It's raining, it's pouring

In the last 24 hours, we've gotten about two inches of rainfall and our backyard really looks it. 

Noah wanted to go out and play in the water, but it was rainy and cold so we stayed inside.

Someone was out enjoying the weather though.  This big bunny girl was out checking out our yard. We were wondering if she was looking for a place to have babies. A couple years ago, a bunny made a baby nest under our swing set fort. We decided to give her a strawberry to eat. I was surprised how quickly she went over to check it out. I would not be surprised if the strawberry was completely gone by tomorrow morning. The internet says not to give bunnies too many sweet fruits. The internet is always right.

Several parts of our yard retain water when it rains so we have quite the pond going on by our fence right now. I think I need to make a dry creek bed over in there area or something so that it can handle the water a little better. Thoughts on this?

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Elephant Cake Pops - Let's Talk About the Elephant in the Room

Elephant Cake Pops - How to make Elephant Cake Pops

How to make Elephant Cake Pops

Edited: I edited this post to add information about how to make the grey color of the elephants.

One of the things Emily and I made for the baby shower was these cute elephant cake pops.

I definitely need to work on quality control if I ever do this project again, but everyone seemed to like them.

I followed these instructions that I found online. She had a very good tutorial on the process.

The ears are blue candy melts. The trunk is made from the same candy melt that has been trimmed down to a trunk shape.  The feet are dehydrated marshmallows. The heart on the nose is a heart-shaped sprinkle. 

The Feet

Let's talk about the feet for a minute. Back around Christmas, I'd seen some Jet Puffed Mallow Bits dehydrated mini marshmallows in a cute little container. But I could not find them anywhere in the store. And they were sold out or extremely expensive anywhere I found them online. So I found another dehydrated marshmallow product on Amazon that was cheaper. I ordered it ... and was very surprised when a 1 pound bag of dehydrated marshmallows showed up at my house. Anybody have suggestions on ways I can use about a million dehydrated mini marshmallows?

The other thing I wanted to say about the dehydrated mini marshmallow feet was that when I got them out of the bag and started working with, they rehydrated very quickly and began to stick to everything. So you might want to just get a few out at a time. You also have to make sure you adhere the marshmallow feet to the cake ball using melted candy before you dip the elephant into the melted candy. 

The Trunk 

I used a small metal decorating tip to cut the candy melts into the shape of a trunk. I was able to get about two trunks out of each candy disk. I used the exact same blue candy melt discs that I used for the ears. These are the blue candy melt discs that I used. I bought two packages and had one leftover. I only made about 24 cake pops though. Actually, I made probably twice that many balls, but only dipped 24 of them. Anyway, you will want to dip the trunk into candy melts and push it into the cake ball before you dip the entire elephant in the melted candy. 

The Heart

I think the red heart is one thing that wins these elephant cake pops. I used these red heart sprinkles. They were the perfect size. 

The Eyes

I ordered these edible markers online to use for the eyes. I had a very hard time getting them to write and so some of my elephant eyes were pretty messy and uneven. I still don't know what I did wrong there, unless the markers were not made to write on candy melts. 

The Grey Color

The grey color of the elephants was made by mixing 1 part black candy melts with 3 parts white 

Some of my elephants started to droop on the stick while they were drying. I think these were ones that did not get a good amount of candy melts between the stick and the cake ball. You should let the candy melts pool around the stick a little bit so that the cake ball doesn't move or come off the stick.

I am probably doing a terrible job explaining, but just look at the tutorials that are online and you will get the idea.

Also, be prepared to be in the kitchen for a while because it's definitely a process to get them all decorated up. But I think it was worth the effort!

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Cheater, Cheater?

This kid - what am I going to do with him? On Friday, he wanted to wear this shirt to school because it had one of his spelling words on it.

Yes, I let him wear it.

He would have spelled ROAR correctly anyway. He's a great speller. 

Smart boy.

And handsome.

And pretty silly, too.

Yep, that's my Noah.

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Baby Shower Sneak Peak

On Saturday, we went to Mandy's baby shower. Emily and I helped make some of the food. I want to share more about some of the things we made, but first I just wanted to post some pics of the sweets tables.

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Honor Choir

This spring, Emily tried out and was accepted into the Honor Choir at her school. They practiced after school one day per week.  A few weeks ago, they had their Honor Choir performance at the local high school. The performance included Honor Choirs from all the elementary schools that feed into our high school.

We were sitting up in the balcony during the performance and I couldn't get any good pictures. This was the best I could do. Can you find Emily? She's on the back row.

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Spring Break Adventure - Wild Wilderness Drive-Through Safari

On Sunday morning, we checked out of our hotel then met up with Heather and Stephen and drive out to the Wild Wilderness Drive Through Safari in Gentry, Arkansas.

When we first got there, we went through the drive through safari. This is one is different than the drive through zoos that we'd been to before because they don't allow you to feed or interact with the animals in the drive through part. 

But this camel ... came right up to my window and he was so cute and friendly. I rolled down my window to pet him just for a minute and the kids got so mad! Noah said I should use #rulebreaker again. But this camel wanted to be petted. I. Couldn't. Resist. 

This safari had a lot of interesting animals like this big boy rhino. Or could be a girl, I guess.

Also this hippo. And not a little hippo either. I don't know if I've ever been so close to a hippopotamus. And seriously, why is hippopotamus so hard to spell? 

They also had a lot of prairie dogs. I mean A LOT. And they were right out in the middle of the pasture with the other big animals. I don't know if their presence was coincidental or planned, but they were literally right along the driveway. 

After we finished up the drive through, we got to go through the petting zoo. At first, we ended up petting the animals in the naughty pen and it turns out we were not supposed to be there. But then we went over to pet the goats and baby calves then on to the kangaroos. How cool is that?!

We got to feed the kangaroos. Some of them had joeys in their pouches. 

The petting zoo area also had two giraffes that we got to pet and feed.

Those giraffes are smart. They know exactly who has the food and who doesn't. And if you don't have a treat for them, they don't want anything to do with you. 

There were really a lot of animals in the walk through and petting area. I don't even remember them all, I'm sure. But they have peacocks, giant tortoises, llamas, a lot of different kinds of snakes, several kinds of monkeys. 

Noah even touched a boa constrictor. 

 

After we got finished at Wild Wilderness, we headed to lunch at Shogun. We sat at the grill and watched the cooking show while we ate. We a had a lot of fun with Heather and Stephen.

But then it was time to drive home. What else do you have to do a long drive besides take a selfie? Silly kids!

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Easter Breakfast: Fruit Pizza

On Easter morning, we had fruit pizza for breakfast. This recipe is so easy to make ahead and is really delicious and cute. 

Here's the recipe I used.

Ingredients:

• 2 rolls refrigerated sugar cookie dough
• 8 oz cream cheese
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• Small tub Cool Whip, 8 oz
• Assorted fruit
• 1 cup fruit juice
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 tsp cornstarch

Spread 2 rolls refrigerated sugar cookie dough into a sheet pan. Bake for approximately 14 minutes until the cookie crust is slightly browned. Let cool.

In a small bowl, combine the cream cheese and powdered sugar. Add Cool Whip.  Spread over cooled crust.

Top with fruit. I used bananas, strawberries, blueberries, peaches and kiwi. You can use pretty much any fruit that you like, either fresh or canned. I used canned peaches and everything else was fresh.

Glaze: In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine fruit juice, sugar, and cornstarch. Whisk until mixture comes to a boil and thickens a bit. Spoon over fruit pizza.

Refrigerate overnight or until ready to serve.

This recipe can be customized to your liking. I accidentally picked up one roll of sugar cookie dough and one roll of chocolate chip cookie dough so I just used what I had.  It was still good.

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Spring Break Adventure - Bowling and Good Food

After our visit to The Amazeum, we were starving so we headed right over to Mellow Mushroom for lunch. Emily and I had been here before, but it had been a while.  Mike and I shared a Mighty Meaty and the kids shared a cheese pizza. Let's just say we were very please with our lunch. Mike and I both thought the pizza was better than our normal local pizza place back home.

I forgot to take a pic of our adventure until after I'd finished eating. Oops.

After lunch, we headed over to a local bowling center to bowl a couple games. I didn't do a very good job of taking pictures. Sometimes I get so caught up in our activity that I forget to pull out my phone and take pictures. 

 I don't remember who won the game, but it was definitely not me. We eventually had to go get Noah a bowling ramp to use because his ball was having a hard time making it all the way down to the end. 

During the second game, we were all getting pretty tired and I was tired of my ball rolling off into the gutter every time so I put up the bumpers on my turn. Haha. We had fun.

After bowling, we went back to our hotel to lay down for a little bit. Then we went to Compton Gardens to see if we could find some daffodils or spring flowers.  We walked around for a bit and saw some flowers, but it wasn't really the type of garden that I was expecting. It was still fun, but Noah's legs were tired.

Saturday night, we grabbed some burgers with Heather and Stephen. The kids knew that we were going to see "my friends" at some point on our adventure, but they didn't know who it was going to be. I think they both suspected that it was going to be Heather and Stephen, but I'd never say. It was really fun to see them and spend some time with them. 

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Spring Break Adventure - Amazeum

At the end of our spring break, we made a last-minute decision to take a weekend trip to Northwest Arkansas. We drove up after work on Friday and checked into our hotel. On the way to the hotel, we noticed that there was a Krispy Kreme right down the street. We hadn't had a Krispy Kreme in our area for the last few years so we immediately knew what we were going to have for breakfast.

On Saturday morning, we woke up early and Mike and Emily went to get our Krispy Kreme. We at them in the hotel then headed over to our first stop - The Amazeum.  The Amazeum is sort of like a science museum and it has different learning/exploring sections sponsored by different corporations. 

I knew from what I'd read about the Amazeum online that Emily was on the cusp of being too old to enjoy a lot of the activities, but one thing that I though she would really be into was the Hershey's Lab, where you get a chance to do an experiment with chocolate and/or candy. 

The Hershey's Lab is free, but you have to get a ticket for a specific time. All the tickets are available at the beginning of the day, but the first hour is open to members only. I wasn't sure how quickly the tickets for the Hershey's Lab would go so we got there right before the museum opened so that we would have a better chance to get a ticket. I wanted to make sure we got to do this activity for Emily.

Noah, on the other hand, loved all the exhibits. He's very independent and doesn't mind running off without us. 

"Ohhh, the tornado is going to take me away!"

I felt like a lot of the exhibits were well put together and really fun. 

And of course, Emily did find some fun things that she enjoyed doing. 

Noah loved this painting exhibit. You paint on the glass then use a spray bottle of water to wash it all off for the next person. Messy, but fun.

They also had an outside play area with a few different play areas. Noah wasn't scared a bit on this jungle gym.

The water play area was very fun, too. Again, things seemed to be really clean and the activities were set up in a way that let kids play without a lot of parent involvement.

We were able to get a ticket for the Hershey's Lab. We got to play a game about how Hershey's chocolate is made. It wasn't really the type of "experiment" I was expecting, but it wasn't bad. And we got to eat a tiny bit of chocolate.

Overall, the Amazeum was really neat and we had a lot of fun there. I would definitely recommend it if you're in the area.

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Easter Nest Cake

Last week, I had Easter on my mind so I made this cute Nest Cake.  I loosely followed this recipe that I found online.  I made mine with a lemon bundt cake and cream cheese frosting.

I filled my nest cake with Robin's Eggs and peanut butter M&M's eggs.

Noah doesn't particularly like coconut so he mostly ate the candy, but everyone else liked it.

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Easter Bunny Racers

In my Sunday School class, we made some Easter Bunny Racers for a craft/snack. They are so easy and so cute! The hardest part for the kids was not cutting the Twinkie all the way through. I used a can of vanilla frosting to hold the wheels (mini oreos) and the steering wheel (pretzel) in place. And they only have to look cute for about a minute before you eat them.



We some leftover parts so the kids got to make some at home, too.


See? I told you they don't last long!


Yum!

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