Spaghetti Soup

My "cousin" mentioned having spaghetti soup a few nights ago and I was like, "what is that?" So tonight I tried making my own Spaghetti Soup.

I had some leftover meat sauce in the freezer so I thawed that out to use. Then I cooked some pasta (I used Angel Hair because I have plenty on hand).

Then I added my leftover sauce (I had 24 oz. container of leftovers) to my sauce pan (which ended up not being big enough, so use something bigger than a 3 qt sauce pan).

It wasn't quite thawed so I heated it up slowly to thaw it out. Then I added a more spices (Italian seasoning, garlic and some minced onions) and 3 beef bouillon cubes. Then I heated up some water to add to the pot. I added the spaghetti and as much water as I could and then added more once I dipped out our first servings. Then I topped it with Parmesan and mozzarella.

My almost 3 year old ate about 3 cups of it. My almost 5 year old ate 3 bowls full! I only ate 2. But it was definitely tasty and will make for a new spin on spaghetti next time I have sauce to use up.

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Ashlee's Spaghetti Soup

24 oz of your favorite spaghetti meat sauce
Spices I added in addition to what was already used in my sauce:

Teaspoon of minced onion
1/2 tsp of garlic
Italian seasoning to taste

3 beef bouillon cubes
Water (I probably added 4-5 cups but that a guess)

1. Cook pasta and set aside
2. Heat sauce (or make sauce).
3. Add spices, bouillon and pasta to sauce and stir.
4. Add water and bring to boil.
5. Serve with optional cheese. Enjoy!

Christmas Ideas: felt tree

As a child I loved flannel graph stories. So I made my own by covering an old bulletin board with felt. So for Christmas I made a felt tree and ornaments for the kids to play with. I decided to put numbers on the ornaments to work on counting and use as an advent count down.

These are easy to make. I used a large piece of green felt and folded it in half to make the two sides the same. Then I used cookie cutters to trace the circles and stars on felt. 

Easy, cheap and fun!

A Mom's Perspective from the Colorado Shooting

I'm sure you've all heard about the horrific shooting at the Colorado Theater by now. A friend posted a link to this blog post written by a mother who was there with her 2 teenage daughters. I think it's a good reminder to be sure we are all teaching our children to trust in God and that we all live in a way that "to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Here's the post.  

Family Movie Night

I was surfing around Pinterest a couple of months ago, looking for fun ideas to do as a family. We came across this blog that suggested having kids earn tickets to purchase goodies for a family movie night. If everyone did their regular chores for two weeks, they would earn the chance to participate in movie night. However, they could do extra jobs to earn tickets that they could use to purchase candy, popcorn, and other fun snacks. My kids were ALL over this idea! It was such a fun night! We watched the movie Muppets In Space (picked by our kids). We each made our own pizzas (we bought this kit from Walmart for $4), and then they got to "buy" their movie treats!  Our kids are constantly asking to do extra jobs now so they can do another movie night.

New Jamberry Nails Winner

Our first winner declined her prize since she won another giveaway on Ashlee's Jamberry Store's FB page so I finally got time to draw another winner. Our new winner is comment #7

Jackee, be looking around and selecting your prize!!

Out with the Old, In with the New

Ever find a great bargain but the product just isn't in that great of shape? Well, you can always find ways to freshen things up (new coat of paint, new ribbon, that sort of thing). As you know, I have been cloth diapering for some time and I always keep my eyes open for good bargains. Well, I ran across some pre fold diapers that were great quality, but not in great condition that were very cheap.  They had some stains and some discoloration to them. So, I thought it would be a fun experiment to dye them! I opted to dip-dye since it is the easiest process for beginners. I also bought inexpensive dye for my first time experiment.

These are the not so pretty originals.  

The dye was purchased at Walmart for $2.97. It takes 1/4c of table salt to set the color. $.50 for the whole canister of salt.  

I highly recommend purchasing some cheap vinyl dishwashing gloves (dollar tree) to keep from staining your hands and a cheap plastic bucket. Add a gallon of water, the dye and salt, mix around and let it sit. I put mine on the back porch so my kids wouldn't be tempted to stick their fingers in it or to pull it off the counter top.  The longer you let the dye sit, the deeper the color will turn out.  

After letting the dye sit, squeeze out the extra and rinse (if you have a stainless steel kitchen sink, this is the best place to do it-it will however stain porcelain so avoid your bathtub or bathroom sink).  Once you get most of the excess off, put it in your washer. Wash on hot wash/cold rinse a couple of cycles with no detergent. Then add detergent, wash/rinse.  Keep an eye on the water-once it runs clear while agitating, then you can move on to drying.  

And, the gorgeous finished project! 

Guest Post: Homemade Sugar Scrub

Guest post by Kayla Maurer. Kayla is wife to her Air Force husband Dave, and mama to three fur babies: Colt, Bella, and Malachai and one human baby, Gunnar.  

I gave up on waiting for Bath and Body Works to bring back my favorite scrub, Twisted Peppermint. See, this scrub is magical and AH-MAZING! Magical: The peppermint helps with my headaches/migraines AND it also cleared up my arms. See, my arms have some sort of Psoriasis or eczema (The Dermatologist gave me the name yesterday, but spoke SO fast that I couldn’t catch all of it…), and I noticed that after I used this scrub that my arms would clear up! Oh HAPPY DAYS! I’ve been dealing with these bumps and such on my arms since I was a wee-brat—and NOTHING, and I mean N-O-T-H-I-N-G could/would clear my arms up. Come to find out, when I was searching for Peppermint Oil, that peppermint can clear up skin! My inner goddess (hehe) did a few back flips saying, “I knew we loved peppermint for a reason!”

So, like any good person, I went to my #1 go-to place for ideas/recipes/you name it:

Pinterest. 

Who does NOT love Pinterest? And if you say, “I don’t” well… you either a) have a life (I don’t) or b) haven’t been invited to Pinterest. 

So, I went on Pinterest, looking for sugar scrub recipes… and I found a few. Now, like all good recipes, I call them ‘suggestions’ on how to do something. Sometimes I follow the recipe to a T, sometimes, like this time, I don’t. 

These are the items that I used for my scrub:

White sugar

Baby Oil (So, I used Wal-Mart brand, this bottle was under $2. The Johnson and Johnson’s brand for the same size was under $4)—PPPSSSTT you can also use Olive Oil

Peppermint oil (bought off Amazon for $3)

And a container w/lid for in the shower (I recycled a container that homed another sugar scrub)

So… I was totally not a planner, and ran out of sugar… so I filled my container about ¾ of the way full with sugar:

Then poured the baby oil… 

I let the baby oil penetrate sugar—sans intervention (for now…muwahahahaha)

 

Now, I added in the peppermint oil. For this, it’s really up to you how strong/weak you want the scent. I’m a pretty intense, strong willed personality, so I like (read: LOVE) my peppermint to be on the heavy scented side. I think I added about 10 drops. But, I started out with 3 drops and worked my way up. That IS a BIG factor to making your own scrub—you can make it as strong/weak as you like  

Now, here is where the woman intervention comes in to play! 

You take a spoon or fork or whatever you have that you use to stir things and you mix the sugar, baby oil, and peppermint oil all together! This also gives you a chance to see if you want to add more baby oil and/or peppermint oil. 

This was a little too dry-ish for me. So I added more baby oil since I wanted a more liquid-y consistence 

Once you get the sugar scrub to your desired consistency/smelliness, you are D.O.N.E! Congratulations on creating your homemade sugar scrub!