Heather Ann Melzer

What five looks like

I really truly can't believe that my little baby bird is a whole hand old today. I still have this image in my head when I think of her. My brain needs to catch up with reality, I think.

Birthdays are a big deal for kids, but for Katie, it's like the World Series, Olympics, and Christmas all rolled into one. Being the middle child means her opinions aren't always heard, especially with a very outgoing older sister and a demanding little brother who's become equally as vocal. Her birthday is a day where she gets to call the shots and have all eyes on her, and she lives for it. So much so, that she was up EVERY HOUR last night until it was officially time to wake up this morning and be 5. I am one tired mama :(

I found this adorable fabric a couple of months ago and made her a skirt and matching appliquéd top to wear today.

I am completely obsessed with hand blanket stitching. It's so fun to do while we watch Food Network before bed. Last night, that was after baking cupcakes and making some fun treats for her classmates. She chose the cupcake design out of Hello Cupcake and the chosen theme was the perfect excuse for me to try some Martha Stewart pumpkin treat bags (filled with yummy popcorn).

For the cupcakes, I:

1. Used orange food coloring to dye white frosting

2. Dipped the tops in orange sugar crystals

3. Used a wooden skewer to draw 5 lines that were a bit off center

4. Used orange icing (already in a tube with tip) to outline the skewered indent lines

5. Stuck the end of a pretzel rod in for a stem (the medium size rods)

For the bags, I:

1. Bought mini orange kraft bags from Michaels

2. Filled them 3/4 of the way with popcorn

3. Twisted the bag tops into a skinny stem

4. Wrapped floral tape around the stem, starting at the top, leaving 3-4 inches at the bottom for the curly tendril. Then I rolled the remaining few inches between my fingers until it was super skinny, and then curled it around my pinky finger.

A super easy, fun project - my favorite kind!

Now, to bake a cake for tonight and turn the kitchen into a My Little Pony/Rainbow dreamland - per the birthday queen's wishes. Oy!

Brownie bites

Have you ever seen the Dinner Impossible episode where the chef catered a Barbie party and had to make everything small enough to fit on a tiny little Barbie tray? Ever since seeing that show I've been enamored with bite-sized yummies.

I made some brownies last weekend for a party we went to and was so disappointed with how they looked once I cut/plated them. Brownies just seem to fall apart and look messy, especially when stacked with powdered sugar. Kenzie had her first playdate the other day and I wanted to bring something over with us, so I whipped up another batch of brownies and then had an idea to cut them out with a small biscuit cutter. I pushed the cutter in, twisted it, and then lifted it out of the pan. Then I carefully pushed the brownie out of the cutter onto a plate, frosted it and added some sprinkles. They were the perfect little sweet treat.

Then you can use the leftover brownie pieces in the pan to make trifles. Last night we had brownie ice cream sundaes and they were soooo good! I found these at the Crate and Barrel outlet near us and I love serving individual desserts in them.

I can't believe it's only 1:30 and I'm already fighting to keep my eyes open. I had a Kenzie wake up call at 4:30am and one from Katie at 5am, and of course was never able to go back to sleep, so I'm zombie girl again today. It wasn't the alarm clock this time, so I have no idea what's going on. I just know that I really want to crawl back into bed about now :(

Monkey business

                        

I finally started the task of catching up on my photo-a-days yesterday and came across these photos that I forgot to share. We had monkey-themed ice cream treats for a movie night in July and then Kenzie wanted to bring monkey cupcakes in for her last day of school a few weeks ago. I think the cupcakes turned out much cuter. Heck, anything is easier to assemble on top of icing versus melting ice cream!

I was originally inspired by this Flickr photo, but was reminded that school treats had to be peanut-free - so the M&M eyes and Nutter Butter ears had to go. I substituted with Skittle eyes and mini cinnamon cookies for ears, and I'm so happy with how they turned out. I hear the kids loved them, too.

I can't for the life of me remember the brand of the cookies and I'm not at home to check - will have to update that later. I believe they were sold in mini packs - one of the 100 calorie options, maybe. They were a little tricky to cut in half. I found the best way was to saw them with a serrated knife. I ended up with quite a few broken ones, but had enough in tact to give all of the monkeys a set :)

I have this glittery red gel in a tube that I used for the mouth - makes it look like they're wearing my favorite sugary lip gloss - lol! Seriously, a little of that in the middle of your bottom lip and vavoom!  HA!

Anyway! These cupcakes would make a great Curious George movie night treat, or King Kong (for older kids), or Jungle Book, or many others, I'm sure. We only watched one of the Spider-Man movies last weekend because my kids acted our horribly at lunch last weekend. Taking away Movie Night is one of the worst things we can do, and even though it's punishment for us as well, it had to be done. We're hoping to pick it back up tonight. Target just so happened to have their $1 aisle full of Spider-Man goodness this week, too - tattoos for everyone!

PS - Don't forget about Grandparent's Day on Sunday! We're going to take a pic of all the grandkids at the boys' football games tomorrow and frame it for my parents. It's so hard to get a shot of the 6 crazies together, but I'm going to do my darndest!

Cake Pops

When your daughter comes home from school crying that EVERYone else in class brings in donuts except her and it's unfair and the world is falling down, what do you do? You torture yourself making Bakerella's infamous Cake Pops. They are seriously adorable, and even though my cupcake bottoms did not turn out as they should have and the cookie cutter I used was way too big for the job, I'm hoping the kids' classmates still enjoy them.

I'll share some tips I picked up along the way.

First you start with the cake ball. Pioneer Woman's instructions are pretty easy to follow here.

I baked the cake in the morning and let it cool for the entire day. Then I crumbled the cake in a bowl and mixed in almost a full can of chocolate frosting. Then I formed them into balls and placed them in the freezer. Bakerella suggests putting them in the fridge for a few hours or the freezer for a little bit. I did not chill mine long enough, which made the next step a tad bit difficult. Ok, a LOT bit difficult :(

This step involved rolling the balls out into ovals and pushing them through cookie cutters to form the cupcake shape. Instructions here. I used the 1.5" cookie cutter, which made things a little more difficult. I'll have to try to find one of the 1.25" ones that Bakerella recommends.

This is where things went pretty horribly wrong. First mistake was using Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips. No matter how much I warmed/stirred them, they never got thin enough to coat the cupcake bottoms and show the cute little crimps that I worked so hard to get. The chocolate was just way too thick. I'll try bark or the chocolate discs next time. My cake balls also weren't chilled long enough, so it was hard to pull them out of the thick chocolate and we had a few casualties, which the kids were really broken up about - lol.

PS - That goop of chocolate on the wax paper was Tom's contribution. He tried to help me as I was losing my mind - how he puts up with me I will never know.

Moving on! After all were chocolate-dipped, I put them in the fridge to set. After a 1/2 hour or so, I started melting white chocolate discs from Michael's. I then added 1 drop of pastel pink icing color and stirred to make it pink (since Michael's was out of pink chocolate discs). 1 drop was plenty! Then I dipped the tops in the pink chocolate, added a red M&M on top, threw on some sprinkles, and stuck them in styrofoam. I let them chill in the fridge overnight and wrapped them in bags this morning.

Katie must have said 20 times that they were "SOOOOOO cute!"

Jack seemed to like them, too...

And as a bonus we had some chocolate leftover that they could dip bananas in for dessert...

So, not a perfect first try, but lots of lessons learned. They're way too cute not to try again....

Serious cuteness

piggies mini cheese burgers
Originally uploaded by LoveBones

I was all set to make a recipe page this morning for some mini cheeseburgers we made a few weeks ago. But, the first 2 batches ended up being hard as a rock because I forgot to wrap them in foil before cooking (grrr), so I was too frustrated to take a pic of the third batch, which turned out pretty yummy. Tom was thoughtful enough to take a pic for me, but it didn't come out so well, so my recipe page will have to wait for round 2 - waah.

While I was searching for the recipe link, however, I came across the cutest mini cheeseburgers I've ever seen. And then I stumbled upon the creators Flickr gallery and scrolled the page with my chin on my desk. Prepare to be inspired!

What is a "bento" anyway? All I know is that you'd be guaranteed to be the coolest mom (or dad) in town if you made school lunches that looked like this or this. Makes me want to invest in some new cookie cutters!

Tomato talk

Tom's been wanting to start a garden for as long as I can remember. But, for some reason our spring/early summers are so jam-packed that we never get around to doing it and by midsummer we're pining after every garden we see, wishing we'd made the time to plant one. This year, however, we did manage to pick up 2 small tomato plants and pot them on the deck with the rest of the flowers. The first one was for full-size tomatoes and was recently destroyed in a very raucous game of bags being played on the deck. That leaves this cherry tomato plant that appeared to be doing well, but now looks like it's in need of a serious watering.

So, we have lots of questions and I'm hoping my green-thumbed readers might be able to help us keep this thing alive.  Questions like how do you know when to pick them?  And how much water do they need?  I have this one in full sun and it seems to like it.  Also, the stem is leaning up against the house, so I think it's time to invest in a trellis of some kind (is that what they're called?).  Any advice you can give would be most appreciated. 

The kids have been so excited watching them grow, and as long as we can keep Jack from picking them before they're ready, we might actually have some to eat!

Baseball Krispie Pops

A few weeks ago I made baseball Rice Krispie lollipops for Kenzie's t-ball team.  It went much smoother than I expected, so I thought I'd shared my method.  The key ingredient was this life-saving mold I found at Michaels. 

I prepared the Rice Krispies per the box recipe (or see here).  After the mix was ready, I sprayed one of the molds VERY generously with cooking spray and then spooned the krispie mix in until it was full.  Then I sprayed a piece of wax paper (it will stick if you don't) and pressed the krispie mix into the mold. 

I shaped the edges, too, to make the pops nice and round.  Then I stuck a long lollipop stick (also at Michaels) through the bottom (trying hard to stay in the middle of the krispie mix) almost to the top of the lollipop.  Then I laid a piece of wax paper on the counter, sprayed the back of the lollipop, and placed it on the wax paper to set.  Once they were all done, I let them cool completely and then used red cookie icing for the baseball stitches.  *TIP: Place a cup along the side of the cookie and use it as a guide to draw your stitching lines.

Once the icing set, I placed them in clear bags and tied them with grosgrain ribbon.  They were a bit hit with the kids :)

You can really get creative with these.  Some more ideas I found:

Soccer balls

Chocolate dipped - YUM!

Halloweenie

Just sprinkles

Baby shower

Pink hearts - push the krispie mix into shaped cookie cutters

Sushi - use fruit roll ups to wrap (TOO cute!)

For the 4th

La Petite Taffy Apples

Tom and I saw Iron Chef: Battle Apple a few weeks ago and have been dying to try this treat ever since.  We used a melon baller to carve round apple pieces from a peeled apple and then stuck a cut skewer in the top.  Then we dipped them in melted caramel and chocolate and sprinkled some with peanuts.  The caramel was unheated in these pics, so it didn't turn out as well as the second batch did. 

For the chocolate, I melted a half a bag of Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips in a bowl for 30 seconds, stirred, then melted for another 30 seconds and stirred again.  Make sure you dip the apples with freshly melted chocolate or it will get lumpy and hard.  Tom even dipped in some in caramel and chocolate - yum!

The idea was perfect for the Happily N'ever After 2 movie night we had planned for the kids, but our DVD was scratched, so we had to make them again Sunday night after I got a new copy of the movie.

The kids really liked the ones without nuts - and preferred the chocolate ones.  The ones with nuts are so pretty, though, aren't they?  I think I might have to make these on Halloween, too.

 

The Happily N'ever After movie's are interesting, to say the least.  They're updated fairytales that are a little *too* updated for my taste.  Still, it kept the kids entertained - and that's what it's all about, isn't it?

Egg-xtraordinary ideas

Martha has a collection of her best egg decorating ideas on her website here.  We're going to color ours tomorrow, so this has been fun to look through today.  The chocolate eggs  look SO neat.  Don't know if I have the patience/time for those, though.  These are always fun, though, and we scrapbookers always have a hearty helping of letter stickers on hand.  This is along the same lines as the polka dot pumpkins - decoupaging tissue paper.  And more variations on the sticker design here and a botanical idea here (love that).

I just came back from TCP and picked up the girls Easter shoes on sale.  I also bought them those adorable dresses that I was waiting to go on sale.  We won't be going to the beach afterall, but hopefully we'll find somewhere for them to wear them - Mother's Day maybe?  Everything is 30% off sale, so hurry hurry!  Then I went to Kohls to look for gym shoes and ended up finding an outfit for myself for Easter.  I love their new Elle line - it's exactly my style - feminine but with clean lines.  And I got $20 in Kohls cash - can't beat that!

Speaking of style, have you seen this blog?  I found it yesterday and spent a very long time looking through all of her outfits - how fun is she?  It's making me think very differently about how I dress - I need to have more fun with my clothes (I say as I sit in the same jeans and sweatshirt that I've worn *at least* 400x this winter).

Aside from Easter festivities, I have no idea what I'm going to do with myself this weekend now that I've finished the Twilight series.  I did buy this book to read next, but I don't expect it to suck me in like Edward and Bella did.  I'm still just as excited to see the movies, now that I have mental pictures in my head of everything.  I'm DYING to see the 4th movie, but the kids will probably be in college before that one's done, so I better put it out of my head.

The work day's almost over, so I better finish up what I can.  Have a wonderful Easter everyone!

Meant for each other

As if chocolate chip cookies and brownies weren't good enough on their own, right? 

We were at the grocery store on Saturday and Tom was picking up all kinds of stuff to make dinner for my father/brother-in-law and us that night and I decided I wanted to make something new for dessert.  So, I started searching the backs of dessert mixes for good recipes.  I packet of chocolate chip cookie mix and found this:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownies

INGREDIENTS
1 box Betty Crocker Original Supreme Brownie Mix
1 pouch Betty Crocker chocolate chip cookie mix
Vegetable oil
Eggs
Water

DIRECTIONS
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 13x9 pan. 
2. Make brownie batter as directed. Spread in pan.
3. Make cookie dough as directed on pouch. Drop dough by rounded tablespoons evenly onto brownie batter; press down lightly.
4. Bake 35-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted 2 inches from side of pan comes out almost clean. 
5. Cool completely, about 1 hour. Frost if desired.

Super easy to make, it just made a ton of dishes.  I started out evenly spacing the cookie dough balls, but there are so many that they end up covering almost the entire top of the brownies.  The recipe is actually called cookie "dough" brownies, but the dough cooks completely, so I don't think that's an accurate description.  They're brownies and chocolate chip cookies baked together.  A match made in heaven - ahhh.  We've been snacking on them since Saturday and their still super moist.  I have to make another batch for my family tonight - Dylan's gonna flip, I think.

Oh - and I wore my beautiful apron while baking them on Saturday.  My friend, Brandi, sent it to me for xmas - isn't it adorable?!

And, yes, I cut my hair super short.  I actually got it cut and then went back the next day to have it cut even shorter (and then I think she cut too much behind my ears).  I love it short, although I already feel like the top is way too long.  I had it shorter than this in art school and remember having to get a trim every 2 weeks.  Not exactly the best haircut for a college kid living on next to nothing.  It's a breeze to dry and I never have to mess with it, which I love.

Time to jump on my third conference call of the day (goodness).  Hoping to have some new jewelry pieces to share tomorrow :)  Until then!