Easy Apple Dessert = Perfect For the Fall!

My family loves apples....and right now, because of some great deals I'm involved in, I have more apples than I know what to do with!  So, I decided to branch out and try something new!  This really couldn't be easier.  I saw this in one of my Kraft recipe magazines and tweaked it a little. 
 
What you need:
3 thinly sliced apples {with or without skin}
1 refrigerated pie crust
4 oz cream cheese
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbs flour
A slice of butter

Roll out your pie crust and place it in the pie pan.  Spoon the cream cheese all over the bottom of the pie crust. 

Once you slice your apples, mix the cinnamon sugar combination as well as the flour with them. 

Spoon the apple mixture over the cream cheese and neatly and gently press the sides of the pie crust up and around the apples as though it is hugging them!  Sprinkle on a bit more of the cinnamon sugar mixture on the apples and crust and bake for 25 minutes.

 Once it comes out, I usually spread a little butter on the top while it's still very warm to give it a glistening look and yummy buttery, flakey taste!



  Slice it up and serve it with Cool whip and maybe a spoonful of vanilla icecream!

Hope you love it as much as my family did! 

Not only will your belly be full, but your house will smell amazing too!

Someone's garbage...MY treasure!

Who doesn't love to repurpose something?! 
I was at my in-laws house a month or so ago and I saw this old, yucky frame laying around near their barn. It was headed for the dump.  I asked her for it, and {SCORE!}, she said it was all mine, she had no use for it!  I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with it, but I knew it would look cute somewhere.  Through the dirt and cracked paint, I could see something awesome...

Here, Noah and Lucy are modeling the frame before I painted it!

Normally, I would sand it to make it nice and smooth and so the paint would adhere better, but I was not only lazy, but too excited to take the extra step.  Plus I liked the idea that the frame would look a little rustic with some bumps and ridges. 

I found some left over spray paint in my garage that happened to be the same EXACT color as my bedroom, {SCORE, again!}  I wiped the frame down and covered it with a few coats of spray paint.  After letting it dry over night, came the task of trying to figure out what the heck it was going to frame :)

I love Etsy.  Who doesn't?  I also have a fairly new obsession with wall decals.  I bought one for Lucy's nursery and have been so pleased with the way it looks. I always knew I wanted another one, but what would it say and where would I put it??  I love Bible verses, Ok, yeah, I'll do a Bible verse.  But then I couldn't pick just {one}. Plus I have more than a half a dozen scripture pictures through-out my home.  So I started searching "marriage wall decals".  And I found {the one}.  I ordered it in brown to match my bedroom decor.  I was giddy with excitement.  So you can imagine how pumped I was when 2 days after I ordered it, I opened my mailbox and it was there!!

It came with great directions on how to apply it to the wall and within about 15 min, my project was complete!   

We hung it right above our bed.

He really is my BEST friend.

Wordle...

This has been one of my {favorite} things to do lately.  Late last year, I stumbled across this site in one of my youth leader magazines.  I didn't exactly understand what it was, but it didn't take me long to figure it out.  Wordle.net.  Once you check out the website, you'll figure it out. You type in words and it will create an awesome visual image of them for you...and if you don't like the layout or font, you can keep tweaking it until you find one you do love! 

According to Wordle.net, "Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."

I had the teens in our youth group write their name on a sheet of paper.  They then passed them around to everyone and each person wrote a positive quality or a word of admiration for them.  Once everyone was finished, I collected them all and surprised them the next week with a Wordle for each of them.  I printed them out and framed them and hung them all over the youth house!  They loved it!

For fathers day this year I made one for Adam as well.  Framed and ready for his new desk at CCMS!  I am also in the process of making one for our living room wall.  Check it out, it becomes a little addicting.
Note to new users {if you type one word in several times, the word will not appear several times in the Wordle, it will just appear larger!}  Practice, you'll get the hang of it in no time!!  Have fun!

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Mexican done different!

My family LOVES Mexican....from the refried beans to lettuce on top!  One day, as I was shopping for my normal taco shells, I came upon Tostada shells!  These are basically hard, flat, corn tortillas.  And, as the picture on the front suggests, I decided to build my own Mexican pizza!



Here is all you need:

 Box of Tostada shells

1lb of cooked ground sirloin/chicken flavored with taco seasoning

refried beans

tomato

lettuce

cheese

{Of course, add or subtract any ingredients to personalize this Mexican pizza to your taste buds!}

Now to begin....

I start with the shell and cover it with a spoon full of refried beans {YUM!}

(just as you would spread pizza sauce on a pizza!)

 

Add another spoon full of your taco meat of choice

{These would also make a great vegetarian dish...just skip the meat!}

Top with some cheese and place it in the over on 350 for about 5 minutes.

Just long enough to warm the toppings and melt the cheese.

Once you take it out, add the {accessories} as I call them...

tomatoes, lettuce, more cheese, onions, sour cream, whatever else you enjoy on your normal taco!

Top it off with a little taco sauce and {VIOLA!}

Even my 4 year old LOVES it...of course who wouldn't if it has PIZZA in the name!

{ENJOY!}



Organization is key!

I scored this wonderful idea on pinterest a few months ago and before I had a chance to recreate it, one of my work buddies did, Amy, and she kept telling me how CUTE it turned out! So, after saving a few empty boxes of diapers and grabbing a few yards of burlap from Walmart, I began! I had originally intended on using the boxes in Lucy's room for her shoes and hair bows, etc.  But, while working on the boxes in the living room, I found an area of greater need.....the dvd storage area... {GASP} Warning: What you are about to see is no joke.  I may appear put together, but there are some areas of my house/life that are pure chaos...And believe me, the only reason I am showing you this, is because I am SO pleased with how it turned out in the end =)



{GASP!}

 ---{ What you need }---

Empty boxes - [diaper boxes work the best]

Hot glue gun

1 yard of Burlap per box 

Thick ribbon of any color

Lay the box out in the middle of your yard of burlap. Start with one side of the box and fold the Burlap over after applying hot glue to the inside of the box.  Rub your hand over the burlap to press it evenly into the hot glue.  {NOTE: if you have baby smooth/sensitive hands, use something else to press the burlap into the hot glue.  It didn't bother my hands at all}

{My cute little helper}

Glue each side separately and pull the sides tight before pressing them against the hot glue.

Repeat with as many boxes as you have or need!

And before you know it, {VIOLA!}

I added ribbon and LOVED it even more, unfortunatly, I ran out after the first one, so off to the store I go!

{Word to the wise...paint the end of your boxes with black or white paint prior to wrapping them!  I did not do this and although mine was a faster process, you can just barely see the Diaper print under the burlap.  The pictures make it much more obvious than it really is, and once you add the bow, it will cover it even more.  BUT, to avoid this, just take a few extra minutes and paint them :)}

Love, love, love me some organization!!

T-shirt scarf = too cute!

When I saw this scarf on Pinterest, I knew that I had to recreate it!  I love scarves, but they can be costly and this frugal momma is not about to drop my hard earned dollars on a scarf unless I have a coupon AND it's on sale!  So to my delight, I watched tutorials and scrolled lots of pages before I decided that I could tackle it and after tweeking it a bit, this is how I did it...

First I found 2 T-shirts in my husbands closet Size Lg.  {You can do this with 1 XL or 2XL shirt, but the more material you have the nicer the scarf looks!}

Grab a plate from your kitchen and a pencil and start [lightly] tracing circles onto your shirt.  **Try to find T-shirts that are plain**  If you use a shirt with some design, just avoid that area of the shirt when cutting out the circles.

Once all of your circles are cut out,  (hopefully you have atleast 8, I reccomend no less.  Remember the more, the better) start cutting your cirlces into a spiral pattern. 

Place all of the spiral t-shirt cut-outs together and find the middle of the fabric and {using a 3 inch piece of the t-shirt fabric} tie them all together!

And this took me all of 20 minutes and was FREE.  Yep, stole a few shirts from my husbands closet and Voila!  It takes an ordinary outfit and fancies it up a bit!  Who knew a plain old t-shirt could be SO stinking cute!

Now.....off to find more t-shirts!

Snack time!

Yesterday I was surfing the internet when I ran into a yummo looking snack that, for all intensive purposes, I will call healthy!  After all, it involves a banana {fruit!}, peanut butter {protein!}, and chocolate {just pure love!}.   And that is it.  Just those three ingredients and my family LOVED them!!

 Easy peasy!  Try it out!

Gather your bananas, chocolate, and peanut butter...

Slice the bananas and add a small {blop} of peanut butter atop them.



Place them in the freezer no longer than 15 or twenty minutes. 

Melt your chocolate in the microwave or using a double broiler on the stove stop so that you avoid burning your chocolate.  You will know if you ruined your chocolate if there are lumps that will not melt. {As I have burned chocolate many times}  I recommend stirring atleast every 15 seconds.

Remove from the freezer and dip them in and viola! I like the bananas softer, so I will store them in the fridge, but if you like the cold, frozen banana better, they can be stored in the freezer.

They were SO yummy!  I say "were" because they did not last long!  Between my husband, myself, and my 4 year old son, we were popping them in like they were m&m's. And like I said, you could SO get away with calling them healthy!

Enjoy!