Andrew's 8th Birthday Party & GF Rainbow Cake!

Our youngest turned 8 years old in December. We threw him a rainbow themed party. It was a blast!

Of course, we had to have the rainbow cake that's all over Pinterest. Ours had to be gluten free, so I used Hodgson Mill Yellow Gluten Free Cake Mix, http://www.hodgsonmillstore.com/en/Gluten-Free/Gluten-Free-Yellow-Cake-Mix/71518-02130-001_Group.aspx. I am glad that I did. The cake was yummy and moist! 

 I won't bore you with all the details, you can find them on Pinterest. Some things I did do differently since the cake was gluten free. I followed the cake mix directions exactly. Then I separated the mix into 6 bowls and added the gel food coloring.

 GF cake mix is thick so when I did the first layer I thought everything was over. My cake was just standing there in a pile. It was not filling the pan. After a little shaking and coaxing it looked ok.

 The cooked cakes. After they cooled, I used an electric knife to even the tops.

After frosting with a whipped cream frosting, I printed an 8 from my computer, cut it out and placed it on the cake. I then sprinkled like mad all around my 8 stencil.

 This is a pic of my piece with vanilla ice cream, yum!

 

 

 I made some other rainbow treats for the party like these rainbow kabobs and a rainbow layered jello with whipped cream on top.

Thanks for stopping by!
Cassie

linking up at:

 

Pine Mountain Gold Museum

I coordinate the field trips for our homeschool group. My youngest son loves gold and anything that is shiny. He asked to go to this museum several times. I am glad that we finally went. It was a lovely place. One of the kids said that it was the best field trip ever! 

 http://www.pinemountaingoldmuseum.com/

 Inside the museum is a Coke display. These volunteers were telling us all about it.

 The kids got to pan for gems.

 They also got to pan for gold. Each child found about 5 tiny gold pieces!

 Madison found a big one!

 Panning for gold is a really hard thing to do. Much harder than one would think!

 All 3 of my kiddos!

 Grist Mill

 entrance to a gold mine

group shot :) 

Thanks for visiting!

Cassie

DIY: House Siding Part 1

My husband was on vacation last week and he decided it was the perfect time to work on our siding. Our home is 20+ years old and still has the class action lawsuit pressed paper siding on it. In most places, it still looks good, in others it needs work. We are slowly replacing the old siding with new cement siding. We started on the side of our house and moved on to the garage. We replaced all the boards and waited on the board and batten. The smooth panels were on a crazy markdown at Home Depot last week, like half off. Jason couldn't resist. I had my doubts as last week was also our youngest son's 8th birthday. We had 2 parties to get ready for! We made it work somehow :)

All prepped for the new siding. You can see the new cement boards on the front of the garage.

Here you can see the old siding on the top level. This will look like the garage one day.

These panels are heavy. It took my husband, our oldest son and me to get them up there. We also used the ladder to secure the board in place. We borrowed a nail gun from my in-laws. That was a huge help!

3 boards done!

Trim pieces going up! The panels will be painted the same color as the trim after all the caulk cures.

The house is looking great and we couldn't be happier with the results. If you have a question about how we did it, please ask and I'll try my best to answer :)

Cassie

 

http://www.houseofhepworths.com/

Gluten Free Musings

    We've been gluten free for about 3 months. Our reasons are varied but mainly due to our youngest son. Being gluten free has helped him immensely already. He has gained about 2 pounds, grown a half inch and his attitude has improved.

photo credit and gluten free info: gluten free   

The cooking hasn't really been a problem. I find all kinds of recipes on Pinterest. Pie crust has proven to be difficult, but I'm confident that I'll figure that out. The main issue is just having enough food. I have a very tall and still growing, almost 13 year old boy. He eats a lot. He's very active with swimming and running. I can't keep him or his younger brother full. Since going gluten free, Andrew (our youngest) is always hungry, which is great since he needs to gain weight. I am just really tired of hearing, "I'm hungry." ALL THE TIME! Any ideas!! I would love to hear them. I just went to the grocery store today. I bought the whole store. When I came home my husband said, "Now we have food for 2 days!" No joke! I meal planned and it should be enough food for a week, but I am sure that it won't last. I honestly don't know if it's the gluten free food or just growing boys. Has anyone else noticed an increase in hunger since going gluten free?

Our Summer thus far and future plans

I know I haven't posted in a while. Honestly, I don't think anyone reads this! So far this summer we were crazy busy with swim team(we are now on break). We recently finished our school year about 2 weeks ago. We are off until October! I have been trying to squeeze every bit of fun out of summer before our vacation. We have been bowling, to the lake beach, swimming in our pool most days, braving the heat to go to playgrounds, Six Flags and today we are headed to Cave Springs to visit the cave and spring fed swimming pool. September 1 starts our month long vacation to the beach!!

We have decided to take an RV trip around the country in 1-2 years. We have some planning to do before then! The whole family will get a lot out of this trip and it will be an amazing experience! We have already decided on which RV we want. We aren't buying it yet, but it helps us all to visualize where we will live during this time.This RV has a sleeping areas for everyone. A bedroom for mom and dad, a huge bed for Grady over the driving area and bunkbeds for Madison and Andrew! There are also 2 more beds for company. A huge adventure awaits us!

Our Weekend, March 18-20, 2011

This weekend was crazy busy for us and we survived! It started Friday night at our homeschool group's talent show. It was a lot of fun. Grady showed a Lego creation and Madison displayed some of her art work.

Grady getting ready to dive.

Madison's race is next!

We had to get up at 6 Saturday morning to make it to a swim meet that was an hour and a half drive from our home. It was our first meet of the season and we all enjoyed ourselves. Both Grady and Madison did a fantastic job :) After we got home, the kids ran across the street to a birthday party. They played all afternoon.

Waiting to cheer Daddy on. Andrew is not sleeping, just being silly.

There he is!

All done and very tired!

Sunday morning we all got up at 4:45am!! My husband was running a half-marathon and we were all going to support him. The race started at 7, but it was in downtown Atlanta and had an expected 18, 000 runners so we wanted to get there in plenty of time. We did. Jason did a fantastic job and the kids were very well behaved. We came home and Jason and I sat on the sofa and watched 3 movies in a row. I don't think we could have done anything else. The kids didn't do much either :)

Feb7-Feb11, 2011

Monday and Tuesday, Madison played online multiplication games while we waited for her new math books to get here. They really helped to reinforce her facts. On Thursday and Friday, she worked on mental math in Singapore 3B. She has done a pretty terrific job. It terrified me as she usually takes a while to "get it". The rest of the math book looks pretty easy and i think she will move through it quickly. In LLATL, she read about George Washington and today (Friday) she did an oral presentation on our first president. She did a great job!

Grady took a quiz over decimals in TT7. He scored an A! Then he moved on to the percentage chapter for the rest of the week. In LLATL, Grady learned about tall tales. he started writing his own tall tale today and will finish it next week. He also had a presentation to do today. He read a Dr. Suess book to his brother and sister. He is a shy child so this is a great thing for him to practice. He did a fantastic job!

Andrew flew through division and telling time. Today, he worked on numbers to 100. He had zero problem with this. He will finish Singapore 1B within the next 2 weeks I am guessing. I will purchase the intensive practice and word problems books soon. I am hoping this gives him something challenging to work on. He continues to do well in his LLATL. He can sound out pretty much anything they give him. He does have some trouble remembering the sight words.

All together the kids learned about radioactivity in Chemistry. We worked on word roots on Tuesday. Wednesday we took the day off since we had to be at co-op at 1 for a Valentine Party! We all had a lot of fun making Valentines and boxes and then exchanging them at the party:) After the party the kids went to their separate classes and I helped in Grady's first class and in Madison's second class. Andrew went to his classes by himself!! I think at,6 years old, this was a first. Everyone loves their time spent at co-op! Thursday we studied the vikings in SOTW 2. Today, we made viking bread and watched a documentary about the Vikings on Hulu.

It has been a good week! Next week swim team starts! It will be crazy for a while around here until we can establish the new routine :)