82 Pounds of Peaches

Ok, maybe not exactly 82 pounds, but it sure looked like it.

My mom and I took Lilly and AJ to a local orchard for some peach picking. We absolutely love pick-your-own fruit!  There's something so fantastic about either getting on a hayride or parking between rows of trees, wandering through fields of orchards with a gigantic empty box. I truly think I belong on an orchard or farm, so picking-your-own fruit is right up my alley.

Who Wants Some Cookies!?

First of all, excuse the awful color problem in all my photos. I took these with my phone, and the lighting in our kitchen is horrible at nighttime. 

If this mouse looks familiar, he's part of the "If You Give A..." series, by Laura Numeroff. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Cat a Cupcake, Dog a Donut, Moose a Muffin, Pig a Party, Pig a Pancake, and a bunch of other super adorable titles, which you can find here. Anyway, when I was a kid, I had the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and this Mouse Cookies cookbook.

I can't ever remember making anything in it! Probably because I'm not a cookie person. Don't get me wrong, if there's a cookie there, I'll eat it and I'll bake them around the holidays, but if I'm going to bake something at random, my first choice is to usually go for a pie, tart, cheesecake, cupcake, or anything chocolate. Now that I live amongst cookie hoarders (Andrew & Lillian), I make them a little more often.

Lillian is all about baking and helping (read: making a massive mess and not helping to clean it up), so she loves this cookbook too. Though, I've only made this one recipe from the book, and I'm sure there will be a few more because they're all super easy.

She requested we make the Peanut Butter Munches... which was great, because all we needed was 3 ingredients. Seriously.

Lilly's 2nd Birthday Bash!

We now have a 2 year old child. What the what? A 2 year old! I'm confused as to how on Earth that happened, but it did, and here we are. I found it pretty depressing that she was turning 2, for the simple fact that our not-so-little baby isn't a baby any longer, but instead a human being that talks, gives dirty looks to strangers who invade her personal space, gives a bit of an attitude, gives hugs and kisses, loves her friends (read: sock monkeys and cousins), actually shares and takes care of her toys, poops on my hardwood floors and denies it (potty training), and asks to be tucked in like a burrito at night. How sweet!

The theme for her party and decorations was inspired by a local park/playground that has beautiful equipment for the kids to play on, beautiful setting and scenery, recycled tire wood chips, and a pavilion. That's all wood. RUSTIC WOOD. I drool every time I go there. Once we nailed down the location of the party, I knew instantly I wanted to do a rustic-country vibe party, complete with vintage fabrics I found at Happy Notions, and this invitation I found from Paper+Pip, both on Etsy.

Floral Dress & Easter Recap

You may remember the green ruffle one-shoulder dress I made for Lilly using Prudent Baby's One-Shoulder Dressy Dress tutorial, no? Using that tute, I made Lilly's Easter dress with this amazing floral print linen I found on sale. Yay for sales on 13$/yd fabric! It turned out incredibly adorable, and I swear everyone should try making this. It only took about an hour and change, and it's great because it can grow with your tot into a tunic and top when it's too short for a dress, not to mention you can make dressy ones, and casual ones, and even BATHING SUIT COVER UP ONES! Which will be happening, don't worry. This pattern/concept is incredibly easy to do, and I'm totally totally making a million more for this summer. Go check out Prudent Baby, they've got oodles of other tutorials and great things to try! Highly recommend! Here's another shot of the dress, while hunting for eggies.

Speaking of Easter... ours was awesome!  Lilly and I made cookies for Andrew, which actually turned out really deliciously - chocolate chip and about 59 cups of marshmallows, courtesy of Lilly's heavy hand. I wanted to use about a half cup, but there ended up being almost a half bag in there. Tis what I get for letting her dump them in, right?  The marshmallow ended up melting into a carmel-like crunch/goo and was fantastic. She loves baking and making glitter decorations.

She also loves dyeing eggs, which actually was a ton of fun, and she didn't like making a big mess.  Win for me!

We also baked sugar cookies with Aunt Shar & all 3 kids, using a bunny and carrot cookie cutter set I found at target.  They turned out delicious as always!

Since Andrew had to work on Easter, we opted to have the Easter Bunny come to our house ahead of schedule. Such nice baskets he left Lilly!

For breakfast, we had Bunny Pancakes, which I made using the same bunny cookie cutter on a pancake, with some strawberries in the ears and powdered sugar sprinkled on top. So cute! And tasty!

Then we hunted for eggs the Easter Bunny hid.

Sunday we had Easter mass at church, followed by the annual Easter Egg hunt in the church yard. So. Much. Fun. The kids all had a great time scooping eggs filled with candies and sugar and things I should not eat, and then enjoyed a little cake and juice afterwards. 

After all the hunting and eating, my mom, Lil & I had an awesome ham dinner complete with a boatload of roasted veggies, bunny biscuits, sweet potatoes, and well, ham. Too bad I got ZERO photos of the meal! I failed yesterday, but here is one of Lilly hanging out in the tulips! 

Check out the original inspiration for this one-shoulder dress!