Fast Easy Bread

Recently, Kaitlyn and I were invited to a fun night of bread baking.  My friend Lindsey has a company called Fast Easy Bread.  She showed us, a few other ladies, and their daughters how quickly you can make homemade bread and a delicious meal in 2 hours!

Lindsey thoroughly explained all the steps and we shared her enthusiasm to make something so simple.

Dump all the dry ingredients into a bowl.  The recipe calls for lecithin, which comes in the Fast Easy Bread bundles.  Lindsey showed us an easy way to add the liquid ingredients.  Using the back of the measuring spoon that's needed, make a dimple in the dry ingredients.  Then, just pour your liquid into that dimple.  Easy!

Mix it well in a mixer or by hand and you'll have a good size ball of dough.  One ball of dough makes A LOT!!!!  You can make bread bowls, rolls, and much more.  With the first batch of dough, we were going to make pumpkin bread bowls for soup.  Round the dough and shape it like a haystack as best as you can.  Then, gently score the dough to make the pumpkin ridges.

Pull a piece of dough from the top center and shape it to make a stem.  Then, just paint the stem and pumpkin using food coloring.

Stick the stem on top of the pumpkin, cover with a cloth, and let it rise for just a little bit.  Then, it's ready for the oven.

When it comes out of the oven, you have a beautiful pumpkin made of bread.  

While the bread is baking, Lindsey showed us a very easy way to make Broccoli Cheese Soup.  Also on her site, she sells a cream sauce that is used in lots of restaurants as their soup base.  

Add lots of broccoli, cheese, and a couple of other ingredients and cook it over medium heat on the stove.

Cut off the top of the pumpkin and scoop out the inside.  Be sure to save the "innards" because it's great for dipping.

Fill your pumpkin with some soup and it's ready to enjoy!  The best part-it's completely edible!

 That's not all.  We also had dessert to make.  Kaitlyn helped her new friend, Loni, spread out some more dough onto a cookie sheet.

Kaitlyn mixed up a yummy cream cheese filling.

She spread the filling down the center of the dough and added some apples coated in cinnamon and sugar.  The sides were sliced into strips and "braided" across the apples.

The Caramel Apple Braid was delicious!

AND, there was homemade Monkey Bread.  Just cut the dough into pieces, coat in cinnamon and sugar, place in a bundt pan, and drizzle with caramel sauce.  

Kaitlyn and I enjoyed our experience.  We learned some new things, ate some great food, and got to do it all together in just 2 hours.  Be sure to check out Lindsey's site, blog, or Facebook page.

I did not receive compensation for this post.  All opinions are my own.

First Day of School 2012

Well, another school year has started.  The kids have already had spelling tests, made new friends, and really love their teachers.  Fortunately, I am able to be the Room Rep (Room Mom) for both of their classes so I look forward to helping as much as possible.

Their school bags from last year look almost brand new still but their lunchboxes didn't hold up as well.  So, they get new ones for this year.

Craig and I gave the teachers gifts.  We wanted to let them know we were praying for them for this new school year.

Kaitlyn and Preston were so excited for school.

No tears this year...well, at least not from the kids.  As Kaitlyn was about to enter her class, her very sweet teacher said "When you enter this door, you will officially be a 3rd grader.  Are you ready?"  Geez, I almost lost it.  I really had to fight back the tears.  Preston was so eager for us to leave so he could get started with school.  Quite the opposite from last year.

As I finally had a day ALL TO MYSELF, I went home to make their special First Day of School treat.  My mom had recently given me a secret recipe of my grandma's famous Applesauce Cake with homemade Caramel Icing.  My grandma would have this at her house, covered by a metal cake cover, every time there were visitors.  I loved this cake!  I'm so glad I have the recipe to make for my family now.

I set the cake on the table along with their First Day of School surprises.  We've been getting rid of all of their old kiddie dishes and they love to get matching dish sets at Target.  So I surprised them with another dish set.  The kids loved their surprises!

I always let them pick whatever they want for dinner on the First Day of School.  Their choice?  Burger King!  I listed all sorts of restaurants or homemade dishes and told them I could cook them anything.  But no, they wanted Burger King.  So, that's where we headed.  And they really enjoyed it.

Here are their First Day of School photos from 2011 and then this year.  How quickly they grow!

Craft Room Confessionals: I Confess

So, I must confess, my blogging break went on longer than expected.  I planned to take a week or two off from blogging while all the back to school events and issues got settled.  Well, things still don't seem quite settled and I pray for peace every day.  But I must get back to blogging.

Blogging, or writing in general, is very cathartic for me.  I don't always write for an intentional audience, but I write to free my mind of the clutter that builds up.  I write to release some creativity or inspiring words that God has spoken into my heart.  I write because it's something I've always done.

As I type this, I am sitting in my newly decorated office/craft room (update soon) and am already excited for new projects. I am listening to my favorite type of music (Jazz) and letting some creativity flow, even if it's for just a moment.

I have come to realize many things in the short time that I've been on my blogging break.  I've learned things about my family, myself, and the way we live our lives that I've never noticed before.  Gradually, we may be able to share these things with others.  But as for now, I feel God is working on our home, our little 4-person family unit, and is molding us into ways we never expected.

If you are reading this, I always pray that my words can touch someone in a positive way.  I've received many encouraging words about my blogs and I sincerely hope you feel encouraged after reading my posts.  Thank you for going on this journey with us.  We are just a typical suburban family, with similar struggles, always striving for God's best.

VBS 2012

You've read all about our exciting Branson vacation.  The reason for the vacation?  We just finished a very busy, fun-filled week of VBS.  When I say finished, I mean I just co-coordinated the entire thing from start to finish.  Here's a look at our 2012 VBS journey.

A lot of people don't know how we come up with the curriculum.  Well, usually we don't.  We buy it instead.  You could easily come up with your own curriculum, but I don't have the time to figure out the theme, coordinating Bible stories and Scriptures, snacks, games, songs, decorations, and the list goes on and on...I prefer getting it already prepared and I just have to organize the volunteers and supplies (and many other things, but it's easier to have the theme and lessons already planned out).

Here are the daily giveaways.  Each child got to take a prize home that coordinated with our Bible Point.  I like to order these types of things in bulk from Oriental Trading Co.

Our curriculum comes from Group Publishing and they provide an online registration page.  You can set it up how you like and share the link with the public so they can register their child online.  I love having all that info in one place.  I handle all the registration so I become very familiar with each child.  I also love the Countdown To VBS ticker, though it tends to give me anxiety when I look at it!

We love to spoil all the wonderful volunteers (60+) and always try to provide some yummy treats throughout the week.  At the beginning of the week, everyone gets a VBS Survival Kit.  We always try our best to match the goodies in the kit to correspond with the theme.  Each year, they get better and better.  A very generous Store Manager at Kroger provided us with the clear deli containers.  They were perfect!

The Friday, Saturday, and Sunday before VBS are decorating days.  It takes a small army to get it all done.  I really appreciate those that are able to help set up and tear down.

Our Children's Pastor, and my partner, always comes up with the stage design and various decorations.  He does a great job.  It's all about the details too.  He drew an animal in the clouds.

And made our pigs fly!

I recruited some help.

The Bible stations are always so nicely decorated to fit the Bible stories.  Our volunteers do that themselves and it always looks amazing.

Here's a great photo opp for kids, volunteers, and/or parents.

Look, we're floating!!!

We had some dress up days throughout the week.  One of them was Superhero Day.  My little Superheroes were floating too!

Of course, the whole reason (and only reason) I prepare our VBS from April-July is to share the Salvation message with kids that may have never heard it before.  The Bible station had an awesome visual this year.  Each kid got a black plastic strip to represent their sins.  Then, they all placed their sins upon the cross.  The station leader took all the strips down to show that our sins have been wiped clean and we are forgiven.  The kids really got it!

We always have such an emotional and amazing prayer time during our closing assembly.  Here's Kaitlyn having a tender moment with Jesus.

My kids understand why I spend so much time on this and know there are lots of kids that still have to learn about the love of Jesus.  They also look forward to VBS and I tell them very little of the details to keep it a surprise for them.  They love every day of it.

We always raise money for BGMC and the kids really gave this year.

After 5 days of craziness, we close with our Family Fun Night and invite the whole family to come to close out the week.  I always have to talk and give my special thanks to all that helped.  None of this would be possible without all of the amazing, generous, enthusiastic volunteers.

The night's festivities included a Dunk Tank, inflatables, concessions, kite flying, bubbles, and of course, not one, but two human sundaes!!!!

I was definitely not alone in planning this.  I can't thank my partner in crime enough, Pastor John Cruz.  He puts up with me, I put up with him.  He handles his part of VBS, I handle my part, and it all gets done.  We are a great team.