PIPE CHIMES GIVEAWAY!

Our friends at Musical Pipes are giving away a complete set of Pipe Chimes! A $54 value!

Thank you to all who entered the giveaway! We have a winner! 

Congrats to Leah H!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

We also have good news for the rest of you! Musical Pipes is giving you a 20% discount with a $30 minimum purchase this week only, September 4, 2017 - September 8, 2017. You can purchase your own set of pipe chimes at the discounted rate using coupon code: JUSTONEMOMTRYING

Visit their shop HERE and enter the code: JUSTONEMOMTRYING 

Take advantage of this limited discount! I know you will LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Pipe Chimes!

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Fudgy Mint Brownies

I can't help myself when it comes to dessert and these fudgy brownies are one of a kind. They practically melt in your mouth.

You can pour your brownies directly into a greased pan or line it with foil and grease it for easy release. I like to line it so I can lift the whole thing out of the pan in order cut the brownies cleaner. 

Prepare and pour your batter into the pan and bake.

You will know when the brownies are done when the sides pull away from the pan and the whole thing jiggles a little bit. Don't worry about the jiggle. It will firm up when cooled. The top will look slightly browned. Do not overbake. It should NOT be totally firm like a typical cake. The top of the brownie should not be wet. If so, it is underbaked and not ready. 

Let the brownie cool completely and spread on the mint frosting. Chill until frosting is firm and cold.

Prepare the chocolate ganache and spread onto the cold mint frosting. Return the refrigerator (or freezer) until chocolate hardens. 

When the brownie layers are chilled, cut and serve. You can either serve them cold or let them come up to room temperature. Both ways are delicious. 

TIP: Dip your knife into hot water before each cut to obtain a clean look and keep the layers together. 

Click HERE for printable recipe.

Back-To-School Safety Presentation and GizmoPal 2 Watch

I can't believe school is starting this week! We have a lot of fun kids in our neighborhood and we live fairly close to several schools. A lot of the kids walk to and from school and I often worry about their safety. I talk to my kids about safety but I wonder if they are really listening or not.

This year I set up an evening with a couple of police officers from our city to come talk to the kids in our neighborhood about safety in preparation for the school year. We had a wonderful turnout with lots of kids and parents. 

Our officers were awesome and did a great job! They gave each child a safety coloring book, some crayons, and stickers. The officers had the children follow along in the safety coloring book as they talked. They covered emergencies and how to respond, safety on the playground, being aware of strangers, escaping techniques, car safety, bike/scooter safety, and safety using electronic devices. They asked the kids questions and the kids also asked the officers questions. Parents were also involved in questions.

One officer mentioned the Verizon GizmoPal watch that his kids have. I think I just found my kids' Christmas gift. This watch is awesome. It is a watch that the kids wear that allows parents to program up to 4 phone numbers that the kids can call from the watch. It also allows phone calls only from those 4 numbers. It also has GPS tracking on it so parents can see where their children are. It can also send an alert to the parents when the child has arrived at school. It also has an auto-answering feature in case your child doesn't accept a call. It will automatically force the call to answer. Check out this review:

I love this watch. My kids are too young for cell phones so this is perfect. And, they can't lose it because it's either on their wrist or the GPS can find it. I'm really excited about this watch. 

I hope we do this presentation again next year. It was nice to have someone else reinforce safety information with my kids, especially officers who deal with this stuff daily.

You can set up your own presentation in your neighborhood. Call up the police department on their non-emergency line and get in contact with the lieutenant. He or she can arrange for an officer or two to come to your home or other location to talk with the kids. It is helpful to know how many children will be attending the presentation if the officers are planning on bringing materials for the children.

Let's keep our kids safe!

Better Than CHIP Cookies

If you live in Utah the latest craze is CHIP. CHIP is a chocolate chip cookie take-out and delivery joint started by BYU students. They only serve chocolate chip cookies and it will cost you $10 minimum for a box of 4 huge, warm cookies. Not a bad business plan at all! In fact, they are brilliant! I must say that they are pretty dang good. However, there is one element that is missing from the cookie and I hope they can correct it. In my opinion, there isn't enough salt. I love the balance between sweet and salty and CHIP cookies definitely need more salt. Other than that, I love the thick, warm cookie. If you're in the Provo area, check out CHIP and support their business. 

If you like your cookies with more salt try these cookies! The recipe is an adaption of Jacques Torres' famous chocolate chip cookies. My husband and I have been making these for years but we don't make them very often because the dough has to chill for at least 24 hours and our impatience gets the best of us. But the 24 hours is worth the wait if you can plan ahead. 

Before 24 hours of the dough chilling, use a big scoop (this is a 1/2 cup scoop) or a spoon to dish out the dough. If you don't have a 1/2 cup scoop, form the dough into a ball about the size of a tennis ball. Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and sprinkle some high quality sea salt on top. It doesn't take much. There is also salt in the dough. YUM! Chill for at least 24 hours to let the flavors marry.

One of the reasons why we only can get about 15 cookies out of one batch is because the dough disappears within the 24 hours of chilling. ;) However, the end result is worth it!

These cookies are massive and delicious! I hope you give them a try. 

Click HERE for printable recipe.

Back-to-School Party

I love the new school year. Being a former teacher myself, I wanted my own children to love school and learning too. 

When we moved from another state to Utah my daughter was enrolled at a new school with new classmates. We threw a Back-to-School Party for her and some of the kids her age in the neighborhood after school on the first day. We got a few pics of the setup before the kids arrived. 

When the kids arrived, we ate. They grabbed a cute, divided lunch tray and loaded up on some snacks: grapes, apples, veggies and ranch, Goldfish crackers, M&M cookies, chocolate milk and water. 

SIDE NOTE: I had some parents ask about the trays. I found them HERE on Amazon by Nordic Ware. I love that they are the perfect size. They hold a small milk container (as shown in the pic above) perfectly in a square space. They also hold a kid's IKEA cup, clear plastic cup (like the one holding the veggies in the pic above), or a small water bottle (pic below) perfectly in the round space. The large space is perfect for a hamburger or sandwich. 

We filled some pencil boxes from Walmart with a few school supplies as a favor for our guests. The black tablecloth is from Dollar Tree. A white Sharpie marker works perfectly to add the labels on the tablecloth. 

I took a picture of each child on their first day of school in the desk. (I had the 3 year old pose for this pic to see what it would look like and I forgot to take a pic of my own 1st grader! Oops.) I printed the pictures and delivered them later to our guests' homes along with a darling First Day of School questionnaire they filled out. The darling questionnaire can be found at Yellow Bliss Road.

We also played a couple of games to get to know each other and get excited for school. I was going to try the "shoe" game where the kids take off their shoes and try to guess whose is whose but it was too easy. So, I opted to try sitting in a circle and while tossing a bean bag, ask a question like "do you have any brothers or sisters? or, What's your favorite color? or, Do you have any pets?" etc. The person who receives the bean bag answers the question and then asks another question to another person while tossing the bean bag.

The second game included a tray of school supplies. They got to look at the tray for 1 minute. I took the tray away and then they tested their memories by trying to remember what was on the tray. Smart kids!

The kids had a great time and my daughter felt a little more comfortable making friends with the kids in the neighborhood.