Unforgettable Childhood

When I was a little girl I was very fortunate to have my Grandmother babysit me everyday.

Some of my favorite memories of my Grandmother happened in my parent’s kitchen. She always let me stand right next to the counter on a chair and help her. I think that she inspired the passion I have for cooking and baking now.

A couple of weeks ago when we were visiting my Mom and Dad, we decided to do some baking with the girls. My mom went through my Grandmother’s recipes so we could make something that she used to make.

We decided that since it is almost camping season and S’mores are our favorite, we would make Indoor S’mores.

It only takes a few ingredients, these are super simple to make with your kids.

Here is the recipe, the picture is a little blurry, but I wanted to capture my Grandmother’s name.

• 2/3 c. Karo Light Corn Syrup
• 2 T. butter or margarine
• 1 Bag of Chocolate Chips
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 10 oz. pkg. of Golden Grahams
• 3 c. miniature marshmallows

Butter 9″X13″ baking pan. Heat corn syrup, butter and chocolate chips, first to boiling, stirring constantly, remove from heat, stir in vanilla. Pour over cereal in large mixing bowl. Toss until completely coated. Add marshmallows 1 cups at a time. Press mixture in buttered pan. Let stand until firm and cut into squares.

The finished product. . .Yum!

It is so much fun to bake in my Mom and Dad’s kitchen with my girls. Hopefully someday they will love to cook and bake, too.

Saturday started out as a gloomy, rainy day. Everyone spent most of the day in the house.

Late afternoon the sun began to shine and we took full advantage of Family Game Night outside.

We started with a game of Croquet. We love playing this as a family because even little one can join in the fun.

Nadia had just as much fun running back and forth to the swing set as she did hitting her ball.

Another one of our favorite outdoor games is Boochie. We discovered this game last year. It is kind of a kid’s version to Bocce Ball. Each person has a ball and a hoop. One person throws a bigger foam ball out and then everyone tries to get their ball and hoop close to the orange ball.

The orange ball helps determine points. Each person has a wrist band to keep track of their points until one person wins.

This game is full of laughter and silliness. Perfect for family outdoor fun.

We couldn’t pass up this beautiful night without gathering around the fire pit. Some of our favorite family moments are around the fire. And of course, you can’t have a fire without smores.

The wood was still a little wet from the winter so starting a fire proved to be a little difficult.

Marshmallow down, between Madi shaking her stick and blowing out the fire, the marshmallow had no hope for survival.

Not sure where Nadia found the Santa Hat.

What a perfect Family Night! Have you started spending time outdoors as a family?

We had a wonderful Earth Day. The sun was shining all day and the temperature was perfect.

We started our morning reading The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle.

I had cut out felt board characters to tell the story. This is a fun way to get the girls involved in the story. Then after I am done, they love to tell the story back to me in their own words with the characters.

We decided that we needed to plant our own seeds.

Last night our oldest daughter had her spring concert last night. For a mom that doesn’t have a sewing machine I think her costume turned out okay. I just used a little heat bond, safety pins and pipe cleaners.

It was another great Earth Day! Today the forecast is rain so we are thankful for the beautiful day.

We made a fun snack to celebrate Earth Week.

E: Earth Worms (Gummy Worms)

A: Animal Crackers

R: Resse’s Pieces

T: Teddy Grahams

H: Hershey’s Kisses

Mix it all together in a big bowl and enjoy! YUMMY!

We celebrated our first day of what we call Earth Week in our house yesterday. I had a great suggestion from Kim at Rosie Hippo to use The Lorax by Dr. Seuss to kick off our week.

This book is a wonderful illustration of how we can hurt the environment by not taking care of the earth. It is also a great example of greed. After reading the story, we talked about what we can do to save the Earth.

We created Celebrate Earth Journals. First the girls finished drawing the Once-ler from the book. All we know is he has yellow eyes and green hands and arms. It was fun to see their creations. Next they drew a place that they would like to live. They all agreed that they want to live in a place full of color.

You can print off the Journal we used here!

Celebrate Earth Journal

For snack I had a great plan. . .but I couldn’t find any cotton candy in town. If you can find Cotton Candy, this is my suggestion to you. Buy twizzlers, frosting and cotton candy. Put a little frosting on the end of your twizzlers, grab a puff of cotton candy and stick it to the twizzlers. Now you have your own Truffula Trees.

Today we are creating E.A.R.T.H. Snack mix. . .check back tomorrow for more Earth Week Fun!

And don’t forget to check out Rosie Hippo. It is a great shop full of Unique, Natural, Organic, Handcrafted toys for your kids.

Last week was a tough week. There was a lot of eating out and fast food does not help our family get healthy. Fortunately for me the scale didn’t go up, but it didn’t go down, either.

Yesterday I knew I needed a really good last chance work-out or maybe I should say first chance work-out to jump start my week. I did intervals at the gym and a new abs routine. Then I came home and lifted weights with my hubby. We don’t ever do that together, so it was a lot of fun.

We just have a bench and free weights set up in our garage. The little girls joined in our fun. It is great for them to see us working at getting healthy together. Here are a few pictures of the girls from our work-out.

Dancing with some three pound weights.

Doing a little cardio hula-hooping.

Hubby and I are committed to working towards clean eating. We are down to 5 weeks before our family trip to Disney World. Which also means we are 5 weeks from Summer Vacation. There is no better time to get healthy.

Mamavation named two new moms last Monday night. They have survived their first week! Congratulation to Rachel and Kimberly. Tonight before the Mamavation Show Bob Greene will be tweeting it up with Bookieboo for a Lean & Mean Protein Party. One person has a chance to win a 30 minute consultation with Bob Greene. The party is possible from All White Eggs! It is going to be a fun night. The twitter party is from 7:30-8:30pm EST. The Mamavation Show will start at 9pm EST.

We love a good party in our house!

And, the Ultimate Blog Party was one of the best parties I have ever been to. I found so many cool websites that I love! My twitter followers went over 1,000! It was a great week.

I wanted to join the after party and share with you three new blogs I found during the party that I can’t wait to start visiting on a regular basis.

The first I want to share with you is Sugar & Spice & Frugal Advice. Barbie and Joelle are also SAH-moms of girls. I love their site. It has little bit of everything. Their purpose is to find sweet deals and everybody likes a good deal!

Another great blog that you should check out is Milk and Honey Mommy. She also writes for 5 minutes for Mom Going Green. But this is her personal blog full of all kinds of awesomeness!

Joy at the Stay At Home Missionary is another new favorite. She is a mother of five in Indonesia. Her husband is a Missionary Pilot. Her site is so cool and her stories are, too.

I can’t wait to keep visiting sites from the party. There are so many amazing blogs out there. Make sure you check these three out. I hope everyone that was hopping had a great time, I know I did.

Stop by next week for all kinds of Earth Day Fun!!