Brazilian Cheese Rolls -- Like Fogo de Chao!

I love Fogo de Chao!  I mean LOVE it... like gotta have it - as often as possible.  Yes, my waistline probably isn't happy about that -- but God, sometimes all a lady wants is a bacon wrapped filet and some Brazilian cheese rolls.

I'm always tempted to put those little rolls in my purse and eat them later.  I could eat a whole order on my own.  Seriously! 

My kids love them.... my family loves them...

I've always wondered if I could make them at home.  Guess what?! I CAN... and I DID... and I'm currently eating my third batch :)

A bunch of you on Facebook have been begging for the recipe, so.... here goes:

Ingredients:
One egg room temperature
Tapioca flour (1.5 cups "scant" -- not exactly full)
Milk (2/3rds cup)
Olive Oil (1/3 cup)
Grated cheese (1/2 cup compacted, whatever cheese you would prefer)
*salt (optional -- depends on how salty your cheese is)

Get out your blender.
Turn on your oven to 400 degrees.
Put the egg, flour, milk, oil, and cheese into blender. 
Blend.
Scrape down sides of blender to be sure it all gets mixed well.
Blend again.
Pulse it a few times.

It is going to be pretty runny looking when you are finished.  Here's a shot during the blending process :)

Grab a muffin pan.  You could do mini muffins if you like (I think that's what they do at Fogo), but I have a big muffin pan.  Use whatever you got.

Spray the pan generously with cooking spray.

Fill up each cup 1/2 way full.

Put in oven for 20 minutes.

I take them out around 19 so they don't get too brown..... 

And the end result:  Heaven! 

Last Day of 3 Year Old Preschool

Today is my daughter's last day of preschool.  About a year ago, I found some cute 'first day' pics on Pinterest.  On her first day this year, I took a picture of her with a chalkboard -- and I took another one this morning.  Here is the comparison picture.

She's growing up so fast!

 If you are interested in doing a pic like this and don't have a free standing chalkboard, you can buy a hand-held one from Michaels for about $3.  You could also try some free printables here. 

Oh, and if you are wondering about the brightly colored chalk, I used chalk markers -- like the ones here from Amazon. 

An Easter Craft with Paintchips

When we were painting one of the rooms in our house, we picked up lots of paintchips from Lowe's.  I used them as bookmarks for a while.  Then I stumbled on some cool projects on Pinterest.

You can check out a ton of paintchip projects here.

At Easter, I decided to take a few and make a garland.  Here's what you need to have to make a garland:

1.  Paintchips
2.  Ribbon
3.  Hot glue gun

I used two different sized paintchips for this project, and a left over ribbon from our first baby shower. 

Making an Egg Wreath - Pretty Easy Actually

Since Easter just passed, I thought I would share another Easter craft with you that worked out.  Back when I joined Pinterest in 2012, I came across this post here about making an egg wreath.  I had seen many at some of the stores around town and had considered purchasing one, but when you can buy bags of eggs at the Dollar Tree, it is difficult to justify spending $30 on a wreath when you could make one for less than $5.

What do you need for this project?
* Lots of eggs (I used about three bags of 18 each)
* Foam wreath form
* Hot glue gun
* Ribbon if desired

All you have to do for this craft is hot glue the eggs to the wreath form, and add the ribbon.  Easy right?  I thought it was.  Hot glue is like magic :)

Here's my result:

The only thing Pinterest doesn't tell you: if you live in the South where it is especially warm around Easter (we live in Houston and sometimes see temps in the 90s at Easter), the eggs might gradually fall off.  That's nothing a little more hot glue won't fix though.

Here's a pic of me and my daughter the first year I made the wreath.

Tie Dyed Eggs -- It really works!

Back three years ago, I came across the coolest project on Pinterest: Tie Dyed Eggs!  No, not tie-dyed eggs... but eggs dyed with real silk ties! You can find the original post here.   How neat is that?  (yes... I just used the word "neat" - thereby signifying that I grew up in the 1980s)  According to the posts on Pinterest, all you need are a few silk ties, a white t-shirt, some ribbon/twine/yarn, and a pot of boiling water.  Count me in!

First, I scoured my husband's side of the closet.  I brought out a few ties and asked if I could cut them up. 

His response: "Are you crazy?" 

My response: "Yes, but you knew that when you married me."

Since he wasn't budging on his silk ties, I made a trip to my local Goodwill to buy some.  They are actually fairly cheap there -- $1.99 each.  I grabbed the ugliest ones I could find, and a Looney Tunes one to add to my husband's collection.  When you are looking for ties to use for this project, buy some with a lot of colors, and make sure they are 100% silk.

I came home and started cutting.  Now the key to this project is to cut enough of the tie to wrap around your egg, and then do the same with a white t-shirt.  You have to tie the two pieces as tightly as possible with the string so that the silk dye will be transferred to your eggs in the boiling water.  Boil them for 20 minutes in water with a little vinegar, and then transfer them to bowl of cool water. 

What was my result?

It actually worked!!!  Put this in the Pinterest success pile.  

What Pinterest Doesn't Tell you about the IKEA Shelves for Books....

If you have ever thought about giving a makeover to a kid's room, you have probably stumbled upon an image like the one below on Pinterest.  How cool does that look!  Bookshelves from the floor to the ceiling! What little kid wouldn't love this room?!  As a professor and lover of books, I really wanted to do something like this in my daughter's room.

A few posts on Pinterest noted that you can buy the IKEA spice racks and use them for children's books.  What a great idea - especially since they are so inexpensive.  The last time I was at IKEA, I bought two of them.

The assembly of these racks takes two minutes each.  Then you have to attach them to the wall.  You can paint them if you want, but I'm lazy so I left them their regular color.

Here's what Pinterest doesn't tell you: when you put them low to the ground, your children will rip them off the wall!  Seriously!  There's no way around this.  If you put a picture ledge or spice rack down where the kids can get to it, eventually it will fall off the wall (unless you somehow have it "built in" to the wall).  Of course, you could always place the racks up high so the kids can't reach them, but what's the point of that?!

Samantha Turns 2! Mickey Mouse Birthday Party

When my little girl turned two, we had a Mickey Mouse themed birthday party in Virginia.  I made a Mickey themed cake and some Mickey cupcakes. 

The cake was easy enough -- bake a circular cake, decorate it half with black icing, half with red icing, and two marshmallows as the buttons.  Then add two cupcakes with black icing for the "ears."  Voila!

The cupcakes were easy too.  All you need are some Oreos -- the regular sized ones and the little bite-size ones.  Arrange them three to a cupcake and you've got some really cute themed cupcakes.  If you want Minnie ones instead, you could always add a pink bow. 

Here's what Pinterest doesn't tell you:  don't decorate the cupcakes ahead of time.  Don't make them the day before (even hours before) and allow them to sit in a container until you serve them.  It doesn't matter how "airtight" the container is -- the Oreos will taste like crap if you make them ahead of time.  Put those Oreos on right before you serve them.  When I ate mine, I threw the Oreos in the trash.  Yuck!

My daughter looked adorable though :)

Flying With a Toddler? Check out these Treat Bags.

Someone recently linked up a story about a mom who handed out candy on a flight with her children.  She made the national news for giving out treat bags to those around her - feeling badly for them since they probably would hear her kids complain and cry at least once during the flight.

I did this three years ago and never got any media attention.  Not that I'm bitter about that or anything!  ;)

Anyways, for those of you that know me - you know that my husband and I live a far away from our families.  His lives in Michigan and mine lives in Virginia.  I have often flown alone with my kids, and there was one trip back when my daughter had just turned one when I handed out goodie bags to those sitting around us.  She had a double ear infection, which isn't the greatest thing to have when you are flying.  Since I knew she would either 1) pass out from the drugs the doc gave her before boarding, or 2) scream most of the way there, I put together some little treat bags for my flying neighbors.

The little statement that went with the candy:

She may be good, she may be bad

I'm sorry if this makes you mad!

Hope this makes your flight a little sweeter

 My flight neighbors loved this idea, and some even suggested that I should eat the candy since I would need a little treat for dealing with a sick toddler by myself.

...........

My daughter never screamed on that flight.  It might be because I was filling her full of chocolate!  (I'm totally kidding about that last part -- all you sugar police mommies!)

How to Keep a Toddler Entertained, at Least for an Hour

For those of you with little kids, I bet that you have searched the internet for ways to keep your toddler busy so you can get a break -- to read the newspaper or take a shot of vodka (ha!).

Back when my daughter was small, I came across a blog from a pin on Pinterest filled with ways to keep your kids entertained "on the cheap." Here's a link to the blog.  I tried a few of their ideas, and it turns out -- some of them really work. 

Here's my daughter playing with pipe cleaners and a colander.  This kept her entertained for an hour -- a much needed hour for mommy to be able to grade exams.

Pinterest Fail: Dog Bone Cookies!

As I mentioned in my previous post, the cookies for my daughter's Paw Patrol birthday party didn't completely turn out like I would have liked. I love the idea of dog bone cookies, so I ordered a set of dog bone cookie cutters from Amazon.  You can find the ones I ordered here. 

I did exactly what the instructions said - get dough, cut out, bake.  Sounds simple enough, right?

WRONG!  I never thought these cute little cookie cutters could make cookies fit for a Bachelorette Party!
That's right -- I ended up with penis cookies!

These aren't really kid appropriate.  I tried to cover them up with icing, and all I had was white -- which made matters worse!!

The adults at the party had a good laugh and all of the ladies had to eat one. 

Paw Patrol Birthday Party

I'll start off this blog sharing a little about a birthday party inspired from Pinterest. Last year my daughter turned three.  She begged me for a Paw Patrol birthday party.  At the time, there were no Paw Patrol themed party supplies at all of the major party stores -- so I turned to Pinterest for some inspiration.  Boy did I find some cool ideas.

First, let's start with the food:

Pinterest had some pretty neat ideas for the drink portion of this party.  Since this was "dog themed," a few people had turned some water blue and called it "toilet water."  This was one of the biggest hits of the party!  I used Kool Aid (yes, that's right... call in the sugar police).

I also had recently ordered some jelly jars that were on sale at Amazon.  Someone on Pinterest had used  cupcake liners to keep the bugs out of drinks (since their party was outside). See that idea here.  I loved that idea and had to steal it and use it with these jars and paper straws.

Nothing is easier than the food for this party.  Since it was a dog themed party, we served hotdogs (not shown here).  We also had "chew sticks" (pretzels), "pupcorn" (popcorn), "puppy chow" (that's actually what that desert is called), and sugar cookies cut out to look like dog bones.  The cookies actually ended up being more of a Pinterest fail, and I'll get to that in a moment.  

Each of the guests received their own Paw Patrol sucker -- with free printables available from Nick Jr. here.  

 We also wanted to do something a little unique as a "treat" for each kid that came, so we had a Puppy Adoption Station - where the kids could fill out a puppy adoption form and take home a little friend.  The form is also available as a free printable here.

We also asked guests to bring donations for the Animal Shelter instead of gifts. 

My little girl had a wonderful time.

Pinterest Fails

Since everyone under the sun is now on Pinterest, I wanted to start this blog to show what can happen when a professor tries their hand at some of these projects.  You will see some that failed horribly!  You will see some that worked out.  I will tell you what not to do, and how long some of these projects will take.  Let's get started!