"Garden" Party on the Back Porch

 

With Emily's wedding fast approaching, we gathered together with our Bible Study group for another shower.  Such a blessed time together, out on the back porch, with the sun setting, string lights twinkling, guitar music playing in the background, and tasty little appetizers.

Spinach Artichoke Bites

 

Candied Bacon-Wrapped Pineapple with Honey-Sriracha Sauce

Bruschetta

 



Chocolate Hazelnut Tart (actually turned into Chocolate Almond Tart :)

 

 

Salted Nut Roll Bites

 

After the sun set, we wrapped up in cozy blankets and continued our conversation under the lights and candles... until the mosquitos came uninvited and eventually moved our party indoors ;)

 

 

 

Eliza

Savor the Summer

 

I'm finally willing to accept the fact that summer is coming to an end soon (emphasis on soon, not now).  This weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's was extra special as I tried to soak in our time together, the warm weather, and the relaxing time and progress on my quilt.

 

For Grandma's birthday dinner on Saturday night, I made these enchiladas - a new favorite recipe!

Then, this afternoon I bought a beautiful mirror with detailed molding for a great price at the church auction - thanks to grandma bidding on it for me while I spent the afternoon at the sewing machine :)

 

 

Eliza

Making Memories

Cousin time is rare and cherished around here.  So we made the most of it with popcorn, ice cream, a movie, late night giggles, and an early morning making cinnamon rolls from scratch.  Why I'm not in bed sleeping now is a good question to be asking... :)

{the rolls pre-frosting.  Recipe here.  If you've never made homemade cinnamon rolls - do it!  All I can say is yum...}

The afternoon was spent with Grandma having lunch together and walking through the park... along with a little birthday surprise for Grandma!

~Eliza

Celebrate Summer!

{finally got the formatting of this post to work - written early in July!}

 

This year I thought it would be fun to throw a party to celebrate summer with our Bible Study friends.  It's such a blessing to have a group of friends who love the Lord and desire to seek Him more and more!

We had a great time eating as much as we could, walking and talking by the river, then enjoying a movie together.

fruit sailboat - inspiration: bhg.com magazine

Yes, the kabobs are on fire.

When I opened the grill and saw the sticks were burning - which, by the way, I was warned of since I had not known to soak the sticks for hours before - first thing I did was grab the camera ;)  I figured they're already burning...might as well let them finish cooking, right?

To top it off, we ate Strawberry Shortcake (recipe here) for dessert! 

~Eliza

Feeling like Spring!

We were blessed with a beautiful, warm and sunny morning for our

Spring Party!

 Our Spring Party Treats:

{recipe here}

 It's always so much fun to spend time together with such great friends!

~Eliza

Blueberry Baking

Wild blueberry picking. Definitely an adventure for those who have never done it before...especially for those who don't really know what the plants look like, where they grow, or hardly at all what to expect!

Mom, Katelyn, and I headed out Thursday morning with our friend Lyndi, her little boy Cayden, and his grandma, having very different goals for our picking (Lyndi expected enough for treats and us only hoping to find a couple). :)

We just pulled off the road, walked through the woods and scanned the ground for little bits of blue until we came to a gravel road, crossed to the other side, and found so many blueberries that we had to be careful not to step on them!

***

The next morning we decided to make a treat with our bucket of berries...

which turned out to be enough for 3 delicious treats with some leftover berries!

-

Our morning's menu consisted of:

Blueberry Crumb Cake

for a before-brunch dessert :)

Blueberry Pancakes

for brunch

and

Blueberry Tart

for an after-brunch dessert

(we made some little heart-shaped tarts too!)

For the most part, Cayden was a good little helper picking berries and baking...however, I think his favorite part was eating as many blueberries as he could! :)

Delicious!!

~Eliza

Recipes Overboard!!

The other day, we decided to work on writing down some of our family favorite recipes for our recipe boxes and---well...to say the least---we went a little overboard decorating the cards and hardly had a chance to write any! :)

Like we said...

OVERBOARD!

*89 recipe cards*

~Katelyn and Eliza

As requested...

Tiramisu-Toffee Dessert recipe

Enjoy!

(We made more than a few tweaks to the recipe due to lack of ingredients, but overall this is pretty close!)

Poppy Seed Poundcake Muffins!

I've been looking for a good Lemon Poppy Seed Muffin recipe and I think I've finally found one!

Here is the recipe!

The lemon glaze didn't turn out quite as white as in the picture on the recipe...I even added extra powdered sugar...but I probably drizzled it too soon while the muffins were still pretty hot---we just couldn't wait to eat them any longer! ;)

~Eliza

Peaches!

Almost every summer, we buy a crate of yummy peaches. With all of these peaches we make peach crisp and peach pie. This year I decided to try a new recipe with cream cheese, so I went online and found this recipe that I don't even know the name of! It was delicious! I just call it Peaches and Cream Pie.Eliza took this picture of the peaches, I thought it was great!

Peaches and Cream Pie

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

One 3 oz pkg. cook and serve vanilla pudding mix

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

1 Tbs baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

4 large fresh peaches, peeled and sliced

One 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sugar

Topping:

2 tsp. sugar

1/8-1/4 tsp. cinnamon

In a mixing bowl, combine the first six ingredients; beat for 2 minutes. Spread into a greased 9-inch pie plate. Arrange peaches over batter to within 1/2 inch of edge. in a small mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese and sugar, spoon over peaches. Combine sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over the top. Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes or until set. Serve warm. Refrigerate leftovers.

~Katelyn