. Pour melted chips onto cereal and mix until evenly coated. Slowly add powdered sugar, mixing as you add, until evenly coated. Allow to cool and enjoy!

"Addiction"

Amelia's Yummy Coconut Chex Mix

3 cubes of butter

2 cups of sugar

2 cups of corn syrup

Boil for 3 minutes

Pour over 2 boxes of Chex (Amelia recomends only 1 1/2 if you like it gooey)

Add 4 cups shredded coconut and 3 cups slivered almonds

Well, now that we have the pre-dinner dessert (or pre-ssert as it is called in my family) out of the way, we might actually sit down to dinner! ;)

Sausage Rice Casserole

Don't know why it's called a casserole, because I have never seen it in a casserole dish...ever...

Recipe from Stephanie's Mom <3 xoxo

1 lb. ground sausage

1 can chicken noodle soup

Hot water

Minute Rice

Brown sausage. Add can of chicken soup. Fill soup can with hot water and add it to sausage. Fill can again, but with Minute Rice; add it to sausage. Let soak and heat on warm for 15-20 minutes.

Pictures for Abby and Nikki

For our two wonderful sisters who will be leaving us for, we took some pictures to remember our times together!

I took the liberty of photoshopping and cropping pictures. 

Working clockwise (beginning with red): Lisa, Hayley, Nikki, Abby, Nicole, Stephanie

Okay, can you guess these tiny toes?

Working clockwise (beginning with bottom-left corner): James, Emily, Talia, Zoe, Michael, Evangeline

Such good times! I sure love you guys!

Testing 123

This is a test post so that I can figure out how we want it all to look.   ^_^

la di da di da!
having a great old time here