This picture makes me smile.

I just wet the bar and rub it onto the stain, and then use an old toothbrush to scrub. My mom found these plastic mesh bags, and gave me some. So now I tie the bar into a bag, and the bag acts as the scrubber.

I’ve been hearing about homemade laundry soap made with Fels Naptha. Or this one with Pink Zote and fabric softener. I’m going to have to try homemade soap one of these days.

My sweet girl was baptized a few weeks ago, on her eighth birthday. I was looking back at some of her baby and toddler pictures, and wishing I could somehow slow down time. It seems to be spinning out of control lately, moving faster and faster despite how hard I dig my heels in.

It was a beautiful and special day. B is so innately good. She is wise, spiritual, and sensitive beyond her years. She was so thankful for everyone who came, and everyone who brought special gifts. Sometimes at birthday parties, kids just tear a gift open, throw it down, and move on to the next without knowing who gave them what. Not B. She thanked each person who came, and sent thank you notes to those who brought gifts. I supplied cards, but she had the idea and wrote and sent them all herself.

I love this girl and am so proud of her!

Well the other night we were dishing up some ice cream, and a light bulb went off in my head. If thick hot fudge is awesome on ice cream, why not Nutella? And in an instant, I achieved genius status.

Just heat up some Nutella (we did about 20 seconds in the microwave) and drizzle it on your ice cream. We like Blue Bell ice cream, but it’s good on anything. Throw on a few nuts or whatever else you feel like. It is heavenly.

I just found a sweepstakes to win a free case of Nutella, ending at midnight. Let’s hope it’s my lucky day. I’m already dreaming about what else I can try it on!

A couple months ago, this photographer in our area was looking for a baby girl E’s age for a photo shoot for some new Dollcake clothes.

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I hadn’t had any professional photos taken of E yet, so I jumped at the chance.

Baby #1, pictures every 3 months. You don’t want to miss a stage!
Baby #2, twice a year
Baby #3, once a year, maybe
Baby #4, pictures? what pictures?
I always give my mom grief, because as her #5 there aren’t many pictures of me. And now I’m doing the same thing. I had hundreds of iphone pictures of E. But nothing professional.

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She had an eye cold that day and I had to clean it out every 10 minutes or so. You can see it gooping up in this one, the poor thing.

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I love this girl!

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Just buy some clear glass ornaments and a couple bottles of craft paint. (I got mine at Michaels). Squirt a bit of each color into an ornament.

Let it run down the sides. You can either cover the opening with a rag or paper town and shake, or keep turning it different ways to let the paint run down and coat the sides. Experiment with different techniques…turning will give you a marbled look, while shaking blends the colors a bit more. I am impatient. I like to use a combination of shaking and turning.

I get impatient and use too much paint sometimes. Over the course of a couple days, I gave each ornament a quarter turn each time I passed through the kitchen. On some of them we had to dump out the excess paint.

After a couple days of drying, put the top on and put an ornament hanger or ribbon on. When my class made these in the past, we used paint markers to add a name or word to the outside of the ornament when they were finished. We kept these ones pretty simple, but maybe next year we’ll jazz ours up a bit.

Voila!

And guess what, you can make them in 10 minutes with just five ingredients and no baking! That’s my kind of recipe.

Cafeteria Peanut Butter Bars
1 package graham crackers (blended to a fine powder)
1 c. creamy peanut butter
1 c. melted butter
1 lb. powdered sugar (approximately 3 3/4 c.)
Mix the first four ingredients, and press into a 9×13 pan. It will be fairly thick.

Then melt one bag of chocolate chips, and spread over the peanut butter mixture.

I usually put the pan in the fridge for maybe 45 minutes while the chocolate sets up. Don’t let it harden too much, or it will crack when you cut the bars. Let it cool just enough to firm up a bit before cutting into bars.

This is one of those desserts where after a few bites you feel like it is too rich. But then two minutes later, you have to have more. I love that!

This was E’s first year with Santa at the family party. 38 kids, each taking a turn on his lap. Santa called her name, and she had the death grip on my shirt as I took her up to him.

I put her on his lap, and waited for the screaming to begin. She took one look at him,

and…… WHAT?

Big old cheeser grin. I was not expecting that! She checked Santa out again, looked back at me, and smiled again. Whose kid is she?

We started by making one of my favorite cookie recipes:

Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 cups butter. Cream until fluffy. (Does fluffy make anyone else think of Despicable Me?)
Add:
1 1/2 c. Sugar
2 c. Brown Sugar
2 Tbs. Vanilla
4 Eggs
Mix only until ingredients are blended. Do NOT overmix!
Then Add:
1 1/2 tsp. Salt
1 1/2 tsp. Baking Soda
6 c. Flour (gradually)
Again, don’t overmix! Just until it is all blended.
Add one bag of chocolate chips (I prefer Ghiradellis Milk Chocolate)
Add one bag of Andes peppermint baking chips (got mine at Wal Mart)

Bake on a greased cookie sheet for 8-9 minutes at 350 degrees. I leave them on the tray for about 5 minutes after removing from the oven, and then transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Confession time. On the first round I got impatient and tried to put the ice cream sandwiches together before the cookies had completely cooled. Patience is not one of my strong points. Be sure to let the cookies cool completely before continuing. Just spread the cookies out on a tray, with wax paper underneath, and throw them in your freezer for a bit while your ice cream softens.

Take your ice cream out of the freezer. We like Blue Bell, but any peppermint ice cream will do. Let it soften up just enough to scoop & spread on a cookie. Not so much that is runs though! Scoop some onto a cookie, put another on top, and get them back in the freezer quick! When they have hardened up again, you can wrap them individually if desired.

P.S. I vary the last ingredient in this cookie recipe to fit my mood: peanut butter chips, nuts, Skor chips, regular Andes mints, whatever! Ooh maybe next time I’ll use the green Andes mints with mint chip ice cream!