Birthday Waffles

Life is a miracle. Life is precious. Life is important. Life is to be celebrated. And that is exactly what we do! In our home, we LOVE birthdays! And we celebrate birthdays...BIG! In fact we take a whole week to celebrate the occasion!

One of the ways we celebrate is with breakfast in bed. We have done this since the kids were tiny. It makes the kids feel special and they love it!

So today we celebrate my little Princess. A wonderful year of memories, growing, preschool graduation, riding a bike without training wheels, learning to tie shoes, kindness, goodness, gentleness, cuddles, kisses, silliness, vacations, gymnastics, learning to ski on her own, learning to swim, writing words and sounding them out too. We celebrate a little girl learning about Jesus and loving God and how to treat others. We celebrate an amazing young lady.

Here's how we did breakfast in bed for a special little girl!

BIRTHDAY WAFFLES
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 3/4 cups milk
2 large eggs,
3/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons rainbow sprinkles, plus some for topping
Whipped Cream


Combine the flour, sugar, and baking powder in a mixing bowl. In another bowl, beat the milk, eggs,  melted butter and vanilla. Pour the milk mixture over the dry mixture and mix until just combined. Stir in sprinkles. Heat your waffle iron and let the batter sit for a few minutes and get fluffy!

When the iron is ready, measure and pour batter and cook according to the waffle iron instructions.

Top hot waffle with butter, maple syrup, whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles!

Blow out a candle, Make a wish, and Enjoy!

Magic Bars

I had to make these Magic Bars! When we visited Walt Disney World a few months ago, Superman got back from the resort bakery very excited! "These are the best bars I've ever had!".  I took one look and knew, Magic Bars! The crunchy coconut, milky butterscotch chips and creamy chocolate chips were the dead giveaway. And upon closer review, biting into the buttery graham cracker crust, my suspicions were confirmed! They are pretty darn rich...and tasty. I decided I would wait until the perfect occasion to impress my darling with my culinary expertise, and bake him a batch! Little does he know, that it's about as easy, as desserts get!

Oh, Disney World! It's no wonder they have "Magic" Kingdom and the "Magic" theme continues throughout the parks. And it's no wonder that these bars are labeled "Magic" Bars!  While we were at WDW, I ran my first half-marathon! It was definitely a magical experience! It was also then, that my Superman began training for his first half-marathon. Even more magical than running it myself, was watching my amazing husband compete on a nearly professional level! Finishing in 1 hr 23 mins and ranking 35th out of 6,825 runners, creating quite the impressive inaugural half-marathon finish! I was pretty proud of myself too, I finished 11,293th out of 22,739, in the top half of finishers! My goal was to not stop, and I didn't other than a restroom break at mile 5...which by the way, was just outside of the castle in Magic Kingdom!

With a weekend filled with busy race activities and an impressive performance by my husband, Magic Bars only seemed like the most appropriate post-race weekend treat! Plus, it was a great gathering the family around for a treat and talk about all of our wonderful WDW memories.

I hope you can find a "magical" reason to make these delicious bars too! And if you don't, then just making them is reason enough to celebrate!

MAGIC BARS
1/2 cup butter
1 pkg graham crackers (9), crushed (1 1/2 cups)
1 (14 ounce can) Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 cup sliced almonds, or any chopped  nut
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup flaked coconut (I use unsweetened)
1 cup Butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 350. Place butter in a 13x9 baking pan and place in the oven. As soon as all the butter is melted, remove from oven and evenly pour crumbs over melted butter. Drizzle sweetened condensed milk over graham cracker crumbs. Evenly layer remaining ingredients, in listed order. Press down firmly.
Now lets bake it for 25 minutes or until lightly browned. If you can wait, allow to cool. Not that I would scoop out a corner and shovel the piping hot goo in my mouth....

Cut into bars and enjoy!!