I made it! hot/cold rice bag

I made it!

hot/cold rice bag

I used feed corn instead of rice and I made mine out of a soft flannel I've had lying around.

I had one like this when I was younger and I loved it.

I've been meaning to make one for a couple years now and I'm glad I finally got it done!

Maple Glazed Apple Nut Bars

Today, in the midst of deep cleaning and rearranging my kitchen I had a sudden urge for something maple flavored.

Enter Maple Glazed Apple Nut Bars. These are so delicious you will want to eat more than one but the rich ooey gooeyness just may stop you.

Step 1

Find the cutest helper(s) to assist you.

Then, preheat your oven to 350

Step 2

Peel 3 medium or 4 small apples, enough to make 4 cups chopped

Step 3

Chop Apples

Step 4

Set Apples aside and pour 1 stick melted butter into your mixing bowl

Step 5

Add 2 cups sugar and mix throughly

Step 6

Mix in 2 eggs

Step 7

Add 1 Tablespoon vanilla

Step 8

Add 2 Tablespoons cinnamon

Step 9

Add 1/2 teaspoon salt

Step 10

Blend together throughly

Step 11

Add 2 cups flour

Step 12

Add 4 cups chopped apples

Step 13

Stir in 1 cup chopped nuts. Just use whatever you have on hand. I threw in pecans and almonds.

Step 14

Pour into greased 9x13 baking dish

Step 14

Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes until done

Step 15

You can make your own maple glaze but I like to use maple butter. Maple butter is so deliciously amazing - I highly recommend it!

Warm maple butter in microwave for 45 seconds, until warm enough to pour.

Step 16

Cut bars and drizzle with maple butter/glaze

Step 17

Enjoy!

Maple Glazed Apple Nut Bars

2 eggs
2 c. sugar
1 T. vanilla
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1 stick melted butter

2 c. flour

4 c. raw apples, chopped, raw with or without the peel

1 c. chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350

combine first 6 ingredients. Stir in Flour. Add apples and nuts.

Mix well and pour into a greased 9 x 13 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes or until done.

Frost when cool (or slightly warm) with maple butter or a maple glaze.

Maple glaze

3/4 cup hot water

1 Tablespoon maple flavoring

1/4 - 1/2 cup powdered sugar to make a glaze that is thick but pourable.

I'm linked here:

Rearranging

I've decided it's time to rearrange my kitchen.

I love rearranging rooms. When I was younger, a lot younger, I used to rearrange my bedroom furniture all the time. As soon as I was strong enough to slide my dresser from one end of my room to the other I was off and running.

While some people don't like change, I crave it!

I also love going new places, exploring new things, trying stuff that I've never tried before :)

So, while I REALLY want to rearrange my living room that's just not going to happen anytime soon due to the massively heavy and super complicated TV/video game/stereo system my husband has concocted.

Luckily, all is not lost, the kitchen comes in second and it is very feasible for me to rearrange.

I'd also like to paint it. I actually painted it yellow this summer but I'm not loving it. Oh, and right after I painted it I read a statistic that couples who have yellow kitchens tend to fight more. Go figure.

So, I really want to paint it a warm creamy beige color with deep red accents.

I'm actually taking my color inspiration from this sign that hang above my sink.

I know we've got some random paint in the garage. Maybe we have enough left of the tannish color we painted the living room and hallway to pain the kitchen. I'll have to have N check when he gets home from work - I don't like to go into the garage due to this summer's mice infestation. I hate mice with a passion! Ugh . . .

Whew, alright enough for now, I'm gonna go plan out my new kitchen layout! And do the laundry . . . :(

Before Pictures

- Please ignore my messy kitchen, I tend to let things slide on the weekends and then get my cleaning done on Monday's -

Paring down

I just finished paring down the blogs that I follow.

It was getting ridiculous.

Every time I see a cute craft or project I tend to add the blog and then one day (today) I realize I'm following so many blogs I'm really not paying any attention to any of them.

So, I'm down to *only* 27 hopefully I'll be able to pay more attention to my favorite's instead of sifting through needless (sorry old blogs) entries. :)

Have a great Sunday!

Sink Baths

I'm trying to figure out what possessed me to stop bathing E in the kitchen sink.

I think it was because when he was first born it was too hard to support him since the sink is too small for him to lay flat and get him clean at the same time.

Therefore, after just a couple of Kitchen sink baths I started bathing him on his sponge in the tub which worked when he was little but now that he's older he's always trying to flip over, he doesn't like his bath seat, and it hurts my knees to bend down :(

Enter today's stroke of genius!

I placed his 2 bath sponges in the kitchen sink, filled it wile warm water, added 1 (almost) 6 month old baby, a few toys and voila! He loves it, I love it, everyone is happy :)

Yup, I think the kitchen sink bath is making a big comeback in our house!

Tutorials to love

Ahhh Tuesday, the day when many of my favorite blogs come out with link parties for lots of great tutorials. :D

There are so many thing's to learn and do and see.

For instance, I now know how I'm going to make the magnetic menu board that's been on my mind for awhile now.

And, while I'm not sure how these would fit in with our decor, perhaps a scaled down version, I am in love with Love Note Pillows. Now, if only I had some love notes to turn into pillows . . .

These Yarn Sheep are so cute, perhaps an item to add to my craft show repertoire . . .

And, have you seen all the cute pumpkins that everyone is making?

Wooden Pumpkins

Fabric Pumpkins

Rope and Wire Pumpkins

There are a lot more pumpkin tutorials out there but my internet is being persnickety right now and won't let me pull them up :/

Oh well.

LIke I said, lots of great things to add to my "someday I'm gonna make that list".

What are some tutorials you've fallen in love with recently?

My First Craft Show

Last Sunday my friend Karen and I did our first ever craft show.

Boy was that a learning experience!

I wish now we had taken a picture of our "booth" but sadly we did not :( I am, however, doing another craft show next Saturday w/my mom and I'll try to remember to take pictures to post.

I think the best way to summarize the craft show experience is with a list of personal pro's and con's.

But first, here's a list of items I took to the show: Aprons, Fabric Bookmarks, Hand Painted Signs, and Hair Bows

Pro's:

~I printed off really nice labels/price tags for all of my items on pastel colored card stock. I think that helped them look professional

~I had a nice long pink twin bedspread that I used to cover our table. It looked nice and we were able to stash our extra stuff under our table.

~I printed up business cards with my name, etsy shop and e-mail, on them and had them prominently displayed.

Con's

~No tent.

~I had my fabric bookmarks laying flat on the table and it seemed like people just didn't notice them - next time I'm going to put them in a basket and make a large "Bookmark's $2" sign to put on the basket.

~I also had my hair bows/flowers laying flat on the table. Next time I'm taking pegboard and hanging them from that so they are more visible.

~Most of my aprons are 1/2 aprons (no top piece) and several women commented on how much they liked them but how they needed a full apron. Luckily I can easily change them into full aprons. That's what I'll be doing next week. :)

~The Stands I had for my signs kept blowing over in the wind so my signs also ended up flat on the table - flat is NOT good. Next time those will also be hung on the peg board.

The biggest con of all?

~The only thing I sold was 2 set's of hair bows. :( Not cool. Not cool at all.

There's probably more but it's Saturday and my brain is foggy . . .

One thing I did was walk around the show and "check out the competition" I'm glad I did that I was able to get a good idea of what else is out there, how other's priced their products, etc...

For anyone that is thinking about jumping into the craft show circuit I definitely recommend doing your homework first.

www (dot) craftster (dot) com how a lot of good information on craft shows.

I went into my first show looking at it as a learning experience and a way to get my name out there. I didn't expect much, which was good - lol, but I did learn a lot.

And lastly,

If you can do a booth with someone else make sure their stuff is of the same caliber as yours, you don't want someone looking at your nice stuff and then looking at their stuff going, oh that's cute, and . . .oh . . . oh :(

I'm glad I did it with Karen, she is an excellent crocheter and her items added a nice contrast to my sewn things.

And of course,

sharing a booth cut's your fee in half ;)

I'm hoping that my second craft show will go better and will give me more tips, tricks, etc, to pass on to you!

- Wish me luck!-

I got out of bed for this?

Today started out fairly promising.

I was able to sleep while E took his morning nap :)

I actually had lunch around lunchtime :)

Yeah. That's about all that has gone right today.

When I woke up I had big plans to re-do a crib bumper for E. I was even going to make a tutorial out of it. How cool am I?

And then I looked at the huge pile of baby clothes by the front door and it hit me.

Today is the day to drop off baby clothes for the consignment sale.

Crap.

I had meant to tag all those clothes a couple weeks earlier. Only, every time I went online to create the tags it wouldn't let me create an account to do so. Stupid Mac hating websites :(

So, at around 12:45 today I realized it was now or never. I got on E's non-Mac computer and was able to create an account. Then, I had to sort the clothes by size, toss the summer clothes back in the box to store for the spring sale, put E down for his nap, create price tags, print tags, realize I need packing tape and safety pins, load up E, run to Wal Mart (grrrr that place is NOT my friend), come home, deal with E, cut price tags, start to attach, realize I printed them on paper and they have to be printed on card stock, re-print tags, cut new tags, eat a cherry push pop for desert, raid E's closet for store hangers to hang clothes on, start attaching price tags, eat 1 snickers bar and 1 milky way, deal with E, finish attaching tags, load up stuff, load up E, drive to consignment sale location, take stuff inside, stand around, hang stuff up to be inspected, stand around, get stuff inspected, sign my life away, come home, sit down, look at cold coffee that I brewed this morning that I forgot to drink, wonder if coffee would taste ok re-heated in the microwave, decide against it, sit down, type this post.

Whew.

And that is why all the way more interesting posts will have to wait for another day.

A day when all my plans don't get de-railed . . .

A day when I can take that long-awaited bath I'd been planning during E's nap time . . .

A day when I don't feel completely spent.

This sale had better be worth it.

Chiefs Game

Last night my dad, brother, older sister, N, and I all headed up to arrowhead stadium for the Chiefs game.

We tailgated beforehand and feasted on grilled chicken breast, beef brauts, cheddar brauts, hamburgers, homemade potato salad, chips, brownies, cookies, etc . . .

I definitely ate waayyyy too much!

Then, we walked a good half mile up to the stadium and climbed what felt like a million steps to get to our seats.

The game was a lot of fun. Sure, it started raining an hour in and the cold wind was not helping matter. But, at the end of the day we won! And that's all that matters in the end, right?

Oh, and this lady was way too cute! She was so into the game! How can you not love her with her denim embroidered chiefs shirts, rain hat, and radio so she could listen to the game. :)

Here's a quick tip for all the women out there like me that are sports ignorant: before you go to a game find out who the other teams is and make sure you don't wear their colors . . lol.

A quick post on my wonderful hubby :)

Can I just say that my husband is amazing?

I did my first craft show today (more on that later this week) which made it a long tiring day.

When I got home tonight, after fixing dinner, I was able to lay down and take an hour and a half nap while N cleaned up the kitchen, started the dishwasher, switched over and folded the laundry, yeah . . . it was wonderful!

Craft Show

I will be doing my very first craft show this Sunday. :)

I am very excited, I'm hoping to at least make enough to cover the cost and also get the word out about my etsy shop via business card . . . that I still need to finish.

In fact, I've probably got a good ten hours of work I could still do. I decided to do the show pretty last minute and am now scrambling to get enough projects done to sell.

I've been working like a crazy lady for the past few days and I am exhausted!

Sadly, I will not get everything done. I just won't. And, were I to try I would probably drive myself and my hubby crazier then we already are, in the process.

So, I'm going to head to my craft room, finish up the two aprons that are almost done and then take an inventory of things. I wanted to go with 20 aprons, 10 of each kind of hair clip 10 corsages, several fridge magnets and 5-10 signs, 10 nursing covers, 10 diaper covers, 10 tutu's, and 20 bookmarks.

Yeah right.

I tend to overbook myself, maybe its an ADD thing . . .

Realistically I'll probably end up with 7 or 8 aprons, 20 hair clips, 5 corsages, 15 fridge magnets, 18 bookmarks, and 5 signs. While I would love to take more, more product = more money, right? I simply don't have enough hours in my day to get everything done.

It sounds like E is finally asleep, more on his recent erratic nap times later, so I'm gonna switch over the laundry and finish up those aprons!

a losing battle

Sometimes I get the feeling that people think that being a stay at home mom means that you have eight hours to cook and clean and get things done while your hubby is at work.

Sure, maybe if you didn't have kids . . .

But throw in the five month old that I'm constantly feeding, changing, etc . . . and I'm luck if I get a couple hours to get things done, let alone eight.

I swear, I'm fighting a losing battle here . . .

A great weekend

I don't know about you but I had a great weekend!

Saturday morning I packed up E and sent him with my sister to spend the weekend with my parents:)

Ahhh . . . I could feel the craziness of life begin to melt away :D

We then proceeded to head into the city where we picked up some free movie passes my husband had earned and then ate lunch at a delicious italian buffet - sooooo good!

We didn't make the 30-45 minute drive home so we decided to kill time by . . .

Hanging out at Barders

Visiting the Hallmark Visitor's Center/Museum

Buying N's brother's birthday gift's

Hanging out at Half Price Books

Perusing the Dollar Tree

And then it was time, :)

We grabbed supper from Wendy's and then headed to the drive-in where we proceeded to watch 3 movies. Ok, N watched 3, I slept through the first one, can you blame me?

Machete

Vampire's Suck

Going the distance

Now, I wouldn't recommend any of these movies and am glad we only paid $8 a piece for all three.

But, I really like going to the drive-in. I love their cheese fries- lol- and being able to kick off my shoes and cuddle up with my husband under a blanket.

Sunday was spent eating out, cleaning, doing laundry, watching movies at home, etc...

And Monday I got my hour long full body massage that my husband promised me.

It was good.

And then E came home :)

Bad Knees and Exercise DVD's

Within a couple weeks of giving birth to E I weighed about 25ish less pounds then I did before getting pregnant. I was thrilled, finally months of nausea paid off, I had a baby and I was well on my way to me goal weight!

Fast forward 5 months add in some sleepless nights, ppd, financial stress, you know how it goes, and I have gained back those 25 pounds :(

In an effort to loose 60 pounds ad reach my goal weight I have decided to do 2 main things, exercise every day to Jillian Michaels 30 day shred dvd and start a "rice diet" (more on that in another post).

Yesterday was the first day I did the dvd and it was hard! UGH!!! I was convinced, during it, that Jillian Michaels was trying to kill me.

Now, let me back up for a minute here, about 3 years ago i was having a lot of knee pain so I went to the Dr. and was diagnosed with patella -femoral disease aka runners knee (which doesn't make sense cause the only time I even thought about running was the year at the Honor Academy . . . . anyway)

In January of this year I went to a chiropractor who ended up X-raying my knees and informing my that almost all the cartilage is gone from my left knee meaning when I bend it I'm scraping bone on bone (it also makes a nifty little popping/squishing sound when I bend it and if you touch it while I bend it it can really gross you out) and about 25% of the cartilage is gone in my right knee. Lately my knees have been feeling good . . . until yesterday.

I did the dvd at about 6pm by 9pm I was in pain. it hurt when I walked, sat, crossed my legs, you get the idea. between E waking up ( he is in the worst habit of waking at 3am for NO REASON - oi!) and accidently bumping the knee I slept terribly last night.

So, today I've got my old brace on it and I plan on putting ice on it periodically.

But the point of all this rambling is that I'm really frustrated. I can't ride a bike anymore - something I've always loved doing, and now I can't use the dvd I had my hopes set on.

So that leaves me with the treadmill. I actually have a super nice treadmill that N bought me over a year ago. I used it before E was born and I guess it's time to get back on.

I do plan on trying the dvd again in a couple days once my knee starts to feel better.

Next time though, I'm going to ice it right after I finish working out hopefully that will help.