Delicious Whole Wheat Crackers!!!

Eleanor loves to eat animal crackers and she finished up our box from costco and I thought to myself, I bet I could make something even better! So I found this recipe on allrecipes.com and I really love that site, so I tried it out this morning and they came out so incredibly delicious, I had to restrain myself from eating them before Ella even got to try them. It took about an hour to make and I did it while she was taking her nap. So if you like graham crackers or animal crackers you have to try making these because they are very easy and made from whole wheat so they are better for you.

• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup milk
•  

Directions

In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar. Stir in the vanilla. Combine the whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, stir into the creamed mixture alternately with the milk. Cover and chill dough until firm.

*Note* In place of 1 cup of wheat flour you can use 1/2 cup ground flax seed which is super good for you and 1/2 cup wheat germ. Also I chilled my dough in the freezer wrapped in plastic wrap while I got all my baking pans out, greased them, and my cookie cutters. It doesn't need to be really cold.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). 

Grease cookie sheets. Pull your dough from the freezer and cut off about 1/3. Wrap the rest back up and put back into freezer.

 On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to 1/8 inch thickness (you want them really thin so they come out crispy). I then sprinkled a little cinnamon and sugar on and rolled it into the dough. Cut into rectangles.Or use cookie cutters for fun shapes. 

Place 1/2 inch apart onto the prepared cookie sheets. Put that set in the oven then pull out the dough from the fridge, cut off another third and repeat the steps above. If you try to roll out the whole thing it will be too much and they won't come out thin enough.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, or until crisp. Edges will be golden brown. Remove from baking sheet to cool on wire racks. My pans never cook everything evenly but my browner ones still tasted delicious.

No baby

I had a miscarriage this morning. I'm doing fine, I was kind of expecting it because I've had spotting for the past two weeks and I never felt that good so I thought something was wrong. It just wasn't the right time. I cried and said good bye and it will be alright. Thanks to all my friends and family, Sorry I won't have a project today, I need a little quiet time.

Delayed craft Day

Hey people,
Sorry I don't have my craft day up. I just got the 3rd book in the hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins and I've been reading that, felt like total crap today, and I had to take my mom to a doctors appointment so it has been a bit hectic. Hopefully I can get it up this afternoon. If you haven't read the Hunger Games series, YOU HAVE TO!!! They are so awesome, I thoroughly enjoy them so check em out if you can. Have a great day!!

Lighting Tips #2 Night Shooting!!

Alright!! Some of the funnest stuff you can do is to shoot night photos so here are some tips to explain why your photos come out crappy not so great and how you can change that.

1. Everyone wants to take a photo of them in front of something at night, we have this all the time here in Las Vegas. The lights on the strip are awesome, so are all the statues and things outside the strip so you have these tourists who use their little cameras to take a photo, they get home and they have a a photo of a bunch of people in front of a black background Awwwww. You have to understand some light. Your camera is setting up for a flash photo, which is usually 1/60 at a 2.8 aperature. That is a standard for shooting with a flash, but what it is doing, is capturing just the light from the flash, not the light in the background.
How to fix it: I tried this out with my little point and shoot camera and I tried my manual settings and my automatic settings.
 On your camera you have a little picture of a person with a moon and the eiffel tower. This is your night shooting setting, if you use this you have to hold very still because it is changing the shutter speed to a 1/8 which will capture the light in the background as well as the light from your flash, so you will have a properly exposed photo. You can do the same thing with your manual settings, but the little night setting is pretty handy.

One more tip on this section, say you are taking a photo of something at night, like I've taken photos of hoover dam at night and you want one with you and your honey in it. Set up a tripod, and set your shutter speed to like 10 seconds and put your flash up. Put your camera on a timer, stand in the photo, once the flash goes off, run out of the photo. So the camera will only get a shot of you with the flash then it will have the rest of the time to absorb the light from your background image. It might take a couple tries, but it will look good.

Here is my wonderful model, my husband. This is with the automatic setting on my camera.

This is with the night setting on my camera, see how you can see more of the tree, now if I had some lights or something behind me then that would show up even better.

2. Painting with light: A really fun thing to do is essentially painting with light. You will need a tripod to set your camera on, then you set your camera to a long shutter time like 13 seconds. Next, get a flashlight. You can use the flash light on an object or on yourself. My friend Trina did this with a creepy house at night and it made it look very spooky. Here are my examples.

I turned the light on for a second, turned it off, moved, turned it on again so you get a ghost image. Cool huh?

I turned on my flash light in two different areas so it lit up my bench.

Here I did it from the bottom left corner and the bottom right corner so I got a good shadow in the background.

And here it is with my camera set to black and white.

Now you have a bunch of different options with this technique. You could use a warm toned flashlight and use it to draw on a building so it only catches where your light goes. You can also use this to write stuff in the air. Or you could make a creepy old looking photo of someone, you know have them laying on the ground or on a bench and then use the flashlight to highlight certain areas like their face and hands. That would be awesome!

Baby photo idea: So say you don't want a background with your baby photo, you could set up your camera, in a dark room with your tripod, put your cute sleeping baby on something soft, like fur or a crocheted blanket, set your shutter speed to some thing like 5 seconds and try out a couple different flashlights. The LED lights are cool blue tones, while the old school bulbs are warm. Just try shining the light on just the baby from above and count how long so do it for 1 second, next shot 2 seconds, next shot 3 seconds etc. So you can look at the photos and see how much light you like on them. Also check your camera settings, if you want the photo more natural toned and you use a warm toned flashlight, find the white balance setting on your camera this is the temperature of your light, set it for tungsten(looks like a light bulb) that will tone down the warmth of the photo.  Just make sure to zoom in on the baby or move the camera close so you have at least 1/3 of the photo is the baby. You should come out with a really great photo with a very easy setup. But you have to do it when they are asleep because otherwise they will move and you will get a blurred shot.

Alright, have fun trying this out and let me know how it goes or if you have other questions with this. It is a really fun technique that can yield surprising results. Have Fun!!

Busy Saturday

Sorry,
I didn't get a saturday project posted, I went on a road trip with a family in my ward, she has 8 kids!!! Thankfully it was just 4 in the car, I can't imagine having that many kids. We had a ton of fun! We went to Cedar City UT to go school shopping at the Deseret Industries. It was a long day, we didn't get home until 9:30 pm but it was really enjoyable and Ella had a great time too. Then Friday I was trying to finish up my peach canning do it would be done before I left. Soooo I didn't get a kids craft done for yesterday. I will try to do 2 for next saturday.

Today I am grateful for:
Friends: It is great to make new friends, that was the most enjoyable part of the trip.
Peaches:Sooooo tasty
Talents:Everyone has some talent, make sure to develop it rather than bury it.
Hot Chocolate: Has been my comfort this week, so I don't eat ice cream
People who stand up for right: A very difficult thing these days with all the arguments that go back and forth but I'm grateful to those people who stand strong.
Music: One of the ladies in our ward wrote a song for girls camp and we sang it last week for church and it truly touched me. I am amazed at people who can do that.
Netflix for the Wii: It is great being able to watch something without any commercials and they have a bunch of old stuff on there that I watched when I was little.
Babies: Figured I should share that I am pregnant, super excited, now I look at all the little babies and want to hold them more because my daughter is already getting very independent. It has been an annoying pregnancy so far, this one makes me nauseous, cranky, angry, and craving weird foods in the middle of the night, so it will be interesting to see how this little person is.

Well thanks for joining my little group of friends, I love doing this blog and keep checking in, we will have some great stuff this week.

Love ya!
Melinda

Sweet and Sour Sausage stirfry!!!

Ohhhh yes, it is so yummy!

Sorry my post is a little late, I was up last night doing book club and then we had a doctors appointment this morning so I didn't get this going when  wanted to.

Alright, a friend of mine just had her baby and I wanted to make them dinner, I had some hillshire farm sausage and I thought, Mmmm that sounds good but I want to try something different so I came up with this and I had some and thought, Ooooo this is good, then I took it to my friend and she loved it. Her 2 year old said Mom, this isn't good, it is great!! So there you go, endorsement by a 2 year old is pretty good.

Sweet and Sour Sausage

1 package cooked sausage(I used hillshire farm Beef sausage)

1 green pepper

1-2 red peppers (I had some already cut up so I think I tossed in extra)

1/2 large red onion

1 20 oz can chunk pineapple drained(save the juice)

For Sauce

1/4 C brown sugar

1/2 C white sugar

1/4 C pineapple juice

1/4 C. Ketchup

1/3 C white vinegar

1/4 C Soy sauce

2 Tbs cornstarch or flour

1 1/2 C rice

3 C water

1 chicken bouillon cube

Put water, rice and bouillon cube on to boil in a medium pan. Once it boils, turn to low and set timer for 20 minutes.

Cut the sausage in half lengthwise and then chop into 1/4 inch slices. Add to large Saute pan and start cooking. While cooking chop up onions and peppers. Continue cooking sausage until it is getting browned spots on it. Drain grease or wipe it out with a couple paper towels, leave a little bit of grease. Add peppers and onions. Stir every couple minutes. Get out a small saucepan for the sauce. Add in the sugar and ketchup, let it liquify a little then add all your liquid ingredients, use a wisk to stir. Add drained pineapple to sausage mix. Let the sauce come to a boil and then turn it down to a simmer. Get a little cold water, about 1/4 cup in a glass and stir in the 2 Tbs of cornstarch or flour, I used flour, stir until combined. Add to the sauce and turn the heat up a little, watch so it doesn't boil over. Let the sauce thicken a little and then add it to your sausage mix. Your rice should be done and you are ready to eat!! I love those little chinese noodles that add a little crunch to it. Have fun with the recipe.

My mom explained to me how to make your own crib sheets. I am a big vintage fan so I have some great daisy sheets that I bought a while ago from an estate sale. I used these and made sheets for Eleanor’s crib. 

Instructions: Measure the length and width of the mattress, add on the depth of the mattress sides. Example: Bed is 55 inches long by 30 inches wide, Sides are 5 inches deep. You have 4 sides so it is an extra 10 inches for your length and width so your dimensions are 65 x 40 inches. Add on an extra inch on each side for the hem(Ex: 67 x 42) Make a square template from a piece of paper that is the same size as the depth of your mattress. (Ex: Depth was 5 inches plus 1 inch of hem so you cut out a square that is 6x6 inches) With the measurements of your mattress cut out a rectangle that size from your fabric (Ex: 67 x 42) Then in the corners of your rectangle place your square template and cut that size square from your corner. 

You now have a rectangle piece of fabric that has the corners missing, now we are ready to sew. On each corner match up the two sides of your square hole with right sides to right sides. Sew along this edge about 1/2 inch inside, do that on all 4 corners of your sheet. Now you should have 4 corner pockets. Along the edge of your sheet roll it in 1/4 inch (I iron it to make it easier) then roll it about 3/4 inch (again iron it) Now if your sew along the hem about 1/2 inch inside so you have a casing. Do that all the way around but leave a 2 inch hole on one side. Now you can put elastic all the way around the sheet or you can just put it in the corners. You can use whatever elastic you want as long as it is thinner than 1/2 inch. Attach a safety pin to the end of your elastic and push your elastic through the casing of your sheet hem. If you want to just do the corners than pick a hole on each side of each corner, insert your elastic and pull it through to the other hole, do some stitches on top of the elastic to hold in place, bunch the sheet till it gets to your desired tension, sew the other end of the elastic, snip it off and sew over the hole, repeat for each corner. 

You can make your own sheets out of all kinds of fabric and it is nice because then you can make flannel sheets for the winter, or you can pick any patterns your want to go with the room. It is a lot of fun and really easy.