Zucchini inside brownies?!?

My kids are not huge fans of veggies. When my husband announced the other day that he was making brownies with zucchini in them, the kids were less than thrilled. However, after my husband was done emptying the batter into a pan, my 2 year old decided to give it a taste.

Pretty soon, she gave up using a spoon and started licking it out of the bowl.

Since there were no eggs in the batter, yet lots of zucchini, I was happy to let the kids all try the batter. To their surprise, they loved it!

When the zucchini brownies were baked and cooled, the kids were excited to try them out. I heard my kids saying to each other, "there's no zucchini in these", "Daddy was just fooling us!". They have been begging for more brownies ever since, so I'd say the brownies were a big hit. Maybe some day I can get them to eat AND like zucchini by itself, but at least eating them inside of their dessert is a start!

Ideas of What to Include in Baby's Scrapbook

Each of my children has their own scrapbook. The scrapbooks aren't all that fancy, but they are fun for the kids and I to look at. They LOVE to pull out their book, lie down on the floor, and flip through the pages remembering what fun things they've done. Now that my oldest two can read, they also enjoy reading the stories I've written alongside the photos. Making a scrapbook for each of the kids has been a lot to keep up, but it has been worth it to get our family history on print for the children.

Here are some of the things I include in my Babies' Scrapbooks:

*Intro. page with Baby's birth info., meaning of Baby's name, Baby's hospital bracelet and bassinet card
*Family Tree up to Great-Great Grandparents
*Photos of my husband and I as kids and photos from our wedding. I write a little about how my husband and I came to know God, our childhood, and how we met and fell in love.
*Ultrasound Photos & Pregnancy Test photos. This is where I'll include how we found out we were expecting a baby and little details about my pregnancy with Baby.
*Pregnancy Photos- bi-weekly or monthly belly shots
*Baby Shower Pictures
*Birth Pictures
*Photos of Visitors and list of gifts received
*Pictures with Baby's Siblings and Grandparents
*Letters from Mommy and Daddy. We write about Baby's birth, how glad we are that Baby is part of our family, and our blessings for Baby's future
*List of Baby's "Firsts". See "Growing Up" photo below
*Growth Chart
*Page full of "what things cost" and "what's popular" from year Baby was born.
*Monthly Photos of Baby (a photo from each month of Baby's 1st. year shown side by side)
*Photos from Baby's major milestones
*General snapshots. As baby's growing, special trips, holidays, ect. Anything I think might be important to him/her when they're older.

3 DIY Cake Decorating Time & Money Savers

Recently my oldest daughter turned 4. I wanted to make her a special cake, but I didn't have the energy to do something really fancy right now (you know, with nursing every 2-3 hours and sleeping less than 5 hours a night). So... I did a couple short cuts.

1. Instead of making a cake 100% from scratch (which I haven't done since back when we only had 3 kids), I used a recipe off of allrecipes which involved using a store bought cake mix and adding some extras (like pudding mix and sour cream). The result was the richest chocolate cake I have ever tasted! It was delicious and SO easy to make!

2. I bought the buttercream frosting from the local grocery store's bakery department. They charge by the tub ($1.99 per tub) and I'm able to get really rich colors already made. Or, I'll ask for a couple colors which I blend together. The frostings are always smooth and super vibrant. I like that it saves me time not having to make the frosting from scratch so I can spend that time decorating the cake instead.

3. For fun decorations to put on the cake, the grocery store bakeries are the place to check! All the cool decorations (and even edible pictures) they use on those cakes are available for sale by asking the person behind the bakery counter!

For only $5 total, I purchased a set of 3 princesses (including a light-up disc that went under one of the princesses)! It would have cost me more to buy those cake decorations online, but at the grocery store they were very reasonable, plus no needing to wait on shipping.

My daughter's 4th. birthday cake wasn't my fanciest cake by far, but my daughters LOVED it and our whole family devoured every bite! Knowing that it was easy to make, personalized just the way my daughter wanted, and that it cost me many $'s less than if I had bought it decorated at the store, made it even sweeter. : )

Other Cake Posts/Pictures:

*Candyland
*Ambulance
*Firetruck
*Spiderdog
*Treasure Chest
*Simple Princess Castle
*Puppy Dog
*Shark Attack Cupcakes