Memorial Day Weekend!

Ben and I went camping over Memorial Day with my family. We had so much fun hanging out with everyone. And we got to spend a lot of time with my cousins' kids.

This is Bethany. She was a lot of fun. Definitely the smiliest baby I've ever met!



Autumn and her dad decorated a car for the mini Indy race.



She also had a lot of fun at the pool!



Autumn decided not to race after all. Maybe next year. Her little brother Paul "drove" her car instead.



So serious:).



At each lap, the kids had a different pitstop. The first one was a "fill up". The girls gave him a mini marshmallow.



He got a medal and a little car for participating!!



Isaac went fishing and caught 2 bluegills. He named them Supper and Dinner.



He thought they were pretty yummy.



On Monday, we went to Ben's grandma's because his aunt Judy was visiting from Colorado. Everyone enjoyed playing (or watching:) ) a little family Rock Band.

New Recipes to Share!

We tried a couple new recipes this week - 2 of the 3 were a success:). I highly recommend this recipe for Chicken Tortilla Soup. It's supposed to taste like Max & Erma's. Ben thought it tasted even better! And wasn't difficult at all!

And tonight, I baked Orange Dreamsicle Cookies. They were really fun.... and tasted like an orange dreamsicle. (You just have to be careful not to bite into a pocket of the Tang:) .)

Our strawberries made the picture, too:). We decided to grow them on a whim but have been very impressed with their flavor!

We've done a little flower planting since our last post. There's an AWESOME plant nursery close to our house.... dangerous:). Here are a few pictures:

More Cake Balls...

Well, my first attempt at bunnies wasn't so successful, so we ended up with some Easter piggies... :)

Here are the bunnies.... and the cute little bunny butts:).

Cake Balls/Herbie's New Friends...

Ben and I made cake balls this afternoon. And Herbie was excited because he met some new friends.


I still have some more baby chicks to work on tonight, and I'm hoping to try bunnies, too. Bakerella has other awesome ideas for Easter cakeballs on her blog.

And I forgot to post the link for the Homemade Peeps yesterday. So, here it is.

Homemade Peeps!

This year, we didn't make Cadbury Eggs, but we did make Peeps!!

Here were the ingredients:

I got to use my candy thermometer:)

While the marshmallows were "fluffing", I prepared the pan.

I made the marshmallows blue.

We had a bowl-licking party:).

Ben helped cut out the Peeps. Then, I finished them off with sanding sugar.

The finished product:

Baby Gift!

I finally finished Ben's and my gift for Kyle and Heather's baby girl. Her nursery is pink and brown:). The blanket definitely looks homemade, but it's soft. :)

Busy!

Sorry for the lack of posts! We've been so busy, you'd think I would've been excited for all the things I could've written about:).

To get back in the swing of things, I'll post some pictures... My friend Heather is having a baby girl in May, and her church shower is this Thursday. Here are some things I've been working on:

Last night, I made an army of candy pacifiers. We'll use them to scatter as a decoration on the tables at the shower. You take 2 Lifesavers and glue them together and then take a jelly bean and glue it in the center. The instructions on-line said to use a hot-glue gun and to remind your guests that they aren't edible. But I thought, what's the fun in that? So, I "glued" them together with white chocolate. (And while the flavors of the 3 components don't exactly go hand-in-hand, the guests CAN eat them if they want to:). )

We had leftover chocolate, so I decided to have a little more fun... These are chocolate covered chips and NutterButters:). Wilton (cake decorating, candy, etc.) sells this little bottle that looks like a ketchup/mustared bottle you'd find in a diner, only clear. I totally recommend it! It made the task of glueing the pacifiers together so easy, and then the purple "drizzle" on the below picture was also a breeze!!

Last weekend, Ben's parents and brother Daniel came to visit. The boys worked on the deck and Jayne and I went shopping. She was such a trooper as I had lots of stuff to get for the shower. We also made this lovely baby-sock-rose-bouquet:). She was WAY better at the sock rolling than I was!

Here's an up-close picture of a "rose".