Everyday Live Happy

I don't know why it's so hard to keep closets organized. I try to put like colors together or type of shirts together or some other way. For instance, in my daughter's closet I try to keep her play clothes separate from her school clothes and dresses. I always have a plan, but then my husband or kids will help with laundry. They will put things anywhere in the closet. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate it. I think that I would rather have them do laundry than put things in the "right" spot. But it does get a little tricky though because things sometimes get "lost" in the back of the closet. Today we went through my daughters closet. This year I am determined to not buy more than what I need to. So we organized and got rid of old, damaged or too small clothes. A section for play clothes. Okay clothes that I would rather she didn't wear for school. Because they are a little worn looking. A section for school clothes. A section for sweaters and jack...

A few years ago I got a recipe that has become one of my family's favorite treats. It is a recipe for peanut butter cups. The first time I made it, it was amazing! They taste exactly like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups! What's even better is that it only has a few ingredients, it's no bake and it's really fast. You simply make it on the stove top and then put it in the fridge. It only takes about 15 minutes from start to finish. It does take a little time to set up though. After about an hour in the refrigerator it is ready to eat! Here's how you make these yummy treats. You start with one cup (2 sticks) of margarine or butter. I use margarine. Put in in a saucepan and then add 1 cup of peanut butter. I use creamy, but I'm sure that it would work with chunky too. Stirring often, melt the margarine and peanut butter together. It will become really smooth. Once it's all melted remove the pan from the heat. The peanut butter in Reese's Pea...

My daughter disappeared into her room today. Awhile later I peeked into see what she was up to. She hadn't made her bed or picked up her clothes, but she had been busy. She was making an owl. A stuffed animal. For her birthday she got a big stack of felt. I think that she was more excited about that gift than any others that she received! Since I didn't see what she was up to until she was at this point I don't have step by step pictures, but I'll do my best to explain what she did. She hand drew a pattern for her owl. It's basically like a circle or a squashy oval. She adds the ears where the circle would curve. She just goes straight up and then comes back down. You can't make them too small since you need room to sew around them. Then she makes a straight line from one ear to the other for the top. You can curve it a little if you want. She also makes the bottom of the pattern more of a straight line too. After she cut out her pattern for the owl body,...

My daughter has been begging me to try a treat that she had at day camp last month. She had told me all about these mini banana cream pies. There was no recipe but she explained it pretty well. She told me that we needed to buy a sugar cookie mix and some banana pudding. Okay that's easy enough. Right? Well today we decided to find out. My daughter was pretty specific about what needed to be done, so I stepped back and let her go for it. We used the Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix in the large pouch. She made the cookies following the directions for cut out cookies. After the dough was made, we needed to put it in a mini muffin tin of course. It took a minute to figure out which scoop gave us the right amount of dough in the cup. We didn't want so much that they didn't keep their shape, but we also didn't want any part of the cookie too thin. The amount we used was a little bit more than our small scoop. She gently pushed the cookie dough into the grea...

My daughter loves to make creations out of old socks. A while ago I actually bought her some cute stripped ankle socks that she could use to craft with. (Her older sister did snag a pair or two to actually wear!) The other day we were searching Pinterest for a fun craft idea to do together when we came across a cute octopus stuffed animal. There were no instructions just a link to an Etsy shop. (They octopus was no longer available.) My daughter immediately thought of that stash of socks and it was decided. Obviously, longer socks would have been better. If we make these again I will be buying cute knee socks! Since there were no instructions and we were using ankle sized socks, we had to come up with our own way of making these cute little sea creatures. We started by using Poly-Fil to make the head. It worked out best when we kind of shaped it into a ball before putting it into the toe of the sock. We filled them until we got the desired shape and firmness. We used a ...

I know that I am really late at planting my planters this year, but I made time today to actually do it. My daughter and I loaded up our planters and headed to my parents house. Lucky for me, my parents own a Nursery that is by their house. They have so many trees, bushes and plants. Today though we were just after flowers. My mom helped us clean all of the old plants out of the planters and then my daughter and I went in search of the flowers that we wanted to use. So many flowers! Tall flowers, short flowers, bright flowers, pretty flowers, big flowers, small flowers, and so many more. It is hard to decide sometimes. My mom taught me though that every planter needs something tall, something colorful and something short. We found plants today to fit one of those requirements. We then proceeded to group the flowers that we wanted for each planter. I learned the hard way that it is not as easy to make a planter that looks good. Honestly, it doesn't look that hard. But there act...

If you don't know what a pizza puff is then you should find out. Kids love these mini muffin sized pizza puffs. (Husbands do too.) We found this recipe a while back and made them a few times. We would then freeze them in small freezer bags. Then the kids could pull them out and pack them in their lunch box. They would stay cold because they were frozen, but they have thawed by lunch time. Fill a little container with pizza sauce and they would be set for a yummy lunch that is different then a PB&J standby. This recipe is simple enough that my daughter can make it by herself. She decided that she wanted these for dinner. I'm always up for someone else making dinner and so I thought that it was a great idea. (Funny how kids think that we are letting them do something great when it's their idea and think it's a chore that they complain about if it's our idea.) So I stepped out of the way and let her go. I saw them make this on a local TV show calle...

Today I asked my daughter what she wanted to do for Thinking Thursday. Usually it's more of a science type day, but she said that she was "thinking" about making lemon donuts. Mini donuts to be exact. After chuckling I said "okay." So we went to Pinterest in search of a recipe. Well we went to my Cinnamon Rolls, Breads and Donuts  board. We found one that looked simple from Made to Be a Momma  and decided to try that one. It used a lemon cake mix in the recipe. I had the mix so we got to work. A few years ago I got one of my favorite kitchen tools. It's a mini donut maker by Bella. Think waffle iron that has seven mini donut shapes inside. It cooks them very quickly (literally in about 2 minutes!) and they come out great. Which is always a necessity. It made so many donuts! It's good that we like them! They do get a little darker on the bottom than they do on the top. So when it was time to glaze them we usually put the darker side ...

I probably should have blogged about this before  the 4th of July, but I guess late is better than never. I love to decorate for holidays. I have boxes of decorations for Christmas, Halloween, Valentines and more. My 4th of July box is a little different than the rest. For some reason almost all of my July 4th decorations are hand made. Mostly by me. I'm not sure why that is. I do know that I am kind of picky about my decorations. I won't buy a decoration just because it corresponds with a holiday. I actually will pass by more decorations than I will stop and look at and I buy even fewer. I really love the decorations that I have. Sometimes I will switch out old decorations that I don't love anymore, but I develop an attachment to the handmade and memory decorations. Those I never change. Maybe that is why I love my July 4th decor. One of my favorites is this red, white and blue swag. I got the idea from pinterest, but then changed it some to use items that I already had ...

When I was a kid we didn't take very many "big" vacations. We did however take lots of day trips and "staycations." (A vacation close to home.) We live in a state with lots of national parks. Those were common destinations for us. We'd take a picnic lunch and spend the day outside hiking and enjoying the weather and being together. As a parent now we have taken both kinds of vacations. Last year we hit the beach and went to Disneyland. So this year we are staying closer to home. We still want to have fun and do things though. This past weekend we went to a national park that we haven't been to in a long time. We went to Mount Timpanogos. You have to hike a trail up a mountain that is only about 1 1/2 miles, but it is uphill. Crazy uphill in most places. There was some complaining about how much harder it was than we remember. (I will admit that some of that complaining came from me.)