A Couple of Dwarf Quotes from this Week.

Sleepy: "Mom, when I'm a teenager you are going to be really old"

Me: "Thanks for that reminder"

and

Sleepy: "Mom school is really easy if you actually try!"

~ Joyfully enjoying laughter while dwarf training ~

~ melodiejoy ~

Shoes Shoes and more Shoes....

So one of the things about having lots of kids, is you need to purchase lots of shoes.

It's not just enough anymore to purchase 1 pair of runners for kids...you need multiple...you know for indoor and outdoor activities, sports ect.....

Because we don't feel like spending a fortune on shoes I found these runners for $3.33 last week for one of the girls, and I'm sure that they would be fine like this...

but I decided to try something different....recently I've noticed that other bloggers are redecorating shoes like this

or this

I didn't want to start off with too big of a project...So I pulled the shoelaces off and dyed them Purple, (my first attempt with boiled food colouring and vinegar turned them fuchsia....so I boiled more water and added some acrylic paint...this worked wonderfully!)

 They took like forever to dry....so I got out my blow dryer and speed up the process :-)

Then I painted a simple design on the side of the runners using a paintbrush.  Because this is my first shoe painting, I didn't want to attempt anything really detailed :-)

While lacing them up I thought "hmm, they could use another colour"  so I added a couple of cute buttons

And tada Indoor Runners!

 ~Joyfully planning on painting/redecorating another pair of shoes...in more detail ~

~ melodiejoy ~

Master Mix for Bakers

I must share with you a recipe that I stumbled across years ago. It's a recipe that I have baked well over 100 times. (I'm not joking ~ I normally make a batch up for Sunday breakfasts)

This recipe has simplified my life more times that I can count!!

Are you ready????

Introducing:

A-B-C Muffin Master Mix

Click on the link above to go to the  recipe

I know it has about the most boring name ever...but trust me you need to give this a shot.

First you will need a massive bowl (I don't have 1 big enough so I use 2 large baking bowls and divided the ingredients evenly between them)

Then you mix up enough dry ingredients to make 10 dozen muffins.....yep  that's right 10 dozen!!!  

You will then divide them up and store them in your kitchen by mixes that will make 2 dozen at a time - the same size as those packaged muffin mixes you can pay a small fortune for at the store ~ I'm sure I've saved a lot of $ making these over the years!

Here's where it gets exciting...you can just add the basic wet ingredients (eggs, vanilla, water, and oil) and make ABC Muffins (which are a favourite to one of the youth in our church)

~OR~

you can add different ingredients to the dry mix (the recipe includes all these too!!!!) to make any of the following kinds of muffins:

1. Apple Muffins
2. Applesauce Muffins
3. Apricot Muffins
4. Banana Muffins
5. Blueberry Muffins
6. Bran Molasses Muffins
7. Butterscotch Muffins
8. Carrot Muffins
9. Cashew Muffins
10. Cherry Muffins
11. Chocolate Chip Fudge Muffins
12. Coconut Muffins
13. Cranberry Orange Muffins
14. Currant Muffins
15. Date Muffins
16. Eggnog Muffins
17. Fig Muffins
18. Fruit Muffins
19. Garden Fresh Muffins
20. Gingerbread Muffins
21. Granola Muffins
22. Grapenuts Muffins
23. Hazelnut Muffins
24. Incredible Cream Cheese Muffins
25. Jam Muffins
26. Kisses and Hugs Muffins
27. Lemon Muffins
28. Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
29. Mandarin Muffins
30. Maple Muffins
31. Marmalade Muffins
32. Mincemeat Muffins
33. Oatmeal Muffins
34. Orange Muffins
35. Peach Muffins
36. Peanutty Muffins
37. Peanut Butter Banana Muffins
38. Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins
39. Pear Muffins
40. Pecan Muffins
41. Pineapple Carrot Raisin Muffins
42. Pineapple Macadamia Muffins
43. Plum Muffins
44. Prune Muffins
45. Pumpkin Muffins
46. Rum Raisin Muffins
47. Sesame Seed Muffins
48. Sour Cream Muffins
49. Squash Muffins
50. Strawberry Muffins
51. Sweet Potato Muffins
52. Tropical Treat Muffins
53. Vanilla Muffins
54. Walnut Muffins
55. Wheat Germ Muffins
56. Yogurt Muffins
57. Zucchini Muffins

~OR~

If you have made these as many times as I have you can just add random muffin ingredients that you find in your kitchen, and mix it all up for tasty muffins!!!!

The recipe also includes 2 different toppings you can put on the top of your muffins or you can just leave the tops plain (which is what I normally do)

These muffins have never failed in our home!  I have not tried all the variant recipes above...but I have tried most of them, and they have all been GREAT!

a 2 dozen batch of any flavour of these go very quickly with the 6 of us (that's only 4 a piece)

A-B-C Muffin Master Mix

~ joyfully sharing a family favourite recipe ~

~ melodiejoy ~

Toddlers Room to Guest Room

Well when our boy was younger this was his room...with the bright blue walls that he really loved!

Eventually he moved into a different room in the house...and this one took on the transformation from blue to yellow.  I'm sorry these pictures do not give justice to the sunshine yellow of the room...for some reason I can't get the photo's to turn out even close????

 

 

 

Of course we still need a bed frame...and some other things like ~ making a white swag for above the clock (that I will lower on the wall)...and adding other white elements to the room...but this is what it looks like for now.

~ Sunhine in my soul ~

~ melodiejoy ~