Kid Creation: Jack-O-Pizzas

Evie was feeling a little picked-on and left out today (that happens sometimes with 3 girls), so I let her pick what we would have for lunch. She wanted individual pizzas that they could "decorate" any way they wanted. Perfect! I'd seen these on a few blogs and thought they would be fun. First we mixed up the dough, divided it into 6 balls and shaped 6 lovely little pumpkins. While they were pre-baking, we made the sauce. Evelyn helped me press some garlic, and mix some minced onions and Italian seasoning into the tomato sauce (Thanks for the tip Melissa!). Then she spread it on the pre-baked dough.Then came the fun part - "decorating" them! We used pepperoni, sliced olives, pineapple tidbits, and red pepper slices to create our fun faces. Can you guess who created which face? (Hint: I didn't get a picture of Lydia's before we baked it.)


After they finished baking, we had to get one last shot of our creations before they landed in our bellies. I love my pizza-man, and he was oh-so-yummy!

Mom’s Pizza Dough

½ cup warm tap water

2 pkg. yeast (2 ¼ tsp = 1 pkg)

1 tsp sugar

Combine in bowl and set aside.

1 cup scalded milk (90 seconds in my microwave does the trick)

1 tsp. salt

3 Tbl. sugar

½ cube margarine

3 ½ cups flour (I sometimes use 1 cup wheat and the rest white)

Combine milk, salt, sugar and margarine. Add 2 cups flour and mix. Add yeast mix and remaining flour. Mix until dough ball forms. (I usually add some extra flour since it is pretty sticky.)

Spread pizza dough out onto 1 large cookie sheet for a thick crust, or 2 pans for a thin crust. Bake 8 minutes at 425°. Add sauce and toppings. Bake 10 more minutes, or until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Melissa's Pizza Sauce as I remember it :)

1 can tomato sauce (8 oz.)
minced garlic (1-2 cloves)
minced onion (to taste)
1 tsp. Italian seasoning

Kid Creation: Weird girls

My kids are weird. School is out today and I had an eye doctor appointment. So, the kids were home alone for an hour and a half-ish. When I got home, I walked in from the garage and was a bit spooked to see this. I thought it was Lissy at first, at least on the bottom half. That is the bottom half of her Halloween costume after all. But where is the rest of her? I realize I have been tricked. There is no living person in this human form before me. I recall how delighted Lissy was to discover her heavy felt poodle skirt would stand on its own. The perfect base for a disfigured effigy of a preppy little person with a large, green head, and no torso. Weird, I tell you. Just weird.Weird, but amusing, so I go get the camera. Then I hear giggling. Then hushed squabbling. It's coming from the coat closet behind me. The camera flashes and I say, "Do you think I can't hear you?" The closet doors open and out crawl 3 weird little girls. Giggling and wondering how I could have possibly deduced their hiding place. I don't know, I guess I'm just weird that way.

Daddy Creation: Pinewood Derby Car

(the Boo is a Halloween decoration and is not intended to be our opinion of Dad's car)The Pinewood Derby. Something we won't really have to worry about - what with having 3 girls and all. However, this month, Shawn had the opportunity to brush off his pocket-knife and whittle himself a Pinewood Derby car. After the initial whittling of the car, he sat down, showed us what he had done, and the suggestions just started coming.

"You should make it pink!"
"You should make it purple and pink!"
"You should put flowers on it!"
"Don't forget some bling"
So, being the awesome dad that he is, he made a car that is a tribute to his daughters. And his wife too, I guess, since we raided the scrapbooking and craft supplies. It is pink, with a lime green stripe down the top. It is called "chicaclan" - our family's "team" name. The number 5 stands for the number of people in our family. It has "bling" for headlights and some other embellishments for "tail lights." The hot glue gun was employed for attaching the bling and flowers.After making his car we all had the opportunity to go cheer him on at our ward's Elder's Quorum Pinewood Derby and Potluck. Let's just say that Shawn's car did not win any races, but he once again won our hearts by being such a sweet, fun, entertaining guy. Oh, and he did win the "Sweetest Ride" award. Wahoo!

Kitchen Creation: Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Muffins

Once October rolls around, I start craving pumpkin - well before we actually carve a pumpkin. This year we started out with these amazingly easy muffins.

I've seen the recipe on several blogs and it is really fool proof.

Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Muffins

1 box spice cake mix
1 15 oz. can pumpkin (or half of one of those big cans)
Mix together, spoon into muffin cups - greased or paper-lined, and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

I did add a little milk to mine because they seemed a little too thick to spoon out. I also discovered a cookie scoop works wonders for filling the muffin liners neatly and quickly.

Oh, and aren't these little owl papers adorable? I love them! I got mine at Wal-Mart.

Kid Creation: Habitat Diorama

This is the diorama that Evie made for her habitat assignment. She chose the desert habitat and was very excited to get a jar of sand from the dollar store for the ground. We just painted some glue down, sprinkled the sand on top and shook out the extra. For little "drifts" of sand, we added some more piles of glue and sprinkled more sand on. For the background, we just printed some landscape images from a Google search, cut them to fit, and glued them in the back. Evelyn found rocks on the playground at school and in our backyard. Halloween supplies gave us some creepy, crawlie spiders and snakes. Bat and skull rings (with the ring part cut off) also added to the scene. Evie was adamant that at least one bat be hanging from a string. The other one we actually left the ring on and glued it to the back wall so it would "pop" out a little. Another Google image search gave us some great cacti to cut out and add to the scene. We also used Littlest Pet Shop toys to play the roles of coyote, lizard and bobcat.

Everything in Its Place

I have decided to start a separate blog for my crafting, recipes, and general creating - Crazy House Creations. I am well aware that it will not be the crafting super-site like many out there, but this way if you don't want to read a mixed blog, you don't have to. I will keep our family "journal" on the original blog - Crazy House.