Oh Evelyn...

I can't resist posting the crazy things Evelyn is coming up with lately. Here goes!

This year Ashley (my sister) will be taking Evelyn to school a few days a week, today was her first morning. Everything went great, per Ashley's text message, and I was slated to pick Evelyn up this afternoon. I arrived at her school and the program director was there and an interesting conversation unfolded:

Ms. B: "Who was that that dropped Evelyn off this morning? I asked Evelyn who she was and she didn't know."

Me: "It was Ashley, my sister."

Ms. B: laughs "Ok, well I asked Evelyn if that was her aunt and she said no, then I asked if that was a friend and she said no. Finally I asked her who it was and she said "My other mommy." I was a little confused by her answer and I just thought I would ask you to find out for sure."

Needless to say, Evelyn and I had a good conversation on the way home about who her aunts where. When I asked her the first one she listed was Pa!

Kid Speak

Everyone knows kids say the craziest, sometimes smartest things. I am the worst at forgetting the funny things the kids say, but tonight Tristan and Evelyn said something that I wrote down and decided to post.

Emeline was asking why God would make monsters and ghosts. I explained that there is not such thing as monsters and ghosts. To which Evelyn replied "I know why God didn't make monsters. He didn't have enough bones left. He only had one bone left." She was so serious in her explanation and it also seemed to make Emeline feel better!

Shortly after Evelyn's justification for the non-existence of monsters I was telling the kids a secret and made them all pinky swear not to tell anyone else our secret. Of course then everyone wanted to tell a secret. Tristan made me pinky swear and then he told: "I have a girlfriend, her name is Brianna." Me: "Oh, is she in your class?" Tristan: "Yes, but she doesn't know yet, so don't tell her." Hilarious!!

I need to be writing down all of  those "Things I Never Thought I Would Say" so I'm going to start now! Here are a couple recent ones and some not so recent I can remember:

"Emeline, don't put your head on the tomatoes."

"Emeline, stop throwing the cat."

"Don't hit your sister in the face with a light saber."

"Get your head out of the trash can."

That's all I can remember. Going to start writing down, or at least blogging, more of what they say. 

Lake Life

Since moving to the lake we have purchased a pontoon boat. We love spending our free weekends, though they are rare, on the lake. Mainly we swim and hang out with our neighbors and friends, but we enjoy tubing too! I'm using Blogger on my phone so we will see how this works with posting pictures.

Last week Aunt Ashley bought a jet ski!! We are so excited about enjoying the lake while the weather is warm.

Breakfast Homerun!!!

For several weeks I have been researching and trying out egg-free buckwheat pancake recipes. Since we are grain-free and egg-free the run of the mill gluten-free pancake mix doesn't work for us, so I have been scouring the Internet for good options. When I find a good recipe I make it on Saturday morning and I usually double the recipe and freeze the left overs to be used for quick breakfasts during the week.
I have found a couple of recipes that Evelyn and Emeline like, usually made with pumpkin because it makes them nice and fluffy, but none that Tristan would eat too. This morning I was looking for the last recipe I attempted, because it got the best reviews from the kids, and I couldn't find it anywhere. I was sure I pinned it, not there. Surely I printed it, not there. Okay, surely I bookmarked it because it is our favorite thus far, not there either. I started searching the Internet and could not find it. Apparently it has fallen off the face of the Earth!!
So...I decided to attempt to create my own. Scary!!  Here's what I used:

2 cups organic buckwheat flour

2 Tbsp gluten-free baking powder

1/2 cup berry puree (any combo of berries put in the blender)

1 cup pumpkin (I used frozen from last years pumpkins, but canned should work)

1 1/2 - 2 cups of milk (we use almond)

Mix dry ingredients, add pumpkin and berry puree, and slowly add in milk. Add enough milk to make desired consistency. If you make them too thick they will burn before they cook through. This made about 24 pancakes which will give us plenty to freeze for the coming weeks. I also added a handful of chocolate chips to entice Tristan to try them.

I was skeptical. I mean, I'm not good at making up recipes.  After three bites Tristan announced "These pancakes are so good, but I can't taste the chocolate chips." Score!!! My pickiest pancake connoisseur approved!! Then Emeline chimed in with her approval. I heard no comment from Evelyn, then she asked for more! Evelyn ate three pancakes and Tristan and Emeline ate two each! This is a keeper!! I'm adding it to my blog so it doesn't disappear like the last recipe.

Maybe some other dairy-free, egg-free, grain-free family can benefit! Oh...it's also sugar free and extremely good for you! I'm not good at food photography so there are no pictures, but I will try to take some next time!

Enjoy!

Family Fun Night

We have adopted a policy this summer of taking Saturday evenings off. Last year we let groups move in early on Saturday's, basically anytime they wanted. This season we are allowing groups to move in from 8:30 - 11:00 on Saturday's and then we are taking the rest of the day for family time! This Saturday was our first one and we had fun!
We headed out to the Opryland area to Grand Ole Golf. I have been going there since I was a kid and they had bumper boats. They have ditched the bumper boats in favor of go carts!! Tristan had a great time riding with Dad on the go carts, they won the race!!

Tristan was very serious at first, he wouldn't even wave at me, but the he started to relax and have fun!

Emeline rode with me. I'm not quite as much fun as Dad, but we still had fun. Emeline cried the whole first lap and then she looked at me and said "Mom, this is fun!" She relaxed and had a great time! Evelyn was tall enough to ride, but wasn't sure and she decided against it after watching Tristan.
After go carts we hit the mini-golf course: 18 holes of crazy! Our kids have never been golfing so there was a bit of a learning curve.

Tristan picked it up pretty quickly and managed to do pretty well through all 18 holes. He was really into it and wanted to play the other 18 hole course.

Emeline, however, did not catch on so quickly. She kept trying to scoop the ball in instead of hit it. It didn't work out so well.

She finally let Dad help her out a little bit, but then she was back to her old ways. Maybe next time she will get the hang of it.

Evelyn got a little help from Dad too, but in the end she was putting just like her big sister.

It's really an interesting way to golf. Just scoop the ball into the hole. Evelyn got two hole-in-ones with a little help from Dad!

Dad and I were a little more competitive, but we ended up with a tie.

Dad and the kids after our game!

My turn!

After golf we headed to Opry Mills to eat at Chuy's. There was almost an hour wait, but we had a late lunch so it worked out. But, we didn't sit down until after 7:00. We love Chuy's! Not only do they have good food, but they are so accommodating with Evelyn's food allergies. The first time we went there we gave the server Evelyn's allergy card and the kitchen manager came to our table to let us know what was safe for Evelyn to eat!

After dinner we headed home to bed!!

Family night was a GREAT success and we all had fun. We are thinking of going to see Brave later in June and then maybe doing a boy outing and a girls outing. I'm wanting to take the girls to get pedicures one day. I think they would love it, especially Emeline.