sweets and treats.

I usually pride myself on making, baking and serving healthy foods to my family. Nutrition is really important to me and I love finding alternative ways to create delicious desserts and snacks that are kid friendly and extra nutritious. But, sometimes life calls for dessert. It's called balance, right?!

I had 2 eye appointments in Seattle in the past 2 weeks which meant Simon tagged along for the ride. He's just the best during these appointments. He happily wears his little monkey backpack into the office, greets the staff and patiently waits for me to finish, usually snacking on a cheese stick or quietly playing a game on the iPad. We always celebrate afterwards with a walk across the street to Top Pot Donuts. Chocolate sprinkle cake donuts are Simon's love language. Always.

 Spring is trying to make an appearance around here so we are taking full advantage of any sunny day we can get outside. It makes us all happier and running off that excess sugar from donuts helps too!
Lucy and I had some girl time with manicures at home the other day too. I just love my girl time with her!

 To add to the treats I whipped up this homemade lemon meringue pie last week too! Matt's co-worker was having her last day and she requested a pie as her going away present. I think it turned out pretty well and she loved it.

 Simon and I have so many funny moments throughout the day when its just him and I while the big kids are at school. Even eating a simple bowl of Cheerios had us both laughing hysterically. Silly boy!

 The kids have an ongoing love/hate relationship with each other, as all siblings do while growing up. I try to capture these sweet moments when they are all happily crafting together to remind myself they really do love each other when they end up arguing the other moments during the day.

 Another eye appointment and another donut! I was shocked he chose a pink sprinkled donut but don't worry, it was gone in the blink of an eye.

No sweets but a special treat was seeing my 2 best friends last week. We try to get together every month but with the holidays and a busy winter it had been WAY too long! I love these girls like sisters and we've known each other for over 20 years. It's the best chatting and laughing so hard together every time we see each other. Love, love, love them.

 I came home (late!) from my girls night to a sick Lucy. She came down with a fever and had to miss her first day of school for the year. Poor girl. We made the best of it by cuddling up together on the couch, reading lots of books, having a movie day and working on her science experiment for the upcoming science fair. She chose to study ice cream (go figure!) and wanted to know which flavor would melt the fastest. So, we bought 4 different flavors and watched them melt, then recorded the results at 10, 15 and 20 minutes. Our hypothesis was wrong but the reward at the end (sampling the flavors!) was pretty great and put a big smile on our sick girls face.

Even being sick she still knows how to make me feel like the best mom ever. She worked so hard on this sweet picture and I simply adore it.

Even though Lucy wasn't feeling 100% (the fever stuck around most of this weekend) we still planned to host my family for an early Easter brunch. My parents were in town and my brother and sister in law came up for a simple brunch and a family day. I made a loaded vegetable and chicken sausage egg bake, roasted potatoes, cranberry orange white chocolate chip scones, pumpkin bread, fresh fruit and yogurt with homemade granola. Simple but delicious and just right for an Easter brunch.

Then the kids got to open their Easter presents from Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle Matt and Aunt Joy. Simon wasted no time opening up ALL the chocolate and stuffing it in his mouth.

Luckily we ended the afternoon with a family walk to help burn off all that sugar!

And today it was so sunny we headed back out for another family walk to play at the park. Somehow the kids ignored the large playground and huge grassy field so they could roll around in the sand pile. For 30 minutes. Ha! 

To balance out all those treats I made some zuppa toscana soup for dinner, loaded with extra kale. Best way to end a weekend with a delicious Sunday dinner!