Cousins!

We went to AR for 4 weeks. We had a great time! We did so much while we were there and I kind of feel overwhelmed with what to post. So I will just do a little at a time. We got to spend sometime with Olivia and Annika's cousins while we were there. We LOVE them! I so wish we lived in the same town because they would be at our house all of the time! (or we'd be at their's because they just finished building a really great new house!) They are the sweetest girls (Andrew is great too!) and they had the best time together. They came over for Olivia's birthday. We went to Pink Bliss and had a sleepover at mom's. Olivia did not stop smiling. It was a dream birthday for her! Here are a few pics!
 
 
 
 

Olivia's Picture

Olivia made me this picture while I was putting Annika to bed last night. She said it is her dancing. She drew her arm with a pencil and then kind of erased it to make it look like it was moving. Love it. She is way more creative than me!

 

Great Recipes!

Here are some great recipes for pizza, french toast, and bananas foster. Hope you enjoy them!

Handmade pizza dough
*** Make the night before! And use BREAD FLOUR***

1 package ACTIVE dry yeast
1 Cup warm water (100-110 degrees)
1 ¼ cups cold water
2 T olive oil
1 t sugar
1 ½ t salt
5 ½ cups (1 lb 10 oz) bread flour divided
cooking spray

1. Dissolve yeast in 1 cup warm water in a bowl; let stand 5 min. combine 1 ¼ cups cold water, oil, sugar, and salt in a small bowl; stir with a whisk.
2. Weigh or lightly spoon 1 lb 8.9 oz (5 ¼ cups) flour into a dry measuring cup and level with a knife. Combine flour, yeast mixture, and cold water mixture in bowl of a stand mixer fitted with dough hook. (if you don’t have a mixer, mix by hand) Mix on low for 8 min. or until dough begins to form. Let rest 2 min. Mix on low 6 minutes or until dough is smooth (if no mixer, knead by hand for 10 min., then go out and buy a mixer). Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic (about 2 min.- I do all of that in the mixer, too). Add enough of the remaining flour 1 T at a time to prevent dough from sticking to hands (dough will feel sticky).
3. Divide dough in half, and place each portion in a large zip-top bag coated with cooking spray. Seal and chill overnight or up to 2 days. Let stand at room temp. for 1 hour before using.

*note- you can freeze the dough for up to 2 months. Thaw overnight in fridge before use.

Homemade Pizza Sauce

7 T water
2 T chopped fresh basil
1 ½ T olive oil
2 t dried oregano
1 ½ t sugar
1 t minced garlic
1 (14.5 oz) can petite cut diced tomatoes, undrained
1 (6 oz) can tomato paste

Mix all ingredients and voila you have the best sauce! If you prefer, you can puree it. Makes about 4 pizzas (two recipes of pizza dough)

Pizza

1. Sit out dough for 1 hour.
2. Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
3. Roll out dough. You really have to get tough with it. (if you are having trouble rolling it out, roll just a little and then let sit for 5 min. This is very helpful if you desire very thin pizza) Put on pizza pan ~ round kind with holes is a must!
4. Cover entire crust with olive oil; add sauce; parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese (the fresh kind melts really well and is great if you mix shredded with it); toppings.
5. Bake at 500 degrees for about 12 minutes.

French Toast
Mix up custard mixture and sit out bread night before!

1 cup half and half
3 large eggs
2 T honey, warmed in microwave for 20 seconds
¼ t salt
8 (1/2 in.) slices day old French, Italian, brioche, or challah bread
4 T butter

1. Slice bread and sit out overnight. Whisk half and half, eggs, honey, and salt. Refrigerate overnight. (if you want to make it a little more decadent add ½ t vanilla and 2 T sugar J )
2. Preheat oven to 375. Dip bread into mixture and allow to soak for 30 seconds on each side.
3. Over medium heat, melt 1T butter in a 10 in. nonstick sauté pan. (A griddle works GREAT for this! I set mine to 375-400). Place 2 slices of bread and cook until golden brown. (you can cook all at once on griddle)
4. Remove from pan and place in oven for 5 minutes. Repeat with all slices.
5. Top with fruit, whipped cream, syrup, or bananas foster!

Banana Tarte Tatin*This is the most wonderful dessert and very easy to make. Super for company! And you can make just the banana part and use as toppings on ice cream or French toast. Can easily be halfed. *
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
6 T butter (you can cut some out)
¾ C packed light brown sugar
½ t cinnamon
1/8 t salt
5 large ripe bananas
1 t vanilla
2 T rum

1. Preheat oven to 400 (only if making whole dessert!) Roll out pastry to a 13 ½ in square (I never do this) Cut out a 12 in circle using a skillet as your guide. Put back in fridge to get firm. Make three ½ in. slits in the top of the pastry and set aside.
2. Melt butter over med. heat. Stir in sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Cook, swirling skillet occasionally, until mixture turns medium amber, about 3 min.
3. Arrange bananas in skillet, overlapping slightly. Cook, without stirring, 3 minutes. (careful not to get it too dark because it still has longer to cook) Drizzle vanilla and rum over bananas and cook until most of the rum has evaporated and liquid thickened, about 1 ½ min. Remove from heat.Place pastry round right on top of bananas and put in the oven. Bake until pastry is golden and puffed, about 25 min. Remove from oven and carefully invert tarte Tatin onto a serving plate. Then hide in your kitchen and eat the whole thing. Just claim it burned.

A little while back

I am really behind on posting. On the fourth of July weekend my step-sister and brother-in-law (and their sweet son Hayes) came to visit us. We had a great time. We went to the zoo and I love these pics. There was a new baby elephant born a few weeks before we went. I really didn' t think it would be a big deal to see. But it was. Amazing. How can God make something so small into something so big? The baby was so fun to watch. (the 800 other people around us seemed to agree)





Looking stylish on the bench by the elephant.


I love that the Columbus Zoo has a Razorback. Perfect.




I know I am going to miss this zoo. But it is 40 min. away and a lot of trouble to take the girls to by myself. I should go, but I better save up energy for bedtime. :) So we will go to the pool instead. It has taken me over a year to forgive them for totally ripping me off, but I am putting my children's desire to have fun above this! :) Can't wait to get to TX so Olivia can start swim lessons. I have been telling her since Feb., "Oh sweetie, I promise we will start soon. But we have to wait until we move." I am pretty sure we could have gone to like 6 different sets of lessons by now. So, she has had a great attitude and done the best she can in the bath tub. :) Hopefully we will move at some point in the near future so I we can do all the things we keep promising and more importantly all live under one roof! I miss that!

Yum!

Baking seems to get me through the days (the days while we are here and he is there). It is fun and the girls love it. And who can complain about getting to have some yummy treats?

These are coconut cupcakes (no pieces- just milk- makes them nice and moist). Sprinkled ones just have buttercream and others have lime buttercream.







Olivia playing hairstylist with her new kit. She picked this out from Toys R Us. I am pretty sure I like it just as much as she does!

Bye

Before Travis left for Ft. Worth, we all got together for ice cream at Graeters. It was so yummy and so fun! Here are my girls with Caroline and Ava (who have been gone to Cape Cod for two weeks! We miss them!)


Graeters really is the best ice cream ever. Now I am an ice cream snob. This is one of the few things we will miss from OH.


Few of the other things we will miss from OH. These people have been our family here. Love them!


We have drawn on the driveway several time since Travis left. It is an outside activity that provides a lot of fun and very little energy on my part. This is very important. Have to save it to make it through bedtime. She looks precious here. Love that she decided she should wear a crown outside to draw on the sidewalk.

Confetti Cookies

The girls and I made cookies from Confetti Cakes. I love Elisa Strauss' two cake cookbooks. My awesome brother-in-law Brent and sister Rachelle got them for me for Christmas. Most of the cakes are so amazing, that I haven't tried much. I have made a couple of things and they are so yummy! We tried the cookies. You are suppposed to make them like lollipops, but I didn't have any sticks. They were so fun. I haven't made royal icing before. It was so fun to use and would be great for a party. I was worn out afterwards because I was standing in the kitchen at least 3 hours making dough, icing, coloring all of the icing, baking, decorating (and eating!). I love being able to make things that you can buy- and esp. if they are as good or better. It was super fun. The icing doesn't taste very good when it is wet, but it dries nice and hard and it actually tastes really good. I will cut out a little salt- she called for 1t. too much- I will try 3/4t next time.






We have been playing with friends and trying to do a lot of fun things before we move. We actually got an offer on our house, but the next day they decided not to move to Columbus. So we are waiting for God to bring the buyers. :) The other day we got a call for people who wanted to see the house in 15 minutes! Thankfully they didn't come for 40 b/c the girls were both in the bath and the house was messy. It was clean (thankfully!) from the night before and Travis had mowed earlier in the day. Those people liked our house (and esp. liked the water we left! Ha!), but they are very early in the process of buying a house. Hopefully we will have sold our house by the time they come back around! Travis and I have been learning all kinds of things during this time. Some of the lessons I hope we have really learned so we don't have to learn them again!

The girls are so much fun! I LOVE their ages. They are so great and we adore them. They get along so well and are such amazing blessings to us. I better get them to a bath. Olivia has piano tonight before VBS. VBS is wearing me out. I am glad it is only one time a year! Annika made it the first night, but only about 10 minutes last night. Travis came and got her- she was ready for bed!