Adventures in cooking with Gammie Ann

We had two special guest come visit us Friday and stay through Saturday, my husband's parents. They only live three hours away but we do not get to see them very much and every time they come down it is such a nice treat especially for my two little peeps.

Gammie Ann is a retired caterer (or at least she is retired until someone slightly twist her arm and she cooks something scrumptious for their special event) She is a wonderful cook and loves to experiment, especially on us. I think of her is a combo of buttery Paula Deen (without the potty mouth and diamond rings dripping off her fingers) and classic Ina Garten minus the Hampton's snobby laugh, you know exactly what I mean.

She is both of those ladies best qualities and she can talk cooking, baking, preserving and roasting ALL day long. It is like Food Network without all the advertisements. This trip she made fresh fruit rolls with mint, lime, honey dip. The dip was wonderful and the fruit rolls need a little more fine tuning but have great potential.

Sara had so much fun helping make the fruit rolls. I love seeing the two of them work together in the kitchen. There is something about two generations creating something together that is just magical.

I love how you can just tell my sweet peep is listening and learning from her grandmother.

Our own little Reading Rainbow

When you have young children in your home that are learning to read, your daily life revolves around books, spelling words, pronouncing words and bedtime stories. My oldest peep is in 1st grade and we have really been working hard to improve her reading, mainly the flow and quickness.

We are lucky that our city school system offers a wonderful computer reading program called Headsprout. http://www.headsprout.com/

Wonderful learning tool for young children. My peep was a little behind on her Headsprout at school, they have to complete 80 by the end of the year. We got a letter home in January letting us know how many she had done at school and we were able to set up the account through our home computer that links to what she was doing at school. In just 3 weeks she was not only caught up to her classmates she passed most of them and is now on #78 of the 80 she needs to complete before May.

We also spend time reading books at night or on the weekends. I love the Scholastic First Reader books and some other first reader books I have found. The problem is that for such a small book they are a little pricey, $4.99 to $5.99 a book at Target.

I really like to reward my peeps with books when they have done a good job. I recently started visiting the local thrift stores here and was delighted to find many, many first reader book and other wonderful children's book for .25 to $1.25. They were in very good shape, maybe a worn corner or two. They LOVE when mommy goes shopping at the thrift store because they know when they get home there will be little knowledge building treasures sitting on their beds.

Another benefit to finding great discounted children's book is if you read for your child's class. I am lucky enough to be a weekly reader this year at my daughter's school and I love shopping for books to read to the class. I think I might enjoy it more than the kids do~

My smallest Peep turned four yesterday~

I can hardly believe 4 years have gone by so fast. We had a family/friend party this past Saturday but yesterday after both peeps got home from school we had another small happy birthday celebration just the four of us. Josh was so excited to see another birthday cake and getting to blow out the brithday candles again was an extra bonus.

I told him he could eat his cake anyway he wanted and of course he picked this way:

Got to love such a silly little boy:

Time sure does fly when you become an adult and even more so when you become a parent.

~Happy Birthday my baby boy~

When did February get so busy?

"I'm here, I'm here", raising my hand to my blogger friends!

So when did February get so busy? My husband and I sat down the other day, ok a few weeks ago we sat down, and filled in almost every day with things we had to do in this month. The only day we didn't fill in was yesterday, February 14th. See it isn't that we don't love each other, it's that we don't feel the need to define our love on a commercially driven holiday.

Don't get me wrong I love, love Valentine's Day colors, all the shades of reds, pinks and blushes just get my heart thumping. But my sweet and I just don't see why spending extra money on high priced flowers and candies makes his love of me any stronger. Or me going out and buying him some pink girlie card with a mushy note written by someone else that thinks they know how to define my undying love for him and that cost ten dollars a pop.

Of course, our two little mini peeps that live in our house got their little heartshaped boxes of chocolates and pink Valentine Pez dispensers. And yes, my sweet got a few more kisses yesterday but those are free and the best gift of all. No pink girlie colors needed.

So belated Happy Valentine's and I hope you have a great President's Day~

My score at the January Target toy clearance

A few weeks back Target had their bi-annual toy clearance. They always have one in January and then another one the end of July beginning of August. Ahhh the lovely toy clearance, I have no idea how long this lovely tradition has been going on. I only discovered it after I joined http://www.afullcup.com/ and the ladies on there started talking about.

Times are tough, being able to score some otherwise out-of-reach pricey toys for my children almost brings me to tears. Really it does, my hubby and I are very conservative when it comes to buying for birthdays and Christmas. Don't get me wrong, our kids get some great toys BUT not near as many as their cousin, who in my humble opinion are ridiculously spoiled during said holidays.

Anyway BACK ON TRACK Deanna. Boy did I get some great items this year, just thinking about what I got makes my tummy tingle with delight~

My Christmas list is DONE, no really it is. Can you even fathom being done for all the kiddos in your family? Nieces, nephews and your own kid's Christmas DONE!

To the glorious pictures we go with regular price and sale price listed below each picture:

Playskool Dino Roars Monty Rex: Retail Price:$59.00 / Clearance Price: $14.75

(To sweeten the deal I had a $10.00 playskool coupon to use, so final price $4.75!!!)

Handy Manny Repair Shop: Retail Price: $89.99 / Clearance Price: $22.48

Etch A Sketch: Retail Price: $14.99 / Clearance Price: $3.74

Lionel 32 - piece Train Set: Retail Price: $39.99 / Clearance Price: $9.98

(2) Playskool Clipo Hippo: Retail Price $19.99 / Clearance Price: $4.98

Thomas Talking Train: Retail Price: 49.99 / Clearance $12.47

Black and Decker Toy Tool Set: Retail Price: $10.00 / Clearance Price $5.00 (Only 50% off but a great gift.)

Dale Earhardt Jr NASCAR Remote control set: Retail Price: $59.99/ Clearance price: $14.98

Tony Kanaan Remote Control Race Car: Retail Price: $34.99 / Clearance price $8.74

Didj Game Case: Retail Price: $17.99/ Clearance Price: $4.48

Little Pet Shop Set: Retail Price: $19.99 / Clearance Price: $4.98

Our Generation Shoe set and stand: Retail Price: $19.99/ Clearance Price: $4.98

Fur Real Elephant: Retail Price $39.99 / Clearance Price: $9.98

(2) FurReal Pandas: Retail Price: $38.00 / Clearance Price: $9.50

(2) Alive Beagle Toys: Retail Price: $34.99 / Clearance: $8.74

Our Generation Kitchen Set: Retail Price: 59.99 / Clearance Price: $14.98

I-Dog: Retail Price $29.99 / Clearance Price $7.37

Dora Click Start Game: Retail Price $14.99 / Clearance Price $3.74

V-Smile game: Retail Price: $19.99 / Clearance Price: $4.98

These cute Build A Bear Workshop "Make and Play" Sets were an added bonus I found at Michaels' Craft Store the week after the Target toy clearance. They are regularly $12.99 and they marked them down to $4.99. These will make great birthday closest gifts!

GRAND RETAIL TOTAL was: $806.79

My OUT OF POCKET: $209.04

That is a savings of $597.75

Have I said enough times how much I love photography!

Here are a few images I took yesterday after I baked some yummy Coffee Sugar Cookies.

I will post details for the recipe later.

I am calling this series "I Y You 2010".

I Y You

Hearts of Steel

Sepia Tone


Big Heart * Little Heart

Point Of Balance

All images are Copyrights by Hailey Lane Photography

Two Hearts Are Better Than One

Hearts of SteelBlack & White

Coffee cookies!

One of my fellow blogger friends, Coupon Goddess posted that she had made some yummy coffee cookies the other day and I was itching to bake something different last week and these cookies looks so yummy and easy. I also had never tried icing anything in royal icing and her cookies looked so beautiful I decided to give that a try too.

Find the recipe here: http://iammommy.typepad.com/i_am_baker/2010/01/coffee-sugar-cookies.html

These are so yummy and a real crowd pleaser. They are good just plain, with a good cup of favored coffee they would be great! But they aren't very sweet on their own, they need a little extra sweetness.

Royal icing did the trick. I made mine a little too thick and it set up very fast. I was afraid it would be too runny, next time I know. And the chocolate drizzle, you will laugh, it is a Toaster Strudel icing pack. My son doesn't like icing smeared on his Toaster Strudel so I just pop the unused packs in the freezer and save them.

These turned out wonderful and I am making them again on Valentines Day this year. The pink sugar crystals sprinkled in the royal icing was very pretty too and gave a nice finish to the cookies that had some imperfections in the icing.

There is link to Coupon Goddess blog to the right of the post. She is a fellow couponer and super sweet person.

Check out her blog sometime.

GREAT coupon combo today at Kroger

I ran to Kroger this morning to get some lunch making items since my husband, daughter and son are all in school. I always walk through the organic aisle just to see what is on sale or marked down. They had a stand with Kellogg's Fruit Crisp (100 calories)

They are $1.99 for 10 bars (2 per pouch) On the stand there is a tear pad for $1.00 off two BUT wait there is also a coupon pamphlet that has more coupons too!


The pamphlet coupons are for $$$ off produce or Milk or bottled water;
IF you buy specific Kellogg's products.
See picture: I was able to get Apples (.99 a lb.) and Bananas (marked down) and two boxes of Kellogg's Fruit Crisp for $3.98

I was washing the apples this morning and thought the water running on them was very pretty and just wanted to share!

A very special Birthday Cake

Barbie Birthday Cake

My daughter requested a Barbie Birthday Cake for her birthday last November and I just posting a 'how to' on http://www.tastykitchen.com/ and decided I would also post it here so I could show a few more pictures.

Click on the Directions and ingredients to view large:

Four panels of dress for the letters of her name

These last two pictures really shows off the layers in the cake~




Boy, I sure do love these two kiddos!

There's a new cupcake in town...watch out everyone!

We welcomed a new bakery to Memphis this afternoon.

Gigi's Cupcakes

Here is the link to her website: http://www.gigiscupcakesusa.com/

The kids and I stopped by today for their "soft opening" mainly to score free cupcakes, who can turn down free cupcakes. After school we drove over to their new, sweet little store on Poplar Avenue close to Perkins. The cupcakes are $3 a piece, a little pricey but when you see the size of these decadent concoctions the cost just melts away.

My children were only able to eat 1/4 of their cupcake and the rest got saved in a Tupperware container for tomorrow. I ate half of mine and that was plenty of a sugar high for me. These could easy be shared between two people and would make a great after dinner dessert spot for a date-night.