Family Traditions

Ever since I can remember one of my favorite family traditions was movie night on Sundays with popcorn, cheese and apples. Kinda of an odd combinations but turns out they are great together. I'm pretty positive it was my mom that came up with this fun tradition but who ever did, it stuck.

I now get to carry on this fun simple tradition with my own kids. Yeah I can't eat the popcorn or the cheese right now but hanging out on a spread out blanket in our jammies watching a movie  with our favorite snacks still makes my heart happy. It reminds me of just how important it is to create these special moments for my kids, making traditions or reliving old ones that can be passed on from generation to generation. Whether it be for holidays birthdays or any old regular day, simple or big traditions can be an awesome family experience.

For this particular movie night I decided to give jiffy pop a whirl. Pretty cool for the kids and got my heart rate going, I didn't realize the bags gets so big. I thought it was going pop covering us in roasting popcorn, but we survived and the popcorn was a hit.

A very happy unbirthday!

It happens almost every time I make a birthday cake, something for a party, school function or holiday. Through the whole process from mixing to decorating the kids want to help out. Bless their heart for wanting to help but I am a picky pants when it comes to presentation. Plus its my favorite part. I feel horrible telling them "next time you get to decorate" every time. I decided we need to make a cake, an unbirthday cake, that the kids can make what ever way they want and put what ever they want on it. It was a blast for them! they loved it all, from mixing to piling on obsene amounts of sprinkles.

I didn't have a box cake on hand and was feeling kinda lazy to whip up one from scratch so we got creative. We used a box of jiffy cornbread mix, 1/2c milk 1 egg and a box of lemon pudding. Bakes at 400 for 20 minutes. For the frosting, a pack of cream cheese, about 2 cups powdered sugar and then wanted green frosting to some food coloring and a splash of vanilla.




















 I got out every kind of cake or cookie decorating supplies and they went to town on that cake. As far as the taste goes, I cannot tell you, there is dairy in the cake so I had to sit out on this one, but the reviews from the kids " this is the best cake ever!" It was a very happy unbirthday.

Treasure Hunting

How does treasure hunting right in your on town or maybe even right near your home sound? pretty fun right? It may not be the pirate buried treasure where you get to take home the booty your are thinking of but what is called a geocache. Geocaching is a game using GPS-enabled device ( your phone or plain old a GPS) to find a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache, which is a container, like a tupperware, coffee can, lunchbox, and so on, hidden at that location of the coordinates.

 Kinda sounds all scientific but its really quite simple. You can use your phone to download a geocaching app, some are free, some can cost up to 10$, then once you start it up it uses your location and shows you all the geocaches that are near you and how far away. You can also use a GPS and plug it into your computer and load the locations from the geocaching site, http://www.geocaching.com/. I have used both and prefer the phone method. It can provide details about what the container looks like and hints if you need. Also lets you know if hiking is involved and if they are family friendly. We have taken our kids on several geocache "treasure hunts" and the kids absolutely loved it. You will amazed how many there are in your area. FREE entertainment, can't go wrong with that right? There are a few rules to follow, just like keeping the cache how you left it, not taking any thing from the cache and so on so I would recommend checking out the site before your first hunt. What I think is pretty cool is that they are all over the world. So if your are planning a trip up river for the day, or even heading out of town, look up a couple geocaches while your there for a little extra excitement to your trip, and it will get you out of the car for a little bit. I know there is a lot of people that have never heard of or don't know much about geocaching so I thought I would spread the word and give you a little something you can do with the whole family this summer, have fun and happy hunting!

Not Your Mama's Nachos

Last night I made one of our favorites for dinner, NACHOS!



 

 

We like them fully loaded with all the goodness to make them a meal. The best part is you can make them buffet style and everyone can make their own based on what they like. For all the recipes I post I will also include a dairy free version because for the time being I am on a very strict dairy free diet due to the dairy passed through while breastfeeding, my daughter is allergic. So if you need dairy free, I got it.


This is what I used for our nachos. The one thing not pictured that I always add is jalapenos, which I forgot. I spent almost 2 hours grocery shopping with three kids and was not about to go back. For your nachos you can use these toppings, or what ever you like, go crazy! This will feed about four or five people, or six little people, kids that is.

Start off by dicing up half a yellow onion and slicing your mushrooms. Put your refried beans in a pan on low stirring occasionally. Start browning your meat and add the onions and mushrooms about half way through. Stir in a packet of taco seasoning or for dairy free add salt, pepper, 1 tbs chili powder, 1/2 tbs cumin, and 1tbs garlic powder. Just add according to your linking.
While you meat is cooking start dicing up the rest of your veggies.

 I whipped up some guac with the avocado, 1/2 a tomato, 1/4c cilantro, juice from 1/2 lime and sprinkle of salt.

 Next you need to get your nacho cheese melted. Put the Velveeta in  a microwave safe bowl with a 1/4c water, cook on high for 2 minutes stirring in between. Now comes the fun part, building your nacho tower. I start with a layer of chips. Next plop on some beans and  meat. Then layer with shredded cheddar cheese. Add another layer of chips, sprinkle on the veggies, more cheese and nacho cheese, then some more cheese. Top off with a glob of sour cream and guac and a squeeze of lime juice then savor and enjoy.

Now for the dairy free version make sure to sub the taco seasoning for salt, pepper, 1 tbs chili powder, 1/2 tbs cumin, and 1tbs garlic powder, taco seasoning has whey in it, which is dairy.This is the brand of cheese I use. Has a decent taste and kinda melts, silly right? Sprinkle your cheese on the chips and throw it in the microwave for about a minute and a half to get the cheese melted. Make the same way as the other but just leave off the sour cream and it still tastes pretty dang good.

 

Hope you enjoy them as much as we do. A little bit of time into preparation but totally worth every minute.
Here is the list of ingredients I used:

• bag of totila chips
• sour cream
• 16 oz shredded cheddar cheese
• 16 oz Velveeta
• 16 oz refried beans with a hint of lime
• 16 oz black olives
• 2 medium size tomatoes
• 2 limes
• 1 avocado
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 red bell pepper
• 4 or 5 white mushrooms
• half a yellow onion
• packet of taco seasoning
• 3 green onions
• 2 jalapenos
• 1/2 c chopped cilantro

Dairy free:

• 8 oz dairy free shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 tbs chili powder
• 1 tbs cumin
• 1 tbs garlic powder
• salt and pepper to taste

 

 

1.

Camping time

Here we are in our second month of summer vacation. We went on our first camping trip as a family to Diamond Lake over 4th of July weekend. If you have never been I highly recommend it, very family friendly. We tent camped right on lake which made for beautiful sunrises.

Enjoying my morning coffee

It was also our first time camping with our 4 month old baby girl.


 Happy to say she did really well. What I would recommend to anyone planning  a camping trip with a baby is to definitely go to a family friendly spot. You don't want your baby waking up all hours of the night because of the people partying in the site next to yours, unless your into that, and in that case, cheers! A couple things I found helpful was bringing the stroller, baby front carrier pack and the bumbo.

Just remember  what ever you bring will probably end up smelling like campfire, so anything that can't go in the wash may be best left at home. As you may or may not know Diamond lake has some awesome all paved bike trails all the way around the lake. We didn't get to ride all the way around this time but we brought the kids bikes which made for a fun little trek whenever they got restless around the campsite. As for the men in your life, they can get their fish on. My hubby ended up catching three trout on one of his outings which made for a yummy fish dinner. If you are interested in checking it out here is the link to their site http://www.diamondlake.net/. As for the 100 loads of laundry to do when returning home from camping, I have no advice, sorry. So our first trip of the summer was a success, and I so can't wait for the next one.

View from our campsite, which was L3, great spot right on the lake