Garlic Dill Pickles

Summer gardens are so absolutely wonderful.  Last summer we tried growing Boston Pickling Cucumbers to try making pickles.  I looked for an easy "first-timer" type of recipe and the one I found on Pinterest is fantastic. I cannot imagine looking for another.  It is very easy and doesn't require your traditional canning methods as it is a refrigerator pickle.  Perfect for your first time.

We decided to add more cucumbers to the garden this year to increase our pickle production, hopefully I do not live to regret this.  This morning we were able to pick enough cucumbers for the first batch of pickles, so very excited!

This Garlic Dill Pickle Recipe is so good, the only downside is you have to wait a week for your pickles to become pickled.  Just kidding, this is only a problem for those of us who do not like to wait.  :)

And this is what we have to wait one whole (excruciting) week for.

Hope you enjoy these as much as our family does.  Thanks for stopping by.  -Robyn

John Deere Farm Birthday Party

I cannot tell you how excited I am to share this party with all of you.  When my soon to be five year old stated that he would like a John Deere/farm party I thought...really?!?!?  No way to just run out to the party store and pick up the supplies.  Naturally I turned straight to Pinterest and was overwhelmed with all of the great ideas I found.  If you would like to see how obsessed I was just check out my Pinterest Board for yourself.  As usual I would have loved to have taken more pictures, but that just was not to be.  So sad that I did not take a picture of the Happy Birthday banner that I made...oh, well.  Naturally we choose green and yellow for our colors with some orange thrown in (the birthday boy's favorite color).  I had many games and crafts planned for the day, however I found that all the kids wanted to do was play in the backyard.  So much for all of my planning, but thrilled no one was bored!  The first activity that the kids did was to Plant A Garden, which was my favorite of the day.  I saved a bunch of tin cans and punched holes on the bottom with a nail and hammer, for drainage.  Then I got busy crafting with some cute burlap ribbon and my hot glue gun.  I printed out the John Deere logo from Google Images onto card stock and then cut them out and covered them in clear contact paper to try and protect them.  I cut small slits on the sides and threaded them with the green ribbon and again used the hot glue gun.  I have to say that I was quite pleased with the results.

We set up the wheelbarrow in the backyard with dirt and scoops (found these at Target) and some tomato plants from the local nursery.  We tried to grow our own from seeds as a fun project for the kids, but this just wasn't meant to be.

Then I had made paper pinwheels following these instructions which I had each child's name attached to.

We had a guess the seeds game set up which only a couple of the kids played, however I was amazed at how good they were at guessing the seeds correctly.  We also had a puppet craft and a clucking chicken craft.  The clucking chicken was a huge hit.  I had printed out a bunch of farm themed coloring sheets and had those set up with crayons and markers.  We also had a Feed the Pig game which was simply a cute little pig garbage pail I had found at Meijer and some bean bags we had.  Then there was a Tractor Races game which was just a board set up and some small John Deere tractors to race down the ramp.

We served lunch for the kids which included Pigs in a Blanket, also known as bagel dogs which we kept warm in the crock pot.  Popcorn, watermelon and corn on the cob was also on the menu.  

For dessert the kids enjoyed dirt cups.  I loved the carrots in the dirt which I had found here originally.

While the adults had carrot cake.  This carrot cake is one of our favorite recipes which I make every year for Easter, so I was happy to be able to pull it out again so soon.  You can find the recipe for this Carrot Cake at Taste of Home.  Just a note, I prefer mine more cake like and bake it in a 13"x9" baking dish and bake it for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

The party favors were very simple and included a homemade s'mores snack mix which we made from the Pepperidge Farm graham cracker fish, mini marshmallows and milk chocolate chips.  A homemade chocolate covered oreo with green and yellow drizzles.  My inspiration came from here. Of course we had to include a candy Cow Tale.  

This party was so much fun to plan and host.  Next time I guess I will just host a large playdate.  :)  As always, thanks for stopping by.  -Robyn

Pizza Garden Pot

If you are anything like me you are always looking for cute and thoughtful gift ideas.  A couple of years ago I decided to make Pizza Garden Pots for Father's Day gifts.  This was incredibly simple and super inexpensive, two of my favorite things.  All of our kids were able to help out with this gift.  We purchased a fairly large clay pot from the garden center at our local hardware store and filled it with potting soil.  We chose to plant a tomato plant, bell pepper plant,  basil and oregano; obviously this is where you can be as creative as you like.  Then we wrote on the pot with chalk, tied it with a big bow and attached a card with our favorite pizza dough recipe.  My only advice is don't choose too big of a container as it would be hard to move, however the choice is yours.

This gift could be made for anyone and altered to suit their tastes.  Another easy idea would be a salsa garden or pico de gallo garden.  I cannot wait for spring to get back out in our garden.