Homemade Pink Bath Salt Scrub

My amazing Mom and cousin, Heather, are throwing me a Sprinkle this weekend. I am so excited because after having two boys, I can't wait to dress her in all the pink girly outfits. If you're not familiar with Sprinkles, they are just a smaller version of baby showers for people who have already had a child of the opposite gender. I couldn't let my mom and Heather have all the baking and crafting fun, so I insisted on making the baby shower favors. I browsed Pinterest and put together a few different recipes to create this homemade pink bath salt scrub. (I doubled this recipe to make 7 of these).

Ingredients:

1 cup Epson Salt
1 cup Himalayan Pink Seas Salt
Lemongrass Essential Oil
3 Tbsp Olive Oil

Directions

1. Start by mixing 1 cup Epson Salt with 1 cup Pink Himalayan Sea Salt together in a bowl.

2. Then add 5-10 drops of Lemongrass Essential Oil and mix together. This is when it starts to smell AMAZING! 

 3. Then mix in the 3 tablespoons of olive oil.

 4. Spoon the bath salts into beautiful jars and you're done! I found these adorable jars at Hobby Lobby and they were the same price as regular mason jars.

 5. I tied a bow around them and added a tiny spoon to make them ready to give as Thank You's to the guests at the Sprinkle. You can always change the essential oil to another scent. As you can see I WAY overbought on supplies so I'll be making these for adorable Christmas gifts for friends and family as well. This is such a simple DIY gift that anyone would love!

Savory Bread Pudding

Since Thanksgiving is just 4 days away, I thought I'd share one of my favorite make-ahead holiday dishes. I found this recipe years ago on Epicurious and thought it would be a great side dish to bring to dinner since I'm a vegetarian. Well, not only the vegetarians loved it-everyone did! Ever since, it has been my go-to side dish. The only thing I do differently is instead of using country-style white bread I use a whole loaf of Brioche bread. I hope you enjoy this savory dish as much as my family does!

 Yield: Makes 10-12 servings

Ingredients:

1(1 pound) loaf crusty country-style white bread

1/4 cup olive oil

4 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme

1 large garlic clove, minced

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter 

1 pound assorted fresh mushrooms (such as crimini, button,

portobello, and stemmed shiitake), thinly sliced

1 1/2 cups finely chopped onion

1 1/2 cups thinly sliced celery

1 cup finely chopped green bell pepper

1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

3 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

8 large eggs

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/3 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter 13x9x2 inch glass baking dish. Cut bottom crust                             and short ends off bread and discard. Cut remaining bread with crust into 1-inch cubes                      (about 10 cups loosely packed). Place cubes in very large bowl. Add oil, thyme,                                   and garlic; toss to coat. Spread cubes out on large rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle                             with salt and pepper.Bake until golden and slightly crunchy, stirring occasionally,                              about 20 minutes. Return toasted bread cubes to same very large bowl.                                          Melt butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms, onion, celery,                             and bell pepper. sauté until soft and juices have evaporated, about 15 minutes.                                Add sautéed vegetables and parsley to bread cubes.                                                                   Whisk heavy cream, eggs, salt, and ground pepper in large bowl. Mix custard into                          bread and vegetables. Transfer stuffing to prepared dish. Sprinkle cheese over.                                 DO AHEAD Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.                                               Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake stuffing uncovered until set and top is golden, about                                1 hour. Let stand 15 minutes.

                                    

Creating For a Cause

Heather and I first learned about Operation Christmas Child at Church and decided we needed to be a part of this amazing project. We researched it a little more and learned that OCC is the largest Christmas project of its kind and uses gift-filled shoeboxes to share God's love in a tangible way with needy children around the world. Since 1993, they have delivered over 113 million gift-filled boxes. Here is a link to learn more about Operation Christmas Child: http://www.samaritanspurse.org/what-we-do/operation-christmas-child/

So, the boys and I headed out to the Dollar Tree and Target to pick up the items for our boxes. I had only planned on making 2 but when I saw how much you could get at Dollar Tree by buying in packs of 3 or 6, we decided to make 6. The bins were also from the dollar tree but I am going to start saving shoeboxes over the next year because they are much sturdier. Here is a list of Suggested Itemsfrom the OCC website. Some of the items that I found at Dollar Tree are pencils, pads of paper, balls, play dough, kazoos, silly straws, crayons, pencil sharpeners, hair clips, soap, jump rope and hand sanitizing wipes. Then I picked up a couple larger items in the clearance section at Target for the main gifts like toy cars, card games and small stuffed animals. In all, I spent about $8 per box. Not bad! 

We came home and started assembling the boxes. They had fun deciding whether the toys should go in boy's or girl's boxes. 'B' also made crosses out of pipe cleaners and beads to put in the boxes. We included a letter with a family picture and 'B' drew a little picture and wrote "I love you" on each letter. We also payed the $7 for shipping online so that we can see where our boxes go (you can also put a $7 check in each box). Then we put the labels and rubber bands on them. Lastly, we prayed for each child that the boxes go to. 

The next night, we took them to our local church on a drop off night. (Here is a drop off schedule and list of drop off locations: Drop-off Locations). I have to say that this was such a meaningful and rewarding way to kick off the holiday season. I am so glad we did it. I think the boys learned a lot by watching the videos on the OCC website of the children receiving their gifts and how happy it made them. I will definitely be doing this again next year! I am going to watch the clearance and after Christmas sales as well as save those shoeboxes. Have any of you made Christmas boxes for Operation Christmas Child? We'd love to hear what you did. We can always use ideas for next year!

***UPDATE***

My husband and I also wanted to share our pictures of the boxes we made for Operation Christmas Child so that you can get ideas and see how easy and inexpensive it is to share our blessings with others and touch a less fortunate child. We bought everything for the boxes from Dollar Tree.  So, here are our boxes and the age groups that we made them for:

Girl Age 5-9

Boy Age 5-9

Boy Age 2-4

Girl Age 2-4

This was the letter we included with each box. The amount of Operation Christmas Child boxes at our church was absolutely amazing! The entire church was filled with walls and walls and more walls just like this! When I think about how much joy this program brings to less fortunate children, it is just overwhelming and I am so glad we were a part of it. 

All-In-One Meal Planner

I am super excited about my latest creation because it is something I will use constantly and it will keep me organized. It has a Weekly Meal Planner, Recipe Binder, Holiday Menu Planner, Grocery List and Coupon Storage all packed neatly in this binder. I have already used it to plan my meals for the next two weeks and my Thanksgiving dinner menu. I can't wait to get started on the Winter Edition! Here is a link to the Free Meal Planner Download.

Here is everything included in the free download: Cover and back pages, Weekly Meal Planner with grocery lists, Holiday Menu Planner and divider pages. 

 All that is left to do is 3-hole-punch them and put them in a binder. I hope this helps you organize your life as much as it has helped me. Let us know if it does!

Indoor Snow Play

I knew it! We had a snow day today for Mattawan Schools and boy, am I glad I didn't have to go anywhere in this snow. We have almost a foot and it just keeps coming! So instead of going out in the zero degree temperatures, I decided to bring the snow indoors. My husband calls me his indoor cat. :)

 This was so much fun. The boys played for hours with the snow this morning. I just put a blanket down, brought in the sand and snow toys, filled a couple bins with snow and they went crazy! When they got bored with that, we even did a science experiment.

Indoor Snow Volcano Experiment

We started by placing a plastic cup in the middle of the snow and building the base of the volcano around it. 

 Then we added food coloring.

Then we added the baking soda...

 And lastly, the vinegar!

'B' added his action figures in the snow so that they could get buried by the lava and they did the experiment 3 more times with variations. We did find it works best to put the baking soda in first, then the food coloring, then the vinegar so that the color shows more in the eruption.

Then they enjoyed playing with the colorful snow.

All that fun and I didn't even have to struggle with their snow pants and boots. I'll leave that for when daddy gets home. ; )  Happy snow day!

Fall Leaves Craft

So, apparently I moved into the arctic tundra because we are getting pounded again with another 5-9 inches of snow over the next couple of days. I can't believe it's only November! All joking aside, I really didn't know when we moved here that we were moving to the snow belt of Michigan. I had never even heard of it until I started asking around about if this was normal and sure enough, it is! So….I've been stocking up at the craft store and dollar store for snow days because we will likely have plenty this winter.

This would be a perfect snow day craft to do with your kids because it is simple and keeps them entertained for quite awhile! All you need is contact paper, a permanent marker and some fabric or paper leaves. I found these leaves at Dollar Tree. Just draw a tree on the contact paper before you remove the backing. Then remove the backing and tape to a window sticky side out. The leaves stick to the contact paper really well and they can take them off and put them on again and again. I hope your little ones enjoy this as much as mine did! I was thinking you could do the same thing with a turkey using feathers to stick onto it….hmmm maybe I'll try that tomorrow!