This handsome little man joined our family about 2 weeks ago and is absolutely the newest love of my life. He is such a sweetheart.
Hubby can’t wait to teach him all about hunting and fishing. I can’t wait to teach him all about baking and cooking and crafting and sewing. (Hmm… who do you think he’ll like better?? Daddy of course!) But regardless, we’re thrilled to have him in our hearts and home.
So please excuse my extended absence, but I’m needed elsewhere for the time being.
Happy Prepping to you all!

However, I have not forgotten that we’ve got General Conference coming up right around the corner (March 31st and April 1st) and I had another fun idea I wanted to share that takes right after the Fall Conference Tree activity I did for last October’s Conference. This one is basically the same thing, except instead of a fall tree, we’re going to grow a ‘Conference Spring Garden’ with lots of beautiful springtime flowers. The basic concept is that you’ll set up a ‘garden area’ on one of your walls, and then you use the Conference flower tops (provided in the download below) to take notes about the topics of the talks in General Conference. Color the flowers, tape them up in your garden, and then apply the talks in your family life as you pick the flowers from the garden. (It’s explained in detail in the download.) I can’t wait to see my wall plastered with a paper flower garden.

So anyway, here are the downloads for that (one for Nursery/Sunbeam age and one for Primary age children), along with my Spring Conference Packets from last year. They all apply pretty much the same (except that the cover page says ‘2011′… but with the computer issues I’ve been having lately, I’m not feeling motivated to spend 3 hours to make a change for just that. ) I hope you enjoy the activity, the packets, and most importantly that you enjoy General Conference!!

THE ‘CONFERENCE SPRING GARDEN’ ACTIVITY DOWNLOAD:

• Nursery/Sunbeam Age Activity Download
• Primary Age Activity Download

My General Conference Packets to Download:

• Nursery / Sunbeam Age Packet
• Junior Primary Age Packet
• Senior Primary Age Packet
• Youth Notes Journal Packet
• Adults Notes Journal Packet

And here are some Conference Helps from Other Sites that I love:

• Packets and Ideas from Sugardoodle: Click HERE
• Primary Age Packet from Jenny Phillips: Click HERE
• Primary Age Packet from Deseret Book: Click HERE
• A BIG LONG Collection of Ideas from 2 Kids and Tired Activity Ideas: Click HERE
• A Collection of Conference Ideas from Prepared, Not Scared: Click HERE
• Activities for Children from LDS.org: Click HERE
• And another Collection of Ideas from LDS.About.Com: Click HERE

And in case I don’t check in again soon, I hope you enjoy a wonderful Conference, a Happy Easter, and a lovely Spring!!

Well, regardless of what you call them, these cookies are so delicious, SO easy, and SOOO addicting! (Sounds like a perfect little cookie if you ask me!) The recipe I currently use to make these has been slightly adapted over the years as I’ve found other things to add and enhance the cookie, but it’s mostly true to what I started out loving as a youth. However, I’ll go ahead and give you both versions, since the original recipe is super basic, as well as shelf stable. But the second version is my preferred version. So go ahead and whip up a fresh batch (haha… doesn’t ‘fresh’ take on a whole new meaning when you think of the title?? Sorry. Overly gross. My bad.) and I dare you to eat just one!

{Side note: I’m having computer issues these days and can’t save any PDF files in Word or edit and save my pictures in Photoshop, hence I don’t have any nicely arranged pictures to show you nor a printable version of the recipe for you to download. However I was tired of just waiting to figure out what’s going on and decided to go ahead and post this anyway. But I promise to add the nicer photos and files when my computer is back up to full working status. }

Gorilla Poops – a.k.a. Chocolate Oatmeal No-Bake Cookies {Original Recipe}

Ingredients:

• ½ cup shortening
• 3 Tbsp cocoa powder
• 2 cups sugar
• ½ cup milk (reconstituted powdered milk)
• ½ tsp salt
• 3 cups rolled oats (quick oats is best, but old fashioned will work fine)

Directions:

1. In a medium saucepan, heat and melt together the shortening and cocoa.
2. Add the sugar, milk, and salt to the saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Once the mixture has come to a rolling boil, start timing for about 1 minute (and continue to stir).
3. At the end of 1 minute, remove the pan from the heat and add the oats. Mix everything together thoroughly.
4. Drop large spoonfuls of the mixture onto a wax paper lined cookie sheet and allow to cool and set up for approximately 30 minutes. Eat and enjoy.

Gorilla Poops {Modified/Preferred Recipe}

Ingredients:

• 1¾ cups white sugar
• ½ cup milk (reconstituted powdered milk)
• ½ cup butter (1 stick)
• 4 Tbsp cocoa powder
• ½ cup peanut butter
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups quick oats

Directions:

1. Measure and prepare all of your ingredients in advance. Prepare 1-2 cookie sheets lined with wax paper. (This makes the process go so much more smoothly since things will start happening quickly!)
2. In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, milk, butter, and cocoa. Bring the mixture to a rolling boil, stirring frequently. As soon as it reaches a full boil (i.e. the top is all foaming up with bubbles), start timing for 90 seconds while constantly stirring. (Do not overboil the mixture or your cookies will be dry and crumbly. Do not underboil or your cookies may not set.)
3. Immediately remove the mixture from the heat and stir in the peanut butter until melted. Then add the salt, vanilla, and oats. Mix until fully combined.
4. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto the prepared lined cookie sheets. (I like to use two spoons for this, since the mixture is really hot. Use one spoon to scoop the mixture from the pot, and the other spoon to scoop the mixture off the first spoon and onto the wax paper.)
5. Let cool until set/hardened (30-40 minutes). Eat and enjoy!

Well, I hope you enjoy your tasty jungle treat! (I know, I know, Mom… that’s disgusting.)

To make fresh-squeezed lemonade, clearly you’re going to need some fresh lemons. We currently have two lemon trees in our yard, but both are pretty young and still in the ‘not really producing much yet’ phase (although we were actually able to use two lemons from our trees that had actually turned yellow and were ready for the pickin’! I cannot wait until these trees produce in large quantities!). Fortunately, however, we have some good friends with a mature lemon tree that produces lemons like crazy and they were kind enough to share some with us. (Thanks Browns!)

So the process starts with picking the lemons, but since that was already done for us, we moved right on to the juicing phase. Cut the lemons in half and then juice, juice, juice those babies until they have no more juice left in them. (Note: an electric juicer is TONS of help when doing any substantial amount of juicing, although not necessary as you can read about below.)

Add child labor whenever possible.

Pour the collected juice into a jar…

and ta-da! You’ve got freshly squeezed lemon juice that is just BEGGING to be made into lemonade. (P.S. Just refrigerate or freeze any lemon juice that will not be used right away.)

Fresh Homemade Lemonade

Download Printable Version
Ingredients:

• 1 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 1 cup sugar
• approximately 2 quarts of water

Directions:

1. In a 2-quart pitcher, add your lemon juice and sugar.
2. Add enough water and ice to make 2 quarts. Stir. Enjoy.

{Note: These amounts are based on personal preference. If you like your lemonade a bit more tangy, use more lemon juice. If you like it more diluted, use less. More sweet, more sugar… you get the idea. This is just a starting point. Also note that different types of lemons (or different levels of maturity) will produce different flavors. So depending on the type/maturity of lemon you’re using, you may end up varying your amounts as well.}

So here’s my funny lemon juicing story… just to keep life real: We have an electric juicer (as you can see from the pictures above), and I put it together to go ahead and use to juice all these lemons. I tried to juice the first lemon and it wouldn’t work. No motor noise, nothing. I’d only used it a few times before and couldn’t believe it was already broken! ‘Piece of junk’ I’m thinking to myself. So my girls and I juice all our lemons by hand. I disassemble the juicer, and then I remember we’ve got two lemons on our tree, so I run out to grab those to add to our spoils. I come back in and put the juicer back together, and this time I notice a little notch in the top that looks like it’s maybe supposed to line up with the seed catcher part. Hmmm… so I line them up, and badda-boom badda-bing, it works! I couldn’t believe we juiced all those lemons by hand due to my user error. (I seem to be pretty good at making extra work for myself based on user error.) DOH! Well, it was a good arm workout anyway.

Lettuce is mainly a cool weather crop–which I find interesting since I usually crave it most during the hot summer months when I want something light and refreshing to eat. But regardless, you want to plant it when your temperatures will be mild (generally between 45 to 75 degrees F, and most lettuce can even survive a light freeze). During the hot weather, lettuce tends to turn bitter and bolt (which means it sends up a flower stalk at the top, and basically it’s done growing). This happened to us this past summer, and the lettuce isn’t really salvageable at that point (unless you like eating bitter lettuce), so your best option is to just pull it up and replant when temperatures are cooler, or to plant in a location that receives more shade (particularly afternoon shade). You can also find lettuce varieties that are more resilient to heat and don’t bolt as quickly. {I’m thinking I’m definitely going to have to look into that this year!}

Planting: When planting lettuce, it’s fun to choose a variety. {Right now we’ve got about three different kinds growing, and the mix makes for a beautiful salad. I especially like the small amount of red romaine we’ve got included.} Prepare your soil by loosening the top 10 inches or so, and mix in some compost to the top layer.
You can plant lettuce by either broadcasting the seeds (which means you basically just sprinkle them all over your prepared garden soil area), or you can plant them in rows to a depth of about 1/4″ and spaced about 1″ apart. I like to plant in rows, but the seeds are so tiny that I don’t worry about how far apart they are spaced within that row. I just sprinkle them down the row and then, when they start growing, you can thin the plants out, if needed.

Tending: Lettuce does best when the soil is kept cool and moist. Water in the early mornings so that the leaves have time to dry during the day and you can avoid mildew and fungal problems that can come if the leaves are continually wet overnight.

Harvesting: One way to “thin” out your lettuce is to just start eating it! As the plants start growing and getting crowded together, just pick the outer leaves (new ones grow from the middle of the plant) and throw them into a salad and leave the rest to continue growing. There’s no need to let the whole plant grow to a certain point and then pull it out or cut it all together. Just harvesting the outer leaves allows for a continued growing process and you will enjoy your lettuce for a long, long time (or at least until the end of the growing season). Also note, that it’s often best to harvest in the mornings. This is especially true if your days get pretty warm as they move to the afternoons. The hotter temperatures will make the lettuce wilt in the afternoon hours and then it’s hard to get your lettuce to be crisp (even if you stick it in the fridge). However, if your temperatures are mild all day long, you can really harvest at any time during the day.

We’ve got a good amount of lettuce growing right now in our winter garden and it is doing pretty well (yes, that is lettuce from my garden pictured above). Granted… Houston’s “winter” isn’t exactly the same as the majority of the country. We don’t usually get to freezing temperatures until sometime in January/February, and even then, the periods of freeze are so short (generally only a few overnight hours) that crops can often make it through unharmed. {You hate me now, but trust me… you’ll be the one with the last laugh when I’m suffering through the miserable, humid, Houston summer heat with withered vegetables! }
We lost a fair amount of the crop over the Christmas holidays when we were on a 3-week vacation right during the time the lettuce was sprouting up and needing to be thinned… so we came home to a fairly tangled mess of mixed up and strangled lettuce leaves (not to mention the weeds!), but I was just impressed any survived at all! We were able to revive quite a bit of it by getting rid of the bad parts and giving the rest room to thrive and grow.
So anyway, we’ve been enjoying having a healthy salad dinner at least one or two times a week without having to buy any lettuce at the grocery store! It. is. SO. cool! I absolutely love it. If you’ve never planted lettuce, you have seriously GOT to try this. You will not regret that you did!
(And P.S. If you don’t have any garden space at your home, lettuce would do awesome in a small or decorative pot as well!)
Happy Gardening!

Well, this project has definitely been a BIG one. I still have a long way to go in getting my folder all put together and completed, but maybe that will be another pseudo goal of mine for this year (there are so many!). It really would be nice to be able to just have all this information in one place, organized, and right at my fingertips.

{For those who are unaware as to what the Important Papers Folder is, click HERE for all previous posts, downloads, and information. There’s about seven other posts that take you through this process. }

So anyway, {drumroll} here are the FINAL FOUR sections of the Important Papers Folder (just click on each image to view/download/print it)…

• Section 11: Individual Family Member Information (have info for each member of your family)



• Section 12: Household Information



• Section 13: Home Property



• Section 14: Miscellaneous

And that’s it!! That’s all the sections! {Deep breaths. In. Out.} Now just remember… this book is (or will be) full of all your most important information for your family and home. That being said, you will want to keep it in a safe place where it could not be easily stolen or destroyed, but you also still want to be able to easily access it for the information you need. So choose it’s dwelling place wisely.  Good luck with your project, everyone! And HAPPY FRIDAY!!

Anyway, I of course wanted to share it with all of you in hopes it can be of use to some of you with your goals as well (click on the file name below to download it… it’s in PDF form). You can use stickers to mark off each chapter completed, or let your little ones color in each circle… whatever floats your boat. And hopefully this will help keep our kiddos motivated to sit still a little longer. Enjoy!

Download Here: Book of Mormon Reading Chart

As always, at the end of every year I find myself looking back to see what kinds of things I was able to accomplish in the past year, and areas in which I might have fallen short as well.  2011 held a lot of good progress for me in the food storage and preparedness arenas. I’m really excited about the progress in gardening that our family made this past year. I feel like we are finally starting to get a feel for what is working and what is not. Granted, we still have LOTS of learning to do, but I’m happy with the efforts we’ve made. I’m also happy with the organizational efforts that have been made in the food storage areas of our home. I’m feeling like we have a pretty good system going right now, and while it’s not perfect, it’s a system that I can manage for the time being. I also checked back with the goals I had set at the beginning of this year and am happy to report that I came out pretty well on these. Yea for accomplishing goals!

An area I know I fell short in was my emergency preparedness… specifically first aid. I had wanted to get certified this past year (although it wasn’t one of my initial goals) and then never got around to it. *Drat.* I have looked up the information for local places that offer certification, so at least I’ve got that I guess. But that will have to stay on my list of things still do.

And now, with the new year, it’s time to look forward to see what good I can accomplish for the upcoming year. 2012 will be a great year, and there are so many things I want to do, but one of the most important aspects of making goals is to keep them realistic. (Remember to make S.M.A.R.T. Goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.) One of the most exciting parts about my year will come in about three months when we welcome a new baby into our home. However, while that will be an enormous blessing, I also know from past experience that it is going to mean focusing A LOT of my time this year on just being a mom and making it through the initial newborn phase of our baby’s life. So my goals this year are going to have to be kept fairly simple and limited in number.

So aside from my personal goals here’s what I’ve got planned in the preparedness realm for 2012:

• For food storage, I want to try canning at least one new thing this year… something I’ve never tried canning before; and…
• For gardening, I want to try planting something new for the garden… perhaps planting potatoes; and…
• In emergency preparedness, I want to revise our family’s evacuations plans and get the details on those worked out a little better.

And that will probably do it. I’m sure there are probably a lot of new things I’ll try this year and a lot of things I’ll continue to work on, of course, but as far as goals, those are some things I would like to accomplish.

What about you? What preparedness goals do you have lined up for 2012? Be sure to take some time to think of at least one or two and then write them down to help keep you accountable. Oh, and you can also check out THIS POST for a helpful goal tracker as well.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Rocky Road Candy

Download Printable Version
Ingredients:

• 1 (12 oz) package milk or semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup butterscotch chips (half a 12 oz bag)
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• salted peanuts (roughly ¼ cup)
• miniature marshmallows (roughly ¼ cup)

Directions:

1. Line a 7″ x 11″ pan (or you could also use a 8×8 or 9×9 square pan) with wax paper (or just grease it REALLY well).
2. Sprinkle a layer of peanuts on the bottom of the pan, then add a layer of mini marshmallows. (There should be enough between the two that it basically covers the bottom of the pan. Don’t overdo it, though, or the candy will have a hard time adhering together.)
3. In a microwave proof bowl, combine the chocolate and butterscotch chips. Microwave for 1 minute, stir, then continue to microwave for another minute. Remove and stir.
4. Add the peanut butter and mix it in a bit. Then microwave again for another minute. At this point, your mixture should be mostly melted (although you may find that the butterscotch chips have a harder time melting… but that’s okay). If you need another 30 seconds or so, go ahead and microwave again, otherwise stir your mixture to fully combine and then pour it evenly over the nuts and marshmallows. Spread it out with a spoon or spatula, then give the pan a little jiggle, a little shake, and a little tap-tap-tap on the countertop to work out any air bubbles. Set it in the fridge to chill for about an hour.
5. When it’s firmed up, remove the candy from the pan by pulling up on the sides of the wax paper (or if you just greased it, hopefully you can just turn the pan over and have it dump out onto a cutting board), and cut your candy into approximately 1″ squares. Store in the fridge in an airtight container. Enjoy!

Okay, and here’s a helpful/important tip: Do not try to microwave your ingredients for just three minutes (or even two minutes!) without stopping to stir. You are bound to find yourself with a kitchen that smells like burnt gym socks. Yes… you will burn your chocolate that way. (Experience talking, perhaps?? ) Be sure to only microwave in no more than 1-minute increments. Also, if you cook it too long, the chocolate will start getting crumbly instead of melty, so try not cook for more than a combined total of 4 minutes. Even if your butterscotch chips haven’t melted all the way, you can still pour it over your mixture and they’ll still continue to mix and meld as the candy sets up.

And on that note, we’re heading out on our Christmas vacation so I will be signing off for the holidays. We wish you all a very safe and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!

However, this season also brings with it its share of stress as we run from here to there, thinking up the perfect gifts, holiday parties to attend, and a million other things to do. All while trying to keep that ’special feeling’ from slipping away in the hustle and bustle.

Well, to help with that, here’s some quick and easy food storage gift ideas that would be fun to give to your friends and neighbors (common… who doesn’t want a little more food in their pantry??) You can use #10 cans of food, or use regular sized products from the store. Whatever floats your boat. And each card comes with a recipe to use the related food you’re giving away, so at least they’ll have something they know they can make with the item. Enjoy!

POPCORN

Use a #10 can, or those cute Orville Redenbacher containers would be awesome with a bow, and attach the following card:

POWDERED MILK

Use a #10 can of powdered milk, or a container of powdered milk from the store. Attach a pretty bow and the following card:

WHEAT

And here’s one for wheat! If you happen to live where you can buy wheat at a local store, that would be an option, otherwise use a #10 can, or put some wheat berries in a mason jar to give away. Attach a cute ribbon and the following card:

I hope you enjoy your holiday season! May your days be merry and bright!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!