Mini Nilla Wafer Cheesecake Bites

These bite size cheesecake morsels are delicious and easy to make and great for parties, school, work, tea parties, or whenever.

What you need

• makes 72 mini cheesecake bites

• 1 box of Mini Nilla wafers cookies
• 3 (8 ounce) packages of cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup of white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Optional pie topping

What you do 

• Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F. Line 24 mini muffin cups with liners then place one mini Nilla wafer in each cup.
• In a mixing bowl beat the sugar and softened cream cheese together til smooth
• beat in the eggs one at a time then stir in the vanilla extract.
• spoon mixture into gallon ziplock bag and cut small corner to quickly fill  mini muffin cups, filling each cup 2/3 full
• Bake for 15 minutes
• cover and refrigerate until ready to serve 
• you can also top with a cherry, strawberry, blueberry, or whatever else your heart desires

Easiest waffle sandwich

   Looking for a simple recipe that makes little to no mess in the morning? I know I am not much of a morning person and hate using a ton of dishes to make breakfast, that I'm going to have to clean up after, which is why this works in so many ways for me. All you have to do is take a package of grands biscuits and flatten each one out a little then cook in a waffle maker. Brilliant right?! My daughter loves it just as a waffle with syrup but My husband and I make them into waffle sandwiches. For this one I made scrambled eggs with cheese and topped with cooked pepperonis.

Let me show you my #DisneySide

  Recently I was chosen, thanks to Disney Parks and MomSelect, to host a Disney Side @Home Celebration where I was told I would receive a free party kit but it was a total surprise of what it would contain. So you can imagine our excitement when the ups pulled up with this giant box 

The girls and I opened it up and found a super awesome 20" American Tourister spinner luggage which happens to be THE official luggage of Walt Disney World Resort. 

Inside the suitcase it was filled to the brim with Disney magic so that we can start planning for our personal #disneyside at home celebration. I'm thinking our theme will be a Disney valentines party 

I can't wait to host our party thanks to Disney Parks, MomSelect, HP, and American Tourister. I am also excited to see the all the other Disney side parties being thrown this next month.

Must see movies from the 80's and 90's to watch with your kids.

     I don't know about you guys but I remember some awe inspiring movies about the hardships and the magic and wonder of growing up. I was thinking about this last Christmas eve when I was trying to think of what movie I wanted to watch with my girls before getting ready for bed and that's when I thought of Home Alone. I mean I hadn't seen that movie in forever and neither of them had ever seen it. So we watched it and my kids actually loved it as much as I did when I was a kid. Now we have movie night at least once or twice a week exploring the great classics of the 1980s. Ha WOW, that some how makes me feel really old. The following list is just the movies I remember and loved. If I missed any awesome movies that I may need to watch let me know so I can add it to my must sees. Most of these I have found streaming online on a website called putlocker when I do a google search of the title and online stream just don't click on Watch in HD or Download, scroll down a little and you will see the streaming window to click play.

• Batteries not included
• Flight of the Navigator
• Radio Flyer
• The Never Ending Story
• Return to Oz
• The Goonies
• Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
• The Land Before Time
• Home Alone
• E.T The Extra Terrestrial
• Hook
• The Last Star Finder
• Ghost Busters

Now break out the popcorn and enjoy!

Look Twice Save a Life

 It was November 1st and I was at work putting highlights in a woman's hair when my boss handed me the phone saying my husband was on the phone. I grab the phone and it was that call that everyone hopes they never get. He told me my dad was in the hospital and all they know is that he was in a motorcycle accident and he is being taken to the shock trauma ICU. Instantly I started crying with this woman's hair in my hands not knowing what to do. Luckily my boss took over for me and told me to go home. I sat in my car crying I had just talked to him the night before on my daughter's 5th birthday. I wished I had talked to him longer, my mom had come to Idaho to help watch my kids and had been here almost 2 months visiting, she was scheduled to head back a few days later. By the time I got home my husband with the help of my in-laws had gotten us all plane tickets to Houston for the very next morning. Still no news til my brother called when he got to the hospital. Things weren't looking good. He had been on his motorcycle a few blocks from home and he decided not to wear his helmet that afternoon. We later found out from the police report that he was traveling in the left lane and a young woman 18 was in the right lane when she decided to change lanes and got over without looking and hit the bike causing him to lose control. Of course this girl has minimum insurance coverage and is only cited a ticket for failure to lane change safely. I am a daddy's girl always have been and always will be. Seeing him not be able to wake up for a week with all the feeding and breathing tubes were the hardest thing I have ever gone through. He was in the ICU for two tough weeks his head was swollen and huge his eyes were swollen bigger than golf balls his right arm had been sliced open on both sides to relieve pressure to save it. But my dad has always been the strongest man I know and he is a very stubborn fighter. He started opening his eyes when the swelling subsided and he started recognizing us after a while. But even tougher than seeing him those first few days out of it was seeing him so confused about what was going on, where he was. He took out his own breathing tube and feeding tube before the nurse were ready but turned out he was strong enough and they didn't have to re insert them. He had to be restrained because when you have been laying for so long you can't just get up and that is all he wanted to do. He would get so out of it and ask us to give him a knife so he could cut the restraints off and break out of the hospital. It was scary at first because the docs told us there was bleeding on the brain and prepared us for the worst but with therapy he was able to recover quicker than every on thought possible. Just this last Monday he was able to return to work which is good for my parents because he only had long term disability that would have kicked in next month but by then with only money going out and not in that would have been very bad. When we were in the hospital I was able to find a website that accepted donations that sent the donations as a check to my mom at the end. I am so glad I did and so amazed and humbled by how many good friends and family helped out so that their bills could still get paid for a little bit. We were lucky. As mush as I wish it had never happened because I know my dad is so much more worn out after all this but he is lucky to be here and we are lucky to have him here. I am telling my story to remind people to please pay attention when you are on the roads always double check for motorcycles. This could have been prevented.

Simple ways to keep your home organized

   Now I know this organizational tip seems so silly and simple and I don't know why I didn't think about it sooner but I personally hated my fridge and trying to locate things within it was annoying because everything else would get pushed around while someone was looking for something. Not to mention we have been buying a lot more fresh vegetables lately and they no longer would fit in the little veggie drawer so I got some baskets from the dollar store to organize things like veggies, sandwich condiments, deli meats and cheeses and stuff.  I still need to make labels but this has given me a much cleaner and organized fridge. I am thinking about doing this with my freezer next.

Now another helping tool that I rely on for my home is low and behold my ROOMBA 

 If you ask me everybody should own their own robotic vacuum cleaner. Not only does it clean in spots that I just wouldn't get to on most vacuuming occasions but it is also kinda fun to run around picking up all the random toys on the floor before the ROOMBA gets to it but more importantly I love telling my husband to get off my back because I am simultaneously washing the dishes doing laundry and vacuuming! but really I have my feet up and I'm watching my shows ;) while the machines are doing all the hard work.  

Sometimes a little paint can bring things together. I decided to paint an old cabinet I got real cheap years ago and the lid to the popcorn container to match my popcorn machine and the bread box I  repainted. 

To be continued......

Tell me what you do to make life at home easier, I would love some more tips. 

Mad Scientist Birthday Party

When my daughter was about to turn eight this year she really wanted to have a birthday party and invite her friends and since she has really been in to everything science lately, I thought what better way to encourage her than a fun mad scientist birthday party.

^ The self inflating balloon experiment. I made labels for empty bottles and pre filled them with vinegar and added baking soda into balloons and carefully put them on the bottle top as to not spill the baking soda in the. When the kids got there they could lift the balloon spilling the soda into the vinegar causing a cool reaction. 

^ The slime making experiment was a huge party hit and made a great party gift

A bought the specimen jars off of amazon.com for just a few bucks. 

Then we measured out the ingredients for each kid before the party and let them mix them together and add their choice of food color. Here is an easy slime recipe http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryactivities/ss/slimerecipe_2.htm

^her cake was awesome we got it at winco with a space scene they had in their book. Another option is that you can take any photo  and have it printed on icing. 

^ we made Gatorade with dry ice and poured the drinks into cups with the spout to be safe bit the effect was very exciting to the kids. I also made personalized water bottle labels. One for water and one for the vinegar project. 

I also found a set of neon colored test tubes on amazon that I filled with nerds and Petri dishes that I filled with jello and topped with gummy worms to look like a bacteria culture. 

     This is one of the funnest birthday parties I have thrown, and with the great finds from amazon and making everything else it really ended up not costing very much in the end. I hope to inspire and if anyone needs the bottle labels template just let me know. I'm happy to share. 

Easy soft taco casserole

If your looking for a super easy and quick recipe using ingredients you probably already have then this is it.

Ingredients :
1 pound ground turkey or beef
1 pack of taco seasoning
1 small onion diced and sautéed
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 can refrained beans
6 flour tortillas
Sour cream

•Sauté onions in skillet then brown the ground meat.
•Add taco seasoning mix and follow directions on packet.
•Mix in whole can of refried beans in skillet and cook for about 5 minutes til soft and mixed well
•spoon thin layer of sour cream on to bottom of casserole dish and spread evenly.
•make a layer of tortillas (I place two next to each other and tear one up to cover the gaps)
•spread a layer of meat mixture and add a little bit of sour cream.
•repeat tortilla layer and end with meat and sour cream layer.
•top with shredded cheese and cook at 350* for 15 minutes.
•let cool then top with desired taco toppings (lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream)
•enjoy

Taking the beauty school plunge

     Since I have settled in from moving to a strange new place I decided it was time for me to help earn some money so I set forth to find a job. I started looking at piercing studios and found out that they aren't regulated here like they were in Texas and most of them were happy to just have an artist do piercings on the side and cheaply at that, which is not how I do things. So then I started looking for something more retail and apparently my having owned my own company for the last several years means nothing on an online application. I got frustrated and started looking at whether or not we could afford for me to go to school and found out I would be able to get enough loans and grants. I was torn between phlebotomy and cosmetology and ultimately decided I could easily open a salon one day and go back to working for myself but I would never open my own blood bank.
     I then found myself torn between a "local" cosmetology school very close to me or going to Paul Mitchell 30 miles away. In the end they weren't that far off in price so I decided perhaps the name of a Paul Mitchell school would be better for me. So here I am all signed up and nervous to start school in 19 days. It's going to be weird being away from my baby during the day and tough since it has been nearly ten years since I have even needed to be somewhere on time that early in the morning. But in the end I think it will be worth it and I will enjoy what I do and hopefully make ok money at it.
    

I went to the winter Marlboro ranch

What an amazing adventure! I don't know if words could even describe the awesomeness that ensued in Montana at the crazy mountain ranch. I've been back home almost a week getting back to reality and I miss the ranch and the food and staff so much. We got up very early to catch our flight to the ranch on the 18th and had a 2 hour layover in Utah where our ranch hats came in handy because we met a couple of people headed to the next flight with us. Then when we got off the second plane in Montana we were greeted with some friendly faces and cowboys hats and taken to a nice room at the airport to sign in and given  yummy sandwiches. Once all the other winners showed up we were all put on buses for the final trip to the ranch. The staff were super friendly and very funny once we passed through the ranch gates all cell phone service was lost. It was like traveling back in time to the good ole days of country life. We were then given keys and shown our rooms. We stayed in a huge beautiful room in the shawmut 2 building (originally built as a hotel for the miners in  Shawmut, Montana and relocated to the ranch in '96ish if I remember correctly.)  where our bed was covered in gifts. I won't go into too much detail on the gifts so all of the surprise isn't lost, but I will say that if you are headed to the ranch don't waste your baggage space with a winter jacket because the ones they give you will keep you very warm so just take sweaters and jeans.
       The next day we decided to take the tour to Yellowstone which took all day but it was well worth it. Our guides were awesome and we learned a lot of near stuff. I would love to take my kids one day but this was nice with a bus full of happy adults and no screaming and fighting and "I'm hungry" coming from the backseat. We got to get out and take lots of photos and we got to take a neat bit of a hike. The next morning we went ziplining which I never thought I would do but since this whole trip was a chance of a lifetime I decided I would just go for it and see how far I could get. Turns out there are 9 zip lines that start "small" then get up to the second longest one in the US. I did 7 then started getting really nervous because of the height part of it. I was pretty proud of myself so I stopped there and met my husband at the last one. Then after lunch we jumped into snowmobiling which was really fun but man was I sore afterwards, so glad that was last and not before having to glide across a valley on a rope with sore arms. So many amazing adventures and never have I been so well fed in my life. If I ever get invited back in the winter I will finish the zip lines for sure and definitely try dog sledding but I would love to go back in the summer and go horse back riding I bet it is so beautiful then. If you won this trip and your worried about if anything costs money DON'T because everything really is payed for unless of course you want to buy something while at the airport or if you take the Yellowstone tour there is a gift shop there that they let you stop in at.
      As far as this marketing plan goes for Marlboro, it certainly works for creating brand loyalty every time I see a pack of Marlboro's I will ALWAYS remember my trip to the ranch and you better believe I will tell everyone near me about how truly amazing it was.