Chica Schmica

First, my apologies: for being a day late posting this, and for referring to this as a “recipe.”  I think it could be more appropriately be referred to as a how-to. It’s just so simple.

I knew the cake was already going to be over-the-top, so I wanted something a little lighter with a more subtle flavor for the cupcake topping. I decided to use Cool-whip as the base, then added about a quarter of a packet of instant banana pudding mix. You could use more or less depending on how strong you want the flavor. Paired with a chocolate cake mix from a box, it was the perfect foil to the banana split cake!

Enjoy!

As much as I’m loving sharing my finds on OCP, it’s a huge timesuck…so much so that my creative time has been cut back dramatically. I think this is why I found myself letting loose with the sprinkles last night after my daughter finished decorating her cookies. I had a blast and it was just the fix I needed….Ahhh. Back to work now!

but pickin’ oranges in Great-Grandpa’s citrus groves was a real treat!

riding in the buggy on our way to the oranges

There’s nothin’ like sun-kissed Florida oranges. 

This slippery little fella was a lucky find.  My mom reached up to pick a tangerine and there he was!

The trees were literally dripping with citrus.

"Now how do you open this thing?"

What’s the best part about eating oranges?

Spitting out the seeds! 

They were so juicy, Annabelle ended up wearing much of hers.

And of course, we were happy to stop and say hi to "Big" Grandpa. He comes across all gruff and intimidating, but he’s really just a big teddy bear.
 

I think Annabelle’s favorite part was riding Grandma’s buggy. The breaks on it are out and it has the type of jerky ride that will leave you clinging to anything you can grab a hold of. It’s purple and turquoise with a leopard print steering wheel. Nothing could be more perfectly suited for my mother.

We came home with a basket of oranges destined to become Christmas Marmalade for our closest friends and relatives. Not sure what went wrong, but it had a weird aftertaste and never quite thickened past the consistency of syrup. We deemed it un-giftable but I’m determined to have it all figured out by next year.

For now, I’m putting the oranges behind me and looking ahead to strawberry season. We got our first taste of the season’s local strawberries from the store yesterday and I’m hoping to take them to a u-pick farm in the coming weeks. Strawberry shortcake anyone?

I went into planning this party thinking, “Fall Harvest.”  You’ll see from the pictures, however, that my one-track mind kept bringing me back to pumpkins. Lots and lots of glorious pumpkins!

The favors: Pumpkin finger puppets

These little finger puppets were super easy, albeit somewhat time consuming, to create. I made about 10 of them and each one had a different face. I really had fun with them.

By the end of the party the kids were really getting into them, too. One of the kids decided he needed one for each hand!

The Games:

One of the games we played was a pumpkin roll. It was absolutely perfect for the little ones. We have a slope in the back of our yard and they had a blast rolling their pumpkin balls down the hill and then running down the hill after them to bring them back.

Not quite as popular was the pumpkin ring toss. Although a few of the kids gave it a go, it proved a bit too challenging to keep their interest for very long. Perhaps it would go over better with an older crowd. All you need is a pumpkin with a nice long stem and some rings. We made our rings by cutting some rope and attaching them using masking tape (which can be seen partially on towards the bottom of the photo).

The Cake:

For the cake I went out and bought a fancy pumpkin cake pan, which is really just two bundt cakes joined together. It was supposed to look like this:

I should know better than to try something fancy. It was doomed from the beginning.  As I rushed around at the last minute trying to get everything together (as usual) I relinquished the task of putting the cake together to my mom. Who then passed it on to my dad. By the time I came back to check on it, my husband’s cousin was putting the finishing touches on it.

The cake was a excellent reminder that setting a picture-perfect, Martha Stewart-esque table is really not that important after all. Plus any attempt at something fancy would have been thrown out the window by all that debris left on the table. Good, grief… you’d think we would have cleared the table before setting out the cake, wouldn’t you?   Just FYI, it was a pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese icing.

Decor:

We kept things simple by sprinkling pumpkins, gourds, and acorns throughout the tables and such, and picked up some hay bails for extra seating.

Lastly, we have the birthday girl’s dress. Which I made. Which we did not get one SINGLE good picture of. Which got icing all over it during the cake eating. Which completely fell apart when I washed it. I’ll paint a picture for you: dark green corduroy, a-line jumper, little felt squirrel applique on bottom right-hand side. Very cute. The end.

And of course I have to include a picture of the birthday girl eating her cake.

Such a fun day…happy birthday baby girl!

I’m a normal mom.  I want my kids to eat healthy and I try to limit their junk intake. But, I’m not usually the type of person who chooses green leafy vegetables as my toddler’s afternoon snack. I’m more of a fresh fruit kind of gal, with the occasional cucumber thrown in there.

But, when I came across a post at Enviromom suggesting that my kids would actually want to eat roasted kale, I knew I wanted to try it. Partly out of disbelief and partly because I like to shake things up every now and then and offer the girls something a little different than what they’re used to.

The directions were easy enough to follow, but it took a few batches to get the timing worked out on how long to cook the kale so that it was neither too crunchy nor too soft. I also had to experiment with how much sea salt to add.

Here’s how it looked all cooked up:

I can’t take a good photo of food to save my life. You’re probably thinking, “Um, yeah, ok. That really doesn’t look appetizing at all. Why are you showing me this?”  I’ll tell you why. Because I’m a visual person and I like pictures…of everything. So that means you get a picture of the ugly roasted kale.

Once it was all done and I had eaten most of it during taste testing (from trying to get the timing right) I realized I’d better give some to Annabelle before there was none left.

She was a good sport and tried a bite.

She actually didn’t seem to like it at first.

But then she took another bite.

And then she turned into a zombie…

and continued to eat.

Yup…just like potato chips. Go on and give it a try!

Know of any other *surprisingly* good healthy snacks? I’d love to hear ‘em!