Homemade Butter Recipe (and Provo Pioneer Day Extravaganza)

For the last two years I've taken my kids to the Pioneer Extravaganza. It's a fun city-sponsored event that celebrates the pioneers entering Utah on July 24th. It's a fun family event with great interactive activities for kids, including riding ponies. They have tons of games, crafts and hands-on activities including making butter. Here's the recipe they gave out:

MAKE YOUR OWN BUTTER RECIPE
1 jar with lid
heavy whipping cream
pinch of salt
yellow food coloring (if desired)

fill your jar 1/3 of the way with heavy whipping cream. Add salt and food coloring. Tighten lid and shake jar for 10 minutes or until butter has formed. Remove butter from jar. Squeeze out the remaining buttermilk and enjoy!

Lego Birthday Party Ideas

Pinterest had tons of great ideas but I was proud of my "original" Lego brick pizza slices for my son's recent 7th birthday party. We also bought a lot of Lego mini figures off of ebay and after each game or activity let the boys choose a piece and build their own Lego guy to take home with them as part of their treat bag. It was really fun! Oh, and if you need a quick, easy and frugal way to decorate a cake, save and cut out "Legos" from the cardboard box. The boys went nuts each choose which Ninjago character to have on their piece of cake. We played Lego games and watched Lego Clutch Powers. The Lego candy bricks, a package of fruit snacks and a snack size butter finger were all in a little treat bag with a cute thank you note (with a picture of a Lego mini figure, of course!).

Lemi Shine: My New Cleaning Friend

I like my house to be clean but I do not necessarily enjoy cleaning. I have a friend who says she'd prefer to clean toilets than cook. I wish we could trade and I'd cook and she could clean my toilets! We recently bought our first house and went from having a roll-away dishwasher in a postage stamp size kitchen to a nice sized kitchen with a regular, newer dishwasher. I was of course excited for this step up in the world but did not forsee having issues with yucky hard water, nasty white filmy dishes! yuck, takes all the fun out of a "new" supposedly nicer, newer dishwasher if your dishes are coming out gross. Luckily I had two friends recommend Lemi Shine  and after another frustrating washing experience stomped off to Walmart hoping to fix my problem. Luckily it has! I ran a treatment through an empty dishwasher to get out any hard water buildup then sprinkle a little in with each load. Right now I am using a Cascade Advanced powder dishwasher soap that I got at Costco (currently there's a coupon off it) and that with the Lemi Shine my dishes are looking MUCH better than any other detergent I've tried by itself (Kirkland gel from Costco and even the Finish tabs that say they include a rinse aid in the ball).

Lemi Shine is my new best friend! seriously, how did I never know such a product existed? My dishes finally are mostly rid of hard water spots (dang hard water here in Utah!) and disgusting detergent film and I've run a treatment through an empty dishwasher, working on the washing machine tonight (letting it soak overnight) and throwing one in the disposal tomorrow. Happy cleaning devices at our house now :) A big thanks my two good friends for sharing their secret with me. If you have never heard of or tried this and are having issues with dishes being clean or would like to do some deep cleaning of your dishwasher, washing machine and/or disposal look for it next time you're at the store (it's all natural too!). Gotta love it when keeping your house clean is a little more exciting and fulfilling.

How to better "speak" to my children in the ways they need

I read the Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman and appreciate his basic premise (though I usually don't ever agree with or hold 100% to any one theory). I haven't read his book based on the same ideas geared for children but would like to and appreciate the ideas from this chart. I often struggle to be attentive and focused with my children and I need to be more attuned to how I can best meet their needs and ways that are most meaningful to them.

Hubbard Mushroom Soup

Okay so I had to share a fun soup I made tonight! I have a base cream soup recipe I vary so there's really no actual recipe for this, let me know if you have questions :)

I had a quart bag full of cooked (pureed, I think) Hubbard squash from last year that had been in the freezer. Threw that in the crock pot with about 2 cups milks (mixed with 2-3 T. flour to thicken as it cooked) 2-2.5 cups water, spices (dashes of chalula, salt, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, white sugar) and veggies (diced fresh mushrooms sauteed in minced garlic and butter and diced onions and celery sauteed in a bit of butter until translucent). Put on low and let it sit all day until about 1/2 hour before eating then added a few cheese ravioli (freezer from Costco) that needed to be used, not enough for a pasta meal. And a little shredded parmesan on top just before serving.

Oh my! It was tasty. I literally licked the crock pot putting the leftovers away and helped myself to a small tupperware container full instead of putting that one in the fridge, haha!

Amazing Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm always on the look out for good cookie recipes, I hate when cookies turn out yucky (my last try weren't even redeemable with vanilla ice cream, which is saying something!) My husband has a good choc chip recipe but it never seems to consistently turn out right when I try it and I really wanted something pretty fail proof. So I was thrilled when Lee brought cookies over last week that were so yummy. Here's the recipe (and I'm sure she will be humble and want me to add that she got the recipe from a co-worker a few years ago who used it for his base recipe for peanut butter cookies and oatmeal as well--so I'm excited to try those variations too--but since you don't know him and you do know Lee you can always think of these are HER cookies :) ) 

I was going to ask her if she ever halved the batch but it's hard to do 1.5 eggs and I hate messing with the protein/binding especially when first trying a recipe, so I made the full batch (it's just a lot of butter and shortening!) but after doing it once and freezing half the dough in ready-made balls I realized why ever make less than a batch this big for ease of future cookie baking :)

1 cup shortening
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
4 1/2 - 5 1/2 cups flour*

Cream shortening, butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla, mix. Add salt and baking soda then flour (at least this is how I did it!). *Add enough flour so you can roll them in your hands to shape into balls  (for me it was the full amount). Can do less flour and add oatmeal as well. Bake for 8-9 minutes at 350 degrees (I didn't them for about 10 minutes, when they barely started to turn golden and crack on top). If frozen I did for closer to 11-12 minutes at 350 degrees.

Finding Balance

I listened to a great question and answer session yesterday online from Sister Julie B. Beck, General Relief Society (women's organization) for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have been seeking to find more balance as a mother, here are a few of the points (paraphrased, ideas that I gathered from what she said) that really hit a chord with me:

• Expectations (I would add, often unrealistic) we have for ourselves make life harder for us
• The Atonement of Jesus Christ is the key to finding balance
• Spend some time in the scriptures each day. Consistent time in the scriptures is the key. I love that she shared she doesn't necessarily set a certain amount of time or program for her study, that it varied from day to day, sometimes it was just a few minutes but she made sure everyday she was in the scriptures.
• Prayer
• She gives a great analogy of her mother-in-law who worked different work shifts in hard physical labor. She said as mothers we cannot work all 3 shifts, 2.5 maybe, but we need down time as well. S
• he said as a mother, the most important shift of the day is the afternoon shift because that is when all the children are coming home and they are needy. That is when you need to be "on call" at the "top of your game". I often start to lose steam and get distracted, especially when dinner prep time hits. This was a good reminder for me to be at the crossroads, as President David O. McKay has said.
• What you focus on is what you get. Wow! I need to reevaluate what my focus and time are being spent on because sometimes I am frustrated with myself and the direction life is going but if I'm not focusing on the best, most important things no wonder I'm feeling discontent and displeased.
• As we focus on what matters most, the unimportant melts away. 
• we will never be able to catch up! :) invest in things that are most important. It is often hard for me to determine how to spend time and get "everything" done but that's not possible, some things will need to go undone and hopefully I can learn to let that be the things that actually don't "need" to get done.
• She shared a very heartfelt, emotional story about her daughter asking why it took her mom a few weeks to come help after she'd had a baby. Sister Beck she did not remember what she had that was so pressing that she could not come to her daughter sooner, but that she knows she was doing the best she could at that time.
• Without the Holy Ghost you can't prioritize at all.
• look for opportunities to do things in tandem, I liked that suggestion (cleaning out closet with her granddaughters). priorities--focus on essentials.