For the Love of Red, White and Blue

There are so many things that come to mind when I think of the 4th of July...

Freedom and Fireworks

Strength and Sacrifice

Flags and Family

Parades, Patriotism and Pancakes

Pancakes?! Well, yes... in our house, how could we expect any less? :)  Last night I suggested star shaped pancakes for breakfast, and Clayton's quick response was... "No, mom, you need to make American flag pancakes!" Ok, sure. Ha. I'm no Jim, but I have done my best from time to time to fill the many pancake requests that have come through our kitchen.

So, what was I to do? I got up this morning and, for the first time, mixed pancake batter in 3 different colors! For simplicity, I've managed to limit it to 1 color per day... today it just didn't seem right to stick to that rule. Thank you to Grammy for the pancake pens she bought me for Christmas this past year... they came in Very handy, as always! For the third color, I was back to the bowl and 1/3 cup measure that I used pre-pancake pen... Oh, how I love the pancake pen!

 One suggestion that I have taken from Jim, is that when you're making something complex, it is best to turn the heat down on your griddle. I'd say that I usually set my electric pancake griddle on about 325* to make pancakes, but today I dropped it down to about 250*.

The temperature change did a few things... 1. It gave me time to set the full design before the first bits were cooked through, thus cooking more evenly throughout.

Step 1: Draw the "stars" and stripes in white

And 2. The lower heat did not give the cakes the light brown color that you usually see when they're done. Instead they were light and maintained their color.

Step 2: Fill in the blue around the "stars"

Step 3: Fill in the red stripes between the white

And not shown here, Step 4: Flip Very Carefully! You may have to lift the edges slightly, all the way around, before lifting your flag to filp it completely.

With some of the remaining batter, I made stars... just for fun! :) 

My little guy got brave and grabbed the pen... 

to draw a happy face pancake for daddy... complete with eye brows!  

Happy 4th of July to you and your family!!

We hope you have fun tonight, and please, stay safe!

Now that the boys are getting a little bigger, I am always surprised at how much easier it is to take them new places, even when daddy has to work, and I'm on my own! So, after breakfast, we loaded up and headed downtown for the 4th of July Parade!

The Marathon and Pancakes

This past Sunday morning was a busy one! The 2nd Annual Modesto Marathon was held, with a portion of the course leading right past our driveway. Last year, we sat out in front of the dairy, and cheered on the runners as they made their way past... thanks to the frigid wind and rain, we had to alter our spectator plans this year. The boys stood at the front window and watched for the first runners to come down the road.

"Mom! Mom! I see somebody running past! I see someone!" Clayton was so excited when the first runners began coming by! It was time to put the finishing touches on his sign and hop in the car. 

The boys huddled together in the back of the car, trying to keep out of the wind, while still having a good view of the race. Clayton was not as eager to high-five the runners as he was last year.

Around 10 AM, we started seeing a steady flow of runners heading back towards the finish line. Participants in the full 26.2 mile course run to the half-way mark, before turning around and repeating the course all the way back to the Finish line.

We had our eye out for our special runner... Go Eryn!  

Such an exciting even to watch from our own front yard. Hopefully the weather next year will be just a little nicer! Congratulations to all of the participants!

Once we saw Eryn on her way back towards the finish line, we headed on to our second event of the morning - The Wood Colony 4-H Pancake Breakfast! Woo hoo! Pancakes, and Mom didn't even have to cook! No better way to introduce our kids to 4-H than through their breakfast favorite!  :)...   now if they were just old enough to become members!

Pancakes at Grammy's

The boys spent the weekend with Grammy and Pop :), giving me a chance to enjoy time with a few girlfriends.

In honor of their last morning here, Clayton and Grammy made breakfast for us... Easter Egg Pancakes! A great weekend would not be complete without pancakes!

Nothing like pressure to increase our Single Color Limit at home! The "eggs" were Yummy!

Thank you to Grammy and Pop for all their help this weekend, taking care of our little guys! We can't wait to come visit again soon! XO

Sharing the Love

From the beginning of time... well, ok, our time together... my husband and I have never gone out for Valentine's Day. This being our our 11th Valentine's Day together, we decided it was best to stick with the tradition, why ruin a good thing, right? We did decide, however, that we needed to do something for the boys to make things special.

Enter Me-n-Ed's Pizza. In the weekly ads that we find in our mailbox, I came across an ad for a local pizza parlor, featuring none other than the Real California Cheese and Real California Milk logos! They use certified California dairy products on their pizzas... And they were making them in Heart shapes! This was an immediate sale for us! Of course we support local dairy farmers!

So we set out on February 13th to begin the Valentine's festivities a little early and invited friends of the boys to join us. Cole and Benjamin are the little guys... but don't let them fool you! 

Beautiful! Half pepperoni-olive-mushroom and one half without the mushrooms. 

Delicious! Half aritchoke, fresh tomato and mushroom - Half pepperoni, Canadian bacon and linguica. 

R.J. and Clayton had a great time... laughing and eating pizza! The "big" boys enjoyed the video games! 

And on Valentine's morning... we kicked off with none other than the famous Heart Shaped Pancakes! Clayton assigned himself as the Flipper Guy. 

I decided to dress them up a bit this year... a little red and pink frosting with whip cream and pink sprinkles. Hmmm... the boys liked the frosting, it was just a little too much sugar for me that early in the morning! :) And of course some "red" cranberry and orange zest muffins, also complete with festive decor. 

For lunch it was Heart shaped PB&J sandwiches with sliced fresh strawberries.  

Cole was excited for the "Nn-aandyy" after lunch while Clayton finished up his Valentine cards - Spiderman, of course!

While I was getting dinner ready - my, it really seems like our day was centered around meals! Actually, it was quite productive, we got a new windshield installed in Daddy's pickup and made a trip to Costco with Grandma and Abby... AAnndd the boys took great naps! - so back to dinner...  While I was getting dinner ready, the boys made dessert. Chocolate dipped cutie oranges and strawberries... Yum!

For dinner it was NY steak, grilled to perfection by our Master Chef, cold crab, broccoli with Parmesan cheese, pesto pasta and a feta and cranberry salad. Yum! The boys were So excited about the crab!

After dinner we Finally! got to open the Valentine's mailbox that had been "secretly" accumulating surprises over the past couple of weeks. Clayton was our designated Mailman! 

Mmmm! More Nn-aandyy! 

Delicious dessert, boys... :) 

And thank you to Clayton and Grandma who conspired on our Costco trip to get these beautiful flowers! We hope that you had a lovely Valentine's day with your someone special!