Show 'em Some Love

Source eighteen25

Source The Twinery

May 2-6 is teacher appreciation week.  Being a former teacher, I can tell you how much the appreciation is appreciated :o)  Here are a couple of cute and easy ideas to show your appreciation for the people who teach your kiddos.  Thanks to all those who work so hard to make sure our kids have the best education they possibly can.  

Recipe: Cake Balls

I made these little beauties for Easter this past Sunday and boy were they yummy!  I am always looking for new recipes to try out and this one seemed easy and something that Ava could help me with.  These are quite impressive to look at too so you can use them for all your fancy-smancy parties.  They look so good we had to convince my uncle to try one because he thought they were fake and we were just seeing if he would eat it.  Come on we're family, would we do that to him?!  Well...

Cake Balls

Printer Friendly Version

Makes approx. 50 quarter sized balls

1 box yellow or white cake mix (cook as directed on box for 13 X 9 cake)
1 can vanilla frosting (16 oz.)
2 packages candy melts (I found mine at Michael's Craft Stores)
sprinkles or other decorations for the topsparchment or wax paper

1. Make cake according to directions and let cool completely.
2. Crumble cake into a large bowl and start adding your frosting.  I added about 3/4 of a can of frosting and it seemed to hold together well.  
3. Roll into quarter sized balls and place on parchment paper.  Chill for several hours in the refrigerator.  You can also put them in the freezer if you're short on time.
4. Melt candy melts according to package directions.  I only melted one bag at a time because I was using 2 different colors and the candy cools too quickly.  You can reheat it if need be.  
5. Dip cake balls into the candy and let excess drip off.  Place on parchment paper to dry.  
6. Before the outer candy dries, add your sprinkles.
7. Let the cake balls dry completely before storing them in the refrigerator until you're ready to serve them.

You can do so many variations for these delicious cake balls.  Try red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting.  Or how about german chocolate cake with coconut pecan frosting.  Ohhh, what about strawberry cake with vanilla frosting for pink centers.  You can also use chocolate bark to dip the cake balls in as well.  Let your imagination run wild!

Recipe from Bakerella

Easter

We had a great Easter here!  It's so fun to have these holidays with wee ones around.  Ava really enjoyed the egg hunt Sunday morning and all the goodies the Easter Bunny brought her and Cole.  Cole napped through the entire thing.  What was he thinking!  We went to church Saturday night so Sunday morning we were able to take our time and have lots of family time with just us.  The afternoon was filled with more egg hunts, ping pong, lots of food (cake ball recipe to come) and Ava getting to play with her second cousins.  There was a lot of running and squealing coming from the 5 girls.  Needless to say, we all crashed last night...around 8.

Happy Easter

Egg dying was a huge success.  She was content just putting each egg in one color and then picking it up every so often to see how dark the dye was making the shell.  I thought for sure she would be dunking each egg in multiple colors and we would have a big mess on our hands.  We had one casualty as she dropped the egg from the lovely wire holder into the cup from about 6 inches too high but other than that she was a pro.  Next year we are upping the difficulty level and making them more colorful.  I'm seeing glitter and permanent marker with colorful dyes somehow.  Who knows...I've got a year to figure it out!

Hope your Easter is filled with happiness and family.  Our hearts are extra full this year as we celebrate with our new little guy.  So much to be grateful for and we are!

Colorful Packaging

Image Source

What a simple, easy and colorful way to wrap a package.  The Twinery sells beautiful baker's twine in so many colors.  Their blog offers a ton of creative ways to use twine.  I love it and want every color!!

Where did the time go??

Egg-spiration

Image Source

I bought the goodies to dye eggs with Ava later this week.  We didn't dye any eggs last year.  I tell myself it's because she wouldn't have remembered it but really it was just me being a bit of a slacker and not getting around to it.  I vowed that this year we would definitely dye lots of eggs. Will they be as beautiful and elaborate as the eggs above?  Heck no!  But those eggs are gorgeous and maybe something for us to try a few years down the line when Ava's eye dying skills are more advanced ;o)  

Go check out Alisa Burke's blog for directions on how to make your own watercolor eggs.

The Many Faces of Stinker Man

The content face

The "oh you're so funny, Mommy" face

The "I'm trying to laugh" face

The cooing face 

My personal favorite

Sorry for all the baby posts but this is my life right now :o)

Stinker Man is my favorite nickname for the little guy now but it seems to change daily.  I'm guessing I don't need to explain how he got it!

Etsy Find: Monthly Onesie Stickers

While browsing for little boy goodies on Etsy, I came across these stickers.  I am taking monthly pics of Cole wearing a white onesie and these would be perfect to add.  Lil' Baby Bumblebee has a huge assortment of stickers to choose from and I think it's a great idea for documenting your little one's growth.  What a great shower gift idea, too.  Pair the stickers with some white onesies in various sizes and ta-da!  A very unique gift! 

Morning Routine

Source

There are a few things that have become almost a necessity each morning.  I think that a ginormous cup of coffee goes without saying for a new momma who's up nursing throughout the night.  If you like coffee that is!  

The second part of my morning routine has become a bowl of these steel cut oats.  It seems to me that people either really like oatmeal or they never touch the stuff.  In our house, we're oatmeal people.  We've always used the quick cooking oats or regular oats.  I'd heard about steel cut oats before from Alton Brown (love him!) and when I saw them on the shelf in my grocery store, I snatched them up.  They are so yummy and quite different from the oats we're all used too.  These take about 20 minutes to cook on the stove but the nutty flavor and texture is so worth the 20 minutes.  When the oats are done we stir in a little brown sugar for a bit of sweetness.  The next part is up to you.  Start adding whatever sounds good.  One of my favs is fresh strawberries.  Ava likes raisins in hers or even Craisins if we have them.  You could add apples, honey, maple syrup, cinnamon, vanilla or anything else that sounds good to you.  Try them.  Trust me you will like them.  Here are a few recipes from around the web to jazz up your oats even more.

Alton Brown's basic recipe

Overnight Oatmeal (also Alton Brown's Recipe)

Annie's Eats Recipe

Easter Goodies

Source

The ladies over at We Love to Illustrate have done it again.  Super cute printable freebies just in time for Easter.  There are more over on their site to browse but these were some of my favs.  I especially love the middle printable.  This one will be right up Ava's alley.  You get to search for eggs and then color.  These are also great to let little one practice using scissors.  They can completely butcher the paper but you can always print another.  Happy printing :o)

Long Weekend

We had quite the eventful weekend.  Little Cole spent the weekend in the hospital due to RSV.  RSV is really just a bad cold for little ones.  He was having difficulty breathing, bad coughing fits and couldn't keep his milk down.  After being on oxygen for a little while and getting lots of love he is doing much better.  Very scary though for a wee little 6 week old!