Gluten Free / Wheat free Chocolate Chip Pancake Bar

I bought some allergy friendly pancake mix (Cherrybrook Kitchen, Gluten Free Dreams) and allergy friendly chocolate chips (Enjoy Life) and decided it would be fun to have a little chocolate chip pancake bar for a Sunday lunch.  I set out some fresh raspberries, syrup, whipped cream, squeeze yogurt and dried fruits.  Fresh blueberries and strawberries would have been great too but mine are frozen so I didn't bother with those.  Really just about any fruit would probably be good.  I told my kids they could serve themselves and decorate their pancakes anyway they wanted.   They had a ton of fun creating but most of the fun was eating.   They said it was better than going to a restaurant.   I enjoyed eating them too!  Above is a picture of my creation :)  I was going to take pictures of the kids pancakes too but they started eating them before I had the chance!

Back to School Fun!

Those of you whose children have started school already (home school, private school, public school, etc...), any fun first week of school traditions? If you have yet to start, anything special planned? I know some people go out for a special treat after the first day of school. Every new school year, I like to give my children one small surprise for each day during the first week of school. I spend one day by myself shopping for inexpensive but fun little items and then I hide one item per day in their rooms or place it on their pillows. Usually the last day is the Grand Finale with two small things, a treat or an outing to celebrate the completion of the first week of school. It gives my kids something to be really excited about & look forward too after the school day is over. My mom did this for me when I was in Kindergarten and to this day, I have wonderful memories of it.   I started this tradition with my kids the first week of Kindergarten too.  They loved it so much that I decided to do it each new school year. If you do anything special, no matter how big or small, please share. I love hearing new ideas.

End of Summer and another new pet!

I hope everyone had a wonderful summer.  We still have about a week left before a new routine is underway.   School will start here on September 4th.  We had a wonderful summer filled with many fun adventures and activities.    It's always hard to get back into a routine after so many fun filled days and no alarm clocks.  A couple highlights were a visit to a theme park and a week of vacation at our favorite cottage in northern Michigan .   After a lot of pressure, I finally opened the box of our cotton candy maker this summer and made cotton candy for my kids and neighborhood friends.  It was a pretty big deal.   My twins were given the machine back in February as a birthday gift and I figured, if I'm not going to let them do it during the summer...when will I ever do it?  It was a little messy but great fun for the kids.   Our most exciting news is that we brought home a new furry family member about a week ago.  A Rex bunny that my girls named Peppermint Twist.  She is almost 5 weeks old and super soft and cute!   She belongs to my twins and is supposed to be their responsibility.  We will see how that goes.  Our dog Charley is doing great with her but needs close supervision ;)  We've also had a summer filled with doctor appointments.  Allergy doctor, Pediatric Gastroenterologist and ENT doctor.  One of my daughters struggles with terrible acid reflux and we are spending a lot of time & effort trying to get that issue cured.  Both of my girls had their tonsils and adenoids out on August 23rd so they are currently recovering.   They are eating lots of frozen treats and watching more movies than I would typically allow.   They are also keeping me really busy waiting on them.  I gave them bells to ring and they have done a good job milking it.  So that is a quick recap of our summer.   I would love to hear about some of your summer adventures too. 

Dairy-free, soy free, gluten free and peanut free "ice-cream"

My daughter has some food allergies so it's always wonderful when we find good frozen treat alternatives for her.  I'm going to give this super easy recipe a try.   We have SunButter in the pantry and frozen bananas in the freezer.  We're going to a birthday party today and since she can't have cake or ice cream, I think I might bring some along.   A two ingredient "ice-cream" made with SunButter and frozen bananas.  Doesn't get much easier.   Enjoy!   SunButter ice-cream

Enjoying Summer

What fun activities have you been doing this summer?  It seems like my kids and I have been gone nearly everyday for the past few weeks.   We've been trying to pack in play dates with friends we don't get to see often during the school year.  We've done several picnics at parks, beach days & pool days.   We've also been having fun getting good use out of our zoo and museum memberships.   Have I told you lately how much I love memberships?!! They save me a lot of money.   We went ice skating a couple weeks ago.   That was something different and really fun for my kids.  On hot days (we've had a LOT of really HOT days!) when we are at home, we bought a slip and slide that is great fun.   My kids also love to get a pile of paintbrushes and buckets of water and invite friends over to "paint" the house, deck, patio, rocks, etc.  I fill the kid pool up with water and let them go to town painting whatever their hearts desire.  Fun stuff.   It's great that kids are as happy as can be with simple summer pleasures such as a $15.00 pool, a $10.00 slip and slide and a pack of balloons from the dollar store.  Add a few friends in the mix and it's a grand day!   Some things we are still looking forward to doing:  Blueberry picking, a vacation to a cottage on lake and a mommy/daughters trip to Shipshewana, Indiana.  I need to get busy planning our girls trip!   I would love to hear about some of your summer activities and adventures.

Drowning...please read!

With the hot summer weather many families are enjoying spending time in pools and at lakes.  Please take a couple of minutes to read this article.  Drowning doesn't look like drowning.

Family Friendly Movie Reviews

I enjoy watching movies with my kids but I'm very selective about the movies I will allow my children to watch.    I'm thankful for movie review websites so we can better decide which ones are appropriate for our children.   I wanted to pass along a couple of sites that I've found helpful.

I recently found this movie review website.  It's called Box Office Mom

Another great site that I often use for movie reviews is Plugged In which is by Focus on the Family.