Pink Lemonade Sparkling Fruit Punch

This weekends we made the best juice mixture I've ever tasted. Hands down. A perfectly refreshing non-alcoholic beverage that was sweet and sparkly with just the amount of tart to give it that little kick. Delicious! 

Ingredients

• 4 cans of frozen lemonade concentrate
• 1/2 gallon of cranberry juice
• 1 46oz of red fruit punch {Hawaiian punch recommended}
• 1 quart of chilled Ginger Ale
• 1 46oz can of pineapple juice
• 2 lemons {thinly sliced}
• Ice

Viola! Simple, easy and perfect for summer.

Meet & Tweet Twitter Hop & A Farewell

Photo credit

Hi Friends.
At times in life when unexpected, God closes one door to open another.
Lately, this is where life has been for me. A lot of changes.
Some expected, some not, but taking each as a blessing of its own.

Today is our last Meet & Tweet Twitter Hop. I'm not going to say forever, but for now.
Priorities have transformed. 
I've enjoyed the past 7 months of these weekly meet ups, but sometimes, its time to say goodbye.

Now let's wipe our tears, and get this final hop started! 

Ready to make new Twitter friends?
Sweetness, just follow the rules.

RULES:
Link up your Twitter account, not your blog.
Follow your host and co-hosts. {The first 6 in the linky.}

HOST: Laura from Our Reflection

Thanks so much to my amazing co-hosts:
Summer from Made by Munchies Mama
Amber from Obviously Obsessed
Jennifer from Little Miss Alizzi
Holly from The Artist Who Never Starved
Brittany from Confessions of a PinAholic

Loving this hop? Shout it out to all your friends!

The more the merrier.

Tweet

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks so much for linking up today!

Hope you've had fun and made some amazing new friends.

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Cake Pop Recipe

I heard a lot of stories that making cake pops was difficult but I felt I was up for the challenge. We were having a Saturday afternoon backyard get together with a table full of munchies so I thought these would be perfect. The only hard part was choosing which flavor to make!

I'm here to walk you through these easy steps...

Supplies

• Cake mix and ingredients listed on the box {I did lemon & devils food.}
• Half a package of frosting {I used lemon with the lemon cake and chocolate with the devils food}
• White chocolate candy melts
• Styrofoam 
• Shortening {large spoon full}

Step 1

Make the cake mix as directed on the box.

Step 2
Bake as directed on the box and allow to cool slightly.

Step 3
Break the cake into pieces and put into a large mixing bowl.

Step 4
Now crumble the cake completely.

Step 5
Add 1/2 of the package of frosting into the crumbled cake. The frosting acts as glue.

Step 6
Now its time to get dirty. With your hands, crumple it all together so its mixed evenly and looks like one big dough ball.

Step7
Using the palm of your hands, roll your cake into 1" balls placing them on wax paper.

I put them in the freezer for 10 minutes to harden just a bit.

Step 8
Now its time to soften the entire bag of candy melts in a microwave safe bowl per the instruction on the bag. Once melted, stir vigorously until completely smooth. Once smooth add a tablespoon of shortening to thin out the texture.

Step 9
Take your cake pop stick and dip it in the melted candy about 1 inch. This will act as glue to hold your stick in place. Now insert the stick into the center of your cake ball.

Step 10
Now its time to coat the cake pops in the melted candy. I softly took a spoon and poured the melted mixture and allowed it to roll beneath the ball to coat all sides. Then placed them stick up, back on the wax paper for cooling.

If you want to decorate them I would recommend sticking them into a Styrofoam block to you can access the tops.

 

Viola! Now you know how to make cake pops! They are not hard, just a bit tedious at times. But well worth the wait!

 

I decided to make two batches. The yellow was lemon cake with lemon frosting. The blue was devils food cake with chocolate frosting. Have fun mixing things up a bit!

 

Found here.

These will be at every party I throw from now. Such as easy way to follow a color scheme. I'm thinking these would be a perfect "reveal" at a baby shower by having blue or pink cake inside. Wouldn't that be awesome?!

 
Enjoy!

Proof of Your Love

Have you ever had the urge to become a missionary? When I first heard the word "missionary", I thought of the people you see in pictures who've moved their families and now live with tribes in Africa. That's not what I'm talking about. Missionary is simply a person sent out to evangelize. You don't have to move to a foreign country, there is so much that needs to be done right here on our backyards.

A few short weeks ago, I read this post from Alissa at Rags to Stitches titled "Mustard Seed." She had attended a shoe cutting party and spoke about how when we come together to work for the glory of God, we move mountains. Instantaneously, I ran to my husband to read about Sole Hope. We both felt God telling us this is something we needed to do. We had been talking about wanting to do more, to help somehow, but didn't know exactly what. This was it.

We didn't even wait a minute before we ordered our Sole Hope shoe cutting party starter kit here. It guided us through every step. 

We took a leap of faith. Gathered all the needed supplies, and send out the invites. What happened next, was all God.

We made sure this was a family event. We had just as many guys as girls show up! And the kids, not spoiled at all. They had their own craft table, jumpy house and took breaks for juice and cake pops {that I made by the way... recipe posing tomorrow}.

Of course at the end of the party we were all exhausted. Totally ecstatic we had just made 40 pair of shoes {yay God!} and on a sugar high from our phanominal dessert table, that we had a little hula-hoop competition. Lets just say the girls ruled this one.

At the end of the day I realized we didn't have any photos of me and my incredible hubby. But thats ok, the memory of today and knowing there are 40 children out there that will have shoes on their feet, is all that matters.

I encourage you to check out the Sole Hope website and host a party of your own. I know there are many other parties springing from friends who attended today. Helping others is contagious, but someone needs to start. Be that person. 

So let my life be the proof, the proof of Your love.

A song that just shouts at my heart by King & Country.