Raspberry Quesadilla

 

Its Canada Day weekend here and what better way to start off the long weekend then with some delicious breakfast!!!  I first spotted this recipe on pinterest and knew when raspberries went on sale that I wanted to try it out.  They were quick and easy to whip together.  We had some left over cream cheese frosting in the fridge so we used that for dipping which made this breakfast even more yummy!!!

Recipe

2 tortillas
Raspberries
Monetary Jack Cheese

Lay tortilla on hot griddle and top with berries, cheese and other tortilla.  Cook until cheese is melty and flip.

A little note is that they are a little runny if you let them over cook and if you try to flatten them so just let the cheese melt so the shells stick together them self.

Happy Canada day weekend!!!

Monster Party

 

 Welcome to our Monster Bash!!!  Because my son was born on Christmas day we decided from an early age to celebrate his 1/2 birthday.  That means that on June 25th we take that day to celebrate him with his friends.  So far we have had a Sesame street party, last year was a Super Reader party and this year we celebrated with little monsters.  Because a new little buddle of joy has arrived in our home (just two short weeks ago)  I kept it simple this year.   

The party idea came when I found these (the monster set is on the bottom) at the dollar store at the beginning of the month for only $2.  The box came with 24 cupcake toppers and more then 24 wrappers for the cupcakes.  

On the weekend when I had hubby home I made a batch of chocolate cupcakes.  I used a recipe from Micah's aunt Joan that is our favorite chocolate cake recipes.  For the icing I cheated and bought it from a bakery.   All I had to do was add the coloring I wanted it to be.   Lady J and I frosted them the morning of the party.  I can't believe for being almost 2 how much of a great helper she is.  Never once did she try to lick any of the frosting :)  

It was an OK type of day here weather wise so we set up outside.  I don't know how I didn't get a picture of the whole table but I didn't so you have to see it in little bits and pieces.  I bought a plastic table cloth from the dollar store and some Monster stickers.  I let Eben help me decorate the table by putting the stickers on.  As you can see they only made it in one spot.  

It is a very windy day here so I am glad I had these little rock monsters for decorations as well.  I was going to place them around the deck but instead they made great weights for the table cloth. 

Some other snacks we enjoyed included these ruby red one eyed monsters.  Which are just raspberries with a chocolate chip stuffed in the center.  And behind where suppose to be little monsters as well but I should have gotten mini M & M's instead of the big ones.  They are simple mini pita with Nutella and M&M's as the eyes.  I did one plate of Nutella and one plate with peanut butter. 

We also had a Monster Mash trail mix.  To make the dish I simply used sticky tack to put on goggly eyes...pretty simple eh?    Then to serve it to kids we used silicon muffin cups.  

I like to have at least one game for the the party.  It was called feed the monster.  What the kids had to do was see who could get the most balls into the monsters mouth.  Each kid was given 3 balls to try.  

Since we had to hold the box, because my tying to the monkey bars didn't really work the way I had thought, they were to lose a point if they hit the holder.  This discouraged older boys from whipping them too hard.

Everyone did a great job and I think that they all got at least one ball into the box.  I wish I had more pictures but its really hard when you are the host, mama and photographer.  I think next year I will just give my camera to someone! 

Oreo Popsicles

 

The first day of summer was celebrated here with this delicious treat!!  Since I have been working on my summer time fun board for a couple of months I knew when I saw this recipe that it would be a hit in the house.  

The night before I got my little helpers together and we all worked on this recipe as a family!

First Eben used his strong muscles to crush up the oreo's 

Then we put all the ingredients together in the bowl.  Daddy stepped in to teach Eben a few kitchen tricks. This is what Micah called the swirl and tap. 

First you swirl the spatula around the edge of the measuring cup

And then you tap the spatula on the bowl to get all of it off.   I had so much fun watching them work together.  As you can see from the pictures Jaelyn was in her own little world and I am not sure what she was doing. 

 Once everything was mixed together in the bowl; Eben put out the 12 dixi cups.  When I use Dixi cups I like to put them into a muffin tray so then I can get them all in the freezer at once.  It doesn't take up too much space in there and its easy to get the popsicle sticks into the cups after they have had some time to freeze.

I poured the mixture into the cups, we let it freeze for about 1 hour and then I put the sticks into the cups and let them be over night. 

After eating a delicious summer supper we got to enjoy our treats!  And let me tell you we ENJOYED them.  They are so tasty!!!  I am going to price them out to see how much I made each one for and since I bought all the ingredients I have enough to make at least 1 more batch so I will be sure to update the post when I get it figured out. 

Lady J sure had fun eating hers.  As you can see they are a little messy so be prepared for that if you have young ones eating them. 

For more fun ideas check out I heart naptime!!!

Summer Fun

Hello first day of SUMMER!!!  I love love love the summer.  I love everything about summer; the weather, fresh food, BBQ'd food, parties, SMORES, camp fires and ice cream!!    Last summer I decided after reading so many blogs about it that I would create a family bucket list for the summer.  That way when Eben would say "what are we going to do this day mom" I would have some activities ready for him to do.  It seems to work out great and we accomplished most of the things on the list.  This year I decided to do the same thing.  And of course with the wonderful world of Pinterest I was able to find this awesome  Summer fun chart  over at the crafting chicks blog.    I downloaded the template and then opened it in picmonkey and used their different fonts to add my own summer fun list.    For the past month I have been collecting recipes, crafts and summer ideas and pinning them onto my summer time fun board so it was pretty easy to put together 50 things!  Plus I let Eben tell me some things that he wanted to do as well.  

I am so pleased with how it turned out. I can't wait to pick up my print at Costco today!!!  So after finishing it in picmonkey I ordered it in 16*20 (they are even having a sale and the print was half price) from Costco just like they did.  I plan on mounting it to some bristle board or card board and hanging it in the kitchen.  I will post a picture once I have it all done. 

Now to celebrate the first of day of summer we have made a special treat...but I will post about that tomorrow.  So how are you going to spend the summer?

A new addition

We are pleased to welcome Abraham Clark Peterson to our family.  He arrived on Sunday June 10th at 4 am in the morning!  So if you were wondering where I was and why the blog didn't have any awesome recipes, crafts or school ideas that is why.  We are just getting adjusted to having a new little one in the house.

Trail Mix Snack Cups

 

The other day I had some friends over along with their kids for a play date.  After trying to make a batch of cookies, which were a total fail, I had to put something together for people to snack on.   So I got out one of my favorite glass containers and started to fill it up.  First I started off by putting some almonds in the oven to toast them up a bit.  Then in the jar went raisins, craisins, pumpkin seeds, peanuts, coconut,  sunflower seeds, dry cereal (Life), toasted almonds and some chocolate chunks.  I usually use chocolate chips but since I didn't have any I used some left over chocolate that we had kept in the freezer since Easter.  When everything was in I decided to sprinkle just a little bit of cinnamon sugar in to the jar and stir it around.

I put the mix into these little silicon flower pot cups for the kids to eat out of.  I really love using muffin cups for snacks it great portion control.

This mixture can be stored in an air tight container or snack pack baggies to take out to the park, have in your car for that snack attack or even in your kids lunches (just don't add the nuts).

Smoothie Popsicles

 

For the past few months are family has been loving smoothies.  We love all kinds of combinations of fruit, mixed with yogurt.  And just recently a friend of mine told me to try adding water instead of OJ to let the flavor of the fruit come out more!  Yummy this was a great idea.  Also to our smoothies we have been adding some Chia seeds which nobody has really noticed cause they just think they are the seeds from the fruit.

Now with summer coming I have been doing a lot of looking around the internet and other blogs to find great summer popsicle recipes.  And while there are so many out there (here are a few that I have pinned) that I can't wait to try this summer I thought hey why not just freeze our smoothies into popsicle moulds.  So that is what we have been doing. 

So here is one of our creations that I will share with you

Mixed frozen berries of black berries, Cherry and pomegranate seeds (found at Costco)

Water (enough to get the blender going)

Vanilla Greek yogurt

Chia Seed

A splash of real vanilla

1 tsp honey

Blend until smoothie and pour into moulds.  Just look at that deep rich color.  You know its so full of antioxidants and goodness I don't feel bad if the kids eat more then 1 a day!!!  

Do you have any favorite recipes you care to share?