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!

I often talk about super-mom ideals, and how I can never live up to them. However, a few months ago I was introduced to a book that taught me how to make artisan-quality bread from home — a definite super-mom high! The book: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day ($18 at amazon.com).

It is amazing because it’s really easy.

The simple “Master Recipe” can be used to make artisan french-style loaves, sandwich-bread loaves, sweet rolls, pizza and more. It calls for only four ingredients:

6 cups Flour
3 cups Water
1-1/2 TBS Yeast
1-1/2 TBS Kosher Salt

Unceremoniously pour all ingredients into a large bowl (I use a 6-quart food storage container with lid). Mix with a wooden spoon until well combined. Let rise at room temperature for two hours, and the dough is ready to use. You can also refrigerate and use the dough for up to two weeks — this capability is the real beauty of the recipe.

When you want to make a loaf, put flour on your hands and a cutting board, pull out a hunk of dough and work into a ball shape (keep in mind you’re not kneading the dough here, just quickly working it into a ball). Place ball of dough on cutting board and let set while oven preheats to 450 degrees. If you have a pizza stone, place this in the oven to preheat as well. Once oven is ready, dust a little flour on surface of ball and make several shallow slashes using a serrated knife. Alternatively, at our house we will sprinkle a bit of garlic into olive oil, brush onto the top of the ball; sprinkle on parmesan cheese; and then slash. Place dough on stone and cook for 30 minutes.

By eliminating all the fuss that generally accompanies bread making, this book’s approach is totally doable. I have virtually stopped buying bread. I never buy baguettes or french loaves because the ones I can make at home are so much better (not to mention cheaper). I can also use this recipe to make sandwich bread although from time to time I’ll still buy sliced whole wheat bread to have on hand for a quick sandwich.

Pasta has always been my fall back when I don’t know what to make for dinner. When I make my own bread to go along with it, the meal has an instant upgrade, and I now never have to feel like we’re “just having pasta.” Also when someone invites us over for dinner, we will often bring one of our fresh-baked loaves. (There is another super-mom moment!)

With this dough I also made my first-ever batch of cinnamon rolls, which my family loved so much we’ve now decided to make them a Christmas-morning tradition. Cinnamon Rolls are a bit more time consuming than the other bread recipes, they take about 10-15 minutes hands-on time, so still super fast compared to the traditional way of making them. The super-mom trick here is to make up the rolls the night before and set in the fridge so all you have to do in the morning is pop them into the oven.

If for nothing more than the pizza, keeping this dough on hand is well worth it. With this refrigerated dough, I can make pizza quicker than I can pick it up or have it delivered. Plus the homemade pizza recipe in this book actually tastes as good as delivery. I don’t like frozen or take-and-bake pizza, and I generally think any homemade pizza tastes too soggy. So when I made pizza with this dough, I was surprised at how much it tastes like delivery. Last week my husband made a BBQ Chicken Pizza that was better than the kind we’ve always ordered from California Pizza Kitchen. Even though we have a Little Caesars around the corner with $5 large pizzas anytime, we have not ordered a pizza since I got this book last November — shocking, I know!

It is not often that I can say a book I’ve read has changed my life, but as strange as it may sound, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day has truly changed the way my family lives, eats and much more.

If you’re interested in whole-wheat recipes or need gluten-free, also check out the newest book from these authors Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

Ever since I did my research for our Managing Memories story last year I’ve been dabbling with scrapbooking. I’m following Stacy Julian’s low-pressure approach, which basically means I scrapbook whatever pictures I want and don’t worry about the order they were taken. I find this strategy satisfying because sometimes I feel like making a page about something we did last week, but then other times I feel like reminiscing and making a page out of pictures from the past. It really doesn’t matter because scrapbooking isn’t about perfection, it’s about capturing memories so you can savor them with your family.

Since I’m just getting started and only have a handful of pages so far, my scrapbook is not yet in any kind of order. Interestingly my family doesn’t care — they enjoy looking at the book anyway.

Here’s one of my latest pages. These photos were taken two years ago. One ordinary morning the girls were playing, and I was working. I took a short break to check on them and found Atty playing with her pink kitchen and her underwear was on her head — a chef’s hat I presume? Then a very little Pip was playing INSIDE the toy cupboard. Strange? Yes. But if they’re happy; I’m happy.

If you’ve always wanted to scrapbook but don’t know where to start, I say start with your favorite picture right now. (1) Print off the photo. (2) Take it to your local craft store and pick out two pieces of paper, one patterned and one coordinating sold. (3) Find an embellishment (ribbon, sticker, chipboard shape, etc — there will be a whole aisle to choose from); get some acid-free adhesive; and a package of coordinating letter stickers (I love American Crafts Thickers). (4) Go home and put the page together and feel free to copy any layout you like. For ideas go here or use mine — I’ll be posting more of my pages from time to time.

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.