Who Says Pizza has to be Round?

The kids love to make their own pizza. It's pretty easy to whip up a batch of dough (or buy one from the store) and let them roll it out. I usually just set out whatever topping we might have on hand and let them "decorate" their pizza. It's amazing what they will eat when they put it on.

Free Range??

Our chickens have free roam of our yard when someone is around (we have to watch our for the Cooper's Hawk).  They love getting attention and will eat cracked corn right out of your hand. The kids love playing with them. And what's the by-product of this relationship?...eggs! Our eggs are different colors depending on the chicken that laid them. On average a chicken will lay one egg a day and eggs will keep for a month, so we are going to be rolling in them soon!

Notice the yolk is much oranger than what you get from the store.  The shells are much harder to crack too (which is good when the 3 year old brings them in.)

Sparkly Dog Birthday Party

So for Banana Girl's 3rd birthday party she wanted a sparkly dog party and I had to come through.  We had really talked about having a dog party, but then the whole sparkly thing came into play. I had already purchased the headbands thinking about ears for them to wear and just figured I'd add sparkles to them in random circles.  They turned out really cute and the kids loved them.  We drew noses and whiskers on the kids when they arrived. We also let each child make their own "dog tags" with an empty frozen juice can lid that my husband carefully drilled a hole in and sanded down on the sharp edges. I threaded those on ribbon and then wrote each child's name with sharpie, then they got to decorate them. We also played doggie bingo and had doggie coloring pages.

We served hot dogs and banana dogs (hot dog bun with banana and peanut butter and jelly), fresh fruit and veggies with dip. I decorated with pink sparkly things I got clearanced in the Christmas section and some purple/ pink twinkle lights that we from Halloween.

The dog bone cookies (complete with edible glitter) and bone shaped crayons were in their goodie bags.

Sparkly Dog Cake

I was all set to make a dog birthday cake, when I got the request for a "sparkly dog cake".  What exactly does that look like?  Well I made the base in pink icing and then added edible glitter to fill the request.  The collar is red licorice, the nose is a cut piece of tootsie roll as are the eyes and the mouth is a piece of a starburst candy. The birthday girl was thrilled. 

Of course I always learn things when I do this. Afterward I decided my time honored technique of putting a little wax paper under the edges to keep it from getting icing on it, was not really worth it.  I think next time, I just need to pipe some stars or a border around the base to cover the little mess.

The Eggs have Arrived!

These are our very first eggs from the "Girls". They are really small compared to grade large from the store, but the Girls are young still. This would be the reason to have chickens. Fresh eggs daily, now this is something I could get used to.