Jun 15, 2015

Family Camping: Redfish Lake


Not only have I slowed done on blogging, but it has also been awhile since I have shared a family post. Several times over the last couple of weeks I have revisited old blog posts. I have come to a couple of conclusions. I will spare you the ones that effect my self-esteem. I will share with you the positive "hey I miss that" and "why don't I do that anymore" thoughts.

First. I was a little more personal and a bit more witty. I am not sure why I have gotten away from being more personal. I had trouble deciding what people really wanted to read and questioned if I should be more profesh and less personal.  I obviously didn't really enjoy it too much, because I have really not blogged consistently for a year or more. Come to find out it is hard to share oneself when you are not really sharing about yourself.

Second. With the lack of that whole being myself thing, I have steered away from sharing with you the things we do in our everyday life. Adventurous and otherwise. Right there is another contributing factor to my lack of blogging. My life has been a lot more full of the day to day. I still do lots of creating, decorating, cooking and all of the stuff I used to blog about. I just don't always have time to document it or blog about it (AKA stay up late to write. I have become a lot more fond of sleep.).

That is a long introduction to this post. Basically, today I am sharing some family adventures. In the past I have called these kind of posts In a Nutshell or At a Glimpse. When we moved here we decided that eventually we wanted to become a camping family.

Several years later, older kids, and one pop up camper we are finally brave enough to embark on the wonderful world of camping.

Last week we went camping. Like camping for more than just overnight.


From a recommendation, we settled on camping in an area of the Sawtooth Mountains. A lovely little piece of paradise called Redfish Lake.

I was really nervous to venture on almost a full week of camping. With some list making and a whole lot of prep, the camping trip was an easy peasy success.


There is pretty much something magical about sitting around a campfire either early in the morning or into the night. So magical that you can almost overlook the lingering smell of campfire on all of your clothes.





Campfire is not only magical to sit by, but we found it can also cook up some pretty good food. Breakfast was by far our most successful campfire meals. I am not much of a breakfast person and so that means that I don't really cook a lot of it at home.

I busted out all the stops for this camping trip. Man the eggs, hash browns, and sausage were glorious. I pretty much inhaled them.


No matter how good that breakfast was, there is just no comparison to the next morning of campfire donuts.

Donuts. People.


I have made campfire donuts before and simply dusted them with cinnamon sugar. They were DELIGHTFUL. Someone who should remain nameless (ehem...me...) forgot to pack the cinnamon sugar. So I thought a little outside of the box, and rummaged through what we had. 


Pie filling and melted chocolate go a long way on a donut.

They filled our bellies and got us all ready to spend a day on a boat. Our boys were so excited to rent a boat. Someone also thought it would be alright to let all the boys drive the boat.

Sometimes with assistance.





Sometimes with out said assistance. Did I mention I was not the someone who okayed all this boys-drive-the-boat nonsense?




There was plenty of time to stop the boat and enjoy the shoreline.


Not so much the actual water. It was a little overcast and chilly. Well Oldest got in. The rest of us chose to only flirt with getting in.

We flirted with danger by walking on this log.



Don't worry none of us fell in. We have skills like that.


Mostly we just enjoyed hanging out and eating lunch in the boat.


Since we could only rent a boat, we spent more time on land than on water. Good thing the land around us was spectacular.

I pretty much love hiking in a green and glorious forest. Especially a forest surrounded by a little bit of water.



There was one whole day of rain. We stayed in the camper or really close to it. We played some games. Bean even took a little nap.


Then the skies cleared.

Amazing.

We played. We hiked. We were loud. We were unplugged. We were dirty. We were a little tired at the end. Some more than others.


Six pair of happy, tired feet headed back home. There were many declarations of happiness. All of the boys requested that we come back to this place every year. We even drove around the campsite looking for other sites we might want to reserve for next year.


On the way home, Bean requested that we go right back to camping. My lack of showering for three days immediately vetoed that. I am not sure I have ever gone that long with out showering. No one else seemed to mind. So I let it go.

That is what camping will do for you. Let things go. Let schedules go. Let manners go. Let it go.

Let it go and make yourself some memories. Go camping.

Jun 2, 2015

Strawberry Shortcake Thank You Basket

Adorable Thank You Gift- make this cute Strawberry Shortcake Kit with printable!

Strawberry season is closing in. Are you as excited about that as I am? Where strawberries are there is strawberry frozen yogurt, strawberry lemonade, strawberry pie, strawberry spinach salad, strawberry jam, and of course Strawberry Shortcake. I recently had a few friends do me the biggest favor ever. They watched my three older little men while my littlest man and I went on a week long trip. There is no feeling like not having to worry about where your kiddos will be during the day while you are out of town. That kind of peace of mind deserves a really a big THANK YOU. A BERRY special kind of Thank You if you will. Hahaha. We all have people in our lives who are BERRY sweet. There are teachers, neighbors, friends, moms, and so many others all awesome enough to be thanked with Strawberry Shortcake.

Strawberry Shortcake Kit 6

Making your own Thank You Strawberry Shortcake Kit is really easy.
Just gather up all the stars of the show. Starting of course with the leading lady. Strawberries.

Strawberry Shortcake Kit 2

Then we have whipped cream.

Strawberry Shortcake Kit 7

Now introducing the strawberry glaze and cakes of the shortcake variety.

Strawberry Shortcake Kit 5

Everything is store bought. I simply prettied everything up just a tad. I put the strawberries in a fun paper berry container. I added a paper doily and yarn to the whipped cream. The store bought strawberry glaze found a new home in a fun textured mason jar.

I printed out the Thank You tag and attached it to the basket with a cloths pin.


Berry Thank You Printable 
Download Berry Thank You Tags HERE

It has never been easier, prettier, and yummier to say thank you to that awesome person in your life.

Now I can say thank you to my berry special friends with a little Strawberry Shortcake Kit. I am pretty sure they will be my friends forever now.

Strawberry Shortcake Kit


Jun 1, 2015

Bluberry Cereal Trail Mix


Three out of my four boys all prefer eating cereal dry.

No milk. No spoons.

They like their cereal to be finger food. Which, hey, as a mom on the go I don't really have too many complaints about that. Have snack will travel.

That is always a good thing.

With Summer basically here, that means baseball, swimming lessons, sports camps, road trips and oh so many other activities. That means we are snacking a lot on the go. I really wanted to create a snack that was fun, portable, and still healthy.


So I decided to use one of my boys' favorite cereals as the jumping off point for a healthy trail mix. My boys really like Kellogg's mini shredded wheat. The flavored ones are at the top of their list. I grabbed a box of Blueberry Frosted Mini Wheats. Then I gathered up a few other ingredients and I made up a batch of this Blueberry Trail Mix.

Cereal makes the best trail mix. Plus you can pretty much make up any kind of trail mix you want. Then you throw it in any portable container and take it with you. I am not above just throwing it at my kids while driving.


My boys really liked this mix. Ninety percent wholesome, Ten percent chocolate. Perfect.

 Print HERE

May 26, 2015

End of School Pizza Party

“This post is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Pollinate Media Group® and TONY’S® Pizza, but all my opinions are my own. #pmedia #BigPizzeriaTaste http://my-disclosur.es/OBsstV


School's out for the Summer, well for us it is almost out. We have 8 days left, but then who is counting. The end of the school year calls for a celebration.

This year we decided to throw ourselves a little pizza party.

An Hasta La Pizza School party. Oh gosh. I kill myself. After I laughed at how clever I was, I went to work making posters and decorations for our end of school pizza party.

Download HERE

If one is having a pizza party, one must have pizza.

When you have four boys with bottomless pits for stomachs, you have to have good pizza that is affordable. Good news for me is that TONY's®  Pizza is now 30% larger, comes in a variety of yummy crowd pleasing flavors, and they are super affordable.

I ran over to Walmart and I picked up a few of our favorite flavors of Tony's Pizza. We cooked them up and set them out to start our pizza party.

To make our party all fun with very little clean up necessary, I laid out butcher paper and served the pizza right on top of it. I labeled the butcher paper with which kind of pizza was on the menu.
  


Even the drinks were served up easy in paper cups with paper straws.


We can't forget the decorations. You all know how I like a good coordinated party. So to go with our pizza I made up pizza decorations.

A simple pizza banner.


I whipped up these banners using PicMonkey.


If you are feeling the urge to throw your kiddos an Hasta La Pizza School party, I have made this little pizza banner print out for you to use.

Download HERE

I also made up some invitations just in case you want to invite the whole neighborhood.

Download HERE

Time to load up the plates with all the yummy pizza. All that authentic pizzeria taste, made with real cheese, and lovely herby tomato sauce piled on a plate. My boys love pizza.


I completely lost track of how many pieces they each ate.


Pizza is always a good idea. Especially for a celebration. You can use these printables to throw your own Hasta La Pizza School pizza party. You can also load up with a COUPON for Tony's Pizzas: SAVE $.75 off of any TWO (2) Tony's Pizza (14.14 oz. or larger). The Walmart digital coupon is available until 6/30/15. (While supplies last)


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