Cinnamon rolls and Magnets (yes you read that right)

The house smells awesome and my table is covered in adorable magnets!  I made Cinnamon rolls from scratch this morning. They are delish, and they look awesome too.

It's ok to drool a little. I did. These were such a big hit I have been asked to make them again. 
So on the the next task, after some serious cleaning of our patio (they will be starting patio inspections tomorrow) I started making magnets. They are super cute and fairly easy to make.
check them out for yourself, the first picture is my coffee table with the mess all over and they other 2 are the unfinished and finished magnets.

Well it is off to sleep for this tired crafter.
good night world.  I will post more in the morning on the process for making the magnets. They are just too cute not to have.

Smells of fresh bread...

WOW!   I have my first ever loaf of fresh bread cooling right now. It was a long process but I am sure it was worth every minute. Surprisingly I didn't get near as messy as I usually get when I bake, I only had a bit of flour on my hands and it little bit on my left elbow.  I wish you all could smell this. 
 So I have included a few pictures. First is while it was in the oven... Second is after it was pulled out and I gave it a quick coat of butter.

If this bread tastes even half as good as it smells and looks it will be amazing. It is really hard not to cut into it tonight, well, I might just try a little piece.
I think I will try and find some more recipes for different breads to try.
goodnight all.

Anger and peanut butter cookies..

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   It feels good to get that out.
I had a pretty awesome day yesterday only to have it end on a rough note. My truck broke down last night...
I don't know how much it will be to fix or when it will be fixed. I am taking it to the shop tomorrow, but they say they are too busy to get to it until monday.  I have an idea of what it is, but it doesn't matter because none of it is good(or even remotely close to good). So, in my angry state last night I baked, Peanut Butter Cookies. I hadn't planned really to make them last night, I had thought about it, but wanted to shower and relax last night. Call me Angry baker. I usually have to find something to do when I am pissed off about something, cleaning is usually it. (only because it always needs to be done) It felt good to bake instead.
I prepped the dough, covered it and put it in the fridge to sit, took a shower and by the time I was making the dough balls and putting fork prints on them I felt like a different person. Well, maybe not different, but less angry than I had been. The cookies were awesome, even Max liked them. Poor dog had to smell all of this peanut butter and couldn't have any until I was done...lol (peanut butter is his fav)

I plan on making bread tomorrow night. I think it's time to find a job at a bakery. I think I am also going to try and teach the girls to make a few things, maybe they can help me make bread tomorrow after work.

Cake and dog treats...

YAY!  After an extremely busy weekend I am back.  Exhausted, but content with my progress. I (of course) worked, took the kids to swim, did some shopping at A.C. Moore and did some baking.  While I will never be a home wrecker, I will always be a diet wrecker.  I bought a few new pans while at A.C. Moore and wanted to test them, as well as bake a cake for a friend who just moved into a new home. I pulled out some old cook books and got to work figuring out what I wanted to do.  Something basic yet indulgent was the goal and I think I managed it perfectly. 

A double layer chocolate cake with an amazingly light and fluffy buttercream frosting and semi-sweet chocolate shavings on top.  It is pure awesomeness. Completely from scratch, this cake taught me a couple of things:
1. I NEED a stand mixer. No wants about it, at this point it is a NEED. My poor hand mixer almost died.
2. I need a sifter, like a real, larger size sifter.  using my little one it took almost 40 minutes to sift all of the dry ingredients
3. When done right, simple is great.
I ended up making 2 cakes, one a true double layer with 2, 9" round cakes and the other I used one cake but cut it in half and made it 2 layer that way.  The smaller of the 2 I kept for home while the other was packaged awesomely and prepped for our friend who moved.

On a foil covered round of cardboard and in a cake box. I added pink star clusters to hers. She came down to ride with me to our body pump class and I gave her the cake. She was surprised and happy all at once.  She agrees that I am a diet wrecker, but she loves it. Splurging is ok once in awhile, just can't do it everyday, I am also a firm believer that home made from scratch is always better for you.  I can pronounce everything in the cake and frosting, while most of the box stuff, you don't know half of what is actually in it.

I spent most of yesterday hanging out with Crankybear. We had to take my truck back to Firestone. Sunday night I was leaving Walmart and the truck started beeping like crazy and my indicator light said "low brake fluid".  So we took it back to Firestone since they just did the brakes a few weeks ago and they said that the washers were bad. They fixed it and for free, but we had a lot of time to kill. We went to Petco and got some treats for the dog and a new collar. I love clearance deals and especially when it's for pet stuff, so I found an awesome little tub of Gourmet Dog Treats for $2.   They are cranberry and flax biscotti made with wheat flour, eggs, dried cranberries, and flax.  Nothing fancy, but the dog loves them and so does Monkey.

Yes, this is a picture of our dog(eating the biscotti) and Monkey (eating the biscotti) and the cat looking jealous. Monkey is willing to try just about anything and she thought by the looks of the container that the treats were for her and Toad, but was shocked when I said they were for the dog. After reading the ingredient list I let her know that she could try one if she wanted and she squealed with glee.  A crunchy minute later she was raving about how good they were and asked for another...lol She promised to share with the dog, as I had originally bought them for him.

Spray paint and Goodwill

What a busy day!!!   I dropped the kids off at school and decided to go poke around the Goodwill Store that is conveniently down the street. I like wondering around goodwill, you never know what you might find. I usually don't buy anything, but sometimes there is something that catches your eye for one of two reasons: 1. it is awesome just as it is and with a quick scrub you have found treasure...and 2. it has the potential to be awesome with a coat of paint and a DIY ability to change it up a little.  Today was a treasure day. I not only found a couple of awesome pieces that just needed a quick (or long) scrub, I also found a great piece of potential awesomeness.
 First the new fruit bowl, needed a good scrub, but is beautiful and will work wonderfully.

New fruit bowl cost $1 and about 5 min of washing.
 NEXT-- new hair tie bin/holder. We were using an old easter basket to hold hair ties and brushes, but this is so much prettier.

New hair tie bowl cost $2, tarnx to take it from BLACK back to silver $4 and about a half hour of time.
Now last but not least the new mirror. I saw this and instantly saw how awesome it could be...

Cornflower blue, faded, and pretty ugly but nothing I can't fix. I picked up some black spray paint and went to town...

Unfortunately there was something wrong with the can so it sprayed EVERYWHERE...lol a big mess, but I still managed to get the job done.

Now it matches most of the other picture frames in the house and it will be duel duty.  I bought some cabinet handles (little round ones) that a brushed steel (plain but very nice) and I will put them on the bottom and use them as hangers for my keys. I am always laying my keys down somewhere and I can never find them, I wanted to find something that was decorative but I could hang keys on, now I have it.  I plan to hang this on the wall by the front door somewhere. It will be awesome.

It's been a couple of days, that bruise is getting better and things have been busy around here. Friday night was awesome. We went out to dinner at Red Lobster with Crankybear's mom, sister, and nephew. We were  celebrating his sister's b-day.  It was awesome to get out with everyone and have a nice night.  Hopefully we can do it again soon.  Aren't they a cute bunch?!  That would be Crankybear, mom and sister in the picture.

We had an uneventful weekend, the kids had swim, we didn't do much. Today isn't too eventful, Toad has an endocrinologist appointment this afternoon and Monkey has dance class tonight. Crankybear is working and I really have to get the ceiling fan cleaned off and laundry done today. wow fun.

Grab your sensor bars!!!

You get to see a peek of my thigh!   LOL

The other day while at a local grocery store some woman tried to run me down with her shopping cart, in an effort to avoid a painful hit with cart I swerved.  I swerved right into a free standing, refrigerated cheese case with none other than my thigh.  It hurt, but I kept walking and didn't pay much attention to it til that night while I was at Zumba class.  What a bruise?!?!?!   This all happened Wednesday and as of this morning it still looks nasty.  In the picture you can't see it, but there is a large painful knot under this bruise.  
Hopefully it will get better sooner, rather than later, but in the mean time....
Enjoy my thigh.   lol