Homemade oven dried apples

Oven-Dried Apple Chips 

                             

So this week we had a little road trip planned and I asked my husband what he wanted for snacks, immediately he replied, "anything healthy."  So I packed carrots, peppers, cheese, nuts, and I noticed 3 apples rolling around in our bottom fridge drawer so I pulled those out as well.  Although I do love a crisp, juicy apple, I was craving something a little different.  So I thought I would try my hand in making some dried apple chips. I know the preferred method in making dried apples is with a dehydrator but I don't have one so I turned to the oven.  

 

When you slice your apples, try and slice them as thin as possible, this way they dry out quicker and they are a lot more "chip like" if they are thin.  A few of my slices were a bit thicker and turned out a little more soft than I prefer them but they were just as tasty.  

 

Lay them all out on a cookie sheet.  I sprayed my cookie sheet lightly with some non-stick spray,  I'm really not sure if this was necessary but afterword the cookie sheet came clean really easily so I'm glad I did.  

Then I mixed some cinnamon and sugar together to sprinkle on top.  This is totally optional, the apples really don't need anything added to them. I think next time I'll do half with no sugar and half with. Next, set your oven to 200 degrees and let them bake.  I checked on them after 2 hours and turned them all over. Then I checked on them again after another 2 hours.  After that I couldn't help but check them every 30 minutes till they were baked to my liking.  

 Pull them out and enjoy!!!  They are such a yummy treat, and next time I'll cut up a lot more apples, these things disappear way too fast! 

This recipe is as easy as they come 

you know now a days they have so many different flavors of Oreos so these can appeal to many people 

I used the Mint and the Berry Burst Ice Cream

Oreo flavors 

Regular

Double stuffed

Chocolate Crème  

Mint 

Peanut butter 

Peppermint

Golden

Strawberry milkshake 

Berry burst Ice Cream

Fudge Sunday

Double Delights 

Holiday limited editions 

(Holiday Colors)

Ingredients: 

Box of brownie mix...

(any will do I used Duncan Hines Chewy Fudge)  

or you can make your own brownies from scratch 

...UP to you :) 

A package of Oreos 

white chocolate chips or colored melts for the drizzled top

Sprinkles of any kind 

Directions: 

Preheat the oven to 350F

 spray Cupcake tins with cooking spray 

Make the box of brownies as directed on the back of the box. Dip the Oreos in the brownie batter and completely cover the Oreo then place in the sprayed cupcake tin Bake for 13-15 mins or until the brownies are cooked all the way. 

Let them Cool and then create the topping however you want 

I decorated them different on top letting me know what flavor is in each! 

I will be making these again for VALENTINES DAY for a work surprise!

(decorate with hearts and cute valentine colors... so fun! ) 

GREAT for any holiday! 

...Enjoy...

Making Some Extra Cash

Many of us stay at home moms would like the chance to earn a little extra income on the side. We may use it for fun date nights or maybe putting it away to pay off student loan debt. Either way, it is just nice to have a little extra cash on the side. Here are some ideas to get started:

1.  Think about your natural talents. What are you good at? Are you an amazing singer with lots of training? Then consider teaching voice lessons or organize a youth choir in your area. If you love making crafts, then start selling them. I love music and have been playing the piano ever since I was little. I even minored in it when I went to college. So for me, I love to teach piano lessons and this is how I make a little extra "fun cash" for myself.

2. Think about your passions. What do you love to do? If you love baking, then start baking cakes and cupcakes for special occasions like weddings. If you love beauty, then you could start doing eyelashes. I know lots of people who do eyelashes on the side, like another one of our bloggers, Elise.  She loves it! If you love fitness, call around to see if any local gyms are looking for fitness instructors. You could teach a few classes a week. Plus, gyms usually have daycares so it is something you could possibly bring your children to. That is something my mom did when we were young.

3. Think about what you are trained in. What are your special skills? If you went to hair school, then use that license and cut hair on the side. If you went to school and got an early education degree, start a preschool at your house 2-3 days a week. If you are a trained athlete, then start doing summer camps or keep things simple and teach swimming lessons. If you took some cooking classes, then start offering your services to cater events.

There are so many ways to make money. Just remember to start small though. That will help avoid feelings of discouragement or being overwhelmed. Always remember to factor in your children and how you can manage them while doing extra things on the side. For me, I always set up my piano lessons after my husband gets home from work. I never want to take on too many students because I do not want to take away too much time from my family.  

These are some of my piano students and I at a recital I put on last year.

10 Easy Healthy Snacks

One problem for me after had my baby was finding time to eat. So when I did find some sort of time to eat, it had to be something I could just grab and go. Though we all know that the easy snacks that you can just grab are usually the unhealthy processed ones. 

So I decided to find some snacks that I like that can be easy to put together but also healthy for my body. Also I get tired of eating the same food all the time so I had to find a couple different snacks I like and change it up every once in awhile.

Here is my healthy snack list:

- apples with a scoop of almond butter 

- celery with peanut butter 

- whole wheat toast with egg whites on top 

- dried fruit of any kind

- sliced peaches with a scoop of greek yogurt and granola 

-avocado with a little pepper

- cottage cheese with blueberries

- chopped green, red, or yellow peppers with salsa

- turkey slices wrapped over avocado slices 

- roasted peanuts and raw almonds

This is just one of my many snacks I will be having today! Greek yogurt with some granola and bananas, topped with honey! Yum! 

House Painting Party

My husband and I currently bought our first home! We are really excited. We bought a short sale, so it has been a very long process. We put an offer on the house at the end of September and it is now mid- January and we are finally able to move in! We live in Southern California, where the prices are pretty high. We live in a cute little community called Redlands. We absolutely love it. We bought a small three bedroom starter home. It is a great place for my little growing family. Tuesday we got the call from the realtor that we could finally get the keys to our house. We were so excited! One of the first things we did was run down to Home Depot and get some paint. We have been dying to try horizontal stripes in a room. Our master bedroom is not huge,  so we wanted to make it look bigger. We were not too fond of the green color that was on the walls. We chose white walls with gold stripes. We did not realize what a huge process this actually was going to be. Let me tell you, many times I wanted to quit! Luckily,  every night Abbi (our daughter) went to bed at my parent's house, so we would rush over to our new house and begin to have our very own "Painting Party." This consisted of Diet Coke, Trader Joe's Gummy Bears, loud music, and painting with my very fun Hubby! It took us about four nights to finally get it to where we wanted it. We are in love with the results. The hard work was worth it. I think next time my husband might just hire some one! Ha ha! All I have to say is,  it has been said that moving and remodeling is one of the most stressful things on a marriage, and I can understand why!! We have moved 12 times since we have been married! (we moved a lot in college) My husband is a perfectionist, so it might be better if we hire some one to do Abbi's room next! lol All in all, it was a lot of fun, and it gave us a total of four painting date nights!

The before pictures! The room is a sage green.

Preparing the room to paint.

Taping the edges.

Mixing the white paint.

We had to do several white coats, because the green showed through.

Day two starting all over again!

 Mix and pour!

 Getting the top and bottom corners, and edges was my speciality!

                            

So happy we are almost done with the white!

Now time to tape the wall for the stripes. You must measure your wall and divide inches between how many stripes you want. We decided to do seven stripes. We did four gold, and three white. We wanted a gold stripe to be at the bottom and top.

This took a lot longer than we thought, because the first time we tried to do it with out a Level. The next day we came back refreshed and used a Level my Dad had. This made all the difference! It went so much faster. Pencil it along the way, and then tape.

You tape up, and down, so it is covering the white. It might look funny, but that is the way you need it so you can paint the gold!

We painted a few coats of gold paint.

You don't want to wait till it is completely dry to take off the tape.

Here is our finished project! We finished it late, so the lighting isn't the best.

We put our bed up, and I love it!

 

Here is our dresser we also finished!  We found an old dresser on Craigslist for $40 and just spray painted it black! It looks brand new. I am so happy with the result of this little home project too! It looks great in our room!

Now it is time for you to get out there and have a "Painting Party" of your own! It is a lot of work, but it is worth it! You can look at your beautiful walls everyday. It really makes you happy!

Painted Jars

                            

I was visiting my family for the past couple weeks in California, and sadly my husband couldn't be with me because of work.  I left him alone living like a bachelor in our little trailer, so when I returned home a few nights ago I knew it would probably be a spaghetti night due to lack of groceries.  As I was about  to throw away yet another spaghetti sauce jar I thought, what a waste of a perfectly good jar!  There are actually a lot of things you could do with your empty glass jars, organize loose packets of oatmeal, sugars, tea, or put together the dry ingredients of your favorite cookies for a birthday gift,  or paint them and stick some flowers in them for an easy decoration!  Here are the jars I used,  the picture shows a Prego Jar but I didn't think I would like the Prego logo that's imprinted on the top collar of the jar so I used a Ragu one instead. Then I grabbed a regular mason jar and an old Wyler's Chicken Broth Cubes jar I had saved under my sink.  I really liked how these jars lined up perfectly. 

Next, peel off any stickers and let them soak in warm soapy water for awhile. Make sure you get off all of the sticky glue used to hold on the labels. This is the worst part! ( ;  I had to scrub pretty hard on my smallest jar so eventually I just gave up and decided that part would be towards the wall.  Oh, and about the expiration date that's printed on the jar, it scrubs off easily.  And because we will be painting the inside of the jars, yes you will want this off. 

Now all you do is take your clean, dry jars and poor the colors of your choice in them, you really don't need too much paint but if you poor in a little extra it makes the paint spread a little faster when you close the lid and shake it.  I just used some old paint we had from painting our bedroom and kitchen.  After you shake your jars really well, put them upside down on a paper plate for a about 5 minutes or so. 

Then flip them up right so the inside can dry faster.

Next, grab whatever you what to decorate with.  I had some yarn, fake flowers from Walmart, lace ribbon, and I admit I am a bit of a button collector so I had quite a few to pick from. 

It's time to get creative! This is the best part, but if this makes you nervous, just copy me!  I would LOVE it! 

 

Hope you enjoy making these as much as I did.  This is probably the quickest craft project I have done in a long time.  There are so many possibilities, with different paint colors, buttons, ribbons, or even real flowers… if you decide to do this, please send me a picture!  I would love it.

Avoiding the "Mommy Blues"

Some people may like to call them the “baby blues”, but I like to call them the “mommy blues” because they can hit you at anytime anywhere no matter how young or old your children are. We mothers can be very hard on ourselves and there will be times that we don’t feel adequate. We pressure ourselves to be that perfect mom and the stress and pressures sometimes catch up to us. After a long day of trying to get in a routine of being a new mom of 2, I asked my mom how she managed life with 5 kids. I mean this lady was always on the go like the energizer bunny, was always dressed up and presentable for the day, and had her own successful business on the side. Her answer to my question was that she was a supermom! A supermom?? Really mom!? Maybe she was. I simply conclude that she was some freak of nature because that is the only thing that makes sense in my mind!

Since I am not a supermom and don’t even try to pretend I am, I put together a list of things that help me stay positive as a mom and make me feel better so that I do avoid those “mommy blues”.

#1 Exercise - I know this one is a no brainer, but still it amazes me how many people just don’t do it. Getting some exercise in each day makes you feel better about yourself. Period. We all know about the happy hormones it releases too. I majored in health education at BYU-Idaho and I remember learning in one of my classes that one of the counselors on campus would not counsel a student who would not commit to a workout regimen. She knew the importance that exercise does to your overall well being.

#2 Healthy Eating - As cliché as it sounds, you are what you eat. Eating junk is going to make you feel crappy, and then you will have regrets for eating that junk, which will probably make you eat more junk, and there goes the cycle of gaining weight. So INSTEAD, make an effort to eat healthy. I promise you will feel better if you do. And hey why not throw some chocolate on those strawberries every once in a while. We do! This was my boys first time having them a few years ago!

#3 Stay Busy - This one might not be too hard to do. I can honestly say that there is never a time where I can sit down and think that there is absolutely nothing to do. There is always something to do when you are a mom. We always have laundry and dirty dishes calling our names, but we should also stay busy going out and exploring the world with our children.

#4 Play Music - It is amazing how quickly a good song can put you in a good mood. So turn up the music every once in a while! Maybe get some good moves going (good way to burn calories, thus happy hormones!) and a good bonding time with your kids.

#5 Girl Talk - We all need our mothers, sisters and friends we can talk to. We need the support because we are all going through the same thing or have been through it. This is my supermom and I.

#6 Date Nights - Sharyl wrote a super cute post a few days ago on how to date your husband on our blog. If you haven’t read it, then please do! Great ideas! Date nights are great for getting all dressed up and falling in love all over again with your number one fan who made you a mother.

Sugar Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

One of the ways I try to eat healthy is by making my moms secret healthy sugar free chocolate chip cookies. I haven't been able to substitute the chocolate chips yet because we all need a little chocolate in our lives sometimes. ;) 

Sugar Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 Cup- Butter( soft) 

1/4 Cup- Oil

1 Instant sugar free vanilla pudding 

1 Cup- Splenda brown sugar 

3- Egg Whites 

^ mix all together 

Then pour in- 

1/2 t- Baking soda

1 t- Baking powder 

1 t- Vanilla

2 Cup- Almond flour

1/2 Cup- Flour

3/4 Cup- Coconut flour

^ mix all together 

Pour sugar free chocolate chips in and 1 cup of pecans (optional) 

Bake at 375* for 9-10 minutes 

You have to try them and let me know what you think! 

Dress for the Occasion

I love to dress up for parties. I think some people would even agree that dressing up for the party, sometimes is even more fun than the actual party! I think this is just part of being a girl. I remember in High School my best girl friends and I would spend hours getting ready for Homecoming, or Prom. We would do our nails, makeup, and hair. It was so much fun. It is nice just to feel good about yourself when you go out. I think as we get older, sometimes we forget that fun of dressing up. It is really important for women to continue to get ready and go out and have some fun. The way we dress can really affect our self esteem. I know for myself, the days I don't get ready, I feel like crap. It makes me not want to go anywhere. I have had many periods of my life where my weight has also effected my self esteem. Weight has been a constant battle in my life. But wearing sweats all day is not the answer. So, get dressed and go out! Here are a few styles for different types of parties. The best thing is they are CHEAP!! I am a bargain shopper! So even if you don't have a lot of money you can still look cute!!

Casual

The first style is for a casual party.  This can mean a party during the day. For example: kids birthday party, lunch date with friends, family gathering, casual date night, movie night with the girls, and other casual activities. For this I wore black skinny jeans with brown boots. I wore a loose shirt with a short jean jacket. Everyone looks good in black skinnys. Just add a long shirt, and some boots and you are ready to go! It is always cute, and looks great on every shape!

 I got the black skinny jeans at TJMAXX! (Michael Kors for only $40!!!)

I got my brown boots at JCPennys on Black Friday! (Only $23 with a coupon)

I got my loose burgundy shirt on clearance at Nordstrom Rack! (only $7!)

 I got my jean jacket on a clearance rack at a local Skate Shop! (only $20 regular $60!)

My cute purse I got in New York, a total knock off, but I LOVE it! I will take a $60 fake vs a $1,600 real one any day!!

Semi- Dressy

For the Semi-Dressy Party. This can include things like: baby showers, bridal showers, girls night out on the town, bachelorette parties, friends birthday party, dinner party, date night, and other Semi-Dressy activities. My big rule of thumb is, when in doubt, dress Semi-Dressy! It is preferred to over dress than under dress! For this I wore my dark denim jeans, with short black boots. I wore my leopard shirt with my black blazer! Then always dress up with cute gold accessories, and a black purse!

I bought my dark demin jeans at Marshalls! (They are Paige jeans, but I got them for $60!)

I got my Leopard shirt at Nordstrom Rack on the clearance. (for only $7!!!)

I got my black short boots at Kohl's Black Friday sale. (Only $25 regular $60!)

I got my black blazer at Forever 21! (it was on the clearance rack for $15)

My black purse is a real Coach purse. But it was given to me as a gift!

Dressy

Now for the Dressy Party! This is the most fun to get ready for! Dressy examples are: company parties, fancy date night, fancy girls night out, hosting a fun fancy party, holiday parties, anniversary dates, and more dressy activities. For this I wore a simple black dress. Every girl needs a simple black dress! They are so easy to dress up. I added a belt, jewelry and some cute pumps, add a a clutch to tie it all in.

I got my black dress at Ross! (it was only $30)

I got my cute leopard pumps at Marshalls on clearance! (they were only $25)

 I got my cute clutch at Marshalls on clearance! (it was only $20 regular $60)

My belt was a Christmas gift from my Sister-in-Law! (#score!)

My cute jewelry was also a Christmas gift from my Sister. (#doublescore!)

 Add some red nail polish, and red lipstick, and you will look super classy for your Party!

 Now it is time to go out there and dress for your occasion. Most importantly have fun, and look good for you!