Church Picnic

Today we had a church picnic. We had a time of worship along with a short service. We smelled the flowers.

We played several games of dodge ball.

We ate a yummy picnic, including snow cones. We fellowshiped with our church family.

And we got to see the progress (inside and out) of our new church building. It was the PERFECT day to have a church picnic!


Play along with us during the month of April for Children and Nature Awareness Month by posting a picture of your child(ren) each day enjoying the outdoors! Get outdoors and climb a tree! Check out who else is participating!

Who says reading must be done inside?

We LOVE this swing! There's nothing better than sitting on the swing on a beautiful day to read a good book.


Play along with us during the month of April for Children and Nature Awareness Month by posting a picture of your child(ren) each day enjoying the outdoors! Get outdoors and climb a tree! Check out who else is participating!

Outdoor Challenge Day 4 ~ Trails and Baseball

Today Aidman had a t-ball game so we went alittle early to walk the beautiful trail and play at the playground by the fields.

The kiddos wanted to touch this pretty tree.

Don't know why but I LOVE this picture.

Aidman said "Lyssy you are as pretty as a flower".

"Hey, does a raccoon live in that hole?" said Aidman.

Lyssy and I had fun playing with our shadows at the playground.

Isn't he just the cutest little catcher ever?

Play along with us during the month of April for Children and Nature Awareness Month by posting a picture of your child(ren) each day enjoying the outdoors! Get outdoors and climb a tree! Check out who else is participating!

Kids in the Kitchen~ Dinner Time Fun

Last night the kiddos and I cooked dinner together. We made chicken tenders, yam yums, and strawberry kiwi smoothies.

Lyssy crushed the corn flakes.

Aidman mixed 1 part mayo to 1 part Dijon mustard to dip the chicken in.

I have the creeps about the kiddos touching meat so I did that part.

We baked them at 450 for 20 minutes.


We used metal cookie cutters to cut the sweet potatoes.

Aidman brushed a maple syrup mixture on top of the sweet potatoes. We really need to get a non-grilling basting brush. We baked them at 450 for 10 minutes.

What a yummy dinner!

Go check out more Kids in the Kitchen.

Skink

Today Daddy caught a skink. Daddy LOVES catching bugs and reptiles! He also loves teaching his boy how to do it.

Daddy is showing Aidman how to hold the skink without hurting it.

Look at that proud smile! We don't really see too many skinks around, normally it's lizards. So it was fun hearing him compare it to other things, I heard "it kinda looks and feels like a snake".

Lyssy is disgusted by all bugs and reptiles and always runs away squealing and covering her mouth, it's the funniest thing, I wonder if she thinks it will crawl in her mouth.

Play along with us during the month of April for Children and Nature Awareness Month by posting a picture of your child(ren) each day enjoying the outdoors! Get outdoors and climb a tree!

Getting Outdoors

I am joining the Get Outdoors Challenge over at 5 Orange Potatoes!

Every day in the month of April we will be spending time outside in observance of Children and Nature Awareness Month. I will post a picture of the kiddos enjoying time in nature/outside everyday. The post may or may not have words (but knowing me, it most likely will).

Today we played outside at the local water spouts. Then we had a picnic at the lake. We talked about ducks, seagulls, and what lives in fresh water vs. salt water (sharks and alligators were the big topic of that discussion). First thing tomorrow we will be looking up a particular bird that we saw and didn't know what it was (silly mommy should have done it right when we got home, but I forgot about it).

Play along with us during the month of April for Children and Nature Awareness Month by posting a picture of your child(ren) each day enjoying the outdoors! Get outdoors and climb a tree!

Muffin Tin Monday~ Spring Break Fun

This week is Spring Break for my niece LaneyBug. So last night she had a sleep over with us! Today we decided to go to a local water spray park and then have a Muffin Tin Picnic.

The kids all had a fantastic time playing in the water.

And out of the water.

At lunch time we walked over to this beautiful lake to have our picnic.

Muffin Tin make a GREAT picnic item. All the food was ready for the kids and I didn't have to fuss with plates and baggies, we just took the foil off and ate!

We ate leftovers from Easter: kielbasa, rye bread, angel eggs, strawberries, cucumbers and carrots in dip, and a connect 3 smarties game.

Aunt SherryBerry had fun playing the game with Aidman.

Aidman could hardly keep his eyes off of the water. He loved watching the birds and ducks in the water!

Laneybug LOVES strawberries!

Lyssy is so cute!

Go check out more Muffin Tin Mondays.

Kids in the Kitchen ~ Strawberry Cake

We LOVE picking our own strawberries!

It is great fun and a really good experience for the kiddos to be able to pick their own foods.

And look at all these pretty berries!

When Lyssy and I got home we decided to make a strawberry cake. It is so yummy and basically melts in you mouth.

I used this adapted recipe.

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons sour cream
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup chopped strawberries
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 10 strawberries
• 2-3 TBS sugar
  

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together 1/2 cup butter and the sugar. Add the eggs, and beat for 1 minute. Stir in the vanilla and salt.
3. In a small bowl, stir together the sour cream and the baking soda until the baking soda has dissolved. Add the sour cream mixture and the flour to the egg mixture. Beat well, then stir in the mashed strawberries.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until top springs back when lightly touched.
5. While cake is cooling, make the berry puree: Blend berries and sugar. Spoon puree unto each serving.
   

Check out Alittle Fun with Me and Lu for more Kids in the Kitchen.

Spring Decor

I saw this GREAT Easy Spring Mural with post its over at Frugal Family Fun Blog and I went right out and bought this cute and bring flower post its!

Since we didn't really have a free wall to use we decorated the windows.

This was super fun for the kiddos and they ended up doing every window in the house!

The nice thing is that it's really CUTE too! Thanks for the GREAT idea Frugal Family Fun!

Painting Fun turns into Easter decor

A couple of weeks ago the kiddos and I visited some local sponge docks and purchased some painting sponges.

Today we had a GREAT time painting with them to cover some mural paper.

It turned out so bright and colorful!

Because the painting was so pretty we decided that we needed to decorate for Easter with it. Aidman and I got to work cutting out egg shapes.

Spring Has Sprung!

Kids in the Kitchen ~ Cake

We have been (and will still be more this week) baking up cakes like crazy! The reason is that I have not always been the best cake baker, a few of my problems are that 1. my round cakes ALWAYS fall apart 2. probably because I usually try to cut into or take them out of the pan too fast. So I have decided to do away with the round pans and just use different ones because those normally turn out pretty good even though I can't really get fancy with decorating and put it in my cake stand. Oh and the reason I've needed to perfect my cakes and test new ones out is because some good friends of mine are walking the the 3 Day Breast Cancer Walk for Susan G Komen and are having a bake sale/auction this weekend that I baking for.

So anyway, I pretty much let Aidman make this cake completely on his own. I gave him the measuring cups and ingredients and told him how much to add and when, he did all of the actual work.

I LOVE how he has flour on his face, he looks just like me when I cook (and NO we do not put it on our faces for show, it just happens every single time!).

This cake was DELICIOUS! I had my hubby taste it before I told him what it was (because he's funny about certain things) and he LOVED it.

And now to tell you what it is... DON'T judge it by it's different main ingredient because it's AWESOME and you can't even tell that that's what it is.


Grapefruit Chiffon Loaf Cake

* 1 c. flour
1/3 c. grapefruit juice
* 3/4 c. sugar
4 egg whites
* 1 1/2 tsp. B.P.
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
* 1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. grated gf peel
* 1/4 c. oil
1/2 tsp. vanilla
* 3 egg yolks
1 to 2 tbsp. gf juice
* 1 1/2 tsp.. grated gf peel
1 c. sifted 10X sugar

In a large mixer bowl stir together flour, the granulated sugar, the baking powder, and salt. Make a well in center of dry ingredients. Add in order: oil, egg yolks, the 1 1/2 tsp. grapefruit peel, and the 1/3 cup juice. Beat smooth with electric mixer. Wash beaters thoroughly. In a medium mixer bowl beat egg whites with cream of tartar till very stiff peaks form (tips stand straight). Scrape the whites over the flour mixture and fold in gently. Pour into an greased 9x5 loaf pan. Bake in 350 degree oven for 30-45 minutes or till cake tests done. Invert; cool in pan completely. Loosen edges of cake and remove from pan. Combine remaining grapefruit peel, vanilla, and enough juice with the powdered sugar to make an icing of drizzling consistency. Spread over top of cake, allowing some icing to drizzle down sides.

Because it's so yummy, I'm going to use this as the cake part of my strawberry shortcakes this strawberry season.