Happy Little Party: summer

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Cucumber Punch

Promise me you'll give this a chance. Don't just move on because it has the word Cucumber in it. This stuff is really delicious! Summery. Happy. Fresh. Light. These are some of the words that pop into my head when I drink this. Seriously, I love it. And I hope you will too!

Ingredients needed:

1 bag of ice

1 cucumber, peeled and sliced

1 12 oz. can limeade

1 bottle Diet Sprite or 7up (HAS to be diet)**

My friends and I like to get together to watch American Idol. We eat a lot of snacks and I like to make new drinks to try. Some of my favorites have been Pina Colada, Strawberry Limeade, and Caribbean Slush.

One night last season, my friend Mandy introduced us to this unique, refreshing beverage. Lives were changed. We made it for the five consecutive weeks following, and maybe a few times in between with baby showers and game nights.

The flavor of cucumber is light here. You can taste it, but it doesn't overwhelm the drink. Of course, if you absolutely HATE cucumber flavor, this might not be the drink for you. But I really, really, really want you to try it!

So, Mandy shows up at my house with all the ingredients to assemble this drink. We all gathered around and watched in awed silence. She said the ingredients MUST be put in the punch bowl in this order, so that all the flavors would come together as one in a perfect unity. (it probably wasn't all that dramatic, but this is how I remember it).

I have always placed the ingredients in my punch bowl in the proper order. I'm not one to tempt fate. I really want my drink to turn out perfectly all the time. I'm not sure what craziness would happen should I go out of order. My sister said she would fork out the $3.50 it costs to make this drink out of order, just so we could see what disaster would occur, but we have yet to walk down that path.

(Wow, with an introduction like that, you either are running to the store right now or you gave up reading a long time ago. Hopefully I didn't oversell it too much!! Clearly I have passion for food)

CUCUMBER PUNCH

1 bag of ice

1 cucumber, peeled and sliced

1 12 oz. can limeade

1 bottle Diet Sprite or 7up (HAS to be diet)**

Layer the ingredients in listed order in a punch bowl. Serve immediately and enjoy!!

**I did go a little crazy once and used regular Sprite. The sugar in the drink overpowered the cucumber flavor too much and tasted mostly just like regular Sprite with a hint of limeade :)

Linking up to:

Nothing but Country

Tip Junkie

Lady Behind the Curtain

Fireflies and Jellybeans

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Beach Towel Robes

Believe it or not, summer is right around the corner!! It seems to sneak up on me every year, but I sure am a summer girl! Fireworks, snowcones, and SUN, SUN, SUN! I like to do a lot of fun things with the kids, but for sure one of our favorite activites is swimming.

When it's time to get out of the pool though, ever notice how chaotic things can get? Goose bumps appear, and suddenly everyone is starving and has to go to the bathroom. We make a mad dash for the car, while I'm trying to carry a baby and all of our ~~CRAP~~ junk we brought, all while trying to keep our towels wrapped around our shivering bodies.

"Gee, how I wish we had extra hands, " I often thought to myself.

Well, now my kids can carry their own stuff because their hands are free!

I saw this idea in Family Fun a few years back, and was excited to make them last year for my little squirts. (AND, they are SO easy!)

I picked up these swim towels last summer at Wal-Mart for $5.00 each. Just fold the towel in half so it is inside out. (The picture shown below is not inside out. Oops)

Do a simple straight stitch up both sides of the towel, but leave some room at the top for arm holes.

This is about how much space I left for the arm holes.

I cut a half circle for the neck hole. BE CAREFUL! It probably does not have to be as big as you think. I may or may not have had to stitch some of it back up, as the opening was too big and kept falling off their shoulders. Use a shirt to measure or start with a small half-circle and then work your way bigger as needed.

I did a little zig-zag stitch around the neck hole because I liked how it looks. You could do a straight stitch as well. I left some space so it would fray a little bit. (We're so rugged around here!)