Spotlight of the week

Audrey chose my brother Shawn to be the spotlight this week! He has no idea that he is the spotlight this week either. I decided it would be fun to spotlight him on the blog before we gave him his treat. I know he has read my blog before but I don't think it's something he reads all the time. So if you are reading this Shawn, Surprise!! You are the spotlight this week!


Growing up, Shawn was the brother that teased me the least. I think he probably figured my other two brothers had it all taken care of...because they really did.I guess that is what happens when you grow up with 3 brothers that are really close in age to you.  My oldest brother never teased me because he was all graduated from High School and off doing his own thing. But even though they teased me growing up they have all stood up for me and have always been there for me.

Starting High school was an intimidating thing for me and I was SOOOO scared I was going to get lost and I just didn't want to be one of those sophomores. So he made sure I made it to my classes okay and made sure I didn't get lost. What a nice brother huh?!

Shawn is a really great Dad. He LOVES his daughter more than anything and is more than willing to spend as much time with her as he can. He never complains when he has her. He's really good at taking care of kids.

We are grateful you are a part of our family "Bondo." It would defnitely not be the same without you!

Love,
Audrey and Gracey!

Texas Roadhouse copycat rolls?

So I saw a pin on Pinterest the other day that had a recipe for Texas roadhouse rolls. Well because I LOVE Texas Roadhouse and I LOVE their rolls and their yummy butter I decided to make them. And the best part about it was I had all of the ingredients!

After I let the dough rise, I followed the directions on shaping them and somehow mine turned out funky.  But, they were some of the best homemade rolls I have had. When we were eating them I didn't think they tasted too much like Texas Roadhouses rolls....but then I had a roll today and they tasted similar enough, but my butter tasted nothing like it and maybe that is why I didn't think it tasted like Texas Roadhouse rolls. I accidentally added too much honey and not enough butter. I will do better next time. Maybe once I perfect the butter it will be close enough to Texas Roadhouse rolls.

That's not all though. I decided to make some cinnamon rolls out of this dough. OH MAN!!!! Not to gloat or anything, but those were the BEST cinnamon rolls I have made yet. The best!! They were perfectly moist all around. So to those that don't know me very well and maybe even those that do know me very well, I have always struggled with making cinnamon rolls. For some reason they just never worked out for me. So when these were perfect I was so happy!!

Mmm...I was just thinking about it and I bet this dough would make some super yummy scones too! Yum!!!!

Next time I am going to make a bigger batch and freeze this dough for future meals so that I don't have to go through the process of making them everytime I want a cinnamon roll. It is quite the process making these rolls, but so worth it!!!

Here is the link to the recipe if any of you are interested!!

http://eatcakefordinner.blogspot.com/2011/04/texas-roadhouse-rolls-copycat-recipe.html



By the way, this is not a picture of my rolls. I took this picture from the website I got the recipe from. :)

kids craft- Valentine candy necklaces!

My niece Livy comes over a couple of times a week and last time she was here I told her we would make some Valentine cookies and do a craft.  So we did. We made Valentine M&M cookies, and Valentine candy necklaces!

All I did to make the Valentine candy necklaces (I got this idea from google again too) is I took some seran wrap had them put their candy on it, we wrapped the seran wrap around the candy a couple times and then tied it with bows using ribbon to keep the candy in place. I needed to make Audrey's a bit longer so we will be making another one later. They do want to make candy bracelets using this same concept, so we will be doing that next week.

Apparently Gracey didn't get the memo to make a funny face. Ha! It's quite alright because I LOVE Gracey's smile in this picture! Gosh, I can't get over how dang cute she is!

Kid craft~ Valentine crowns!

I found this idea on google to make Valentine crowns. I knew my girls would really like this and so we decided to make them for our craft yesterday.

Here are some pictures:

How to make them:

*You will need paper for the crown.

*Paper cut out hearts or heart doily's or anything you want to put on the crown.

*glue

*stapler

All you need to do is take some paper and measure it according to your head size. Take your cut out hearts and glue them to the measured strip of paper. Let it dry and staple the crown together and Walah you have your crown!

New recipe

I was on pinterest again last night and found a few more recipes I want to try. I have some that I have pinned that I have tried and I decided last night that I was going to make this honey sauced chicken recipe tonight. It turned out pretty good. Unfortunately my girls are picky eaters, especially Gracey. If it doesn't look good to her, she won't eat it.  But Brandon liked it and so did I. I think I will be making it again.

I did two things different with the recipe. I put my chicken in frozen, which by the way works like a charm! I have cooked frozen chicken in my crockpot once before and the chicken actually comes out pretty moist. It's so easy that way...especially if you are like me and forget to take your chicken out to thaw in time.

The second thing I did differently is I added some cornstarch to the sauce after I cut up the chicken and put it back in the sauce, to help thicken it up. Otherwise it will be really runny. I turned my crockpot on high after I put the cornstarch in because it was just about dinner time and I didn't want to wait all night for it thicken up. So, after I did that it still took a good 20 minutes at least to thicken up. You can always put the sauce in a pan over the stove and add the cornstarch and chicken to thicken it up that way and I believe it's faster to do it that way. I researched this a little bit ago. Would have been helpful earlier.


I really do love to make new recipes. The nice thing about making new recipes is figuring out what my girls will and will not eat. 

This is the picture of the honey sauced chicken from the actual site I found it from.

Young Women lesson 3 handout- WWJD necklaces

I was preparing my lesson the other day and was trying to figure out a handout I could use for this weeks lesson. In the lesson they talked a little bit about "What would Jesus do." It was then that I thought it would be cute to make them some "WWJD," necklaces using that cute washer style necklace that you see around these days. My sister-in-law and I have made these before and she has all of the awesome tools to make these, so we ended up making them today. I decided it would be cute to emboss the letters "WWJD," on their necklaces as a reminder to always ask themselves what Jesus would do during certain trials they may be facing.

I really hope the girls like it.

Young Women's activity

We had a fun little activity tonight with my beehives. We decorated cupcakes and made a craft.....Valentine style! I am sure some of you are not a bit surprised we did a Valentine themed activity. The girls had a good time decorating cupcakes and making the awesome Fry container craft! We decided to take a decorated cupcake and Cute fry container that you fill with candy over to one of our new beehives that is coming in next week. We also put the cute cupcakes they decorated in a cup and wrapped it in a cute Valentine bag and tied it up. They turned out really cute.  Here are some fun pictures of our night!


Oh I have to give a special thanks to this website, www.anythingbutperfect.com for the awesome Valentine printables I used! There was another site that I got these printables from and I just cannot find that site for the life of me.

Spotlight of the week!!

Wow, I kind of took a break doing spotlights of the week because of how busy the holidays were. I am starting to get back into it. So to the remaining family members, I have not forgotten about you!

The spotlight this week goes to GLENN!!! Glenn is my brother-in-law and is married to Brandon's sister, Chrissy! Glenn served a mission in Florida, where he actually first met Chrissy. Don't worry though they didn't have any feelings towards each other until they both got home...or so they say. Haha, just kidding guys! I had to give you a hard time. I know that you guys really were just friends/ companinons on your mission and know without a doubt that you guys served with all of your heart!

Anyways, back to Glenn. I know I say this about all of my brothers-in-law, but he too is an amazingly smart person. For the past few years he has been going to BYU and is going into law and has aced every single class he has taken. See what I mean about the whole smart thing?!

Anyways, Glenn is a pretty easy going guy, great at telling stories, and likes to have fun. But there is one thing specifically about Glenn that makes him stand out the most. He truly is the most AMAZING teacher.....seriously. Amazing really isn't a strong enough word. He has a way of teaching that will capture your attention and not only that, but you feel the spirit so strong every single time he teaches. No lie. He can joke around in his lesson and have a good time but then all of a sudden he makes it into a spiritual moment...and it's so powerful. He really has a knack for teaching that's for dang sure!  I really wish I could teach like that. I did try once but totally failed at it! :)

We are glad you are a part of our family Glenn! We hope you enjoyed your treat!

Love,
Audrey and Lisa

YW Lesson 2- Jesus Christ, The Savior handout!!

I was looking on Sugardoodle for some ideas for my lesson handout and one of the ideas they suggested was to get some red nail polish and put a dot on the girls phones or watches or something they keep with them all the time to let that be a reminder to them of the sacrifices Christ made for them and that he bled at every pore for them so that we could repent and have eternal life, and especially to remind them how much he loves them.

Well, I was thinking about it, and I was not very fond of the idea of putting a dot of nail polish on their phones or watches or anything; especially now days when kids these days have nice phones. So I decided to just buy the girls some nail polish instead. But when I was at the store late last night figuring this out, I was trying to figure out what else I could get besides nail polish that would help remind them of the Savior whenever they used it. So.....I decided to do red chapstick as well. I loved the chapstick idea because chapstick is used all the time, and everytime they use that chapstick they will be reminded of the Savior and the pains he went through for each one of them and how much he  truly loves them, and most importantly that they will use this chapstick as a guide to  "protect," them from temptations and to always remember Christ. I hope they will always remember this lesson and this lesson handout and hope that they will always remember Christ what He went through for them.

Huh....I just noticed something just now. I was reading the packaging on the chapstick and I find it kind of ironic that it says "Sealed for your protection," and "Protects to help heal." Anybody else find it kind of ironic? It kind of relates to my lesson so well. Hmmm...too bad I didn't notice that earlier. I could have came up with a wicked awesome quote! Haha! :)

Tip: Fastest way to shred chicken

Okay, so I was making my shredded chicken taco pizza the other night and just before I was going to waste time on shredding my chicken, I remembered a tip I found on pinterest. They said in order to shred your chicken really fast, put your cooked chicken in your Kitchen Aid using the paddle attachment. It worked like a charm!! It took about maybe 30 seconds for my chicken to be shredded. AMAZING!!!

I hope you all will remember this tip when you have to shred chicken. It will save you so much time!!!


I love Pinterest!!!

Valentines Day!

 I LOVE LOVE Valentines Day! I really do. I am so excited to do some fun Valentine crafts and other fun Valentine things again this year!

My husband doesn't understand why I love it so much, but I was trying to explain to him that I love Valentines Day as much as he LOVES football season! It's true!!



That's all! :)

Almond Joy cupcakes

I made some Almond Joy cupcakes as well as some snicker and milky way cupcakes for Audrey's birthday party!We had a ton of leftover candy from Christmas and so we (My husband and I) had to use our brains to figure out what we could do with them and that's when we decided to make these cupcakes! I did get a new cupcake decorator for Christmas and I love it! I love how fancy it makes my cupcakes look! :) I just used the best chocolate cake mix out there and then decorated them!They were really yummy!

Audrey's "Whobilation," Birthday party!

Here are some of the decorations I did for Audrey's "Whobilation," party!