B is for Baby

NO not my baby!

B is for Britt who is due any day now with her first Baby and Friday was her last day at work so we wanted to say Bye and we love you!

Sarah and I made these cute cupcakes from Hello Cupcake! a super fun cookbook about how to create the cutest cupcakes ever!!! You must click the link and check some of them out on Amazon. These are the most basic cupcakes in the book but we didn't have a lot of time and wanted something simple.

To make these you need your favorite cupcake recipe, a can of frosting (yes, I said can) and 1/4 cup or so of white chocolate chips.

All you do is while the cupcakes are cooling color the frosting anyway you like and then melt it a little in the microwave for 5 to 10 seconds at a time until it is smooth and syrup like (not too hot though). Then dip the top of each cupcake and "wallah" the tops look smooth and like you really know what you are doing!!! Then melt the white chocolate and pour it into a zip lock bag. Snip a small piece of one corner off and make little squiggles and designs to your hearts content.

They were yummy and the canned frosting which I am not a fan of ended up tasting pretty good once we melted it and added the white chocolate!

Swimming and Snowmen!

We had so much fun at the pool with the homeschoolers the other day! Emmy and Mollie had a fun play date with Nana and the boys and Mom headed to the pool! The most fun was had in the outdoor hot tub!! Here is Ethan and James posing with Danyele and Elijah in the snow with snowballs in swimsuits! How often can you get a pic like that?

In the hot tub they loved making foam beards for the camera!

Looking good James!

Then someone had the idea to build snowmen...

Danyele and her snowman!

Some of these pics look a little blury but it is because of all the steam coming off the hot tub! Here is Ethan with his creation!

These two are getting ready to take a dip!

Most of the gang in the tub!

Fun with Bubbles

We had a great time playing with a science kit the other day that the boy's got from Mimi and Papa! It includes an experiment with bubbles which was a ton of fun! When are bubbles not fun though??? The kids spent a long time playing with them after the experiment was done so I snapped some pics!

These were SUPER bubbles so after waiting a few seconds the membrane would harden a little and you could catch and stack the bubbles! How cool!!

This little green wand came with the kit, it mostly made tiny little bubbles but here James is using it for super size ones!

There were tiny little bubbles everywhere! I even found them around the kitchen later on that night!

Sometimes it was harder than others to get the bubble wand to work!

Emmy giving it her best!

You can just barely see the little bubble in this one, good job Em!

More Family Pic's

I couldn't post these with the contest entry so here are a couple more family photo's from that same day!

I am so happy I got my Nana to sit with the kids for this one, it came out great!

Papa and Mimi with the kids!

I Heart Faces - "We Are Family"

Finally decided to enter a photo in one of the I Heart Faces weekly challenges!

This week the challenge is titled "We are family" so here is one of the pic's I took of us with my Mom, Dad, sis and her husband, and my Grandmother.

Go check out all the other entries or enter yourself here:

Skiing Today at King Pine

Here are some pics from our day at King Pine today! We decided to try something new this year and so we are at King Pine instead of Cranmore. So far so good! The runs are short but the conditions were great and there were a lot less people which is a major plus!!!

Here is James, Ethan and Caleb on the lift in front of me:

Ethan and James in the lodge.

On the mountain.

A super fast racing pose!!!

We enjoyed skiing with the Nesses!

On the lift again!

A day of skiing would not be complete with out some of Nana Kelley's cookies to share! Thanks Nana for the cookies!!!

Holiday Granola Recipe

After many requests for this recipe I am finally posting it! It is not necessarily a Holiday ONLY recipe because we enjoy it all year long, but we have been adding this to our Christmas cookies plates for several years now so it seems like a "Holiday" recipe to me! I love it in yogurt, oatmeal, plain cereal, and sprinkled on pretty much anything! It originally came from one of those Hannaford magazines they give out at the checkout each month. We modify it slightly to come up with our own version!

3/4 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/8 tsp salt
4 cups old fashioned oats
2 cups flake cereal (any plain flakes will do, we used bran this year)
1 cup shredded coconut
1 1/2 cups sliced almonds
1 cup pecan pieces
2 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbs vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups dried cranberries (or dates)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line two rimmed cookie sheets with foil.
2. In a saucepan melt butter over med-high heat then add the brown sugar and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract.
3. In a large bowl add oats, flake cereal, coconut, almonds, and cinnamon and mix well.
4. Pour butter mixture over dry ingredients and mix until well combined and coated.
5. Divide granola between the two baking sheets, spreading it into an even layer. Bake for 15 minutes. Then stir rotate pans and switch racks.
6. Bake for an additional 20 to 40 minutes until granola is golden stirring every 10 minutes. Watch VERY carefully during the last 10 minutes so that your granola doesn't burn! (This has happened to us several times!)
7. Pour granola into a large mixing bowl and stir in the cranberries or other dried fruit. Spread it back on to the baking sheets to cool at room temperature, then store in an airtight container. It can be kept for at least one week at room temperature,or one month when refrigerated. ENJOY!