The Best Summer Cookies

So there's this family in our ward with one of the sweetest, cutest little guys ever. Seriously. His name is Landen and he is the king of all snuggle bugs. But Landen's got this disorder that makes life a little hard on him and on his family. And they want to go to Florida to a conference that provides support for families dealing with the genetic disorder that Landen has. But you know, it's expensive. Yesterday they had a donation only bake sale to help raise some money for the trip, and you know me - I couldn't pass up on the chance to bake something. And I mean, who wouldn't want to help these guys out?

I turned to my old friend Pinterest (I can say old friend - I realized, yesterday, I've been wasting time pinning there for over a year now!) to look for something new. I knew if I didn't find anything I could use the old standby of chocolate chip (and who doesn't love chocolate chip?) but I love the excuse to try something new! It only took me a few minutes to come across these bright, cheery Jell-o cookies. I figured these would be a great addition to the bake sale table and really catch people's eye. Plus, they were supposed to be really yummy (and they are!).


image taken from the just helen blog (because I totally spaced on taking pictures)

I headed over to Helen's Blog and checked out her post about these fabulous cookies. Now she's way more awesome than I am, and she made her cookies from scratch. But I'm not going to lie, I wasn't having any of that. I work one day a week and it happens to be Friday. So I was in no mood after work to be whipping up sugar cookies from scratch and I went with the classic Betty Crocker store mix for mine. But if you are the type to start from the beginning (and sometimes I am), head on over and grab her recipe.

Like I said, I used those Betty Crocker bag mixes for my cookies. I got two of the bigger "20% more" bags and 5 flavors of Jell-o (orange, lime, lemon, raspberry and blue raspberry). I ended up not getting to the orange though. I'm not very good at dividing things like dough... But I did get the lime, lemon, raspberry and blue raspberry ones done and they were each super yummy - and pretty to look at!

Now I noticed that all the batches of cookies (except the blue ones) ended up a bit flat. I think that had something to do with my stupid silicone baking sheet. I used it for all the batches, except the blue ones, and the blue ones ended up fluffier - kind of like Helen's. I'm really not an expert on these things though, so I really am not sure. Just an observation I made. Plus I'll take any chance I can to complain about silicone bake ware (not a fan).

Anyway! Here's my recipe (adapted from Helen's). It was a good, messy time and I'll definitely be making these again this summer. Probably more than once. And if you'd like a full sized copy of the card, just click the image to download.



Now before I go, I want to share a little more about Landen. He's really a special little guy and if you are able to, go the site on this flyer and help his family get to Florida. I know times are tough right now, but they would really appreciate anything you have to give. I've even linked the flyer to the site for donations. If you can donate, be sure to indicate that it's for "the Sinex family travel fund."



Have a wonderful and blessed Sunday!

My Scrappy Week 4/28/2012

My scrappy week was, well in one word, slow. Actually, that's not true. I have done more scrapping than this, but most of it was getting ready for next week. Next is kind of big deal in the scrapbook world. It's the little thing called {inter}National Scrapbook Day. Huge sales, fun games, free stuff... This thing is planned behind the scenes at every store in digi-land for weeks. I've been not only busy with CT stuff, but with my own work. See, I got this crazy idea. I decided it was time to dust off and update those old saved templates from my layouts of the last 5 years (yeah, can't believe I've been doing that this long!) and open a store. You heard me. I'm officially stepping into the designer world and I couldn't be more excited. I've been saying "one day" for too long. I've got everything all ready for opening weekend, including some iNSD fun and I can't wait. Just a week left now! You can check out my design blog here: Scrappy Creations by Melanie and of course, here are the 2 things I scrapped and can share :)






Don't forget to click the images to check out the credits in their galleries and have a great rest of the weekend!

Have You Met...

Vander? He's our new furry family member and we're pretty nuts about him.



Mason had been going on for a while about wanting a dog. We're not really sure how he got it stuck in his head, but he would bring it up. A lot. We both grew up with dogs, but over the years had become more of "cat people" for some reason. Easier to take care of I guess. We knew we would eventually get a dog, but we didn't really think it was the right time. We tried a puppy a while back, but what had been told to us was a hound puppy turned out to be a pitbull puppy and he turned out to be really aggressive. Just not a good combination with kids. Well last Wed. we decided to go looking. Ya know. Just to see. We started here in Bullhead, excited because they said they had a basset hound online. We got there and the owners had come in and claimed him. Really? You put a dog on the website before the allowed time for the owner to come pick them up? Lame. None of the other dogs really caught our eye, so we left. Ate some lunch and decided to head up to Kingman. First we went to an animal/rescue place. We came close to taking home a little black terrier named Toto (who was way overweight thanks to his previous, elderly mommy who fed him spaghetti!) but her fees were a little more than we could really afford and we really didn't feel that attachment we wanted.

Almost ready to go home, I suggested we stop at a vet's office to ask where the Humane Society was. We got directions and figured we would try one more time. First we found a 4 month old gal who seemed sweet. We took her out to their meet -n- greet play area (totally awesome that they had that!) but then she started eating the poop laying around. We could have gotten past that (maybe...) but then she got really hyper. She was jumping on the kids and even knocked Mason over and pinned him. We gave them a quick "no thank you" and decided to try one more dog.

When we went in I had noticed a boxer who just looked up at us with these big brown eyes, but I really didn't think he would be our fit. I told Nick about him and we decided just to see what he was like. The lady at the shelter brought him out and for a great first impression he was walking like a perfect gentleman on his leash. How awesome! He came in the yard and he was so mellow and sweet. We couldn't stop petting him. It didn't take long to realize we were in love with this 1 year old boxer named "Monte." They told us he was a stray and it was apparent by his ribs poking through his brown coat.

We knew right away we would change his name since we already knew and loved a Monty, it was just a matter of what to name him. Nick suggested a boxer name since he was, ya know, a boxer (hehee). He threw around some well known ones and I immediately grabbed onto Tyson. Nick liked Holyfield. We were at a standoff. We let it go for the moment though because we knew we couldn't take him home until the next day. He had to see the vet the next morning to get his shots and be neutered. We came home and threw around names with my mom. She named some old boxers Nick and I knew nothing about and we all kind of finally settled on George (ya know, Foreman?). Then good ol' Facebook and my awesome mom-in-law came to the rescue. We both posted the website picture of him on our Facebooks announcing our new guy and Nick's mom suggested (I'm pretty sure in a joking way) dropping the "e" off of Evander and going with just Vander. It was a boxer name and it started with Van like our last name. Nick came over and told me and we immediately decided "Yes!"

The next morning we went and got all the things a pampered doggie needs, including a brand new tag with the name Vander on it. Then that afternoon I drove up and picked him up from the vet's office. He was pretty nervous and kind of out of it, but we made it home. Everyone was so excited and he's been a great addition to our family. We're pretty sure he was somebody's pet that was abandoned. He's really well trained and behaved (except for those few little things here and there that dogs do) and the best part - housebroken!

I'm so glad Mason gave us the push to go out and find his new doggy brother and I can't wait to watch him and the kids grow up together!

My Scrappy Week 4/21/2012

For any scrapping I didn't do last week, I made up for this week. I was a scrapping fool this week. There was just too much good stuff to pass up on I guess!










As always you can click any of the layouts and check out their credits. And the credits have links back to the products used.

Have a great rest of the weekend!

My Scrappy Week 4/14/2012

Thought I fell of the blog-wagon again huh? Almost. I started slipping, but held on and pulled myself back on lol I didn't do much scrapping last week. I've been really busy working on some other scrapbooking related stuff (more on that another time) and so my scrap time became limited. I did, however, get some great CT layouts done and a couple extra that I kind of love.















As always, click any of the layouts to find their gallery spot with full credits and have a great weekend!

Mason's 3rd Birthday!

So today was Mason 3rd birthday. I can't believe my little guy is already 3! With a tight budget this year, we've kept everyone's birthdays a little more simple than usual, but we still managed to have tons of fun. We invited Mason's two favorite people over - Elder Parker and Elder Backstein - for lunch. Right after they got here it started pouring rain, to which Elder Parker declared that all the important events in the Van Rij house brought on rain (referring to the day long rain we had on my baptism day). Elder Backstein was the first to run out - after stripping his shoes and socks off. Mason was right on his heels, and what could Momma say? Bailey was next, despite my efforts to stop her, and soon after was Elder Parker. I, of course, grabbed my camera and started taking as many pictures as I could without getting too wet myself!





While all this rain nonsense was going on, Nick had finished up lunch and we all came in to eat. Mason was anxious to open presents, so while everyone finished up eating we let him start opening. We had gotten him 5 new Hotwheels (for the racetrack he got for Christmas), a Spiderman & Doc Ock play set and a pretty cool Cars indoor/outdoor tent. The missionaries had even brought him a gift - a nerf foam dart gun. Mason was pretty excited about that - and everything in general. But especially about the gun!




Then we had sang Happy Birthday and had cake. Mason was pretty excited about the dinosaur cake. I mean it was all he had talked about since Bailey's birthday cake back in January! Then the missionaries hung around for a while. I went and got Mason's racetrack and we all sat on the floor racing the cars around for at least half an hour - possibly longer. And by "we" I do mean Elder Parker, Elder Backstein, Nick and me. Mason mostly watched. Nick got Mason's tent set up and we all just had a lot of fun. Pretty soon it was time for the guys to go and it was well over due for the kids to take a nap.





That evening Mason picked out pizza for dinner. We also let him pick out a movie, so Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked was his choice. After we were done eating, Bailey went to bed and Mason and I finished watching his movie while sitting in his tent. When the movie was over we called Tori and let her tell Mason happy birthday. Then it was bed time and we let Mason choose to sleep in his tent for the night. That lasted until about midnight when he woke up wanting to play. We tucked him in his bed at that point and let him finish the night out there.





I think it was a pretty awesome birthday and I'm glad Elder Parker and Elder Backstein were able to celebrate it with us. And yeah. I still can't believe my little guy is already 3!

Update #1 - Halloween & Thanksgiving

Okay, so the last I posted was back before Halloween. Sheesh. So we had a good Halloween. Took the kids to a trunk or treat at the Kohl's here in town. Nick wasn't able to walk around with us because we were having car issues (the starter was going out) and he didn't want to turn the car off just in case it decided it didn't want to start again. The day before I had to walk home from Smith's because it wouldn't start. Anyway, the kids got a good amount of candy for a 2 year old and a 9 month old. Not too much, but enough. We also took them to a few of the neighbor's houses just to show off how cute they were. Nick and I worked hard making these costumes and the kids just looked way too cute to not show off!


Mason was a blue Lego


And Bailey was a little ghost





We also made a super cute pumpkin right before Halloween. Mason did a great job scooping out the guts and Bailey...well, she just watched!











Thanksgiving came and we had a pretty yummy (if I do say so myself) dinner here at home. We got up, watched the parade, checked out the ads, ate too much (and I might add, Bailey thoroughly enjoyed her first Thanksgiving feast!) and then I went out at 11:00 that night for my first ever Black Friday Shopping trip. I went alone since 1)Nick had no interest in trying to park the car 2) the kids were in bed and 3)Nick had no interest in dealing with the crowds. I got some great buys and most of the gifts for the kids while I was out. And I loved every packed-like-a-sardine minute of it. Definitely something I'd do again!













The down side of this month was a few days before Thanksgiving we sent my mom to the hospital because she was really sick. Turned out she had pneumonia. We couldn't go visit her because we were all pretty sick too, but she only had to stay a few days. Though I think the doctor sent her home a little too early (mostly because of the holiday) and the Saturday of Thanksgiving she fell, because she was still pretty weak, and broke her ankle. That's been a whole new adventure that even now, at almost April, we're still dealing with. Though, hopefully, she's almost healed.

Tomorrow, hopefully, I'll post about Christmas. Tori was here, as usual, and we had lots of fun. It really deserves it's own post all together!

Thanks for reading!