Dinner is so awesome when it comes from you and your garden.
Green beans from my garden with onion and garlic
Refrigerator pickles with cucumbers from the garden
Black raspberries hand picked from my parents’ house
Confetti potato salad left over from the 4th
Mac and cheese with veggie dog pieces (gotta keep the kiddo happy)
And peaches, hummus, tortilla chips
We got our first green beans today. Munchkin helped me pick them and loves to eat them raw. Who knew it only took growing veggies to make kids eat them? Do you think it will work for spinach too?
Sadly, my cucumbers are gone. The darn squash bugs found them and I had to take them down. Here’s to hoping they don’t find my zucchini…hoping REALLY hard.
It’s hard to believe my munchkin is already five! How time has flown! Since this year seemed to be the first year he really knew what was going on, I finally bit the bullet and expanded the party beyond our closest family and friends to his little friends from school.
Now every party needs a theme. I asked Keeler what he wanted. He specifically said:
Dragon cake
watermelon
tag
Well, we were able to do two of the three. I found a pattern online for the cake. Not as hard as it looks. Watermelon – yep. Ran out of time for a game of tag.
The cake, sans frosting.
Awaiting wings.
I used tootsie rolls for the claws, icing for the eyes and chocolate chips for the pupils and nostrils. The spine scales were crackers I made earlier this week.The cake was just a basic yellow cake I made from All Recipes and the icing was from a can. Real high tech around here.
One thing I will say, you really have to freeze the cake after assembling, and periodically freeze it while icing to make life a whole ton easier. Less crumbs get into the icing, and the finish is much smoother when you spread it when it is harder.
I had lots of grand ideas for the theme, but in the end, the entertainment was bubbles, coloring pages, blow up swords and paper crowns from Oriental Trading Company, and a garden hose. A pop up tailgate tent from CBear served as the “castle”. Everyone had a great time, and I didn’t have to break the bank to do it. Win for everyone!
We also had everyone bring a canned good instead of presents. Hopefully that helps the kids learn about giving, and less toys around the house here to trip over. We’re going to take them to the Mid-Ohio Foodbank.
Munchkin’s actual birthday is this week. I usually take the day off and we do whatever he wants to do, and we go to the toy store and he gets to pick out his own present. I’ll also take him to the food bank to deliver the food we collected. Should be a lovely day! Last year we went to the park and to the movies to see Toy Story 3. This year? Stay tuned!
Today I was reading through my Facebook feed when I saw the link for Once a Month Mom’s dinner menu. Once recipe in from GreenLiteBites.com in particular caught my eye, and I was dying to eat it! So, I hauled the munchkin to the grocery store. It was great. While I was unloading groceries onto the belt, I turned to find him dumping my coupons all over the cart like confetti – including the ones I was about to use. Funny now, but not so cute at the time. But I still wanted that sandwich! And then I put the groceries away and all of a sudden, I could care less.
At 4:00 today, I had every intention of eating this:
Today I took the munchkin to campus to see Woody. Who is that? It is the Titan Arum or Corpse Flower. It is huge and when it blooms, boy is it smelly! So of course we had to go.
It was so cool! And big!!! The part at the bottom they cut out looked like a watermelon rind.
Apparently it only blooms like every ten years, so it was a rare treat!
Black Sheep Dancing 