July 4th Fun And This is the Place Park

We had a busy 1st week the kids were out of school. The first weekend was the 4th of July and we had to do a ton of fun stuff. We went down to T.P. on Saturday, on Sunday we made some tasty treats for the day and for Monday(we were gonna spend it with my dad at the pool). We made a yummy strawberry/raspberry poke cake. Very easy, and very delicious.Top of the cake
Inside of the cake.
It's just a white cake mix baked with some raspberry extract. We let it cool and then we made raspberry jello using 1 cup less water then the box calls for(big box of jell-o) and poked holes in the cake. We then poured the jell-o all over and let it set up in the fridge for a couple of hours. We then mixed some more raspberry extract in with a whole container of cool whip and frosted our cake. We garnished with strawberry stripes. Now, a lot of people do blueberries to make a flag, we didn't because my munchkins don't like to eat blueberries unless they are in muffins or pancakes.



We made these yummy, fruity cookies to take with us for our BBQ with my dad on Monday. These too were made from cake mixes and jell-o. I used 2 boxes of white cake mix(1 for each color), 2 eggs, 1 c melted butter, 2 Tbsp. of water, and one box of raspberry jell-o and 1 box of blue raspberry jell-o. I mixed the cake mix, one egg, 1/2 c of melted butter, and 1 Tbsp. of water with one of the jell-o. Then did the exact same thing for the other color. I had one red mix and one blue mix. I also added a little more color to them using gel color. I rolled them into balls and baked the cookies for 8 minutes at 350 degrees. I then just frosted the blue cookies and stuck the red ones on to make a sandwich. I then melted a bag of white chocolate chips and added a tsp. of shortening and decorated the cookies. We sprinkled them with red sprinkles, and VOILA... festive cookies for our celebration.
They were gobbled up by everyone after a day of swimming and BBQing.

The blue side, I didn't add enough blue to make them really pop, but they were still so cute and YUMMY!

We spent last Friday up at This is the Place State Park on their Family Fun Day. Admission was free and they had a bunch of activities going on. The kids did laundry, beat blankets to get the dust out, watered the garden, and learned a new game. We ended our fun with a "train" ride and a free Popsicle(which was much enjoyed due to the heat). It was very busy, like crazy busy, and Logan was extremely tired and had a HUGE meltdown. So, we left early and missed the square dancing and crafts, but we still had tons of fun. Even the big kid, the hubs, had a blast.

A beating the blankets

The new game the kids learned

The hubs teaching the munchkins how to keep their hoop up and rollin

Poor Laney got her hoop going so fast she started running after it to "catch" it and fell and skinned both knees up, again. Her lit'l knees were just startin to heal from her falling and skinning them up the week before, but alas, the girl is so active her knees take a toll.

Kaleigh excited that she finally got it to work

Such a precious lit'l munchkin

Pure joy and excitement from riding the "train." It was just a bunch of cars that were made to look like a train, but the boys LOVED it.

Logan so in love with being on a train he has hit his "high." Really, this pic does look like he is doped up, but his excitement just hit the roof, plus this was right after his HUGE meltdown. The train wasn't coming fast enough for him, but once it did he was in heaven. Our family had an eventful week and we have just kept on going. We've been busy this last week too and have so many plans next week that I will sigh with relief when the girls go back to school on the 26th, I'm pooped, but havin' a blast being so. We love to be busy when it's pure fun we're having.

Family trip to the gardens(and this time we saw it all)

We decided to go down to the gardens over the 4th of July weekend on Saturday. It was such a nice day, the temp while we were there was only 66 degrees-soooo nice. We didn't get a chance to see everything the last time we went, but this time I think we finally managed to see it ALL! We spent a good 2 1/2 hours down there and we all had fun. This is the rose garden with the cute munchkins posin' again-love Laney's foot in this pic, it about sums up that cutie-pie.
The munchkins are in love with the fish. We have to see them everytime we go down there.

We found the Secret Garden, love it, it's so peaceful and pretty. It smells really good walking through the honeysuckle when entering the garden.

This lit'l gal has me in love. She makes me smile and giggle all the time, and the kids adore her. She had so much fun squealing in delight the whole time.

I love waterfalls! The kids love them too, but only because this one has a huge hill next to it that they run, roll, chase, and yes FALL, down. They love it and no one ever cries, just laughter here. I absolutely love Thanksgiving Point! It's our family's go-to fun spot.

So, I thought we had seen everything, until...

we saw this guy. Logan screamed and said, "Mom, a moose, he's gonna be my friend and take me for a ride." Gotta love the boy and his excitement and imagination. So, I guess we'll never be able to say, "we've seen it all," just because we keep finding new things there every time we make a trip out there. I love that I can just let my kids run wild, explore, and have a time-of-a-lifetime down there. It makes outings with them all that more fun.

Fun Felt Library Bags!

Man, am I behind in my journaling.

Here are our cute, summer-kick-off library bags we made when the kids got out of school at the beginning of the month. If you have a bunch of munchkins like me the library can be a weight-lifting class. When taking all 6 kids and getting all their books, which the hubs or I end up carrying, it turns into a real workout. So, enter these cute no-sew bags. They really are durable for my munchkins and were very thrifty at my love-Hobby Lobby. I just bought some of their big pieces of felt, glued(yep, hot glued them)two pieces together, punched holes to string ribbon through to make handles and let the kids at it with decorating them. Each kids' personality truly are represented on the bags(except Bella's, I haven't done it yet).

Alexis's
Kaleigh's(the girl and her giraffes)

Laney's

Logan's

and Noah's

Now our arms don't hurt quite as much when we make it a family trip to the library. The kids love carrying their own books and SO DO I!

End of School Year & Tradition!!

Another school year has come to an end for us and look at these AWESOME girls!

They are all posing and showing off their awesomeness of reaching their goals. Our elementary has an award system set up for all the students to reach different levels of the Rocky Ram Award. This year, not one, not two, but all three of our girls achieved the Mastery level-the highest level of the award. Way to go, my little darlings! I'm so proud!! We have amazing, talented, smart young ladies. Look out world, 'cause here come the Hansen gals.

And to go with the end of the school year comes our family tradition. We have waffles and ice cream. Well, I forgot that kindergarten got out a day earlier and Miss Laney Banes wanted her special dinner too. I didn't want to do waffles and ice cream two nights in a row, so enter funnel cakes. Yummm-my! It was enjoyed by all and made them all want our night of waffles and ice cream that much more, but alas, they had to wait one more night.
Easiest recipe ever! I love making these. I believe I have finally perfected my recipe as of last September when we had them after our State Fair day. They're light and tasty, but you still can't(or shouldn't)have too much of them, gotta preserve those hips ya know.
Funnel Cakes:
3 eggs 2 cups of milk 6 Tbsp. of sugar
3 3/4 c of flour 3/4 tsp. of salt 3 tsp. baking powder

I mix it all together and use about 2-3 cups of oil in a skillet. Cook it for about 2-3 minutes, flipping over when it starts to brown, and place it on a paper towel lined plate to drain. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Eat and Enjoy!

Here's our official end-of-the-school-year celebration dinner. I use to have these when I was little with my dad. I was in love with them after he introduced me to waffles and ice cream. It's not the greatest/healthiest dinner, but for a celebration, they are GREAT!! We made beligian waffles and the kids chose what ice cream they wanted and topped it with some hershey's syrup and whip cream. Another yummy dinner treat(hence why we only have it once a year).

Here are all the kiddos ready to dig in to their yummy desert dinner. Gotta love the smiles and faces. This really has become a family tradition. Every year when the kids are getting ever so closer to being done they ask if we're going to still have ice cream and waffles. I love that they are remembering our family fun and special things we do. I love raising my bunch.
We have since been very busy with crafts, outdoor activities, holidays, and big changes are happening in our family. Who knows, but maybe the changes will come sooner to us! As soon as they do we'll let you in on our newest adventure that we are headed into. I love summer and the changes it brings!

More crafts!!

Funny story here.

I went away for a few days in June to visit some family in Washington. While I was there, my aunt took me shopping and we stopped in at Nordstroms. My uncle works for them and Nordstrom was having it's Half-yearly anniversary sale, so we looked for some shoes. I found these cute snake skin sandals, but my usual size wasn't fitting me, so my aunt made me try a bigger size. Well it took me two bigger sizes to finally have them fit well. It looks like my feet have grown and I didn't even know it. This must be why my feet have been hurting in shoes for the last few years. Sheesh!! I can't believe I didn't even think to try and see if my feet were a different size. I thought when you become an adult your feet stop growing, turns out, that's not the case. So, here's the extra funny part... I use to wear a size 9, turns out I should be wearing a size 11. Oh my heck!! Really, my feet are that big!! Goodness, gracious. Guess the hubs was right all those years ago on our first date, I DO have big feet.

So, because of this new found discovery I went and bought me some new flip flops at Old Navy. I scored big time, because the day I went everything in the store was 30% off. My flip flops only cost me $1.75 a pair, so I got 3 new pairs. They were kind of plain, so I added some flair to them...

My fourth of July inspired ones.

My giraffe ones-Kaleigh is so jealous, she wants me to make a pair for her now too. That girl and her love for the giraffes.

And of course, I had to make a pair for my love of baking. Cute little cupcake ribbon on my charcoal pair of flip flops. All I did with the ribbons is sewed straight down the middle and pulled on the thread to "ruffle" the ribbon. I put a cute glass jewel in the middle and VOILA... a one-of-a-kind pair of flip flops. I think I may have found a new way to de-stress myself, and this one is fat-free. However, I'm sure to still bake, just probably not as much.

Busy week with more crafts

So, in this house we just love us some smores. We could eat them always, but they're always such a mess with our lovely bunch. Enter, smores on a stick. The greatest, smartest, and just plain WOW, way to enjoy us some smores. We had so much fun making them and then even MORE fun eating them.All you do is take a marshmallow put a lollipop stick in it and dip it in melted chocolate. Then you just roll it into crushed graham crackers and VOILA... you have a very, easy, clean, tasty smore.
The kids all ready to make them and of course we had to have a pic. They are getting so use to the pic taking that they all said, "wait, we need to get the camera out and take a picture." Aww, gosh, I just love my crazy bunch.

Laney just enjoying hers so much. She is the slow, savor, kinda girl.

These two are the put -the -whole -thing- in -your- mouth, kind of eaters.

And this one hasn't changed since she was a wee lit'l one. She puts it in her mouth, eventhough her mouth is kinda small, and just sits there chewing away with her chipmunk filled cheeks. FYI-when she was a babe she put 3 carrots, a bunch of apple slices and a cracker all in her mouth at once and she looked like a lit'l chipmunk storing food in her cheeks for the winter.

And then we have this little cutie pie. The look says it all. She loves her sweets, and boy, did she ever LOOOOVE this one.

Now these treats are really not messy, but this one seems to always make a mess no matter what. Gotta love the cutie patootie!

My mind slipped this past month and I didn't do any crafts for July. What was I thinkin? Oh, yeah, my dad, Noah, Kaleigh, Bella, and the stress of job huntin. Well, when I finally did think about it I decided to go on a hunt at the dollar store. By the way, I think it is one of my new favorite little finds. Best place to come up with crafts and to think outside of the box. I needed, no wanted, a new 4th of July decoration this year. I wanted it to do double duty though, so here's what I came up with. Some star dishes and bowls. Cute all by themselves, but this is what I came up with...

It's my new table centerpiece and will soon be filled with some candy/treats on each layer. Love it and it only cost me $6. Golly, gee, I just love the dollar store.

Field Day Fun!!

The girls all had field day at school this week and I went with them for the first time ever. It was Alexis's last one, because they go to Boondocks in 6th grade, so I just HAD to go. It was so much fun watching Alexis and Laney. Apparently their school does field day in sections, so I was unable to see Kaleigh's. Hers wasn't until 1 p.m. and I only had a sitter for the morning session. I'll just have to go to hers next year. The girls and I made these cute flip flops just in time for their water day. We made them for the pool, but we thought why not wear them to field day-it's just a big day of water fun anyways. Aren't they just so cauuute! Guess who's who feet.
Here's the potato sack race. Alexis had a blast.
Laney's class doing parachute games. It was one of the few waterless games. It was nice because Laney's class was only one station behind Alexis's class, which made picture taking very easy. I didn't have to run across the field trying to grab pics of both girls.

They also had this huge slide that almost everyone in A's class jumped off instead of sliding. Hence, why the pic of A is just of her head at the bottom of the slide. By the time I got to the pic, she was already done. CRAZY girl!!!

Laney's class at the tug-of-war. This was so funny because they were pulling over a kiddie pool filled with water. She loved it!!

Miss Laney Banes at the chalk drawing station. She loves this too. It was a perfect day for this smiley girl. It was fun for me too and very informative for me as well. I learned that I have another little thrill seeker on my hands.

Ready. Set. Throw!! This was girls vs. boys in throwing the wettest balls at each other. As you can see in the pic, A enjoyed herself a lot. She was glad I came and so was I. Thanks to my MIL for watching the little ones, I could go have some fun with my girls.

Laney jumpin' as fast as her little legs would take her.

A's class at the tug-of-war. The parents were mean to the bigger kids at this one. They sprayed them with the hose as they tried to pull the other side into the pool. Needless to say, they were ALL soaked after this station.

Funniest part of the whole field day. A decided to try the dunk tank out and man was she SOAKED! She loved it, but looked like a drowned rat afterwards.

This is her BEFORE

and...

here's my little drowned rat AFTER.

And here is what I was talking about with Laney and her thrill seeking...

SHE WENT IN THE DUNK TANK TOO!!!

My sweet little kindergartner all soaked...

She ABSOLUTELY loved it!!!

She really wanted to do it, but once up on the seat she gave it another thought, but in the end she went for it. I AM IN TROUBLE!!! I now have two, brave, thrill-seeking girls. I'm sure our life will be filled with bumps and bruises along the way, but oh how so much fun we will have. This was a very, fun day for us all and I am so looking forward to our 3 weeks of summer fun.