Pick your plum goodies!!!

This week has been a little crazy. My kiddos have been getting into everything and making the biggest messes, I swear I've been cleaning constantly. Which is totally normal, but this week has been a little worse then normal. So it's been a little tiring, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. Love my kids! They are so darn cute and make everything worthwhile. So anyways, after taking 5 kids aged 5,4,3,2 and 1 to costco yesterday (my mom came too, i'm not that crazy), I was definitely worn out, but when I pulled into my house and saw this BEAUTIFUL box sitting at my door i was ECSTATIC!!! I hurried and got the kids in the house, then tore the box open to see what goodies were inside!!! After going through all my loot I did finally get all the groceries out of the car.

I thought it would be fun to show all the goodies that were in the box! Below we have: square scallopped tin that would be cute as a picture frame, Flower silicone cups (I really wanted to buy them when they had them, but didn't so I was SO excited about these), 2 little wooden words that say believe and laugh, a super cute and funky metal flower hook, some "crocheted" looking headbands (will make a great baby shower gift), some cute bottle caps, blue and white striped little envelope things, some super cute wire headbands that I am IN LOVE with ( already wore one and LOVED it), some super cute bow scrunchies, a cute brown with white polka dots hanging pocket thing (I wanted to buy this when they had it last year and didnt, so I was stoked!), 2 packaged of cupcake lines (cute).....

.....a super cute little kids whisk and spatula set (again, wanted to buy these when they had them and didn't), some little pink sparkly boots (future baby shower gift), some red organza bags, black shirt (size small, so will definitely gift this), some purple ribbon that says "happy spring from Cassie" (love personalized stuff), two packs of tulle circles (these will be great for showers or parties), some fun vinyl colors, cute little party/snack cups, a funky hook thing, some little bubble chipboard things....

all of it out of the table...

lastly, this little packet was inside the box too and it had all the jewelry goodies, a bunch of earring and necklace accessories, it even had some cute little charms that I need to find a bracket for (I"m a sucker for charm bracelets), then some bobby pin blanks and mini cabochons that I was really excited about (wanted to buy these when they had them, but didn't). WHEW, that's all of it! Isn't that an AMAZING amount of goodies!!! I was pretty much in heaven going through it all, LOVE!

 Now, if you're wondering how on earth I got all this great stuff, it is a Pick Your Plum Grab Box, they list them every few months on their website on a Saturday morning (I set my alarm for 5:45am Saturday so I could grab one, I was so glad I did because they sold out in 5 minutes). They don't tell you about them until the day before they post them. You can find out on their facebook page the day before, and the last few times, they've listed it on their website with their Friday deal. They post a daily deal everyday, you should totally check them out, I absolutely love their stuff!

Teachers...

Whipped up these cute teacher gifts! I really like how they turned out :) yay for all the ideas Pinterest gives me!

Kisses from the misses...

Had a gal request a kitchen themed board, so I mentioned one of my favorite kitchen quotes and she said she loved it! So I whipped this up an thought it turned out pretty cute!

Wow! I did it!

Last year one of my goals was to make a quilt! Well....the first week of December I decided it would be way fun to accomplish my goal AND make a wonderful gift for brycen's preschool teacher that was moving. I knew that she loved to read and I had some fabric Christmas story blocks. So I cut them out and chopped some strips and squares and threw them together. So I am happy to say... I HAVE MADE A QUILT! WOOT!!!

Greenie Care Package!

 An awesome friend of mine left on her mission in February (if your wondering about the our church click here), and ever since she left I have been wanting to send her a "greenie" care package. I originally saw the idea here while looking on pinterest one day. Well I ran to the store yesterday morning and grabbed all of these "green" goodies.

 I tucked them all nicely in this box (while walking around the store I found quacker pop ems, quacker oatmeal, pizza flavored goldfish crackers, lifesavers mints, gogo squeez apple sauce, popcorn, sunflower seeds, mike and ikes, ring pops, fruit roll ups, keebler mint chocolate cookies and gum all in green packaging)!

 Then proceeded to write "greenie" all over the box, I only had one green marker that happened to be a fine point sharpee, so it took a while to write all over it.

But I'm sure she will love getting it, so it was totally worth it!!!

Super Yummy and Inexpensive Ice Cream Cake!

 On Easter we celebrated my grandmothers, sister in laws and my baby girl's birthdays! It was SUPER fun! I love that I have such a wonderful relationship with all of family. Anyways, back to the reason for this post. Several years ago my bought an ice cream cake...it cost ALOT and it didn't even taste that good. There was hardly any cake in it. So my dad came up with wonderful idea to make our FAVORITE cake recipe and turn it into an ice cream cake (well really, my mom made the cake part and my dad did the ice cream part - woot for team work!). After watching my dad make them when I was in high school, i took over making them for birthdays, except for when it's mine, then my parents makes it :) They always made the 9x13 cakes, but I like to do 2 flavors at times since there are some that don't like chocolate. Long story short, here is how you make this AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS  ice cream cake:

The night before I made the cakes and froze them, in fact, I couldn't get the chocolate one to come out of the pan, so in trying to get it out it all broke apart. No worries, you press all the broken cake back into your pan and freeze it overnight. Then the next morning, turn it upside down and drop it on your counter a couple of times and voila, you'll have the perfect base for your scrumptious cake pop out of the pan in one piece! 

Now for the ice cream part, I buy baskin robbins ice cream, because it is seriously wonderful, if you're making a 9 inch round you'll need 1 quart, if you're making a 9x13 cake you'll want 2 quarts. I bought a quart of mint chocolate chip and a quart of pralines'n'cream. To speed up the process I microwaved each quart for 30 seconds, or you can let them sit out for 20-30 minutes. I then scooped it onto the cakes (it doesn't have to look pretty, you'll smooth it out in a bit). Try to scoop it somewhat evenly, you don't want the whole quart on half the cake. Then you may need to pop it in the freezer for about 30 minutes to let it harden a bit more.

 When you pull it back out of the freezer slowly work the into an even layer. I kept dipping my knife in warm water to make it go faster. Plus the ice cream will stick to your knife or spreader, so you'll want to rinse it off a couple of times. Once you the layer of ice cream pretty much smooth, and evenly layered over the cake, pop it back into the freezer to harden again. (yes, this is a process)

 Now it's time for your "frosting" layer. I used about half a quart of vanilla ice cream for this part, and I bought a store brand of vanilla bean to cut down on cost. Again, I microwave the icecream for about 30 seconds to speed up the process. Then I put globs of it all over the top of the cake, I spread it a little bit, but normally have to freeze it for another 30-60 minutes before I can finish it because it will melt quickly.

 So after it sits a little while longer in the freezer, you'll pull it out again and keep smoothing the ice cream around until it looks good (it may take 10 minutes of smoothing). And voila! You have a Baskin Robbin's Ice Cream Cake that has your favorite flavors of cake and ice cream! BONUS: It only cost 15$ for 2 cakes!!! How can you beat that, it costs way more than that for 1 cake this size. Now go enjoy your hard work (really it was only about an hour of work to whip up the cake batter to throw in the oven, and spread ice cream in between freezing - you can do whatever you want while the cake part bakes and the ice cream freezes).

And for those crazy people that don't like ice cream (or those lactose intolerant like my hubby), you can whip up some tasty cupcakes!