Patriotic Skirts

Well I finished two of the three skirts. I’m really happy with how they came out, but the pictures didn’t come out that great, because I already packed the camera that takes the best pictures for girls camp.  Oh well… the girls will still look super cute in them.

The little red ribbon says Proud to be an American.  Love it!

I sewed the the small red white and blue ribbon on top of the solid white ribbon.  I used a blue bobbin and a white top thread and tried really hard to sew down the middle of the little itty bitty white part.  So that way it looks like it has dots.

OUT OF THE OFFICE

This week I’ll be off to girls camp!! I’m super excited about it.  We get to go to Moran State park on Orcas Island.  Maybe the coolest place for girls camp ever! My DH is taking the week off work so I can go. We leave bright and early tomorrow morning.

First you get to take your car onto the Ferry.

Then you get to enjoy beautiful scenery!! (umm, I don’t know those people)

Don’t be too jealous it’s suppose to rain (boo) Hopefully the sun will come out for some of it. 

So this week I won’t be able to update the summer fun jar, or post anything new, but hopefully I’ll get up some cute 4th of July skirts by the end of the day.  Fingers crossed since I haven't even started them yet! AND I still have to pack

A Little Summer Reading

I haven’t ever posted about books before, but I read quite a lot actually.  So if you liked the Hunger Games I recently read 2 series that reminded me of the Huger Games.  I really like both but I did like one of them a little better.  I’m not going to say which but if you have read them I’d like to hear what you thought. 

The first series is The Maze Runner Trilogy By: James Dashner.  There are 3 books in this series the fist one is

The Maze Runner

followed by

The Scorch Trials

and the third

The Death Cure

release date October 11th 2011

So not too painful of a wait for the last book of the series to be out. (I hate waiting for books to come out.  Right now I’m in the beginning/middle/end of EIGHT different series)  It’s painful and hard to keep track of sometimes.  Don’t worry I made a spreadsheet so I could keep track of them all.  No, seriously I did.

BUT I can’t say the same thing for the next series by Ally Condie.  Only the first book is out so far and it’s

Matched

followed by

Crossed

release date Nov. 1st 2011

All would be great summer reads. Hope you like them!

p.s. Anyone a Cinda Williams Chima / Warrior Heir fan? She has a great new series out too, the first book is The Demon King.

So is anyone else reading a series I could get sucked into right now and add to my little list of insanity??

Homemade Ice Cream

Today’s adventure was making homemade ice cream.  If you haven’t ever given it a shot you should.  I really like the cooked variety of ice cream.  It always turns out really, really good. It’s creamy, yummy and fattening delicious.  And it’s not as hard as you might think.

This is what it looks like coming right from the ice cream freezer.  If you want it a little firmer you can freeze it in your freezer until the desired frozenness :0)

Today we made * Root Beer Float, and Chocolate Mint Oreo.

The Recipe

Chocolate Mint Oreo Ice Cream

1 cup of heavy whipping cream

1 1/2 cups of half and half

1 1/2 cups of whole milk

1/2 cup cocoa powder

one big ol’ glug of chocolate sauce (optional)

8 egg yolks

1 cup sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

1 package of Chocolate Mint Oreos

The Directions

In a heavy sauce pan combine the heavy whipping cream, half & half, & milk.  Whisk in the cocoa powder (and add the glug of chocolate sauce if you so desire). Cook on Med heat stirring frequently until it is almost simmering then turn it down to low.  DO NOT BOIL.  In a SEPARATE bowl mix the egg yolks, sugar and salt until combined.  Take about 1/2 cup of hot milk mixture and add it slowly to the egg mixture. Do this a couple of times.  Then add the egg mixture into the sauce pot with the rest of the milk.  Cook on Med. heat until the mixture coats the back of a spoon.  DO NOT BOIL!  Pour mixture into a bowl and put it in the refrigerator for about 1 hour, then in the freezer just until it’s cold.  Add broken cookie pieces to chocolate ice cream and add to your ice cream maker. Freeze according to your machines directions.  Store leftover ice cream in a plastic Tupperware in your freezer.  If there is any leftover.

* for the root beer float ice cream, I left out the chocolate (obviously)  and added some root beer flavoring.  I almost positive I didn’t use the proper kind of flavoring so I’m not going to tell you what I used.  Then we added some vanilla ice cream chunks and a few vanilla sandwich cookies… just because.

Mile-High Marshmallow Peanut Squares

I found this recipe on the back of a bag of Butterscotch Morsels. I needed to bring treats to our last girl scout ceremony so I thought I would try them out.   The were fast, easy and tasty.

The recipe

1 bag of semi sweet morsels

1 bag of butter scotch morsels

1/2 cup of creamy or smooth peanut butter

9 cups of mini marshmallows

1 cup of dry roasted peanuts.

Line a 9 X 13 pan with foil (I also sprayed my foil with Pam).  Then microwave the semi sweet & butterscotch morsels along with the peanut butter @ 70 % power until smooth.  About 2 min.  Let it cool for about 1 minute.  Then mix in the marshmallows and peanuts. Spread into 9 X 13 pan and refrigerate until set.  Remove from pan and cut into bars.

I only had the color marshmallows, but they worked just fine too.

No T.V. all summer!!

The kids are finally out of school!  We get out so late, I kinda hate it but oh well.  So we decided as a family in order to maximize the summer fun we would turn the t.v. off all summer.  We also came up with a simple version of our summer fun list.  I let the kids name off activities they would like to do this summer which were free or mostly free (we came up with 50).  Then we cut them up and put them in a mason jar.  Everyday this summer we will choose a new adventure.  Some of my favorite ideas were

• have a squirt gun/ water balloon fight.
• build sandcastles
• write a play and perform it
• make cards for our family
• fashion show with pictures

Plus a lot of regular things like board games, cooking and parks. I can’t wait to get started!

Persian Lime Pie

My DH LOVES limes.  So for Father’s Day I made him a Persian Lime Pie.  (okay so it was really suppose to be Key Lime pie)  BUT man was it super easy and super yummy! I had never made this kind of pie before so I went to allrecipes and tried this recipe and this recipe.  But by far our favorite recipe was this one.  And like I said I didn’t have key limes I just had a big bag of limes from Costco and they worked great.  Seriously if you haven’t ever tried one you should. 

Baby Shoes

I know this isn’t new, or different BUT this was the first time I made these shoes and I love them!  They are so fun to make and I wanted to share them with the person I made them for.  I used this tutorial.

Super Easy Ice Cream Cake

This ice-cream cake is so easy and yummy.  All you need is 3-4 ingredients.

You’ll need

box of whoppers

box of ice cream bars (these come in lots of flavors any kind would do)

cool whip ( chocolate flavored cool whip is awesome if you can find it)

chocolate sauce (optional)

Unwrap the ice cream bars and start with four on the bottom.

add cool whip

then a layer of chopped Whoppers.

continue doing the same until you have 3 layers.

add chocolate sauce if you want.

ENJOY!!

I chopped my Whoppers using my food chopper.  Every time I use that thing I always have this song in my head forever.  So I thought I would share…

Stop having a boring tuna stop having a boring life!!