June, where did you go?

I cannot believe it has been so long since I blogged.  I have been working extra classes this summer, and since I am not sitting at my school desk I don't turn my desktop computer on very often to blog.
This month we celebrated national doughnut day at Dunkin' Donuts who treated us to a free doughnut.  We went to FBG for my family reunion and camped with Mimi and PawPaw including celebrating PawPaw's bday.  We helped Steve with some chicken farming.  The girls attended my friends' VBS and spent the week with Mimi and PawPaw.  We have been dogsitting Erica's son, T.J.  The kids have fallen in love with T.J. and I have gained an "electric blanket" to cuddle with.
The pool is open at the gym and I took my obligatory slide down the big slide to kick-off summer.  I am teaching nine classes a week this summer.  I have taken a class at a nursing home in the Arboretum and a class at 24 Arboretum until they can hire a new instructor.  We are having a blast, but it just going by too fast.  I don't remember life flying by this fast as a kid?

Library fun

The kids are reading up a storm this summer.  And we have had lots of fun at some of the library's summer concert series.  To kick-off the summer we went to see Joe McDermott, just call us groupies.  I have lost count on how many times we have seen Joe.  And today, we went to see the Biscuit Brothers.  The rain clouds stayed away, long enough for the show.

The kids are participating in multiple reading programs including the library's reading program, Half-Priced Books' and HEB Buddies.  This summer they are into the Isabelle (AG) series, Nancy Drew and Clue Series, Meet Cam Jansen books, and Rainbow Fairies books.  It has been a low-key summer so far, I cannot believe June is almost over!

Popcorn Cake

We love popcorn.  We usually have once a week if not more.  We have a stovetop popper that we use to make the best popcorn.  LE's dessert this past week was to make a popcorn cake.

We started by popping 1/2 cup of popcorn kernels with a T. coconut oil in our popper.  You can pop your corn anyway you like.
Next grease a bundt cake pan.
In a large bowl mix your popcorn with 1 cup of m and m's.
In a medium saucepan, melt 1 stick of butter with 1/4 cup of coconut oil over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally.  Remove for heat and  add 1 bag of mini marshmallows. Stir the popcorn and marshmallow mixture together and then add to the Bundt pan.  Use a spoon to press the mixture down and then cover with foil.  Allow to sit 3 to 4 hours.
To serve, invert the cake pan onto a large plate.  Serve at room temperature.

Daddy's Day

For Father's Day this year, the girls left to go to Mimi's for the week to attend VBS.  We made fajitas for lunch before the girls left.  That evening, we took the boys to the park to feed the ducks and then went to In'N'Out Burgers for dinner.  This was our first time to eat since we were in CA.  We will definitely be back.

Happy Father's Day to the best Daddy ever!!

wordless wednesday

There's a Chef in the house, a couple of them

This summer, the girls are helping me out in the kitchen.  Each week, they will plan a meal including an entree and a vegetable dish plus whatever else they want to plan, shop for and clean up.  Week one was very successful.
Boo made us a Cajun feast from her Princess and the Frog cookbook.  She made gumbo (including the roux from scratch, I helped with this step), cornbread, rice and Ray's Mud Pie.  Since her gumbo had a lot of veggies, she didn't have to make one.  For her first cooking experience, this meal was a tad over zealous, but LE watched the boys and Daddy and I helped her.
LE's first meal to make was her favorite dish, my Granny's chicken and dumplings.  She made a rainbow veggie/fruit tray and strawberry shortcake before.  She did almost the entire meal on her own.  I handled the raw chicken.  Her veggie tray included bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, grapes, carrots, lemons, cucumbers, and blueberries.  We had Pastor Steve over for dinner a couple of nights last week b/c Miss Sue had to make an unexpected trip to her sister's funeral.  This gave the girls an opportunity to hone their hospitality skills.

Boo's ice cream pie was AH-mazing.  I told her it is what I want for my birthday.  I am so glad it is finally out of the house as of today.  Every time I opened the freezer it was SCREAMING my name.  The whole meal was really, really good. I hope it is one she duplicates this summer.
Ingredients:
Chocolate graham crust
1 qt. Chocolate ice cream
1/2 cup chocolate fudge topping (we used Hershey's dark chocolate syrup)
1/2 cup chocolate chips (we used dark chocolate)
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup powdered cocoa mix

Scoop half of the ice cream into a bowl and let it soften about 10 minutes.  Then spread it into the pie shell. Dig holes in the the ice cream and fill each hole with a T. of fudge topping (mud).  Freeze again for 10 minutes.

Stir chocolate chip "rocks" into the remaining ice cream, and then spread it into the pie.  Return to freezer.

Beat the heavy cream at high speed for 3-5 minutes to thicken.  Add the cocoa mix and beat for 2 more minutes, we added a teaspoon of powdered sugar b/c our cocoa isn't very sweet.  Spread the whipped cream evenly over the pie.  Wrap pie in plastic wrap and freeze for 3-4 hours.

field day 2014

This past week was our annual field day with our homeschool friends.  The kids were divided up into teams, and LE made it on the black team, while Boo was on the white team.  The boys were with the preschoolers on the green team.  Games included the three legged race, an obstacle course, scavenger hunt, water balloon fight, and water-gun target shooting.  Both girls won the team spirit award for their teams and won fun prizes for scoring points on the games.  Afterwards we had a picnic lunch and enjoyed time at the splash pad.

LaSt DAy of SchOOl

Today is the last day of the 2013-14 school year.  The girls received books from their wish lists to kick off their summer reading programs.  Boo got a Frankly Frannie chapter book and LE got Welcome to Kaya's World.  Both girls also got a surprise Lindsay picked out, Boo got Molly's puppies Yank and Bennett, LE got Licorice the AG kitten.  R2 got a pkg of water balloons.
Once a week I write a prompt for them in their journals, and then the other days they write about anything they want.  Yesterday, I wrote in their journals, Today is the last day of school. I am...  Both girls thought is was a mistake that I had written it weeks ago.  It took some convincing that we were taking a break.  Both girls were at a good stopping point in math.  LE had finish everything else and Boo started two language books later in the year b/c she finished her other books so quickly.
I'm not sure who is more excited, the teacher or the students.