Thursday, July 28, 2011

Best Breakfast Evah!

Let me tell you this is the BEST French Toast ever.  I came up with this when I was at the beach with my girlfriends years ago...it was eaten up so fast I should have made double the amount.  Ren called it just Angel Food and I thought it was the perfect description for this light and delicious breakfast. Breakfast is also my favorite meal of the day; I could eat breakfast foods for snacks, lunch and dinner. I think I love breakfast so because it has just the right amount of sweet and salty. This recipe does not include any salty but just add your favorite breakfast protein to the plate and you have the perfect combination....with a hot cup of coffee of course.

Angel Food French Toast
Ingredients

1 store bought Angel Food Cake cut into 1 inch slices
6 eggs (beaten)
1/3 cup milk
2 tsp cinnamon
butter for your skillet 
powdered sugar for dusting
4 cups of diced fresh seasonal fruit
zest and juice 1 orange
2 tsp of honey

Instructions
Combine eggs, milk and cinnamon into a shallow bowl.
Heat the butter in a skillet over medium heat.
Dip the Angel Food Cake slices into the egg mixture and cook lightly browning both sides.
Combine the fruit, orange juice, zest and honey in another bowl and stir to coat. 
Serve the Angel Food with a dusting of powdered sugar with fruit on the side. 
(I used strawberries, blackberries and apples). 

I hope you try this simple and so yummy breakfast recipe...let me know what you think if you do!














Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Books We Read

My Lil' PeaPie is a lover of books and letters and animals and books... and we read a lot....I mean A LOT...
I thought I would share with you some of our favorites right now, books that I have long ago memorized and come to love. When I am old and look back on my PeaPie's youngest years I know that I will fondly remember these books and I hope that they remain in our little family library for-evah.

The Big Red Barn by Margret Wise Brown quickly became top on our list of nigh-night stories and day ones too. We checked it out from our local library and fell in love. After two weeks we returned it and my PeaPie did not stop talking about it...so we checked it out again and again and then I finally bought it.

Time For Bed by Mem Fox is my go-to baby shower, 1st birthday book. This one came recommended to me by a sweet friend with two boys, she said it was and still is her little guys favorite book and she was sure that my PeaPie would love it. She wasn't wrong. Ren likes to point out each animal and their Mama as well as when they are doing or what is happening in the background behind them.

Zoo-ology by Joelle Jolivet is an over-sized animal book and it's all about the illustrations. Ren loves to look through this one page by page and talk about the different animals, what they look like, where they live, what sound they make and then we play match with his Schleich
animals.

Any Dr Seuss...Hop on Pop, Fox in Sox, Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish, Mr. Brown Can Moo, The Foot Book, There's a Wocket in My Pocket....and my smarty-pants PeaPie knows the name to all of these books and can pull the right one off the shelf.

Humphrey's First Christmas By Carol Heyer, other-wise known as "Camel the Humph", Room for a Little One by Martin Wadell, other-wise known as "Kind Ox" and Who Is Coming to Our House by Joseph Slate, are three Christmas books that we started reading at the beginning of Advent 2010. Long after Advent was over Ren pulls them from the shelf, reads them on his own and asks me to read them too.

Quiet Night by Marilyn Singer, is another local library find that quickly made it's way in to our family library. My PeaPie loves this one and enjoys the illustrations as much as he enjoys making the various animal and bug noises.

Bear Snores On By Karma Wilson, I just happened to see the one at a local bookstore, quickly scanned through it and knew that it had to be added to our family library. I'm so glad I did, Ren loves this book as much as I do.

On Noah's Ark by Jan Brett, is one of the many Jan Brett books that we own. We love the animals (of course) and I love having another book that I can use to teach Ren about God's promises. Ren's other favorite Jan Brett book is Honey...Honey...Lion!

A list of a few more books we read:
The Biggest Bear by Lynd Ward
Little by Little by Amber Stewart and Layn Marlow (Hardcover)
When We Went to the Zoo by Jan Ormerod
Read and Share Toddler Bible retold by Gwen Ellis
God Loves Me More Than That by Dandi Daley Mackall
Barnyard Dance! by Sandra Boyton (ALL books by Sandra Boyton!)
Going to Sleep on the Farm by Wendy Cheyette Lewison

I hope that my sweet Lil' PeaPie always has a love for reading.....I keep my Amazon wish-list updated and always full of new books to buy.

What are some of your favorite kids books?


Monday, July 25, 2011

Mama Loves

Mama Loves...

a sleepy snuggly Lil' PeaPie
all the colors of the rainbow in my dishwasher
"i'm making music, Mama!"
pan-popped popcorn afternoons
coffee tables full of puzzles and color pages
coffee
nap-time
impromptu "i love you's"
followed by
kisses and hugs
play-dates
and
"where are we going today?"
the stack of library books that scream...
read me! read me!
every time we pass them
Lil' PeaPie's grin and laughter
laughter that
warms my soul
"my Deda is home...that's MY Deda!"
giggles and pitter patter of little feet running
round and round
hearing ears (even if I have to have a little help)
new menu ideas
old tried and true favorites
the local farmer's market
creating and serving a dish of love
coffee
a Deda that loves to grill
making new friends
keeping up the the ones that are made of gold
5 minute nakey-time
my own personal streaker
his blue/brown/green eyes
Turkish carpets
gifted iPad and it's fabulous cover
my "lil' old man" Elliot
our "he's outa control" Austin
rain and the smell of rain
eyes that can see
handmade quilts
sewing strips and creating beauty
quilt and pillow forts
flashlights
beauty
imperfection
my size 12's
seeing what I have not seen before
seeing through a 2 year old's eyes/heart
"can Mama hold you?" arms up
and these hands
handsful of life...