Raising Cubs in a Campground

It's that time of year where things are just starting to get ripe in the garden, but not enough at once to do much more than enjoy a BLT or two. In a few short weeks I'll be up to my elbows in tomatoes, but until then I grab what is ripe and dice them to add to whatever dinners I can. This past Saturday that dinner was a crock pot lasagna recipe I came up with to serve our guests on a HOT and steamy evening when I didn't want to have the oven on or spend too much time in the kitchen cooking. We had some leftover chopped green peppers, onion, and jaune flamme tomatoes from the homemade relish I made for hotdogs/brats the night before so I added those to the sauce. I have been cooking long enough to eyeball ingredient amounts, but when I first started cooking or if I'm looking up a new recipe I definitely want a solid starting point so never fear - the following recipe has exact amounts if that's how you roll. There are a lot of crock pot lasagna recipes out the...

The themes we choose for birthday parties rarely fall in the 'typical' category and I enjoy the challenge! When Elsa turned three we were still waiting to close on our new house so we had to put off her party for a few weeks. Finally the second weekend in August of 2014 we were able to throw her a Farm Party. We had moved into the house ten days prior. I still had red checkered tablecloths from PapaBear's surprise 40th Camping Party a few years ago and we already had a good collection of bandanas as well. Add in PapaBear's vintage tractors from his childhood and mason jars filled with flowers from our garden and we were good to go!   Once I get started on a theme though....look out. I had so many ideas! Pudding cups for mud puddles, egg candy to put in the eggs for an egg hunt, making homemade ice cream, and don't even get me started on the other food ideas. I'll get to those in a minute. First I made signs for the different stations around our yard usin...

Bloggers get requests all the time from companies and causes, but those requests don't always align with a bloggers beliefs and (hopefully) don't make it beyond a polite, "Thanks, but no thanks" email reply. So when I got an email from a group of engineers from the University PapaBear attended I was happy to see that their cause was one I COULD support. I was a nursing working mother who was lucky enough to have a private place I could pump and my heart goes out to the moms out there who don't have that luxury. That is why I am sharing some links to the project a group of student engineers came up with called LacPods. The idea is to create a mobile oasis for pumping mothers at the University of Minnesota so lactating women can have comfortable, secure, and readily available lactation spaces. They are currently undergoing the design process to produce a fully-functional prototype for the university by May 2016.   You can support their project here: gofundme...

Looking for a quick and easy Valentine's Day idea for school Valentine's Day parties look no further! I used Photoshop to create a punny card that says "I THINK YOU ROCK" and then I added candy rocks ordered from an LTD catalog to little bags I ordered in bulk from Amazon a few years ago.  And that's all there is to it! 20 Valentine's in 5 minutes!

My youngests love language is sequins and sparkles so when I saw these wands on Pinterest I knew she'd want to make them for her friends at preschool. I printed out the text and she'll sign her name to them before tucking them into the pocket.  I'm not anti-candy, but I do gravitate towards things that aren't gone in two seconds. I hope these wands bring hours and hours of joy to the little girls in Elsa's class. Want to make some for your kids? Here's how: First visit this blog for the original source of information and instructions. Below I have shared photos of my version for reference.  I opted not to paint the dowel rods, but I did sand them down. My dowels are 10 inches long so I would have enough materials from 3 dowels for the 10 wands I wanted to make. Our local hardware store sells this thickness for less than $1.50 each. I used Elmer's school glue to glue on the fiber fill. I let them dry overnight. This step i...

From 2008 until the spring of 2014 we lived inside a campground/park as the caretakers. Sam was 4 and Julia was 2 when we moved into the caretaker house. By the time we left Sam was 9, Julia 7, and our BabyBear, Elsa was 2 1/2.  PapaBear and I decided that the time had come to find a better work/family balance and that meant a ginormous step of faith because we didn't have housing lined up when we resigned our post.  Through some emotional twists and turns we ended up staying with family for three months before we moved into the house God had picked out just for us. It wasn't my first choice, but He closed the door on my dream home and opened the window to a property that was destined to be our forever home and turned out to be a perfect fit for our family in every way. We have a huge garden, four apple trees, grapes, raspberries, and over 100 different flowering perennials growing in our yard. It feels a bit like we got to bring the country to town with us! ...

When Instagram came on the scene it was so much easier to post there and slowly but surely my little corner of the Internet got covered in layers of dust - so much dust that after three years I didn't think it could ever be found under the multi generations of dust bunnies! A friend asked me yesterday if I had a blog and I mumbled something about yes....a long time ago....that little spark of a conversation and another discussion with a client about mobile blogging got me motivated to try the ten different password options so I could try to log back into my Campground Cubs account.  It only took four tries and I was in! Will I jump back into blogging full time? I'm not sure.... I'm a busy mom who runs a business. We left the campground almost two years ago, but the margin the move to town created in our lives is so precious to me that I guard that time very carefully. I've picked up some new hobbies, learned a lot, thrown some fun birthday parties, and taken...

Elsa & I made play dough this morning and as I was rolling it between my fingers inspiration struck me. It might have had something to do with the Frozen soundtrack playing in the background or the Frozen soundtrack that's been playing in my head for two weeks. Either way, an idea was born.... Why not make more play dough and share it with Elsa's classmates as part of her valentines? I bet moms would love to sample this new idea that's been floating around on Facebook and Pinterest for play dough made out of hair conditioner and corn starch! So I grabbed a black backdrop, hung it over the front of our fridge, stuck Elsa in a red shirt, and snapped away as she played with a snowman. We tend to use photocards as our valentines to make them personal and affordable. My go-to photo processor is Walgreens, but if I need envelopes with them I get them at Sam's Club. We chose 4x6 size so I can get those easily enough at Walgreens and this whole project will only c...

We waited a long time for the Great Pumpkin this year as it was back in t he summer months that I chose The Peanuts Gang as our Halloween costume theme. I knew that once I started working again in September I wouldn't have the time to come up with costumes so I started watching Ebay for Snoopy hats in July, and FINALLY in early September I finally scored this one for under $10.  You can get them on Etsy too, but I prefer this tight knit instead of the crocheted look.   The big pumpkin and the one with Elsa's name grown in it were grown in our straw bale garden . The rest belong to my sister-in-law who brought pumpkins to her parent's house for our annual Halloween photos and pumpkin carving. It is much more relaxing to snap pictures days before instead of the night of. We've been doing this for a couple of years now .  Details on how we put together our version of the Peanuts Gang can be found below each character's photo, but first, here's the whole...