Monday, September 24, 2012

The Quilted Bear (Saratoga Springs, UT)

Have you been to the Quilted Bear?
If you've never been (or even heard of it) and you live in the Salt Lake area, you're missing out!

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According to their website
The Quilted bear is the "...
number one destination for unique handmade gifts, décor and accessories." and  is the "...the largest handmade gift, accessory and home decor store in the country."
 
Believe them!

 This store rocks my socks every time I'm able to go! It's booth after Booth of handmade goodies. Everything from American Girl Clothes to Hand-painted signs to huge-mongo stuffed bears.
It's eye candy everywhere you look!
You can't help but have a good time when you walk in the door!

Don't believe me? Here's some Proof:
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Gardening with Grandpa (Saratoga Springs, UT)

So, we'd finally arrived and had a nice,
long, sound sleep at my parents home.


And when we woke up, it was to blue skies and cool breezes! The kids wasted no time in getting outside, and were soon helping their Papa harvest vegetables from his small (but incredibly awesome!) vegetable garden.

It was pretty neat watching the kids pick their own produce,
and it was even neater watching all of their hard work go
to good use.  My sister-in-law, Julie, made the most delicious zucchini bites from the freshly picked stuff while we there. These little bites are packed with flavor and  a hit with everyone!
(recipe at the bottom)

Watching the kids work in the "field" with their Grandpa
reminded me a lot of our summer trips home to see my
own Grandparents. I can remember wandering between the
rows of watermelon and corn stalks hoping behind their home, hoping we'd find something ripe to eat. I loved it then, and apparently, my kids love it too!

Thanks Papa! :)

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Grandpa and the kids
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Dominick searching for some ripe squash
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Diana and Dominick racing down...
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Working the "field"
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Brooke and the huge zucchini
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Little cousin Tyson was working hard too!
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Zucchini Bites
Recipe adapted: The Naptime Chef
yields: 12 mini muffins



1 cups zucchini, grated
1 egg (1 large egg equals 3-4 tbsp when whisked together)
1/4 yellow onion, diced
1/4 cup cheese (cheddar or Parmesan work the best)
1/4 cup bread crumbs - I used Italian style
Salt and Pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Spray a mini-muffin tin with non-stick spray, set aside.
2. Grate the zucchini and then place in a dish towel to squeeze out the excess water- like when using frozen spinach; if you skip this part, the middle of the zucchini tots will be really soggy while the outside gets crispy and no one wants that.
3. In a bowl combine, the egg, onion, cheese, bread crumbs, zucchini, salt and pepper.
4. Using a spoon or a cookie scoop, fill the muffin cups to the top. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the top is browned and set.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

The Commandments for Flying with Kids ... Part II

Commandment 4:
Enjoy ye your children. For they are but young
and are trying very, very hard to be good.


So, we were finally in the air! .. again.
We'd left Memphis and we were well on our way to Salt Lake at last! As drinks were being passed out, the flight attendant took the time to tell me how well behaved my children were just in time to see my son stick candy buttons up his nose. She laughed and said "Trust me, I've seen worse!" High praise indeed! :)

I couldn't pass the moment up, and joined in his goofiness!

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And Lastly,

Commandment 5:
Pat thyself on thy back.
Because thine children are pretty awesome
and they have learned all of their awesomeness from thee.


They are good travelers because YOU are teaching them to be good travelers.

And that is A.O.K!
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Friday, September 21, 2012

The Commandments for Flying With Kids.

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I
love to fly.
I love everything about flying.
L-O-V-E
Love it.

And thank the heavens, so do my kids! I like to think I've done my part to raise a tiny little clan of future pilots and flight attendants.

So, how do we do it?
How do we fly across the country and still want to do it again and again? How do we keep the kids happy and the parents sane?
(Or parent in this case as I was without my spouse)
Simple, we know the 5 Commandments for flying with kids. 


Join us on our 1800 mile, 4-airports-trip from
Knoxville, Tennessee to Salt Lake City, Utah and learn ye too the commandments to making what could have been a long stressful day into nothing but wonderful family memories.


Commandment 1:

Prepare thou offspring for what lies in store.
Don't wait until you're untying your
shoes to explain the TSA checkpoint to your kids and don't
wait until they're kicking the seat in front of them to explain why it's inappropriate. Set down the rules and the expectations for your children long before you pack your bags.

Now, our children have all flown before, but I still give them a rundown of what's expected of them while we're in transit.  For this trip, the little's needed to be prepared for just how long a day it was going to be (11+ hours)  and my 15 year old needed to know that she'd be helping with a lot of the duties her Dad would pick up if he'd been able to go. (Helping with bags in security, buddying up with her little sister, etc.)

Waiting in our rocking chairs at McGhee-Tyson Airport in Knoxville.

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Commandment 2:

Pack ye carefully and ye shall not want to rip ye's hair out whilst ye sits in an airport for a very long layover(s).


Seriously. Think about the ways your children entertain themselves at home and then try as best you can to bring some* of that along.

For my 15year old that meant:
Her Nintendo DS and her Kindle Fire
with a few new books loaded on.

For my 9year old:
His iPod, some Matchbox cars and his favorite book.

And for my 6year old:
A favorite stuffed animal, a coloring book,
crayons and access to my camera.


And for the love of all that is holy:
DON'T FORGET THE CHARGERS**!

*Some means some. Don't pack their entire bedroom as
you'll most likely be the mule shlepping it around when they tire of carrying it!
**Delta is great about having outlets very accessible in almost all of their terminals.

The kids entertaining themselves at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

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Commandment 3:
Research ye your airports ahead
of time and know ye what they offer.


So, we'd left Knoxville and landed safe &sound in Atlanta right on time around 10ish a.m. Thanks to my insistence that they eat a hearty breakfast, no one in our group was even remotely hungry. It didn't matter that the Atlanta airport has food courts and small food vendors just about everywhere you look, you can't eat if you're not hungry, and that was that. We decided we'd grab our lunch when we arrived in Memphis.

HA!
Having forgotten to obey my own commandment, I did not research the Memphis Airport and therefore did not know that Memphis, being a much, much smaller airport, offers considerably less than Atlanta in the way of food stuffs.

And having gone from "Mom, I'm not hungry!" to "Mom, I'm starving to death!", the 3 kids and I wandered the nearly deserted terminals in search of an easy meal. They were a few nice looking sit down restaurants but most were catering BBQ (not a huge hit with my kids) and most were well beyond the price point I was willing to pay in an airport, so we passed. We finally ended up at a sub joint called "Lenny's" where we found a decent meal at a decent price. Not exactly what we'd wanted, but it was good in a pinch.

So how would I do it differently next time?
I'd have bought cold sandwiches in Atlanta and put
them in our carry on to enjoy in Memphis.

Lunch at Lenny's in Memphis International Airport.
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Continued ....


Saturday, September 15, 2012

BARGAIN ALERT!

If you know me, and I hope you do, you know that Bargain shopping is my most favorite after school activity. I love scouring racks and sniffing out bargain. I honestly can't remember the last time I chose to pay full retail for anything.

My usual haunts are mostly thrift stores, but I'm not above trudging the Mall or big box retail stores to hunt down killer steals too.

And killer steals are exactly what we found when we did some shopping yesterday!

Let's start with BookLand. (Our teensy tiny bookstore owned by Books-a-million) Aside from the fact that they were having their $1 book blowout, we found THIS amazing leather tablet cover on sale from $40.00 to a measly $5 buckeroo's! And with my Books-a-million discount card, I only paid FOUR bucks. And yes, although it's made for the Nook, it fits Brooke's Kindle Fire perfectly!

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Moving along. Next up .. JC Penny. I hadn't planned on going clothes shopping yesterday, but when I saw the huge $2 rack on the way through the store (you have to cross through to get into the Mall) and I was tempted. I'm glad I stopped. Brooke and I scored in the way of new shirts for me and new PJ's for her! She bought two new nightgowns and a new top for $6 TOTAL. And I walked away with 6 new tops and a new bathrobe for $15! SCORE! (I'd show pictures, but everything is in the dryer)

And lastly (and my most favoritisly) Books. And not from the Bookstore. Books from where you'd least expect them. The DOLLAR TREE! I've seen books in our Dollar Tree before, but they're usually bizarre or obvious "didn't make it" books.  Yesterday was something new entirely. Everything was in hardcover and they were all books we wanted to read! In total, we bought 10.
 
10 books that we liked and that will not sit on the shelves for the next year.

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Retail, these books would sell for around $202.00. Granted, I would never pay full price for a book anyway, but let's suppose I'd bought them on Ebay (which is plausible) I would still  have paid around $65.00 by the time you include shipping. But we only paid 10 bucks for 10 books. So, yes, we hit the Mother Load!

All-in-all, I only spent $35 (before tax) the entire day and I call that  a good day for the Bargain Huntress!

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Our Pinteresting Dinner

So, I spend a lot of time on Pinterest.
Maybe a little too much time.

And for all the pinning I do, I've never actually put any of those pins to good use.

Until now ....

For dinner last night, I resolved to make only the things I could find on my "Food for the family" board I have on Pinterest.

For our main course I made this yummy looking Chicken & Spinach Pasta Bake:

It was really easy to prepare and came out of the oven looking (and SMELLING) totally delish! Would I make it again? Sure! But I'd just about double the amount of sauce needed to make it extra creamy. It was a bit dry and the noodles on top got a little hard while baking.
   
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Ok, for a side I made this simple Sea Salt Asparagus
It was so, so good. Nothing to add, nothing to change.
10 mins at 450 ... perfection!

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Ok, and finally, for dessert we tried this awesome blossom "Banoffee Pie"

"Ban" for Banana.
"offee" for Toffee.

AND YUM FOR YUMMY!!! 


As advertised, it is so simple to make.
(And I especially liked learning how to make toffee from a can of Sweetened condensed milk boiled on the stove!) 

But let me warn you, this pie is sweet!
I mean REALLY sweet. Like, "Wow, I just popped a cavity" sweet. Or even "The kids are never going to fall asleep now" sweet.

I love sweets and this was even a little too sweet for me.
I'm thinking next time I'm going to try and tone down the toffee with some cream or maybe add more Banana's. ... Things to think about.
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All-in-all, Pinterest night was a success! Enough of a success that tonight we had Pinteresting Beef Stew on the crock pot! (Which was too die for!)