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Freebie: Happy iDSD!

2009-11-06T21:21:59-06:00

So last night we ran some errands and then I sat down to catch up on all that had happened in my computer while I was working. I knew the excitement was building towards November 7 -- International Digi-Scrapping Day. [It's also my mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Mom!]

I felt a little ashamed that I had no freebie planned for this celebration of all things digital and memory keeping. About that time, Dan started CSI on the DVR, and it happened....

I put together this little mini-kit, totally inspired by the color scheme on my "10 Things" list Friday. It's also the colors I'm planning to use this Christmas, so I included a few Christmas bits.

Download Oh Happy Day here.

Enjoy! Scrap those stories!

| 10 Things I'm Loving Friday

2009-11-06T05:32:00-06:00

1. Mechanical Pencils. The only way I will write with a pencil, and I only write in my calendars with pencils. I buy a couple I love, and hide them from my kids.

2. This color combination. I am so attracted to aqua and red together...

From flickr.

3. Lady Antebellum. In particular, this song, but I pretty much love all their harmonies. I have the entire album, and that says a lot for me. It's a rare day when I'll buy a whole CD from one artist.

Lady Antebellum More CMT Music More CMT Music Videos

4. Fisher Price Little People Nativity Set.

From Flickr.

Must. Have. Now.

Nevermind. Got it.

5. Jonathan Kellerman. Read his latest book 2 weeks ago. One of my coworkers recommended Mr. Kellerman to me back when I was pregnant with Brady. At the time, he probably had a half dozen Alex Delaware books out. Now he has closer to 2 dozen, and I own them all. Not just have read them all, I own them all. I love Alex and Robin and Milo, and the mysteries are always good, too.

6. Destination Truth. My Wednesday night guilty pleasure. Not only does Josh flat out make me laugh, the cases he investigates have given me some serious goonies, too. That doll island has sworn me off plastic dolls for awhile.

7. Pierre by Maurice Sendak. While I love Where The Wild Things Are, my favorite Maurice Sendak book has always been Pierre. I remember listening to it as a child and getting this sinking feeling in my gut, "Don't do it, Pierre!" Now I teach a couple of little Pierre's. I still have this need to save a little boy from getting himself into trouble, and my gut still knots when I can't do it.

8. Tootsie Rolls. Perfect for that hit of chocolate when you don't want the calories.

From Flickr.

9. Microfiber Blankets. I have a small one just to cover my feet... when I'm sitting in my chair, watching TV, typing on my laptop. Can't have cold feet, now can we?

10. Fall. My favorite season of the year.

From Flickr.

Have a great weekend! See ya next week!

Recipe: Best Yet M&M Cookies

2009-11-05T05:52:00-06:00

I subscribe to several baking blogs, and recently I read with amusement of one blogger's search for the perfect M&M cookie. What she found didn't surprise me... the perfect cookie has some shortening in it.

When my Kitchen Aid first came home to live with me, I was a butter snob. No sense baking if I wasn't using real butter.

Then I went on a quest to find dairy free cookies. In doing so, I discovered that a little shortening in the better actually makes for a better texture for the cookie.

Here's the link to the original post: Cookie Madness

I doubled this recipe, as I often do. If I'm going to make cookies, I'm going to make a bunch. I also made a mistake in doubling, but I managed to get it fixed before I ruined more than 1 sheet of cookies. I used Halloween fun color M&Ms, and this was my trial run for Christmas M&M cookies. I think it's a keeper.

Best Yet M&M Cookies

1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cups plain M&Ms
1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

This dough will need to set in the fridge for at least an hour after mixing, so no need to preheat the oven yet.

Combine the butter and shortening in mixer. Beat until creamy. Add both sugars and continue beating on high for two minutes, scraping bowl. Beat in the vanilla and egg. Continue beating for another minute or until fluffy.

Stir together the flour, salt and baking soda. Add this mixture to the sugar mixture and stir until mixed. Stir in the M&Ms and chocolate chips. Chill batter for about an hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Drop batter by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets, spacing 3 inches apart and bake for 12-14 minutes. The cookies do spread, so keep that in mind when spacing out the cookies. Let cool on cookie sheets for about 2 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool.

Makes about 22 cookies

To download this recipe in printable form, click here: Download Bestyetmandm

Recipe Index, Part 1

2009-11-04T05:37:00-06:00

I love to troll for recipes on the internet, and I have several cooking/baking blogs on my Bloglines. One of the things that really bugs me is when I can't easily print a recipe from a blog.

Took me a few years to figure out that my own readers might have the same aggravations when trying to print recipes from this blog.

I spent a big chunk of my Halloween evening patiently waiting for trick or treaters that never materialized, and formatting recipes for download. I went back a year before I got tired of it. I'll attempt to do another chunk next weekend.

I updated each recipe post with the printable file, but thought I'd also index them here, just in case you missed some.

The recipes are in .pdf format, which means you'll need Adobe Acrobat to open and print them. I know I print all my recipes and put them in a 3 ring binder with page protectors (ever handy for those times when you kick up flour dust with the KitchenAid). I'd love to hear your ideas!

Recipe Index, Part 1

Anything Goes Cookies: Download Anythinggoescookies

BBQ Chicken Wrap: Download Bbqchickenwrap

Bubble Pizza: Download Bubblepizza

Chewy Triple Chippers: Download Chewytriplechippers

Easy Chimichangas: Download Chimis

Chocolate Sundae Crunch: Download Chocolatesundae

Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies: Download Creamcheesechochip

Double Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies: Download Doublepbchoccookies

Jenn's Cookies (dairy free!): Download Jennscookies

Meatloaf: Download Meatloaf

Oriental Cole Slaw: Download Orientalcoleslaw

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies: Download Pbchocchipcookies

Peanut Crunch Cake: Download Peanutcrunch

Dan's Kool Aid Play Dough: Download Playdough

All Day Potato Soup: Download Potatosoup

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread: Download Pumpkinbread

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookie: Download Pumpkinoatmealcookie

Pumpkin Streusel Cake: Download Pumpkinstreusel

Refried Beans: Download Refriedbeans

Spaghetti Pie: Download Spaghettipie

Tuna Salad: Download Tunasalad

Turtle Cake: Download Turtlecake

White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies: Download Whitechocolatecranberrycookies

Halloween Weekend!

2009-11-03T05:10:00-06:00

As it was for most people, last weekend was a bit cuckoo here. It started with Mykiah spending the night at a friend's on Friday. This normally wouldn't make me nervous (much) but she went to a haunted house with that friend and the friend's uncle. This completely freaked me out. I mean, I gave her permission to go, but I really didn't want her to go. Moms, you know what I mean, right?

She had a great time, and called us when she got out and when she got home, but my nerves totally messed up my sleep schedule on Friday night.

Saturday was an early start as I had to run Brady to a robotics competition at a local mall.

This is what it was. Something about using the robot to create chemical compounds. That's probably all I need to know. Brady had great fun hanging out at the mall all day, too.

That evening, after a yummy meal at Chili's, Ches was all set to Trick or Treat.

I sat in the kitchen, working on my laptop, and answered the door for our 4 trick or treaters.

I did totally love the pumpkin Dan had carved earlier in the day.

After trick or treating, Mykiah made Chesney the traditional mug of hot chocolate with ghost marshmallows.

Pretty sure I was the first to bed, with Ghost Hunters playing on the TV....

| November freebie: Gobble and Wobble

2009-11-01T00:01:00-05:00

*sigh*

This whole freebie thing is harder than you think. A while back, I had to make a decision on how to finish out this year of freebies. I had 10 kits inspired by Disney, and had started work on kits for next year's theme.

Do I go ahead and start the new theme in November, or do I wait and reveal what I think is one of my best kits ever on 1-1-10? (And really, that's saying a lot, because I never think I'm the best designer out there. Just one who has fun with it.)

Yeah, I'm waiting.

In the meantime, I decided to just share with you some of my favorite things to create. For November, I put together a pack of felt embellishments and some kraft patterned paper. Most of my kits have some form of kraft paper in them. This is kraft on kraft, and I really love it. In addition, adorable felt pieces. All in a Thanksgiving theme, because that's what November is to me.... fall and family.

You can download this collection here.

Enjoy! Scrap those stories!

P.S. Several have commented that they are having problems unzipping. When I try to use Vista to unzip, I have error messages as well, but when I use an unzipping utility like UnZipThemAll, I have no problem. I've rezipped and uploaded twice now and don't know what else to recommend. Sorry for the problems!

| 10 Things I'm Loving Friday

2009-10-30T05:57:00-05:00

1. Pepsi One... can't imagine starting my day any other way

2. Glee. Really? Is there a funner show out there? It's not realistic, but it sure is fun.

3. John Sandford's Rough Country. I *love* John Sandford and devour his books. This is his latest, and it's also a Virgil Flowers' book. I do love Virgil. I read it in an afternoon.

4. Bic Blue Pens. The classic. I love them, and always have a few in my purse and by my bed for any writing emergency.

5. Sweet Tarts. I had to buy them for Halloween candy. I don't anticipate having many knocks on our door, and of course, we'll have to eat the leftovers. If I'm going to be eating leftover candy, it's going to be Sweet Tarts.

6. This song. Always and forever my favorite song. Makes me boogie in the grocery store aisles.

7. Puffs Plus. Because, really, my nose deserves the pampering.

8. Sock Monkeys. Especially striped ones like these I found here.

9. Looking at gorgeous cupcakes, like these.

10. My dog. He makes me content.

| Halloween portrait layouts

2009-10-29T05:20:00-05:00

It seems that something I tend to do in the fall is do a little photo shoot with my kids in their Halloween costumes. I usually do this the weekend before Halloween, during the day so that I have decent light and I don't have to worry so much about getting the perfect Halloween portrait.

Here's the layout I did with this year's portraits:

And some "flashback" layouts:

Man, that's an oldie. I think I did that last one the first month I was scrapping. Not too horrible, either.... OK, maybe the shadows are a little harsh...

| Recipe: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

2009-10-28T04:20:00-05:00

I can't take any credit for this one. It was alllll Mykiah. She hauled her dad down to the store to purchase the ingredients, she mixed it, she baked it.

She didn't much eat it. She did not inherit her mother's inability to resist anything chocolate. She had a slice for breakfast last Sunday, and that was it.

This recipe makes two loaves, so I froze one for the future. As it happened, I unexpectedly needed to bring a snack on Friday, after two nights of late parent-teacher conferences. I called Mykiah from work Thursday night and asked her to pull the bread out of the freezer to defrost. It was a hit at work. Not one piece left by noon.

Should you be looking for a little snack for a Halloween party at work this week, I highly recommend this bread. Very appropriate for the season, too.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

4 eggs

2 cups sugar

2 cups canned pumpkin

1-1/2 cups canola oil

1-1/2 cups (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (we used the minis.... spreads the chocolate through the batter more evenly)

In a large bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Mykiah also threw in some pumpkin pie spice here. Maybe a pinch of ginger.

In another bowl, beat the eggs, sugar, pumpkin and oil. We did this in my KitchenAid. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in chocolate chips.

Pour into two greased 8-in. x 4-in. loaf pans. Bake at 350° for 60-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks. Yield: 2 loaves (16 slices each).

Freezes exceptionally well.

To print this recipe as a .pdf file, click here: Download Pumpkinbread

| Halloween photo shoot

2009-10-27T04:15:00-05:00

"Mom, when someone asks me what I am for Halloween, what do I tell them?"

"You're cute. Tell them you're cute."