9 of My Family's Favorite Games, Toys and Kitchen Things {Gift Ideas!}

I want to share 3 of my favorite toys, games and kitchen things with you. (These include Amazon affiliate links, but honestly, I buy almost everything from Amazon. Feel free to shop around.)

Top 3 Favorite Toys:

Rescue Bots: These are Transformers for little kids (and a show on Netflix). My boys love these, from ages 2 to 9. They're easy to transform and don't have crazy little parts to break off. We love Blades, Chase, Heat Wave, Boulder, Optimus Prime, and Bumblebee.

Zoobs: We got these for a gift a few years ago and my kids love them. Most of the time, my boys end up making them look like some kind of weapon.

Skilz Mini Hoop: We have one of these hanging on our wall in our living room. Classy, I know. (I even blogged about it.) It is meant to hang over a door, but my father-in-law built a simple frame for it and now we can attach it to the wall. Super sturdy and had tons of playing time.

Top 3 Favorite Games:

Pit: This is a family favorite. My six year old can even play it with us.

Apples to Apples: We have been playing this game a lot more lately. It's pretty fun for big groups of people. We just played it with 11 players this week. We don't have the kids version, but it doesn't stop the six year olds from playing!

Skipbo: This is my six year old's FAVORITE game lately. (It's my all-time favorite game too).

Top 3 Favorite Kitchen Things:

WhirleyPop popcorn maker: I know I blog about this all the time, but it's still my favorite. I use it at least once a week to make yummy kettlecorn. I love to give this for gifts, because who doesn't like popcorn?

Bosch Mixer: I bought one of these this summer (at Costco...it came with a shredding attachment), but you can also buy it on Amazon. I love it. We use it weekly to mix up whole wheat bread. I slice zucchini and other squash to eat like noodles instead of buying a spiralizer. Totally worth the money!

Food Saver: I bought one of these during the summer too (at Costco). I use it all the time! I freeze meat in it (raw and also cooked, like leftover roast to use later for french dip, and cooked shredded chicken to add to soups later). I froze tons of stuff from my garden. It's pretty fun!

What are some of your favorite gifts, toys and kitchen things?

One Hour Rolls

These rolls are amazing! I've been making these rolls since 2001 when I was a newlywed and my sister-in-law shared the recipe with me. The rolls are light, fluffy, easy to make and they only take one hour! And delicious too! I've made these rolls more times than I can count, so I've perfected the art of making them. Here are some step-by-step instructions with pictures for you. Here's what you'll need. I buy pretty much all of the ingredients in this recipe at Sam's club, thus the huge containers. You need warm water, yeast, oil, sugar, salt, egg and flour. In the mixer bowl, add warm water (not hot), oil, sugar and yeast. Mix together. After ten or fifteen minutes the yeast mixture should be puffed up like this. Time to add the salt and beaten egg. Then mix in the flour. (I've used a mixture of half wheat and half white flour successfully.) Keep adding flour until the dough is manageable. It will be a little sticky, b

Week 394 Menu

Hi there! This week is flying by! So excited that we've been having blue skies and warmer weather. Our snow is almost all melted and little bulbs are sprouting in the flower beds. However, we had our 10th snow/ice day last week!!! Hopefully it was the last one. Life has been busy, busy and I need to plan out the rest of our week's menus, even though it's already Thursday. Here's what we've eaten so far and what I'm planning: Monday: chicken stirfry, rice/quinoa Tuesday: breakfast for dinner Wednesday: flatbread pizzas Thursday: roasted butternut squash, pasta, chicken sausage Friday: tacos Saturday: leftovers Sunday: pot roast, mashed potatoes, one hour rolls Alrighty, that's what we're eating this week. How about you? What's on your menu this week? Feel free to share. I love it when you do! More from Jenny:

Don't like your house to smell like food? I've got a kitchen tip for that!

I have a smallish, one story house and if I cook food that is kind of smelly, like onions, the smell tends to linger in every room. This is a pet peeve of mine and (also my husband's). Over the years I've found a few ways to cook smelly food without smelling up the kitchen. Use your garage! I use my garage quite often to cook things in. I open the window and it airs out, especially when you open the garage door. I'm sure my neighbors wonder what I'm cooking. I've used two different kitchen appliances in the garage: my crockpot and my food dehydrator. Crockpot - I did this very thing today since I'm simmering chicken, onions, carrots and celery to make chicken noodle soup tonight. I don't want my house to smell like onions all day, so I plugged it in on my husband's workbench. Food dehydrator - when I make jerky, I plug the food dehydrator in in the garage. I don't really want my house to smell like meat for hours

What is on your menu this week?

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