Button Me Up Hand Towels

Child tested, Mother approved. These simple button and elastic towel holders have saved my life! My children are in this phase of taking my hand towels off of my oven handle. My 2 1/2 year old June uses them as blankets for her babies, or wraps them around her like a dress. My 11 month old little boy Connor just thinks its fun to pull them down and leave them there. I have been washing my towels everyday - I changed them out at least 5 times a day! I was running out of clean towels! What was I to do?!

My grandmother always had a towel on her oven handle with a pot holder and a button sewed to it. Well, being the "Cheap-o" I am I didn't want to go and buy cute pot holders just to make my towels "unattainable" to my children. So I raided my sewing box. I had some red elastic and some buttons. And look how cute they are! HALLELUJAH! My kids can't get them off, and I don't have to change my towels every 20 minutes! Its a WIN WIN! This literally took me 10 minutes to do on 5 of my towels. Fast and effective! 

Do you hear that? Your towels are begging you to be "Buttoned Up!"

Simply find the middle of the hand towel. Sew on a button and an elastic loop.

PRESTO!

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Healthy Homemade Tortilla Chips

Our family loves tortilla chips but we are such a small family we don't eat them fast enough to stay fresh. Not to mention they aren't that good for you. Well one day my little girl June kept asking for chips. I kept saying we didn't have any but I kept offering her some of our Healthy Homemade Tortillas. She kept saying "No, Chips!" Well instead of saying, "no, this is what you get" like I would usually do, I thought, "HEY! Why don't I cut up my leftover tortillas I always have in my fridge and bake them?!" So I did, we can't go back to chips in a bag. The warm fresh tortilla chips are to die for! June and I ate these in about 5 minutes. We were so excited we made more, and ate more. Well needless to say we had a tummy ache from eating so many carbs but man it sure tasted good! We keep making them for a snack or for nachos. Delicious!

Healthy Homemade Tortilla Chips:

Make some Healthy Homemade Tortillas or use the leftovers you have previously made and pull them out of the fridge.

Cut the tortillas with a pizza cutter into "chip shaped triangles."

Place the triangles on a cookie sheet

(No need to grease they don't stick)

Bake at 400 degrees until chips are golden brown on the edges.

(About 6-10 min depending on the thickness of the tortilla. Thick tortillas take longer than thin tortillas)

Serve warm with your favorite salsa or guacamole!

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The Cell Phone Basket

We have been having some trouble with our Young Women and their cell phones. Yes it is so nice to have your scriptures readily available in the palm of your hand. BUT, you are ONE CLICK away from facebook or texting. It is very disrespectful when the teachers have spent a good amount of time during their week pondering and preparing their lesson just to have the youth not pay attention. So now here we are and the solution is... The Cell Phone Basket. I don't know why I haven't enforced it sooner but better late then never. I found a darling poem I shortened to put on the side of our basket. 

It reads:

A tisket a tasket

see our cell phone basket.

It's a very safe place to put your phone,

then pick it up when you go home.

Young Women's on Sunday is a place for the Spirit,

if you're talking or texting, how will you hear it?

There is plenty of time and a number of days,

to chat for hours or text away.
So, take no offense...It's with love that we ask it.

Please leave your phone home or in the basket.

I found this poem at SugarDoodle.net by Amy Pratt and loved it! This was just what I wanted to say to our Young Women. 

I spent $1 whole dollar at the dollar store for this basket and took my scraps of ribbon to "girly" it up in the value colors. I printed out the shortened poem and taped it in place. This will change the spirit in our classes and mutual immmmensely!

Does your class need a Cell Phone Basket?

I didn't know how to stick the poem onto the basket. So, I just took clear tape and taped the poem through the INSIDE of the basket so you don't see it! I was pretty excited. 

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Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken

What a day this is for you. I am sharing one of our family's staple meals. We have this at least once every 2 weeks. We make this all the time, because we can eat it 4 different ways. Oven Broiled Enchiladas, tacos, soup or salad. We love to have this with company, it can make A LOT of food without breaking the bank, and everyone loves it! I recently made it and had our dear friends Zach and Sarah over from High Heels and Grills. It was a hit for them! And when someone with an amazing food blog such as theirs, loves something, you know it's a keeper! SCORE!

Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken:

3-4 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts

2 c. Chicken Broth (Water and 2 tsp. chicken bouillon)

1 can Whole Kernal Corn- Drained

1 can Kidney Beans - Rinsed and Drained

1 can Black Beans - Rinsed and Drained

1 can Diced tomatoes - Don't drain if you are making this a soup and add 1 can of water

1 c. Chunky Salsa

2 T. Taco Seasoning

Place chicken breasts in a greased crock pot. Place all ingredients over the chicken and cook on Low for 8-10 hours. The longer it cooks the easier the chicken is to shred. When done cooking shred the chicken in the crock pot with 2 forks. (Shredding in the "juice" keeps the chicken moist and flavorful)

*Using a slotted spoon, place the chicken on a Healthy Homemade Tortilla, and garnish with taco toppings.

*Eat in a bowl as a soup with a dollop of Sour cream and crushed tortilla chips.

*Use a slotted spoon and scoop warm chicken over a bed of lettuce.

*With leftovers eat cold on a salad for lunch. 

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No Sew Window Valance

My sister Candace came to visit one weekend and she is a definite decorator at heart. She has such an amazing eye of how to make something out of nothing. She is very much like our mother. I have 2 older sisters. My oldest sister Candace got the decorating eye, my next sister Brittney got the organizing to a "T" gene, and I'm the artsy one. We all inherited MANY things from our mother those are just a few.

 Anyway, as my sister was visiting she noticed I didn't have a curtain over my "awkward" corner windows. I said I didn't know how because the windows are so close I couldn't get a rod to fit. So I left it as is. Well that just wouldn't do for my sister Candace. So she said she remembered something she made with my mom in one of her girl's room's in her previous home. They took cloth napkins and hung them with thumb tacks. I said, no way! That's fun but how could we do that? We started searching my house for something to make a Valance. We found these red cloth napkins she gave me a few months back at a dry cleaners sale for .10 each! We ironed then down and tacked them up! Talk about a big difference! 

Ordinary Square Cloth Napkins

Fold and Measure how long you want each section. We measured out the window molding and figured out how many napkins we needed at 12 inches each.

Iron the napkin down WELL for solid creases

Safety Pin the corners together in the middle

Don't push the pin all the way through, so it doesn't show when you line them all up

I colored my thumb tacks red with a sharpie

Take a small nail and gently tap it through the cloth napkin and the wood. Don't go in too far or the tack won't hold.

Remove the nail...

And tap the tack in place

Repeat until finished! 

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Skinny Mini Cheesecakes

I recently went to a party with a dessert buffet. We were all asked to bring a dessert, and this was mine! All I heard were good reviews. I was excited with all of the positive comments because this was SO simple to put together! I especially loved making a dessert that I didn't have to bake. I hate heating my house with the oven in the summer, so this was PERFECT! Look how easy this is!

Blend 1 1/2 c. Vanilla Waffers into a fine powder and scoop into 12 muffin paper liners

With a hand blender whip 8 oz. of low fat cream cheese, 3 T Brown Sugar and 1/4 c. Milk until smooth.

Scoop by dollops on top of the vanilla waffer powder

.

Lightly drizzle "Smuckers Boysenberry Syrup" over the cream cheese.

Finish the mini cheesecakes with a berry of your choice. I loved the tangy-ness of the raspberry.

Cover and chill in the refrigerator over night. 

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Grilled Biscuit Scone Sandwich

This is our last Grilled Biscuit of our 7 different grilled biscuits. I tried the lemon pepper one and it was YUCKY! SO DON'T MAKE THAT ONE! You live and you learn right? But I have to tell you, this might be my new way to eat a Peanut Butter and Honey sandwich! The grilled refrigerator biscuit was so crisp, just like a scone! Then the warm peanut butter just melted in my mouth! DELICIOUS! Super simple and this could be awesome for school sack lunches. Let me know if it works out for you as well as it did for me!

Take your can of refrigerator biscuits, rolling pin and george foreman grill.

Roll out the biscuit,

and GRILL!

To make this Scone Sandwich you don't need any seasonings on the biscuit before you grill. Slather the grilled biscuit with peanut butter and drizzle with honey. Cut and eat! DELISH!

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