DIY

Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments

~ Girlmom ~ Leave a comment

This is a festive and easy activity to do for the holidays. Two ingredients, that’s it. These will make the house smell amazing and they make a great homemade gift.

INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup applesauce

4 oz. cinnamon

rolling pin

cookie cutters

glue

glitter various colors

straw

string

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 200°. Mix applesauce and cinnamon in small bowl until a smooth ball of dough is formed, your hands are the best tool for this.

I divided the dough amongst the three girls.

Roll dough to 1/4-inch to 1/3-inch thickness between two sheets of plastic wrap.

Peel off top sheet of plastic wrap. Cut dough into desired shapes

Make a hole at the top of ornament with a straw.

Place ornaments on baking sheet.

Bake for about 2 1/2 hours. Cool ornaments on a wire rack.

Once completely cool. brush with glue and decorate with glitter.

Wrap them up as a gift or hang on the tree.

Shimmer Play-douh

~ Girlmom ~ 1 Comment

Kaili ran out of Play-doh right before Christmas. Instead of buying more we decided it would be fun to make some of our own but with pizzazz.

It’s so easy to add play-doh to your cart and hit purchase on Amazon but it’s almost as easy to make your own. I used this tried and true recipe but we added a few drops of peppermint extract and a few, ok a lot of shakes of glitter.

*I find that the gel dye is much more vibrant, just make sure you don’t make the dough on a  beloved cutting board, it will stain.

IMG_6725IMG_6729I gotta say, one month later and the consistency is still great. Red and green mixed together don’t make the best looking color so it’s time to make some new colors.

Kaili spends time on the iPad at night watching video tutorials on play-dough activities. So if your child loves it as much as mine, this will save you some cash. Cha-Ching!

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A Week in Photos

~ Girlmom ~ 1 Comment

Oh hey, so I passed my glucose test, not that I was worried. Okay maybe I was a tad worried but it’s just because this pregnancy has been going so smoothly that I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe enough shoes dropped last pregnancy and there aren’t any shoes left..?

I have been having fun making things for a birthday party that’s coming up.

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Shane has been busy installing solar tubes throughout our house, it’s awesome.

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We spent Saturday down in Little Italy visiting my dad and his art at the ArtWalk.

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Kaili hard at work on our dinner.

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With summer comes the flies and they love to attack us when we are eating outside. DIY bug repellent candles. I will post more on these.

IMG_3580 IMG_3586The girl is all SoCal.

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Apple Turnovers

~ Girlmom ~ 1 Comment

As I was looking through the freezer this morning, I came across a box of puff pastry buried in the back. I am embarrassed to even think how long it’s been in there, but I am pretty sure I didn’t have a kid or a bun in the oven the last time I used it. {hangs head in shame} So I decided then and there that I would use it today, but for what? Hmm that was the question. After some scouring of recipes I found this one from Simply Recipes. I have used a lot of her recipes and they all have turned out great, so I went with it.

Now since this was spur of the moment decision I had to use what I had on hand, that meant 2 small Fuji apples. Even though I had walnuts I decided to throw in some slivered almonds because I thought that sounded better. I omitted the currants, all I had were raisins and Kaili has now decided she likes them, so I shall save them for the K bear.

I managed to get the apples peeled, cored, diced, got all the ingredients mixed, rolled of the pastry dough, assemble the turnovers and throw them in the oven all while Kaili was down for a nap. Success.

Even though I felt like a rockstar once they were in the oven, I soon found out that I must have missed a step. I went back and re read the recipe only to find out that I was supposed to brush some egg wash along the corners of the pastry dough before folding it. I assume it’s so this doesn’t happen…

Delicious goodness leaking everywhere 😦

The inside oozed out all over the baking sheet. Oh well, lesson learned… They will still be yummy right?

Yummy they are!  Even though they aren’t the prettiest things they are very flavorful and the the crust is perfectly flaky. Oh and all that goodness that oozed out, well it tasted like apple spice caramel, de-lish-ish!