Baking, Biking and Gardening

Kate & Will really like the tv show "Kids Baking Championships." They love seeing kids their age make yummy masterpieces.  So Kate decided one day to research and find a recipe for the best vanilla cupcake EVER!  She found it, generated the ingredients list for me and got to work! 

She did a fabulous job!  She didn't like the part about cleaning up after you are done.  I had to remind her that we don't have fairies that come and take care of the clean up :)

We LOVE to go on family bike rides on the different trails in Central Iowa.  On one of our rides, we came across a really yummy ice cream shop.  The mint chocolate chip (Will's Favorite) was amazing.  

Kate loved her oreo concrete too.  

We also had another little garden in our backyard.  We grew tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, mint, chives and beets. 

This was our first year doing vining cucumbers.  They were much thinner and crisper than a regular cucumber. AND we had a lot of them! 

So many that we attempted to make some pickles.  Well......  I think I will stick with the yummy pickles from the grocery store from now on.  These were a lot of work, and not very good :(

Lake of the Ozarks 2016

We headed down to Missouri for our annual lake trip with Brett's side of the family in July. This year instead of bringing lots of different bags of snacks, or stop at a gas station several times along the way, we put together snack packs!  Kate and Will were SO excited to pack their snack boxes.  

I know, not the healthiest options in those snack boxes, but hey IT's VACATION!  I let them pick out some fun treats that they rarely get.   Brett and I were suppose to share a snack box, but Brett tends to get the munchies when he drives and took over the snacking for both of us :)

We spent most of our days at the large lake house we rented.  Swimming off the dock, boating, floating, eating and napping.  However, 1 day we ventured over to a fun restaurant that had a swim up bar, pool, and fun restaurant for the kids.  

Kate and Will have SO much fun with their cousins!  It makes the parents lives SO much easier because they play really well together. 

And we can't have a lake trip without go carting.  Will is getting bigger making it a tighter squeeze for poor Brett to fit in the cart with him! 

Such a fun trip every year!  We can't wait for Lake Trip 2017!