My little sugy turned 6!

My little mady turned 6 in August. She was pretty specific with what she wanted to do for her birthday. She wanted just a couple of friends to come. She wanted to go swimming and have nachos for her birthday. She wanted to frost her own cupcakes and have a treasure hunt. So. we did all that. She had 2 friends come to her party. We went swimming for about an hour. When we got home she and her friends went on a treasure hunt in the house. They thought it was great fun. What they found was all the makings for the cupcakes and a little extra. They made nachos and had fun making their own cupcakes. The colors were pretty interesting. But they had a blast!

Recipe/ lemon Bars

Here is the recipe for Lemon bars. I love these cold. They DO NOT taste good right out of the oven. Don't eat them warm. For some reason they taste really yucky and gooey right from the oven. Let them cool down and them put them in the fridge. Enjoy.

Lemon bars
1 C. Butter
1/2 C. powdered sugar
2 C. flour

Mix well. I actually use my blender to mix these ingredients. You could also use a pastry mixer. I just like how the blender mixes it so well. And this dough tastes soooo yummy. You have to grab a little pinch.
K. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. While it is in the oven mix together the following ingredients.

4 eggs- beaten well.
2 C. sugar
1/4 C. flour
6 T. lemon juice/ I will also do half the lemon juice and half real live lemons. Don't steel them from your neighbors. You will have guilt! And it's kind of pretty if you grate a little lemon peel in to the mixture. It makes the lemon taste more intense. It's also good with just the lemon juice. Try it!

Pour this on top of the crust right out of the oven and then put it back in on 350 degrees for 25 minutes. When it's done, dust it with powdered sugar! They look so tempting to eat right now but DON"T DO IT!!! Cool the little suckers down and then put them in the fridge. They are devine.

Recipe/Oatmeal fudge bars

Don't let the name of this recipe fool you. They are to die for. I don't make them often for obvious reasons! There is a lot of fat in them and i don't want my butt jiggling anymore than what it already does! Cameron has been requesting these for the last week. I haven't been feeling all that great lately so today I figured, suck it up and make them. These little puppies are helping my children get their homework done right now and baths taken early! See what power these bars have!!!The power of the bar!!!
Oatmeal Fudge bars

This recipe comes from The Lion House christmas recipes cookbook

1 C. margarine or butter (of course i use butter. wouldn't use anything else!)
2 C. Brown sugar
2 Eggs
2 Teaspoons good vanilla
2 1/2 C. flour
1 Teaspoon Baking soda
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1 1/2 C. quick-cooking oats
1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
1 12-oz package semisweet chocolate chips(DO NOT USE MILK CHOCOLATE!)
1/4 C. margarine or you guessed it BUTTER
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 C. chopped walnuts (i have never put these in them) Optional
cream margarine or butter and brown sugar; add eggs and vanilla. Sift flour, baking soda, and salt; add to creamed mixture. Mix in oatmeal. In heavy saucepan mix sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips, and margarine or butter and heat till just melted. Stir in vanilla and nuts. Spread 2/3 of the cookie dough into 9x13-inch greased baking pan. Spread the chocolate mixture on top of cookie dough. Drop (i do little spoonfuls of dough)remaining 1/3 dough on top. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 25 minutes. Cool; then cut into bars. Makes 36 bars.

Funny Miss mady

Well my last little one started 1st grade this year. I was a little nervous because she is so used to going with me and Aunt jessica to run errans or go to lunch. I was afraid that she would say she didn't want to go to school cause she was going to miss out on all the fun. Well, sure enough my fears have come to fruition! The 2nd day of school Mady came up and said "Mom i don't think i can go all day to school!" I said "Why?" Her response "I won't be able to go out to lunch with you and Aunt Jessica!". Nice try Madzy!. She loves excuses for not doing things and so she tried another one on me a couple of days ago. Here is the conversation. "Mom... What sweets...I can't go to school all day anymore!.... Why?... Because I can't wear closed toed shoes. I need to wear flip flops to school and i can't so i can't go to school the whole day. I need you to come get me at lunch time!" I just sat there starring at the little girlfriend and laughed. Nice Try Mady!!! Not a chance. The first thing she does when she get's home from school is she takes off her shoes and goes and get's her jammies on. Too much like her mom!!! LOve that girl. And i do miss her during the day.

Recipe/ Baked Ziti with sausage

O.k. all you lookers of my blog. I have had many people ask for recipes. I had a friend (Taya) tell me i should put them on my blog. So I figured what the heck. I will probably do it once or twice a week. Sundays are the treat day. What i make I will blog about. I hope it will help you out with the dreaded asked question, "What's for dinner mom!" This first recipe is from a friend (Denise Whitmer) I tweaked it just a little. you can do this recipe without the sausage. yesterday was the first time I tried it with the sausage. It's yummy without it also.
Baked Ziti with italian sausage.

1 Pkg. Italian sausage (it's in the meat section).
1 Lb. Ziti or penne pasta
4 Tbsp. Butter
1/4 Cup flour
1 Tbsp. Italian seasoning (down baking isle. It's with the herbs and seasonings)
1 spoonful of prepared garlic or 3 cloves of fresh garlic
3 cups Milk (i use half n half) it is fine with milk if you are watching your wasteline if you don't care then make with the half n half.
1/4 tsp. Pepper
6-8oz. grated or shredded parmesan cheese
3 cups spaghetti sauce (I use prego, traditional)

cook pasta and according to the package directions until al dente. Drain in a colander, then rinse under cold water to stop the cooking.
Cut up the italian sausage into bite size pieces and cook. Don't forget to take off the skin on the sausage. Kind of gross I know. YUCK!
While the pasta cooks and you have a spare burner, melt the butter ina heavy medium-size saucepan over moderate heat. Stir in the flour, forming a smooth paste (this is also called a roux), add the garlic and italian seasoning, and cook for 2 minutes stirring constantly. Gradually stir in the milk and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to moderately low, add the pepper and cook, still stirring until thickened and smooth--3-4 minutes. Blend in the cheese and sausage and remove from the heat.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Add the cheese sauce to the ziti and mix well. In a 3 quart casserole or 13x9x2 inch baking dish, alternate layers of the ziti and cheese sauce with the layers of tomato sauce, ending with the ziti. I always put a little extra cheese on top (mozarella). I also put mozzarella between layers. I love cheese what can i say!!
Bake uncovered, for 20 minutes or until the top is browned and the sauce is bubbling.
You can split this recipe in half and freeze the other half. I do that all the time. It's comes in handy when you have a crazy day. You can take that out and cook it. Just make sure you take it out that morning to defrost or you will be eating ziti popcycles!

Enjoy. I love this recipe because it is quick and easy.

4th of July.

4th of July was great! It turned out great is what i should say. We were planning on going camping and at the last minute we decided not to. Some things came up. So we went to plan B. We got up saturday not knowing what we were going to do. Lovey said "let's go to pinetop and see if we can book a hotel.". I got online to book the hotel and pinteop, payson, and all other surrounding areas were FULL! I said "let's just go and if we need to we will pull over on the side of the road and pitch a tent. Funny huh. For those of you who know me and lovey we just are not like that. We always have a plan and are organized. Not this time. We packed up the kids and headed out. We got into town and drove around trying to get a hotel for a couple of hours. Some were beyond nasty!!! We were getting desperate. We booked one hotel and anthony and cameron came back shaking their heads. Cameron get's into the car and says, "No way in heck you are staying there mom. It smells like strawberry smoke!" I told lovey to go back in and cancel. He wouldn't so guess who did. You guessed it, I did. I marched my way in there and told them we weren't staying there cause it was nasty and it stunk! The lady just looked at me like I was a snot nose. I didn't care!!! YUCK!!! So we got some dinner, got our spot for the fire works and had a great time watching the fireworks. While we were waiting the boys played some football. 9:00 rolled around and i told lovey we needed to figure out what we were going to do for sleeping arrangements. We got in the car and started driving. We drove until 1:00 in the morning trying to find somewhere to sleep. We finally found something in Holbrook, which isn't close to pinetop. At that point I didn't care. I was tired of driving. Wonderful hotel, great night sleep. Woke up refreshed. We drove to snowflake to see the temple and got some pictures of the temple and the kids.We then drove back into showlow and decided to go out to sunrise to ride the ski lift. When we got there they were having a Bow hunting expedition. So 2 of the lifts were closed but we got to at least ride on one of the lifts. It was cool for my kids. They got to look at all the bows. Payton asked for one for christmas. I said "sure, cause we have so many deers where we live!"
So the gang was hungry after that and as we were driving back into pinetop area we saw a sign for Indian fry bread. It looked like a shack. Not anywhere that people would eat. Guess what, We ate there and it was yummy! Anyways, everything was great. We came back into showlow and we were getting ready to check into the hotel (which was nasty again) and i said "Lovey,if we aren't going to do anything tomorrow let's just head home." So we did. We got back home about 10:30. It was quite an adventure. The kids cooperated, thankfully and all went well. We had a great time together as a family!

Lovey's birthday

Tomorrow is my lovey's birthday! I asked him what he wanted to do for this wonderful occassion and this was his reply. "I would really like to go to the temple with you and then breakfast. How bout after that we come home and then go get our feet done maybe go get some dinner and see a movie." Does this sound like his birthday or mine! He is such a good lovey. That is what we are going to do for his birthday. He thought it would be fun to go get our feet done together and sit and talk. What a lovey. I sure love him!!! I think he will have a happy great day! Love that man and everything about him. He makes me happy. He is a good man. A great provider. A wonderful dad. An awesome husband. Happy birthday lovey. Nice nalgas by the way!!!