Let the Summer Fun Begin!

Sunday night while Curtis and I were on our walk Nikki was back home looking for something to make. When we got home she was apparently mixing up some "Frog Bread". I have never heard of Frog Bread until now and it makes total sense when you see how the dough is shaped! However, it took a lot longer to make than she thought so we were up until at least 11:30 that night waiting for it to bake. Here are some pictures of how it turned out.

It looked so cute before going in the oven!

Not so cute after coming out of the oven but it still tasted good! The eyes had fallen off so she put them in place with toothpicks. The middle of the eyes were chocolate chips.

Ever since this experience Nikki has been on a baking/cooking high. The very next day on Memorial Day, we were invited over to my sister's house for a BBQ with our two families and mom, dad, and grandma. We were asked to bring salad but Nikki also wanted to make the Frog Bread again except this time she made them into little turtles. They turned out so cute before and after. We were in a hurry to get over there and had to bake them at Tamara's house. I didn't get a picture of before but they looked and tasted so good after.

She enjoyed finding and baking this recipe so much that on Tuesday she decided to look up some other recipes to try. Nikki found recipes for crepes and chow mein, wrote down any ingredients that we might need, then got some money from Curtis and walked down to Walmart with her friend Angie to buy them. She was too impatient to wait for me to drive her as I was waiting for friends to come pick up the remainder of our dirt pile, leftover from digging out our patio. The weather was in the 80's that day and so when she returned she was hot, exhausted and had to take a little nap. We decided that crepes would be easier and faster to make than chow mein so we had crepes for dinner that night. Neither of us had ever made them before but they turned out pretty good. Unfortunately I did not get a picture but next time we make them I will. Last night we made the chow mein for dinner and it was a lot of work but we both enjoyed working on it together and it turned out pretty good. First time for either of us making this too! Amazingly we both still had plenty of energy afterwards and Nikki really wanted to have dessert. Since she bought way more carrots than we needed for the chow mein I told her to find a carrot cake recipe. So she did!  Since we were nearly out of flour we had to make a quick trip to the store. Then got straight to work baking it when we got home. It turned out to be another late night but it was worth it! The chow mein and cake were very good and I'm not going to lie, this is a dream come true for me. I have been waiting for the day when Nikki would want to willing help me with cooking and baking. Not only did she do that but she's the one that found all of these recipes!  We're both loving this time we have shared together!

We worked together on cutting and prepping ingredients before we started cooking.

We doubled the recipe so it made a lot and almost didn't have room in our pan.

Charlotte kept telling us that she didn't like Chinese food and that she didn't want to eat it. I told her she needed to at least try it. She ended up chowing down on it and ate most of it without me coaxing her to keep eating so I think she kind of liked it.

Garrett had his friend Austin over so he ate dinner with us as well. I think they all liked it for the most part except Jack didn't want to eat the green veggies in it like the celery and cabbage. 

We didn't have two round cake pans and when we tried borrowing from the neighbor there's was bigger than ours so reluctantly Nikki said to use our two square pans. The carrot cake turned out delicious anyway! Everything she's made this week has been from scratch. She's finding out how much fun it is!

Yesterday all of the kids turned in their electronic devices to the schools (laptops for middle and high school, Ipads for elementary). It was our last little good bye to school for the year so I decided we needed to get some fun summer activities to do for the kids especially since it has felt hot like summer this week. The boys went to Walmart with me and helped pick out some stuff.

Garrett is hooking up a sprinkler toy that sprays water and toy balls out when attached to the garden hose. It is also anchored into the ground with a spike.

The high light was the new plastic pool that we bought. Last year we had gotten an inflatable pool and it popped after the first or second use. Not worth it to buy those kind. We bought the biggest plastic pool they had at Walmart. The kids even put the end of the little slide in there and would slide into the pool. 

The girls are ready with their water guns.

All these kids had a blast.

I was so hot by the time we got everything set up and sun screen on the kids that I decided to cool off with them.

We also bought a bubble blower machine.

Garrett invited his friend Austin over so they could have a water fight. Playhouse versus the ground! Even I got in on the water fight. I took Jack's place and at one point there were 4 kids (Garrett, Austin, Charlotte, and Alice) against me but that's okay. I would hide underneath the playhouse and continually come out and shoot them and they would shoot down at me. Good thing I had sunglasses on so I didn't get water in my eyes! It was fun!

Later Garrett and Austin decided to use the water guns to shoot bubbles.

Curtis spent most of Memorial Day (Monday) and yesterday evening working on the playhouse. Here's the progress he made so far.

Getting the front walls nailed on.

Cutting out the window.

Attaching the roof forms.

Our friends Monica and Seth were in town visiting so they came over to hang out Monday night after we returned from our BBQ at my sister's house. Seth jumped right in and started helping Curtis. 

Last night Curtis got the roof boards on.

It's coming along and the kids are loving it!