i scream for ice cream

lately we've been putting grandma's old ice cream maker to use. it has to be taken apart and operated on every time we use it, but i guess that's part of its charm. a couple weeks ago i made up a jamocha almond fudge ice cream recipe and it was faboo.. this weekend we made two different kinds:

this is mocha chip, it's one of the recipes in the book that came with the ice cream maker. it's got the same mocha ice cream as the jamocha almond fudge, but it has mini chocolate chips in it. we weren't really crazy about the chips - i'm not really a fan of chunks of chocolate in ice cream, they're always hard and waxy when frozen.

and this one is cheery cherry vanilla chip. i made this one up and so got to name it myself. what do you think? i was going for something like the cherry garcia ice cream... it has cherries and chocolate chips in a cherry vanilla ice cream. i wish i had left out the chips from this recipe as well. jeremy gets to pick next recipe, so we're going to try mint chocolate chip with shaved chocolate instead of chips.

sometimes jeremy and i daydream about having a christmas tree farm/apple orchard/pumpkin patch/watermelon patch. he'd be in charge of all the manly outdoor stuff and i'd be in charge of making it super cute. and sometimes i daydream about having a bakery.. yummy breads and cupcakes! we decided that we should sell my treats at our farm and sell ice cream in the summer.. you'd come in the summer to pick watermelons and then have some nice cold cheery cherry vanilla ice cream to cool off. and in the fall when it's time to get a pumpkin to carve you could pick up a jug of apple cider and some pumpkin bread. wouldn't that be lovely?

train party

i thought i'd do a post with some train party things from oscar's first birthday

handmade invitations using construction paper - very budget friendly! the ticket said:

All Aboard to Celebrate Oscar's 1st Birthday

Jones Station

Track # ---address---

Train departs at 1:00pm on March 15th

RSVP to the Station Master

---phone number---

Oscar's birthday cake(s). the train engine was chocolate, the car was butter recipe and the caboose was strawberry. baked in bread pans an assembled into a train. ice cream cone for the smoke stack, oreos with m&m's for the wheels, oreos as coal. some sort of fruity twizzler type things for connectors and top edge of the car. cute little train candles from a party store.

food train. taped down brown packaging paper and drew on some train tracks. pimento & cheese sandwiches and cream cheese & jelly sandwiches as train cars. ritz bitz and pretzel sticks for wheels. broccoli and cauliflower as trees. celery and carrot sticks as logs. spinach dip, choo choo chex mix and train mints.

a close-up of the sandwich train

train banner made of cheap construction paper. covered the high chair with red bandannas and made a little sign/banner for on the tray with some train stamps cut from sponges. lots of red, orange and blue balloons.

some railroad crossing signs around the apartment with all the balloons

time capsule station. a place for people to write notes for putting in oscar's time capsule (to be opened when he turns 18). i stamped some paper for that as well.

jeremy put down some awesome electrical tape train tracks across the floor.

jeans, overalls, red bandannas and plaid were worn

wooden train whistles from trainparty.com were wrapped in red bandannas and tied up with jute twine. the whistles were perfect. i'm so glad we got an extra one for oscar to keep!

oscar checkin' out his whistle

and the birthday boy in his sugar coma after his first cake & ice cream feast.

planet playground

next stop was planet playground. a free 10,000 sq. foot playground. we had tons of fun climbing and sliding. i wish there was a playground like this in town.

starting out with a small slide. he worked his way up to big twisty tunnel slides.

playing in a tunnel

riding in the choo choo train

hiding

after the playground we stopped and had ice cream for dinner and then headed home. what a great adventure!

dunn's falls

after lunch we headed to dunn's falls.

it was a nice little waterfall but we couldn't really get down in the water with oscar.

but we took some pictures

and enjoyed the view

and went for a little hike

where oscar found a cool rock

and then one last look at the view from above the waterfall and we headed on.

dentzel carousel

after the duck pond we hung out and blew bubbles for awhile and then headed to the carousel. it was definitely worth the $1 we spent on the two rides! jeremy and i got to ride free since we had to go on with oscar - score!

oscar wanted to ride the tiger, but someone else got there first, so he chose a deer.

family portrait on the carousel!

we went around again, this time oscar got his tiger.

enjoying the ride

weeeeeeeeeeee!

i liked the giraffes

i thought this was hilarious. that sign says, "please stack 24 chairs here (4 stacks of 6 chairs)" i wonder if there is a reason it has to be 4 stacks of 6 chairs or if someone there is just really anal. there are seven chairs in the second stack, by the way.

duck pond

our first stop in meridian was the duck pond at highland park.

oscar got to look at some ducks

and feed some ducks

and the goofy goober goose (he was a bit scary)

and a rooster?!

and we took some pictures on the bridge

me and oscar (oh yeah - there were pigeons too. weirdest duck pond EVER.)

adventure!

on saturday i planned a family adventure. i found fun things to do in hattiesburg and meridian, then let the guys decided where they wanted to go. oscar said hattiesburg, but jeremy was driving, so we went to meridian. lots of fun pictures, so this will be a few posts.

oscar getting ready to go. he put some gloves on.

cheese and car talk for the drive!

drivin' drivin'

oscar - ready for an adventure!