Whiteley Creek Homestead

thank you cards

My daughter Jessie chose the most perfect wrapping paper for my granddaughter's camping theme birthday party. The gift inside was just as perfect.

 

Four varieties of cards were housed in a cardboard owl-shaped box. One wing lifts up for easy removal. My granddaughter used some of the cards to write thank yous to her friends who attended her party.  Three of the card styles were especially appropriate for her party's camping theme. The cards are available for purchase in Jessie's fortandfield on Etsy Shop.

 

party time... it's all about the lighting

Flickering votive candles placed inside pint canning jars illuminate the sidewalk for my granddaughter's birthday party guests. Invitations requested that each guest bring a flashlight for outside play and to reinforce the camping theme.

  

"Fireflies" created by loosely piling a strand of mini white Christmas tree lights in an over-sized clear glass jar provided the perfect lighting and enhanced the camping theme. 

Hot dogs (free of sodium nitrates and sodium nitrites) and marshmallows for s'mores were roasted over a crackling fire in the porch fireplace.

 

woodland forest

Day 4 of my granddaughter's birthday party prep... To expand upon the camping theme, Heather hung construction paper leaf cutouts from ribbon in her home's entryway and cut a tree trunk and branches from four brown paper grocery bags which she secured with tape in a corner of her kitchen. Here and there, she tucked in clipart deer, squirrel, bird, mouse, frog, and other forest animals.   

 
 

She spelled "campout" with ABC paper cups that she purchased from my daughter Jessie's fortandfield on Etsy Shop. Inside each cup, she set a LED candle which softly illuminated the forest.

 
Today is actually M's birthday, but the party with friends is scheduled for tomorrow so it's not on a school night. To make this day special, she opened family gifts, but first... we accompanied her to the mall to get her ears piecred.

 

 

carrot cupcakes with cream cheese icing

Day 3 of the birthday party prep... baking, frosting, and decorating cupcakes. The carrot cake recipe Heather chose from allrecipes.com is by far the best I've tasted. All three of her kids (ages 2 ½, 6, and one day shy of 9 years) smeared the icing and formed a "campfire ring" on top using candy rocks. A birthday candle in the center provides the "flickering flames of a campfire", then they are set atop varying heights and sizes of mini wood slab tables borrowed from the kids play area. Heather ordered the cupcake liners from my daughter Jessie's fortandfield on Etsy Shop. 

 
Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 1/8 cups sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

½ cup oil

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups shredded carrots

½ cup crushed pineapple (Heather chose to puree it using a mini electric blender tool used to make smoothies to achieve an applesauce consistency. Nice variation. I will do the same.)  

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour (Heather used whole wheat pastry flour.)

1 ¼ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp ginger

1 cup chopped walnuts (½ cup stirred into batter + ½ cup sprinkled on cupcake tops) To make the recipe more kid friendly, Heather finely ground the walnuts since her kids don’t like walnut chunks. A hand crank nut grinder or food processor works well for this.

Preheat oven to 350°. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake liners. Beat together the eggs, sugars, oil, and vanilla. Fold in the carrots and pineapple. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Mix the flour mixture into the carrot mixture until evenly moist. Fold in ½ cup walnuts. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack before spreading with icing and sprinkling with remaining walnuts or other toppings. Yield: 12 cupcakes.

Cream Cheese Icing Yield: Approximately 2 cups. Mix together 8 oz cream cheese, 2 oz room temperature unsalted butter, 1 tsp vanilla, and 2 cups sifted powdered sugar. Place frosting in the refrigerator for 5 to 10 minutes before spreading on cake.

camping theme bags

Day 2 of party prep for my granddaughter's 9th birthday celebration... For party guest goody bags, Heather ordered striped paper bags from my daughter Jessie's fortandfield on Etsy Shop that are the perfect size for tucking in a few little take-home "thank you for coming to my party" trinkets. The bags' stripes and bright colors, that are available in additional colors not pictured in this post, provide an instant party feel.     

 
Heather purchased the "camping" circle tags, which she adhered to the front of each bag, from Mindy Neese's CupcakeCutiesCards Etsy Shop. A page of six tags are sent to your email address to print again and again.

 

 What would a camping themed birthday party be without s'mores? To simplify the distribution of two homemade pine tree-shaped graham crackers, a marshmallow (HUGE variety for extra fun), a Hershey's chocolate square, and a mini Snickers® or 3 Musketeers® for each guest, Heather packaged them in brown Kraft paper bags that she purchased from Jessie's fortandfield on Etsy Shop. They are a perfect weight to provide the sturdiness needed to transport the s'mores ingredients to the porch's outdoor fireplace, the color looks like nature to enhance the camping theme, and each guest has their very own special bag of goodness. 

 

My 6 year-old granddaughter O. drew this "marshmallow roasting" label to attach to the basket that holds the bags containing the s'mores ingredients. 

homemade graham crackers

My oldest granddaughter chose a camping theme for her 9th birthday celebration, so this week, during Dick's and my stay at our daughter Heather's house in New York, we were immersed in the most amazing transformation as a home became a woodland forest setting. It began with rolling out homemade graham cracker dough which Heather, assisted by her 2 1/2 year-old son, cut into firefly shapes while the birthday girl and her younger sister were in school. 

 
The fireflies were created by pressing a bee cookie cutter into the dough. After baking, they were stored in a covered glass jar to simulate catching real fireflies on a hot summer's eve. Baked pine tree graham cracker dough cutouts were destined to sandwich roasted marshmallows and chocolate to be eaten as s'mores. The recipe is seriously tasty!

 

Homemade Graham Crackers

½ cup all-purpose flour*

1 ¼ cups whole wheat flour*

½ cup light rye flour*

½ cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp cinnamon

½ cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut into pea-size bits

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp molasses

¼ cup cold water

1 tsp vanilla

*Heather substituted whole wheat pastry flour for the all-purpose, whole wheat, and rye flours.

In a food processor or bowl of an electric mixer, combine the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add the cold butter and mix or process until the mixture resembles coarse meal.  Add the honey, molasses, water, and vanilla. Mix until the dough comes together in a ball. Between two sheets of waxed paper or plastic wrap (or parchment paper), roll the dough ½” thick. Chill for 1 hour until firm. Set a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350°. Lightly flour the dough and roll 1/8” thick.  With a sharp knife, cut into 2” squares or cut into shapes using a cookie cutter. Arrange the crackers on lightly oiled or parchment lined cookie sheets. With a fork, prick several holes in each cracker. (Heather didn’t poke holes in her cutouts.) Bake for 15 minutes until lightly browned at the edges. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the pan. Yield: 48 graham cracker squares.  

round barn theater

Dick and I are enroute to New York and New Jersey to vist our daughters, Heather and Lisa, and their families. A regular stop at the halfway point in our cross-country journey is the Round Barn Theater in Napannee, Indiana where, this year, a Cinderella musical was playing.

 
The architecture of the theater is as amazing as the performances offered there. This is the intricate webbed structure that forms the interior's domed ceiling.  It forms a ceiling canopy high above the audience seats... as tall as the exterior roof. 

 

Our favorite characters were Cinderella's stepsisters.

 

They are male actors. Look at the transformation!

 

buttermilk pudding

I had miscalculated and ordered way more buttermilk from our local food co-op than what I could use in a reasonable amount of time, so to whittle down my excess stock... which wasn't yet beyond its expiration date, pudding came to mind.  An Internet search produced a recipe from Simply Recipes. 

 
The buttermilk provides a slight hint of lemon flavor... very, very nice. 

Buttermilk Pudding

2 tsp powdered gelatin (I used 2 tsp ChillOver Powder* (agar agar) produced by MaryJanesFarm.)

1 cup heavy whipping cream

½ cup sugar (I used 1/3 cup. Next time, I will try reducing to 1/4 cup.)

½ tsp vanilla

2 cups cultured buttermilk**

Mix the gelatin with 2 tbsp of water in a small bowl and set aside. (If using agar agar, omit this step.) Put the cream and sugar into a small saucepan and heat over low heat. Once the sugar has dissolved remove from heat and add the gelatin (or agar agar) to the warm cream mixture. Stir until the gelatin has dissolved. (If using agar agar, simmer gently over low heat for 3 minutes.) Once the cream has cooled to room temperature, add the vanilla and buttermilk and stir. Strain through a fine mesh sieve to catch any bits of undissolved gelatin. Pour the mixture into ramekins, about ½ cup per ramekin. (The pudding is very rich.) Chill to set for at least four hours. Serves 6.

*ChillOver Powder is kanten (agar agar), an odorless powdered sea vegetable that can be used as an alternative to Knox Gelatin.

**The cultured buttermilk is not heated, therefore its probiotic goodness is not compromised. 

grocery shopping for kids

I was cleaning today and ran across three envelopes that carried me back twenty-five years or so. This is my daughter Lisa's envelope with some of the coupons that were tucked inside. 

 

When my kids were young, they clipped coupons to earn money. For each coupon I used, they received the money that was deducted from my total receipt. To keep the earnings equitable, I selected coupons from each of them. As each coupon was used, they recorded the amount on the back of their envelope for reimbursement. They were also responsible for locating the item in the store. When my daughter Heather had her own kids, she devised her own strategy. When her oldest daughter was five, she made grocery lists for her. The list might include "apples" or "winter squash" but didn't specify honey crisp apples or buttercup squash. Her daughter could choose the kind she wanted. It gave her a real-life purpose for reading, allowed her to make choices, and made a trip to the grocery store interactive.