Apple Pie..... Mmmm! It's So Good

Today I have another recipe to share with you and this one is for good ole' apple pie. If you like recipes as much as I do, then you have quite a few apple pie recipes. I've had a couple of them flop, but the few others that I've tried are usually pretty good. So was this one. However, I'm still on the search for that "go to" apple pie recipe. I don't think I've found that one yet, but this one is good. Don't get me wrong. I guess I'm just too picky.



I did take a short cut with this pie, which I made for our Memorial Day dessert. I used refrigerated pie crusts instead of making my own. Hey, I'm not afraid to use a little help from pre-made ingredients. It tasted very good, by the way. I think I went a little heavy with the cinnamon sugar on top of the crust, but I like it that way. It was really good. Pair a hot slice with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for some Apple Pie a la mode goodness. You could also try it my favorite way, a nice cold slice from the fridge. So good!

If you think you have that "go to" yummy apple pie recipe. Please share with me in my comments!

Apple Pie
1 (15 oz.) box refrigerated pie crust
1/4 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 c. sugar
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
6 medium Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 egg white lightly beaten
1 Tbsp. cinnamon sugar

Preheat oven to 350.
Fit 1 pie crust into a 9 inch pie plate according to package directions.
In a large bowl, combine brown sugar, sugar, cornstarch, and cinnamon. Add apples, tossing gently to coat. Spoon mixture into prepared pie shell.
Place remaining pie crust over apple mixture; fold edges under and crimp. Brush pie crust with beaten egg white and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Cut slits in top crust to allow steam to escape. Bake for 45 minutes, or until browned.

Recipe from Paula Deen magazine

Berry Yogurt Crunch Parfaits .....Made With Easy Granola

I have some easy and delicious recipes to share with you today. It's all about the granola. Now, I don't know if you're a granola fan, but give it a try and see what you think. I don't have it on hand all the time, but when I do I love to just munch on it for a snack. It would also be yummy sprinkled over oatmeal or how about this Berry Yogurt Crunch Parfait. I personally can't stand the taste of yogurt, but I made some of these for my husband and kids and they thought they were great. Looks like a new snack favorite...... and it's so simple to make and good for you!

The granola recipe that I use now I got from a friend at church. It turns out much better than the one I was using. The flavors of the honey and cinnamon seem to come out much more than my old recipe. As I said earlier, it's very tasty just to munch all by itself. Get the recipes below.




Berry Yogurt Crunch Parfaits
Easy Granola
Strawberry yogurt (or your favorite flavor)
Mixed berries such as strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries ( I used diced strawberries and blackberries)

In a small glass or sundae cup, layer ingredients, starting with yogurt, granola, strawberries, and blueberries. Make another layer ending with berries on top. Enjoy!




Easy Granola
3 cups uncooked oatmeal (old fashioned or quick)
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans or slivered almonds
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup melted butter
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
2/3 c. raisins (optional)

Combine oatmeal, coconut and nuts. Melt butter in a separate bowl and stir in honey, cinnamon and salt. Stir and pour over oatmeal mixture. Toss until well mixed. Spread on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake in a preheated oven at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. While baking, stir every five minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely. Add raisins. Store in a tightly covered container. Makes about 6 cups.

Works For Me Wednesday- Board Game Storage/Organization

It's Works For Me Wednesday at We Are That Family and I wanted to share how I store my board games. It works for me!

I store my board games, and we have quite a few of them since my family loves to play games, upright instead of stacked on top of each other. I store them very tightly so we can just pull one out and the others stay put. By storing them like this, we have so much more room to put them than by stacking them. . It's a good way to store a lot of games. I will say the pieces do get strewn about the box a little more, but hey, were just going to take out the pieces to play the game anyway. There are some games like Boggle and Mastermind that I still stack because they have so many pieces and I don't want to chance them falling out, but I only have a few like that.

I will say that this is not my idea. I saw my friend Kim storing her games this way years ago,but I didn't try it myself until recently. I'm glad I did. It gives me more space to store those new games we'd like to get. Thanks Kim!

Wet N' Wild

On Thursday, the kids were dismissed from their last day of school at 12:30 p.m. As a surprise to them, I got out all of our water toys and let them have at it. They were able to play for a while before the rain started. The slip n' slide was the favorite. Although, Ivy wasn't too sure about the sprinkler or the slip n' slide. Trent and Laci wouldn't let her just stand by and watch. They scooped her up and took her down the slide.

Trent was all about the water guns!

After our water fun, everyone came inside to enjoy a cool treat of cookies and cream ice cream. Yum! The kids had so much fun, they can't wait until our next "water day."

Happy Memorial Day!

I hope everyone has a happy and safe memorial day. As we celebrate with barbecues and taking the day off, let us remember the real meaning of this day and celebrate those men and women who have served and are serving our country. Thank You!

Fourth Grade Honors and Kindergarten Fun

Not the best picture, but that is Trent with his AR trophy.

I have busy with school programs the past few days, but am back today. I thought I'd share a few pictures of the kids' with you. Tuesday, I went to Trent's school for the fourth grade honors program. Wow! Lots of awards were given out so it was a little long. Longer than I expected. Oh well. I guess that means a lot of those kids were doing a good job. Trent received an A-B Honor Roll medal. Yeah! He also received an Accelerated Reader World Traveler Award, which means he showed a great love of reading. Trent also received a 1st place trophy for being the 4th grader with the most accelerated reader points, 265 of them. Wow! He does love to read. Sometimes he would be reading 5 books at a time. I never got how he could keep 'em straight.We're so pleased with him. Way to go! He can't wait for 5th grade. He can finally be in the Lego club, which is only for 5th graders.




On Monday, I got to watch 5 of the kindergarten classes put on show for us. They sang some of their favorite songs from the school year. They sang great and were so cute. Laci was featured in one of the songs as the last"E" in kindergarten. She is the second from the end in the picture holding the "E." We are so pleased with Laci, too. She progressed and blossomed so much in kindergarten. As her mom, it was fun to watch her learn and love going to school. I attribute a lot of that to her wonderful teacher who was the perfect fit for Laci. We're going to miss her.



After the program, we went back to her room and visited with some of her little friends. This is Laci with one of her best friends, Jalah.

Teacher Appreciation Gift

This year for teacher appreciation gifts, I decided to put together a useful and sweet gift baggie. It's always a challenge for me to pick something for my childrens teachers. I want it to be useful, but yet cute and fun. In the past, we've done treats, embellished letters, framed teacher's prayer, artwork from the kids, etc. So, this year when I thought of this gift, I just went with it. I hope they will like them. I made 4 sets of each since Trent has 3 teachers and Laci has 1. They will be getting a set of monogrammed cards, monogrammed big paperclip book mark and 3 jumbo homemade chocolate chip pecan cookies. Gotta have a treat in there! I also included a thank you note from Will and I , and the kids.

Jumbo paper clip book marks are cute and fun! You can find out how to make them here.

These are the cards they will be getting. A set of 4, including envelopes, all tied up with black tulle. I thought it was clean and simple, yet cute. I packaged all their goodies up in cute gift bags. Hope they got them in good condition. I do appreciate our teachers and the work they do for it is not easy. We have been blessed to have some inspiring, caring and understanding teachers this year. Thank You!

Easy Doughnuts

Nothing too fancy today, just a recipe for some easy and delicious doughnuts. I have a couple recipes that I've used to make doughnuts from scratch. One of them is actually spudnuts, made from potatoes. Those recipes are good every now and then, but they just take a lot of time. So, when I ran across this recipe in a magazine I thought we'd give 'em a try. They are very good and perfect when you can't set aside the time to make them from scratch.

Trent was responsible for our family night treat on Monday, so he wanted to make these with a little help from me.




First, open one can of refrigerated biscuits and use your finger to make holes in the middle.



Next, pour 3 cups of vegetable oil into a large saucepan and warm to about 375 degrees. Carefully, drop in a couple doughnuts at a time and fry until golden brown on one side. Use tongs to turn them over and brown on the other side.




Carefully, remove doughnuts from pan with tongs and place on a paper towel lined plate.




Then, mix 1 c. sugar and 3 Tbsp. cinnamon together. Toss each doughnut in cinnamon sugar mixture. Trent was great at this. He made sure our doughnuts were extra cinnamony sugary!
You could make your own powdered sugar glaze and dip them in that, as well. Add sprinkles, etc. Go crazy with them if you like.



Ta Da! The finished product. They're no Krispy Kreme, but they were really yummy. Everyone liked them. I think this little recipe is a keeper. Enjoy!

Fancy Treats

Today I'll be sharing fancy treats from the party. I kept the menu simple, yet fancy and fun. We held the party in the afternoon, so I didn't need to feed everyone lunch. For the "cake" we had these amazing petit fours. The girls thought they were so cute. They were and they taste sooooo good. Seriously, I think I could have eaten the whole box of them. A friend of mine from church makes them and they are melt-in-your-mouth good. The best ones I've ever had! Let me just say, this was the first time that I didn't make one of my children's cakes for their b'day. Kinda sad, but I've attempted petit fours before and it did not go so well.



In the Fancy Nancy books and games, they eat parfaits. So, all the girls got to make their own parfait. They had an assortment of toppings; sprinkles, nuts and caramel that were held in cute little glass sundae cups.




The girls enjoyed the petit fours and ice cream, but I think their favorite thing was drinking out of the plastic goblets which I found at Dollar Tree. They were saying "cheers" and "pinkies out dahling." So cute!

The fancy words signs.

Fancy Fun

Today I'd like to share some of the fancy activities from Laci's Fancy Nancy birthday party this past weekend. When all the girls had finally arrived, they got to visit the "Ooh-La-La Boutique," which I had set up on our piano. They picked out their own necklaces, a tiara and the sunglasses they liked. The girls looked marvelous.




I made a sign for the boutique, as well as our fancy treats which I will show you tomorrow. If you are familiar with the Fancy Nancy books, you know that she explains what some of her fancy words mean, so I modeled the signs after that.
For example, Boutique(That's a fancy word for store).


For one of our activities, I had the brilliant idea to make bracelets. Well, that did not go so good. The girls were really into it, but it just wasn't happening. I guess I don't know how to pick out good jewelry making supplies. The stretchy cord I picked out was not easy to work with. We would get a bracelet all beaded and try to tie the end and all the beads would fall off. Uggh! I should have probably thought this whole bracelet thing through a little more. It was taking so long that I finally said we are going to bag up each girl's supplies and they could try to finish them at home. Not trying that one again for awhile. The good thing is they didn't seem to mind at all.




After our delicious treats, Laci opened her gifts. She was so excited. She has such cute little friends that showered her with so many fun things.With presents opened, the girls headed out to take turns riding on her Barbie Jeep. That is before the battery died. Oh well. I think all of them had fun. Thanks to all the girls for making Laci's 6th b'day fancy and special.

Come back tomorrow to see our simple, yet fancy treats.

A Fancy Nancy Celebration!

First, a belated Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there! I hope your day was great.Mine was! ( I don't know why everything is underlined. I tried to fix it).

On Saturday, we celebrated Laci's 6th birthday by gettin' fancy with a Fancy Nancy party. We had 7 little girls that looked fabulous in their fancy dresses. I hope all of them had a magnificent time. (Like my fancy words!)

To invite the girls to the party, I sent out these handmade invitations. Quite simple ones. I guess I could have made them a bit fancier. Although, I did add a little bling with stick-on rhinestones . I was happy with the outcome.

Here are the little ladies at their fanciest.

Well, this is not the greatest picture of the table. Oh well. To make our table fancy for the b'day girl, we used a pink and purple color scheme with dainty doily place mats, plastic goblets, tiered glass cake stands for the petit fours and two round vases of beautiful white roses. We also scattered some purple gem stones down the middle for some added bling. Laci loved it! I'll share more party details with you tomorrow.

Givin' Props and Fun Finds

First up, I want to give some big props to a couple fabulous places I was taken to while in Utah. I had lunch at the charming Flour Girls & Dough Boys. This is a great little bakery and cafe in Lehi,(I think). My food was absolutely delicious and the atmosphere great. The homemade cookie I had for dessert..... YUM! If you're ever around there, go grab some lunch. Great place Tammy. Thanks for taking me there.

I can't forget another great shop I visited in American Fork, Tammi's Finders Keepers. It's a little store set up with great decor and furniture that has been refurbished. Loved it! I found a lot of things there,but you know how it is when you travel. You're limited with suitcases. I did pick up a couple fun finds for the girls' room. Isn't this pillow just so cute! And the finials. The colors are perfect. I can't wait to get to work on their room.

Craft Challenge: Ribbon

Today is craft challenge time with Heidi at Blue Eyed Blessings. Her theme this month is ribbon.

Ribbon is so fun and versatile. It can dress up so many things, but today I wanted to share something new I learned how to do while visiting my friend Tammy. I learned how to make bows!! It's so fun!I'm so glad she taught me how to do this. We had a great time making these together. Since I have two girls, this skill will definitely come in handyand can we say gifts! Oh yeah! I'm sure I'll be making some to give away. I also made some cute flower clips that I'll be sharing later. I was also planning a tutorial to show you how to make a basic bow, but that will have to come later as well. Busy, busy, busy!





I'll also link you to another cute past ribbon project that was so simple. This embellished trash can took only minutes to complete. Great for a girl's room! Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Laci!

A big Happy Birthday to my little Laci bug today!!!! She's 6 and so excited about it. I remember the day she arrived six years ago. What a sweet, precious little girl with cute little dimples. She still is that precious little girl. Just a little bit bigger. We love you Laci!

We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast, which she picked out, in honor of her birthday. Then we sang Happy Birthday to her. After school, we will continue our mom and daughter tradition, which we started last year, of going to get manicures together. How fun! She can't wait. Okay, neither can I !

We'll celebrate Fancy Nancy style on Sat. with a posh party. Look for details on that next week.




Her nana and grand dad came down on Sat. and suprised her with this cute cake and her gift. Isn't this so darling!!! Tasted really good too. Laci loved it as well as her gift. A Barbie jeep. Her and Ivy, well Trent too, have been having a blast in the jeep. I'll post more pictures of them in the jeep later. She's also been enjoying all the cards from aunts, uncles, nanny and her grandma and grand dad out in Washington. She loves getting new cd's from grandma. Luckily, she got one in the mail yesterday for her b'day along with some money. She thought that was grand. She said, " I'm rich. I'm rich." Funny b'day girl!!

Off To The Zoo

Let me just start off by saying that I am happy to be blogging again after a little break for a trip to visit my sweet friend Tammy out in Utah. I had a fun and relaxing time with her and her family. They were great hosts. I so enjoyed spending time with her again. Thanks Tammy!
Later in the week, I'll share some of my fun finds from my trip and something new that I learned how to do. It's crafty! So stay tuned!

Last Wednesday, only back from my trip for a day, I geared up to go to the Montgomery Zoo with Laci's kindergarten class. I had 4 kids in my group and we had a blast. They were very into the animals and wanted to know all about them. This was Laci's last field trip and I'm glad I was able to spend that time with her and help out her sweet teacher, Mrs. Ellis.





Laci and Hannah stop to pose after enjoying the African region of the zoo with the elephants and giraffes. Those were the best according to the kids. My favorites were the monkeys(actually they have a more specific name, but I can't remember it). They were so active. They swung from ropes and a momma was holding her baby. That baby was hangin' on pretty good.



We stopped to see how tall these little guys were against the big elephant.



The train ride was, of course, a big hit with everyone! They loved screaming through the tunnel.