International Day and apple spice cake with caramel glaze

On Saturday we had International fair with the Girl Scouts and it was so WONDERFUL! We chose France (Could you guess?) The girls had fun going and visiting all the other countries. Taylor came home with us and Savannah and her continued their exposure to the culinary world!

This was taken from the cookbook

Mary Engelbreit's Sweet treats Cookbook

3 C flour

1tsp soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp allspice

1.4 tsp fresh ground nutmeg

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 C sugar

1/2 C brown sugar

1 1/2 C oil

3 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

3 C chopped apples

2 C chopped walnuts (opt)

Glaze-

1/2 C brown sugar

1/4 C unsalted butter

1/4 C heavy cream

Savannah had a friend spend the night last night and though my daughter would totally be happy just watching TV/ movies with a friend by her side.... her friends get a little bored. So I went into her room and told her that they should make bead necklaces or do the crystal growing kit that she got for Christmas. After a BIG mess and the kit not turning out they brought me a cookbook and told me to pick something out. I had to try to find something we had the ingredients for and that was not too difficult (should of looked for something low-fat also but- geesh!!!) So I picked the apple spice cake. It turned out YUMMY! and they had fun, Taylor asked if she could take the rest home for her family. Then after makeovers and going to bed really late- they were up early cooking more food- This is so not good for my diet or my kitchen!

A Valentines to remember!

Since we didn't have a lot of money to buy each other gifts we had to be clever this year. My kids got new shoes (a gift and something they needed all in one!) My hubby got a nice dinner- there was a pack of giant crab legs for $5 with a $2.50 coupon off- so I grabbed them up with a couple of Rib Eye Steaks that were on sale and decided to make my honey a fancy dinner!

Savannah went to go see the Tooth Fairy with her friend Meghan, the boys were with their mom, and Shawn wanted NO part of eating something out of a red, sharp, pokey thing- so we got the crab legs all to ourselves. I went off the diet for the 4-day weekend, so we had the melted butter to dip the crab legs in- OMG!!!!!! I was in heaven for about 15 minutes! Hubby MADE me a card with a little pocket inside stuffed with two massage coupons- I love a good back/foot rub!

The evening ended with some wonderful entertainment by Shawn and Savannah (when we went to go pick her up from Meghans) Happy Love day to all and to all a good night!

14 days of Valentines

Every year I give/make my kids something for the 1st-14th of February. This year my daughter is almost 10 and she knew that it was coming, it was cute- she was counting down the days. I usually slip it into her lunch pail or in her backpack when she is not looking. This year I have to do 4 of each ! for my daughter, 1 for my son who is almost three and LOVES some treats, 1 for each of my nephews who live with me.)- and we are broke so... I had to be creative and use what I have. Here are days two and three. Day one was a $1 little valentine candy. Happy LOVE month to you!

SAB and Valentines Party at Pam's

We had such a GREAT turn-out for the Sale-A-Bration party at Pam's house, it was so refreshing to know that people still want to craft even when times are hard. I even got some new people- so that was really nice. A lot of people were interested in my scrapbooking classes so I am excited to get those going again. This was the project that I had them make. They made the one with the fancy favor box- it was so simple and cute! Pam also made some door prizes and an adorable SAB card- I forgot to take a picture of it- I will get one and post later.I had a bunch of these left over so I used them for runner-up door prizesThis was the 1st place door prize that went to my friend Jennie- Yahoo! She deserves it! Thank you everyone for a GREAT time!