Jada's 3rd Birthday

Jada had a teddy bear picnic theme for her party. Her favorite toys right now are stuffed animals. She loves to make up little stories and act them out with her stuffed animals. She calls it talking animals. We had it at Nicholas Sheran park. It was perfect. It is a quiet park, not too busy with a really big and really cool train themed playground. Right beside the playground is a covered area with picnic tables and bathrooms. When all the kids got there all they were interested in was the playground so we let them play to their hearts content. We also had face painting and "paw" nail painting and a blanket layed out with teddy bears and teddy bear clothes for teddy bear dress up. Then we called them all to the covered area for a picnic with sloopy joes, carrot stick, snack mix, and juice boxes. Jada kept changing her mind on what kind of cake she wanted. At first she wanted blueberry cheesecake, then ice cream cake and then chocolate. She kept going back and forth so we decided to go with death by chocolate. Mike found a recipe for chocolate whip cream! so it was chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. We were going to take them on a bear hunt where they found bear treats (teddy grams and gummy bears) along the way to fill their honey pots but the kids all took off for the park as soon as cakes and presents were done so we went with the flow and just filled their honey pots for them and sent it home with them.
Latter that evening we went out to payne lake with all the Parks (my family) and the girls had their first experience camping and jada had her first experience on a boat. The girls absolutely loved the tent and they both went to sleep very well. Jada got scared shortly after the boat left the dock and decided to come back but next time.

Makayla with a honey pot.

Jada opening presents.

Makayla digging into cake

Jada enjoying her cake

Three candles and one big breath to blow them out!

Jada decided she wanted to paint her own face

Recipe of the Week

This is more of an idea than a recipe but a welcome one in the hot temperatures we have been having. I don't know about your house but our oven has been on very little the past few weeks. I avoid the stove top as much as possible too. We have been living off of BBQ and crock pot. We did a baked pasta in the BBQ yesterday and it was delicious that way. These sandwiches are so good and are cooked completely in a waffle iron. This is called waffle panini. For these sandwhiches I added shredded cheddar cheese, chopped onion, chopped spinach, rosemary and a garlic butter seasoning called Johnny's to a basic waffle batter. I just made it up, you can add what ever you like. The seasoning made it taste like a foccacia grilled sandwich...so yummy. Make your waffles then sandwich meat, cheese, vegetables, ect. between two waffles. We had ham, mozzarella and spinach in these. Place sandwich back inside the waffle iron and grill until the cheese is melted.