A few things I made

I made some delicious pizza and a t shirt quilt. There will be no tutorial on how to make it because I hate t shirt quilts but ken wanted one really bad. We have so many quilts from our moms that our house is filled to the brim of quilts so I decided that I should make a small one since we probably won't use it until our baby comes (hopefully soon).


It's double sided to get all of his shirts in without being so huge! Perfect for a baby! I actually got everything all lined up perfectly! Then I did an all around stitch to finish the quilt, and I don't have a walking foot so my regular foot on the machine pulled the fabric in one direction, and then the bottom seam is a little wonky. But as I suspected I gave it to ken, he loved it for about 2 seconds, and now it's folded up on a stack of all our other quilts.

Don't get me wrong, we are very blessed to have all these quilts and if an emergency ever happened, we will have everyone on the block taking care of! Also, I really love our quilt collection, it's all full of love from both our moms! so We are pretty lucky, but I'm not a fan of quilting. I like projects that can be done in one day. Like the slip I'm making to peek out below my dresses to keep them from hiking up and being immodest.


So I learned from trial and error that you can make pizzas on tortillas!! You can make taco pizzas by putting a "sauce" layer of re fried beans. Then you put on beans and meat and salsa and whatever you want, then put a layer of cheese! Pop it in the oven on 350 for 10 minutes. The "crust" gets crispy and it's amazing!!

Also you can make real pizza. You just put the pizza or Alfredo sauce on the tortilla, then toppings like a normal pizza then CHEESE!!! again in a 350 oven for 10 minutes. Amazing!!

Friends and the Fair

 

Here is my friend's super cute baby! I was babysitting him, and I just LOVE him!! Look at those cute cheeks and eyes!!  

Here is my friend Danyelle with her little Logan! He was getting passed over the wall to see the cow! I got to pet the cow and it was sooooooo soft. I don't think I've ever petted an adult cow and it was awesome!!

I'm lactose intolerant but I LOVE milk so I just had to endorse this sign!

To the right here we are looking awesome together!

Here is my handsome hubby. he hates pictures so he always makes crazy faces. I'm amazed how he gets his handsome face into such interesting positions.

 

 

Me and Lukey, hes so cute!!!

Ken is super manly. I wanted him to pose like Hercules but this is what I got:

 We had an awesome time petting all the animals and trying to find decent prices on caramel apples. We didn't succeed, it's much cheaper to go to Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and get an awesome gourmet apple. I think we will do that as a date when we go to utah next week!!!!

More deliciousness- enchiladas

I decided I was hungry, and what did I find in my fridge? oh just all the ingredients to make enchiladas( thanks to my careful grocery/menu planning ;))

I'm beginning to do cuponing and looking at the weekly ads to see what is on sale. I never buy things we don't like or won't use- just because it's on sale doesn't mean you need it. I know, I once spent way over budget by using cupons on everything and buying things I really didn't want or need. ( embarassing but we all have to learn somehow!) And I'm not super awesome at it yet so I just get good deals on things, nothing really free yet. But I will get there! And fulfill my lifelong dream of being on extreme cuponers!

 Moving on. I bought some chicken in bulk and cooked it the other day. I seasoned it with a dressing pack mix of some kind of ranch. I think it accidentally got into our food when we went camping with my friends, so I decided to try it out! ( I baked it on 350 for 40 minutes)

Here's what I made:

I put the shredded already cooked chicken in a bowl with 1 can corn and 1 can black beans. I mixed it all up to spread the deliciousness equally!

I only added half the jar to my chicken mixture.Then I added this delicious enchilada sauce that seems to always be on sale at Fry's. Perfect!



( Hey look! It's my finger trying to have the spotlight, again!)

 

 

I used these super soft flour tortillas ( also on sale). I hate corn tortillas because they have a weird texture and make my mouth taste weird, so we stay away from those.

Then I spooned some chicken stuff into the center of a tortilla, made it into a line, and rolled up one side, then the other the opposite way. Basically just roll it so the good stuff doesn't fall out.

I then poured the rest of the sauce over the enchiladas. In all my awesome planning to match up with sales I thought we had enough cheese to last a lifetime so I didn't need to take advantage of the awesome amazing sale on cheeses, apparently I was dead wrong. So if you have cheese in your house, here would be a great time to add it- right on top. Lots of it!

Now while I wait for that to cook 20 minutes on 350, I will show you the easiest way to do dishes! Seriously the best thing to happen in the world!

Dishes used to stress me out so badly that I wouldn't do them for a long time, like wait until there was absolutely no room to wash hands. ( I learned I am an amazing dirty dish stacker, you don't want to know my record).

And Ken, being amazing as he always is, taught me a super simple way. It sounds like a no brainer but its a big deal!! So, first you empty out all the clean just washed dishes. Right away if you can, if not then run the washer overnight and unload it in the morning. This is key- get the clean dishes out as soon as you can.

Now that you have a clean washer, put soap in the little boxy thing and close it. That signifies to everyone that this washer is ready for dirty dishes. When the dishwasher has run that thing pops open, letting you know it's clean.

Next, as soon as you use anything, rinse it off and put it in the now-ready-for-dirty-dishes dish washer. Amazing! Now you won't have crusty dishes because you took 2 seconds to rinse it and put it in. How easy is that?! Now my sink is amazingly clean, and doing dishes is STRESS FREE!

 Amazing clean sink!!!! ahhh don't you just love it?!

Chocolate chip cookie cake- yes it is as amazing as it sounds!

I have been baking again! Which as you probably have figured out means experimenting and making delicious concoctions out of ideas from my head, not a recipe. But hey, that's where all good recipes came from- other peoples ideas and trial and error!

So for today I have chocolate chip cookie cake- let's just say, its DELICIOUS!!!!

First, cream together 1 stick of butter and 1/2 cup brown sugar

 

Here's the awesome part- add 1 pkg yellow cake mix
 Then add 2 eggs and 1/2 cup white sugar. cream together

 

 

 

 

This is what it looks like all mixed it- and it smells like a butterscotch caramel something yummy

 

 

 

 Next add chocolate chips, mix through and spread in a pan

 
 Bake at 350 for about 17 minutes. my knife came out clean. It should look crunchy and amazing on top, but wait till you see the middle...... oooh its sooooooooooo good!

Ta-da! amazing!!! It's suuuuuper gooey on the inside, but you can tell its cooked( its not runny or anything) and the outside is a delicious crisp light crust. It's heavenly!

Recipe:
1 stick butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1pkg yellow cake mix

Mix all together, add 1 bag chocolate chips. (it's really chocolatey so if that's not your thing, add l/2 bag instead)

Spread in greased pan, bake at 350 for around 17-20 minutes

Conference Camping

We went camping up near Heber for conference weekend! It was in the Forrest Lakes national park, and you don''t have to pay to camp there! That was the first time in my life we didn't have to pay! In Maine you have to pay for everything! About 50 people were there, and we all watched General conference under a big tent! It was so great to watch conference with friends!

General Conference is where members and friends from all over the world watch the Prophet and Apostles speak on issues that are important to us and let us know what the Lord would have us do. It's my favorite 10+ hour tv watching weekend! don't worry it comes in 2 hour session blocks so you can make lunch and treats! It is so amazing to feel the spirit and revelation for all of us today!

Our friends the Ivies came with us for the first night! Ken has all sorts of cool camping stuff, and he even made this wicked sweet grill that has legs and goes half in the fire half out. I took pictures when we very first got there, then set down my phone. It was nice to get away from the world and it's distractions for the weekend, but sorry for the lack of photos!

It got really cold there at night, but we had a sweet heater in our tent! Ruby did great! She was on a line so she could run around without getting into too much trouble, and at night slept in the tent in her crate. She is such a great puppy!










Her favorite part were the dried cow pies everywhere, she was in little doggie heaven!












While it was fun to be with friends, I realized I HATE camping in the cold. If it were a bit warmer I may have liked it. I used a little childrens potty training potty we bought at ikea for my bathroom, and it got coooooold! so next time we go camping somewhere I demand a real bathroom!

( my finger likes its upclose and personal debut)

Awesome canvas waterproof tent. this thing is so big you can stand in it and fit 2 queen size beds if you wanted!

Handsome hubby!

 

 

I did love General Conference. If you want to see the Modern Day Prophet speak and check out the apostles and other great leaders of our day visit mormon.org!

Rug Doctor Catastrophe

I marked this one under health and wellness because I can't decide if my clean carpets are a health hazard- I seem to be growing mold in the wetter areas...

But the carpet looks amazing! ( in certain places.... in others it looks like a kindergartner had free reign with a bleach pen)

 These are the before pictures:

As you can see its dirty. Obviously or I wouldn't need a rug doctor. We had a $10 off coupon and our foster care home visit was the next day so I wanted to spruce up the carpet.

 

As a side note, the above carpet had big dark stains the night before and I treated them with my usual hydrogen peroxide and dawn dish soap. I also thought it would be a good idea to soak up the water with baking soda. I normally just scrub the carpet with a wet rag until it stops foaming, but there were lots of spots and I didn't want to scrub like crazy all night long, and baking soda works on dog pee so why not on a cleaning solution? This is important stuff so don't disregard it, you'll see why in a minute.

 

So the carpet was still gross even though I got the small dark stains out, which is when I chose to go for the rug doctor.

 As you can see I needed to wear appropriate attire to clean my house. I tried sneakers but my feet were soaking, the machine spits our a bit of water from the back. and on the left is a shot of where you fill it up.


I had the wonderful idea that you just fill it up once and you can do your entire house and it's the easiest thing ever to do. WRONG! I had to dump out hte gunky water and refill every 4 passes of the carpet. Do you know how heavy that thing is to dump? well while I'm dumping what looking like clean foamy water i decided to clean the tub at the same time and dump it there.

 

Later Ken came home and asked what I had done to make the tub completely filthy and clog the drain. It was worse than when I give Ruby a bath inside!

So after my first pouring out I decided to use hte toilet. Like the picture shows on the machine. nice.

I found its easier to flush then dump it out into the bowl, that way it doesn't overflow.

 

Here is a shot of it getting a bit foamy. It says that if this happens you have to stop and buy anti foam stuff. fat chance, I just dumped out the water and the foam had dripped down and the machine was ready for action!

 

If the Dr runs out of water/soap, you will see these 2 white soapy lines. that means refill.

Remember when I said I thought I could use the 1 full tank for the whole house? well of course I over soaped the tank to get the most clean. after I realized it runs out in 4 passes, I held back a little with the suds.

Here is my recipe:

squirt blue dawn dish soap into the mesh for 5 seconds, then squirt hydrogen peroxide for 7-10 seconds.

I didn't want to waste time with measuring spoons when I was so busy running back and forth to pour out and refill. I also found refilling in the sink or tub closest to the machine was much better than running back to the kitchen sink. Obvious yes but it took me a while to figure that out...

 

Yes, this just happened.

 I got a little proud of my system and got careless.

 

So, after hours of labor here is what I got.

 

Yes, those are the kindergarten bleach pen works of art.

 

To sum up:

It took forever, places that got extra wet( I had to go over some serious dirt stains multiple times) are now moldy, and yes my house smells weird, I have huge white stains where I had used my brilliant baking soda trick ( not so brilliant with cleaning solution) and the rest of my floor looks amazing!

Would I rent one again? NO, I will call a professional. It took way too many hours and I ruined my carpet in some places( as shown above, and now the smell is getting to us).

 

But on a happy note: Here we are at the beautiful Mesa Temple!!!

 

I love Arizona weather and the amazing temple!