A Day In My Life

Like a month ago, candy bars were on sale at the grocery store so I stocked up. I knew I wanted to do a candy gram for Justin on Father's Day, even if I didn't know what I wanted it to say exactly. In the end, it all worked out and I only had to run back and buy a couple more specific bars. I wrote most of it myself, but I also got help from this site . :) Here's what Harvey and I came up with... Jud loved it. I think Avery was a little put out that it wasn't for her.

My friend Rachael told me about this Betty Crocker standard when I first found out I had to cut dairy out of my diet. The best part? No substitutions! Yay! Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups flour 1 cup sugar 1/4 cup baking cocoa 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/3 cup vegetable oil 1 teaspoon white or cider vinegar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup cold water 1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease muffin tin, or put in baking cups. (Actually, the recipe is for a small cake - use a 9in round or 8in square pan.) 2. In medium bowl, mix flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. In small bowl, stir oil, vinegar and vanilla until well mixed. Vigorously stir oil mixture and water into flour mixture about 1 minute or until well blended. Immediately pour into pan. 3. Bake 20-25 minutes (30-35 for cakes) or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes. Serve warm or cool. I found Toni Spilsbury's trick to skip frosting cupcakes on Pinterest and I de...

I know, no one is thinking about General Conference right now. But tonight I'm showing my board to my mom's Relief Society group, and I wanted to have the printables available to them if they decided to complete this project. If any of you are interested... you have three and a half months to complete it. :) Two days before General Conference, I stumbled across this idea for engaging young children.... and I thought it was absolutely amazing. (And so are most of the ideas found on Jen Lund's blog - check it out!) One of the main reasons I love this idea, is that it doesn't just distract young children from being disruptive during Conference, but it engages them and encourages them to listen! I'm not gonna lie. It took time to put together, but I am positive that Harvey will enjoy working with this board. That will hopefully translate into Justin and I being able to listen, and that will make all of my hard work worth it in the end. Here's how i...

I love summer. And about 2 weeks ago I started planning out every second of our summer this year with fun, thoughtful, and educational things to do. But then I started dreading all of the structure. Wouldn't it be nice just to wake up, ask Harvey what he wanted to do and then go do it? Or get a phone call from a friend asking if we could fill-in-the-blank-with-something-fun-here, and be able to drop everything and go? Definitely. But on the other hand... I don't want our summer to just waste by, either. I want it to be full of fun, thoughtful and educational things. So I decided to implement all of my crazy plans in a casual way. First, I dug out my old Summer Fun Advent Calendar. It does have little glittery numbers written on each of the cones, to be followed according to the calendar month. But this year - we're bagging that feature. I printed out a list of fun things to do during summer, and cut it into little strips. Then I simply folded each one up ...

So, I originally volunteered to bring fruit to the family barbeque on Memorial Day, but then my sister-in-law wanted to bring fruit and the hostess said she needed dessert. No problem... Well, except for the fact that I only had about an hour to throw something together, and I really wanted to bring something festive. But I needed easy. Rootbeer floats are easy, right? Substitute Red Cream Soda for the Rootbeer... and add whipped cream and sprinkles! Easy and delicious. It got rave reviews from the crowd. (I didn't actually taste it because I forgot to bring my coconut ice cream. Bummer.) Have you done "floats" with something other than Rootbeer?

It seems like age three is a good time to start doing birthday interviews... but I missed my little guy's third birthday. I decided I'd better do something soon to capture my little Harvey before he got much older. His half birthday was last Sunday, so I got to work. I made up a little double-sided printable that I can repeat every year... I've seen many versions of the birthday interview all over Pinterest, but I wanted to add a few elements of my own - like a place for a handprint, and a place to either attach a photo or let my child draw a self portrait. Plus, I wanted a little box to write stuff that didn't apply anywhere else. After I printed a copy, I set up the video camera, sat Harvey in front of it.. and asked him the questions. It was thoroughly delightful to see what his answers would be. Harvey hasn't really traced letters much, so I helped him with the first letters in his name. But he did V, E, and Y all by himself. I was so impressed! I lo...