Ya Gotta Have Heart!

Hearts represent many things; February, love, Valentines Day, emotions, and health.

Let's start with a recipe for soft, fluffy, delicious, sugar cookies in the shape of hearts!

Sugar Cookies
1/2 cup butter
1 3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 Tablespoon baking powder
5 cups flour
2 c. sour cream (I used low-fat)
2 tsp. vanilla
Cream butter, sugar and eggs together.  Add dry ingredients.  Add sour cream and vanilla.  Mix well.  Place in refrigerator for at least an hour.  Roll to 1/4 inch thickness.  Cut in desired shapes.  Bake 350 degrees for 11-13 minutes.  Let cool and frost with your favorite frosting.

I offered the frosted, morsels of goodness to my 18 year old.  He asked, suspiciously, "Did you put anything healthy in 'em?"  I assured him there was nothing healthy and he eagerly ate some.

Speaking of healthy and heart. 

The Mountain Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross is sponsoring a 5K and 1 mile run on March 6th.   This is to raise funds to help in assisting disaster relief.  The mission of the Mountain Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross is to improve the quality of human life; to enhance self-reliance and concern for others; and to help people prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergencies.  For over 100 years, the American Red Cross has been helping others.  If you live in Utah, Salt Lake, Davis or any other surrounding counties, come and join the race.  
Go here to learn more and sign up. 
http://www.redcrossut.org/runforred

The sugar cookies may not be good for the heart, but running for a good cause is!

Friend or Foe?

Whether you're a football fan, a BYU fan, or just a fan of our country, I think you'll like this video. It was played on September 22, 2009 in the BYU stadium just minutes before the kickoff between BYU and AirForce. It's good to be reminded.

Laundry Soap

I have a recipe that will save you lots of money!  This will make 10 gallons of laundry soap.

You'll need Borax, Washing Soda and a bar of Fels Naptha (try saying that 3 times fast)

Put the bar of Fels Naptha soap in a food processor and grate.   It looks a bit like cheese, so don't let your family put it on a tortilla!

Put the grated soap in a large sauce pan.  Add 4 cups water and bring to a boil.

In the meantime, fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot water. Add 1 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda and 1/2 cup Borax.  Stir.

Keep a close eye on your pan of soap.  It boils over easily.   Boil and stir until the soap is dissolved. Add to the 5 gallon bucket.  Stir well then fill the bucket with hot water.  Cover with a lid and let sit over night.

  As you can see, the soap has become gel-like.  Stir well.  Use a container such as an empty laundry container, empty apple juice or orange juice bottle.  Fill half way with the soap then add water to fill.  Shake well.  Use 1 cup laundry soap per washload.

Laundry Soap

1 bar Fels Naptha Soap

1/2 cup 20 Mule Team Borax

1 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda

Follow the above instructions.  All the supplies are in the laundry aisle of your store. You can buy enough product to make a year supply of laundry soap for $15.00!

This is the first time I've made this.  I've been using it for a week and it seems to clean well and it smells good.  What more could I want?

Groundhog Day Blues and a Dinner

Every morning, Miss C, a 2nd grade speech student, stops by the speech room to say Hi!  She's a precocious child with a cute, but soon to be corrected, lisp.  Today she came in crying!  Thinking that she had either hurt herself-or-her friends had once again ditched her on the way to school, I put my arm around her shoulders and asked, in my NICE Grandma voice, why she was crying.  She started sobbing to the point where she was wailing as she talked. "The groundhog thaw hith shadow today.  Every year the ground hog seeth hith shadow and I'm tired of him alwayth theeing hith shadow!  Can't he just for onth, NOT see hith shadow?  I'm TIRED of winter!!!"
Wouldn't it be nice if THAT wath the only thing we had to worry about!

Jenny from "Homespun Crazy" tagged me, so, I will comply.

I'm supposed to show what I fixed for dinner and include recipes.

This is what I fixed!

I know what you're thinking..."Does this lady eat anything but Mexican food?"  The answer is yes, but, it just so happens most of my recipes I put on the blog are usually of the Mexican origin and that's alright with me!

The recipe for this is:

Put whatever you want on a tortilla and enjoy!

I have some of my bottled beef chunks on the bottom

Black beans

Grated cheese

Chopped green onion

The green stuff is NOT lettuce but cilantro - I love that stuff!

Chopped tomatoes 

Sour cream.

Can you believe I folded that up and ate it!  Good thing I had a plate under it!  My eyes were bigger than my stomach when I put it together!  When I went to Costco I bought this salsa.  I usually make my own but can't resist this!  I had some chips and salsa for dinner too.

 

You'd think this would have been enough to fill me up, and it was, but I had to eat a cookie.

These cookies are absolutely, positively delicious!  I think they were even better the next day. They have carrots, coconut and orange juice in them so I figure they HAD to be good for me!  Since I'm running out of time, I'm going to send you to the blog that featured these delicious cookies.  KC, at Grandma's Desserts, has some delicious recipes for a variety of desserts. Check it out!

I'm supposed to tag 2 people but since I've had some disgruntled "tag-ees" in the past, I will leave it open to all of you.  Grab the "what did you have for dinner?" button at the top of this post and share your dinner and recipes with us! 

We'll be glad you did!

Last of the January Birthdays

So far I have highlighted 4 people in my family who have birthdays in January.  Here are the last 3. (They're the cutest)

Ad (on the left) is a whopping 5 years old!

 Her birthday was at a local spa where they have a "Spoiled Rotten" room and the girls get to dress as princesses and walk down a runway.  Each girl changed her dress several different times!

Who can resist pretending to eat princess food!

Soon, they were served cupcakes the size of their head and some hot strawberry flavored drink with lots of whipped cream. 

 

Happy Birthday Ad!

Mr. T turned 1!

 He had a great time at his party.

After a dinner of pizza and subs,

  Games were played, including a rousing game of Twister...

Followed by a competetive squirt gun fight!

Happy first Birthday, Troy!

Izzy is 3 years old. 

She had a princess party where the games included, find the glass slipper, pass the poison apple and kiss the frog. 

Even the boys got in on that game!

  

The pinata was filled with toys and candy.

The princess cake and brownies were enjoyed by all!

She made sure everyone was properly thanked.

Happy Birthday, Izzy!

We're done with birthday celebrations until March!  Enjoy February!

Lunch at Costco - Winner!

Went to Costco with Camille to get my addiction fix.  There were no boxes of the sweet abrosia!  (Gasp!)

So, we walked through the store and ate all the samples instead!  It was lunch time and we really got our eat on!  Here are some of the sweet morsels we sampled:

trail mix

potstickers

chicken enchiladas

turkey sausage

polish sausage

Progesso soup

roast beef

greek salad and chips

breads

energy drink

trim diet drink

v-8 splash

cream puffs

It was a great lunch!   I have a question.  Since I don't normally do the sample thing, I was interested in watching how others did.  Do you:

Stand in line longer than a minute to get a sample?

Eat or drink the sample while standing in front of the sample table?

Listen to the sweet, patient, sample person tell all the benefits of the product before leaving?

Say "thank-you?"

Go back again? 

Just in case you're wondering about the lack of Benefiber....I went out of my way to another Costco and found some there!  I was so excited, not just because it was there, but it was only $2.99 a box!  That's a savings of $6.00!  I bought 5!

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The winner of the "Grill It" Cookbook and M&Ms is:
Yvonne!
I'm sure you'll want a few Benefiber pixie sticks too!!

Going the Extra Mile

Today, while at work, I texted my two youngest and suggested they straighten the house. When I came home from work, I walked in to my empty house that smelled....clean!  It looked clean.  Jo had scrubbed the kitchen floor, cleaned off counter tops that I hadn't seen for over a week, washed the dishes, folded clothes, cleaned the living room, and vacuumed the carpet.

I found this in the middle of the kitchen table.

And that's not all!  He had a 1/2 gallon of chocolate milk for me in the fridge!  And it's not even my birthday!

Talk about going the extra mile! Thanks, Jordan.

One more!  Our monitor gave up the ghost yesterday.  I mentioned it to my friend, Karen (Kazzy's Ponderings).  She said that she had one at her house that was not being used.  I picked it up on the way home from work.  I realized I didn't have the right cord so I called Karen.  She not only found the cord but actually delivered it to my house and helped me install it! 

 Another extra miler!  Thanks, Karen!

I am truly blessed!

Today is a great day!!!

Name That Tune

I loved watching that game show! The contestants would be given a clue to the song that the band would play. Then they would tell the host how many notes it would take before they could guess the song.
Here is a rendition of the game. Mr. Cy was the host AND the band. Here's the clue.
"This song is on Beatles Rock Band." How many notes will it take you to guess?



Don't ask how many notes I needed. All I can say is it's a good thing Em started singing!
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Thanks for all your positive comments about Em's new glasses. Tuesday was the first day she wore them to school. She returned home feeling a little sad because of some negative comments that had been said to her. Her mother had her read all of your comments. It made her day!

Ready? Giveaway!

Ready for Spring? I received this wonderful Garden book from AnnMarie at "An Old Fashioned Girl" and I love looking at the pictures of the beautiful flower gardens. Makes me excited to do some planting in a few months!

Thank you, Ann, for being so generous.

Ready for the next birthday installment?

I have two handsome sons-in-law whose birthdays we celebrated this month.

Andy and Vili are the same age.

Andy's married to our oldest daughter, Candice. His birthday is actually on New Year's Eve but we can count that as a January birthday. And yes, there is some confusion with the 2 Andys.  We have Andy the Elder and Andy the Younger.

Vili is married to our 3rd daughter, Jill.

He celebrates 2 birthdays.  One that his mom insists is his birthday and the other one, a month later, is on his birth certificate.  I think the records in Tonga are not very reliable.  I'm siding with his mom, she should know when he was born!

I hope that both of my sons-in-law know how much I appreciate their kindness and patience with their family.  They're the best!

Ready for visiting another blog?  It just so happens I'm a guest blogger for Camille. Come visit me at "Make It Work Mom" and see how Camille takes a day off!

She's sticking her neck out on this one!  It's a good thing she gets the last edit on the post.

Ready for a Giveaway? 

I found this cookbook at Barnes & Noble in the clearance bin.  When I took it up front to check out, it rang up the full price.  The manager was called to check it out and said that since it had the clearance sticker, they would honor it.  This cookbook is filled with delicious recipes that are cooked on a grill.  Pizza, flatbread, chicken, pork, fish, turkey, beef, and vegetables are the stars of this book!

Since Spring is just around the corner, (wishful thinking) you'll be ready to grill like a pro after perusing this book!

And - what better treat to munch on, while planning your next barbecue, than these?!

To enter this giveaway of the recipe book and M&Ms, leave a comment.  If you're a follower, you'll automatically be entered twice.  Giveaway ends Saturday.

See you at Camille's!

Was It The Uniform?

Saturday night, Andy and I used some Outback gift certificates that our generous friends gave us for Christmas. Before we left the house, Jo-Man, who was doing Army Guard for the weekend, called to ask what we were having for dinner.  He had been given some time to leave Camp Williams to have dinner.  We invited him to join us at Outback. 

When Andy and I arrived, Jo was standing outside the restaurant in his uniform and had already gone in and put his name down and was told that it would be an hour wait.  He  told us that he wouldn't be able to wait that long and handed me the pager.  At that moment the pager vibrated and the lights came on. We walked in to the very crowded restaurant.  We were seated at a table after only an 8 minute wait.  We joked that it was Jordan's army uniform that got us in so quickly.  The waitress then brought out 2 loaves of bread instead of one and we were given a full rack of ribs and the waitress made sure we knew that we would only be charged for a half order.  We decided that we'll take Jordan with us to dinner on his army weekend from now on if that uniform really DOES work magic!  I hope that if he's deployed it will still work magic and keep him safe!