Visit MADE and I will teach you how to make Chocolate Crispies. So simple. So easy. And so good!

Tuesday nights are becoming more special here because that’s the night we get together with some of our friends, particularly the BFF and her hubs and another gentleman from our church family, to share dinner and life. Dinner comes first and we all indulge, joke, and talk, after which the boys and girls separate and the boys have their accountability time together and Lin and I do our own version talking about things we struggle with, how to love God more, how to love our husbands more, etc. Of course, all the kids get put to bed after dinner and sometimes Ben and the boys do it to give the men some practice since they aren’t yet fathers and other times the girls do it.

Speaking of putting the girls to bed, last night they were so cute because as I was taking all three big girls upstairs for bed, they said, “Mom, we have a show for our church family.” I hesitated because it was already past their bedtime, but then let them do it because they weren’t being shy and I wanted to take advantage of it. They had me call everyone to where the stairs are, and once they were all there, they proceeded to sing “So Long, Farewell” from Sound of music. It was the cutest thing!!! As stubborn as my kids are sometimes, they can be such heart melters too.

Ben and I are so blessed by this time and getting to know our friends more, though Lin and I are pretty much like sisters, but our husbands are quickly becoming better friends and we secretly think they want to be BFFs like us. Guess that is not so secret anymore. Anyways, we have all taken turns at making dinner and everytime the Parks bring dinner, it becomes a new favorite for Ben and he raves on and on after the food after company has gone home (and for days after too).

The recipe they used was Korean Beef Tacos from here and you can be sure this will be going in our recipe staples and I have a feeling this may be our Friday night dinner and I want to try it with shrimp. We definitely love our Tuesday nights with delicious food, friends, and discussions that spur us love God more. So, Lin and John… what are you brining over tonight? Who said we can’t do it on Wednesdays too?!!

Seriously, Ben is just the best. I wake up Saturday morning and the girls tell me they have a surprise, but I have to wait. Shortly after, Ben comes upstairs with a brown paper in hand, makes us girls all sit on the bed together while he reads aloud what he has on his brown paper. He says, in a decree-like fashion…

After which he says we all need to go downstairs. Though, this is where there was a slight change of plans as I just happened to notice True has red dots and bumps all over her foot and upon closer inspection, they seemed to be all over her body. A few calls here and a few calls there, we determine she may have chickenpox or is having a late reaction to the chocolate chip cookies she had the other day. Eventually though, the surprise gets back underway.

What was it? Well, Ben had prepared a buttermilk pancake batter from this recipe and had bought a griddle (that he so slyly kept hidden away for a couple weeks) and pancake batter dispenser, had little pancake add-ins ready and we were about to recreate our own version of Slappy Cakes from our Portland trip almost exactly one year ago. That man is good! We were going to make our own pancakes right at our own table at home… so fun!!!

We made hearts, bows, shapes, spelled out our names, made little creatures, and some funny faces all the while devouring all morning long. Heck, Ben and I even had our own round of tic-tac-toe. Not to mention, we threw in some chocolate chips here, some berries there, and some bacon bits may have made it into some of the pancakes too! Seriously, all super yummy!!!

The girls seemed like bottomless pits as they were eating everything up all morning long. I feel we may have ourselves a new little family breakfast tradition coming on. Ben says he had planned to do this little surprise later in the month, but he was much too excited that he had to do it sooner. I am glad he did because pancakes were just what my tummy needed Saturday morning! We all definitely love us some Pappy Cakes!!!

Suddenly, I was in the mood to cook. It all started with wanting some fresh baked chocolate chip cookies and the cooking continued. My go-to place for recipes is Smitten Kitchen and this chocolate cookie recipe hailed from there. The recipe called for some nuts and since True is allergic, those didn’t make the cut. The cookies came out great, but I think I baked them a bit too long because they are just slightly more crunchy than I prefer. Oh well, will try to get soft and chewy next time.

The girls were pretty jazzed about having some chocolate chip cookies. They had some for an afternoon snack and some as an after dinner snack too.

Then I was feeling a bit more adventurous and planned to cook dinner. Usually, I wait for Ben to come home to figure out what to eat, but the only down thing to that is that the girls get to bed slightly later because it takes us forever to figure out what to cook. This time I thought I would help a bit and get dinner started myself. Plus, I was kinda wanting some yummy burger and in my search, I thought this Wild Mushroom-Cheddar Burger sounded delicious and delicious it was!

At first, when I tasted just the mushrooms, I wasn’t impressed and was thinking I might not like the burger. But when you put all the flavors of the mushrooms, cheddar cheese, meat, and the chipotle ketchup together, the burger was nothing but yum! This recipe will definitely be repeated again. Along with the burger, we had a side of baked sweet potato fries. I am happy to report that everyone’s tummies were happy and full and the girls were in bed right at 7:30!

Sometimes it is good not to make things from scratch, provided the box mixed doesn’t contain any hydrogenation, which is just so bad for you. We were itching for blueberry muffins and we had a easy peasy box mixed and baked them right up.

True was at school and Bravey and Soul were having a hoot together. They actually don’t play together much because it is True and Brave together and Soul is my little sidekick. I think with True gone one day a week, it will give Soulie and Bravey plenty of sister bonding time. They are real sweet together, just like these boxed blueberry muffins.

And since these were just boxed muffins, we gave them a bit more visual appeal by cutting out parchment paper squares and baking them in those in the muffin pan. I think they look cute that way! Oh and we sprinkled brown sugar on top! Can’t go wrong with extra brown sugar.

I want to try baking these next. What are you in the mood to whip up? I am in the mood to whip out this baby!

From homeschool to food, don’t you love how I can jump from one topic to another so quickly?! I am a lifestyle blog after all, at least I think of it that way. I am sure there will be lots more school talk round these parts, especially since this is all so new to us and there are so many aspects of it that I want to capture and reflect upon. All in all, homeschooling day two went well, I just need to be more patience. God, help!

On a food note, we tried out this delicious salmon recipe last week. I really liked it, though next time Ben and I both agreed that the recipe could go a bit lighter on the vinegar.

The recipe contains onions, which I can’t really stand right now, but having ice cream afterwards makes the lingering onion taste in my mouth go away. Problem solved. These days though I am craving some sort of teriyaki beef. Hopefully, Ben and I can get a date night in on Friday and satiate this craving of mine. I so can’t wait to have my normal appetite back and have me some sashimi and beer! That’s right… I am looking forward to drinking a beer!

Are you craving anything lately?