In the midst....

of all of this...

(Yes, I currently have a messy desk! It is not usually this way...or perhaps I should say it is not always this way!)

Did you spot it? Another sweet reminder that I am loved...like God is speaking it to me Himself...and He is, through the loving heart of my son...and to think, if I had found those Wikki-Stiks on the floor, I would have just thrown them in the trash...what a blessing I would have missed!

Hope that you find at every turn today little reminders of God's great love for YOU!

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! 1 John 3:1

Now that's love...

A little "love note" left for my by my 7 year old son...

a Wikki-Stik heart on my computer mouse...does this boy get me or what!

He is so precious & I thank God every day for letting me be his mom!

Pizza Cake (or Piece of Cake!)

Today we had nothing scheduled, so I planned to let the kids just have fun playing whatever they wanted to play...they built a fort & set up a Littlest Pet Shop Village & all other sorts of things.

I subscribe to Family Fun magazine & one year they sent me these little magazine "extras"--one being a booklet of fun cakes to make. The kids came across this a few weeks ago & spent quite some time looking at every cake & reading the ingredient list. Jack went so far as to check the pantry for the items we might already have on hand. They decided on this "Pizza Cake" & have been asking for weeks to make it, so I determined that today would be the day! It is basically a yellow cake that is the "crust", red frosting for the "sauce" and then various fruit "toppings" to make a pizza. I had a box of Jiffy yellow cake mix, so we baked that up in a round pan.

Next, the recipe called for 2 cups white frosting colored red with food coloring to look like tomato sauce.

Here we are starting with the red food coloring...

And here is some more red food coloring...

Stirring it in & it's pretty pink...

Jack is really working hard to get it mixed in...still pink.Here Darcy is adding MORE red food coloring...

See, still pink!

The real reason Darcy wants to help...licking the left-over icing!

So after one whole bottle of red food coloring, it is still a beautiful, bright PINK! At this point I was digging in the cabinet for more red coloring & found some "concentrated" food dye...I used the whole red container of that & it finally started looking red, but I do think all the food coloring made the frosting taste a little bitter...next time I'm going to try to find frosting that is already red or pink to start with or perhaps try the powder food colors.

We topped our pizza with crushed pineapple "cheese", sliced strawberry "pepperoni", sliced banana "mushrooms" and mandarin oranges (I'm not sure what their real pizza equivalent would be!) You can use any fruit you have on hand & you can also use grated white chocolate for the cheese. For added fun, serve in a pizza box as shown in the picture!

Putting the toppings on the pizza...first the crushed pineapple "cheese"...

Then everything else...there was a fair amount of tasting involved, too!

And here are my 3 little chefs with their Pizza Cake!

Mmmm, can't wait for dessert time!

Go here for the official recipe! I just noticed that the online version says to use red frosting...our booklet does day white frosting with red food coloring...they must have realized that was not working very well after all! LOL!

The Simple Woman's Daybook for Monday, July 27th

FOR TODAY, Monday, July 27th

Outside my window...the sound of card zooming down the hill.

I am thinking...I need to go pick up the kids from camp! (Okay, so I went to get the kids & now I am back & thinking that I need to be thinking of dinner...)

I am thankful for...SO many blessings! God's grace. My family. Friends. A wonderful & restful weekend spent at the lake.

From the learning rooms...We do not home school, but we do try to learn something every day. This week we are focusing on the Fruit of self-control!!! Also, I learned on the radio today a bit of wisdom for moms...God created us to be the exact mom that our children need...so my quirks were custom picked by God to be useful to my children...not saying I won't make mistakes & need to ask for forgiveness, but God chose ME to be their mom for a reason! (I learned all this from a 60 second radio spot by from Lysa TerKeurst of Proverbs 31 Ministries.)

From the kitchen...Currently not much from the kitchen (reference above, "I am thinking....") I do have some rockin' banana bread that my mother-in-law made for us. She fed our cat this weekend while we were away & noticed we had some bananas heading south...so she took them home & in their place left a nice loaf of yummy Banana Nut bread! My MIL Rocks!

I am wearing...A Matilda Jane skirt that matches my girls today! One of our only true matching outfits, they love it & so do I!

I am creating...lots of creative ideas floating around in the ol' noggin...hoping to get back to some creative projects when the kids go back to school!

I am going...to go to bed earlier, one day!

I am reading...blogs mainly these days...sadly I have probably not read a book since we went to the beach last summer :-( I love to read, but am finding this season of life isn't conducive to lots of reading time for me...but I'm okay with that!

I am hoping...that the rest of the summer doesn't fly by too quickly!

I am hearing...a baby fussing, a big brother singing to calm him down.

Around the house...Need to finish unpacking from our weekend at the lake, some laundry & just getting things back in their places.

One of my favorite things...Watermelon! YUM!

A few plans for the rest of the week: Kids in camp 2 more days, playing with some friends at the pool, pictures of Drew, starting to mentally prepare for back-to-school...

Here is picture thought I am sharing...Brotherly love!

The Simple Woman's Daybook was started by Peggy Hostetler of The Simple Woman blog.

Summertime fun! (Wordless Wednesday)

(Almost) Wordless (Almost) Wednesday

Okay I did start this post on Wednesday...and it was almost wordless (I decided to write captions for the pictures.)

Oh well, I'll say it again, this is my IMperfect life!

What we've been up to...(in no particular order, sorry!)

Sophie & Molly playing in a raft!

Our little firecracker!

Sophie & Emily on the boat waiting for fireworks!

Sophie enjoying some time with Aunt Kelly.

Darcy enjoys being carried around by her cousins at the lake! (Jeff's in the background on the jet ski, he was having lots of fun trying to throw people off of the tube!)

Happy 4 month birthday to Drew! He turned 4 months old this week & is the happiest, most content baby! And pretty hip,too with his cute little mohawk!

Picnic lunch one day after VBS this week at church. A GREAT week, but exhausting!

The kids took turns being sick at the lake, so we washed their lovies...Jack & Darcy are watching them spin around in the dryer!

Daddy's girl!

Happy guy Drew & Yaya

He was the only kid that didn't get sick during our week vacation at the lake.

Drew hanging out!

Little explorers!

Safety first!

Summer fun with friends!

Sparklers (this was just before Sophie burned her hand on one!)

That's all folks! Enjoy your weekend!

Ooops, I did it again...

I went away for an entire week of vacation & ended up not being in ONE single picture of the whole week! Ugh, well, I'll try harder next time. In my defense, we had a solid 3-4 days of someone or another being sick, so there wasn't a whole lot of picture taking goin' on.