A Very Special Day

Today is a very special day for a very special grandmother...today is my Nana's 98th birthday!We celebrated with cake and ice cream at my Mom's this afternoon. Here is my Mom with her Mom and all of the grandchildren...
Here is my Nana with her youngest great grandchild, Cade...
And here is my family with my Mom and my Nana...

LOTS has happened since I last blogged...it is so unlike me to skip a whole week without announcing that I am going on a bloggy break! The break was unexpected, but believe me, I have pictures from what all has been going on...Carson's birthday party at "Sharktooth Creek", Grandmother Ruth's birthday party at Donna's, a visit to Sara Whitten and Lilly in Senatobia, and I can't forget...the cranking of Jason's FJ-40 Landcruiser. I will share and get caught up, I promise!!

One Very De-lish Dish

Since my childen are still trying to avoid the "Mommy Paparazzi", I am going to share a food picture and a recipe with ya'll. I really missed cooking the week we were at the beach! I bought the August/September edition of "Food Network Magazine" and found a recipe for "Pizza On a Stick." I made it tonight, and it was so yummy!! We all loved it!! Here is the recipe just as I made it (I left some stuff out of the original recipe, like olives and red pepper flakes...oh yeah, and I didn't put them on a stick):

Pizza On A Stick

13.8 oz can of refrigerated pizza dough

all purpose flower, for dusting

1 cup marinara sauce

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

3/4 cup chopped pepperoni (I cut the slices into quarters)

garlic powder

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll out the pizza dough on a lightly floured surface into a 12 x 16 inch rectangle. Cut into 6 x 8 inch quarters, then cut each quarter in half diagonally to make 8 triangles. Brush each triangle of dough with marinara sauce, leaving a 1/2 inch border all around. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Put the chopped pepperonia over the cheese. Slightly fold in the two far corners, then roll up the dough from the long side, like a burrito, until the filling is fully enclosed in a tube, pressing gently to seal. Arrange the pizza rolls onto the prepared baking sheets. Brush the rolls with marina sauce and sprinkle garlic powder and shredded mozzarella cheese on them. Bake until golden, about 18 to 20 minutes.

Enjoy!!

A Great Read and Maybe Another One

Since Macy and Lucy are still on a picture-taking hiatus, I thought I would tell ya'll about my latest read. I picked this book up off Donna's bookshelf when we were staying at her condo this past weekend, read the first couple of pages, and I was hooked. This is a pretty long book...about 450 pages...but the chapters are very short, which made it so easy to read. I was able to read on the way home inbetween potty stops and settling down a not-so-happy traveling 3 1/2 year old. Then I finshed it in the midst of unpacking and laundry once we got home. I have this thing for stories about presidents...love me some "The American President" and "Murder at 1600" movies. I have watched "The American President" too many times to count! This book fell right in there...it would make a great movie!!

I saw the previews for "The Time Traveler's Wife" movie...it looks like it would be a good book to read. I've sort of been out of the books-for-adults loop lately...been enjoying "Fancy Nancy" too much! I don't know what my thing is with reading lately (I think it is driving Jason crazy). Not that I'll get to go see the movie, though...I still haven't see "My Sister's Keeper"...looks like we're going to just have to rent it (Mom, Melanie, Samantha, and Erika)! If any of ya'll have read "The Time Traveler's Wife" let me know what you thought...I may have to make a trip to Books-A-Million tomorrow!

Post of Many Colors

***Please note...there are no actual photographs of real children in this post. While they did help with the cake, they refused to have their picture taken. There were only 861 pictures taken of them at the beach last week on my camera alone (the number is probably triple that if you count the pictures my Mom took)...wonder why they were tired of the camera?

I have seen the idea of a "rainbow cake" on different blogs and websites, so the girls and I decided to make one for dessert last night. Macy and Lucy kept asking if it was Daddy's birthday...I don't make cakes too often. I couldn't remember what blogs or websites to give credit to for this, so here is my disclaimer...I did not invent the rainbow cake...somebody else did :) Here is the recipe I sort of just threw together (meaning I did not go exactly by the box or by someone else's recipe):

Rainbow Cake

2 boxes white cake mix (I used store brand)

4 eggs

1 cup water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

Stir together cake mix, eggs, water, and oil (all ingredients). Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Dip out equal amounts into 6 bowls. Tint the cake mix in each bowl a different color (I used the Wilton concentrate gel food coloring). Grease 2 round cake pans. In one pan, pour 3 colors and in the other pan, pour the other 3 colors. (I just sort of dumped them in letting whatever pattern form...I guess you could get artistic with it if you wanted to). Bake the cakes together at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cakes cool a little, then dump them on wire racks to finish cooling. Stack the cakes (I had to shave a little bit off the cakes that was going on the bottom). I just iced it with fluffy white whipped icing in a can (a big can...more would have been better...I might do 2 big cans next time, because we love icing).

These are the first 2 colors we mixed...I didn't even have to coach them...they just knew what to pick :)

Then we added yellow...
And this is the 2nd pan...
This is how it looked after all the baking and cooling (semi-cooling, I am a little impatient) and icing...see...it really could have used a bit more icing...
And this is how it looks once you cut into it...isn't it cute? Jason was very impressed. And it really does taste yummy!!
For a little more color...here is the result of my last run-through at Target on our way home from the beach. You see, I have the misfortune of living in a town without a Target, which honestly is probably a good thing. So on our way out of Gulf Shores, Jason let me do one last sprint through the store while he stayed in the car with the girls. I did get a few more things that I really did NEED, but look at all this colorful goodness...and most all of it was $ 1.00 (except the Gerber utensils set and the little dress for Lucy).
O.k., I said there were no pictures of children on this post. I said "real" children :) Jason thinks it is funny to take pictures of me when I have no idea that he is taking pictures. I laughed when I saw this picture as I was downloading my daily pics from my camera tonight. I rarely talk on the phone (who can with children?), but he managed to capture the rare moment that I did have a little telephone time.

Now ya'll go make a rainbow cake...it really is super easy!! Or, run to Target if you are lucky enough to live somewhere where there is one on every corner!!

Heading Home

We let the girls swim "just one more time" before heading home on Sunday. Macy was thrilled, as usual...

Lucy was like, "Are you seriously letting me go home?" My little homebody girl had been begging to go home since we arrived (although she had a FABULOUS time!).
Until next year...

We now return to our regularly scheduled lifestyle. Sure wish my unpacking was finished and my laundry was all caught up...off to work on that now!!

Our Last Night at the Beach

We decided to go totally casual our last night at the beach and eat some good ole Chik-Fil-A. Can't beat that. Then we headed back to "The Wharf" to ride the ferris wheel one last time. Then, per Lucy's request, we had to go "touch the big purple octopus" on one of the souvenier shop's store fronts. We have to do this every year!

Last Day At the Beach

Everybody went home on Saturday...that is everybody but us :) We have a tradition of going to Jason's Aunt Donna's condo another day and a half before coming home. Her condo is located right where all the boats come in/go out of the bay/ocean, so the girls enjoy watching the boats, and it is just always nice to tack a little extra beach time on!
Here is Lucy going down the looooong boardwalk to the beach...

as Macy follows with her boogeyboard...
Yes, this makes me very nervous...you don't know just how close Jason is to them in this picture :)

I don't think I have mentioned "airplanes with a name" in any of our beach trip posts...this started with our trip in June. Lucy just thought it was so cool that "airplanes with a name" flew over the beach :)

My 3 Willcutts...I looked up and noticed they were all 3 standing exactly the same :)

Here is the infamous "want milk cream?" look...none of you will understand that at all, but I can assure you Jason is laughing right now :)

A (Crab) Hunting We Will Go

We had promised the kids that we would go crab hunting Friday night. Macy and Carson fell asleep way early, so crab hunting was all for Lucy this early. I secretly think she enjoyed that fact immensely :)These were some serious crab hunters...
This is what we were hoping to catch (I snagged a picture of somebody else's bucket)...
but this was what we found...2 shrimp (shrimp??) and a thing that looked more like a beach bug than a crab. And a shell, of course.
This little girl couldn't have been happier!

The Adorable Goggles

JisJis found these for the kids...aren't they just adorable??!!

It's All Just Beachy

Bippy got a cake for Macy's birthday and Carson's birthday. If you are in Gulf Shores and want a cute and tasty cake...Bruno's has them!
I am actually going to show ya'll my non-makeup face just so you can see how absolutely adorable my nephew Cade is :)
I love this one of Jason and Macy.

Here's Bippy...

Beach Pictures

Just right down from our condo was a beach preservation. It was a nice, quiet, and beautiful spot to take some pictures at sundown.

The guys totally missed out on all this fun :) They decided it was a perfect night for take-out...and they were perfectly fine with taking care of it and meeting us back at the condo. Wonder why??