Crock Pot French Toast Cinnamon Roll Casserole

Because you know how much I love a breakfast you can fix in the crock pot... I'm sharing my new recipe for a delicious French Toast Cinnamon Roll Casserole with you today.  This is one of those recipes I've been baking in my head (ya know... thinking about how it work with different ingredients and taste, etc.) and finally decided to give it a try.

Quick and easy ingredients went in the crock pot and 3 hours later a warm and gooey cinnamon casserole came out.  This is one breakfast dish you will be sure to make again and again.  I used a 5 qt. crock pot to cook this, but please note different sizes of crock pots may cook differently.

a collection of Iris photos

We have several different colors of Iris blooming in our yard right now, so today I'm showing a collection of photos I took of them. Each year it seems I plant some new bulbs and each year I forget what color I planted where and each year when they bloom it's like a little surprise of colors and varieties.

Baby Food Mac 'n cheese.... that you'll want to eat too

We are in the phase were we are trying to get MacchiOTTo to eat table foods (as opposed to the pureed baby foods.)  So to help her do that I found a recipe in the Magic Baby Bullet Cook book that I wanted to try.  Just about all of the ingredients she had already eaten, so I figured this would be great to try on her.  But to my surprise (because I tasted a little bit of it) it tasted so good and creamy that I quickly made this dish again so Ott, E and I could enjoy it as well.  We were all eating baby food mac 'n cheese that night and all of us enjoyed it.  So if you are looking for more recipes to make for your little one, this one comes highly suggested.

The ratios of ingredients I'm going to share with you makes 2-3 servings for the baby.  I simply took these ingredients times 4 had enough for Ott, E, myself and MacchiOTTo plus enough for leftovers.

Like wine? You'll Love Vintage & this Giveaway!

I'm happy to be blogging today on behalf of the Indiana Wine & Grape Council and Indiana Family of Farmers.

The first weekend in June has quickly become one of my favorite weekends of the year, as that's when Vintage Indiana: A Festival of Wine, Food and fun is held.  What is this Vintage event I speak of????  Well.... this is the weekend when 30 Indiana Wineries offer over 300 different wines for you to sample.  That's right.... I said sample.  Whether you like like dry reds, sweet whites or fruit flavored wines there is something for every wine enthusiast at Vintage.  Simply step up to a tent, look over the wine list and hold out your glass as winemakers pour out their best vintages for you to try.  I have been to this festival a couple of times in the past and always find a new wine that I like.  Another thing I like about this festival is that it's a great place to learn about new wineries from around Indiana that you may not have known about or visited before.  The wineries come to you and you can swirl, sniff, sip and savor every drop of Indiana made wine.  And if you find something you really like you can buy a full glass to drink there or a bottle to take home.  (Bonus!)

Like I mentioned this years Vintage will be held Saturday, June 1st at Military Park in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana from 11 am to 7 pm.  Tickets can be purchased in advance and for a discounted rate of $22 Marsh Grocery Stores or online at VintageIndiana.com or at the gate for $25.  And Designated Driver tickets are $10 and they will receive unlimited water and soft drinks.  Kids ages 6-20 are $5 and kids 5-under are free.

Spring Projects in our yard

We've been working on a couple of projects out in our yard the past couple of weeks, so I thought I'd share and practice my photography skills at the same time since flower pictures can always make your day.

 We landscaped another section of the house.

There is a weeping crab apple tree on the corner, then we used burning bush, forsythia, a magnolia, some spirea and some birds-nest blue spruce.

Lemon Meringue Pie Custard

It is the month of May here in central Indiana and like most Hoosiers my thoughts and attention turns toward racing.  Racing makes me think of Milk.  And Milk makes me think of custard, because what could taste better on these warmer days in May.  That's why I'm happy to be blogging today for Indiana Dairy, with some traditions of the 500 race and a recipe that uses milk to make Lemon Meringue Pie Custard.  But before I get to the custard, I want to explain to any non-race fan readers I have why milk and racing have so much in common?!?!?

As any good Indiana school child could tell you.... Winners drink milk.  And that's because as legend has it, back in 1933 Louis Meyer was practicing racing and his mother told him after a long a grueling race he should ask for a glass of cold buttermilk to re-hydrate and refresh himself.  As luck would have it Louis Meyer went on to win that years Indianapolis 500 (his second time winning this race) and when the race was over he asked for buttermilk.  In 1956 Milk became the official drink in Victory Lane and Sports Illustrated even called it "Sports Worlds Coolest Prize." Now every winner of the 500 can choose to drink a tall cold glass of either skim, 2% or whole milk once they cross the yard of bricks.

And while the milk we all get at the grocery store did not travel 500 miles to get to us... it did travel less than 100 because that's the average distance from farm to grocery store.  Ironically, my grandparents milked Jersey cattle back in the day, so I guess you could say there is some Dairy Farming in my family as well.  As tradition has it current dairy farmers get to present the winner of the 500 with their victory drink in the winners circle with an etched commemorative glass.  This years Honorary Milkman is Duane Hill of Fountain City.  So when you are watching the race this year I hope you think of milk and you can use milk to make this delicious recipe for Lemon Meringue Pie Custard, which taste creamy and refreshing and just like the real thing but in a frozen form.

Little Bo Peep 1st Birthday Party

Time flies by and it's hard to believe that our little MacchiOTTo turned one.  To celebrate this milestone we had family and friends over for a Little Bo Peep themed birthday party.  This seemed like a great fit, since MacchiOTTo had gone out to the barn earlier this year to see the baby lambs.  I love to obsess over the details while party planning so I hope to showcase some of those in the blog post.  I used yellow and green as our color scheme and sunflowers for floral decorations as MacchiOTTo wore a sunflower dress during the social hour of the party.  

To start with we had an adorable invitation made by Sara Jane Studio with a Little Bo Peep and the sheep as the RSVP card.  Guests could select "yes, we will flock there" or "no, we will be out to pasture" as their response.  

Next, for the decorations.  I made sheep tissue paper pom poms (tutorial here) and Little Bo Peep banners from Doodle Monkey Designs.  I also gathered up all the sheep figurines and sheep children's books I could find and sat those around the house on the mantel, etc. to enhance our party decorations.  Each month I had taken pictures of MacchiOTTo wearing the same outfit to document her growth and made 12 individual sheep out of scrapbook paper with a monthly picture mounted to each so guests cold see how she's grown. 

Weeding with Duluth Trading Company & a Giveaway

I've posted pictures of the flowers in my yard a week or so ago on this blog.  And while the flowers are still lovely the weeds growing around them are not.  So while I was weeding and doing other yard work it was nice to have some comfortable yet stylish gardening clothes to wear.  Duluth Trading Company has hot weather workwear that is practical and affordable.  Today I am reviewing their Longtail No sweat Henly Polo shirt, skort, and Sun hat all with UPF Sun protection to keep your skin safe. 
Firstly, I have to tell you I was surprised to find how comfortable their clothes were.  The polo shirt was a raspberry color and I liked that the tail of the shirt was long so you had plenty of room to tuck it in and blouse it back out without worrying about it coming un-tucked.  And there was a small zippered pocket at the bottom of the shirt that would be perfect for an ipod or if you just needed to carry your drivers license and some cash on you.

Activities/Games for 1st Birthday party

Sometimes games and activities for adult guests at a first birthday party can be a challenge.  You want something for people to do, but you don't necessarily want something that requires to much organization or disrupts a social atmosphere.  MacchiOTTo recently turned one and here are three games/activities we had guest do during the first hour of the party as they arrived and sipped drinks and ate appetizers.  They could easily converse with other guests while making their way around the house to the different activity stations I had set up for them.

The first stop was to sign MachhiOTTo's First Year Time Capsule Book.  This was a photobook I put together on Shutterfly.com with a collection of photos from MacchiOTTo's first year.  Her first time meeting the grandparents, first time eating solid foods and all the other first along the way.  In and amongst those photos I included historical events from the past year such as the Summer Olympics, Election, Oscars, music and sports, but also put pictures of her on those pages.  For example I had a page with "Call Me Maybe" being the most played song of the year with a picture of her chewing on a pink toy cell phone.  Guests then could sign the time capsule "year book" style by writing messages on the pages like what they thought the first time they met her, or where they were when these certain events happened the past year, or just well wishes for the future.  After the party the book will be sealed shut and not opened again until her Sweet 16 birthday party.

Dress up your plastic tablecloth

Plastic tablescloths work out great for birthday parties. They are cheap and can be clean up easy or thrown away afterwards. They are colorful and you can cooridnate your other birthday accessories with them. But you don't just have to throw one over your table and move on... you can dress it up a little and add some accessories to make your table more appealing. Afterall you worked hard on your party food, so why not show it off a little with a cute tablecloth?!?!

To start with I taped a yellow tablecloth to the backside of the table I was using so that it would touch the ground on the front side of the table.  I then placed a green tablecloth on top of that (so it covered the tape) and hung down evenly on both sides of the table.

Tissue Paper Pom Poms (that look like sheep)

Tissue Paper Pom Poms are cute and inexpensive decorations for any party that you may have.  You can buy a package of 40 pieces of tissue paper for $1 at the dollar store and make at least 4 Pom Poms out of that.  Here is a tutorial on how to make the pom poms and then, how I turned them into a sheep.  The sheep would be cute for a baby shower or in our case a birthday party... but I'll get to that more next week.

Supplies: Tissue paper, wire pipe cleaners, scissors, black construction paper, wiggly eyes, double stick tape.

1st birthday deco mesh highchair

If you'll recall I used Deco Mesh for the first time a couple of weeks ago to make a wreath for the front door.  After making the wreath I got to thinking about the design the full loops of material create and how cute and girly that could look and.... well one thing lead to another and I've found another use for the deco mesh....decorating a high chair for a first birthday party.  It's hard to believe, but our little MacchiOTTo is turning 1 and the deco mesh worked great to create the perfect throne for her to sit on and eat her first birthday cake.  This particular chair also holds some sentimental value as I'm pretty certain this was my dads high chair when he was little and quite possibly where he had his first piece of cake as well.

To start with I used tulle and taped it a few time around the edges of the tray on the chair. I then cut pieces of tulle about 8 inches long and tied them around the edges to create a tutu look.  This adds some filler to tray and hides her legs and the chair straps from view.