My girls and I made Rice Krispie Treats on Sunday Night and after pouring them into the pan, we decided to make them into shapes. We used metal cookie cutters and the kids kept busy at it for a while. With damp hands, the Krispie Treat mixture was surprisingly easy to handle. In case you can’t find your recipe for Rice Krispie Treats, here it is:

• 3 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 10 ounce package of large marshmallows (about 40) -or- 4 cups miniature marshmallows
• 5 cups rice krispies
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Melt the butter in a large pan then add the marshmallows and stir until melted. Add the vanilla then mix in the rice krispies a cup at a time. Quickly transfer to a greased 9×13 pan or countertop. Dampen hands (you don’t want them dripping wet, but a bit of water will keep the mixture from sticking to you) and mush out until evenly flat. Spray cookie cutters with cooking spray and cut out. The extra pieces from around your shape can be pressed back in or (my kids preferred method) popped into your mouth!

Store in an air tight container. The treats are best if eaten within a day.

I’m sure it’s just my imagination, but the star-shaped Krispie Treat did seem a bit yummier than the normal rectangle ones.

I am totally loving this new line of vintage-inspired aprons. Just looking at them makes me want to cook something! But since it’s summertime and super hot around here, I thought I’d share my favorite no-bake pie recipe. As the name suggests it has a deliciously fluffy texture and it is (of course) easy as pie.

Cloud-9 Pie

For the Crust:
1 package graham crackers
1/4 cup margarine
1/2 cup sugar

Crush up the graham crackers in a food processor then add the other ingredients. Mix well and press into pie pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 7 minutes. Or take the easy way out (I usually do!) and buy pre-made graham cracker crust.

For the Filling:
1/2 pint whipping cream
8oz package cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
1-1/2 teaspoons natural vanilla

Whip the cream until it starts to form soft peaks (if you have one, a stand mixer works best). Add the remaining ingredients while continuing to mix . Mix well then fill into pie crust. Generally there is enough filling to make two flat-top pies or one fuller pie.

Refrigerate for a couple hours until set. Serve with blueberry, cherry or raspberry topping. Even a drizzle of chocolate syrup or just eat it with nothing else at all. Whichever way, this light, fluffy and heavenly pie will be gone in minutes. Enjoy!

It is still missing the front door, but the girls don’t care; they love the new Playhouse that Daddy built for them. We had been shopping around for a playhouse/swing set to put in the backyard, but didn’t find anything that we loved. So when my husband’s folks came to visit in January and we wanted a project to do with them, we decided to build a playhouse.

Here we are breaking ground. The kids’ handprints in the playhouse footings. Laying down the floor. The playhouse is starting to take shape, and it’s time for Grandma & Grandpa to head home.

After Grandma and Grandpa left, Daddy finished putting the outer “skin” boards on, but then the project wasabandoned for about a month while we figured out how we wanted to finish it. Well I guess not really abandoned since the girls loved playing in it, painted or not.

With no real ideas flowing we decided to just paint it white. I was actually at Home Depot getting the paint when I picked up a copy of Dwell magazine and saw this house. It was the stroke of inspiration we needed to finish things up. We decided to use the brown and red color scheme that worked really well with the color of our house and our future plans to paint our barn red. Plus the high-contrast colors really played up the super-long rectangular windows, giving the playhouse the modern feel we were after.

The swings are definitely the highlight — thank heavens we put in two. We debated having just one swing and that would have been a BIG mistake. It is bad enough getting them to share when friends are over. I know this is kind of a random picture, but I really love the look of the ceiling inside the playhouse. I think the tin roof and skylights are so fun.

I have been hearing this question from my kiddos a lot lately, and school has only been out for about a week — it’s going to be a long summer!

After a quick brainstorming session, I thought I’d share my top ten, fun and practically free things to do. Of course everything seems to be more fun if Mom joins in as well, so I picked things that I actually want to do:

1. Paint an ocean landscape with watercolors.
2. Play hide & seek in the house — we love to turn the lights out and play in the dark.
3. Create a fort in the living room with couch cushions, chairs and blankets.
4. Make popcorn and watch a movie.
5. Do a science experiment.
6. Bake cookies and make surprise deliveries to family and friends.
7. Blast the radio and have a dance party.
8. Make paper airplanes and have a flying contest.
9. Do word-libs puzzles. Let the kids choose the words then read them aloud and laugh.
10. Play dress up and go all out, then take pictures.

My youngest daughter’s birthday was Saturday, which being the day before Easter is normally when we would color eggs. Luckily little Piper is borderline obsessed with the Hannah Montana movie, so I used it as a theme to work the eggs into her birthday festivities — along with BBQ sandwiches, karaoke and “Pink Pie” (more on that later).

Last month I was flipping through my sister’s copy of Martha Stewart Living. (I don’t subscribe because it is filled with too much perfection that would just bring me guilt, yet I still can’t help looking through a copy whenever I come across one.) So I was at my sister’s house looking at her Martha mag, and was loving this idea of putting vinyl onto the eggs before dying to make detailed shapes. Of course our eggs didn’t turn out nearly as perfect as Martha’s, but it is still one of the best egg-dying techniques I’ve come across in a while. Here are some of our creations:

My husband, Heath, with his “All The World’s an Egg.”

Me with my egg after becoming the Easter morning Egg-Fight Champion!

As promised, here are photos of the final masterpiece that is our girls’ room:

The window valance was the result of a very pleasant first experience with Etsy’s custom forum called Alchemy. The process was simple. I posted a new request for someone to sew curtains for me. The form allowed me to describe the project and even name a target price. Using Google, I’d found a picture of a valance I liked and included that with my request. It was fun to read each sewer’s bid as they came in, and, within a day, I had received seven different offers, many for under my target price. I ended up going with a sewer who had matched my target price and lived only 45 minutes from my house (what luck!).

I’m thinking this custom section on Etsy is going to come in very handy.