Frozen White Hot Chocolate

I am not a fan of winter. If I had my way, it would be summer year round where I live. What I do love to do most on a cold winter day is whip up a batch of hot cocoa and settle in with a good book. I’ve had such a sweet tooth lately, but with the really hot summer we are having, even just thinking about sipping a cup of hot chocolate is almost unbearable. However, if you are a regular reader, you know that I love me some drink recipes, and where there is a will, there’s a way. I have to be careful how often I make these because they are SUPER YUMMY! I could drink them all day!

Ingredients:

6 half-ounce pieces of high quality white chocolate (I use Baker's)

2 tbs half and half

1 envelope store bought hot chocolate mix

1 tablespoons sugar

1 1/2 cups milk

3 cups ice

Whipped cream (optional)

Chocolate shavings (optional)

Place the white chocolate pieces and the half and half into a microwave safe bowl. Heat for 1 minute, stopping to stir half way through. Continue to heat until melted and smooth. Add the hot chocolate mix and sugar, stirring constantly until thoroughly blended. Remove from heat and slowly add 1/2 cup of the milk and stir until smooth. Cool to room temperature.
In a blender place the remaining cup of milk, the room temperature chocolate mixture, and the ice. Blend on high speed until smooth. Pour into a cup and top with homemade whipped cream and chocolate shavings.



ALSO- I am so excited to be the “Featured Friend of the Week” over at Create With Joy! She featured my Strawberry Cheesecake Shake this week! Woo Hoo! Be sure to stop over at her Friendship Friday Hop and link up or just check out some of the awesome post links! Thanks so much Joy!

DIY~ Decorating Small Bird Houses With Nature

My girls had some friends over the other day. I had just finished going through all my craft supplies and such and had these little bird houses set aside for a summer project to keep them entertained. I figured that since there were 4 girls and I had 4 houses, it would be a perfect time to let them break out their decorating skills.


I bought these tiny bird houses at Michael's Craft Store for $1 each, so aside from that and paint and glue costs, these are a cheap and fun craft activity for kids.


I had them go out into the yard and find things in nature that they could decorate with. They came back with mini and large pinecones, pebbles, sticks, acorns, and tree bark.


Here are the finished houses:

Note- These are not intended for use by real birds. They are just the teeny houses meant for decoration. Michael's does sell larger houses that can be used for your feather friends though.

Toffee Apple French Toast

I really hate to admit it, but I am not a morning person. I am not a chipper, get out of the bed and make a hot breakfast for everyone kind of girl. I found this recipe a long time ago, I think from Taste of Home, and really love it because I can assemble it in the evening, and all I have to do is pop it in the oven when we wake up in the morning. It’s a real winner in terms of ease to make as well as taste! This is sweet enough on it's own, so no syrup or powder sugar needed.

 

Ingredients

8 cups cubed French bread

2 medium tart apples, peeled and chopped

1 pk cream cheese (8oz) softened

3/4 cup brown sugar

1-3/4 cups milk, divided

2 tsp vanilla extract, divided

1/2 cup English toffee bits (I use Heath toffee chips found by the regular chocolate chips)

5 eggs

Directions

Place 1/2 the bread cubes in a greased 13 x 9 inch baking dish. Top with apples.

In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugars, 1/4 cup milk, and 1 tsp vanilla until smooth. Stir in toffee bits. Spread over apples. Top with remaining bread cubes.

In another bowl, beat the eggs and remaining milk and vanilla until blended. Pour over bread. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes or until knife inserted through center comes out clean.

Serve.

Makes 8 servings.

Brookfield Zoo

Tuesday we were supposed to take the girls to an amusement park. Something came up where that just wasn't going to be a possibility, so we were scrambling at 11 pm to find something else to do. We thought about driving into Michigan and taking a tour of the Kellogg’s factory, something we had been wanting to do at one time, but found out they closed 3 years ago. Since we had to scratch that too, we started looking into what we could do in Chicago. The museum attractions didn’t sound too appealing this time around, so we finally settled on Brookfield Zoo. Every year we talk about going, but never got around to it. I was really glad we finally got the chance. 

They had a lot of hands on activities for the kids and signs where you could measure yourself in comparison with the animals.

On the other hand, Allison had much more fun posing with the statues.

Mariah was quite amused by the “Sexy Shrimp.”

We did find Nemo and Dory too, though I don’t think you can see them in this picture
.

The best part of the day though was petting the sting rays! You could even buy fish to feed them. They would swim right over your hand and scoop it right out of your fingers!

The Extreme Bugs exhibit wasn’t that fantastic, but the sculptures outside were pretty cool.

Overall, it was a great zoo visit. However, if you are in Chicago and are planning a zoo trip but don’t care about the hands on experiences, I would go with Lincoln Park Zoo. They seem to have the same animals, and even better, it’s free for entrance. We spent $125 for the entrance and attractions at Brookfield Zoo for the four of us. The most we have ever paid at Lincoln Park was $17 for parking. If you get there early enough and are lucky, you could find free parking on the street though. But, I would say that Brookfield is a must visit zoo at least once if you live close enough to visit.

Weekend Round Up~ Canoeing!

My husband has been on this kick lately where he thinks he wants to go kayaking. No, we've never been, but he has it stuck in his head that this is going to be a family fun activity that we should take up.  Our state park offers all kinds of boat and canoe rentals, so just to get a feel of being in the water and paddling, my husband decided to drag us there Saturday to test out the waters, so to speak.

Now, if he is trying to sell me on the idea of kayaking, he picked a pretty crappy day to do it on. The first mistake being it was over 100 degrees out. Then he thinks it's brilliant to put me in a canoe with the 8 year old. I've never rowed a boat. I'm not the most savvy outdoors girl there is. But sticking me with a 50lb 8 year old is a sure fire way to guarantee I'm not getting too far. We end up rowing in circles over and over again. Eventually I give up, fling the paddle aside, and sing Row Row Row Your Boat while simultaneously praying a big gust of wind pushes us back to shore. By the time we got back to the dock I was exhausted and soaked from sweat. This is not an adventure I would like to repeat on a weekly basis, that's for sure!

Have you ever been kayaking? Canoeing? Is there much of a difference between the two? Is one easier than the other?

Strawberry Cheesecake Shake

Do I have a goodie for you today! This is another one of my magazine rip out recipes that I found in Better Homes & Gardens magazine a few years back. The original recipe was actually a raspberry shake, but I am more of a strawberry lover, so I ended up changing the recipe up a bit. How can you go wrong with a recipe called "strawberry cheesecake shake?" Mmmm, Mmmm!

Ingredients:

12 oz frozen strawberries, thawed
3 oz cram cheese, softened
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 quart vanilla ice cream
2 12oz cans cream soda
Fresh strawberries for garnish (optional)


Directions:

In blender, combine the strawberries, cream cheese, almond extract, 1/2 the ice cream, and 1/2 cup of the cream soda.

Cover and blend until smooth.

Divide blended mixture among 6 tall 16oz glasses. Add a scoop of the remaining ice cream to each drink. Top each drink with the remaining cream soda. Garnish with fresh strawberries.

Serve immediately.

Makes 6 servings.