My new hair

I have been doing this....

We started the ticket system in our home with our children. They can do certain things & earn tickets and then every saturday they can cash their tickets in for prizes. These are their pouches I made to put their tickets that they have earned in.
This is my pouch to hold the tickets to be distributed.
This is a pleated coin pouch I made.
This is a play mat (blanket) I made for Spencer. He will have to earn 100 tickets to get it. He is on his way. He earned 10 today doing lots of chores around the house. He was very excited that he could be doing things to earn more tickets.
Emma is not as convinced. I made the little purse for her to earn, but I have not showed it to her yet, maybe then she will get more motivated to earn tickets.

I am planning on making a few more pouches for Emma's teachers at school. The first week in May is teacher appr. week.

More Grandkids

Grandkids Photos

Top Row: Hunter (John's), Aiden (Kelly)
Bottom Row: Jacob (John) Spencer (Kathy)

Kathy's Kids Spencer (3) & Emma (5)


Kelly's kids Kristen (5) & Aiden (2)

Skirts are done

So I finished the last of my neices skirts. This might look as big as the other skirts, but it is not, it is for my baby niece Hayleigh.

Best Wheat Bread recipe ever

I got this from www.melskitchencafe.com

I halved this cause I don't have 4 loaf pans. It turned out so yummy!

Here it is:

LuAnn's Whole Wheat Bread (with my adaptations)

*Makes 4 loaves

5 1/2 cups warm water
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
2 tablespoons instant yeast
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten
2 tablespoons nonfat dry milk
2 cups white flour
8-10 cups whole wheat flour

Lightly spray bread pans with cooking spray and set aside. Mix the water, sugar, oil, yeast, salt, gluten and dry milk together in the bowl of an electric mixer or by hand. Add the white flour and mix well. Continue adding the whole wheat flour until the dough cleans the sides of the bowl and the dough is soft but not overly sticky. Knead for 10 minutes until a soft, smooth dough has formed. Using oil or cooking spray to grease your hands and countertops, form the dough into 4 loaves. Place the loaves into the bread pans and cover with lightly greased plastic wrap. Let them rise until the dough has risen about 1 1/2 inches above the top of the bread pan. Place the bread pans carefully in a cold oven. Turn the oven on to 350 degrees and bake for 38 minutes. Remove from the oven and turn out the bread onto a wire rack. Let cool completely before placing in bags to put in the freezer.

homemade playdough

I love making homemade play dough for my kids and they love to play with it, but I am tired of it drying up. I think I found something that will work for us.

Here is the recipe:
Mix 1 cup of Salt & 2 cups of flour together, then add at least 3 drops of food coloring to 1 cup of water. Stir. Then add the water to your dry ingredients until a soft dough forms. If it is sticky and wet add more flour, slowly until desired consistency.

Then we used a sherbet plastic ice cream tub (with lid) to store it when we are not using it.

Have fun!

Women of God

Women of God

"Women of God can never be like women of the world. The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity."

Margaret D. Nadauld, "The Joy of Womanhood," Ensign, Nov. 2000, 14.

more crafts

I am disappointed, the Red Bud tree only stays in bloom for a short time. Boo!

I found this new website that is so much fun. www.makeitandloveit.blogspot.com Thanks to my new friend Dawn.

Also I have been at this site a lot www.modabakeshop.com. It is so fun and I love that she tells you how to do everything step by step, in a tutorial.

I want this book. I don't love everything about Martha, but I do love her style and choices for projects.

Here is one of the ideas from the show that I loved & want to try.

Here's an idea inspired by a project on the blog Cucumbersome.com: Turn an old shirt into a piece of wearable art that's quite grown-up.

Tools and Materials:

Soft cotton T-shirt

Ruler

Scissors or rotary cutter

T-Shirt Necklace How-To
1. Lay the shirt on a flat surface; cut off the hem and discard. Then cut the body of the shirt horizontally into strips approximately 3/4 of an inch long. (They will actually be loops.)

2. One at a time, pull the loops open and stretch until the fabric starts to curl. Stack the loops on top of one another so that all the T-shirt side seams are in the same spot.

3. Once you have the thickness you desire, wrap the seams with a scrap piece of fabric (about 6 inches long) from the same shirt. Tuck the end of the scrap under itself.

I am gonna get married.......

Emma keeps asking about her future husband. She says, "I am going to marry Spencer." Then when we told her, "no you are not", she said, "OK, I will marry dad." To which he replied- "I am already taken."

A few days later Emma said she was going to marry her school friend, Xander. This was the day after she came home and said, "Xander says he does not like me." So I said "I thought he did not like you, then she said "well when we get married he will!"

She makes me laugh!

Sewing Projects.....finished

I have been promising my niece a skirt like Emma's patchwork skirt I did a while back. I finally got around to making it.

Emma asked me if she was really good at school if she could have a sewing lesson. I said yes. She was -she got perfect conduct and so we went to the fabric store, I let her choose her fabric to make a baby blanket for her dolls. This is the finished product. She did all the sewing and even helped me hand sew some of the buttons, then she got tired and asked me to finish. There were a lot of buttons and it took me till late in the evening to finish (Emma had gone to bed). So the next morning I said, "Emma here is your finished blanket." And she said, "oh, I love it. Mom since this took you so long to finish, I love you even more for all your hard work." I thought that was sweet of her to recognize the hours of work I put in to finish it for her. I love my Em.