The best sugar cookies

When we moved to our house back in July we had several neighbors bring us goodies. We have great neighbors.

One of our neighbors brought us sugar cookies and they are the best ever. Ever. I have never thought to bake or eat sugar cookies except at Christmas, but now I will eat them on a train and I will eat them in the rain. I will eat them on a boat and I will eat them with a goat! I will eat them winter, summer, spring, and fall; they are the best cookies of them all!

She did not mention it being a cherished family secret so I think it is okay to post it here.

Here goes:

Brown Sugar Cookies

2/3 cup butter flavored shortening
2/3 cup butter (cold, cut in cubes)
1 cup sugar
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 375. Cream shortening, butter, and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla, beating well. Sift dry ingredients together and add to creamed mixture. Stir to blend. Drop by teaspoonfuls into bowl of sugar sprinkles and coat one side, then place on cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes. Cool 2 minutes on cookie sheet, then transfer to cooling rack. Enjoy!

Do not change a single thing about this recipe or you will be sorry and have bad luck for 5 years. Just kidding :-) I can't be held responsible though if you don't sift the flour, use real butter and use butter flavored shortening, not regular shortening.

I should have taken pictures. This is me before I ate 73 cookies and this is me after. Because unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) Mike does not like sweets and my boys don't usually do a good enough job on their meals to score a cookie; therefore, it is left to me to eat them all before they get stale.

Green bean popsicles

My kiddos can be pretty picky eaters, especially with vegetables. They also sometimes get hungry before dinner is actually ready and on the table.

This is when green bean popsicles come in to play.

Actually, they aren't really popsicles we just call them that, they are actually frozen green beans and my boys eat them up!

They also like frozen corn and frozen peas and carrots. While dinner is finishing up, if they are lingering at my feet, I pull out the frozen veggies and put a bowl-full on the table. Bon appetite!

Slow learner

Some updated information on the marble magnets. The hole punches are about $13, but they are half price at Hobby Lobby this week. The marbles they are carrying now at Walmart (at least at My Walmart) are too small, but they are only $2.77 at Hobby Lobby for 2 pounds!

The reason I titled this post "Slow learner" is that while I was at Hobby Lobby getting 3/4" marbles I saw some larger flat marbles, approximately 1 1/4 inches. I was so excited, until I noticed they are the iridescent kind.

Remember me telling you the clear marbles work, but iridescent not so much? Well, I really, really wanted the big ones to work so I bought them and bought a 1 1/4" hole punch too. But amazingly enough, the iridescent ones still don't work. Go figure. Maybe I can find large clear marbles somewhere. Off to check on that.

Making many magnificient marble magnets

How about a project that is fun, virtually mindless, and the result is functional and cute!?

First you need some old magazines or catalogs.

You also need:

magnetic buttons
flat marbles
craft hole punch
glue




The clear marbles work best if you want to be able to clearly identify the images. I was lured in by the iridescent marbles, but figured out simple is better for this project. Mine came from Walmart and I have no idea how much they cost.

The magnets are from Walmart also. They are 3/4 inch diameter and they are very strong, which is great! I don't remember how much they cost, maybe $4 (for 50 magnets).

The hole punch is a must, you do not want to cut out numerous, perfect 3/4 inch circles by hand. I can't remember how much it was either, but I am thinking under $10 at the craft store.

So basically what I'm saying is I have no idea how much the whole thing costs, but it is really fun!

Oh, the glue, I do know how much it cost because it actually has a sticker, $3.99 at the craft store.

I like to make sets, like these superhero magnets.


Or these Christmas ones.



Sesame Street magnets are sweet.



But my personal favorites are the food ones.


I usually sit down with my magazines and all of my supplies. Then when something catches my eye I test it out with a marble to make sure that the image will be appealing and that you can tell what it is. The marbles magnify the image and you would be amazed at what tiny images work perfectly for this project.

Okay, here are the actual steps involved.

1) Find an image you want to make into a magnet.



2) Hole punch your image, I turn my punch upside down so I can see exactly what is going to be punched.

3) Get a magnet and put a small drop of glue on it.


4) Put your hole-punched image on the glue and move it around a little to spread out the glue.

5) Put another drop of glue on top of the image (it dries clear).


6) Put the marble on top of the image and the glue will spread out perfectly.


7) Let dry.

P.S. My camera did a really good job of capturing all the flaws, so maybe you'll just take my word for it how cute and glossy they are in real life.

The rest of the bead board

A bit of background information.

House #1 - We had all enormous furniture. Really, gigantic.

House #2 - After Kyle was born I quit my job and we down-sized a little. We sold our gigantic furniture and bought some smaller pieces that fit our smaller house. In the master bedroom there was a window where our bed needed to go, so the window and curtains functioned as our headboard.

House #3 - We have some more room now, but just a mattress on a frame and our headboard is just a blank wall. I knew I did not want to buy a bed, but rather make a headboard from an old door or the like.

After our success with the bead board wallpaper in our entry, I immediately went to our bedroom and measured. Yes! We had the perfect amount of wallpaper left to make a headboard. Without any hesitation I pasted it on the wall and then restrained myself for an entire week before purchasing the trim pieces to complete it.

Total cost for the headboard was around $40. The big molding piece at the top was $23, the side molding was $10, the small amount of paint and leftover wallpaper amounted to less than $5. Not bad, I say!

House #2 window/curtain headboard

I wish I had a before picture, but you can imagine there was just a bed and a wall. The room is a work in progress, so focus on the headboard. You can also look at the wall color, the Pottery Barn Outlet curtains (I had originally purchased for our living room), and the three blue thrift-store pillows which match the curtains per-fect-ly.

Bead board makeover

There was a certain project I had been wanting to do in our entry for a while. I had a vision of bead board paneling, a shelf, and coat hooks. When I discovered bead board wallpaper, yes wallpaper, it was time to get started.

Mike was definitely hesitant about the wallpaper part of the project. But I assured him it would look great and worst case scenario: we would cover over it with real wood bead board.

Here is our before, the wall was screaming out for some attention. Love me! Make me beautiful! Give meaning and purpose to my life!



Below is the after. Now all of our other walls are jealous!



I am too lazy to get up and get my receipts right now, but it all cost less than $100. It took us a whole day, but that was working around Kyle and Cade and having to make two trips to the home store. I spent my Christmas money on it, so for those of you reading who gave me money for Christmas -- thank you!

My initial plan was to paint the shelf white, but then at the last minute I thought it might look really fun (not funny, mind you) to paint it satin nickel and compliment the hutch and mirror on the opposite wall. Mike was once again a Doubting-Dan, but I told him I could re-paint it white during one afternoon nap time if need be.

I LOVE it!! It is one of my favorite projects ever. And. It was so easy! Well, for me anyway, all I did was come up with the idea and put paste on the wallpaper, but Mike didn't seem to be struggling too terribly with the rest of it.

Now we are left to decide what goes on the ledge. I have two ideas, either put a wire with clips above it and hang the kids' artwork or frame some of their artwork to set on the ledge (my preference).

Mike thinks that is a great idea!

...for the playroom or the kids' bedrooms. His feelings are that we are the only ones who like their art so it shouldn't be in the main living area. Okay, fine, possibly true, but - it is our house, so that's okay if only we like it. So we are at an impasse (I used that word correctly, right?).

What do you think?

We only used a partial roll of the bead board wallpaper and the rest was the perfect amount for another project I had been dreaming of, hint, hint on the dreaming part. Check back to see that one.

Breaded bacon and cakes

Have you ever breaded your bacon?


Oh man, it is good!



I prefer cooking my bacon in the oven because it holds its shape and is less messy than on the stove top, in my opinion. I usually lightly dredge it in flour just to make sure it holds in more grease. But seriously, it is really good and we don't eat bacon that often so I don't feel bad about it.


I thought it was done in this picture, but ended up putting it back in for a couple of minutes more, I really don't want to mess around with undercooked bacon.

If you like salmon cakes, and even if you think you don't, I have a recipe that has been a huge hit at our house. I made it with the breaded bacon last night, but really breading the bacon probably isn't necessary for this recipe. I planned to have extra bacon for breakfast so it was worth the trouble in this case.

I was inspired for this recipe by the winner of Next Food Network Star, Melissa D'Arabian, but have altered several things because I found hers were too soggy and wouldn't hold together, although they were very tasty.

Here is my version:

3 strips of bacon, cooked and chopped (reserve the grease)
1/2 onion, chopped and sauteed in remaining bacon grease
1 egg
1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
1 (14 oz.) can salmon
1 c. frozen hashbrowns (allowed to thaw a bit)
1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese

Combine above ingredients then form into medium-sized patties and coat in the following mixture:

1/2 c. seasoned bread crumbs and 1/4 c. Parmesan cheese

Heat reserved bacon grease on a griddle at 350 and cook until golden brown about 3 to 4 minutes per side. They are also good on a small warm roll, sandwich-style.


P.S. I forgot to take a picture until after dinner, I think I actually started off with about a dozen.