Cheerios necklace.

My daughter loves Cheerios (uhhh flavored oat cereal? Eh, I'll just say Cheerios) She also loves "pretties" aka necklaces.

I had this brilliant idea to make her a necklace of Cheerios to keep her busy and for snacking. I had all the supplies on hand: Cheerios (you could use any flavor), string, a large needle and scissors.

I threaded enough Cheerios to make a large necklace to fit her (age 1) and I alternated Frosted Cheerios and regular Cheerios.

From beginning to end it took me about 20 minutes. I found it most efficient to stack a half dozen or so at a time and then slide them onto the string.

I tried it on her and she really liked it. In hindsight, I'd let her snack on this OUTside since I ended up with about 25 halves of Cheerios on our carpet, but it's okay.

Whatever makes her happy! Cheerios necklace is Caraline approved!

Happy Stringing!

Happy Easter!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend. Whether you celebrate with Easter egg hunts and visiting the Easter Bunny, by attending Good Friday and Easter Sunday worship services or both, Easter is a fun time to reflect on life and revive hope for the future. Oh, and enjoy the SUN and lovely weather!

My little family celebrated with both my side of the family and my husband's with family dinner gatherings and we attended church service yesterday at our home church. Overall it was a happy weekend for sure! My one-year-old daughter doesn't quite grasp the Easter egg hunt idea but she seemed to have fun running around shaking the eggs filled with candy and coins.

My mother-in-law created these gems for our family dinner yesterday. She used Twinkies, marshmallows, M&Ms, Peeps and pretzels.

She may or may not have gotten a Facebook post from yours truly asking her to make them, complete with a link to a blog telling how to make them. I'm glad she did. They were a huge hit.

Thank you, Pinterest!

How did you spend your Easter holiday weekend?

Happy Monday!

Host A Bridal Shower.

My younger sister got married in October of last year, and I hosted a shower at my house for her. Yes, I'm just now getting around to telling you about it because, oh, I don't know, I'm just that far behind.

It's true. And I've said it before. Having a baby makes you forget things.

Like things that happened almost a year ago.

That I was planning to blog about.

Sorry about that.

So my older sister and I threw my younger sister a shower. It wasn't anything fancy, because lesbi-honest I'm not fancy. I try not to seem fancy, either.

The theme was "travel" because my sister and her (now) husband love to visit places all over the world. They went to Europe for their honeymoon!!

The invitations resembled boarding passes . . .

There were veggies & dip . . . 

And make-your-own fruit pies (complete with cream cheese and all the goodies) . . .

Apple slices . . .

And the coolest cake I've ever seen in person . . .

I bought "Oh The Places You'll Go" by Dr. Seuss and had guests sign a page inside with well wishes.

It was fun to host and my sister and her hubby are enjoying married bliss!

Happy showering!

Fresh Summer Veggie Bake.

WARNING: This recipe was delicious!

Okay, maybe not a warning . . . but an alert so you're prepared for major YUM!

I found this recipe for Fresh Summer Veggie Bake on Can't Stay Out Of The Kitchen. I knew I wanted to make it for our annual family get together for Memorial Day weekend. Like a pinhead (that's an awesome person who pins lots of things, makes said things and then forgets to take pictures of the final product), I forgot to take pictures of the final product. Or really I forgot to take any pictures except ONE, right before I put it in the oven.

Here's how Teresa's turned out (She's the author of Can't Stay Out Of The Kitchen).

IMAGE SOURCE

http://cantstayoutofthekitchen.com/2013/03/09/fresh-summer-veggie-bake/

It has yellow squash zucchini, green zucchini, potatoes (I used red) and tomatoes. You sauté garlic and onions, put those in the bottom of the dish, then slice all the veggies and layer those in. Then you add a couple spices and pop it in the oven. After that, you add some parmesan cheese and put it back in the oven. It's so easy! And it's pretty to look at, too!

I did take a pic of how mine looked right before putting it in the oven. But that's all you get from me. Sorry.

This was pre-cheese which is the best part. I added mozzarella cheese in addition to shredded parmesan cheese. I'll be doing THAT again. I'm such a sucker for mozzarella cheese!

**Another thing to remember when making this, cut your tomatoes thicker than the rest of the veggies. They'll break down in the oven and if they're too thin they'll turn to sauce. You don't want that. . .

Happy Summer Baking!

Hershey’s Spread the Possibilities.

I am a member of Crowdtap (http://crowdtap.com/) and periodically I get to sample products and tell my friends and my blog readers about them.

The most recent product my husband and I got to try was the Hershey's new Spreads. We were sent the chocolate with almonds.

It was so good!

We tried in on bread.

And then I tried it on graham crackers.

Then a friend suggested we try it with peanut butter on bread and make a peanut butter cup sandwich. That was so good that we both ended up doing it again the next morning with toast.

That was my favorite way to use it so far.

Mike liked it, too!

He said that it was good enough to try again, but he probably wouldn't buy it (mostly because we don't buy stuff like that).

I will add that it has a TON of sugar in it. For 2 tbsp. it has 20g of sugar. That's a lot, in my opinion.

Overall, though, I'm impressed with the spreads we got to try! It'll be good for a special treat from time to time.

Happy sampling!

10 minute boxed cake mix chocolate fudge.

Before I go far, I will say that there's a catch to this recipe. 10 minutes is how long it takes to make this fudge. If you're DYING to have some fudge, this recipe isn't for you and you should just pound a handful of the chocolate chips. The actual wait time from start to finish is about an hour. 

But it can be done.

I survived the hour. 

So can you. 

I found a recipe recently for boxed cake mix fudge using sprinkles from a blog called Baked From A Box. I made that fudge according to the recipe, but it didn't turn out as SOLID as I was hoping it would. It was more of a sticky fudge and impossible to keep in its form as a bite size piece. 

This is how it was supposed to look . . . 

Image Source

This is how mine turned out unfortunately. 

I was reading on the post about solutions to this problem and her suggestion was "while the fudge mix is still warm, alternate adding 1 tbs at a time of confectioners' sugar and cake mix. Do this until the mixture is quite thick and difficult to stir. It won't thicken in the refrigerator, it will only solidify, so make sure that the thickness is satisfactory before you press it into your pan!" 

Next time I'll try that. 

Have no fear, though! This fudge wasn't an entire loss! As you saw at the beginning, this post is about chocolate fudge. Not sprinkled fudge. 

As I was mixing the sprinkles and the colors were bleeding into the mix my gears started turning. "What other ingredients could I stir into this recipe to create different types of fudge?" 

That, my friends, is how this chocolate fudge recipe was born. 

It's important to wait the whole hour for the fudge to solidify, as much as you'll want to dig into this stuff. It needs that time to set. 

Mike got home from work, saw the fudge in the refrigerate and tried a piece. A few minutes later, he went back for more. His comment was that the fudge is "really sweet, so you can only eat one piece at a time." 

He gives the fudge a 6.5 on the Mike Meter. The fact that he went back for more (as I've learned in our 2 years of marriage) means he liked it. If he didn't like it, he would have obviously left it alone after first try. 

I count that as a win!

Happy fudging? (ha!)

Mozzarella Fails.

“If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.” 

― Steven Wright

Contrary to the quote above, I chose to expose my failures today. I've failed not once, but twice at making baked mozzarella cheese snacks. I just can't get it right. 

Recently, I attempted the homemade mozzarella sticks. Looked easy enough and I had the right ingredients. Seemed fool-proof! 

I was so bummed that the cheese just oozed out all over. 

Then a few weeks later, I attempted what seemed like another fool-proof snack: Pizza balls. Literally there are three ingredients. Pizza dough, pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese sticks. I made sure that the dough was sealed tight but somehow it got out again!

So, I failed again! 

Do any of you have an actual fool-proof way of keeping the cheese from getting everywhere? I need help. . . 

[un] Happy Cheesin' it!

Raspberry Lemonade Sprite.

Today I was super thirsty. I'd had my share of water (it's all I ever drink except coffee). But today water wasn't quenching my thirst. I'm not typically a pop drinker, but we did have some Sprite in the refrigerator and since it's caffeine free I can have it!

But I don't love the taste of Sprite.

Then it dawned on me! I have flavor packs. I have Sprite. I have thirst.

BOOM!

I introduce Raspberry Lemonade Sprite!

Happy sipping!

I've gone viral.

: : AHEM : :

GLOAT |glōt|verb [ intrans. ]
contemplate or dwell on one's own success

Dude!

I mean . . . DUDE! 

Can I gloat for a bit? 

I'm just a gal from a small town who enjoys crafts and cooking and baking and being goofy. I never thought my blog would be a big deal.

Today I logged onto Blogger and took a look at my page hits. The number one post I have is the Mac & Cheese awesomeness. There have been over 2,400 page hits on that post alone since a friend of mine repinned it onto her Pinterest board. WHOA! 

The second highest post is the one from back when I posted a picture of my friend's bathroom showing how her dad used PVC pipe to construct a home for her flat iron and hair dryer, I had NO idea it would be the hit that it is already! That post has had almost 650 page hits!

Wait! There's more!

One nice thing about Blogger is it tells you where most of your traffic is coming from. Usually I'll see Pinterest or other blogs, but today I saw "www.xfinity. . . something something" and thought "Whaat is that?!" 

So I clicked on the link and found this: http://xfinity.comcast.net/slideshow/news-geniushomehacks/13/

My friend's dad is a home hack genius! Say what! The caption reads:
"PVC Pipe Hair Tool Holder
Instead of dealing with a bunch of hair tools clanging around under your sink, try PVC piping in various configurations to store things like flat irons and hair dryers, like the one blogger Don’t Worry. Be Happy. Keep Learning. spotted at a friend’s house.
(Credit: Don’t Worry. Be Happy. Keep Learning.)" <--- Eeeek!

I find joy is small things and these two posts being big hits makes me feel like I've hit celebrity-status. So, now I'll deflate my head and get back to life. But I just thought I could share this HUGE small victory with my readers.

Thanks for pinning my stuff and subscribing. I feel so loved!

Happy blogging!