2015 Babies

With calving coming to a close, we have found ourselves with two bottle calves this year.  The boys handle the morning and night feedings, but Rachel and I deliver lunch to the hungry babies.

She likes the little one and does a great job hanging onto the bottle, too!

Aunt Michele's Grandma Grapes' Lemon Cake

Here's a new recipe to try as we ease into (at least thinking about) spring!

This is from Aunt Michele's Grandma Grapes.  I never met Grandma Grapes, but I am betting based on this cake alone that she was a good cook!

Lemon Cake

4 eggs, beat and add:

1 can lemon pie mix (I used a smaller sized can.)

1 box cake mix--lemon, white or yellow (I used lemon.)

Bake at 250 degrees, 35-40 minutes.

Frosting:

1 cup milk

1 small carton Cool Whip

1 pkg. lemon instant pudding

Mix and spread over cake.  Store in refrigerator.

Melius' Most-Read: Ramona Quimby

This week's book is actually a series, and one I loved to read as a child.

Landen discovered this series a few years ago and read them all.  It is an excellent series for beginning chapter book readers.  I bought a large print edition of Age 8, with the intention of reading it to my children, but Landen beat me to it by reading them all by himself.  :)

I have always loved Ramona, and if you haven't checked these out from your library yet, I think you will, too.  The first of the series were written many years ago, but the stories of growing up are timeless.  

When my sister and I were growing up, PBS had a weekly Ramona TV series, and we watched and re-watched the 1/2 hour shows so much, I'm sure we wore out the VHS tape!

Fat Tuesday

It's Fat Tuesday!

After having REAL King Cake last year, I decided that I couldn't let this year go by without having a variation of one.  There are lots of options, but I wanted to go super duper easy to the third power. I consulted some excellent cooks on Pinterest and this is what I found.

Ta-dah!

Flatten refrigerator cinnamon rolls, roll out a bit, and bring together into a ring shape.

Shape these rolls into an oval to signify Christ's crown.  Bake as directed.  Afterward, frost with the enclosed icing.  

Then decorate with green (for faith), gold (for power), and purple (for justice).  I couldn't find purple sugar today, so our purple is made out of Sixlets.

Traditional King Cake will have a plastic baby Jesus hidden inside (inserted after baking).  Those eating the cake are like the Three Magi in our search for Jesus.

We didn't have one of those (funny how we lost a tiny plastic baby in the past year--can you believe it??).  Teresa had the idea of using her Little People instead.

Genius!

But, it does make the "hunt" a little less challenging.

Happy Mardi Gras!

Melius' Most-Read: Things that are Most in the World

Every once in awhile, Cheerios will offer free paperback books on their cereal boxes.

Sometimes these books don't have much impact on my children, but sometimes they do!

Things that are Most in the World was loved so much as the free paperback that I ordered the full-size book for them way back in 2008.

They still love the fun words and illustrations on every page.

For example as seen on the cover, "The hottest thing in the world is a fire-breathing dragon eating a pepperoni pizza."

Our book has been ripped, taped, stepped on, and had water spilled on it.  In other words, it has been loved and continues to be!

My big three always love this last page the best.  (Rachel is still confused as to how that baby could possibly be her big sister.)

This photo (obviously loved as well) was taken on 2/14/08!