Kite Festival

Keegan is obsessed with anything that flies. So what better way to spend a Saturday than at the Kite Festival at Barney Schwartz. And an added bonus - they had remote control airplanes and helicopters too!!  Besides the constant Keegan chasing, we had a great time.  We brought a picnic lunch and camped out under a shady tree.  Too bad it wasn't windy enough for some of the really big kites to get up.

Reece was not too sure what to think of this grass stuff.

Cool breeze+soft blanket= afternoon nap

Apple Pie

You'd be hard pressed NOT to find an apple pie recipe in any cookbook or recipe web page. Most of them are the same. Flaky crust, apples layered with butter, sugar, and spices, more flaky crust. We get it. But years ago, I stumbled upon an apple pie recipe that was a little different. Flaky crust - check, apples - check, layered with butter and sugar - NOPE! This pie you assemble differently. You fill the pie crust with just apples, nothing else. Then top with a lattice crust. And then comes the best part. You pour this melted sugary yumminess over the lattice crust. It coats the crust and oozes down into the apples. So good.

Ingredients


1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
8 Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored and sliced

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add water, white sugar and brown sugar, and bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer.

Place the bottom crust in your pan. Fill with apples, mounded slightly. Cover with a lattice work of crust. Gently pour the sugar and butter liquid over the crust. Pour slowly so that it does not run off.

Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes, until apples are soft.

Easter

As you can tell, Reece wasn't such a huge fan of the tall grass. But the boys had fun just the same.  We didn't hide any eggs for Reece, (can you imagine how long THAT hunt would take?! LOL) but Keegan got three!  Chad and I hid a bunch outside for Keegan. Amanda and Veronica hid a bunch outside, and just yesterday we went to a belated Easter party at Ed and Bonnie's. Such fun. Reece did get a practice run of his first birthday festivities and ate an entire cupcake by himself!

We put together a sandbox for Keegan and Reece. They have been really enjoying it. 

Not your average canned corn

As a parent, sometimes you tend to get stuck on auto pilot. Especially when making dinner. It's much easier to just go with what you know while one kid is climbing into the kitchen cabinets and the other is making more noise with his pan and spoon than a hard rock concert.  So we throw things in pots and eat what's easiest.  While in the midst of the normal dinner making chaos, the can of corn began to stare me down. "You're not going to just serve me warm up right out the can are you?!?"  Well, I guess not. So what could I do that was fast easy and really tasty? Let's go with my motto: Bacon makes everything better!

Ingredients

1 can of whole kernal corn, drained
4 strips of bacon, chopped
1/2 bell pepper, chopped
1/4 onion, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Fry up bacon until almost cripsy. Add onion, bell pepper, and corn. Saute until the onion is soft. Season with salt and pepper.


See! Super easy AND super yummy!!!

Test drive

As much as I would like to pretend that my baby isn't getting bigger, it will soon be time to put Reece in a new carseat. Sigh.  Why does a year seem to fly by so fast? But, for all my complaining and sadness that Reece is turning into a toddler, how can you not enjoy watching this small baby become his own person. And it does seem to make it easier that he looks so stinking cute in his big boy carseat!