~Music of the Minute~

~Foods of the Rainbow~

PIZZA!!! Pizza can be a deliciously healthy meal that your kids are bound to love. If you supply them with lots of colorful toppings and let them decorate their own, you just never know what new veggie they will fall in love with...even if just for a day! We have pizza once a week whether we use one of the three trader joe's variety...whole wheat, garlic herb or plain or we make our own using a bread maker on the pizza dough setting...perfect crust and enough for the lil surfer girls to make their own pizzas too! ...oh and a perfect leftover to pack for school lunch!

Here's our recipe for Amazing Whole Wheat Pizza Crust:
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt

Our bread maker pizza dough setting takes 50 minutes with mixing and rising so not sure if you do it by hand or mixer how long you have to let it rise, you might want to Google that or just wait until it's nice a puffy and doubles in size! You can refrigerate it in a bowl coated with olive oil or freeze until ready to use...but let it get to room temperature before you shape it. OHHH and we have a Pampered Chef Pizza stone and that may have something to do with why our pizzas are amazing!

~Shopping in a Second~

Ok so hopping on a jet plane and heading to OB may take some of ya'll a little longer than a second...but still oh so worth it and the lil beach shack b& b open for business. For those locals in the need of a gift Newport Ave's Antique Center is THE place to go. You will pick up something that is original and affordable all the while supporting a local business. Shop Local. I promise you will find the perfect gift for just about anyone...from kids to adults and always a little something for you!

~Music of the Minute~

~Sunsets of the Season~

~Nutrition in a Nutshell~

Bet you can name at least one Superfood!!! Go ahead give it a try...just choose any real, whole foods and guess what you've just named one. Crazy isn't it to think it's as easy as that, right? Then why do soooo many people continue to choose over processed fake foods? This isn't a new craze for me, it actually began more than 15 years ago as I ventured into the "real world" to study and earn a BS in Nutrition. This is still a very hot topic and, we are still trying to ban partially hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup...Have no fear I am here to save the day (your life) with all these incredible superfood facts! And my first one to introduce to you is the AVOCADO!!!
I LOVE this food so much that it was the very first food I fed my babies...

_{moderation is always key; strive for 80% superfoods}

~Sunsets of the Season~

~Tools of the Trade~

Milk. It does a body good, but which type? Soy, Almond, Rice, Hemp or Dairy?

~Music of the Minute~

~Tools of the Trade~

One of the greatest family values that Craig and I both share is eating together as a family. We were both raised that way and strongly believe it instills values in your children that you just can't teach. Sitting, together, is priceless.


Sometimes you just don't have the time to prepare a home cooked meal...no worries...order...DINNER STUDIO
this is a San Diego company!

~Music of the Minute~

We have like 10 of these CD's and there's more that I want. This is a must have lullaby collection. We've been using these as nap/bedtime music for more than 4 years.
Love This!Rockabye Baby!

Nighty Night
xoxo

~Craft of the Month~

~Craft of the Month~
~August~

When the clouds rolled in yet again, and our pool play date turned chilly just a little too quickly, I decided it would be fun to try the August Craft

After rolling out the paper and setting up four lil surfer girls, I looked to my friend and said "well this craft is a dud!"

She said are you kidding this is awesome!

And it was...the kids loved it. It's all perception and just because it didn't turn out to be the "masterpiece" I was looking for, it still turned out to be a masterpiece.

Paint and handprints = my kind of masterpiece

~Foods of the Rainbow~

YUMMY MORNING

~Foods of the Rainbow~

We made our 2nd batch of fruit leather today. We did it without going to the grocery store and just using things we already had. It's cooking right now but the puree' sure tastes delish...we can't wait to enjoy it tomorrow.
Here's what we did...

Picked and cut figs from fig tree oh and a few oranges too.
Added some ingredients on hand: frozen pineapple and mango and 100% raspberry preserves.
Mix and taste and taste and mix.
Simmer stove top for about 10-15 minutes...added a little orange, peach, mango juice. (100% juice of course!)
Blend and added a squirt of honey and a splash of vanilla.
Pour onto "oven safe" saran wrap on baking dish.
A couple more little tastes...
Compost for a happy earth and some happy lil surfer girls!
Now it's "dehydrating" in the oven at about 150 for a few hours or until firm. I'll usually cook this in the evening and shut the oven off, remove first thing in the morning and cut. It smells incredible right now!!!

~Music of the Minute~

Ok let's not be mistaken by the lyrics of this song but sometimes as parents you need to remove yourself and daydream...even if just for a moment...that lil taste of freedom. I LOVE my girls but sometimes parenting just drives my crazy!!! I guess it just means i'm doing my JOB! After our little "staycation" with friends who have 12 and 14 year old girls, I only think I know what it feels like to go crazy!

~Foods of the Rainbow~

We've been lucky enough to stumble across The Good Food Factory a time or two on the rare occasion Rita and I get to veg out just the two of us. Every time she wants to race to the kitchen and make whatever they're making! She's always been interested in what's going on in the kitchen and we've always encouraged both girls to explore their food...even if there's a huge mess to show for it. After the fruit roll-up episode we did race to the kitchen to try our own version. After Google-ing a few other "fruit leather" recipes, we made up or own and it was YUMMY! We look forward to making a new batch tomorrow and this time we'll use all the ripe figs on the fig tree in our back yard!

~Book from the Club~

Love Love Loved this quick read. Weather you're with child, have child(ren), childless, or um yea a man...you should read Rockabye: From Wild to Child

~Sunsets of the Season~

~Shopping in a Second~

I have been totally crazed about jumpsuits, rompers, onsies...whatever you wanna call 'em. I Love them so much I bought three (see right) in the last month or so! It's like walking around in PJ's except you look fancy. You can dress 'em up or wear them as everyday wear. You can find tons of cool vintage/vintage inspired clothes at my fav online store at Le Bomb Shop Support a Mom and buy original clothing...i promise it's worth the few extra bucks!

~Mom of the Moment~

This Mermaid and her baby gives me that baby fever feeling all over again. It's easy to allow myself to feel this craving while my two and four year old are sleeping peacefully.

There is truly no one more inspiring than a Mother...I have some amazing women in my life who I turn to regularly, looking for comfort, guidance, love, & support, and without them my harmony would unbalanced. In my ~Mom of the Moments~ I hope to recognize all that you do for me and share with blogosphere all the you contribute to Motherhood.

Let's start by releasing some stress and enjoying a favorite past time of mine...goofing off, aka procrastinating! Of course this is still a valuable resource and I look forward to visiting it in my daily/weekly line up of online stops.

~Mom of the Moment~ goes to Momversation
Thank you for inspiring women be better Mom's and motivating me in the development of ~Lil Surfer Girls~

Motherhood: Is There Some Place You'd Rather Be? | Momversation

~Music of the Minute~

~Craft of the Month~

So here is a compilation of the many crafts I have bookmarked. Many I've done over the years and many are on our list of To Do's...

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

~Head First~

It's official...I AM Jumping on the Bandwagon in the blogger nation. It's something I've thought of over the many years. Even pre-babes I dabbled with a blog or so from some of the travels me and the hubs did but never anything official. So here goes nothing or in the case of parenting lots of somethings ALL OF THE TIME!!! Seems like I quite often find myself Google-ing just about anything and everything and it's high time I start documenting it. For my own good as well as all the other Mom's, Dads, Maw-Maw's, Paw Paw's out there! Hopefully YOU will find some Peace, Love, and Happiness in some of my postings.