Baltimore Snowball Company

I have an addiction to confess... I am crazy about snowballs! Some people like steak. Some people enjoy chocolate. I on the other hand can't get enough snowballs!

My quest for the best snowball around lead me to the Baltimore Snowball Company in Essex, MD. The gold medal goes to this place!

Their flavor selection is ridiculous. Think of any traditional flavor and they probably 3-4 varieties. They also have more crazy flavors than I can list in one place... everything from pumpkin pie, to tiramisu, to tootsie roll. In addition to a wide variety of flavors they have marshmallow AND ice cream options. They will also "level off" snowballs to take the messy level for little ones from gigantic down to huge.

It may not look like much on the outside, but the it's what's on the inside that counts!

You probably think I am a bit to passionate about my snowballs at this point and you're right. Today I tried the wedding cake flavor. It was pretty good! I honestly enjoy the cherry kola the best so far. The ice is also the right consistency. Not so soft that it melts and turns into a drink within minutes and not so hard that large chunks form that you have to throw away.

At the BSF they have a customer loyalty program where you get 1 snowball free for every 10 you buy. I only found this gem yesterday and we're already on the verge of a free one!

There is a cute little area with picnic tables to eat. The boys had a blast!

The BSF is located at 701 Mace Avenue, Essex, MD 21221. It's at the corner of Myrth Avenue, just across the street from the Royal Farm store. Prices range from $1.50 to $4.00 a snowball depending on how large you want it to be and which add ins you include. I recommend getting a medium as their large is my version of a jumbo (so you definitely get your money's worth). Get there soon before summer is over! :)

Litterbox Cake!

Once a month I get together with my Mom and her friends for "old ladies night." Some times we play games, some times we go out to eat, and almost every month we celebrate a birthday. We've been doing this for several years and I tend to make the birthday cake.

This month we had a crab feast in honor of Jayne's birthday and I decided to make a litter box cake. She has a strong sense of humor (necessary for this cake) and a cat. Ironically she had also spent the week before our get together caring for her son's five cats while he was on vacation!


The idea for the cake came from allrecipes.com Essentially all you need is a chocolate cake mix, white cake mix, two boxes of instant vanilla pudding, vanilla cream cookies, green food coloring, and a bag of tootsie rolls. It's also nice and extra gross to buy a real litter box and scooper from the dollar store. Unfortunately I could only get the scooper and I just bought a large metal pan in place of the litter box.

Bake both cakes according to the box directions. Prepare pudding according to directions. Finely chop/process the cookies. Reserve 1/4 cup of the cookies and mix with green food coloring, save for later. Once cakes are completely cool, crumble them into your biggest bowl. Mix them well using the pudding and half of the remaining cookie crumbs. You won't need all of the pudding, you just want the cake to be moist. Place cake mixture into pan. Microwave tootsie rolls and make litter box ornaments (poop). Put half in the cake as surprises. Sprinkle remaining half of cookies on top. Put the other half of the ornaments on the top. It's really effective to have one hanging off the side. Finally, sprinkle green crumbs on top (although you may want to roll the ornaments in the green crumbs as well).


Jayne thought it was great!

We all laughed until it hurt...

then we enjoyed eating this delicious dessert!

Goop!

After making "Goop" at school as a part of learning about directions I decided to bring the fun home to the boys!

Goop is a mixture of cornstarch and water. You can also add food coloring to the water to make it any color you'd like. A metal spoon (the plastic ones broke) and resealable container are also helpful.

The recipe calls for 1/4 cup cornstarch and then for you to slowly add 1/2 cup of water a few drops at a time. I found that it was really more of a guessing game. We added corn starch/water until the correctly consistency was reached. Note the dollar store table cloth on the table. I always try to keep a few of these on standby for our messier activities! (This does make a mess, I won't lie!)

Blake even got in on it by stirring his goop.

You know the goop is the correct consistency when it pours like a liquid but feels like a solid when you pinch it (great vocabulary development for my little word sponges). This was a fun, cheap project! You most likely have everything you need in your kitchen already!

Blake doesn't appreciate messes and refused to actually touch the goop! I'd love more ideas for indoor activities to keep the boys happy and busy during this heat wave! Please share!

Under the boardwalk...

Today was a great day... even though we've already taken our vacation for the summer (Creation), I couldn't let an entire summer pass without letting the boys experience the ocean! So, we took a trip Ocean City, MD!

We made sand castles...

splashed in the Atlantic Ocean....

received an embarrassing amount of hugs and kisses from Mommy...

ate pizza at Dough Roller...

took in all of the sights of the Boardwalk ("people watching"), including this beautiful sand sculpture of Noah's Ark (something we're currently learning about at church)...

played on the pirate ship....

enjoyed a mean game of ski ball....

ate Thrasher's french fries (don't worry, Mommy only had a few)...

shook in our flip flops in the Haunted House (Caleb begged to go on and then halfway through declared it was too scary and he wanted off, which was unfortunately impossible... then he tried to play how brave he was to Daddy when get got off)....

and then finished the day by having ice cream sundaes for dinner at Dumser's Dairyland! Mommy stole another idea from Kate Gosselin and once a year in the summer I allow the boys to have ice cream for dinner! Caleb said that this was the best part of his day!

All in all I can't think of a better day or time! So blessed!