Sugar-Free Popscicles

The girls and I made some sugar free popsicles the other day.  They seemed to really like them, I just thought they were ok.  I'm being honest:)  I have been trying to avoid sugary foods for several months now, and that includes the girls avoiding them too.  Avocados are a great way to avoid sugar and still feel like you are indulging some - thus the avocado popsicles.  I got this recipe from Sarah Wilson's website.  

Ingredients:

1 avocado

juice of 1 lime

pinch of salt

1/3 cup coconut water

1/2 can coconut cream

1 tablespoon of chia seeds

1 tablespoon of honey

I used my stab blender to mix them all up and then poured them into the popsicle molds.  We waited about 4-5 hours to eat them, and the girls asked me literally every 10 minutes when they were going to be ready.  Next time I will make them when they don't know so they won't know to ask:)  

I also had to include some pictures from our strawberry picking.

Addison was an awesome helper!  I was actually surprised even Charlotte picked up on what we were doing and would pull the strawberries and drop them into the flat.  I was truly impressed!

Sisters goofing around!

Birds of a Feather....

Now that the girls are out of preschool, I decided to try and do something creative or crafty a few days a week to keep them from getting bored, at least until it's warm enough to go to the pool every day!  So yesterday we decided to make something for the birds.  I told the girls the more birds we have in our yard, the less mosquitos we will have and that is something we can all agree is a big plus.  My only advice is to make sure your 16 month old stays away from the bird feed.  Let's just say I definitely fished my fingers in her mouth and pulled out random sunflower seeds and more:)

The girls ready for the project.  If it's nice out I would definitely recommend doing this outside...then who cares if it gets a little messy!

The ingredients:
4 cups of bird feed
3/4 cup of flour
1/2 cup of water
3 tablespoons of corn syrup
cookie cutters

Start by mixing your flour, water, and corn syrup

Next, combine your bird seed with the flour mixture.  It WILL get messy!

Fill your cookie cutters.  I sprayed a little bit of cooking spray on each cookie cutter which made it easy to slip off the bird seed mixture.  Also make sure you use a pencil or something to poke a hole into each one so you can string some twine or string into each one.

The girls picked hearts, pumpkin, gingerbread man, ghosts and a shamrock.

Finally, you can either bake your birdseed on a very low setting for an hour or so OR just do what we did, leave them outside for 3 hours, flipping them over after an hour and a half or so.  We set them in the sun and the wind and they dried very quickly.

When they were all done we hung them on some twine and put them in the trees.

This pumpkin one was gone this morning and the twine was still there.  The girls were so excited that something had taken it.  I suspect a squirrel, but who knows!

Memorial Day

We spent our Memorial Day thanking our veterans by attending the Memorial Day service in Quasky.  Thank you so much to the veterans who have served our country!  We then hit the pool in Independence in the afternoon, which may be a first for May.  

Throwing flowers into the river