Mini cheese pizzas

There are so many fun ways to make kid-sized pizzas. This super easy recipe is one of our recent favorites. The pizzas are ready in mere minutes and they get instantly devoured by the three-year-old who lives in our house. There is room for much creativity, as well. Vegetables could be finely chopped and added to the sauce, or added as toppings. Meat could be added if you happen to have a child who will eat meat. I do not.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Divide a 7.5-oz. tube of refrigerated crescent dough into four rectangles and place onto a lightly greased baking sheet.

Press the perforated diagonal seam together on each rectangle with your finger to ensure the sauce will not seep through.

If a toddler is assisting, one of your rectangles might end up looking like this:

In a small bowl, combine:

1 8-oz. jar tomato sauce

2 teaspoons dried minced onion

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon dried basil

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Turn the edges of the dough up on each rectangle to create crusts and divide sauce among them.

Divide 1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese between the four pizzas. Bake in preheated oven for 8-10 minutes.

Click here for a printable recipe!

Elijah picks a winner!

The winner of the giveaway is KT! KT, get us your address and we will send you a copy of The Hunger Games and also He's Just Not That Into You.

Thank you to everyone who entered! We received some great comments/suggestions. Thank you thank you!!

Pip & Ebby

Pumpkin cornbread

This post written by the original Ebby. 

November is here, and along with it comes my obsession with all things pumpkin. I stir it into my oatmeal, add it to cakes and bars, and clip recipes which involve its use in cinnamon rolls and cheesecakes and scones.  So naturally, I couldn't pass up this recipe for pumpkin cornbread, because as much as I love pumpkin, I may love cornbread even more.

This recipe calls for olive oil. After snitching a little of the batter (quality control!) I was worried the olive flavor might overwhelm the finished bread. Luckily I was wrong, though I would like to try this again with melted butter, just to taste the difference. And I'd also try amping up the spice amounts a little more for added flavor. But all in all, this is delicious. As evidenced by the fact that it only lasted two days. And I was the only one eating it. Oops!

Start by combining the dry ingredients.

It will look something like this. Check out that beautiful yellow cornmeal. Delish!  

Next, beat the eggs and add the pumpkin, oil and molasses. This doesn't look so delish, I'll admit. It actually looks downright gross. But it will taste good!

Then spread the batter in a greased baking dish and pop it in the oven for about a half hour.                   

The bread is great as is, warm from the oven. A little maple syrup is pretty good too. And if you like living dangerously, get out the whipped cream. 

I sure wish I had more self control. 

Pumpkin cornbread

1 C. flour

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 Tbsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 C. brown sugar

1 C. cornmeal

1 eggs

1 C. pumpkin puree

1/4 C. olive oil

1 Tbsp. molasses

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease an 8x8 baking dish.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, spices, brown sugar and cornmeal. In a small bowl, lightly beat eggs. Stir in pumpkin, oil and molasses.

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined. Pour the batter into the pan, smoothing out the top.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve warm.

Click here for a printable recipe!

Bullfrogs and butterflies

It is 1980. I am lying on the fuzzy brown couch in our family room in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, scratching at my chicken pox crazily. My parents have just gotten a divorce, and my dad has moved out. I miss him intensely, to the point of feeling a physical pain in my chest. He doesn't live far from us, but my mom doesn't want him around much. At least that is the feeling I get. I have been on the couch for a few days, incessantly scratching my body and dousing myself with calamine lotion. Someone notices something peculiar sitting outside our front door. It has red and white stripes and it looks like a box of some sort. I take it inside to discover that it is a record player! For me! From my dad! And there is a record with it. Bullfrogs & Butterflies. Sounds strange. And then I instantly forget that I have chicken pox. The itching evaporates. This is the absolute most perfect and well-timed gift in the history of the world and in all of time. I become obsessed with my new toy. The music makes me a very happy little girl, and I proceed to play it over. And over. And over. And over. Until my mother asks me to please give her aching ears a rest.

Fast forward 28 years. My firstborn is just over a year old. He is a very sick little boy. His heart is failing. He is tired and weak and he doesn't have the energy to move. I put our Bullfrogs & Butterflies cd into the computer and crank the volume. I pick him up and dance around the room with him in my arms. We twirl and dip and dance through every song on the cd. He smiles and laughs and asks for more, more, more. Despite my aching arms, I give him more, more, more, because I want him to experience the movement he craves but that he cannot accomplish on his own. And because I love to see that beautiful face with a smile on it.

This music had healing powers for the two of us in much the same way. We still listen to it often in our house, and it never fails to make Elijah and me dance and sing and smile and giggle. Smiles aside, I have found it to be such a very fun way to teach our children about the Bible. And to lift their spirits when they are sick.

Continuous shooting

A talented photographer friend of mine recently shared that she always has her camera set to shoot continuously. Ahh, what a brilliant concept! One would think I would have learned this by now. Especially for photo shoots involving people, this makes so much sense. Sometimes it takes me a while.

I had to pull out my trusty manual because it wasn't glaringly obvious how to make this happen.

On my Canon 40D, I push the AF•DRIVE button, which is located on the top of the camera just above the status panel. Then, I rotate the dial on the back of my camera while keeping my eye on the top status panel. On the bottom right portion of the panel, five different icons appear as I scroll with my dial.

The icon below indicates single shooting. When the shutter button is pressed in this mode, a single shot will be taken.

This one indicates high-speed continuous shooting. For my camera, a maximum of 6.5 shots per second can be taken when the shutter button is pressed and held while in this mode. There is a maximum number of photos that can be taken (called a maximum burst) at a time. This number can be found on the lower right corner of your viewfinder, directly to the right of the ISO speed.

This indicates low-speed continuous shooting. For my camera, a maximum of 3 shots per second can be taken when the shutter button is pressed and held while in this mode. Again, there is a maximum burst and you can see what that number is in the viewfinder.

This is also where the self timer settings reside. This is the standard self timer setting that has a 10-second delay.

This one indicates a 2-second self-timer delay.

I am not familiar with Nikons, but I did a tiny bit of investigating and found that setting shooting modes is done much differently. It involves a lock on the main dial, which I am not qualified to speak about. Maybe somebody with this knowledge would graciously leave a comment explaining it?!

Happy shoot-shoot-shooting! It is strangely fun to hear your camera click so quickly, isn't it?