Nine Times The Sun

Nine years old!!! Oh my how I remember her chubby little cheeks as they drooped down over the white swaddling blanket that the nurses handed her to me on the day that she was born. She was so tiny and she shocked us all with her jet black hair that covered her head *grin*. No longer does she have that black hair but she has replaced it with locks down to her bottom :) 

 Last year I made her a big rainbow layered cake and a few days before her birthday this year she mentioned how it was her favorite cake so I thought it would be fun to make it again but I didn't want it to be a repeat of the last one. So I made mini rainbow cakes using my all time favorite recipe.

 One for each of us and it was so much fun to see her smile from ear to ear when she got her very own. They were more work than I had anticipated and they gave me a little grief as I tried to ice them while they swayed dangerously from side to side like they would topple over but the end result made up for all of that. So cute :)

 We are all nuts about sushi around here so on the morning of her birthday L and I worked together to create a huge platter of california rolls, crunchy rolls, ones filled with smoked salmon and more to share at her birthday lunch :)

 We actually had to fend off some sneaky snackers that wanted desperately to sample our sushi before it was time *grin*.

 My mom made some amazing little salmon bites that she topped with a dill sauce and capers...

 and I had fun creating these fruit kabobs shaped like flowers :) Who knew miniature cookie cutters could do such a great job and I speared the skewers into an upside down half of a watermelon which provided the perfect sturdy base for all of the kabobs.

 

 The day couldn't have been any better as the sun shined down on us while we ate lunch in the garden :) We played croquet, had fun trying out her new hula hoop...

 

and you've got to love her fashion sense LOL.

Sneakers and a dress.... at least she left her gumboots at home this time *grin*. 

Oh how I love this little girl.

Hugs,

Rosina

Summer Solstice 2012

As we celebrated Summer Solstice it was a perfect sunny day, kissed by a light breeze as it swayed through the fields of tall grass surrounding our home. The wildflowers were all bursting heavenward in multitude and beauty as their new life that had sprouted in early spring is finally coming into its fullest :)

And just in time to!

We picked clover, buttercups and daisies to decorate our sun shaped solstice cake with.

The children enjoyed cooking hotdogs over hot embers as the fire burned low...

and warming toes chilled by running through damp grass that wasn't quite dry from the wet days before.

No one really wanted to wreck our cake by cutting into it but you know that didn't last long *grin*. I think a few even had seconds and perhaps thirds LOL.

But all the extra energy was quickly burned off by having a snowball fight in June. Oh how I love the fluffy ball shaped clusters of flowers that my snowball tree provides and they really do make for a fun summer snowball fight :)

 

As the sun finally dipped below the mountain range, streaking the sky with pinks and purples, we waited for the darkness to come so we could stoke up our fire and sit in its glow...

keeping warm, roasting marshmallows and setting our sticks aglow :)

Hugs,

Rosina

Catching Leprechauns

The children and I set out to catch a Leprechaun today with it being St. Patrick's day and all *grin*. And what better way to catch a tricky little leprechaun than to bake a rainbow colored cake and make him think that there was a pot of gold to be had!

I had ran across the fun idea for this cake over at Not Martha and we set to work making a batch of homemade regular yellow cake batter using this recipe as our backbone, modifying it with less sugar and using yogurt whey for the milk, and then splitting it up into seven different bowls so that we could add all the colors of the rainbow.

Just under an hour later our rainbow cake was out of the oven and cooling on the window sill so that it would be ready in time for dessert after dinner :)

No sooner had I put our cake on the table, set the trap with a mountain of gold coins and erected our 'come and get the gold' signage for our leprechaun, we had one climbing the ladder to steal our pot of gold!

But we were much to crafty for him! He fell straight into our trap...

and we got both the gold and the cake *grin*.

Hope you had a fun St. Patrick's Day to!

Hugs,
Rosina

Cake Cone Treats

Ice cream cone anyone?
I ran across the cutest ice cream cone cake pops over at Bakerella and I just had to recreate them for L's birthday :)

I couldn't find the exact recipe on her blog as to how to make them but with the photos and another little tutorial by her showing how to make cake pops it was enough to get me started. So armed with my baked chocolate cake I mixed in some frosting to make a moldable mixture that I could fill my sugar cones with and popped them into the freezer to firm up enough so that I could coat each one in pink chocolate and sprinkles and started making cake cones :)

Amazingly enough these were super easy to make and so darn cute!! I nearly don't want anyone to eat them LOL.

~ Rosina

Happy Canada Day

Happy Canada Day!!!

We headed down to the village this morning just before lunch to take in the sights and sounds of the Canada Day parade :)

The kids love to see all of the fire engines, police cars and ambulances that are all decorated up and blaring their horns *grin*.

They even tossed candy this year which got all of the children around into a frenzy of collecting :) I ran into an old friend which was nice and we got to catch up on what was happening in each others lives and we even enjoyed a hotdog which is a real treat as I very rarely buy them and wouldn't you know it only one of my three actually ate one LOL.

After the parade was over we headed home for lunch as I had made a special Canada Day cake (up in the first photo) which was so yummy and strawberry spritzer drinks to go along with it. Isn't the little strawberry garnish so cute :) Seems like every day is a party around here these days *grin*.

Hope you all had a wonderful day celebrating and to my American friends I wish you all a happy Fourth of July this weekend!!

~ Rosina

Sweet Temptation

Hmmm, what did I do with my day today you ask?
I think I spent most of it growing wider! *grin*

I seriously need to stop reading all blogs that post recipes. Of course I'm drawn to all the wonderfully healthy fruit & veggie type recipes out there but nothing screams MAKE ME like something loaded with calories. Yeah... I'm a total sucker for the sweets!

My new blog friend Annie from Sensible Living has some totally kick butt recipes and for breakfast we tried her baked french toast recipe that is topped with a praline crumble. Oh my word, delicious!!

As if one sweet treat wasn't enough I also made her raspberry chocolate torte and mmm was it good :) Being austrian we make a lot of tortes and I must say this is a darn good torte *grin*. The only thing I wish I would have had was fresh raspberries *sob* I had to use frozen ones from last summer because this years crop isn't quite ready yet. Oh well, that just means I've got to try it at least one more time! LOL.

Hey now it wasn't all sugar today, I had a salad to!!
We had more of that delicious french lettuce and it really is more tender than the regular butterhead variety. The woman that gave it to us also gave my mom some seeds so we can grow some of our own now to :)

So normally I might ask if you have baked something sweet lately but I'm going to stop right now and save myself from more temptation *grin*.

~ Rosina

Market Day

I had planned to get back and finish off our camping weekend earlier today but I did a little visiting today with a really neat French couple that live here and I ended up bringing home a huge bunch of a delicious heirloom lettuce (she gets the seeds from her family in France) similar to a butterhead lettuce but even more tender and a giant handful of baby leeks that I transplanted into my garden this evening :) I sure hope the leeks take because they will be so good in soups and quiche this fall!

Okay so back to our weekend *grin*. On Sunday before we packed up the camper to head home we wandered down to the pier to check out the weekend market :) It's pretty much a big arts and crafts show with just a handful of bakers and such but it's always fun to see what people are making. On Saturdays one town further south is an AWESOME farmers market with produce, meats, baking, preserves and so much more. I wish this one was like that but I guess there just isn't enough interest or supply to make it a true farmer's market.

As we were walking by one of the bakery stands the fellow called Hubby over saying that he had noticed that he was wearing a special shirt for Father's Day (one of the ones the kids made him) and that he had something for him to.

Out he pulls this little red box and tells him to open it and for the kids to watch very carefully. I thought for sure that something was going to jump out at him as he lifted the lid and I think Hubby did to as he was a little hesitant to open it *grin*.

Inside were three little mice puppets that he popped up and wished Hubby a very special Father's Day wish with. The kids loved it :)

Before we left we grabbed a giant bag of kettle corn to share for the ride home and watched them make a batch. The drum is so incredibly hot that the fellow is wearing welding gloves to protect his hands!! I can't imagine how hot that job must be during the dog days of summer.

To end our day we shared cake and fresh strawberries with my daddy and gave him silly music cards :) I hope everyone had a lovely Father's Day weekend to!

~ Rosina

Happy 4th Birthday

It has been party central around here since December with 6 birthdays in the last three months and yesterday my baby turned 4!! Above is the cute little birthday card we made for him to match the 'Happy Birthday' banner that I made :) You'll have to excuse the backwards 'a'. We had a bit of a stamping malfunction! *grin*

To please all the men in the family I went with the super deluxe meat and cheese platter from our favorite German delicatessen. So yummy and not a piece left for a midnight snack!

I don't know what it is about ice cream cake but everyone has requested it for their birthday cake even though it's wintertime!

It was absolutely hilarious to watch M open his gifts. My mom had hidden them around the house and gave him clues as to where to find them. He would race around hunting for them but little did he know that Omi was going to make him work extra hard to open them. She had wrapped them in mass amounts of tape! He wouldn't let K or L help him open them either. So we all giggled as he strained and pulled making the funniest faces as he worked so hard with his little hands to unwrap them :)

One of his favorite gifts was this cute stamp set. We've been drawing roads on paper and he stamps in all of the vehicles traveling while making up little stories to go along with them. Stamps & playdough are his favorite playthings right now so this will provide endless hours of fun for him :)

No more birthdays now until August. Time is moving so quickly though this year that it'll be here in a blink of an eye! If only I could bottle time and slow it all down :)

~ Rosina

A Birthday Celebration

It seems like it was just yesterday that my son was born at 10:50 pm after 28 hours of grueling labor *grin*. Oh was it worth it!! Today he turned 11 and he's not so little anymore :)

We kicked off his party with super deluxe burgers per his request topped with sausage, bacon, mushrooms & cheese accompanied by homemade fries. Wowza! I think I gained 5 pounds just looking at his plate *grin*. He swallowed it in record speed along with a frozen slice of ice cream cake.

Boys... they really are stomachs with legs! LOL

My mom got him a really great hardbound copy of C.S. Lewis' the Magician's Nephew. He loves the Chronicles of Narnia series so he's going to devour this book in no time :)

We bought him a model plane to build completely from scratch :) He's super excited to get started working on it but he's going to have to wait until his dad comes home tomorrow evening. He forgot to leave me the glue before he left for work and it's in the truck! What a guy *grin*.

There were big hugs all around and he even said it was the BEST birthday ever! You always know he had a super day when he says it was the best of something. Makes my mommy heart burst with happiness :)

Now if only I could figure out how to slow down the years so that he would be my baby just a little longer :)

~ Rosina