Veggie Tales Birthday Cake

I made this Veggie Tales cake for a friend.  I thought Larry looked a bit scary, but everyone else seemed to like it.  Happy Birthday Christian!

Gingerbread Houses 2014

Merry Christmas!  Here are our gingerbread houses for this year!  This is a fun tradition we do every year, see our previous years here: 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010.  This was Matthew's first time participating.  He was eating cereal off his house as fast as I could put it on!  His house hit the floor and split into pieces.

Kevin's is on the left with "pokey trees".  Mine is on the right with the pretzel fence.

Here is Caleb's on the left and Rebekah's on the right.

And lastly, Joshua's.  Rebekah helped him at the end to actually put candy on his house.  Mostly, he ate the candy off as soon as he put it on.

If you'd like to make your own gingerbread houses, this is the recipe I use: Simply Recipes.  My advice is to bake the pieces longer than you should and leave them out all night so they are nice and hard!  Also, make sure your frosting is thick.  I'd love to see pictures of yours if you try it!  Merry Christmas, may God bless you!

Baby #4 is a Boy Cupcakes

Baby #4 is on HIS way!  It's a Boy!  In case you're counting, that's 3 boys and 1 girl.  We're very excited about this new addition to our family.

I wanted a special way to tell the kids they were having a brother or sister, so I made cupcakes!  It was my first time making cupcakes from scratch!  (I always cheat and use a box.)  I made little flags using tooth picks and construction paper, really simple.  Then after our ultrasound, I stuck the right color flags in the cupcakes.  Below is a picture of them (and our friends) as I came around the corner.  Caleb and Rebekah both wanted a sister, so I think they weren't as excited as my friends kids were...  That has changed already though, and now we're all trying to think of what to name this little guy.

Homemade Graham Crackers

Yep, you read that right.  I actually made homemade graham crackers, and they are yummy!  I've been trying hard to cut out all artificial dyes, flavors and preservatives.  That junk is just not good for us!  Rebekah said they were the best graham crackers she had ever tasted!  I was surprised that they got crunchy, I figured they'd have the graham cracker taste but be soft.  I did notice that the ones that were rolled thinner were crunchier.

I used a recipe from Smitten Kitchen.  After making the dough and putting it in the refrigerator to chill, I read the rest of the recipe and realized that it was going to be A LOT of work.  So, I decided to skip a lot of her chilling and decorating time.  I just rolled them out and used a pizza cutter to cut squares.  Seriously, why have I always been doing circle cookies!  Making square ones with the pizza cutter was WAY easier than cookie cutters!  I baked them right away instead of chilling them.

One thing I would change about the recipe is using a little less vanilla, maybe 1 1/2 Tbsp instead of 2.  I thought it was a little strong.

Have you ever tried making your own crackers?  I'd love to hear about it!  

Baby Food Jar Snowmen with Hot Cocoa

 
Aren't these snowmen adorable?  I found this link on Pinterest and started saving baby food jars right away! I used the larger jars for the bottom part filled with hot cocoa (only because I didn't have enough small ones).  The hat is just some black construction paper.  Rebekah helped me pick out the buttons.  I used some glitter puffy paint for the nose and mouth.  It was a quick and simple gift for the kids to give to their Sunday School teachers.  I printed the tags from Sassy Sites, and the kids colored them and wrote their names on the back.

I know Christmas is over, but maybe you can save this for next year, or find a reason to give a snowman gift this winter!

Pink Pony Birthday Cake

My Rebekah is 4!  She requested a pink pony cake, and this is what she got!  I saw a picture of a similar one on Pinterest, but was unable to find the original website to link to.  I started with one 12 inch round yellow cake and one 8 inch round strawberry cake.  The picture below shows how I cut the pieces to make the pony.  I drew the head on a piece of paper and then cut it out with a serrated knife.  The hair on the pony was made with the basket weaving tip.  Rebekah thought it was perfect!

Strawberry Muffins - Dairy Free

Rebekah and I made strawberry muffins today.  Rebekah is allergic to dairy, so we made these dairy free.  I adapted a recipe I found on allrecipes.  They were delicious!  (I used frozen that we picked.)

Strawberry Muffins
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup soy or almond milk
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cup chopped strawberry (mine were frozen)
1/2 tsp vanilla (maybe more, I spilled a little...)

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Oil a 12 cup muffin tin.
2.  Mix all dry ingredients and set aside.
3.  Combine all wet ingredients, beat lightly.
4.  Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients and mix.
5.  Fold in strawberries.
6.  Fill muffin tin with batter.
7.  Bake for 20 minutes, or until done.
8.  Let cool and enjoy!

Rebekah wanted to take a picture of her muffin too, so here it is:

Basketball Cupcakes (Happy Father's Day)

Happy Father's Day!  I am especially thankful for my husband, who is an amazing daddy!  And I also have a wonderful Step-Father, that I always took for granted, but he was always there for me, thank you Doug!

My church is having a bake sale today, so I had to make something manly.  Basketball cupcakes it was!  These are so easy to make, just ice the cupcakes with orange frosting and then pipe on some black lines.  I have also done other balls in the past.  Baseballs can be done with white icing with red laces piped on.  Tennis balls can be done with lime green icing (very interesting to make that color!) and white lines.  Golf balls can be made with white icing, and then using the round end of a paint brush, make little divots all over.

I did have something odd happen to my cupcakes while they were baking.  If you're a facebook fan, you got a sneak peak at this strangeness last night.  It's like the tops crusted over right away, and then the batter ruptured out of the top like lava.  Very weird, I have no idea what caused this.  Has this ever happened to any of you?  I had to cut off the "cupcake warts" before frosting them (Kevin's term), but they were yummy!

See?  Very weird!

Strawberry Jam

Strawberry jam!  Who doesn't love it?  I have never canned anything before, so I am very proud of my 9 jars of jam!  The whole family went strawberry picking, even Joshua (in my Ergo baby carrier).  Then I had to make a trip to Walmart to buy a canner, jars, and supplies.  Rebekah picked off the green parts for me!  I followed The Pioneer Woman's tutorial, here's Part 1 and Part 2.

We picked 16 lbs!  The kids were actually helpful this year!  I also made two strawberry pies, the perfect summer dessert!

Do you have a favorite strawberry recipe?  I'd love for you to share!

Please stop by and like my facebook page!

Barbie Doll Birthday Cake

My sweet niece turned 5 this week!  She specifically requested a Barbie birthday cake, and of course, her favorite colors are pink and purple!  I made strawberry cake, so even the inside was pink!  This is a ten inch round two layer cake.  The doll on top was from the dollar store.  Her dress is cake that I baked in a metal bowl, then flipped upside down onto the cake.  I had to add quite a bit of frosting around her middle because the cake wasn't tall enough.  I used a plain star tip to decorate her dress, even putting a few in her hair.  She loved it!  

Here's the purple t-shirt dress I made her.  I'm linking with:

Dandelion Honey

Most of us have heard that you can eat dandelion leaves in your salad, right?  Who would have thought you could turn dandelion flowers into honey (aka syrup)?  I was amazed when I came across Mooberry Farm's recipe for Dandelion Syrup!  The kids and I had great fun picking dandelion heads!  The pictures are of us picking the stems off.  This is a great job for young kids to help with.  I didn't have to worry about them ruining the dandelions...

Here they are boiling in water with a chopped up lemon.

After straining the juice and cooking it with sugar, we got two-thirds of a quart jar full of honey.  It has a very strong taste, which is a little weird at first, but I like it, and the kids think it's amazing that we made our own honey!  They were very proud to have daddy taste it... unfortunately, daddy thinks it's allergies in a jar...  He did take a lick, but that's all.  (His taste buds are weird though, he ate pickled sucker fish for lunch and then turned his nose up at our honey!)

Now hop on over to Mooberry Farm for the recipe, and then go pick some dandelions!

Blueberry Cornbread - Dairy Free

I thought blueberry cornbread would be yummy, and it was!  My husband even liked it, and he doesn't like plain cornbread!  This recipe is for dairy free, but if you don't need to be dairy free, go ahead and use butter and regular milk.

Blueberry Cornbread
1 cup soy or almond milk
1/4 cup melted shortening
1 large egg
1 1/4 cup cornmeal
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup blueberries (and a few more if you love blueberries)

Preheat oven to 350.  Place shortening in cast iron skillet and place in oven so shortening will melt.  Meanwhile, mix milk and egg with wire whisk.  In another bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Add dry ingredients to milk and egg and mix.  Pour in melted shortening and mix.  Stir in blueberries and pour batter into skillet.  Bake for 30 minutes or until knife comes out clean.  Cut in wedges and enjoy.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake in a Cast Iron Skillet

Wow!  Many people rave about pineapple upside down cake made in a cast iron skillet, but I didn't expect it to be this good.  While I haven't had as much time to sew, I have found time to make dessert!  A woman has to have her priorities, right? I didn't have pineapple rings, only a can of tidbits, which worked great.  And thanks to my mom, we even had maraschino cherries!  I pulled the recipe off of the internet, but now I can't find the exact one I used, but it was similar to this one.  I used soy milk in the batter for Rebekah, but made her a separate little one so I could use butter in the bottom of the skillet, because butter is just better.  Everyone loved their cake, even Caleb who says he hates pineapple!

This is the cake in the skillet before turning it upside down onto the plate.

Cast Iron Skillet Cornbread

My husband and kids bought me this cast iron skillet for my recent birthday.  I have never used a cast iron skillet, so this corn bread was my first attempt, and it was delicious.  I used this recipe, and also made some honey butter (just butter mixed with some honey).  Yummy!  Do you love your cast iron skillet?  Do you have any recipes to share?  I'd love to have some tried and true recipes!

My wonderful husband took on the challenge of making me a birthday cake with both kids as helpers, isn't he brave?  The pic below is the final result!  Rebekah's side has skittles and smarties on it since she can't have the chocolate candy.  Sounds gross, but she thought skittles on chocolate cake was great!

Caleb and Rebekah made me birthday cards that they wrote on themselves, precious!

And of course, an adorable picture of baby Joshua.

Individual Serving of Microwave Brownie Torte

I came across this recipe for an Individual serving size, microwaveable brownie torte, and it is heavenly!  It's from Remodelaholic.  Thank you so much for the recipe!  I have tried it 3 times now, and I love it.  This last time, I ran out of cocoa powder, so I used a square of unsweetened baking chocolate, still amazing!  Try it!

Cinnamon Rolls with Bread Machine

Being 9 months pregnant means that it's really hard to sleep some nights.  My family was blessed when I decided to make cinnamon rolls for breakfast since I was up so early!  I have never made homemade cinnamon rolls, and they were absolutely delicious!  I will definitely be making them again.  I came across Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls, which seemed easy, but it called for milk in the dough, which meant Rebekah couldn't have them.  I decided to look at my bread machine manual and found it had a cinnamon roll recipe with no milk in the dough!  Yeah!  So, I made the recipe from my manual for the dough.  I seperated some of the dough for Rebekah, using her special dairy free margarine in the filling and a glaze using soy milk.  I used the Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls recipe for the filling and frosting for the rest of the family though.  Looking at the picture makes me want to make some more right now!  

My friend Allie recommends this recipe, but because it's loaded with milk and butter it didn't work for us.  But she swears it's the best!

Christmas Highlights and Gingerbread Houses

We had a wonderful Christmas this year!  I hope all of you did too!  Kevin, the kids and I celebrated as a family on the 23rd before heading out of town to visit family.  The first thing we did was make gingerbread houses, our tradition for the past 3 years.  (See last years houses here, and the recipe here)  We had a little trouble this year with our houses staying together, so Caleb's became a saggy A-frame instead!  But we persevered and had a great time (and a sugar buzz).  In the picture above from left to right is Kevin's, mine, Rebekah's, and then Caleb's.

Before we open presents, we always read the Christmas story.  We don't ever want to forget the true reason for the season!

They loved their aprons!

I think Caleb liked his tie too.

And here's baby Mollie all decked out in her new pajamas.

The paper dolls were fun, but it was hard to share the board...

Bean bag tic tac toe went over well too.  I reused a box to wrap it in, and you should have seen the look on Caleb's face when he thought he was getting dishes!  Priceless!

The rest of the Christmas holiday was spent with family, being spoiled with presents, good food, and treats galore!  Here is one last picture of the kids playing with their cousin, isn't he a cutie?