My nephews from Chicago were here last week.
They love coming to the farm.
They love the wide open spaces.
They love shooting movies with my kids.
They love shooting bunnies in the garden with the bow and arrows (they even hit one!)
We love to teach them new skills that are foreign to city life – skills like gathering eggs, burning trash, and hauling wood with the 4 wheeler.
And yes…even hanging laundry.
They did pretty well, all things considered.
I told you all about our family Iron Chef competition a few weeks ago…
Well… I just got the recipe for my favorite entry of the weekend!
My nine year old nephew invented this delectable dessert that had all his aunts swooning!
It was a caramel and apple combination on a cake base that was truly memorable.
Caramel Apple Crumble
1 package french vanilla cake mix
2/3 cup evaporated milk (separated) – ( this equals one small can)
3/4 cup melted butter or margarine
1 cup pecans, chopped (optional)
1 can apple pie filling
14 ounce package of caramels
Mix the cake mix with the melted butter and 1/3 cup of evaporated milk. Add the pecans if desired.
Press 1/2 of the mix into a 9 x 13 greased cake pan and bake at 350 degrees for 6 minutes.
Meanwhile, melt the caramels with the remaining 1/3 cup of evaporated milk and set aside.
Remove from the oven and spread the can of apple pie filing over the crust. Pour the melted caramels over the apples and dot with the remaining cake mix.
Bake for 20 minutes or until the cake is not doughy.
PS: My home canned apple pie filling works great in this recipe!
Enjoy!
My sister started a Mother’s Day tradition with our mom years ago that continues to be a blessing today.
Mom is a gardener and has beautiful flower beds surrounding the house. Every year for Mother’s Day my sister has given her a perennial flower.
These flowers are enjoyed for a few weeks in the house and then planted in one of her many flower beds.
Then, every year, Mom can watch these same flowers come up, bigger and more beautiful as they take root in the soil. They bloom, make seeds, and spread their beauty.
What a perfect illustration of motherhood and a perfect way to celebrate Mother’s Day!
One of our favorite family traditions is our Annual Iron Chef Competition at the Remix.
Since we are a family of foodies (people who love to read about, talk about, think about, make, and eat food) our very own Iron Chef Competition just makes sense.
Our rules are simple. The official judges (Nana and the grandkids) chose a secret ingredient and announce it a few weeks in advance. Any one – of any age – can enter as many entries as they wish.
The day of the event all of the entries are placed on a table, labeled and given a small plastic cup to hold the votes. Whenever we are all assembled and quiet (now that’s a major undertaking!), each chef shows their dish and describes the ingredients.
Then we all go around the table taking samples of everything. We each have a small cup of M & M’s that we use for voting by putting them in the cups of our favorite dishes.
This year’s secret ingredient was apples.
We had everything from apple muffins to apple salads. We had apple brownies, apple snacks, and apple desserts. We even had apple butter pancakes!
Some of the amazing entries were:
The simple: “Thick Skinned Apple” – an apple that was peeled, then peanut butter was used to re-apply the peel.
The Chocolate: Caramel Apple Bars
The Unique: Apple Salsa
The Artistic: A Rice Krispie sculpture of William Tell’s Son complete with apple and arrow!
It was a fun and delicious family activity!
I love my family.
I love getting together with my family.
With 2 amazing parents, three sisters, one brother, 4 in-laws and a large collection of assorted nieces and nephews, aged 3 to 24 , any gathering is an undertaking best described as “organized chaos.”
Our official spring gathering is called the Remix and is entirely grandchildren driven. Since we celebrate Christmas together over Labor Day they thought we should remix Christmas in the spring.
Now every year the grandkids (with Grandma’s guidance) plan a fun- filled week-end at Mom and Dad’s on the prairie.
Some of the traditions include:
White Elephant Bingo: Everyone brings a wrapped white elephant gift and one evening we play bingo. Every time you get a Bingo you get to chose a present – either from the table full of presents, or you can take a gift away from someone who has already chosen one. Things can get pretty wild as presents start flying from one person to another!
When someone gets a black-out, the game is over and everybody opens their gifts. (Anybody need a talking Bob the Builder and Wendy who can no longer talk?!)
Dress-Up Night : No, we don’t do a white tie meal with tuxes and formal attire, instead, we dress-up as any assortment of strange characters. We had pirates, ninja’s, and some Lord of the Ring characters (swords were definitely a favorite accessory this year!)
But we also had a sweet old granny, door-to-door salesmen, a camel herder, and even Shaun Cassidy (complete with entourage). The creativity among those young’uns was amazing!
Family Worship Service: On Sunday morning we gather together to sing, pray and share. This year was especially sweet as both of my parents shared their testimonies.
For my siblings and I, it was a precious review of events we experienced together as our entire family of seven came to know the Lord in just a few years. But for our spouses and children, it was a look at events that changed the course of our family for generations.
Tears were flowing freely by the time we sang our traditional closing hymn – “Blest be the Tie That Binds.”
There were huge meals, too many desserts, games galore, a family sock hop, and lots of laughter.
What precious memories we made this week-end.
Yep…I really love my family.