All posts by Nichole Kay

Nichole Kay moved to Arizona from North Dakota with her husband 10 years ago. Starting over in a new place has been difficult but it has been worth the challenges. Nichole has two beautiful little girls that are her world. They are 5 and 3, their main job is keeping her extremely busy. On top of writing and taking care of her family; Nichole works a full time and part time job. She is looking forward to being able to write more, as she has other story ideas and continuing the series. She also wants to spend more time with her family. Children are our future and she wants to ensure they get as much attention as possible.
Opinions

Time for Change

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Last night I was laying in bed thinking of South Park and their season premier. It was so upsetting, but not because of the horrific story line. Let’s be honest, that is what our life has become. There is shooting after shooting, but it’s not in the same place so we convince ourselves, that’s okay. We tell ourselves it will never be our child, it will never happen here or hey it can’t happen twice. Well it happens over and over again all over the United States. We let statistics make us think it’s okay, that it is rare. Honestly, it is becoming more common place. We are defending this new norm to our children. We are having drills at school, not for disasters but from a person. How can we still let this happen? 

I worry that this episode will make some youth crying for attention do something that will destroy their lives and the lives of so many. The number is never known because some are successfully stopped, so why aren’t we learning from our mistakes and our success? I am afraid to send my kids to school and I think maybe I just won’t send them tomorrow. Then I wonder why we send them at all. We never knowingly put our children in danger, we eliminate all risks that we can and accept there are some things we can’t change. Well this is something we can change. What if we stop sending our children to unsafe schools? We would never go to work if we thought our lives were in danger. Why are we sending our kids into it? Our kids did walk outs and they were criticized, why aren’t we supporting them and demanding change. More counselors, smaller classes, give these kids the attention they deserve. Reward them with praise and positivity and punish and find out why people are acting out, never give up on them and get them the help they need. If we stop bullying and give better support maybe we can end the shooting. There has to be something better than continuing to do nothing. 

I’m not naivee in thinking this will happen overnight.  However, it is going to happen with a bunch of small changes that will start to make a big difference. Ignoring the problem is not going to make it go away.  Being more involved in our children’s lives will make a difference. Being there for their friends whose parents can’t be. The old saying goes, “It takes a village.” When did we stop being involved? The schools cannot take acts of violence so lightheartedly, there needs to start being real consequences. Now I am not saying life destroying consequences but stuff that will really make a kid sit down and think about what they did. We cannot count on parents to punish their kids for things that happen at school because honestly they may not know.  The school can set zero tolerance policies, acts of bullying require mandatory psych evaluations, those being bullied need someone to talk to.  Let’s work at this problem from all sides and we can start to make a difference and change the world. 

GiveMomBrownies, Recipes

Easy Edibles

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I just renewed my medical marijuana card for the third year.  Before I  got my card, I never used marijuana, I thought it was for people who just wanted to get high and escape life.  You can definitely use it for that but the medicinal properties are amazing. It seriously is a catchall for what is bothering you.  Off the top of my head, I have used it to replace 3 different types of medication.  I use it to help me sleep at night.  I use it to help me if I have a really stressful or anxiety fueled day  and I use it to help me with pain. I really struggled with trying to decide to renew my card this year, it was almost $300! I thought I could try more vitamins for sleep.  I could meditate and exercise more for the anxiety. I could go back to taking pain reliever for any of my pain which honestly isn’t really bothering me that much right now.

However, I cannot forget about last year when I fell off a horse and nearly broke my hip. I had to use a walker for a week and I had a major hematoma that lasted for months and some pretty nasty nerve damage. How I didn’t break my hip is seriously beyond me.  I was able to get up and walk after a couple days and with massage, chiropractic and managing my pain with marijuana I was able to make a full recovery.  The thought of getting hurt again and not being able to use marijuana to manage my pain, scares me.  I do not want to take opioids such as Percocet to help with the pain.  You develop a tolerance quickly and it is easy to OD on.  You cannot OD on marijuana. If you do take too much it is like an all night drinking bender and the only thing you can do is wait for it to subside.  Most users don’t let that happen very often.

With all the benefits its hard to not renew.  What’s even harder is realizing how much money you spend on pot when you could be using that money to pay off some bills.  I have made edibles in the past but its hard to know how strong they will be. It is kind of scary cause you do not want to take too much cause you feel awful if you do but not taking enough can sometimes be just as bad if you really need it. The last time I was at the dispensary, I mentioned how expensive it was and how I wish I could make my own edibles. They suggested using shatter and mixing it in with butter and using that in recipe of brownies.  I was intrigued, could it really be that easy?

Being a newer user the marijuana subculture is terrifying! I try to do the research but one site will say one thing and another will completely disagree. I have never been one to listen to really anyone, so I do a bunch of reading and do my own thing.  I also like being exact cause again, OD’ing is not fun on marijuana and I try to avoid it.  I have found expensive machines that will help make your butter and other ones to test the potency.  Well I do not have the money for that, this is already a pretty expensive habit. My medication of choice are edibles and my favorite kind come in 15 gummies  at 15mg of THC each. I sometimes double up on bad days but usually not more or the world is spinning and I feel like that time I had 7 long island teas at a work holiday party except I cannot get sick in the bathroom and alleviate it, I just have to ride it out.  So making my own edibles is kind of scary.  But I did the research, which was not very consistent and I bought my first shatter from the dispensary.

Shatter is super concentrated dosing that is usually burned to consume. There are special tools and they call it dabbing, but  I am not familiar with it at all and you are free to research that more.  So I took my half gram of shatter and tried to figure out how much dosing I would get.  I found 1 g of shatter is about 1000 mg of THC but it is usually only 75%  THC so that is only bout 750 mg of actual THC and I had half that.  However, I have no idea how accurate any of that is cause the websites conflict more than my parents argue.

I chose gummies over brownies cause I do not need the extra calories from edibles. Plus brownies are delicious and it’s hard to only eat one. Being me and willing to live dangerously I found a recipe for gummies and wing’d it. I’m going to say I was pretty successful and it was super easy to do.

First, I bought some chocolate molds from my favorite hobby store.  I  had bought a few earlier on clearance cause I always planned to eventually make my own gummies.

Then I took a packet of 3oz jello, my favorite is strawberry and 1 packet of unflavored gelatin and I mixed those with 1/3 cup of cold water. I let those mix really well for about 10 minutes.

Here was the scary part, I put in my wax shatter I bought and stirred, it didn’t really mix and the recipe said to microwave for 30 seconds till the gelatin was well incorporated.  Well I did it till my wax shatter was no longer able to be seen.

Some websites say you need to do some form of Decarboxylation.  That word has become my least favorite phrase and I will eventually do all the research to fully understand that concept.  But I figured the microwave had to help with that a bit and if they had no effect, next time maybe I would try brownies which would force the process while it baked.

I did all this in a 2 cup measuring cup so I could easily pour straight into my mold.  Don’t Forget! You will want to oil your mold.  I used a paper towel with vegetable oil on it.  Even doing that, I had to dig the gummies out. I warmed up the mold a bit with warm water in a tray and they all came out in tact. It made 30 gummies of various sizes and I am not 100% sure on my dosage.  What I do know is they tasted pretty dang good and they gave me a nice relaxed feeling.  I definitely see myself doing this way more often because I can try different strains and really tailor these gummies to meet my needs.

Now if you are new to the edible life, that phrase may make you pause, wait they do different things?! Yep! Gummies you buy in store are usually hybrids of  different strains so it is hard to know the exact effects you will experience, which is why some users avoid them.  However, different strains of flower will give you different effects. Most know Indica versus Sativa, Indica is more relaxed where Sativa makes me want to clean my house.  But there is more than just that. Some will control appetite, others provide more creativity, while others will help with pain better or anxiety.  That is why  I think being able to make your own edibles and being educated on the effects is so important.  It’s not a one size fits all and we all have different needs and we need to find what works best for ourselves.

I spent less than $20 bucks on shatter and made 30 gummies that are at least 12.5 MG of THC, which is about where I was at when I tried them.  Normally I spend $40 bucks on 15 gummies at 15mg of THC.  I’m willing to play a little gummy roulette and save myself some major bucks.  I’d love to hear about your edible making experiences in the comments below!

Gun Control, Opinions

Gun Control and Arming our Teachers

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It is painful watching the news and hearing all the arguments about guns and the solutions that they are suggesting. Some are definitely better than others and no matter what, any action is better than no action. I just feel like we are having arguments for the sake of arguments and everyone is trying to pass their own agenda. My agenda? How about let’s take a common sense approach to the problem. People are murdering other people. Last time I checked murder was illegal and against the majority of religions. Guess what Congress, making more laws and regulations isn’t going to do much since the biggest law is being broken. If people want to murder people, you are not going to change that with laws. All you will change is the means in which they do it.

What can be done? Let’s start with schools. How about we add more teachers, and decrease the classroom sizes. I think it would be a lot harder for people with behavioral issues and violent out bursts to go unnoticed when there is more people paying attention. Let’s add more school counselors to listen to these issues these kids face. We all remember the emotional ups and downs we faced going through puberty. We were emotional rollercoasters. Let’s give these kids better tools to cope with bullying and absent parents. Instead of blaming everyone for failing, let’s step up and fill in the gaps.

Second let’s make some consequences! It would be unheard of for a teacher to lay a hand on a student in this day and age but 40-50 years ago when my father went to school, it was common. Parents can’t even spank their kids anymore without being criticized by society. So where is the punishment for hurting others? No tv? No video games? Detention? For some that is enough, but for others it is a test to see how far they can push you. I’m not saying we should go down an eye for an eye path. We need to make the punishments fit the crime and make acts of violence have serious consequences with mandatory counseling. Why are they being violent? That is the question we need to answer and help resolve.

Also you cannot go from teachers not being allowed to touch a student to outfitting them with a gun. Our goal should be to keep guns out of schools not add more. But teachers should definitely be armed. My solution, stun guns. A student gets violent and threatens his fellow students it will be a lot easier to subdue them with a stun gun than an actual gun. First, I don’t know about you but I’m not really eager to shoot someone else, even when faced with you versus me, I’m not sure I could end someone’s life. So how is a teacher who has spent countless hours in a room with someone going to be able to make that decision. I suppose if they have a gun and their intentions are clear that decision may get easier but there is going to be hesitation. Second, the day a teacher shoots a student is the day our country will be divided, yet again. Half the nation will praise the teacher for their courage and ability to stand up in a crisis.  The other half will question their decision,  “They only had a knife.” or “They were just threats and they didn’t have the means to do harm.”  We have marches against our own law enforcement for the decisions they make daily and they are trained to make these decisions.  How do you expect a teacher to know when to use a gun to stop a student? Third, adding more guns to a school may make it feel safer but what are we going to do when one of those guns is taken from the teacher and used against them or others.  Let’s avoid it all and arm the teachers with stun guns.

Stun guns are not lethal and any parent who has a problem with the possibility of their kid being tasered should be more concerned with the violent behavior that causes it or find another means of education for their child. Also I can almost guarantee any violence in schools will drop immediately,  children test boundaries and the first kid to get zapped cause he was in a fight with another kid is going to send a pretty strong message.  Teachers are not going to stand for violence anymore and there will be consequences. Now if your argument is that teachers are more likely to use a stun gun and our children may get hurt,  I’d rather they accidentally taser a child than shoot them.  I know which one that child is going to be able to walk away from.

There is plenty of documented behaviors that lead up to these mass shootings,  so next let’s start there.  Let’s start taking violent behavior more seriously and stop justifying it.  We know killers usually start by killing animals.  So let’s treat animal abuse and murder as a symptom for a bigger issue and figure out the root cause.  Let’s require more mental health checks.   There are discussions about increasing the background checks to include more mental health information. What about the people who never get the help?  The incidents of violence are usually there but nothing was ever done about them.  Let’s require mandatory psych evaluations.  Let’s require public assigned counselors to keep track of violent offenders. I can guarantee if that fight you had where you punched someone required a mandatory psych evaluation, people would think twice before committing acts of violence.   Let’s question people’s mental health, let’s make it a priority to ensure everyone is able to contribute to society safely and productively. Stop making excuses and start fixing the problems.  We all make bad decisions,  we all act out when we are pushed too far.  Society needs to start figuring out what is normal behavior that people can be rehabilitated from and what is a mental issue that will require monitoring and counseling.

Now I am not saying mental health is going to make you do bad things,  most people have some sort of mental illness they live with and manage quite easily.  But for others it is not easy and they may not know they have an issue, let’s turn the conversation away from blaming and figure out what we can do to help people get the help they need instead of making them figure it out on their own.  Not everyone will ask for help and it is the ones that aren’t asking that are ending up committing these atrocities and the worst part is, a lot of the people around them are not surprised. The question becomes, why aren’t we trying to fix the problem?Ignoring it and hoping it goes away is not working.  We have made some major advances in how we treat mental illness but it is still a taboo and people will consider a broken arm more serious than a major depressive episode. Mental health problems never go away. If left untreated they can end in death, either theirs or others, lets stop the cycle and start helping people get the help they need.  We tell people to go to the doctor all the time if they have a cold or they get hurt.  Why aren’t we making them go to a doctor if they have uncontrollable rage or they hurt themselves or others?  Instead of looking at the gun laws of these other countries, maybe we should be looking at how they treat the sick and mentally ill,  those are the actions we should be following.  You can make anything correlate,  lets make some big changes cause this is not going to fix itself and gun control is a small piece of the puzzle.  It’s already illegal to murder someone what gun control law are you going to make that is going to be better than that?

Diet, Personal, Self Help

The Secret to Dieting: The Common Sense Approach

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The truth is, if you are reading this you probably have tried numerous diets and failed. That is actually fantastic and it will help make this all make a lot more sense. If you haven’t tried a lot of diets but you have been thinking about losing weight, you are probably lying to yourself and you will be surprised just how many you have tried on further recollection. The best place to start at is the beginning to really explain how I got here, now I know that sounds like every other infomercial out there but I’m just sharing what I’ve learned hoping it helps someone stop wasting time feeling miserable or thinking bad thoughts about their weight and actually start to make a change. Every journey begins with a first step and I just want to help motivate people to take that first step because I finally found the motivation and what works for me but man was it a journey.

Looking back I was not a fat child and there isn’t a picture back in my younger years that I wouldn’t give money to  have that figure, even at some of my worst I was still not as fat as I saw myself. That’s where it all starts, we get concerned about our looks and we worry about what others think or we are just afraid to get fat and do everything perfect to never gain a pound or you constantly are dieting to maintain your weight or you are like me and just never cared enough. That’s how it starts, we worry about our weight and then we decide to do something or not. When you don’t do anything about it or have concern about it, it will go up and eventually one day you will look in the mirror and decide you are going to make some dramatic change and stick to all these insane diets and get that figure you always dream of. That definitely happens but I never stick with it. I just stop caring, it doesn’t bother me enough to make the change or put the effort in. This is just my personality, I have to want to do something or I have to be required to do something. Doing something for me that isn’t necessary or makes a difference to me personally, just isn’t important enough to deal with. So I kept thinking I was fat, I never did anything to change that and I actually started to get fat.

When I was growing up, I was always told physical exercise made you thin, you eat, you exercise, you burn calories, you stay healthy and thin. I was told what was good to eat and what was bad to eat. I chose not to exercise and I ate bad, but delicious food. You only live once! I wanted to enjoy it and I wasn’t going to deny myself anything. I made plans to exercise more and be more active and then I wouldn’t be as fat as I am today but I never did it. I would start but I never finished or followed through. So I knew if I just stopped being lazy and exercised I would lose weight.

I wasn’t going to exercise so I would look to diets to try and lose weight. I remember one time I was watching an infomercial, I had a lot of late nights and I love new things, anyways, they said something about trying a bunch of diets and failing. I thought I’ve never really tried anything cause I never really started or put any effort into it. Now thinking back I know that was wrong, I tried so many diets, I never even realized it. So the first diet I was on was, “The Eat Everything that Tastes Good No matter what and stuff yourself Diet.” That did wonders to get me fat, but not so much to give me a figure I was proud of. Also on that diet I learned a love for fast food, junk food and Mountain Dew. Which we all go, well there you go, the root of the problem you need to eat better and get rid of that junk. I know! But it’s so hard and tastes so good and it’s so convenient, we are great with our excuses.

I had a friend at work and she would try and get me to be her workout buddy or diet partner. She was about ten years older than me and she was in that, I’m going to make a change mode. We started working out together, that never panned out cause I hated driving there and it was early and inconvenient and I was filled with excuses. We tried Weight Watchers, I tried to like it but it just didn’t keep me motivated, the weekly weigh ins, I didn’t care too much if I didn’t lose the weight, I didn’t really like tracking points and I could still eat the bad foods, I just wasn’t eating anything else. So I knew Weight Watchers would work if I followed the program and made healthier choices but I didn’t feel like tracking food so I never stuck with it very long. Then we tried Atkins and the weight came off but I was really limited on what I ate and I would over eat sugar free chocolates cause I still wanted things that tasted good and I would make myself sick. I didn’t stick with it and continued to gain weight. I tried the South Beach Diet to see if that worked for changing my food options, I just stopped trying and going back to drinking Mountain Dew and eating out and doing the bad things that were making me fat.

So then I really started to put in effort and make a change. First I started fixing any health issues I had from being overweight. None of my Drs really said you need to lose weight like I heard others tell me stories of, so it wasn’t a problem for me and they didn’t make a big deal of it so why should I. I listened to what others said and did, I’d hear about what others would do to stay fit and healthy and I would decide if it would work for me or not. Some were actively dieting and making huge changes and being successful so I would try their diet, I tried Whole 30 and Isagenix and other forms of the same types of things but I never stuck with it. So then I decided I am just going to start eating better. I knew what was good for me and what was bad for me I just needed to stop eating the bad stuff. Well I could never quite stop myself from eating the bad stuff so I finally figured out, I should probably exercise. If I can’t control my eating at least maybe I can control my activity.

I made a New Years Resolution that I was going to work out everyday for 15 minutes a day. I was going to be more active, this was the year. I followed that pretty good, I got a gym membership that I thought would force me to go to the gym. They had a day care that got rid of the excuse of my kids in the way. It was on the way home from dropping my daughter off from school, so I didn’t have to go out of my way to go. My daughter needed interaction and I couldn’t afford to put her in real day care, it was a win win. I started going and started hiking with my family on the weekends but as in most things I don’t go as much as I wanted to or told myself to.

I am not going everyday anymore. I was doing really good and then I got hurt really bad and fell from a horse, I could barely walk so I couldn’t exercise for awhile and I got out of the habit of being active. This time though I didn’t let that dictate my life. I still went back to the gym when I felt better. Not as much but I went. We’d do more outdoor activities and walk for long periods. Even when I don’t work out I would tend to be active, making more trips around the house and going up and down the stairs more often. So anyways, I would exercise and I would see the weight come off but not as fast as I wanted so I started to make changes. First we said we’d eat better, more fruits and vegetables and such. We would go get produce from the food market and eat some and let some go bad. I’d pretty much cut out fast food and started to cut out eating out as much. I knew the big change I had to make was cutting out Mountain Dew but I wasn’t ready to give it up. However, I was still losing weight and toning up and feeling better.

Then “The Bet” happened. My husband decided he was going to do a low carb diet because that’s the only one he’s seen success with and the other diets we tried didn’t work. I agreed and agreed to follow his diet. We bet money and had a deadline date. I was like yeah we will see how long this lasts for me. I have tried contests before, I never stay motivated. There’s money involved and I still won’t stay motivated. There was a difference this time though he was going to do it with me but we’d done diets together but we were really committed or at least that’s what I told myself.

So it began, we eliminated a lot of the junk food from the house and he told me what I could eat, we were doing a Keto diet and following that. So I looked at the carbs in things and tried to eat low carb items but I didn’t track anything I ate. I already knew that never works for me for very long. So I ate the approved items and ate till I was full, pretty much how every diet starts out. This is how it always starts and then something happens and I quit. I craved my Mountain Dew, I wanted to go have pasta, I really wanted that pizza. I would try and compensate for it but it never really worked.

Now I know from experience my cravings and desires are my number one diet failures so I wasn’t going to let it happen this time. No this time I was going to stay successful. I knew I couldn’t deny myself, I would just want it more and then I’d binge on it and feel bad and eat more bad stuff and be back to square one and off my diet, it’s a slippery slope for me. So I wouldn’t deny myself things, if I wanted m and ms, I would have one fun size package and I would moderate how much I ate. Something I had been trying but still struggling with. So sometimes I would just have a bite of something. It is amazing how satisfying a bite of cake can be on a diet when you aren’t supposed to have it. For the most part I could just stop at that one bite and then continue on my diet unaffected. Sometimes I would really want pizza so I’d set a cheat meal. Now I know they say you can do cheat meals, I’ve even done cheat days but then I don’t get results as quickly and I need to change so I tried to follow it more closely. So instead of cheat days it would be cheat meals. I would space them out to try to give me something to look forward to, I tried not to think of a specific day but more following what I wanted and when I wanted it. I started creating new habits and ways of managing food that we learn but never really get put together in a working model. So I was cutting out junk food, eating low carb and losing weight quickly and I wanted to keep losing it. My cheat meals became less frequent, my snacking less and my treat portions a lot smaller.

Now don’t get me wrong I had bad days that turned to weeks that turned to months but something different happened during those times versus what happened the other times I started to stumble in a diet, I never really lost any major progress.  I still was better than what I had been doing in the past. I wasn’t drinking multiple Mountain dews a day or having fast food for every meal or eating junk food or at least not to the caliber I was. I realized I finally started to develop good eating habits. I knew everything that would make me successful in weight loss and everything that would make me fail and I needed to do more of the success and less of the failures. It makes sense, that’s what every diet tells you to do but they don’t tell you how to make that happen in the real world when your exhausted and don’t want to cook dinner and just order a pizza or when you want to sit on the couch and eat that pint of cookie dough ice cream. You can but how frequently you do these things will determine your success. Start small with changing a few habits here and there. As you become more motivated you will start to lose weight. Never get discouraged, discover that failures are determining what doesn’t work for you and try something different. Start to make changes and eventually you will see results and bad habits will be replaced with good habits and it won’t be so hard to stick with it. Diets are always successful if you stick with them, however the minute you stop following it the weight will come back. We don’t change our habits and the problems come back. Now I’m not saying you can’t eat that pint of ice cream while binge watching Netflix but start changing it from every week to once a month, or only a scoop or two each time. Limit it and eventually you start to limit the frequency and the quantity. When you do that successfully you can have bad weeks or vacations where you eat everything in sight, you’ll come back and can easily slip back into routine. If you are not losing quick enough you just become more strict. You can measure your weight loss in days, weeks, months or years but no matter what, if you make better choices most of the time and lower portions you will lose weight, how much determines how dedicated you are and what diet you want to follow that will work for you. In the end you just need to keep doing it and don’t let the stumbles overtake your progress, just keep on limiting them and eventually you will get there and you will change your habits. I drink Mountain Dew once or twice a week, I don’t like how I feel with it so I can limit it more. I rarely eat out cause it’s usually bad food. If I do, I try to make better choices or have smaller portions and I split food a lot. I still do my bad habits because it’s impossible to deny those things forever, but I don’t do them as much so no matter what diet I do, even if I don’t follow it to the letter I am still following it somewhat and getting myself out of those bad habits by not making them as bad as they were and as long as I continue to work at it and not get discouraged and stick with it for as long as I can, the old habits will be replaced and I will be able to maintain my weight, an active lifestyle and all my bad habits in moderation and not feel like I am going without anything cause who wants to deny themselves the pleasures in life. We just need to be better at waiting for them and how much.

This works for me. My husband and I started our bet at the end of August. We finished the first few weeks of February. I beat the odds and I won. I lost 46 pounds and he lost 43. I ate junk food, there were weeks at a time I didn’t stick with it but I still lost weight. Everyone says men lose the weight easier, that may be true or the diets we hold ourselves to do not work cause they are meant for men. They don’t take in consideration the female cycle and the overwhelming cravings we get. Listen to your body, make better choices and don’t let one little slip completely derail you. You will succeed if you keep it up!

Personal, Recipes

Cake for Breakfast!

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There is nothing in life I enjoy more than family breakfast. After a busy week of school and work there is not much time for a nice relaxing breakfast during the week. We often grab something quick on our way out or have a bowl of cereal.  On weekends, when everyone is home and we are having a lazy quiet day, I love making a big breakfast.

We usually have potatoes mixed with some veggies and cheese, some sort of meat but my favorite is always the things we do to accompany that side.  Sometimes it is German Pancakes, which are amazing.  Cinnamon french toast is always a hit and if I am feeling motivated perhaps waffles.  Often though, we go for old faithful and have pancakes.  They are great, they are easy leftovers that we can eat the rest of the week for a quick breakfast.

I do not make those bisquick pancakes though, we have learned to step up our pancake game and have it down to an art.  We used to buy the pancake mixes and use those, they are fine but offer little variety. I would scour the internet for other pancake recipes, red velvet is always a hit and we found an amazing banana pancake recipe. However, those are time consuming and sometimes you do not feel like making pancakes from scratch with 10 different ingredients. We have discovered the art of turning any cake mix into pancakes. They are magical. It is so much easier and you can usually get cake mixes on sale for a dollar.  This keeps your baking supplies low that you need on hand, the recipes are quick and you can get pretty creative with what you make.

We started with Red Velvet pancakes and using a red velvet cake mix. I couldn’t really tell the difference between the mix and my made from scratch pancakes. I did make a lot less mess and had a lot fewer ingredients. We also have made funfetti pancakes, the children love those with the sprinkles inside.  They are like mini cupcakes but they are pancakes and I feel no shame having them for breakfast! I also have them for lunch, dinner and a snack because they are absolutely amazing. The key to these amazing pancakes is the frosting though. You have to have frosting on them. My children always refer to our pancakes as “frosting pancakes.” Red Velvet of course gets cream cheese frosting.  We recently made the funfetti pancakes with rainbow chip frosting. Rainbow chip frosting is my favorite frosting, I love the little chips and I was devastated when they took it off the market. When I found it again, I seriously bought a few containers, baked like crazy and had a minor sugar overload, so I do not recommend od’ing on rainbow chip frosting no matter how good it tastes.

If you are like me and enjoy breakfast, but get sick of the same old breakfast foods, you have to try out this pancake recipe. You pick any box and you have instant pancakes and they are always perfect. I hope you enjoy!

Pancake Recipe