I've Been Inspired...

   I'm working very hard to landscape a large portion of our front yard/driveway.  It's a huge amount of space and will take a lot of work.  I really only want to do a section at a time.  In the meantime, I don't really want to leave a lot of bare spots while I work.

   A few weeks ago, I came across the idea of a sunflower house.  I've seen bean shelters and such, but something as simple and pretty as a group of sunflowers... that's got my name written all over it.  The kids are 10, 5, and of course, 5.  Sounds like as good a time as any do work such a project.

   Unfortunately, the weather has been less than cooperative.  I never used to be, but lately I'm a total weather wimp.  Don't know where I got it from, but if it's gray, inside I will stay.  So this means I've had a couple weeks to expand on this idea.  Pinterest is such an awesome/evil thing.  And what's great is, no matter how many great ideas I've had, I have still only found one thing I might have to purchase.  The rest is all using supplies I already have, or have available to me.  Oh, and almost all of it can be built by the kids themselves!

   My latest idea is for an outdoor summer game room.  It would start with the planting of the sunflower seeds... and I have a huge variety.  I would dig the trench, but the kids would sow the seeds and cover them up.

   The next step, as our flowers start their stretch for the sun, would be to make games to play.  Pinterest to the rescue again.  My folks cut down two huge trees in their back yard.  Hubby has been chipping away at the heap of log rounds to make firewood.  I would have to go and look at the remaining rounds, but if I can find one of an appropriate size, I can plop it inside the "house".  (I would likely want to treat it first, to prevent damage/bugs/fungus.)  But the kids can take it from there.  We have rocks, lots of beautiful rocks for painting, all over the place.  Painted rocks might just make for excellent game pieces.  And that log?  I'm thinking a game board burned or painted on it.  Either a simple tic-tac-toe, or a chess/checkers board.  Voila!  Outdoor game for an outdoor game room!

  Not only can the kids help me build it, they can sit in the shade and picnic, play quite games, and enjoy a safe spot to play as I do other yard work.  The Eldest loves his quite time reading books, and this might be a spot for him to enjoy for that purpose as well.  I'm kinda excited to see how it turns out.  Well, you know, assuming I can get a break in the gray, soggy weather.

I Finally Made An Awesome Cake!!!

My twins turned five yesterday.  WOW how time really does fly.  I don't think you really grasp that concept until you're watching your kids grow and it seems to be far too fast.  But, growing is what they do best.

I love watching the differences between the two.  My Littlest Prince woke up ready to party.  All he wanted to know was where the party, cake, and ice cream would be.  The Princess, on the other hand, woke up FURIOUS that she'd not become a full grown adult overnight.  She ran right into my bedroom to see her expected overnight transformation in the full size mirror, and was greatly disappointed to say the least.  She got over it.  ;-)

Usually every year I bake all three kids a cake from scratch.  (If we do a celebration outside the house, however, I go with a second cake.  A trusty and dependable store bought.  Mostly because my cake skills are 50/50.)  But I have always wanted to bake cakes from scratch for birthdays, if I ever had kids, and so I do.  This year, the twins wanted strawberry and pineapple in their cake.  I found a great strawberry cake recipe (not using boxed mix) a few years back when the Eldest had requested one, and it turns out excellent every time.  With a little searching, I found a second recipe that included pineapple and orange, but used a box mix.  So, with a little tweaking here and there, I combined both recipes to make this amazing, tropical, strawberry-pineapple loaded, moist and delicious cake.  Here is the recipe as I had used it.

Strawberry-Pineapple Cake

2 cups white sugar

1 3oz package strawberry flavored Jell-O

1 cup butter, softened

4 eggs at room temp.

2 ¾ cups cake flour, sifted

2 ½ tsp baking powder

½ cup whole milk at room temp.

½ cup strawberry puree from frozen, unsweetened strawberries

1 8oz can crushed pineapple with juice

2 tsp (or so) fresh orange zest

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans.  (Or whatever pan you’re using.)

In your mixer, cream butter,  sugar, and dry Jell-O mix together until fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, making sure each egg is well mixed in before adding the next. 

In a separate bowl, combine flour and baking soda.  Add flour mix a little at a time, alternating with milk.  Add in the strawberry puree and pineapple.  Pour evenly into cake pans. 

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.  Cool cake in pans on wire rack at least 10 minutes before removing cake to cool on rack completely.  Do be careful, this cake is soft and breaks easily. 

I fully admit I have not done well making my own frosting, so I used store bought.  I used lemon frosting for the center, between layers, and white frosting for the entire outside.  Pat some sweetened, flaked coconut on the outside to complete that tropical theme.  :-D   That being said, this recipe as written is super sweet, so it's really perfect on it's own, without the frosting.

On the other hand, if you are going to frost it, it really is super sweet.  I would seriously recommend reducing that sugar considerably.  Either way, I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.