Food Storage Cookbooks

Most of you know that Doug's mom is on the General Young Women's board for our church but may not know that she has also served for many years in the Provident living and food storage capacities of the church. She taught cooking classes at Welfare square for quite some time and now she also owns a cooking school in American Fork, Utah. (The Wooden Spoon Cooking School)

She teaches about cooking with food storage, having frozen and 'bag' dinners on hand at all times, and many more really fun techniques.

She has created a few copyrighted cookbooks that have become really popular. She left some with me to sell to anyone who wanted one. So, I was thinking about it and thought it would be helpful to maybe even host a girls night where I could prepare a few of the recipes for everyone to try.

I am planning on doing that sometime in February or March so let me know if you are interested.

The cookbooks are going for $15 each or if you want one of each I can sell them for $25.

If you don't live around here I can mail them to you.. I would just have to add shipping. If you know a few people who want one we could always combine shipping costs and send them in a flat rate box to make it cheaper.

Here is some info on each of the books:

"Bee Prepared": A provident living resource

This book consists of the sections 'Family Assessment and Plan', 'Basic Core Foods', 'Home Storage Information', and 'Kitchen Journal' as well as information on buying and storing water, information and recipes for Wheat, Sourdough, Yeast, Corn, Popcorn, Rice, Rolled Oats, Legumes, Sprouting, Powdered Milk, Sugar, Honey, Fats and Oils, Dried Eggs, Salt and Seasonings, Vinegars, and Substitutions. Each of these items includes a WIDE variety of different recipes.

Dinner? It's in the Bag!:

This book is really fun! It is based on the principles of planning meals in advance, preparing meals together, and presenting meals that delight.

It's sections include 'Elegant Equipment', 'Perfectly Prepared Pantry','Culinary Clinic', 'Amazing Attire', 'Palette Pleasers', 'Family Favorites', 'Dazzling Decor', and 'Table Talk and Family Fun'.

Each recipe includes the items you buy for the bag (for example a can of Beef stew, a can of vegetables, and a cup of Potato Pearls in a container for Shepherds Pie), the items you get from your pantry or kitchen, and the directions for baking as well as serving suggestions.

The basic idea is to have these 'bagged' meals on hand so that when you need a meal you can grab the bag out of your pantry or storage and have everything you need to make the meal right there together. It is also a great way to have quick and easy meals on hand when you need to take a meal to someone else.

Let me know if any of you are interested.

Princess School Day three

We started out the day with The Princess Who Wouldn't Get Married from the Princes and Princesses book. It was pretty funny at the end when we were discussing it and I asked Abi why she thought the princess didn't want to marry any of the princes. She said, "Maybe she was just too too shy to do that." I thought that was cute.

We then made glittery Fairy bookmarks.

This is the first one she made. I was so impressed with the face. It is amazing to me how fast kids go from not being able to do faces to doing them so well.

She had so much fun making this that she just had to make some more.

Here she is making the second one -originally meant for Grandma and Grandpa because "Grandma loves reading too!" but then she decided to give it to Daddy instead.

Then that gave her the excuse to make one more for Grandma and Grandpa. This one she made a "silly" face (or as Abi says it... "Siyyee")

It was great to have a special bookmark because at bedtime last night I let Abi pick from a few chapter books I thought she would like and we read a chapter after her normal bedtime book. This way we are able to use her bookmark.

What did she pick? Pippi in the South Seas!

Princess School Day two:

We started out the day by reading Sleeping Beauty from the Usborne Fairytale jigsaw book. I ordered this a few weeks ago and unfortunately out of the six stories only three of them had the puzzle pieces. The guy refunded me and so now we can only put together three of the stories but you can't beat free. So, we read the story and then Abi did the puzzle.

I had to get a close up of what I was calling her "Anne of Avonlea" hair. This is leftover style from yesterday but she added the baby hairbow which seemed to 'make' the look.

After the story we used the Fairy Cooking book ( I already owned this one) to make Fairy Star Cookies.

I had prepared all the ingredients before hand so it made it really easy for Abi to be able to put it all together herself.


They were supposed to be a star shape but all we had was a ginormous star cookie cutter. We used little heart ones for the leftover dough. I thought they kind of ended up looking like sick starfish.
Then we decorated them with writing icing.
Maddy just enjoyed watching..

Can you tell which ones I decorated and the ones she did? Ha.
These actually turned out really good. They are large but they taste like a chewy Ginger snap.

After sharing a cookie we did her Sleeping Beauty puzzle to end the day. She's already looking forward to tomorrow to find out what she gets to do next at "Princess School"!

Princess School Day one:

A few years ago I got the Adventures of Fairy Princesses study guide from Usborne books. It is basically a lesson plan for 10 weeks of fun centered around fairy princesses. (they have the Ten Terrific Weeks plans for a wide variety of other subjects as well) I hadn't used it yet but a few weeks ago I decided to give it a go during these cold months where we really need something fun to do every day. I combined activities because most days only had one story or one craft and I wanted it to be a little longer. So, every day we do a story and either a craft or a cooking project which is making our 'school' last only about 5-6 weeks.

We started yesterday. Abi has been so excited to do this and has been loving it.

The first thing was reading a story out of the Little book of fairy stories about a man who is gifted 'magimints' from a fairy that enable him to say just the right thing. He is able to use this to win the love of a princess and avoid being executed. It was a funny little story. The guide comes with discussion questions so we used those to talk about the story afterward.

We then made a fairy princess tiara.

This was, of course, Abi's favorite part. She loved making it. The only thing I did was the tin foil loops on top and then she did the rest. She wore it the rest of the day.

She then put together some fairies in the Fairy jigsaw puzzle box. She has had this for a few years and just loves it.

Videos of Abi

I feel like Abi is growing up so fast so I thought I should throw on some videos I took of her yesterday. We were playing 'wedding' and 'tea party' and she was saying the funniest things. Unfortunately I didn't get the funniest parts on video but I think I still got some good stuff. The other video is of her dancing around the front room.

Krispy Kreme

Most of you may already know this but you can take your kids for a small tour of Krispy Kreme where they watch how donuts are made and can ask the manager questions , etc. Then at the end they get their own donut. I have been wanting to do this for awhile but haven't... so I thought it would be fun to do around Valentines day so we could pick up some of their special sprinkled heart donuts.

So, if anyone around here is interested, I just spoke to the manager and will be setting up an appt. on Friday the 12th of February. It will probably be sometime in the morning 10/11 ish. It is up in West Ellis. Comment if you want to come and I can let you know the exact details about a week before.

I feel like Hagrid's father

I'm short. Doug is not tall. Somehow Abi is taller than average. Well, today was Madeline's 2 month appt. ( a couple weeks late) She has grown 4 inches since the last time they saw her.

The doctor was shocked. She said she is over 95% percentile and may be really close to 100%.

I found this funny because she started out shorter than Abi started out.

The appointment was good. She got her shots and I have never heard her cry like THAT! She didn't calm down for a good 5-10 minutes.

Also, she is getting a flat head on her right side because she always looks that way when laying down so I have to do neck exercises and stretches with her so she won't get weak muscles on one side of her neck or get a permanent flat head. Poor thing.

At the end of the appt. she prescribed vitamins for Maddy and reminded me that Abi and I need ours as well since apparently we don't get enough sun here in Wisconsin. Wow.

Rewards

I found this reward chart at the Learning Express toy store and it has been wonderful. It is magnetic so it can always be seen on the fridge and it comes with a bunch of behaviors that stick on with velcro so you can change them out based on your needs. Each behavior has a spot for a star for each day of the week so every morning Abi and I go through the behaviors and discuss whether she did them the day before or not and she can put on the stars (they also are velcro).

It has a place to put the goal for the week so we up the total every week.

On monday morning we count up all the stars she has earned and then she gets to pick a prize from the reward store.

The reward store is a basket I got in Target's dollar section and is filled with a couple of bigger items (Fancy Nancy puzzle, toy camera, etc) and a bunch of dollar aisle items (puzzle, tiaras, etc) and some treats like candy and fruit snacks. Each item is assigned a point value. For example the Fancy Nancy puzzle is 50 points, the Barn puzzle is 20 points, and the fruit snacks are 10 points. She then can figure out what she can "afford" and what she wants the most. If she wants to save up her points she can add them to the next week's points to get a bigger item.

Today she was happy to get a candy bracelet, a wand, and to save some points leftover to use next week. This is definitely working better than any other reward system I've used. She loves putting the stars on and she is very aware of the things she needs to work on since there are only six of them.

As a random side note I thought it was really funny when Abi brought this to me a little while ago and said, "Look mom, I drew this for you. The whale is about to eat the little fish."

Slumber parties and picnics

The girls yesterday morning.. Abi had put on this fancy dress but it wasn't zipped up which is why it looks like it is falling off.

She decided to have a pretend slumber party in the front room. I thought it was funny because she came into the room with her quilt, her pillow, her stuffed animal, and a play cookie and said,

"To have a slumber party you need a blanket, your pillow, a cuddly stuffed animal, and OF COURSE, a Gourmet cookie."

Mid afternoon I decided to take the girls on a picnic while Doug was taking a nap. Of course it was too cold to have it outside but I thought Abi and I could have a picnic in the car while the baby napped in the backseat. Abi was so excited. This is how she dressed for the event... A nice dress, stretchy pants, snow boots, her fancy coat, and her dinosaur dig glasses.

We packed the lunch in the paper lunchbox and she just had to carry it for me.

We drove over by the lake and parked so that we could see the lake and the lighthouse. It was so pretty even in the gloomy weather.

We had sandwiches but Abi was most excited about the little bag of Goldfish crackers. She was having a great time watching all the dogs running around. There were quite a few people down there.

It turned out to be pretty fun. Maddy slept the whole time so Abi and I spent about an hour just talking. We made a list of all the things we've wanted to do out here that we still haven't done after 3 and a half years so that we could start planning time to go do them.

Ahh a sleeping baby...

We have finally got into a good schedule with Madeline. It's wonderful. Once she is up for the morning then the day is more unpredictable because some days she is content all day but others she wants to be held all day and she never wants to sleep in her crib during the day but.... around 6PM we do scriptures, I take the girls up and we do baths, Maddy hangs out with her mobile or Daddy while I get Abi in her pj's and all the nights chores done (cleaning up room, brushing teeth, etc) we read bedtime stories and lights out at 7. I then am able to now go in and get Maddy all ready for bed and nurse and rock her. She is then out somewhere between 7:30 and 8:00 and is sleeping stretches of about 6-7 hours. Then I feed her. She goes back down for another 3-4 hours. Then I feed her and she goes down until somewhere between 8-9am. When I go in to get her she is all smiles knowing it is time to really get up. LOVE IT.

Dentistry and pies

Today was the long awaited day for Abi's first trip to the dentist. Doug and I also had appointments since it has been years since we have gone. Abi wanted Doug to go, then me, then her. I was really worried. When we go to the doctor and they want to look at her teeth she always freaks out. We talked to her a lot about it. She read her Dora at the dentist book a million times and we rented movies from the library like Caillou at the dentist, etc. but I still thought she would freak out. So, the other day we went to the store and I told her to pick out what prize she wanted after the dentist. She found some big wings. Hers ripped a while back and she has been wanting some ever since and these were super fancy.

This morning we got there and all was good. Doug ended up being back there for a long time and Abi started getting restless. They had no toys or children's things so luckily I had brought along some crayons, a coloring book, and some construction paper that kept her busy for a while.

I love, love, love this snowman she drew for Doug..

Maddy just hanging out...

They put on cartoons for her while I was back but they were crazy cartoon network ones that were so weird (luckily she didn't like them either) but they kept her attention.

Then it was her turn. What would she do? I followed her back and then ....

SHE TOLD ME TO LEAVE!!

What? Yep. She told me to go back to the waiting room. So, I did. I kept close so I could hear what was going on and heard her telling the girl that her name was Abi, she was four years old, and about Dora going to the dentist. I listened as she did x-rays like a champ. Then when the girl left to go process the x-rays I went in so she wouldn't be alone.

I took the camera so I could get a picture of her.

She looks concerned but it wasn't because of being in the dentist chair.. it was because she was telling me that "the girl will be right back.. go!"

I left again. We listened to her get her teeth cleaned, greet the dentist, everything. It was awesome. Her teeth were great as well so it was a huge relief. (as was the fact that I had no cavities and they told me I had less build up then most people that come back every six months. Yay!)

It was a great dentist day.

As soon as we got home Abi got her new wings and quickly proclaimed that for the rest of the day she would be the Butterfly Princess.

And as a last note... today was National Pie Day so after dinner we had a piece of Marie Callendar's frozen Dutch apple pie which is absolutely delicious and only $5.

Polka dot day

Because yesterday was National polka dot day the girls both wore polka dots (as seen in the photo yesterday). Abi also used her dot painters.

She used to love those but all she really wanted to do was paint with more pink paint.

and work in a pre school workbook..

Maddy, of course, was just her happy self while this was going on.

Then we had pizza for dinner of course because pepperoni looks like polka dots!

Happy Polka dot day!

Dino Day

Yesterday Abi and I had a dinosaur day. We began in the morning by reading some of our Dinosaur books and then these ones from the library..

I've had this dinosaur excavation kit for a few years and finally decided to use it. It came with a great book about dinosaurs that we read first and we talked about archeology and then had our own dig.

It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. It took both of us chipping and hitting and pulling apart an hour to get the dino skeleton out..

Then we got to assemble it.. which we can't quite do. Daddy helped when he got home but it won't stay together very well. It was a lot of fun though!