Cookie Love

Day 4 of our 40 Day Challenge.

We all have "one of those days" and mine was definitely yesterday. To cheer me up, Hubby decided to make me something. He wouldn't often go out and buy something to bring about my happiness, but since we've been so focused on making everything, he opted to make me some Peanut Butter Cookies. If cookies don't scream love, I don't know what does! Ok, maybe chocolate. Yeah, chocolate screams love. But cookies come in close behind!

Did you know that you can substitute 1/4 cup of applesauce per egg or 1/2 of a mashed banana? I do it quite often and since we had run out of eggs, Hubby used applesauce instead.

Peanut Butter Cookies
recipe from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook

1 cup shortening
1 tsp vanilla
1 cupe granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten (we were out, so he substituted 1/4 cup applesauce per egg)
1 cup peanut butter
3 cups flour
1/8 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda

Preheat the oven to 350F and grease some cookie sheets. In a mixing bowl, thorough cream the shortening, vanilla, and sugars. Add the eggs and beat well. Stir in the peanut butter. Mix together the flour, salt, and baking soda, and add to the peanut butter mixture, combining thoroughly. Form into tiny balls with the palm of your hands and place on the cookie sheets. Press each cookie twice with the back of a fork to make a crisscross design. Bake about 8-10 minutes or until firm.

Whoopie Pie Cake and Fruit Snacks

What does a Whoopie Pie Cake and fruit snacks have in common? The adventures of Day 2 of our 40 Day Challenge!
Several days ago I volunteered to make a cake for my grandmother's birthday (we're celebrating tomorrow). Definitely didn't think that one through before deciding to embark on this new adventure. I was going to make a fancy cake with candies on it, but alas, we can't buy them right now. So, I found a marshmallow frosting and made a chocolate cake! To make it all fancy, I'm calling it a Whoopie Pie Cake.

Then came the fruit snacks. I don't know about you, but I LOVE fruit snacks. Who doesn't enjoy reliving their childhood? I recently came across a recipe to make my own. I'm all about multitasking, so while my cake was in the oven and the kids were napping, I moved onto my blueberry fruit snacks. Boy are they delicious!! Definitely not as sweet as the processed version, but so much healthier. No sugar and nothing fake about them. The only problem? They're going to disappear far too quickly.

40 Day Challenge

Hubby and I spent a couple of hours today making and freezing 10lbs of homemade whole wheat pasta. He comes from a very Italian family and he has always enjoyed homemade pasta. We had a couple dozen eggs that we needed to use, so we figured making pasta would be the best way to use them.

It was a great bonding activity and we discussed how we should make this a more permanent thing. And so, our 40 day challenge began.

What does the 40 day challenge entail?

• If it can be made, we will make it.
• We will only purchase items that we cannot make ourselves like eggs, milk, produce, flour, sugar, etc.
• We can only buy meats if we go through everything in our freezer (very unlikely).
• Fabric can be bought ONLY after the current supply has been looked through and there is no suitable option found (ex. I need brown fabric for Peter's Halloween costume and I don't have any). This fabric must be found on clearance.
• We will not purchase any clothing.
• If we run out of soaps, shampoos, or cleaning supplies, we will make our own.We can buy what we need to make these, but we must find the least expensive recipes to make them.

Why are we doing this?  

• It will be great to know exactly what is in everything we eat and use.
• We have a freezer and pantry full of food that really needs to be cycled through, this will force us to do so.
• We're really curious to see how long we can go without spending any money. How much will it really save us?
• We had so much fun just spending time together making pasta, this will be a great adventure for our marriage as we tackle this challenge together!

Hooded Baby Towel - Tutorial

When I was pregnant with Peter I was given all kinds of different baby shower gifts. One of my favorite was a bath towel that a coworker had made for me. Baby towels are great since they have a hood to keep baby's head warm, but they're so thin and baby gets cold almost immediately! This towel is made out of bath towels and can be used for years!!

Items Needed:

• A bath towel

• A hand towel

Note: Click on the photos to see a larger image.

Step One
Using the hand towel, fold over the end until it completely covers the decorated edge. Pin in place. This creates the decorative rim for the hood.

Step Two
Cut the hand towel down to 10 inches. It should measure 10" from the raw edge to the folded edge.

Save the other half of the towel for a second hooded towel!

Step Three
Fold the towel, right sides together. Stitch the raw edge (in the picture, the left side).

Step Four
Right sides together, pin the hood to the bath towel. Make sure it's in the center of the bath towel, when held horizontally.

Step Five
Stitch the bath towel and hood (hand towel) together. I prefer to stitch on the inside of the hemmed edge to make it a little easier for my machine.





Step Six
Find two adorable children to model your new towel!

Muffin Tin Meals

There have been a few times that I've run across articles with moms talking about making snack trays for their children in muffin tins. The basic goal is to give them six different foods to eat but in a fun way. Peter is an extremely picky eater and I have yet to get him to successfully enjoy his veggies so I decided to try this out.

Peter watched me prepare everything in his tray as we discussed what each of the different foods were. I was surprised with how excited he was when I placed it in front of him. As I write, he is gnawing on a yellow pepper and is forgoing his favorite thing of all: string cheese! Could I actually have hit on something that might work!?!

Creating A Clean Home

I have recently been looking at our home and wondering how I could possibly keep it perfectly clean. I have tried to always make sure every object has a "home." The problem is, I've run out of space for each object to call "home." We have become over crowded by our stuff.

My solution? Get rid of stuff! Everyday, I have tried to go through one corner/drawer/closet/something in our house. I've reorganized and have decided what can be donated and what we really need to keep. I have a constant pile accumulating for Goodwill!

How many toys do the kids really need? There were some that hadn't been touched for months, I'm sure another child might enjoy them. I organized the kids' bookshelf, which resulted in two garbage bags for donating. My bathroom drawers were overflowing with hair products, baby towels (tutorial for the towels that I make and use instead!), expired medications, etc.

My new basket for diapers

Now, I have reduced so much that I was able to dedicate one drawer specifically to toilet paper! I've organized so many corners in our living room, I decided to rearrange all of our furniture just so I could have a better space to store our diapers!


How do I make sure everything stays tidy?

• When I leave a room, I grab something that belongs in a room that I'm walking by or through and put it away on the way to my destination. 
• If I see Peter is no longer playing with something, I pick up behind him. After seeing me do this, he's starting to figure out that he needs to pick up after himself. 
• Every night, right after Peter goes to bed, I spend 15 minutes picking up so I can wake up to a clean house.

My biggest motivation has been remembering that I only need to organize one space per day. I'm currently looking at working on our bookshelves next. We have three, but I'm thinking of reducing them to only two. Can I do it? I think so.

But today's Sunday and the bookshelves can wait until tomorrow.