Thursday, February 10, 2011

Valentine Day Ideas and GIANT Sugar Cookie Recipe :-)

You could start your day out making heart pancakes. This is something so fun and easy and it really impresses the kids', LOL! (The date on my camera was off last year)

Lunch could be a heart shaped sandwich packed in their lunch boxes with a special note from you!!

Aside from the obvious heart shaped cookies, you could do a huge GIANT Sugar Cookie like the one below. BTW, that is my cute little Evan, he was 3 in that picture, awwww, time stops for nobody (sniff sniff)


This year I plan on doing the breakfast and lunch things I mentioned above, with dinner being heart shaped pizzas. I still haven't decided on what the dessert will be yet, will post about it after V-Day!!

Oh, you guys might wanna make that Giant Cookie for your loved ones too! Here is the recipe. Note: if you don't have a heart shaped pan (I have a Wilton one) then you can easily put it on a regular cookie sheet/pizza pan and manually shape it into a heart!

-1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
-1 cup sugar
-1 egg
-1 tsp baking powder
-1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
-1 Tbls milk
-1/2 tsp vanilla
-1/4 tsp salt

Pre-heat oven to 350. Spray pan with PAM. Cream butter and sugar together. Add rest of the ingredients. Mix till smooth. Spread mixture onto pan with floured hands. Prick dough with fork.
Bake 15-20 minutes OR till lightly browned. Place on cooling rack for 5 minutes. Loosen edges with spatula, remove from pan to cool.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Vicky

Monday, February 7, 2011

Not as expected...

I had big plans for Super Bowl, big food plans that is! I had perfectly planned out appetizers, main course, football shaped dessert for weeks now! The excitement is over and the Packers won! I must say that I could care less since I loathe football, but it's an exciting time for men, LOL! I do watch the commercials though. Reality is I had a sick baby who was running a fever around the clock, so needless to say I rarely slept this past weekend. I managed to grab a nap with the baby yesterday afternoon, got up around 6pm and came in here and was pleasantly surprised! I saw my husband and 3 kids in the living room floor eating dinner! He had gotten them the $10 family meal from Long John Silver's! I can't begin to tell you how happy I was at that moment! You would've think he cooked a seven course meal, LOL! I was just so happy that they had food to eat and I didn't have to spend time in the kitchen after feeling bad!
I had planned on entering a cookie contest this weekend. I made the cookies, filled and decorated them, they didn't look so hot, so plan #2 was to make some royal icing. I didn't have any meringue powder so I found a recipe on the internet to use with egg whites. Well that didn't turn out good either, my colors weren't dark enough,ugh! I'm not even going to attempt #3 try, at least the kids can eat the cookies (minus the ones I decorated with the egg white mixture!)

This morning after sleeping a combined total of 5 hours (which I was thankful to get!) I woke up to a table that I couldn't even see the bottom of because it was so cluttered with dirty dishes and Long John Silver's boxes, but it shows that my family was fed.

I fixed a quick breakfast (scrambled eggs and cinnamon toast) and started to clear the table off. I was still grabbing cups from the table as the big kids were eating breakfast this morning. Normally my husband takes the kids to school before he goes into the office, but he's training out of town all this week so me and the little kids gotta drop them off. So I'm very thankful that my husband can drop them off for me all the other times. Nothing like a change in your routine to make you thankful! I just put baby down for a nap and I'm trying my best to get my 4 yr old to nap too, since he stayed up way too late last night! Not sure if it will work or not, but if it does, then maybe I will get to nap too. Maybe I need to start doing caffeinated drinks to get some more energy, LOL!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Happy Groundhog Day!!

I don't know about you, but I find the Groundhog to be a cute little animal! In fact I have a love affair with a groundhog the kids' have named Harry in our yard :) The above picture isn't "our" Harry, but it sure looks like him, LOL! We've lived here for 6 yrs now and we would occasionally see Harry pop up from the grass down past our mail box. It was sort of like a little game as we drove by to see if we could see Harry and who could see him first! I can't tell you how exciting it is when we would see that little brown head pop up! We would all scream with excitement and there would be smiles on everybody's faces! It doesn't take much to excite a child and if adults would let themselves enjoy "childlike" things more often, then the world would be a much happier place! I for one just love seeing Harry and even got sad when we no longer saw him. But I'm happy to report that Harry, uh, maybe Harry #2 was back last year and all was well with the world again, LOL!

Oh, for the record, the most important Groundhog in the country (at least the one they watch to see if he sees his shadow!) did not, I repeat, did NOT see his shadow today, so bring on the spring weather!!!! I for one will be more than happy to get rid of cold weather and have some warm days again!!

Vicky

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

New GIVEAWAY: $35 CSN Gift Certificate

I was recently contacted by CSN stores to host a giveaway on my blog. What fun!

CSN Stores has over 200 online stores where you can find anything you need whether it be swingsets fitness equipment, or even cute cookware !

So, what do you get to win? A $35 gift certificate to any one of their stores!!

If you are interested, please follow the contest rules. Open only to US and Canada residents. Good Luck!

*Contest ends on February 11, 2011

*To Enter contest you MUST be a follower of this blog.

*Please leave all extra entries in 1 comment to let me know.

*Winners will be notified by email.

*Email Address must be visible in comment so that I can contact you.

EXTRA ENTRIES:

+1 for following me on Twitter here

+1 for following me on Facebook here

+5 for following my friend's blog Mom's Magical Apron

+10 for sharing this contest on any social site and leaving the link in your comment

+50 for subscribing to this blog via email.

*To post a comment, click on the title of this post, if it's not showing up below

Thanks!
Vicky

Spoiled with food...

We were expecting bad weather last night and unfortunately we didn't! So that means it was a morning where I was way over tired from staying up too late. I got up early, but felt sluggish, still do. I fixed banana bread yesterday and my 7 yr old wanted that for breakfast, my 10 yr old wanted oatmeal, nothing major. My 4 yr old gets up and doesn't want either one, doesn't want scrambled eggs, wants a pancake. Normally he may get pancakes one time a week, or every other week, I make them up and keep them in the freezer. Guess what? I'm out of pancakes, no biggie, I have a box mix in the pantry that I keep for drop biscuits (specifically Red Lobster copy cat ones) mmm, ok, I'm getting off the subject, LOL!

I fix him a pancake and guess what? He won't eat it, says it tastes bad. AHHHHHHH, it's one of those mornings!

Speaking of pancakes, my Mother-in-law makes the most wonderful, glorious pancakes I've ever laid my mouth on! They are the best in the world! I'm not a big pancake eater and I could eat her's everyday of my life and never tire of them, LOL! She makes a special homemade syrup with them and they are to die for!

I homemake her pancake recipe myself and although they are quite tasty, they are nothing compared to hers! That old saying is true, no one cooks like your Momma, in my case my mother-in-law! I've been with her since I was 16 years old, so she is like a Mom to me :)

So maybe my kids aren't the only ones spoiled with good homemade food, I am too, LOL!

Vicky