This post is dedicated specifically to Karen, whom I promised I would get this recipe to, but never did... sorry for the delay, Karen!
Ever since going to Texas, (which I still hope to blog some day!), we have been making Dutch Baby for breakfast quite often. It is just too easy and too yummy to pass up. A few weeks back, I made it 4 days in a row, per request by Sierra. Each morning she would ask, "Salt in hand?" You see, I made the mistake of letting her help the first day and... you get the idea! Anyway, it is quite simple and delicious, so I will give you the recipe I use at the end of this post. In the meantime, look who decided she should sit at the big table and eat her cereal all by herself:
DUTCH BABY:
3 eggs
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup flour
pinch of salt
pinch of nutmeg
2 T butter
Directions: Mix all ingredients together, except butter. Melt butter in 8 inch square baking dish at 375. Pour ingredients over melted butter. Bake at 375 for about 15 - 20 minutes, (until lightly brown on top!) Cut and serve with syrup and fresh fruit.
Where to begin??? Every night since school began I am faced with this dilemma: clean the house, work on more unpacking/ re-organizing, veg on HGTV, or blog. Obviously, this past week I have not gone with the last option... but I am ready to hop aboard, again! Before going too far back, let me start with this past weekend.
Before the weekend began, a special box arrived at our door... My sweet husband had ordered a box of gourmet chocolates to send me and my dear friend T off to a weekend at the beach!
I brought my nice camera, whose case is rather large, so I wasn't as inclined to take pictures as I would have liked. But, I do have some, and some wonderful memories!
Day 1: Sea salt coffee and pastries at 85 Degrees, check-in to the hotel, dinner at Laguna Beach, a stroll on the beach, and then Pageant of the Masters at the outdoor ampitheater.
The show was spectacular; the weather was perfect; the parking was awesome; everything was great!
Day 2: Slept-in until almost 10:00am, swam at the pool which we had all to ourselves, went to CPK for lunch, then saw "The Help," and cried and cried, shopped at Fashion Island, picked-up dinner, went back to the hotel and ate our dinner while watching a chick flick.
Day 3: Slept-in again, played cards in our jammies, went out to lunch at Ruby's, drove around the beach, but couldn't find parking, went to Sprinkle's and Peet's Coffee for dessert, headed back to see our families.
Whew -- what an incredibly refreshing time!! I feel so blessed!
...Well, sort of! My goal is actually to get the entire downstairs organized and my niches cleaned before the first day of fall so I can pull out my fall decor! And, as much as I LOVE fall, I must admit I am not anxious for it this year. Seriously. The pool is still such a new thing for us, and such a great way to spend our afternoons that I am happy to keep summer around for a while longer! :) But, I have done a few "fall-esuqe" things, lately... like baking our favorite ham and butternut squash soup with homemade foccacia bread...
Dressing-up... (ok, that's not 'fall' at all, unless you consider it practice for Halloween!)
Baking chocolate chip cookies...
... And sharing my tea! I was SO excited that Daniel found my Royal Milk Tea at Marukai, our favorite Japanese store. Unfortunately, it is kind of expensive, but I still decided to share with my girlies. Luckily, they prefer chai tea instead. :)
On another note, we went with some sweet friends last Saturday to see a free preview of the Veggie Tales newest release, "The Princess and the Popstar," at a little church in Highland. All I took was this one picture:
More random pictures... Sierra painting away while her sisters do their school work. (I sure wish her attention span for such activities was longer than 5 minutes; it would make the set-up and clean-up a little less daunting!)
Yes, he did... my husband made us awesome sushi rolls for dinner the other night!
And, our little baby praying mantis... Daniel was so excited, he wanted me to take a picture. I thought it was a bit silly, but I will do anything for a man who makes me yummy sushi, so here is the picture:
Fall, I love you... but for now I am content posting pumpkin doughnut recipes and such on my Pinterest account.
So, we finally finished the desk areas! The finishing touches include adjustable shelving above the desks, which utilizes all that wasted vertical space. Magnet strips, (not shown here), are hung on the side area to display art work. And, we hung curtains so they could either work in private, which they find fun sometimes, or so we can close off the space for a more formal look.
Daniel covered the desktops with a sheet of plastic to protect the surface. The shelving unit which sits on top of the desk is a whiteboard! The orange drawers just make me smile. And, the girls are thrilled with their pink chairs and pink lights! There is also a third nook, not pictured here, but identical for Sierra when she gets older. For now, it is Daniel's work space. Overall, we are very happy with how this turned out! Who would have thought these crazy nooks that I didn't know what to do with would turn out to be such a blessing for our home schooling?
How long will it take Sierra to figure out what's happening behind those curtains? (about 2 seconds!)
Oh, I am behind on blogging once again! If we're this busy now, I can only imagine what it will be like when number 4 arrives... (But I can't wait!)
Anyway, we decided to give our school a name. Allison came up with it all by herself, (I think), and I love it! We're now the Fruit of the Spirit School! Allison and Natalie both made the fruit for our sign, and Allison cut it out and glued it on. Meanwhile, our other little artist did this on the easel entirely by herself, including the word "fruit:"
...At least, that is the Swedish name for these little things I got at Ikea. Allison asked me how to pronounce them, and I simply told her I don't speak Swedish... ha! I'm pretty sure they've been around forever -- you know, the beads that you iron and they stick together. But, it's a 'new' discovery for the Yeh family!
So, I had to blog about these little beauties because my girls decided to play with them for 2 1/2 hours yesterday... and only stopped because Sierra woke-up from her nap and I told them they had to put them away! Today they woke-up begging to finish, but they had to wait until after school, and when Sierra went down.
Today they only lasted about 30 minutes... but I still love them! I will have to put them away again for a LONG time, so they can enjoy them again when I pull them out. As you can see, Natalie finished her little design.
Allison did not; hence the sad face. But, she wants to try again, tomorrow!
Where to begin, where to begin... I'll begin by saying "oops." I discovered on Tuesday that our homeschooling doesn't "officially" start until August 18; (since we use a charter school, and that is their official first day). Never-the-less, the girls are still excited about school every morning, so I decided to just keep going with it. After all, being ahead of the game never hurt anyone, right?
At the same time, it is still summer, so we are still in the pool every afternoon and on the playground every evening. The girls just love driving their pirate ship to 'New Mexico,' (wherever that came from), and 'decorating' it with leaves and flowers!
Tonight we ate fudgsicles as we played, and just enjoyed the amazing coolness. It has felt more like October this past week than August with overcast mornings, warm afternoons, and cool evenings. I am LOVING this weather!
I didn't know where to begin, and now I don't know where to end... I could ramble on and on about the joy and contentment I am feeling. I look at these pictures and just beam with pride. How blessed am I to be here, and to have girls who appreciate it, and are doing so well with school! I know it's just week one -- but I am feeling super blessed!
I'm looking forward to many more evenings like this one... summer dresses, bare feet, cool weather, joyful giggles, and fudgsicles.
August 8.... far too early to be the first day of school! But, let me back-up a day. Yesterday, as promised, we had a little "starting school craft." The girls made these memory verse holders for their desks, inspired by one of our past MOPS projects.
And, below you will see it all done on their desks. It is so simple; a piece of wood with a slat for a metal sheet and a magnet. The girls will be writing their weekly verse on a card, and sticking it on there! I'll show you more of their desk areas once they're complete. We're getting closer, and I'm loving it!
If you didn't know any better, you may have thought it was Christmas in our house this morning. The girls came running down stairs SO absolutely ecstatic to start school. It was almost impossible to get breakfast made, and I was probably asked 20 times when we were going to start before I could eat 3 bites of my pancake!
I put a tray at each place setting for the girls, and made them pose in front of their desks for their first day of school pictures. You may notice Allison lost her 6th tooth the day before and I am loving her toothless grin!
I attempted to make a "1" pancake for my first grader, and a "k" pancake for my kindergartener, and an apple pancake for my toddler.
We started the minute breakfast was over. I didn't take many pictures of our work, because I didn't want to bore you... but I will say, Sierra poses a bit of a challenge! Here the girls are coloring with heras I am getting something ready.
The girls were thrilled to use their new desks, and to find some new scissors and markers in their drawers!
For our snack, I stayed up late last night making apple Oreo pops. They were something I pinned on Pinterest a while back, and was so excited to try. I didn't exactly follow the directions, (ok not at all), nor did I exactly copy the ingredients, but you can find the tutorial HERE.
For some reason, I couldn't figure out why Sierra was asking for an apple all morning. We happened to have one apple, so I cut it up and gave it to her, but I found apple pieces stuffed in a random cup, put in a game box, and chewed up and spit on the floor. Apparently I had given her the wrong apple -- DUH! I finally realized what she was asking for, and was at least proud she recognized they were suppose to be apples! We all enjoyed 2 -- including myself. (They are way too yummy!)
Overall, it was a fun first day of school! I will be quite sad when the girls finally realize what school is, and lose their excitement. I am working hard to make sure that doesn't happen any time soon.
Ever since going to Texas, (which I still hope to blog some day!), we have been making Dutch Baby for breakfast quite often. It is just too easy and too yummy to pass up. A few weeks back, I made it 4 days in a row, per request by Sierra. Each morning she would ask, "Salt in hand?" You see, I made the mistake of letting her help the first day and... you get the idea! Anyway, it is quite simple and delicious, so I will give you the recipe I use at the end of this post. In the meantime, look who decided she should sit at the big table and eat her cereal all by herself:
DUTCH BABY:
