Friday, November 14, 2008

We are off...

on a little {much needed} trip. We are getting out of dodge, as they say.

I thought I'd post 1 more of my "organizing" ideas.


Since doing our laundry is such a difficult task for us right now, I get so {irritated} concerned when I wash towels that don't look or smell dirty. Sometimes they even make it into the laundry pile still folded. I'm sure none of you women out there know what I'm talking about.

So I painted each of my kid's names on a towel. It's been great, I now know who left their damp towel mushed up on the bathroom floor. Hee.. Hee! {said with a crackling witch voice}

And the kids get this towel for the week! Yep, you might find that unhealthy, but I've found if you hang it up to air dry, the towel is actually still nice, even by Friday. It might be the heat here that drys everything so fast. Either way, this is it, all they get.

Already my laundry pile is down about 2 loads, and hey, I'll take that!!!!

If I lived in the states I would call my friend Linda Burgess who has a embroidery company out of her home {I'm not sure if that is true yet, but the business women in me has tried to push her into it} and have her embroider my kid's names on their towels. When Dallin was baptized, I had her embroider his name and baptism date along with a "choose the right" logo on it. It turned out awesome.

So there you go. I hope your Friday is going well and wish you all a moment of bliss today.


Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Court is in session...

please come to ORDER!

We {I} am finally getting my hind end in gear. It's almost like I'm nesting {though, NO, I'm not pregnant.} That rumor already went flying around my home base, Riverside, a few months back. I might
be getting those desires while watching Rusti rearrange her house.

We have been in desperate need of change here and since my most desired form of change {moving} looks like it might be farther off than I'd hope {yesterday}, something else has to budge. So I have created forms. Yep, you saw my dinner plan form a few weeks ago, now I have a cleaning schedule, house of order plan {rules}, home school schedule, monthly planner, and my most prized, a Family Home Evening planner with an odd and even month so that we all rotate evenly. Tahdah!!!!!


O.K. now I'll get down off my chair and put my arms down, but hey, "isn't this GREAT kids?!?!"

Oh the groans that can come out of their mouths. Amazing.

In fact tied for first place with my FHE planner, would be my House of Order Form. It's just a nicer way to say, "Our Family Rules".

Instead of saying "We will not lie", I stated, We will tell the truth." All of our rules are what we WILL do not what we WILL NOT do. I like to concentrate on the positive.

I had just finished typing out our 11 rules and pushed print when Paige grabbed the list out of our printer before it was done and left it smeared and wrinkled. I raised my voice {ever so slightly, ahemm} and realized the list was incomplete. I then added "We will speak softly to one another" and had to giggle.

Since then I have added 2 more rules:

We will treat animals with respect &
We will not put our bodily fluids or gasses in other's spaces. (I had to do a NOT in this one)

So when my sweet, adoring little ones disobey one of these rules they get to write them 25 times, (give or take their age and the situation) Let's just say Troy has that second one down pat today!

The other one they've written a lot of is "We will complete our responsibilities without being reminded". Thank heavens for our "Family House of Order Plan", now all I say is give me 25 of number 7, you haven't done your dishes yet. :)

It is so much better than, "Did you do your dishes?" "Where's Dallin?", "Why aren't your dished done?" "I've now added another day." "Anybody know where Dallin is???"

Dallin has added so many days of dishes that instead of having them for a week, it's been over 5 weeks! See my problem with the previous system?

IT'S NOT WORKING!"

So here's to implementing new systems.

I forgot to mention that I made all these charts on 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper, put them into a 3 ring binder, bent it backwards so it stands like a presentation on our kitchen table and we can easily flip through each plastic protected chart. Oh, life is good.

Happy days are here again....
If you want a copy of any or all of these, just email me and I'll shoot it over.

Enjoy your day!!!

Monday, November 10, 2008

It's Family Night...

Tonight is our "service" family home evening.

{For those of you who don't know, every Monday night we make sure not to plan anything so we can be together as a family, hence the title, Family Night or Family Home Evening.} If you want a great place to get more family night ideas you can go HERE or my FAVORITE place LDS Living Magazine. I love LDS Living Magazine because they not only have great lessons, but they have a scripture, thought, object lesson, story and directions for dessert. Does it get easier than that?

So tonight we're having our "service" family night. We are making these DELISH homemade doughnuts and then delivering them to some of the families here.


I believe I have posted this before but I'm going to give you my FAMOUS {in my own mind} doughnut recipe.

First for the dough you can either buy a pre-made biscuit dough, use your favorite bread dough recipe or use mine.

Shawna's Homemade Bread Dough

in your bread machine pan add the following:
1 cup of warm water
2 teaspoons of yeast
3 tablespoons of sugar

Stir a few times and let sit for 10 minutes.

Now add
3 cups of flour
1/4 cup of oil
1 1/2 teaspoon of salt

Now push the dough setting on your breadmaker and in 1.5 hours, it's done.

How's that for easy?

Now flour the counter slightly and roll the dough out to about an inch think. Dip your large cup into flour and cut out the doughnut shape. Now find a smaller size to cut out the doughnut hole. (I used a lid from a container in my bathroom {which I washed thoroughly!}

Lay them out on a cookie sheet and let them rise for 15 minute in a slightly warm oven. (only if you use bread dough)

Heat oil in a small pot on your stove, about 4 inches high. My burner goes from 1-6 and I cook between 4-5) Carefully place your doughnut in the hot oil and rotate from front to back until dark golden. Then place on your cookie rack {that is on top of your cookie sheet}

Now, what makes these doughnuts so YUMMY is the topping. I got this from Pioneer Women Cooks, it's her recipes for her homemade brownie topping.


Melt 1 3/4 sticks butter in a saucepan.
Add 4 tablespoons cocoa, stir to combine, then turn off heat.
Add:
6 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 lb minus 3/4 cup powdered sugar
{here I add a little less powdered sugar than it calls for, you want the topping to easily adhear to the doughnut without being too watery that it doesn't stick}

Stir together then dip doughnuts into topping. Put sprinkles or chopped nuts on top if you'd like and ENJOY!!

Happy Family Night!!!!