Spray the Candles Out

It was Papa Steve's birthday last weekend! Last year on a whim, Sawyer and I made Papa a birthday crown to wear at his party.....so I thought that since he enjoyed it so much last year, that we should begin a traditional birthday crown!

So we got right to work with paper and glue and dinosaur stickers and glitter glue! But we thought that it needed little something more......it needed some embellishment. Now what would be the perfect thing.........OH! FEATHERS!!!!!

The boys proudly displaying their royalty. Papa was a really good sport too and wore his feathery crown almost all night, and whenever he tried to sneak it off for a little while, Sawyer was sure to remind him of where that crown needed to be!

Nana Kathy had made a wonderful Shrimp Florentine that was absolutely D-lish! Then we had a Lithuanian apple and appricot torte.....sooooooo good. And as all kids at birthday parties want to do, Sawyer thought that Papa probably was getting too old to be able to blow out all of his candles himself, so he stepped in to help...and help he did! He blew spit ALL over the cake and the table! (Not on purpose!) What made it even worse was how it glistened in the candle light because he didn't even get any candle's blown out! Oh well......

We all decided to pitchin together and get Steve a very large and VERY heavy umbrella to go out on their patio with their furniture! And since it came in a fun long box, of course we should put it on the stairs and slide down it!

But that get's old after a while. Let's stuff Sawyer into one end of the box and see if he makes it out the other end! But it was such a tight fit that he couldn't get up on his elbows to move himself along....so Papa had to stick his leg in there and shove him and Daddy pulled him out the other end. Boys will be boys.

This is what a four year old looks and acts like after too much apricot torte and a late bed time!

Jammies and lime green boots.....straight off Project Runway.

And the family tradition continues~taking the ribbon off of the gifts and making some gorgeous headbands for our selves and wearing them around for the evening......Happy Birthday Papa Steve!

In the Kitchen

The other day I was browsing around another blog that had pictures of a Stromboli (pizza bread) and it just looked so yummy and I knew I had to make it. I found a winning recipe on Food Network and went to work! It was a perfect thing to make that you could kind of do a fridge clean and dump everything in: pepperoni, pancetta, peppers, onions, Italian sausage, mushrooms, olives, sharp provolone and of course-mozzarella! I was a little hesitant about making the pizza dough myself, but hey, Go BIG or go home. And by some miracle, it came out perfectly! Dip it in some marinara sauce, with a salad and a good movie.......nice. I want to try another one with spinach, artichokes and mushrooms....yummmy....

They are never too young to just 'know' how to do this....

We had some mushy bananas laying around so I decided to make some sour cream banana bread with the kids today! It was pretty eventful....between teaching them how to crack eggs, cleaning up spilled eggs off the chairs and floor to making half of the recipe wrong and needing to start over from scratch.

But the final product was amazing. The sour cream made the bread sooo moist and fluffy and then of course we topped it off with some decadent cream cheese frosting.....D-lish!

And as always, after baking with the children, my kitchen looked like a tornado had whipped through and I was left with the mess while they scampered of to play.....there's something wrong with this scenario...... :)

Despicable Me

Despicable Me...

Pretty much the cutest animated movie! Ever. The little girl, Agness......pure adorable! We had gotten a heads up from Nana Kathy that the Rave Theater was doing free showings of Despicable Me all week long in the mornings! There's two things we love here at Day Care: Despicable Me and anything Free!

If you have either been living under a rock or in Brazil and haven't seen this movie yet....stop whatever you are doing and go now. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll want to pinch the chubby cheeks of a little girl, who unfortunately is only drawn.

It's so cute. Trust me, You'll love it.

Our 'Sister Day Care' (Ms. Emily and her kiddos) came to join us! I woke up early and popped eight bags of popcorn because I refuse to pay enough to adopt a child from China for a bucket of pop corn and a drink. I burnt the first four bags. Four. Who does that?!? And as we all know, burnt popcorn smells just terrific. I made little baggies of M&Ms and organic fruit snacks and some Fruitables juice boxes. We left the little ones back at home with Ms. Ashton and we were off to the movie!

The kids looked so cute all lined up in their seats with their snacks! They were just so excited!

The motley crew!

The Skillet

Aaahhh the magic of a cast iron skillet.

I registered for one of these when we got married but I didn't get it. "Oh Well!" was the uneducated and untrained thought that went through my mind. We went camping last year on the Niobrara River and I borrowed a cast iron skillet from a friend to use 'out in the wild' and I wasn't all too impressed with it yet. Mind you, we were only frying bacon and eggs over a camp fire with ash floating up in the air and settling back down inside the pan and giving our food a nice ashy touch.

I forgot to give the skillet back and it thudded around the trunk of my car for a few months before I took it out and put it in my cupboard. She could get it back when she came over and remembered......it's been almost a year now and she remembered. Did I use that skillet one time while it was in my cupboard? No. Once I gave it back, did the universe start sending me tons of different skillet recipes that looked too good to be true? Of course.

So, Saturday I was making a list of things to get while we were out and a cast iron skillet was on the list. But being as how they are a bit pricey, I didn't have my hopes up too high. I left my list at home. Don't you just love wandering around Costco without a list? Annoying. Completely forgetting about the skillet, we met up with some friends to kill some time before we all went to a movie. We wandered into Marshalls. I don't really like Marshalls. Too much junk to sort through to find anything good. After meandering through aisles of gaudy candle holders, incomplete dish sets and tacky Easter yard decorations, we were headed out the door, when Bill says, "Hey, I found something that I thought you might like." Over in a large plastic bin, on top of a bunch of broken cardboard boxes and plastic wrap......was a lone skillet. A SKILLET! With no price on it! The stars aligned, the heavens opened and began to sing because I found a skillet! Bill didn't even know that I had been wanting one! I bought the skillet and now I'm a happy girl.

I wasted no time getting started on my list of skillet recipes. Last night I made a FABULOUS (If I do say so myself!) Chicken Parmesan with homemade sauce and fresh buffalo mozzarella. D-Lish! Then this morning I made award-winning oatmeal banana pancakes that had perfect caramel coloring all due to......the cast iron skillet.

Who's the STUD in the Glasses?

You guessed it! Sawyer has gotten even MORE handsome!

He looks so smart with them on!

Sawyer has been having a little trouble with his eyes for a while now~his left eye has developed a tendency to pull in towards his nose. We noticed it about a year ago and he went to a couple of different places to get tests done and then to a therapist, who was a friend of Nana Kathy's. After doing some therapy exercises and not seeing a huge improvement, we were referred to Dr. Troia's office. It's a family practice that's been around for over thirty years and has one of the very best reputations in Omaha.

We had an evaluation a few weeks ago and they did such a fantastic job. They were very quick and knew what they were doing, dilated his eyes and sent us home with a scrip for glasses! We searched high and low for glasses that would fit his little face. Apparently the bridge on his nose is a hard one to match because five different places didn't have them....but we finally found a place and he's kept them on his cute little face for four days now!

We will go back for a follow up visit in six weeks to figure out what would be the best move-patch, glasses or surgery. So, please pray that we can keep track of them and that after the six weeks, things would be corrected and no further help would be needed!

Gums

A few days ago Sawyer was keeping me company in my bathroom while I was getting ready. He was digging stuff out of my drawer to play with like my brush, handheld mirror, clips...

"Ok Buddy, time to cleanup."

He starts putting all of his little treasures back into the drawer and opens up my BC pills.

"Oh, here are your gums Mom."

We had a serious talk about never eating Mommy's gums. (I love how it's gumS not just gum.)

P.S. I put up a NEW PlayList of songs. GORGEOUS MUSIC!

Jones Bros. Cupcakes*

Jones Bros. Cupcakes

Last Friday Night, the girls and I went out to celebrate Melody's birthday and we hit up this trendy new-ish place called Jones Bros. Cupcakes! It was such a fun atmosphere and of course the cupcakes were out of this world D-lish! They were also fetured on The FOOD Network's 'CupCake Wars'!

If you guys have not been to the Shoppes of Aksarben, you need to make a trip down there! They have all sorts of different Kinds, varying from Boston Cream to Maple Bacon! This month a portion of the proceeds from all the Red Velvet cupcakes sold will go to help people in need.

About The Jones Family:

The concept that became Jones Bros Cupcakes was hatched from informal family discussions around our kitchen table, at home in Omaha. With Bill's interest and skills in baking, we developed the idea of a dessert restaurant specializing in cupcakes, cakes, cheesecakes and other selected desserts, using the best quality ingredients, from Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla, Vermont Butter, to French and Belgian chocolates, all homemade from scratch. We decided to provide a comfortable and upscale environment that our customers would enjoy. We expanded the concept to include tart yogurt, quality espresso coffee drinks, smoothies and blended drinks, and the café side featuring homemade soups, salads, sandwiches and panini. Wine and beer also compliment our menu. You will almost always see a family member lending a hand down at the shop, from mother and father Jerry & Elizabeth, to brothers Brad & Bill.

This was what I decided on: Tiramisu Cupcake (surprise, surprise)

Me and Lady Love!

These are my Gal Pals!

Happy Valentine's Day!*

Since we were going to be gone on our trip for Valentine's Day, we celebrated it at Day Care the Friday before. Of course we started out the morning with heart shaped pancakes, watermelon and bacon.... Are we catching the red theme? :)

Then the kiddos 'helped' me make some pink Rice Crispie treats for our party that afternoon! Having six pairs of little hands completely COVERED in sticky pink marshmallow mess is what I call a good morning!

Instead of adding more sugary snacks to their bags, Sawyer and I decided to give out these super cute little red Gatorades!

It's Party Time!

This book, "Guess How Much I Love You" this daddy hare and his son discover that love is not an easy thing to measure! It is the cutest book and we had to read it at our Valentine's Day Party!

"I love you right up to the moon," said Little Nutbrown Hare. "Oh that's Far. That is very, very far." said Big Nutbrown Hare. Big Nutbrown Hare settled into their bed of leaves, leaned over and kissed him good night. He lay down close and whispered with a smile,

"I love you right up to the moon and back."

Each of the kids brought something fun, creative and sugary to drop into the little Valentine bags for their friends. They always get so excited watching their friends open up the stuff that they brought! it's so cute!

BFFs: Charlotte and Kendyl (adroable!)

Fondant Anyone?

My girlfriends and I have Girl's Nights every couple of weeks and we have been trying to bust out of the dinner-and-a-movie mold. Stephanie had the bright idea of taking a short class on how to make and use fondant. Fondant is that super sleek icing that you normally see on wedding cakes that looks like perfection but tastes terrible. So, she found a lady on Craigslist that would come into your home and give you a crash course.

We showed up at Arliss's house with our 9 inch layered cakes, frosted in butter cream. I did a traditional yellow cake with the BEST dark chocolate coffee butter cream frosting (Thank You Ina Garten!)

Ta-Da!!!!!

After she gave us a quite lengthy run down on how you make fondant from scratch, it became quite clear to me that I will probably never made it again in my life. Too much work....too much room for the slightest error that would most definitely ruin the entire thing. I'd rather pay someone to do it for me. Call me lazy....but at least I'm willing to admit it! :)

The hardest part of it for me to get over was dunking my hands in Crisco and massaging the fondant into it's perfect consistency.......uuugghhh.......and then think about eating it afterwards? No way. BUT it turned out really cute! I decided to go with a Valentine's Day cake since we had been gone on the cruise for it. I ended up taking it over to my in-laws house and we ate it~we scrapped the fondant off of it and then it was SO GOOD!

Check out the beautiful creations!