Strawberries & the 4th of July

A couple weeks ago, I made dad go strawberry picking with me. We had fun, even though it was hot outside. 

All ready for the freezer!

Have you ever had applesauce blended with frozen strawberries? You should try it. 

For the 4th of July, we went to my uncle and aunt's house for a picnic and a little farewell party. My cousin, Brian, who's 11 years old, leaves tomorrow for Alaska for a couple weeks. 

Here's my patriotic pretzels:

And my patriotic cake pops, which were a HUGE hit! 

And here's Brian with his Alaska bound/4th of July cake!

Summer Fun!

A few weeks ago, mom planted a tomato plant. Someone had fun with it that night. :( Let's just say mom wasn't too happy.

One of my favorite summer foods! Fresh fruit!

Eliza and I have been spending lots of time outside! She loves the nice weather!

My brother surprised me on Saturday by giving my car a good washing! It looked so good!

I baked my first pies for a church dinner this past weekend. They were far from perfect, but for being my first time, I thought they came out pretty good!

Dad named his kitten! Kiwi fits right in and is such a playful kitten!

I babysat the twins and their siblings all day yesterday. It was fun and I'm looking forward to vacationing with them next week!

Have a great weekend!

:)

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

On Saturday, I made this delicious dessert! It was so good I thought I'd do a post about it! You must try it! 

Ingredients:

1 cup white sugar

3 tablespoons flour

3 cups sliced strawberries

3 cups diced rhubarb

1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup butter, melted

1 cup oats

In a mixing bowl, mix white sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, rhubarb and strawberries. Put mixture in a greased 9 x 13 pan. 

In another bowl, mix 1 1/2 cups flour, brown sugar, butter and oats until crumbly. You may want to use a pastry blender for this. Crumble this mixture on top of the strawberry rhubarb mixture in your pan.

All ready for the oven:

Bake at 350* for about 45 minutes or until lightly browned.

I served it warm with vanilla ice cream and it was perfect!

It was so delicious and very easy to make! 

Enjoy!

Random Happenings

Some random happenings (mostly from Instagram) of the past few weeks:

This was my supper one night. It was well deserved after a long day of studying! :)

Eliza Lou, such a sweet happy baby!

You may or may not be aware that I am diabetic, so the doctors have been really pushing me to lose weight and get my blood sugar down before my next appointment which is the end of April. So I've been hanging out at the gym a lot!! 

My parents went up to NY this past weekend to visit family. I had a stressful exam on Monday so I stayed home to study. This little fella kept me company and followed me around the whole weekend!

President Obama came to CT to speak today at my school (CCSU). I was somewhat glad that I didn't have to be on campus, I'm sure it was packed! My brother and I headed over to the airport to watch Air Force One land. It was pretty neat to see! 

We were able to get out of the car and watch him land. In he comes:

After the plane landed, they closed off the road since that was the way the motorcade was going to go to get to CCSU. Here we are being blocked in by the police:

Pretty soon, along came the motorcade. Lots and lots of cars with tinted windows and lots of men in suits with sunglasses! We had to stay in the car with the windows up when they all drove by. There were a few people that got yelled at for not obeying the police commands! It was definitely tight security!

I came home and made some cauliflower soup for supper:

So you have it. My random happenings!

:)

Broccoli-Cheese with Noodles Soup (Crockpot)

This recipe comes from my crockpot cookbook, and it was absolutely delicious! The whole family loved it and I know I will be making it often!

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked noodles

10-oz. pkg. frozen chopped broccoli, thawed

3 Tbsp. chopped onions

2 Tbsp. butter

1 Tbsp. flour

2 cups velveeta cheese

1/2 tsp. salt

5 1/2 cups milk

1. Cook noodles just until soft in saucepan while combining rest of ingredients in slow cooker. Mix well.

2. Drain cooked noodles and stir into slow cooker

3. Cover. Cook on low 4 hours.

Labor Day Weekend

This past weekend, our young group invited a bunch of other young group's to come to CT for the weekend. We had 150 visitors, for a group total of 200 people! It was a fun weekend though. 

If you follow me on Instagram (svirkler), then you've probably already seen these photos. But feel free to look at them again :)

On Saturday morning, I made Blueberry French Toast for breakfast. It was delicious, if I must say so myself!

 My cousin, Elisabeth, and me. I'm so thankful she finally made it to CT after not coming for 7+ years! 

Corn

We did corn last week. 

Before we could start though, we had to get some sugar to get our blood pumping and ready to go!

 This is how Aaron felt about it:

 Although eventually he did find one good thing about it: 

:)

More Baking!

Mom and I did some more baking last night! First up was Hungarian Coffee Cake, my favorite!!!

When mom went to cut one of the pans, it was all gooey mush in the middle. We're not exactly sure what happened, but it still tasted pretty good! Now we have to make more though :(

The next bar we did was Raspberry Cream Cheese Bars. I've never had them before, but mom says they are really good too. They look delicious, that's for sure!