Minestrone Soup

This is a low point Weight Watcher meal, can be easily frozen for storage, is super quick and easy, and is YUMMY!!!

Ingredients

• 2 cans (14 1/2 oz each) chicken broth
• 1 can (16 oz) stewed tomatoes, un-drained and coarsely chopped
• 2 cups kidney beans (I used 2 cans)
• 1 pkg (16 oz) frozen mixed veges
• 1/4 cup shell macaroni, uncooked
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp dried basil leaves

Your soup will be more "soupy" than mine, I added a lot of extra shells then ended up adding extra broth and tomatoes to give it more liquid before freezing :)

Directions:

1. Pour tomatoes (and juice) into small food processor and chop (or chop by hand)
2. Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan
3. Bring to a boil on medium-high heat
4. Reduce head to medium-low and let simmer for 20 minutes

I doubled the recipe, added extra noodles, added extra cans of broth and tomatoes, and then froze a TON of it for after the baby arrives. To freeze I used Ziploc brand freezer bags and then got all the air out before closing it and put that bag inside another freezer bag. 

Chocolate Champion Cereal Cookies

I got this recipe from The Sneaky Chef With a new baby on the way I thought it'd be smart to start freezing several different snack and food options for Kye to make my life a little easier while adjusting to having two kids! This recipe sneaks in spinach and blueberries and have less sugar and more whole grains than most kids breakfast cereals. Sounds like a winner to me!

Kye and I actually made them together and he and I BOTH licked the bowl! They were THAT good!!! Very similar to cocoa no bakes actually ;)

 Ingredients

• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup flour blend (I have never made the blend she recommends so I just used plain old flour)
• 3 cups whole-grain cereal flakes, such as Wheaties or Total (I used Total)
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 large egg
• 1/3 cup purple puree (you can see how to make it HERE, I have some pre-made and frozen)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper (I didn't have any parchment paper and they turned out fine)
2. Place the oats in the blow of a food processor and process on high until oats are finely ground
3. Add cereal flakes and pulse several times until flakes resemble crumbs
4. Transfer processed oats and cereal to a large mixing bowl and whisk in the flour blend, cocoa, and baking soda (Kye LOVED to help whisk!)
5. In another bowl, whisk together egg, purple puree, sugar, vanilla and cooled softened butter
6. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix just until combined
7. Drop single tablespoonfuls of batter onto the baking sheets, leaving about an inch between each cookie
8. Flatten the cookies with the back of a fork that's been sprayed with oil to keep from sticking to the batter
9. Bake 12-15 minutes, until lightly browned around the edges
10. Remove from pan and let cool. Store in airtight container or freeze in sealed plastic bags

These were a big hit! Kye loved helping make them, we both enjoyed the batter, and he gobbled up his helping of the finished product. While I liked the batter, I didn't so much care for the actual cookie. But as long as he likes them that's what matters! I have them stored in the freezer ready and waiting for baby :)

EASY Applique Tutorial

I found the tutorial I used for this project on Pinterest but you can find the tutorial on this link from Saltwater Kids! I followed her instructions exactly and she has a pattern printout for the tie which worked perfectly. I'll still go over the instructions here for you too though :)

Materials:

• tie pattern (see the link above) cut to desired size - I used the 2T size for Kye's shirt
• material for tie (or whatever you want to applique) - I bought an entire YARD of fabric b/c I was worried I'd mess up a lot and run out. Haha. I only needed maybe 1/4 a yard...I'll still probably buy 1/2 a yard next time just to be sure though!
• t-shirt - I got mine from Hobby Lobby - they have them 1/2 off ALL the time
• coordinating thread
• 1 sheet of double stick fusible web - the Saltwater Kids tutorial said she used Steam-A-Seam2 so I bought the same thing from Hobby Lobby just to make sure I did it exactly how she did
• iron
• sewing machine with zigzag stitch

To Applique:

1. Trace the pattern on the fusible web and cut it out. She suggested to cut inside the line you traced so it's slightly smaller than your fabric and will make less of a mess on the iron so I did that.

2. Position your pattern on the fabric to get the design effect you like. We wanted as many Mickey heads as we could with them in varying positions so this took us a bit to get just right (Mom is much more of a perfectionist than I am...if you can imagine that haha)

3. Pin and cut out the tie (use fabric scissors)

 4. Place the fusible web onto the back of the tie. Just peel off one side of the paper and stick it on! If it doesn't line up exactly right then just undo it and re-stick it :)

5. Once it's in the correct position, peel off the other side of the paper and line the tie up in the center of the t-shirt. Adjust as needed until it's just right. (she suggested folding the shirt in half to find the exact center but since my shirts were brand new they actually had a convenient crease in the center!)

6. Follow the instructions on the fusible web packaging and iron the tie into place. If you buy the same brand I did (the one suggested in the materials list) then it says to iron on the steam/cotton setting for 10-20 seconds.

All of the first 6 steps took less than 15-20 min to do. It was the last step that took the longest!!!

7. Sew using zigzag stitch around the tie!

It took us so long because we had to totally set up the machine...fill the bobbin...get the thread all rigged up right...etc. Plus we had to pick our settings for the zigzag stitch (how large we wanted the zigzags and how far apart we wanted them spread...this took a bit of deciding and practice stitching on scraps until we picked one). The actual sewing part took less than 10 minutes!

 finished product!!!

Today I decided to make Kye another shirt using the left over material (I have enough to make the kid like 10 Mickey shirts haha). I used Microsoft Word and printed out a large font of a "K" and used this as my pattern.

I followed alllll the same instructions as above...

And in less than 30 min total (so glad I left the sewing machine all ready to go!) I had another adorable applique shirt!!!

 Love this!!!

I'm pretty proud of myself for wanting to try it out and actually doing it. I'm sure Zach's happy too b/c instead of spending $20 each on these from Etsy I made them BOTH for around $10 total! And I can reuse a lot of what I bought on future projects. I plan to get more fabric and try out different patterns...I'll post any tutorials of anything in the future I try, but I'm going to stick to applique for now. It's easy and super cute! If Blitzen's a girl then I do also plan to try out some pillow case dresses ;)

I'd love to hear how this works for you!!!

Cocoa-No-Bakes

These are some of my FAVORITE cookies, for many reasons. They are mega yummy, super easy, and I have so many fond memories of making them with my mom growing up.

Ingredients

2 cups sugar
4 Tbl cocoa
1 stick butter
1/2 cup milk
3 cups oats
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions

1. Combine sugar, milk, butter and cocoa in saucepan and bring to a boil

2. While waiting for it to boil lay out your wax paper and mix the oats, peanut butter and vanilla into a large bowl (using your hands is the easiest way to do it!)

3. Let saucepan mixture boil for 1 1/2 minutes

4. Pour hot mix over oat mix, stir immediatly

5. Drop onto wax paper by the spoonful and let set

Tips

I've noticed that if it's raining outside sometimes they take a LONG time to "dry" so I'll let them sit out on the wax paper longer or will put them in the fridge...or just eat them gooey. Also I like to dump the saucepan mix into the bowl mix, stir, then go ahead and fill the saucepan with warm soapy water so it's easier to clean, then go back and spoon the cookies onto the wax paper. Makes cleanup a little quicker and allows them to sort of start the setting process so they aren't as gooey when spooning them out.

I'd LOVE to hear how much you enjoy them - gotta drink some milk with 'em. Trust me they are GOOD!!!!

Storage Stained Clothes

When going through Kye's baby clothes to put aside things for the new baby I discovered that a LOT of his stuff had gotten stained in storage. It was this strange yellow discoloration on many of his clothing items, especially the white ones. I took EXTREMELY good care of everything he owned and never packed something that was stained so this really made me mad!

Like any girl would do - I called my mama ;) She has a Stainbuster's Bible and it said that the discoloration from storage is caused from the clothes having stains on them but the stains being so deep in the clothing that you can't see them until they sit in the dark for a long time and they come to the service. It's mostly caused from washing clothing in cold water...which I do, every load. I mean who can afford to wash all their stuff in hot water??? That's expensive! 

To get rid of the stains it said to soak the clothes in an Oxi-Clean type stain remover.  I soaked all the colored ones together and all the white ones together (I did end up throwing out all the plain white burp rags and onesies, why go through the cleaning hassle for stuff I can buy so cheaply?). I let them soak for several hours.

Next wash the clothes using bleach and hot water. I didn't use bleach on the colored clothes, but I did with the whites.

A few of the badly stained ones are still stained, and I could do the process again but I probably won't! Thankfully the swaddles, some of my favorite outfits, and some cute sleepers all came out clean! I'm so thankful that I didn't just throw it all out! Hope this helps some other mommies too :)

Stepping Stone

I feel VERY bad that I can't give credit to the blog where I got this idea from...I simply can't remember whose I saw it on, but I loved the idea and totally copied it!

Supplies I bought:

• box of stepping stone concrete mix from Hobby Lobby - $8.99 (it had enough to make two stones as I plan to make one for myself too!)
• small round concrete mold (also from Hobby Lobby) - $2.99 (can reuse when making another one as well)
• decorative stones (from the Dollar Store) - $1.00

How To:

• I really just followed the instructions on the box.
• Zach mixed the concrete with water then poured it into the mold
• I let it set for awhile b/c you don't want to put your kids feet (or hands) in it while it's too moist or it won't set
• We put Kye's feet straight down in it (pressing them down pretty deep) then straight back up and it turned out pretty good!
• I waited a little longer then put all the stones around (making sure to press them down enough to really stay)
• And I waited even longer to carve Kye's name and the year in the stone. I continued to check it throughout the day and carve the letters over and over to make sure they were really deep. 
• It took about a day to fully dry and popped right out of the mold no problem! 
• The mix must be a special type of concrete because the bottom of the stone is very smooth.

This made a WONDERFUL Mother's Day gift! Inexpensive, easy, and something she'll always cherish. I'm excited to have one for myself!

Chocolate Golf Ball Favors

In searching for golf themed items I stumbled across this site (www.countrykitchen.com) that has a TON of great ideas and all the supplies you need to make those ideas a reality! I loved the idea of these chocolate golf balls for favors for the party. I've never made any chocolate goodies myself but thought I'd give it a try!

To make the golf balls I ordered all the supplies listed on the site (super white coating-merckens, squeeze bottle, two golf ball candy molds, and 30 truffle boxes). To make them I:

1. melted the chocolate (a 1 lb bag was enough chocolate to fill ONE candy mold tray...so it made 1/2 of 8 balls)
2. poured the chocolate into the mold. At first I tried to pour the chocolate into the squeeze bottle then squeeze it from that into the mold but what a joke! It's MUCH easier to melt the chocolate in a large class measuring cup and just pour directly from there. It's also important to make sure no chocolate gets outside the edges of each ball mold or it'll be stuck there and it's a pain to scrape it off later
3. put the mold in the freezer. I waited over night but you can probably just wait a couple hours-they freeze pretty quick
4. to make the other side of the ball you first remove the now frozen halves from the molds (CAREFULLY they break pretty easy). Then melt chocolate again and refill the molds. CAREFULLY (lots of things to be careful about with this project) place the already frozen halves on top of the melted chocolate halves and place back in freezer. You want to make sure a bunch of chocolate doesn't overflow all over the trays or you have a mess and a not-so-ball-looking-ball once it freezes. But at the same time you want to make sure there is ENOUGH chocolate for the pre-made half to cling to or you'll have holes in your ball!
5. Once frozen they are done! Mine never looked as good as the one pictured but they were cute enough for favors for the party. They were more expensive and time consuming than I planned so I'm not sure I'll do them again...but if I do I probably will not be doing a 3D thing like this as I think that made it even more complicated and tough!

I topped the truffle boxes with custom stickers I had made at Chickabug on Etsy!

They turned out cute and were a big hit for sure!