Catching Up With The Kelnhofers -2

This week Catching Up With The Kelnhofers -2 – a fun outing by Lake Michigan with Ben, a trip to the Wisconsin State Fair, twins update, and celebrating Nick’s birthday!

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New on the Blog:

• Catching up with the Kelnhofers – this is the new series I just started. I hope you’re loving it!

What to make this week:

Life right now is full of freezer meals – three kids sure do take a lot of time! It’s important to me to take time to ensure we’re eating a good meal as a family, so that means digging yummy-ness out of the freezer. (ok, yummy-ness isn’t a word, but let’s blame it on sleep deprivation). Anyways, sharing a few more of my favorite freezer meals!

• Egg Cups – I cannot say enough about this recipe. Perfect for any meal of the day and easy to make in so many variations.
• Coconut date energy bites – a protein filled snack that I can grab on the go; perfect for when I’m running out the door
• Summer roasted vegetable lasagna – a hearty meal that is fully of fresh summer veggies
• Freezer peach crumble – one of my favorite summer desserts! Freeze your peaches and enjoy this summer treat in the middle of the winter.

Reader Comments:

Celebrating summer while reading this lovely comment on my summer melon salad:

• “I just want to say thank you for the melon salad recipe. It was so enjoyable that I can’t stop eating it. I just got done making another big bowl. Love this post and thanks for sharing!”

Things I’m loving this week:

• With the kids now, I’m always trying to find more natural products for us. I’ve switched to using Seventh Generation laundry detergent – if you buy 2 on amazon, it comes out to $0.25 cents per load! I’ve also been loving Applegate natural and organic meats lately – especially their chicken and maple breakfast sausage and their uncured Sunday bacon.
  

• I took Ben on a little outing on Sunday – it’s nice to spend a little one on one time with him. We went to Groppi’s Food Market in Bayview, then we went to the park at South Shore Terrace and walked along the lake. It was such a beautiful day in Milwaukee with Ben.
  

• This past week we went to the Wisconsin State Fair – in the past we had taken Ben to see the animals and had promised him we’d get to see the bunnies again so he kept saying ‘hop hop’ before we went, which was so cute. We got there and sadly the animals and bunny barns were closed for the evening, but we still had a lot of fun. We ate cheese curds and a hand dipped corn dog and tried different flavored milks (apparently a WI thing? lol). We tried peppermint milk (it kind of tasted like sweet toothpaste to me) and peanut butter chocolate milk (it was good, pretty much what you’d expect.) Ben got to go down the big slide with his Aunt Nina and while I thought he’d be scared, he wasn’t and was smiling and giggling the whole time!
  

• We went out to celebrate Nick’s birthday in downtown Milwaukee. I haven’t been downtown in a while, and boy do I love this city, it’s so beautiful and there are so many things to do! We went to a place called Punchbowl Social – they have a really neat space and concept – they have food and then areas for games (like bowling and darts). 
  
• We had a sitter come over to watch the kiddos while we went out to celebrate Nick’s birthday. It was so weird to leave the house without one kid, I felt super guiddy, and then sad two minutes later lol. I had invited Nicks friends via group text, and one of them was coming from out of town and said he was running late. good thing he texted because everyone else thought I was having the get together at my house and was going to have a punch theme lol.

• The twins are doing great – Frankie has a little cradle cap on her forehead, it’s kind of gross looking, but it’s getting better all the time. Freddie has the biggest eyes and makes the funniest faces, it always makes me giggle when I walk by his bassinet and then see him wide eyed! They’re also both in a very cute cuddly phase!
  
• I needed something a little on the lighter side for reading (after finishing The Nightingale) so I finished The Unhoneymooners – it was cute, but kind of predictable. If you listen books, it’s always interesting to hear the narrators voice. After the entire book was narrated by a female, the epilogue was read by a man and they missed the mark with his voice/personality to go along with the character, so it me not love the book as much as I think I would have if would have read it…if that makes sense. I just started From Scratch and it comes with recipes, so I can’t wait to see what the book is like and to see if I’ll be compelled to make a recipe!
  
• Have you ever read a book with a story that had recipes and then felt compelled to make the recipe? I read Here’s To Us by Elin Hilderbrand a few years ago and the recipes sounded amazing – come to find out they were created in partnership with a food blogger whom I happen to love – Jessica from How Sweet Eats and I thought it was such a cool partnership!
  
• Speaking of partnerships, I’m so honored and excited to share that I will be working with Pick n’ Save for the next few months to create recipes. The first recipe will be shared in early September, it uses a pressure cooker/Instant Pot (on sale for $89 on amazon right now!)
  

Did you know the SweetPhi blog has a YouTube Channel? I’d love if you’d subscribe! And while you’re there, check out my latest video for no bake coconut date energy bites.

Other posts you might enjoy:

• Catching Up With The Kelnhofers -3
• Catching Up With The Kelnhofers -4
• Catching Up With The Kelnhofers -5

I’d love to hear more about your summer – what has been a highlight so far? Just leave a comment below and let me know!