Fantastic Mother's Day!

Had a fantastic Mother's Day and had to share in all the festivities! The actual day of Mother's Day my hubby asked if there was anything special I wanted to do and honestly the best present to me is quality time, no gift could compare to a day of just being together so I told him not to get anything since he's usually working most evenings and weekends on side work it was nice to just be a family of 4 for the day!

Besides, since I was young I've found doing for others is more rewarding so I get to relish doing things for Grandmom's on Mother's Day more than anything for myself. So after the Strawberry picking a couple days before I found a cute Minnie Mouse printout and added some chocolate-covered strawberries for them to enjoy, along with the stepping stones we all made for each of the Grandmom's (which glow in the dark too!) they'll have lasting impressions to remember just how small the boys were-which I'll enjoy seeing when we visit too!

Carter filling the container to mix into the cement

Pushing in the glow-in-the-dark stones

And since my Mom's birthday is only a few days after Mother's Day we took her and my Dad to Double T Diner for lunch where they had the biggest cake ever! There were 4 long tables full of strawberry cream cake that spelled out Happy Mother's Day where everyone got a complimentary piece to take home, what a sweet surprise!

But I did receive a great gift from Gavin's school, the opportunity to attend a Mother's tea and see what his daily routine is like. It was so touching to see the love within that school, teacher and kids alike, this is how church should feel, like a second home with extended family! I was blessed to see just how much he's enjoying the company of his friends in class and how excited he is to learn!

In class sharing the Mother's Day gifts they made with their Mommy's

Praying to Jesus as they pass the crucifix hanging in the hall

( Have to mention that Gavin has never sung a whole song before, not like Carter who at not even 2 was singing up a storm, but for Gavin it's mostly because of his shyness mixing with his speech delay, he'd only get out a few letters of the ABC's and part of Old McDonald's song- mostly just the animal noises came out. But last month out of the blue he blurted out this song while laying with me in bed, word for word and to an actual tune. I was so moved! Now everytime we hear it in church he can sing along and I'll always think of his 1st song he learned thanks to his school!)

They also made portraits of their Mom's and told what made their Mommy special. None of the pictures had a name so each of the Mom's had to read and guess which pertained to them. They were sooo cute! Of course as soon as I saw the part about 'Mommy getting me a football shirt', I knew it was Gavin's!

Can't wait to attend this next year with Carter! Truly touched my heart, as a person of God and a Mother, there's nothing better than seeing a child growing in faith!

Having a Berry good time!

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."...Marcel Proust

There's nothing like the sweetness of fresh picked strawberries! No multi-person handeling, packing and long truck ride to the grocery store; just picked off the plant right to your kitchen!

I wish I had more land to be able to have a few rows of strawberries myself, but they are only around for about 4 weeks time so in the long run of prepping the garden I'll stick with my 2 pots of plants and leave the big stuff to the professionals nearby!

That said, I took the boys to a local farm to go Strawberry picking today and had to share our visit! I mentioned it once earlier in the week and this is all they've been looking forward to! It was so cute, as soon as we got out of the truck and got our boxes, Gavin runs up to the field saying, 'Strawberries, here we come!'

They did awesome too! After reminding them to only pick the all red ones they could have been hired on the spot! Their little fingers griped the stems perfectly and they were so gentle when pulling that only a few were a little bruised (those were eaten on the spot of course)!

Also taught some great teamwork skills in the process!


Now, I have the great pleasure of washing and preping tons of berries as we picked the most ripe ones. I'll save about a dozen to be included in a chocolate-covered Mother's Day bouquet for the Grandmom's this weekend and another couple dozen to eat. The rest I'll try my hand in making some Strawberry Jam. It seems easy enough to make, guess we'll see how it goes! Here's a basic recipe:

COOKED JAM
5 cups crushed berries (2 qt.)
7 cups (3 lb.) sugar
1 box powdered fruit pectin

Stir powdered pectin into the berries. Bring berries and pectin to a boil and add sugar all at once. Again, bring the mixture to boil for one minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and fill jars.

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FREEZER JAM
2 cups crushed berries (1 quart)
4 cups (1 3/4 lb.) sugar
3/4 cup water
1 box powdered fruit pectin

Add sugar to fruit and stir well. In a sauce pan, boil 3/4 cup water and the fruit pectin for one minute, stirring constantly. Add the hot pectin and water to the fruit and continue stirring 3 minutes. Put in containers, let stand 24 hours and store in freezer.

*A great tip I got a few yrs back when making the kiddos fresh baby food:
If there is not time to make your jam the same day as you picked, here's a great idea! Wash, stem and slice the berries then blend them. They won't take up as much space in your freezer, and 2 cups of the blended berries makes one jam recipe any time you want "fresh" jam.

OSO Birthday party

Super excited about planning yet another birthday party! It won't be as over-the-top as Gavin's Mickey Mouse party but still fun nonetheless! We all LOVE Special Agent Oso, yes hubby included!

As mentioned in an older post there is no Oso party supplies to be had, anywhere, with every online place I search there are parents up in arms over Disney not having anything Oso but 2 little toy sets online (they used to be availble at Target but as of last yr arn't sold in stores anymore). Thank Goodness just this month Disney put a plush for sale online after a 2yr hiatus, I know my little guy will love this as much as the little Scentsy lamb he got from the Easter Bunny- he's such a stuffed animal lover, and loves every single one he has too!

I was going to make my own invites until I remembered my mother-in-law had purchased a ton of truck and construction theme supplies that were dirt cheep before Carter was even born, thinking they could have been used for future parties for Gavin. It just so happened that they had 3 birthday candles on them so they work well but after asking Carter what kind of party he wants I'll be fusing them together with Oso and came up with:

And because he's a special agent I saw another Mom on a party site post how she cut out the guests names from the newspaper to put on the invites like a real secret message; sooo had to use that idea! It was also great one-on-one time sitting with Carter helping me find and cut out each letter and then putting them together to spell everyone's name, he was just as into it as I was!

And for the longer names like 'Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Charlie' I opted to put the cut-up letters inside and have them put it together like a puzzle, also great for older kids to do!

Now all I have to do is print out all the Disney.com online party printables for decorations!

Growing fruits in Maryland

One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides. ~W.E. Johns, The Passing Show

I've been pretty busy here lately, especially now that the weather is breaking and I'm outside more with the kids. But I was able to attend a seminar at Homestead Gardens last weekend (my 'me' time since it was raining and hubby couldn't work!) that I wanted to post about so I at least have this reference material on here and an fyi for anyone else that's interested. The seminar was lead by a gentelman who grew up on an orchard and now works at one on the Eastern Shore, cultivating Hollybrook Orchard trees.

He did us a great diservice by explaining that each of these trees has a tag on them stating what type of tree you are looking at, not just 'Apple tree' like many other companies, but the type, size and if it needs other pollinating trees to grow. He handed out a flyer that has great info for growing your own fruit and visiting Hollybrook online they have even more growing resources that are great to follow. While you can't purchase trees directly from the orchard, they send their products to garden centers like Homestead, Greenstreet Growers or Patuxent Nursery for purchase.

(My favorite apple type, btw! But don't think they grow here too well unfortunately)

Planting:

Choose a tree type that best suits your land and how you will use the fruit. Be prepared for alot of fruit, especially if you need other pollinator trees, up to a few bushels on each tree. So be prepared for alot of pies, canning or giving them away if it's too much for your household. Not sure if this pertains to us, Mike takes an apple a day to work, the kids and I go thru a dozen or more a week; between eating right off the tree and freezing some fillings I'm sure we'll put a few trees away in no time!

Types:

Dwaf tree: 8-10' tall

Semi-Dwarf tree: 12-14' tall

Standard tree: taller than 14'tall

Soil: Most soil in Md is Clay or Sand. Just make sure the land drains well.

Cherry trees- sandy soil
Pears/Apples- Can tolerate dense but prefer a mix type

*If you have a septic the land will drain fine for most types.

When you go to plant, don't dig extremely deep or wide holes. There's a knob on the bottom of the tree trunk called a graftium, that adjusts the height of the tree. If you get a dwarf tree do not bury the graftium, this make it grow to a standard size because of adjusting the root system. Just dig 2x the size around the tree, not deep. You want to keep the graftium close to the soil line.

Also, don't put anything else in the hole, just the dirt you took out and good top soil (not the cheap soil that has more mulch than soil, good soil will show you better results for anything you plant). But do build up a mound ontop of the soil to help drain water away from the trunk of the tree. Then a month later when the soil packs down you can add a 10x10x10 fertilizer to jump-start the growing process; making sure to only sprinkle it by the drip line of tree, that's where the roots are. But for apple trees, no further fertilizer is needed unless the tree isn't growing. The more fertilizer the more susceptible the trees are to disease. Where peach and pear trees may need fertilizer more frequently thru the growing season. Thus it was off to talk about spraying.

Spraying:

Blueberries you I love people who want to do everything organically, but I more loved when the orchardist asked: "Who here wants to care for fruit trees organically?" About 4 people raised their hand out of 40. He then says "Okay, you guys and get up and leave now." Cracked me up! "Other than sitting next to your trees all day, flicking off each beetle by hand or smashing 2 bricks together to kill mosquitoes, there's no option but to spray your plants chemically."

Apples, depending on the type, are pretty hardy but none are disease free or resistant to any bug nibbling them into non-existence. He mentioned that 'Christine' apples are vary hardy and seem the most disease resistant while still having a good taste but you still need to spray them.


You only need to spray once a season, then again after harvesting, very little disease with these cuties!

But peaches are the worse and have to be controlled or they will die off rather quickly or just not produce edible fruit. The stuff the commercial orchards use are 1 part chemical to 1 acre of land, that cannot be diffused for the typical homeowner so some brands have come up with chemicals that are the lowest of the low that are for purchase at any retail chain and can be used in a spray hose attachment. The easiest method would be to spray every Sat. morning from before sprouting occurs in early Spring up and then in the evenings when tree is in bloom up until to picking time; spraying in the evening is better because that's when the bees are done pollinating- you don't want to kill them off with the spray! Just wait about 12 days after spraying to harvest the fruit for eating.

If there is a true concern for too many chemicals, it was recommended to plant early maturing fruit so you don't have to spray the whole Summer to get Fall fruit.

Also a tip, the trees come with white plastic sleeves on their trunk for packing and shipping to nurseries; save them and put them back on the trunk in the winter so they stay warm and don't freeze in the winter if there are drastic temperature drops or to guard from mice eating the apple flavored bark.

Pruning:
Best time to prune is in the Spring; March. Trim flush to the tree. Trim so there's no double headers. And trim to make an outward growing tree; cutting away and branches that grow toward the tree and won't see the sun. Even if you over trim, it'll grow back, just with a little less production that year but watch out the year after that.

With all of this information as ammo I was ready for a couple of apple trees for the backyard! At the time of the lecture they were 25% off at Homestead Gardens and MD has a $25 discount for each tree purchased, half the price! So I went there today ready to buy after researching different types that thrive in our area and wouldn't you know they were down to 4 apple trees left and not really the kind I'd like to keep around the rest of my life. I could have gone to the other nurseries in the area looking for certain ones that we'd eat more of but I really wanted to give Homestead the sale since they provided this free seminar to get me hooked in the first place. Needless to say I wasn't leaving there empty handed, I got the next best thing that I'll use the heck out of... a lemon tree! Well, I opted for the smaller pot so it looks like a little one foot bush, but over time it will turn into the pricey tall one and help us make tons of lemonade and lemon filling for pies!


At least I have the info for apples to use next year and know to get one early Spring so I have a choice! So for now I have my lemons and strawberries to tend to and look forward to planting veggies and apples next year!

Meska-Mooska...Mickey Mouse!

All this week I've been prepping for Gavin's Winter/Mickey themed birthday, even some of the snowmen around the house have gotten into the spirit!



Still can't believe my first born is going to be 4! (I have a feeling I'm going to be saying this with each birthday that arrives :)

There's a ton of stuff to do when preparing for 30 guests to come your house but unfortunately I'm not able to clean lets say on Monday and check that off my list because by Tuesday I'll to have to clean again with my two little guys :) So needless to say I've had a busy 2 days of cleaning, baking and decorating. At least I had the crafts pre-made!

But I have to say that while in the midst of doing 3 things at once my 2yr old gave me the laugh I needed with his pure innocence. I took the cake out of the oven to test with a toothpick and Carter was there soaking in every move. And as I poked the middle of the cake several times to make sure it was done he says "First you take it out and then you sew it up." Tooo stinkin cute! It sure did look like I was sewing with the toothpick! Thanks honey, that gave me the boost of positive energy I needed to work thru the night for sure!

Mickey cookies as part of the favors, couldn't have been easier to do!


Then there's the ice cream that I scooped prior to the party into cupcake liners, stuck on more cookies (gotta love Oreos when it comes to the Mickey silhouette!) and kept them in the freezer until it was cake time. No melting ice cream sliding all over the party plates either since they're in their own little cups! I saw the idea online for making chocolate cups by melting chocolate, then using a spoon to scrape it up the sides of a cupcake liner and letting it harden. Looked neat but a little too messy for a bunch of tots! Definitely will utilize it when they're older for sure but just using the liners worked really well too.

I was busy setting up until the first guest arrived and then was involved with helping the kids with crafts, so from here on out I wasn't able to take 'pretty before photos' like I wanted but there were some leftovers so I tried my best to get a picture of everything.

I bought juice boxes and toddler size water bottles to make it easier since most kids are probably still using sippy cups, but the party pack I got came with paper cups. So I figured I'd fill them with what Gavin likes, popcorn and pretzel M&M's! Another great grab and go munchie that won't roll off a plate!

As an Art Educator craft time is my favorite! The kids made their own party favor holder from paper plates to resemble Mickey and his shorts held all the goodies.

Then just like the invites I had the kids decorate a snowman with buttons but added a Mickey mouse ears hat to each, they turned out real cute!

Finally I have been saving tons of paper towel and toilet paper rolls since the fall so the kids could make their own Mousekaspotter. The older kids decided to glue their snowman on their telescope and of course the younger ones followed their lead :)

They then used the Mousekaspotter to spot mouse ears that were hidden around the house!

Here's the cake pan that was my husbands when he was younger. It just so happened that my Mother-in-Law also saved a cup from back in the day with ring leader Mickey on it so I opted to keep the design the original one to match the cup, but was contemplating putting a party hat on him instead. It worked though. I just told people not to eat the hat, after adding half a container of dye to tint the icing there was no taste left, it was terrible. Next time I'll look for a no taste dye. I did add tons of cocoa powder to the black so I only needed a little of dye for that one, it still left everyone with black tongues but thankfully tasted just like chocolate butter cream.

The cupcakes for the kids were the most fun to make! Of course mini oreos for Mickey and Minnie ears and I used marshmallows for Goofy and Donald's hat with melted chocolate for finishing touches. And this will probably be as close as I am getting to making anything pink, I loved making Minnie bows for the cupcakes, and glad I did because that's the cupcake every girl chose.

I did have leftover chocolate to use up so instead of chucking I opted to dip a marshmallow into the colors, add some sprinkles and they were a big hit, kids and adult alike!

( You can see I added a mini oreo to the bottom of Goofy's hat, that helped to elongate the square marshmallow. Then by dipping it in the dark chocolate you get that black band on the bottom of his hat- it worked out really well)

So now that the house is empty and there's some extra toys and game to replace idle time, I'm off to clean up the aftermath!

Valentine treats

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. ~Claude Monet

Just as Monet's inspiration for painting is flowers, my inspiration for baking is... well... as much as I'd love a great inspiration, I'm not really sure. For me gardening and baking are one in the same, a very peaceful and creative process where the end result bring a sense of satisfaction to the creator and a smile to the recipient.

I look forward every year to baking these "Love Cookies" for Valentine's Day treats, just as I enjoy planting bulbs every spring. This recipe is my favorite for sugar cookies, no extra flour needed when rolling them out so they taste wonderful, and the cookie keeps it's shape when baking.

I don't remember when I started making these cookies, I just remember it was mid-way thru my 6yr engagement with Mike that I was low on funds one Valentine's Day due to having to purchase extra books for college that month. So my Mom suggested baking something for him instead of giving a store bought gift; and of course she added the age-old motto of the best way to man's heart is thru his stomach. I found this cookie idea in one of her Women's Day magazines and the rest is history.

Now it's even better that each year my boys get to help with the creations!

I was also excited to search for unique valentine's for the boys to hand out, you know, while they're still young and I can pick out something cute I like and they're okay with it :) Before I know it I'm sure there will be Spiderman and Transformer themes abound, but until then I'm all for the cutesy stuff!

Make your own sundae valentines with life-like stickers...totally my boys at this age, super fun and super cute! Had to get them!

And making the teacher gifts were super easy, more personal than a pre-wrapped gift! (Google Search is full of great ideas from other crafty Mom's like this one I borrowed!)

Now that Valentine's Day is covered it's on to prepping for Gavin's Mickey Mouse party!

One more month...

..until my little guy turns 4!!! I'm so tired of saying it but really, where does the time go?!? It's going to go even faster since I'm working on invites every free second I get, then there's crafts and food prep, he'll be 4 before I know it! But I'm really enjoying the planning of this Mickey theme!

For some odd reason, like I have extra time on my hands, I went ahead and made the invites instead of taking the cheaper/simplier route and buying them from a party store. I blame it on Disney's family.com for having a cute snowman with Mickey ears hat, after seeing that I had to make Gavin's party a winter Mickey theme! And it was great that both boys could help in decorating the cards, it gave us lots to do inside on these cold blustery days!

Can't wait to start on making the goodies, found some great ideas with some online ispiration!

Don't know that I'll get to make these cookies but they are super cute!

Instead, as part of the favors, I opted to try my hand at making these cuties, really...can't...wait!

I am using the cake pan from my Mother-in-Law that she used for my hubby when he was a kid. At first glance I was trying to figure out what I could put ontop of Mickey's head instead of a drum major's hat to make it look more updated, but cannot seem to come up with any unique ideas, besides a birthday hat. I'll just have to see what comes to mind when I actually go to decorate it. But keeping with the family sentiments I may just leave it as is too.

At least this is giving me a jump start on Carter's 3rd party, he want's Special Agent Oso and of course there's nothing at any party store or online, guess I'll be crafting a word document for him too :)