Growth Chart Moments

Foto Friday–Hands

2012-02-03T18:39:00.001-05:00

I’ve been out of this Foto Friday thing for a while. It’s fun to join in, but I just haven’t taken the time to do it in a long time. This week’s theme is HANDS.

This picture was from last month, but I took the same picture last year. If I don’t lose that little front loader, I’m planning to take this picture every year. Here’s what we have so far:

Click on over to Lori’s blog to see other Foto Friday entries for this week. Have a great weekend!

An Interview With a Three Year Old

2012-01-30T08:43:00.000-05:00

Recently, Jack turned 3. Did you know that he also turned into a little man? He says thinks like “that’s unfortunate!” and “How in the world did that get there?” His vocabulary is incredible, and I love having conversations with him.

After catching up with my favorite blogs in my Reader, I saw that a bloggy friend’s daughter just turned 3 this month as well. She did an interview with her daughter and plans to do this every year to see how things change. I love that idea, and I’ve seen it around other places and have been meaning to do this before. Here is my interview with Jack, my just-turned-three year old.

1. what is your favorite color? Green

2. what is your favorite toy? John Deere

3. what is your favorite fruit? Grapefruit (really? it’s not the blueberries or strawberries you ask for EVERY DAY?)

4. what is your favorite t.v. show? John Deere or Winnie the Pooh (I asked it twice, and got two different answers)

5. what is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? grapefruit (again, really?)

6. what is your favorite outfit? John Deere pj’s (he doesn’t own any)

7. what is your favorite game? Marbles (he just finished playing a magnet marble game that he never plays)

8. what is your favorite snack? fish crackers (I never buy these, but he knows about them!!)

9. what is your favorite animal? fish or zebras (I asked it twice as well, and the answers were different each time)

10. what is your favorite song? I can’t say

11. what is your favorite book? Otis (By Loren Long is currently on loan from the library. It’s about a tractor)

12. who is your best friend? Roo (from Winnie the Pooh)

13. what is your favorite cereal? Frosted Mini Wheats (he likes to eat just the frosted part)

14. what is your favorite thing to do outside? play in the mud (we don’t play outside all that often)

15. what is your favorite drink? milk

16. what is your favorite holiday? Christmas (I’m surprised he knew what holiday meant)

17. what do you like to take to bed with you at night? Pooh

18. what is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Frosted Mini Wheats (really? Not the pancakes you ask for EVERY DAY?)

19. what do you want for dinner on your birthday? No answer

20. what do you want to be when you grow up? A TRACTOR!!!

The final answer was my absolute favorite answer of all time. I love my little tractor boy!

Three Sisters A Shop

2012-01-28T15:36:00.001-05:00

Have I ever told you how many cousins Jack has? He has 8 cousins. This may seem like a standard amount of cousins to grow up with, or it may even seem like very few to you. But to me, it seems like a lot. Until I was in high school, I had 2 cousins. TWO! And they were about 16 years older than me. Then, 20 years ago, my youngest cousin was born, and I now have a total of 3 first cousins. That made for very small family gatherings growing up.

Jack will grow up with different family dynamics. Thanks to my sister, he has two cousins on my side of the family. And thanks to my husband’s sister and brother, he has 6 cousins and counting. Our family gatherings with Rick’s side of the family are much bigger (and louder) than my side. Here is a look at all the cousins on that side:

Aren’t they beautiful? (pardon the littlest girl’s skin…she had fun putting ‘makeup’ on that day with some markers she found) Thanks to our newest member, the boys aren’t so out numbered like they used to be! It’s going to be fun watching those boys grow up together.

The three oldest girls are possibly the most creative girls I know. They are also the most talented girls. They write, draw, paint, take pictures, knit, crochet, and who knows what else?! The oldest has a passion for all things British. She is planning to study in England someday (hopefully at the end of this year). That isn’t cheap, as we all know, so she and 2 of her sisters have created an Etsy shop to sell their creative wares. This will help her (and any of the others if they can someday) get to England to study and work.

Want to see what they make? Here’s a sample:

Look at how cute these little dolls are! Aren’t they adorable?

And these little animals. So sweet!

They also make paper crafts like these flower balls. They’re bright and fun!

These notecards are all personally hand drawn by the youngest of the three sisters.

Head on over to Three Sisters A Shop on Etsy to check out everything they have to offer. I’m so proud to be their aunt, and I couldn’t be happier to advertise for them here. I can’t wait to hear all about her trip to England…we’ll be able to swap stories then!

Jack is 3! (And a Few Growth Chart Moments)

2012-01-18T10:08:00.001-05:00

Jack had a birthday last weekend. I can’t believe my little guy is 3 already! Here is a collage of his 3 birthdays

We had a very small celebration the morning of his birthday. Rick and I had decorated the kitchen after Jack was in bed, and we laid out his many presents for him to see when he came downstairs in the morning. He was surprised, that’s for sure.

We don’t do a big Christmas – only three presents each – but we love to do big birthdays. Actually, I should rephrase that. We don’t do a big Christmas for JACK, but do do big birthdays for JACK. When it comes to us, we still do birthdays pretty low key. It’s so fun to lavish Jack with presents! It’s also hard to resist the toys in the toy aisle when everything you look at shouts “Jack would LOVE this!” So, we over did it. I’m not worried about it.

The other big part of Jack’s birthdays is the cake. We love being ‘creative’ with his cakes. When I had a minor computer crash last year, I lost very few photos. We were really lucky. But the one set of photos that we did loose were last year’s birthday pictures. So, if you want to see our AMAZING (well, impressive perhaps, but amazing, I’m not sure) train cake from last year’s birthday, please check out last year’s birthday post. We were pretty proud of that one. This year I found a cake on Pinterest that I knew had to be Jack’s birthday cake this year. The original is so much prettier than mine, but ours turned out much better than I thought it would. This was a super easy cake to put together!

The fun part was that the inside was a surprise- it was construction colors. If you go to the original link, you can see how much better hers was. And you can see a picture tutorial on how to make the diagonal cake design from one of her links.

The best part is that Jack loved it. He wanted to help the backhoe dig up the cake.

Jack’s such a big boy now. He’s completely potty trained – even at night. He talks up a storm, using words and phrases like “I realized I had the wrong one..” and “I’ve been thinking about ….” He uses utensils like a champ when he eats . He listens to chapter books at bedtime now (Magic Treehouse). He wants to do everything himself and he’s usually pretty good about doing it right. He helps us cook and even puts the toothpaste on his own toothbrush without smooshing too much out on the brush. We’re very proud of him and hope we haven’t ruined him yet in his first three years. Hopefully he’ll get a little brother or sister this year. That was our hope last year, but it looks like this year will be more likely. Fingers are crossed!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JACK!

Time For My Bi-Annual Junk Drawer Cleaning

2012-01-17T17:14:00.001-05:00

It’s amazing to me that I let something get so messy and leave it so messy for YEARS. Who does that??? Almost two years ago I wrote a post about how I cleaned my junk drawer. In that post, I mentioned how I had cleaned it out a few years before, but that it had gotten out of hand over time. So, I have to assume that every two years I will clean out this junk drawer. At least It gets cleaned. Eventually.

Here is the before THIS time:

I think I see the trays in there from last time I organized.

After cleaning everything out and throwing a lot away, here is the after photo:

I think it’s even better than the after photo from last ~~year~~ time. The two jars are what I love the most. One jar holds twist ties and the other holds gumbands. Raise your hand if you know what gumbands are! (put your hand down, Mom. I KNOW you do!)

I know you come here for riveting posts. Glad I could provide for you.

Change of Scenery

2012-01-16T20:07:00.001-05:00

I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that, while I really like my blog theme and layout, it’s time for a change. I am going to call this “done” for now, even though I’ll probably tweak it some in the days or weeks to come. I’d love to incorporate my old header with some new inspiration. I wonder if I’ll ever figure out what that means and how to do it. I’ve got some ideas up my sleeve, but the time must have fallen out.

Thanks for still hanging around. Just think….you can say, “I’ve been here since she had that busy so long ago.”

I’m Not Dead! (And Our Floors Are done)

2012-01-12T12:07:00.001-05:00

I don’t think there were too many people out there wondering if I’d actually died or not, but I’m sure someone other than my mother was wondering if I was ever going to blog again. I am!

I’d like to get back into a sporadic-regular blogging schedule, but we’ll let that work itself out in the future. I have tons of stuff (by tons I mean about 5) to blog about, but I haven’t had the motivation to actually sit down and get any of it into word form.

Anyway, I thought I’d update you on our floors. They’re done! They were done before Christmas, which meant we were able to host our annual family Christmas Eve celebration with my sister’s family and our mom. I LOVE that Christmas get-together. I love them all, really, but because this is the only one I host, it seems more special to me I guess.

Here is a look at our floors in the few Christmas pictures I could find that showed off our floors. I never took a really great AFTER picture, so these will have to suffice.

This was the night that we actually finished. I was in love. We have since changed out the metal registers for wooden ones.

Here is the widest shot we have from our Christmas Eve party. Those are my sister’s boys. Jack (and the rest of us) LOVE them! You can see how our dark coffee table and our dark secretary (in the back to the left of the tree) look with our dark floors now. I like it. Though, I have my eyes on a light beige shag rug (that I’m hoping comes way down in price soon) to put under that coffee table.

This is our Christmas morning. You may notice an absence of presents under the tree. We usually stick to the rule of 3 presents for each of us, but this year, Rick and I decided to count our floors as our gift to each other, so we didn’t get gifts for ourselves. I love how, on Christmas morning, I asked Jack “It’s Christmas morning, do you know what that means?” and his response was “Yeah!! We get to get out the train!!”

This last picture is blurry. Too blurry to show as a good picture on a blog – unless you’re trying to show the length of the new floors you just put in, and you’re trying to protect the identity of the Plasma Car thief in our house. It also does a good job of hiding the clutter in our kitchen.

We love our floors, but it was HARD WORK putting them in. It took about a week (or 2) longer than we expected, and we had two big situations that required us to pull up floor that had already been laid. It was very interesting ad frustrating.

Thanks for still hanging around my blog to see if I’m alive. I appreciate all my readers, even the ones who never comment. If you are so inclined, please leave me a comment today saying that YOU’RE alive, so I know if anyone other than my mother reads my blog. I have missed you, blog friends! I hope to be around more often on your blogs as well as writing more posts for my own blog.

Happy 2012!

What’s Been Going On?

2011-11-23T10:38:00.001-05:00

Well, here’s a picture (or 11) of what’s keeping me away from the computer these past few days. And it’s also what’s going to keep me away for the next few days. Maybe weeks. Who knows how long this will take….

This is my living room furniture. All in one big ‘pile’.

~~We’re~~ Rick’s pulling up all our carpet to put down new hard wood laminate flooring.

We’re putting the same flooring all throughout our first floor, which means the kitchen will be next. While the floors are up in the kitchen, I’ll be painting the walls.

Yellow. One of these yellows. (the colors are crappy in the picture)

Oh, and maybe one day painting those cabinets a nice creamy white color. Maybe.

While we’re in a state of mid-construction, Jack is forced to wear his new boots. He LOVES his boots, so that isn’t a hardship.

While the sub floor is showing, I decided to write out some scriptures. We’re supposed to stand on the word of the Lord, right?

Now, everyone who ever walks on our floors, and anyone who ever owns this house will be standing on a firm foundation.

Jack wants to help with EVERY step. He’s a pretty good helper too. Rick is *mostly* patient with him., too.

He was the first one to walk on the new floor.

He even got to help pound in the boards. What a good helper!

Someday, hopefully before Christmas, I’ll show you our AFTER pictures. I can’t wait!

Yes, we’ll have mismatched woods in our home. I can live with that!

Happy Friday to You

2011-11-18T09:55:00.001-05:00

I have a few pictures for you today.

This week’s theme for Foto Friday is “silhouette”. (which I never spell correctly the first time!) I was going to take a new picture of Jack this week for this prompt, but I ~~was too lazy~~ decided to pick one from my archives instead. This is one of my favorites. Jack was 6 months here. My little virtuoso.

A friend of mine (and her friend) started a new photo challenge. This one has prizes, so I thought I’d get over my fear of submitting photos alongside REAL photographers and submit one this week. I like to support my friends, so I’m only partially in it for the prizes. Here is my best photo from this week.

Since we live very close to a military airport, we see a LOT of KC135s and C5s. They routinely do “touch and go’s”, which is when they come in for a landing, but just touch down, then go back up in the air again. They’ll circle around and do that over and over again. Each time, this is the view that we get. (This is a C5 –the largest airplane in operation)

And here is a picture “just because.” Last weekend, we went to Gramma’s to watch the OSU game. (they lost in OT) At one point, Jack and Gramma both had on their Ohio State scarves and were reading a book together (during commercials I’m sure – Gramma’s a big Buckeye fan). I thought the image was super sweet and wanted to share it with you today.

Have a great Friday! And a really great weekend.

Squirt Gun Art

2011-10-31T09:49:00.000-04:00

I saw this on a blog that I read, and I thought it looked like a lot of fun. Since Rick likes to go shoot his guns, I thought Jack would be excited to shoot his own guns at a target.

I did this once with just Jack in our backyard and it didn’t turn out so well. Mostly because I didn’t follow the directions. That’ll happen. I used water with a little bit of food coloring in it instead of just food coloring. The result was a very pale color left on the paper. You could barely see it.

This time, when Cage and Jack got together for their most recent Art Date, I changed things up and got a much better result. Instead of using water and food coloring, I used water and tempera paint. It made for a much bolder color on the paper. Since I only had three squirt guns, we used yellow, blue, and red paint. Obviously, if you try this at home, you can use any colors you want to use.

It was a fun activity for the boys to do. It was definitely a workout for their fine motor skills and eye hand coordination. Luckily, they didn’t get too much paint off of the paper. At least, I hope they didn’t!

Thanks, Bekah, for letting us come over and have another Art Date with you! We can’t wait until next time. My Pinterest board is filling up quickly with ideas for our little guys.

Scripture, Snapshot, & a Growth Chart Moment

2011-10-30T14:20:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was a HUGE Growth Chart Moment for Jack. We cleaned out his big toy box. and donated toys to Goodwill. While we picked through every last truck, train, and car, I asked if he wanted to give it away or keep it. More times than not, he said “give it away!” I told him that there were other little boys who didn’t have any toys who might like to have the ones he didn’t want anymore. Little did I know how generous my son is!

If I had to guess, I’d say that 3/4 of his toys were placed in the ‘give it away’ pile.

One toy he chose to put in that pile made me tear up a little. He has a toy Mack from the movie Cars who he plays with All.The.Time. He has a Lightning McQueen that goes with it (Mack’s trailer opens up for Lightning to drive up into). When he put Mack in the ‘give it away’ pile, I said, ‘But you play with this all the time! What about lightning? Where will you put him now?” He looked up and said, “Oh yeah!” He then ran to get his Lightning McQueen race car and put it in the pile with Mack. I guess they go together. He made me cry a bit with that one.

For clarity, I kept saying “you know, you’ll never see these toys again. Ever.” He didn’t seem to care about that. He kept saying that other boys needed toys to play with.

I have a lot to learn, and I think he will be the one to teach me!

Foto Friday–Kids & Fall

2011-10-28T07:24:00.000-04:00

I didn’t take any new pictures this week for this prompt, so I had to go back into my archives. In truth, I didn’t actually TRY to take new pictures this week. I immediately thought about these pictures that I love, so that’s what I’m sharing.

*Picture Overload*

Jack’s first Halloween. 9 1/2 months old. Our LIttle Jack-O-Lantern.

Jack’s first fall. Oct 2009. 9 months old.

One of my all-time favorites of Jack. 9 months. Oct. 2009

Fall 2010. 21 months

I like to call this one “mom of a boy.” This (like all of these pictures) was before I got a new camera. My little 5 year old Sony Cybershot was a pretty good camera-I didn’t do any editing to this one.

Jack’s 2nd Halloween. Same Costume. That’s called “getting your money’s worth!” Oct 2010.

Last year we went to a pumpkin farm that had a corn sand box. Jack loved it. This editing is pretty funky for me, but I like how it makes the corn look soft and fluffy.

Healthified Stuffed Shells & Roasted Broccoli

2011-10-27T12:44:00.000-04:00

This is what I had for dinner last night.

Doesn’t it look delicious??? It’s one of my new healthy recipes I’ve recently pinned. It’s actually supposed to be Sausage Stuffed shells, but I bought ground turkey and ground sirloin, so that’s what I use. It also has hidden carrots in it, so it’s a good one for sneaking veggies into your kids or husbands who don’t get enough veggies.

Have you ever roasted broccoli? It is one of the easiest things in the world to do. If I can, I roast all my vegetables for dinner. They taste divine roasted! It’s getting more expensive to buy fresh produce, but whenever I do bring home fresh peppers, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, or asparagus I roast them in the oven on my stone.

If you’re a ~~lazy cook~~ mom pressed for time, you should totally try this. Just throw the veggie on the stone/baking sheet, drizzle some olive oil on them, sprinkle as much salt and pepper as you want, and stick them in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes. Really. It’s a Fix and Forget it type of meal. I have been known to put chicken breasts or pork chops on the stone beside the veggies and cook them all together. 30 minutes later you have an awesome dinner with practically no energy put into it. My kind of cooking!

This recipe is copied straight from Eat Better America, with my notes in red. It’s a very yummy, pretty healthy dinner!

Healthified Sausage-Stuffed Shells

24 jumbo pasta shells (from 12-oz box)
1 lb lean Italian turkey sausage, casings removed (ground turkey/beef)
1 container (15 oz) light ricotta cheese
2 cups shredded reduced-fat Italian cheese blend (8 oz)
1 box (9 oz) Green Giant® frozen spinach, thawed, squeezed to drain
1/2 teaspoon dried basil leaves
3/4 cup finely shredded carrots (1 medium)
1 jar (25.5 oz) Muir Glen® organic Italian herb pasta sauce (Kroger brand pasta sauce)

1 Heat oven to 350°F. Spray 13x9-inch (3-quart) glass baking dish with cooking spray. Cook and drain pasta as directed on package, omitting salt.

2 In 10-inch nonstick skillet, crumble sausage. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until no longer pink; drain.

3 In medium bowl, stir ricotta cheese, 1 cup of the Italian cheese blend, the spinach and basil until well mixed. Stir in carrots and sausage.

4 Spread about 1/2 cup of the pasta sauce over bottom of baking dish. Spoon about 3 tablespoonfuls sausage mixture into each pasta shell. Arrange shells, filled sides up, on sauce in baking dish. Pour remaining pasta sauce over stuffed shells. Spray 15-inch piece of foil with cooking spray; cover shells with foil.

5 Bake 40 minutes. Uncover; sprinkle with remaining 1 cup Italian cheese blend. Bake uncovered 5 to 10 minutes longer or until cheese is melted.

*serving size is 2 shells

Thank You, Kim!

2011-10-27T12:33:00.001-04:00

I love my bloggy friend Kim. She has taught me a lot about photography and photoshop. I just finished reading her post here, ran to open my Photoshop, and created this!

It’s been 6 years since Rick and I went on our honeymoon. We stopped at a very large store that he LOVES on our way out of the state. I made us take these two pictures with the hopes that one day I would figure out a way to join us into one picture. 6 years and 2 months later, I finally figured out how to do it!

Thanks, Kim!

Before:

After:

Layer masks. Who would have thunk it?

(I did this pretty quick, but it’s pretty good. I’d do a little more fixing before I printed it, but this is all the time I had)

Thanks, Kim!

April Date Night–in September

2011-10-25T07:54:00.000-04:00

So we stopped dating each other. I love my husband, and he loves me, but we’re homebodies. I had no idea this ‘one date a month’ idea was going to be so hard to do! I’m sure I have new readers since January, so go check out our first date this year and see what I’m talking about.

We’re not doing so well with our date nights. The April ticket kept staring at us from the wall calendar, but we never planned anything. (our March Date Night didn’t happen until July) It’s either because we’re too cheap to hire a sitter or buy dinner, or it’s because we’re too lazy to plan anything. I bet it’s a good mix of both.

For our April date (that happened in September), I decided to plan something really fun. I found a site called Dating Divas that has a ton of great ideas for dates. I found most of them to be more appropriate for extroverts or groups, but there are a few floating around their site for the introverts like ~~Rick~~ us.

I decided to use their Bookstore Date idea. I printed their cards and didn’t tell Rick what we were doing until we were enjoying our elegant desserts (McDonald’s ice cream cones) in a romantic atmosphere (sitting in the truck in the parking lot). We really know how to do up date night right!

Once you’re in the bookstore, you search out certain types of books and bond over them. It’s really fun. Here is a BRIEF description of the tasks.

First, we found some recipes that we would like to fix for our spouse sometime. I’m pretty sure we’ve forgotten all about these recipes and they’ll probably never get fixed, but it did prove that we know each other well. I picked an enchilada dish for him and he picked a lasagna dish for me.

We needed to find children’s books that we remembered from our childhood, but that our spouse hadn’t read before. That was tough! This is Rick’s book he found for me.

And this is my book I found for him. I couldn’t believe he’d NEVER heard of this book. The whole time I was reading it, I couldn’t stop thinking about what a ‘downer’ this book is. I’m surprised that I remembered it so well.

Another thing we had to find was a book on somewhere we’d like to go someday. I’ve been to Great Britain before, but I’d LOVE to go back. I do believe it’s my favorite place in the entire world. I especially fell in love with Wales and all its castles. (The castle on the Wales book I’ve actually been to). .

Rick would LOVE to go to Ireland. He wants to see the country and visit the home of Guinness.

Finally, one of the tasks was to find a book that made you laugh. That was much harder than I thought it should be. After several failed attempts with some joke books, this book finally hit the mark. It is so funny what text messaging autocorrect will create. I recommend this book if you don’t mind a few bad words and you want a good belly laugh.

This date was just what we needed. It cost a whopping $3 for the whole evening (thanks to Gramma watching Jack), and it was a great time to just be together and reconnect. Rick appreciated the thought that went into planning the date, and he said he’d try to plan the next one. I’m not holding my breath, and I kind of already have the next one planned. (Movie night to see Courageous).

How I freeze Corn on the Cob

2011-10-24T07:09:00.000-04:00

It seems that all my posts recently have been about food. I’m obsessed with food. I will say that I have food on the brain a lot recently, because I’m watching my calorie intake. And I’ve lost a lot of weight from just limiting my calories. Someday I’ll blog about it, but it seems that whenever I blog about weight loss, I put it right back on –darn that Satan!! So, when I’m good and ready, and prayer protectioned up, I’ll post about how I’m losing weight for real this time. (Last time didn’t work for me.)

*I know this post is untimely, seeing as how corn is now out of season, but I’ve never been timely before. Why start now?

On to the work!

I love corn on the cob. Whenever it is on sale, I buy as much as I can get. Usually I fix it every night for a week, we’re totally bloated, and fed up with corn for the season. This year, since I was watching my calories, I couldn’t eat as much in a sitting as I ~~like to~~ used to. So, if I didn’t want to throw away the corn, because it had gone bad in my fridge, I had to come up with a way to store it.

Most people now are shaking their heads and saying, “duh, Manda, why don’t you just freeze it??” Well, it took me a while to figure this out, but that’s just what I did. I looked up how to freeze corn, found out it’s a bit of a process, but totally worth it, and began the work.

Even though corn is done being on sale in the grocery stores, the big apple farm we went to a few weeks ago still had fresh ears for $.050, so I bought a dozen. It’s not the best price of the season, but it beats what it could be I guess.

Here is what’cha do:

Get a pot of water boiling, shuck your corn, and get an ice water bath ready.

Drop in a few ears of corn at a time, let them boil for a few minutes, then drop them into the cold water bath to stop the cooking process. I boiled them for about 6 minutes. If you’re doing this for the first time, you may want to look up the actual time you’re supposed to boil them.

Cut the corn off of the cob, separate the kernels, then lay them out on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Save an ear for your toddler who won’t stop asking you for corn on the cob RIGHT NOW. He LOVES ‘cob on corn’ as he calls it.

Stick the baking sheet in the freezer for a few hours, or overnight, or for a few days if you’re like me and forget they’re in there.

Once they’re frozen, break them up and put them in a big ziplock bag. I use a straw to suck out the extra air from the bag when I’m putting something like this in the freezer. It’s almost like vacuum packing it, but not. Close enough.

I froze broccoli and green beans this summer like this too. I boiled them for about 3 minutes, then froze them the same way. I froze bell peppers as well, but they don’t need to be blanched, they can just be chopped and frozen.

I would love to say that I have a huge stock of fresh frozen veggies waiting for me to use this winter, but unfortunately, we’ve eaten it all up already! I need to make sure this corn lasts into the winter.

Foto Friday–Orange

2011-10-21T07:56:00.000-04:00

Oops, I missed last week. I’m sure I’m the only one who noticed, but I’m still sorry about it.

This week’s theme is Orange. I walked around my house and found orange things to take pictures of, since our leaves turn yellow in our backyard, and I’m without a vehicle to even go out and look for orange.

So here they are, unedited and simple.

This is Jack’s new dump truck. You can tell that it’s not actually NEW. It’s just new to him. His cousins played with this truck 10 years ago, my sister and I played with it 30 some years ago, and my dad played with it (its original owner) 60 years ago. Like most hand-me down toys, Jack broke it within a week –I’m not sure how these toys can last years and years, but then when they get to Jack, they break or get lost in 2 days. *sigh* Anyway, Rick fixed it and it’s like ‘new’ again. Maybe Jack’s kids will play with it someday.

This pumpkin is new to me. I just bought it from a craft fair last weekend. I never go to craft fairs, and when I do, I rarely buy anything for myself, but this weekend I went a bit crazy. It didn’t help that my best friend’s mom made it and I love her like my own mother, so I HAD to buy it.

Buying this pumpkin was life changing for me. Really. When I got home, I realized I had nowhere to put it. Every surface in my home is full of clutter. So, in trying to find a spot for my new –and only- fall decoration, I de-cluttered my home. I mean REALLY de-cluttered. Let’s just say that this dry sink was unable to have a big pumpkin sitting in it like this last week. In fact, I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen the inside of the sink like this in 5 years! Mostly I just de-cluttered my kitchen, but MAN does it feel good!! Maybe I’ll blog about it someday. I didn’t take any ‘before’ pictures, but I can pull up just about any picture in my files and call it a before.

Have a great weekend!

Apple Picking & Applesauce Canning

2011-10-20T12:23:00.001-04:00

A few weekends ago we went apple picking. We didn’t know what to expect, since this was the first time we’d done any apple picking as a family. BOY was it busy!! There were so many people that we almost turned around and went home. But I really wanted to make applesauce, and I really wanted to create a family memory, so we soldiered on.

After driving to the correct part of the orchard (this is a BIG farm), and taking one bag from the attendant –a 20lb capacity bag – we made it to the part of apple picking that is actually picking apples.

We were picking Melrose and Suncrisp apples this day. Melrose apples were developed at Ohio State University, and they have become the official state apple. They are delicious!! They’re tart, juicy, and perfect. Of course, when you go to pick apples, you have to try out the goods.

When I tasted a Suncrisp apple, I have to say that I liked it just a bit better. It’s amazingly delicious. While the Melrose is a cross between a Johnathon and a Red Delicious, a Suncrisp is a cross between a Golden Delicious and a Cox Orange Pippin (never heard of that one). It was a bit tarter, just as juicy, and still a great eating apple. I have had a love affair with Honeycrisp apples for a few years now, but this one surpasses my honeycrisps in flavor for sure.

When I got home, I washed the apples and stored them in a jumbo ziplock bag in my crisper drawer. Eventually, they were going to become applesauce. A few will become pies, but those won’t happen until Thanksgiving. I’m hoping they store well like they say they do.

Last weekend (after another trip to the farm to buy 3 more pecks – does 4 pecks equal a bushel? That’s how many I ended up with) I set into making applesauce. I LOVE homemade applesauce. There is nothing like it, and it’s so stinking easy! If you don’t take into account the time it takes to peel, core, and chop the apples before getting them into the pot.

After 2 hours, and help from Rick, I filled to overflowing two crock pots. (Thanks, Heather for letting me borrow yours!!) I add some sugar – around a half cup, though a full cup makes it so much better – then sprinkle the top with cinnamon. Mix it all up with about a 1/2 cup of water) and let it cook on low for about 8 hours. My house smelled SOOOOO good!!! At the end of the 8 hours, I took a ricer to the sauce just to make sure it wasn’t too chunky.

This was my first attempt at canning anything. (Thanks, Heather for letting me borrow your canning equipment!) I must say, if there was a fly on my wall watching me can, it would have died of laughter. I can’t say I’m all that good yet at judging how much water should be in the big canning pot. The floor got a good soaking from the boiling water that was displaced by my 6 cans. My feet were pretty soaked as well.

You’ll notice there are no pictures of me actually canning. It was just too big of a mess to think about grabbing my camera to document the hilarity.

I ended up with a total of 10 quarts of applesauce from about 3 pecks or 20lb bags. I have another peck left to make sauce and enough apples pulled out from my first trip to make 2 pies (I hope). There are a TON of apples in my house!

This applesauce is the most divine thing I’ve ever tasted. If you ever find yourself with 8-10 apples (or 100lbs), please take the time to peel, core, and chop those apples, throw in some sugar and cinnamon if you want and make applesauce. It’s REALLY something everyone should experience.

Healthy Recipes

2011-10-12T10:08:00.001-04:00

I was posting recipes here for a while, then I dropped off the recipe bandwagon. I don’t love to blog about recipes, but I do love to share yummy food, so I’ll do a quick cheater recipe blog post.

These are the recipes I’ve been trying out lately on our low calorie diet. They’re pretty yummy. (you can click on the pictures to be taken to the recipe)

This is Kraft’s Fish and Vegetable Casserole. It was pretty tasty, though, I would never have thought about putting something like this together. I ended up changing some basics of it, so I can’t say what the original recipe tastes like, but the skeleton of it that I used worked well with my changes. It calls for red peppers (I used green), onions, white fish (I used Swai), tomatoes (I forgot to add these), Italian dressing, and red potatoes (I used sweet potatoes because that’s what I had on hand). And then it’s all topped with mozzarella cheese (I used a Mexican blend because that’s what I had). It did call for cilantro, but none of us really like cilantro, so I left it out. I think this dish would be great with chicken or pork as well.

This next recipe is one of our favorites now. Honey Mustard-Glazed Pork Chops from Eat Better America is now our go-to recipe for quick and yummy dinners around here. We’ve had it twice in the last week. You just sear the chops real quick, then add a mixture of honey, mustard, ground cloves, onion powder, salt (or onion salt if you have it) and pepper to the chops and let them cook for about 10 minutes. It’s that easy. I usually roast some broccoli or do a mixed veggie on the side. YUM!

Beef and Bean Enchiladas. This is our other OH MY GOSH IT’S AMAZING recipe. We fell in love with this recipe as soon as it crossed our lips. I haven’t made it again yet, but I will be making it as soon as ground beef goes on sale again. That’s how I roll. I don’t like beans, so I was a little leery of this one, but I didn’t even notice the beans in there when I was eating it. It’s another super easy recipe. Sauté the peppers and onions, brown the beef, add the seasonings and beans, then wrap everything up in tortillas. Put some salsa in a pan, lay your wraps in the pan, then cover with salsa and cheese. Bake and enjoy! Really. It’s so super easy and so super yummy. I used low carb tortillas last time, but I’m going to use my homemade ones next time.

That leads me to this final recipe I’ve tried recently. I like tortillas, but I don’t love them. They usually have a harsh taste to them that I just can’t describe. But it leaves me reaching for the hard tacos instead of the tortillas on taco night. I decided to try my hand at homemade tortillas and WOW are they good! I could eat the whole batch in one sitting I’m sure! That strange, harsh taste is not there at all. Flour, salt, baking powder, water, & oil. That’s all. Now, I do have to admit that they take a lot of work to roll out super flat, and my arm muscles were given a workout when I made my batch, but they really are worth it.

There ya go! I hope you try something listed here. They really are yummy. Let me know what you try – I love to hear other’s reactions to what I think is yummy. Oh, and if you’re looking for more healthy recipes, you can check out my ever growing Healthy Recipe Pinboard. If you need an invite to join Pintrest, let me know and I’ll get you started. it’s addicting, but oh so helpful when you want to find really great ideas.

Fall “Easter” Eggs

2011-10-08T22:19:00.000-04:00

The other day I hard boiled eggs like I do every few weeks, and I decided that Jack and I were going to color eggs again. We did it for Easter and loved it, so why not do it more often? I chose fall colors this time (yellow, orange, green and brown) and I think they turned out great!

I started out with my tools :

The paper towel roll cut up into little egg drying stands works best if they’re not glued together. For the colors, I followed the ‘recipes’ on the back of the food color box.

One egg must have had a crack in it when I put it in the pot. We didn’t color this one, but it sure was fun to eat after we were done coloring the rest of the eggs.

I have a feeling we’ll be dying eggs for every holiday coming up. Thanksgiving will be the same, but Christmas may look a tad different.

I’m linking this up with La-La’s Home Daycare Holiday Kid Craft link up. Hop on over to see what other holiday crafts have been posted.

Foto Friday–Machines

2011-10-07T10:08:00.001-04:00

This was my suggestion, and it was SO hard to narrow down my pictures to just one. So I didn’t. I like that I can do that with this prompt.

A few weeks ago, they repaved our road. It was a great day for Jack! We walked around the neighborhood and watched the truck pull the ‘box’ along behind it, laying down the ‘slurry’. Real technical terms here.

They truck ran out of mix right in front of our house, which means they had to leave the box here and go fetch another truck that had more mix in it. You know what that means….I ran over and started taking pictures of the box like it was a supermodel! The workers (who were still there waiting for the new truck to come) were a little confused about why I was taking pictures. One even asked me, “what are the pictures for?” I said “I just like to take pictures, and how often is one of these things in front of my house?” He wasn’t seeing how it was a picture-moment.

In all honesty, when I suggested the theme Machines, I was thinking more about the machines we have laying All.Over.My.House. Jack has a few loves, the biggest being machines.

I hope you have a great weekend. Rick took off work today, and he doesn’t have to work on Monday, so it’s a four day weekend in our home! I wonder what we’ll do (besides doing some laundry and grocery shopping)

(Don’t forget to click on the Foto Friday box to go see other pictures of machines.)

Foto Friday–Books

2011-09-30T08:09:00.001-04:00

(It seems that all I’m coming up with these past few weeks has been Foto Friday posts. I’ll get another post explosion soon I’m sure)

This theme made me think of my time spent at Mommy Retreats. Every year, ladies from our old kinship (small group) from back in the day (like late 90’s, early 00’s) get together every spring for a Mommy Retreat. I got to join the last two years and hope to attend every year that I’m not breastfeeding. Since I’m not pregnant now, looks like I’m all ready to go next spring.

At this retreat, we bring whatever reading materials (and games and even recipe boxes to organize) we want to peruse during the weekend. Last year’s retreat seemed to be a big reading weekend. There were so many books that we had to get pictures of them all stacked up.

I added a Kim Klassen texture called Ugglove (I think) and then a Paint the Moon black and white action that I added a bit of the color back to. I love how the color turned out in this, but I’m not sure if this texture was the best choice. I do like it, but if I had more time (always the case), I could have tried out more textures to find maybe a better one.

Until next time……

Have a great weekend!

Foto Friday–S curve

2011-09-23T10:12:00.001-04:00

I was stumped with this one!!!

So I cheated. I used my son’s bath toy letter. It’s all I could think of!

I added a Kim Klassen texture (Free!) and then The Pioneer Woman’s Vintage action (Free!) It’s not my best work, but it’s what I came up with this morning on the fly.

Have a good weekend!

P.S. I’m going on a date with my hubby tonight!! I think this is April’s date night. We’re a little behind.

Potty Training–a Huge Growth Chart Moment

2011-09-21T12:38:00.001-04:00

I have to say that I was pretty nervous going into Potty Training Week. I had read this post from Marriage Confessions about her Potty Camp, and I took a few ideas from her training for Jack’s training. . I’ll try to make this short, sweet, and to the point., but if you’ve been a reader for long, you know that I don’t seem to try very hard at that.

How did I know Jack was ready to potty train?

The biggest clue what that he started running to the bathroom to poop in his diaper. He’d stop what he was doing, run to the bathroom and just stand there, grunting. Every time he did that, we’d ask if he wanted to poop in the potty. “No.”

He also went to the potty right after we saw a friend of his use the potty. He didn’t have any issues sitting on the big potty without any seat adaptor, so I knew he didn’t have any fear of the big potty anymore.

A lot of when you potty train (as a SAHM) is admitting when the mom is ready to put the work in. I knew it was a lot of commitment on the part of the mom, so I waited until I was ready to put in the time that was needed. That helped a lot.

What tools did I use?

I borrowed a seat adaptor from a friend. I knew Jack could sit on the big potty, but I also thought it might be easier on him if he didn’t have to hold himself up the whole time he was sitting. This was invaluable for training I think.

I made a potty chart. It was a sad little potty chart. I wrote “Jack’s Potty Chart” on a piece of paper and taped it up by the potty. Then I got a sheet of (45) smiley stickers from my sticker pile. (ex-teachers have LOTS of stickers). I put one sticker up on the ‘o’ of Potty so he knew that a sticker went on the paper somewhere when he used the potty.

I bought a jug of Gatorade. This stuff goes right through Jack and makes him need to use the bathroom a LOT. I figured that if he was going to get the idea that ‘pee goes in the potty’, it wouldn’t hurt to have a lot of opportunities to see that in action. I diluted it with some water.

I set my phone alarm to go off every 20 minutes and downloaded a ringtone called Potty Dance. From Katie’s post, I liked that she took her son to the potty every 15 minutes. I changed that to asking him if he had to go every 20 minutes. He got pretty annoyed with that, so I stopped this after day one.

I purchased some big boy underwear. Some were trainers with some padding in them in case he didn’t get it right away, and some were just normal little boy underpants. So cute!!

So, How did it go?

Day 1

It went much better than I expected!! The first day, I took his diaper off after his morning change and didn’t replace it. He was uncertain about that, but I said we could sit on the potty if he needed to potty. He didn’t have an accident that morning at all. But he didn’t want to poop in the potty, so I put the diaper on him later in the morning when I knew he’d probably poop.

That afternoon I put underpants on him. He forgot that they weren’t diapers, so he peed in them. If he didn’t have the underpants on, he was fine and remembered to run to the potty. So I left him without anything on the bottom for the rest of the day. (If I left the house, I put a diaper on him).

Day 2

(I just want to say I wasn’t the one who painted the bathroom.)

The next day he didn’t want to leave his diaper off, but I kind of forced the issue. I just didn’t put a new dipe on him. He didn’t have any accidents, and he even pooped in the potty. Day two and he was already pooping on the potty!?? That was too good to be true!! He was happy to be rewarded with stickers and saying “YAY!!” after he flushed.

But it was too good to be true. that afternoon, he pooped in his underpants. But he kept saying he did it on purpose. He knows that when I change his poopy diaper, I go plop the poop into the potty. (I didn’t mean to use alliteration, but that’s a fun sentence to say…go read it again) His idea was that if he pooped in his underpants, he could just plop it into the potty. He tried to. I asked him how that worked out for him and he said “not good”. Since then, no more poop accidents.

Day 3

The next day he had a pee accident, but it was because he was upset about having to come inside after having played outside for about an hour with no bathroom time. He was so upset, he peed as Daddy brought him in the house. Poor guy. Poor Daddy.

Day 4

The next day we went to Kroger to do some grocery shopping. I did put a diaper on him, but told him that he could use the bathroom at Kroger if he wanted to. He did!! It was our first ‘out of our home/foreign potty’ experience. He loved it. That morning he had finished up his sticker sheet. That means he had used the potty 45 times in about a week. That Gatorade is powerful stuff! And he only had three accidents. That’s pretty good in my estimation, so I let him pick out a new toy. He was very happy to pick out a new semi truck!

Day 5

The next day, we went to work at my church office for a few hours, and he went to the bathroom there 3 times, even pooping once! I think he’s good to go without a diaper now if I know there will be bathrooms around for him.

He did it!!

I know he’s not even three yet, but I could tell he was ready to start learning to do his business on the potty. We are still wearing diapers at night, and they’re still pretty soaked in the morning, so we’re not nighttime potty trained yet, but I’m okay with that. I thought that I might be sad about him being out of diapers – you know, growing up and all – but I’m so happy for him. He’s so proud. He’s getting the hang of pushing down his pants and can kind of pull them up by himself too. He’s Mr. Independent for sure.

Now if we could just figure out how to get him to go to sleep by himself…..

Foto Friday–Pattern

2011-09-16T12:37:00.001-04:00

It’s here again! Foto Friday. This week went by pretty quickly around here. Not much to tell…except that my son is POTTY TRAINING! And he’s doing a great job. I can’t wait to tell you about it. I’m a proud mama.

I couldn’t get a good “pattern” picture to save my life, so I went into the archives. And these are OLD archives. 3 years old to be exact. My mom, Rick, and I went to Alaska before Jack was born (I was 14 weeks pregnant at the time). It was the best vacation. I’ve been a lot of places, and besides Wales, Alaska is my number 1 spot to visit in the world. I have two number 1’s. It’s my blog, I can do that.

A few friends of mine have recently been to Alaska and they’ve been sharing their pictures. It makes me want to go back!! So, I did…via my picture files. It was a lot less expensive this way.

Here are the three pictures I found that I felt fit the “pattern” theme for this week. I should put a disclaimer on here that I’m pretty sure my mother took these pictures. Not me. But I came from her womb, (and they’re on my computer) so I say that’s allowed. Enjoy!

(Skagway, AK) (Those were my initials before I was married)

(Fairbanks, AK)

(Talkeetna, AK)

Obviously, this doesn’t show you Alaska at all, but they’re cute pictures. I wish my Alaska pictures had turned out better. My camera at the time was unknowingly set on ‘email quality’ pictures, and the date was stamped on them all. I blame that on being pregnant at the time. I had already started losing brain cells by then. Thank goodness my mom was camera-happy that trip!

Since I’m Not Pregnant…

2011-09-14T15:14:00.001-04:00

*WARNING*

If you are male, or squeamish about menstrual cycles, and would rather not know these types of things about me, please DON’T READ THIS POST. Really.

If you are male, or squeamish about menstrual cycles, and would rather not know these things about me and you choose to read this post anyway, please don’t ever mention it to me. Thank you.

*warning over*

Remember when I said that I craft out of necessity? Well, this is another example of that. It’s also an example of how I’m going old school. I am a woman. I am not pregnant. I am not breastfeeding (man do I miss that!!). Put that all together and it means that I still get a regular monthly visit from, you know, Aunt Flow. (yes, I’m a teenage girl who still gets embarrassed talking about it)

I’ve been wanting to buy some Mama Cloths for a while now, but every month, I think “this will be the month we get pregnant, so I better not spend money on something I can’t use right now.” Then we aren’t pregnant after all, and it turns out it would have been nice to have already ordered some cloth.

My other stumbling block is that I can’t decide who to buy from. If you search on Etsy for Mama Cloth, there are a ton of WAHMs who make what look like great products. How is a girl to choose??

So, I decided to make my own. A friend sent me a link to this site that had links to lots of other sites with patterns. This site was the one I used to kind of copy the pattern from. I just eye-balled what I thought looked like a pad, then made it a bit bigger. She has since put a pattern out on her site if you’re an actual pattern follower. I have yet to follow a pattern. This is the site that I used to guide me through the steps of putting my pieces together. It was very thorough and helpful. Here is my step-by—step ‘tutorial’ for how I made my very first Mama Cloth.

First, the fabric! I have a few questions as to what fabric is best for this purpose, so I went to my cloth diaper sewing board on BabyCenter, and read about how fleece is used for the outer layer of diapers and flannel is used for the absorbent layer. I decided to buy three fleeces and three flannels and test out how they work at home. I washed and dried them then did a water test. I put a few drops of water on the fabric, and for the water that beaded up, I pushed my thumb on it and saw how quickly it went into the fabric. I also checked a paper towel I had put under the fabric to see if the water went all the way through or just into the fabric. Flannel soaked through every time, very quickly, and Fleece soaked in but didn’t go all the way through each time. So, flannel was used for my ‘inserts’ and fleece was used for my backing – or layer that’s against the panty.

Here is my pretty fleece I used for the backing. I eyeballed the pattern, (even with the seam allowance it was too wide in the long run, but still useable) then cut it out and used it to trace onto my flannel.

I then took some flannel and folded it a few times to get four or five layers of absorbency in the pad. I sewed it a pink flannel top so it would stay in place even after washing.

I decided to try out different ways to attach the inner layer. I thought maybe adding channels may help direct the flow, or maybe just a big open rectangle. I don’t know what will work best, but I’m guessing that there won’t be much difference.

After sewing the pieces together, good sides facing each other, I turned them inside out and gave them a top stich. Officially, I was done then, but I wanted to put Velcro on my wings so they’d stay together. I don’t have snaps or a snap applicator, so this was my alternative. You could also sew a button on one and a button hole on the other. I’ve even seen how you can omit the wings all together and add a button on the bottom of the pad and put a button hole in your underwear. Not sure I’m down with that. One of my friends uses a safety pin to keep it in place.

Here are my finished Mama Cloths! Aren’t they cute? I love how girly they are.

After realizing that I am again not pregnant, I decided I better have more than just three ready to use, so I whipped three more up with other flannel and fleece the very next day. From start to finish, it takes me about an hour and a half to make three. I’m guessing if I made a bunch (why would I?) that I could get it down to 30 -45 min. from start to finish easily. I’m just a slow seamstress.

These turned out pretty patriotic I think. It was completely unintentional, but cute all the same. *and see the sewing machine cover behind the pads? I added some denim to the bottom of my cute cover – you can see the original post here.

I have to admit though, that I use the Diva Cup for my cycle, and I don’t need a lot of pads anymore. Just one a day in case of any leaks and one at night for a few nights. 6 may be all I need to complete my week, but we’ll see.

Oh, and in case you’re interested, I spent $27 on 6 fabrics and thread and I’ll never need to buy fabric again (for this purpose). I still have another fleece and some flannel left to make a ton more. I bought a half a yard of 5 fabrics and a yard and a third of another fabric. It would have been cheaper had I not picked out fancy fabric. That blue was $9 something a yard! And that was after a sale.

If you’re brave enough to cross over into the world of cloth, let me know if you try making your own. Or if you have already made some, add your link in the comments section. I’d love to see how other people are making their own – and steal your ideas!

*********UPDATE****************

After trying them out this month, I can say that I have NO IDEA if they work or not. Every month I need a pad a day as a backup. but this month I didn’t leak once. Ugh. I’m happy about that really, but I can’t tell you if they worked or not. I liked them, and I would not recommend using Velcro honestly, but I managed to make it work. If you have any questions, leave me a comment or send me an email and I’ll get back to you.

Foto Friday–Fill the Frame

2011-09-09T08:00:00.000-04:00

Last month, there was a free hot air balloon festival in our neighboring, small town’s, county airport. It was free to the public, so we jumped right on that event. I have always loved hot air balloons since I was a little girl. I used to wish upon a star that I’d get to ride in one someday. Since Rick would rather jump out of an airplane than ride in a hot air balloon, my chances for going up in one look slim. I’m okay with that. The older I get, the less brave I become.

As a hobby photographer, I was in photography heaven that night. The balloons were so colorful, the weather was beautiful, and there were no restrictions on how close you were allowed to get to the balloons. I couldn’t believe that I could get as close as I wanted to the balloons. I could have touched them. Oh man! Why didn’t I touch one? I did stick my head inside a few to take some neat pictures.

All of these pictures are my “fill the frame” photos for today’s prompt. And all I did to edit them was (in Photoshop) add an overlay layer and either a hard mix or screen layer. All levels were adjusted down to make the colors pop just right.

There were 10 balloons in all, but I could only get 8 in the frame at one time because one went up pretty early and left the scene for a while, and one was late in getting started.

Start Your Day With a Rainbow

2011-09-07T08:25:00.000-04:00

The other day I decided to make rainbow pancakes. I can’t say what possessed me to do such a thing, but I’d seen it before and I thought Jack might enjoy it. Plus, he was asking me for blue pancakes, which I thought was weird and would look gross, so I turned it into a rainbow of pancakes. He loved it, and it didn’t take much effort to make them.

It wasn’t hard to dollop out my batter into 5 small bowls, then add about 5 drops of food coloring to each. The orange was the only one I had to mix. I think it’s a 2-3 ratio of yellow to red. Or a “mix until you like the color” ratio.

I have to admit, it was kind of freaky seeing colored pancakes cooking on the griddle. Fun, but freaky.

In the end, I was impressed with how colorful they turned out. I really enjoyed making these, and I see them happening in my future. Not often of course, but I’ll do this again for a rare treat I’m sure.

Have you ever tried Rainbow pancakes? They will start your day off with a smile.

Best Friends

2011-09-06T09:04:00.000-04:00

Jack has a few buddies his age that we love to hang out with. Jack is the oldest, and these three boys are almost all the same age –born the same month I believe. Of course, I’m friends with their mamas, whom I love to hang out with as well.

I thought I’d show you some sweet “Best Friend” pictures I’ve captured recently while the boys were hanging out.

Tiny

Ben

McCager

Did I ever mention that I like the back of my son’s head? I feel the same way about his friends too. Little boys are meant to be pictured like this. It shows off their curiosity and sense of adventure. They’re always on the go!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

2011-09-04T09:54:00.000-04:00

This is my first Scavenger Hunt Sunday, and it’s about darn time! I’ve loved seeing these posts on various blogs I read, including the host, and I’ve always wanted to join in. But 5 topics and 5 photos is, evidently, hard for me to get together. Maybe it’s that it is a weekend post, and I’m not very good with those. Whatever it is, I’m so happy to be finally participating. (I hope it’s not my last time, but don’t hold your breath next Sunday)

The idea of this photo challenge is to take 5 new photos during the week for the 5 prompts. I have to admit that I’m cheating a bit. These shots weren’t all taken this week. Most of them weren’t. But that’s not stopping me.

Stairs

These are steps up an Indian burial mound in Marietta, Ohio. We were just there 2 weeks ago.

Macro

Yes, Yes I am. And so are you!

Clouds

I took this a few weeks ago. I posted the SOOC shot before.

Abstract

We went to a hot air balloon festival a few weeks ago. I was able to stand right beside the basket of this one and stick my head in there to get this picture. So cool!

Smile

It’s rare that I take a self portrait that I like. Or that I share. So here is one that fits both bills.

Foto Friday–Around the Yard

2011-09-02T10:57:00.001-04:00

This week’s theme is Around the Yard/Garden. Seeing as how I don’t have a garden, I picked a picture of my cute little subject who loves to play in the yard. Since the temperatures are back up well into the 90’s again, we’ll not be visiting the yard today. Mommy’s pretty much a wimp when it comes to hot temperatures and would rather stay in the air conditioning.

I edited this with my favorite actions “Heist” from Paint the Moon and “Miracle Makeover” from (I don’t remember – Kim, help me out here). Really, I LOVE these actions. “Heist” seems to be my go-to action these days. That being said, I do think it looked better on my screen when pulled up in photoshop than it does on this blog. I’m not sure why. I may have to go take some more brightness out again before I order them for my wall. This is going to be my next framed picture of him I think.

*Sorry for all the photo-speak. I just figured that some people like to hear how I processed my picture this time.

Have a great weekend. I hope you get to do something fun for this long weekend. Stay cool!

Let’s Talk About Nail Polish

2011-08-30T07:00:00.000-04:00

I do not wear nail polish as a general rule. It's not because I don’t like it. It’s because I’m too lazy to work on the upkeep. Actually, I used to be too lazy – now I have a toddler. I also don’t do my nails often (more than 2 or 3 times a year) because Rick doesn’t like polished nails. He likes natural hair and nails. I think he just likes that they don’t cost any money for upkeep.

Before I met my husband, I got my nails done regularly for about 2 years. I LOVE how manicured nails don’t chip, how my cuticles look beautiful, and I never have to do a thing with them to keep them looking nice (except pay money to get them done again). I would go back and forth between a nice French manicure air brush and a pupley-mauve polish. For Christmas one year I did RED. I loved it, but never did it again. Red just isn’t my style.

Lately, I’ve found a neat product that I may spend the money on every once in a while because it lasted 10 days without chipping. It makes your nails stronger, and the subtle blush color is more my style now than anything. The only bad part is that if you don’t take it off correctly – like me – you may peel off a layer of your actual nail when you go to take off the polish. And it takes a lot of work to get it off. That’s why I like that it lasts so long.

When it comes to my nail polish collection, it’s sparse. And it’s all very similar in the color selection. I’m not very brave and I don’t try new polishes often. *See first paragraph for why I don’t*

This weekend, while I was at my mom’s I was browsing through her Avon catalog. I glanced down at nails that were painted a chocolatey-mauve and I fell in love. I immediately asked if I could paint my nails with something she had in her collection. Turns out, this apple doesn’t fall far from the mauve tree. Her collection did not include this new color I had just become a fan of. It looked just as mauve and just as sparse as mine did.

I love my mom. You want to know why? Because my mom is ordering this Avon nail polish just because I loved it. I can’t wait to get it! She spoils me.

Not Again!!

2011-08-29T09:21:00.001-04:00

Remember this post last winter? It’s one of my best stories ever, and I highly recommend taking a second to read that post. Jack still says “Bring me back my [insert object he wants here]!!”

Okay, now, remember this project I worked on for my husband who bikes into work? {He actually parks in the garage more often than not, though he should be saving us $85 a month by biking in just a mile or so from a free parking lot.}

Well, when you put those two posts together, you get what happened over the weekend.

Someone stole his bike.

It makes me want to storm out into the neighborhood and yell “BRING ME BACK MY BIKE!” I just know that if I watch the kids riding around, I’ll see his bike under one of their sorry butts. But, I’ve been told not to confront anyone, and I don’t plan to.

The full story is this….

Rick keeps his bike in the bed of his truck every single night. It’s attached with one single bungee cord. It does not have a tarp over it, and it’s not hidden in any way what so ever. It’s been like this for about 2 years now.

This Saturday, I took the truck and left the van for my husband who was staying with Jack all day – God bless him! He asked me to take his bike out of the truck before I took it, so I put it up by the front door. (I couldn’t just open the garage door and slip it in to protect it). Meanwhile, he had a rough day with Jack, and they never left the house. Fast forward to Sunday night, and Rick says, “Is my bike still on the front step?”

“No, I thought you brought it in.”

“I meant to, but I forgot. It’s really not there?”

“Nope, it’s not there.”

“Great. Someone stole it.”

I hate my neighborhood – mostly just the ~~punks~~ kids – and I can’t wait to move away. Remember the land in the picture yesterday? Let’s all pray that God provides us with someplace like that for us SOON. The acreage can be less, the house can be less, and the distance away from our families can be less or more, but we’ll take anything He wants to give us NOW!

Scripture & Snapshot

2011-08-28T17:05:00.001-04:00

A few months ago, we found this land that we LOVED in West Virginia. For years now, we’ve been looking for land to move to, maybe with a house on it, maybe not. Sometimes when we find land, I get a feeling of dread – like it would be a bad idea to move there. Sometimes I get a feeling of indifference – like I’d be okay if we moved there, but I’d also be okay if we didn’t. Very rarely I get a feeling of excitement – like I can see us moving there and I actually WANT to go there soon. This land was the rare occasion when I actually wanted to move here. It was 80+ acres in the middle of nowhere, but so gorgeous and in our price range. (I did confirm that there would be internet access before I felt excited).

When we went home to pray about/stew over it, we decided that we would make a motion forward with this property. When we went back to the site to find it, it was gone.

¹⁵And he said to him, "If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.”

This verse was part of our pastor’s sermon this morning. It is exactly what I want to say when I face a decision like this. Lord, I don’t want to go there unless YOU will be there. Evidently, the Lord didn’t want us to have this property. That’s okay. If He wasn’t going to be there with us, I wouldn’t have wanted to be there anyway.

This verse also reminds me of my friend Brooke from Mountain Mama. Her family has followed where the lord leads, and they’ve been blessed because of it. They’ve also seen hard times, which she is going through right now, but always, she has said “I don’t want to go there unless You are there with me.” She is an inspiration to me. Could you please say a quick prayer for her family as they’re figuring out what the Lord wants for them at this juncture? Thanks!!

Foto Friday–Black and White

2011-08-26T07:14:00.001-04:00

Rick’s dad is a preacher. 30 years ago he preached in this tiny town’s Methodist church to a congregation of 5 people. I’m guessing he was the last preacher to stand at the pulpit in this church.

The name above the doors says it was founded in 1870. It survived over 100 years, but it’s still sad to see a church that has been abandoned.

This last picture is SOOC. I love how it looks black and white but really is in full color. The previous picture I simply edited in Picasa.

Have a great weekend!

Recipe Boxes Prettified…sorta

2011-08-25T09:09:00.001-04:00

Do you remember these? (click on the picture to see how I organized my recipes)

I LOVE having my recipes organized. I knew that I would cover them someday, but I wanted to wait until I found just the right paper. I found this at JoAnne’s the other day, and it was 50% off – LOVE!

Now, before you look too closely, I want to remind you that I’m not a paper crafter. I’ve never done this before. I’m pretty sure that if you want to cover a box with paper and Mod Podge, you should use something other than scrapbook paper. It’s pretty thick, and these boxes are pretty irregularly shaped. (irregular meaning they’re not flat and prefect rectangles). I have no clue how to do this correctly, but I covered each box with 2 different pages that I thought were kitchen appropriate. To finish it up, I put a layer of Mod Podge on the entire box as a sealant.

While they’ll never win any awards for being perfect or even beautiful, they’re much nicer to have in my kitchen than the plain gray boxes. I hope they last for years to come, and that they don’t start peeling any time soon.

Friends With Blogs

2011-08-24T08:03:00.000-04:00

Do you have a blog? This is for you if you do.

If you could please check your profile to make sure I can email you back after you comment, that’d be great. I love replying to comments via email, but if your profile isn’t set up correctly, I can’t do that. And if I can’t do it, think of the other blogs you’re leaving comments on that can’t reply to you. You’re missing out on some great relationships that can be formed by simply leaving a comment on someone’s blog.

Here is the link. It’s SO SIMPLE to fix. It will take you all of two clicks and three whole seconds. I promise!

You can leave me a comment to see if it worked for you if you’d like. If you get a reply, it works!!

Thanks! Have a great day!!

How Do You Find Time?

2011-08-23T10:29:00.001-04:00

While I’ve never been asked this question, I’ve seen other bloggers who have answered the question “How do you find time to blog while still being a mom?”

While this is perhaps not the BEST way to get it done, it’s working for me today. Jack loves playing in the sandbox, and I love being out here with him. But, unlike him, I’m not a huge fan of playing in the sand. So, while he’s building castles, grading roads, and dozing sand dunes, I’m getting caught up on my blog reading, Facebooking, and post writing. It’s a good combination!

Happy Anniversary! {Wedding A-Z}

2011-08-20T09:24:00.000-04:00

Today, 6years ago, Rick and I entered into the world of wedded bliss. Every year I say to myself, “you should do an anniversary post!”. Every year (I’ve been blogging for two years) I fail to produce one. At the beginning of the month, a bloggy friend of mine did this and I decided to steal it. Thanks for the idea, Rachel!

A = Attendance

We had a very small wedding. My dad and step-mother graciously let us take over their backyard for the ceremony. I think I invited just over 100 people and probably only about 70 or 80 came. I think the distance (it was over an hour away for most people) may have kept some away.

B = Bridesmaids

I had my two best friends, Heather and Beth stand up with me. Officially I didn’t have any bridesmaids but a Matron of Honor and a Maid of Honor. I loved that I could have them both in the same honored position. They picked out their dresses, which provided my color scheme for the wedding. they liked the dressed a lot, though they’ll never wear them again. I won’t mention that Beth loves hers so much that she puts it on every chance she gets. She wore it for Halloween one year. She really loves it!

C = Cake

I had no clue what to do about my cake. I ended up going to a local grocery store and ordering their wedding cake. It was so yummy, and it stood up well to the 90+ weather we had that day. I told them I wanted my cake topper to be something with stargazer lilies. I think it turned out pretty good.

D = Dress

I loved my dress. I tried on 5 and this was the one I came back to every time. I bought it from a woman who was running a dress shop out of her old house. It’s not even there anymore. The two things that I loved about my dress were that it had a pocket - how fun – and it had a cathedral train. I didn’t want to leave the train long since my wedding was outside, so my mom’s friend put French bustles in it. I absolutely LOVED how they looked.

E = Engagement

Rick and I met through eHarmony. We were matched on my birthday (May 31), met two weeks later for our first date on June 11th, and were married the next August. I love that we met on this huge matching service, bu we lived just 4 miles down the road from each other. Turns out, we just needed a way to meet – our lives matched up so well after that!

We were engaged for 6 months before we were married. I forced him to get engagement pictures with me. It was in the HUGE package deal I ordered from our photographer so I couldn’t let it go to waste.

F = Flowers

I made my own flowers for my wedding. My friend Heather made her own for her wedding, so I kind of stole her ideas. I loved my bouquets. I was so proud of them. It was the first really crafty thing I’d ever done. I think pretty much every one hated the dangling green things on mine, but I liked it. I especially loved the lilies. My favorite flowers are lilies.

G = Groomsmen

Rick had his brother and brother-in-law stand up with him. Their requirements for their suits were to wear grey suits and I’d provide the ties. Poor guys. I made them wear coral! I’m sure they dumped their ties in the Goodwill box as soon as the wedding was over.

H = Honeymoon

We rented a small cabin in the Middle of Nowhere, West Virgina, and we loved it. It was so remote we saw black bears and knew of mountain lions being on the property, not to mention the hundreds of deer we saw everywhere. We found fun stuff to do for the week like canoeing, seeing a fish hatchery or two, visiting historic sites, fishing, grilling out, playing board games, and driving around the countryside.

This was the first time we stopped at Cabelas together, which has now become a tradition on our big vacations.

I = Invitations

With the help of my bridesmaids and mother, I made my own invitations. I think I bought the kit at Target or somewhere like that. The original invitations were white and silver, and we just added a bit of coral cardstock to tie it in with my wedding colors. (these pictures look like they’re from a cell phone, but they’re from an actual digital camera. It was such a sad little camera)

J = Justice of the Peace

Our associate pastor and Rick’s father married us. We both wanted Rick’s dad to officiate, but we also really wanted our associate pastor to have a part, so we split the ceremony for them to both have parts. It worked really well.

K = Keepsakes

I didn’t have favors I don’t think. Maybe I had little bells on the table for guests to ding-a-ling during the reception, but no formal favors. I did make our programs really huge hearts so that they could be used as fans. It was HOT HOT HOT that day, so we made my program substantial enough to hold up to being used as fans. I didn’t put a stick on them because I thought that might be overkill. Big hearts are bad enough. I also had these cute cups of fake rose petals that guests were supposed to toss at us while we walked back down the aisle, but I guess they all missed the memo on that one. Only one or two people actually threw petals at us. Oh well. It was better for the environment that way.

L = Ladies Night

I had a bachelorette party, but I didn’t take any pictures. So this is a picture from my bridal shower. It’s my mom, sister, aunt, and grandmother. My grandmother was so happy to make it to my wedding. Her next goal was to make it to see my twins be born. Unfortunately, she died just 9 days after my wedding. I’m pretty sure my last goodbye to her was as we were all leaving from the wedding. What a great final goodbye to have – we were all so happy, and so huggy that day. I’m glad I got that goodbye.

Oh, and I don’t have twins, and she had the same goal about my sister, so I’m pretty sure she wasn’t prophetic, just wishful.

M = Music

I was blessed to have live musicians at my wedding. My friend and roommate at the time (who happened to get married just 2 weeks before I did) played the keyboard for the communion song. I also asked my aunt to play the violin for pre wedding and walking down the aisle music, but she and my grandmother gifted me with her stringed ensemble she plays with often for weddings. It was beautiful. They played Pachabel’s Cannon in D while the girls walked down the aisle and Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring as I walked down. I LOVE that song.

N = Newlyweds

This is the first picture we took of ourselves as a married couple. This is when we went back home after the wedding, and after his parents had gone. (they came back with use after the wedding to wait out a storm before heading home). Though I look a bit ragged in this picture, I love how perfectly happy we look in this picture. I loved my wedding day!

O = Old, Borrowed, Blue & New

My mom helped me take care of the old, borrowed, and blue items. I’m not sure how far back this particular dime goes, but each woman in our family puts this same dime in her shoe when she gets married. I’m not exactly sure why a dime, but probably for good luck and prosperity in your marriage. I also had my grandfather’s handkerchief in my dress pocket, and if I’m not mistaken, it may have had blue in it. If not, I may not have had a ‘something blue’ on me. I can’t remember if I had a garter or not. If I did, it probably had blue in it.

Rick and I took care of the ‘something new’ item (besides the dress). We built an arbor to put up as our alter in the front of our tent. Rick spent HOURS working on that thing. We were still painting it the day before the wedding. (it’s currently sitting in our basement in pieces)

P = Photographer

We hired a photographer who I felt was like an old family friend. He was the photographer who did all of our school’s pictures, everyone’s senior pictures, and I’d recommended to two of my friend’s weddings before he did mine. Unfortunately, because of my lateness in ordering pictures, and his retiring from the business, our actual pictures (the ones in our frames) didn’t turn out very good at all. I was a bit disappointed in his pictures overall. It’s a good thing my sister is such an avid picture taker! She is responsible for over half of the pictures you see in this post. This is what she looked like the entire day, and I love her for it!

Q = Question Popping

Our actual question popping moment wasn’t extraordinary. We were sitting in his truck, in his garage when he looked at me and said “We really should get married. Do you wanna get married?” Swoon. But now that truck (that’s in the shop still) holds a place in my heart.

The next week, when I returned from a conference, he gave me a ring. It was oh, so romantic again. I was sitting at the dinner table and he said, ‘I got you a ring.” Swoon.

R = Reception

Our reception ‘hall’ and food was provided by my dad and step-family. We decorated their newly built pole barn (thanks, Jenn for sacrificing your thumb for my wedding decorations – staples are fun!) and Sandi (step-mother) put out a great spread of sandwich fixins and sides.

I made (actually, I think my step sister Andrea and her friends made) little flower center pieces with plastic flower pots and bright fake flowers. Sounds classy, right? I liked them.

Right after our ceremony was over, my guests had to change out the rows of chairs for tables and chairs. I had asked a few of the men coming to help, but I think everyone just kind of pitched in and helped. Again, so classy!

S = Shoes

There was a picture of the actual shoes I wore for the wedding earlier in this post – under something borrowed, old, blue. But these babies were made by Heather (Matron of Honor) just for me, so I wanted to show them off. I originally thought that I’d want to wear flip flops for my actual wedding. I thought it might bring together the informal setting with the formal dress. But then I realized I didn’t want to SLAP-SLAP-SLAP my way down the aisle. I saved the shoes for my honeymoon. They turned out to be really great slippers.

T = Trash the Dress

It’s currently hung in the spare room with dirt still on it’s hem. I wanted to clean and preserve it, but I never went to figure out how much it would cost. It may never happen!

U= Unique

I’m pretty sure no one has ever stopped a ceremony to get a spider off of the bride’s dress, but that’s what happened during our wedding. There was a great big daddy long leg spider climbing up my dress, and I think Beth alerted me about it. Rick, my hero, leaned over and picked it right off. I’m not a fan of spiders! I lov e that my sister got a picture of this. That’s a great photographer!

Another thing that stopped our ceremony for a second was a huge plane that flew overhead. We couldn’t hear anything but the plane, so we had to stop and wait for it to pass. Jennifer (the sister photographer) still kicks herself that she didn’t run out of the tent and take a picture.

W = Weather

It’s always windy out at my dad’s place, so I knew the wind would keep us a little cool, since the temperature was supposed to be up in the low 90s. Unfortunately, our ceremony took place during a calm before a storm. It wasn’t too windy (though the MIL’s did have a hard time lighting the candles), so our guests were sweltering! Then, after the ceremony, the clouds started to get dark. This first picture is of the last people getting through the food line and coming back to the tent. (Rick’s sister and brother-in-law). They made it just in time. The clouds opened up and drenched the land while we were all *pretty much* dry under the tent. Afterwards, the huge, white, puffy clouds were perfect for pictures.

After all the guests left, the skies opened up again and I guess a horrible storm came through. It was bad enough to rip the tent, which the tent company said they’d never seen happen to their tents before. I love this picture because even though the storm was bad enough to rip a tent, it didn’t pick up all the fake rose petals I laid down on the ground. I’m sure they’re still finding those fake petals even today! (so un-green!)

X marks the spot

I didn’t get a guest book for our guests to sign, but this framed engagement photo instead. I had seen this idea popping up everywhere, and I loved it. I found a frame that looked like it was from old barn wood, which was perfect for our outdoor theme. It hangs in our living room still.

Y = Yes!

I love this picture of me and Rick. This was my photographer’s idea. Very cute.

This section was supposed to be about my service and vows. I’m not sure there’s anything spectacular about either of those, so I’ll just stick with this picture.

Z = zzzzz

What else is there to do after your own wedding, but sleep it off? All the work leading up to it, the emotions during the day, and the excitement of going on a week-long vacation with your new husband all leads up to a good night’s sleep. I loved my wedding day, Rick tolerated it, and we’re living happily ever after!

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Oh boy. I can’t tell you how long this post took me to type up. I will say that I started it right after I saw Rachel’s which was back in the beginning of August. Whew! And now, you deserve a break. Go grab a nap or something. You deserve it after reading the longest post ever!

Foto Friday–Together

2011-08-19T06:31:00.000-04:00

Whenever these two are together, it makes my heart melt. That little boy loves his daddy more than anything in the world, and the feeling is mutual. Daddy is quite the softy when it comes to that little boy.

I love to see them together.

I’m Going Old School

2011-08-18T09:32:00.000-04:00

Follow up post from yesterday’s Debby Downer post about everything breaking and going wrong in my world.

Recently, I’ve noticed that I’m using a lot of “Old School” gadgets around the house (some because things have broken and some because of choice) and instead of feeling like I’m missing out on newfangled, modern technologies, I’m LOVING it. Let me show you some things I’m trying out.

Our vacuum cleaner broke the other day. Luckily it was just a belt so it was fixable for about $12. While I was complaining about my busted vacuum to my friend Beth, she mentioned that she uses a motor-less sweeper most of the time in her home. I thought it might be a good thing for me to try, since it takes up very little space, makes no noise (Jack runs from the big vacuum), is super light, and doesn’t require the added step of plugging in a cord (then trying not to vacuum over it).

This sweeper was only $30, and I have to say that I love it. Jack loves to sweep with it, so we left off one of the handle pieces to make it short for him. I’m really impressed with how well it picks up the dirt. Even the dusty dirt is picked up. I’ll still use my big sweeper every once in a while, but this is great for quick clean up jobs.

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Shortly before our microwave busted, we decided to get some cast iron to use. I have one 8” (I think, maybe it’s 10”) skillet and it has become the ONLY skillet I use anymore. I love the *mostly* even heat –I think it’d be more even if my burner was more evenly heating. I also love that I can use ANY utensil on it and it won’t ruin it. I reheat everything in it, and it always stays on my stovetop, because I know it’s going to be used every day.

This skillet was only $19 and it came pre seasoned, so it was ready to go. The only part I had a problem with was the cleaning, and this was solved after a few searches on the WWW. I found the best way to clean cast iron is to scrape it out under hot water, then sprinkle salt and oil in the pan, scrub it out with a sponge, then rinse with hot water. It makes it amazingly clean. I’ve actually heard about the oil cleansing method for skin, and after seeing how well it cleans my pan, I believe it would work well.

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By now, I can assume you all know I use cloth diapers. I LOVE them. When my mother-in-law (via my sister-in-law) taught me about using cornstarch for diaper rash, I fell even more in love with cloth diapers. They don’t leak if used correctly, I can count the number of blowouts we’ve had in 2 and a half years on one hand, and they are so darn adorable. Even the plain ones I use. I was nervous when I started, but I’m so glad I did, and I won’t ever go back to disposable if I can help it. I love the money we’ve saved.

We use mostly BumGenius 3.0 with a few 4.0’s thrown in for their cute patterns. I also just recently added some Blueberry one size pockets to my stash thanks to a generous gift, and I love them.

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Since we don’t have a microwave, I had to figure out a new way to make popcorn. After looking up some recipes (yes, I looked up “how to cook popcorn” recipes online), I found out how easy it is to cook popcorn on your stovetop. And, of course, it’s super cheap! I grew up with an electric popcorn popper, then we graduated to using the microwave, so I missed out on actually popping popcorn on the stove in our own pans. Rick laughed at me when I told him I finally learned how to make popcorn ‘from scratch’.

This is the best popcorn recipe I’ve found because it gives some techniques on how to make a really great, slightly salty popcorn. It works every time. I have also been trying to perfect a kettlecorn recipe, but so far I’m ending up with burned, sugary popcorn and a burned arm. I’ll get back to working on this later. Don’t be fooled though, I’m totally enjoying the mistake batches.

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So, even though my world is breaking down around me, I’m enjoying some of the new “old school” ways of doing things these days. For everything that breaks, there’s a new learning experience to be had. See, I told you I’m a pretty optimistic person.

Perfect Picture Day

2011-08-17T14:23:00.001-04:00

The other day, while Jack and I were driving home from running errands in the middle of the day, I told him I wanted to stop and take pictures of the beautiful sky. The weather was perfect and I loved all the puffy clouds in the clear blue sky. It was my idea of a perfect day.

Jack said he wanted to take pictures too, so I decided to give him my old point and shoot (as opposed to my new point and shoot ) and let him have at it.

When I gave him the camera, it was broken. There was something wrong with the card. It wasn’t reading that it had a memory stick in it, or something else about the memory stick was bad. I couldn’t figure out how to fix it, so I just gave it to him, told him it was broken, but that he could ‘metend’ (pretend) that he was taking pictures. By the end of the impromptu photo shoot, the camera was fixed and he was taking pictures like a champ.

Here are some of our SOOC (straight out of the camera) shots. Maybe someday I’ll take the time to sit down and bring out the blues and greens, and play around with layers and levels, but I couldn’t want to show you what I captured the other day. Plus, I think they’re pretty good SOOC. I’m pretty proud of my little point and shoot.

Good form, buddy!

This is Jack’s picture. Honestly. Now, it was the only picture that was worth showing – only one with out a finger in it really- but it’s honestly his picture of his doing. And I tell you the truth that I was wondering the whole time if I should have gotten down on my bottom to take a picture from a lower perspective. I’m glad Jack had me covered.

Want Some Tips?

2011-08-15T09:28:00.001-04:00

I mentioned in one of my last posts that I had more to say about cloth diapering tips. (are you sick of hearing about our diapers yet?)

If you would like to see my tips and a few ‘through the year’ pictures of Jack, you can go to HERE and see yesterday’s guest post.

I would have posted this yesterday, but I was without my laptop. We’re all back up and running now. Better than ever!

Oh, and this was my first guest post, which made me really nervous! I think it went well though. No hate comments as of yet.

Foto Friday–Out the Window

2011-08-12T08:30:00.000-04:00

Today’s theme was a little tricky for me to come up with, but after scrolling through my photos, I ended up with two that I can’t decide between. I’ll let you pick your favorite for today.

We went to the National Air Force Museum near Dayton, OH a few weekends ago, and boy was that fun! They have three HUGE hangers full of military planes that date back all the way to the Wright Brother’s first plane. It’s a free museum, which makes it even more impressive.

There are two cockpits that kids (or anyone) can sit in to see what it feels like to be a pilot. Jack loved them both. The F-4 cockpit made Jack look so little! I got down on my hands and knees to take this picture, and I’m so glad I did. I love how he’s peeping out of what would be a window if it was a complete cockpit. You should click on the picture to see it bigger. This small image doesn’t do it justice.

The following weekend we went to EnterTrainMent Junction near Cincinnati, OH which has the world’s largest indoor model train display. It was not free, and perhaps a bit overpriced, but very impressive all the same. The models were amazingly detailed. You could stand there and look at one little scene for five minutes and still not see all the tiny little details. That is, if you didn’t have a toddler pulling you to the toy train area.

While looking at the detailed buildings and scenery, I noticed one building that was a jailhouse. It had an inmate escaping through the window, and I thought that was the funniest thing.

See him? He’s escaping “out the window.”

Thanks so much for stopping by today and seeing my take on this week’s theme. As always, please visit La-La’s Home Daycare to check out other Foto Friday submissions. If you blog, and don’t already participate, you really should! This photo meme is not intimidating at all and everyone is so nice when they stop by!

Have a great weekend!

When it rains…

2011-08-10T08:25:00.000-04:00

It pours.

I’m not normally a negative or pessimistic person. I’m normally a very hopeful, joyful, and optimistic person, but recently, there have been a lot of issues popping up at the same time around here and it’s enough to make a person a little down. Here is a list of all the things breaking (or have broken) in our lives right now:

Our garage door opener has finally died. It’s been dying a slow death over the past year, but it finally busted two weeks ago. While it’s not a big deal, we’re manually opening and closing our door now. Even in the rain. Since we don’t have a key that locks the door, we have to close and lock it from the inside, walk back through the house, lock the front door, then get back in the van. That’s getting a little old. Oh, and the door needs replaced as well, since it’s disintegrating daily. There’s a small hole in the bottom portion that is slowly getting bigger.

Rick’s pick up truck, his baby, has been in a fender bender. His fender bended. It’s been in the shop for two weeks, but it’s been three and a half weeks since his accident. I’m guessing it’s going to be at least another week before we get it back. Since we’re not getting a rental car for now, we’ve been using one vehicle to get us all to work and playdates. That means Jack and I are ripped out of bed at 5:45 in the mornings to take Daddy to work every day. We also get to pick him up after work in the afternoons. Not being a morning person, I hate this. But I don’t mind spending the extra time with Rick while we carpool, so I guess it has it’s perks.

My poopy cloth diapers weren’t coming clean recently. I was pulling out still-poopy diapers from my washing machine after FOUR cycles. I’ll be guest posting later this month and sharing more on this topic then.

Though it really has been too hot to play outside a ton, we haven’t had access to our sandbox in 3 weeks because of our baby mice. I haven’t looked too recently, but I’m guessing they’re just about gone now, since the last time we looked, one baby mouse was running around without it’s mama chasing him down. He actually ran out of the sandbox and through our fence. Part of me hopes the little guy doesn’t make it (who wants MORE mice around?), but the compassionate side of me felt really bad that I caused it to possibly leave it’s nest too soon. I’m not losing sleep over it though.

My laptop has issues. It may just be simple fixes like getting an external keyboard, always sitting next to a plug, and finding a new cord that will actually charge my battery, but they’re still issues. In the pile of broken things in my life, this is the least of my worries – as long as it keeps working I’m fine.

Our microwave broke about 6 months ago. (we only just put it in 5 years ago!) One day it just went POP and a horrible smell and some smoke came out of it. We haven’t fixed it or bought a new one, so it’s skillet and oven reheating for us!

Our vacuum cleaner busted a belt last weekend. I thought we were going to have to buy a whole new vacuum, but fixing the belt ended up being all it needed. Whew! We’re super cheap and don’t like to buy new things if we can help it. Can you tell?

Our refrigerator is on it’s last leg I’m sure. The unit that keeps the freezer freezing is broken. Maybe. We turned our dials to a new position and it seemed to help. There is frost build up in the icebox area, which I can’t figure out why, but it’s only keeping us from using the ice maker on the door. Which, by the way, decided that no one should ever have anything other than crushed ice, no matter that they hit the ‘cubed ice’ button. So, we weren’t using the door often for our ice needs anyway.

Whew! I’m overwhelmed all over again just writing this post. Most of these issues are just small things and would be no big deal by themselves, but when they pile on top of each other, it seems like our whole world is crumbling. While that’s not exactly how I feel, sometimes I do get overwhelmed with how much is on our plate at one time. Rick on the other hand is probably glad that these things are breaking. It’s giving me practice for when we eventually live in the middle of nowhere with no electricity or running water. I can’t wait!

Pizza Crust Recipe and Review (sort of)

2011-08-09T09:50:00.000-04:00

Have you ever heard of America's Test Kitchen? When we had a working TV a long time ago, I used to watch this half hour show on Saturday afternoons on PBS. It was one of my favorite cooking shows ever. They also have a magazine that they put out called Cooks Illustrated. I have never subscribed, but I bet I’d love it. I’m too cheap. Speaking of too cheap, the one thing I HATE about this company is that you have to pay to get any of their recipes. A subscription for one year to their website –with unlimited access to all of their recipes- is $15. I have never purchased a subscription, but I think I may eventually. If there’s any place that I trust ALL the recipes that come from, it’s this place.

I have two big cookbooks from them. One was a gift from my step mother that includes hundreds of baking recipes.

The other was a gift to myself that includes 10 years worth of recipes from their TV program. I figured, if I’m going to buy a cookbook of theirs (they’re pretty expensive), it might as well be one that includes everything I’ve ever seen them cook!

The fun thing about these cookbooks and their show is that they have taken hours and hours to try out these recipes to find out what works the best. They switch things up (like oven temperature, ingredients, and cooking time) to see what makes the recipe work the best. They include all the science behind the recipes in their cookbooks, which I love to read. I like that they not only tell you, “salted butter works best for this…” but they tell you why salted butter works better.

The reason I am sharing about America’s Test Kitchen is not because I’m getting paid or compensated in any way. They’ve never heard of me and have never sent me anything for free. Wouldn’t that be great if they did!? I just happen to love their recipes, and this pizza crust recipe comes from their cookbook. I highly recommend their cookbooks if you ever come across them on sale. They are pretty expensive, but they have so much more in them than just recipes. And anything I’ve ever tried from them has tasted wonderful.

Okay, on with the recipe! This pizza dough recipe is my adaptation of their pizza dough. There really isn’t anything adapted except that I decided to add Italian Seasoning mix. It takes a bit of time to let it rise and some muscle to spread out the dough, but in my opinion, it’s well worth it.

Our family has Pizza Night every Friday night. When I started menu planning two years ago, I decided that I needed something to make my workload easier. I instated a weekly Pizza Night, and when no on complained about it, it stuck. Here is my favorite dough recipe. I hope you try it!

Pizza Dough (enough for 3 dough balls)

1/2 c warm water

2 1/4 tsp yeast (one packet)

1 1/4 c water, room temp

2 Tbs olive oil

4 c bread flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbs Italian seasoning mix (optional)

Add yeast to 1/2 c warm water in at least a 2 cup measuring bowl/cup. let sit for 5-10 min to allow yeast to 'bloom'. Mix dry ingredients in a stand mixer with a dough hook. Add remaining water and oil to yeast/water mix. Slowly pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Allow dough to knead in mixer for 2-5 minutes. Take out dough, spray the bowl with "pam", and return dough to bowl. Cover with a towel and let sit for 2-2.5 hours. After it has at least doubled in size, take it out and split into two or three dough balls. Store them in the freezer until ready to use. No need to pre-bake - just spread, top with your favorite toppings, and bake for about 25 minutes @ 425-250.

*My notes*

I have used all purpose flour before, many times actually, and I find the taste isn't much different, but the texture is. It's a much stickier dough, and I think, if I remember correctly, it's a crisper crust. I do know that I always use bread flour now, since I like the texture better.

If your yeast is stored in the fridge, use really warm water. If it's stored in the pantry/room temp, just follow directions as normal.

I put some olive oil on the pizza stone before spreading out the dough. It makes it easier to spread.

ATK recommends pushing the dough out with your fingertips, not rolling or stretching it. So that’s what I do.

Art Date–Track prints

2011-08-08T09:47:00.000-04:00

Last week, McCager came over for another Art Date. We decided to use our trucks to paint. I got the idea from the blog Mumma Made It. I get a TON of ideas from her!

Since I didn’t have any paper plates to put the paint down on, we decided to paint the tires and then hand the trucks to the boys. They figured out what to do pretty quickly.

I told Bekah to have Cage bring his favorite car with him, but he didn’t need to bring any really. Jack has plenty of trucks, cars, tractors, backhoes, and big rigs. It’s a love of his.

We tried to get them to notice how the different tires made different tracks, but I’m not sure they really cared. they just liked running the machines across the paper to make tracks.

Of course, they had to stop and play with the trucks as they went. I understand that. The paint cleaned up pretty well from the tires afterwards. I just used a damp cloth and wiped most of it off.

Afterwards, they tried out my homemade play dough. I have to say it was an awesome play dough. (I only used 1Tb oil instead of 2) It was the perfect consistency and the colors turned out pretty good. I added just a touch of almond extract to add a nice smell to it, but wasn’t enough I guess. I couldn’t smell it unless I put it up to my nose. I read how you can use Kool-Aid packets to color the dough and it makes it smell great too. I want to try that!

Jack has played with play dough (the real stuff) in Sunday School, so he knew what to do with it and what it was all about. Cage, on the other hand, has never played with the stuff, so it was a new experience for him. I think he liked it, though all he really wanted to do was go outside and play. Poor guy. We torture him by making him stay in and do art when all he wants to do is go play baseball. *He’s AWESOME at baseball. He can hit a ball pitched to him almost every time. Seriously! He’s the next…umm…. “insert name of really great baseball player here.”*

I gave them some plastic knives to use with their play dough and Jack showed his awesome slicing skills. I had no idea he could slice so evenly. I may have to have him help out more in the kitchen.

I have to admit that I’m a little OCD when it comes to my play dough. I’m sure Bekah was ready to slap me silly when I kept telling the boys, “keep the colors separate!” I always hated when colors mixed. I’ll have to get a little more relaxed about that.

Finally, after the educational portion of our play date was done, Cage entertained us with a tribute to the Doors. He was more like Elvis with a curled lip, but it was so adorable all the same.

I love having these art dates with McCager and Bekah. I have Pinned a bunch of ideas that I’d love to try with the boys. I have a feeling someday we’ll move on to teaching them letters and numbers, but for now, it’s all about the art.

Welcome!

2011-08-06T13:47:00.001-04:00

Hi to all of you who are stopping by from Happily Domestic today. I’m glad you stopped by!

Take a while to look around and see what gems of randomness you can find. Some of my favorites are the Growth Chart Moments posts, but that’s because I enjoy seeing how much my little man is growing.

I’ve written a few posts on how I’m a little bit Crunchy and other ways I try to save money for our family.

Take a look through my labels down there on my sidebar and see if there is anything that might interest you.

I’m honored to be featured as a cloth diapering mama, and I hope you have a fun time looking around my blog.

I’m Being Featured Today

2011-08-06T07:57:00.000-04:00

I don’t know if you noticed the cute Fluff Fest button on my side bar or not. I read a blog called Happily Domestic, and she’s having a month devoted to everything cloth diaper related.

We use cloth diapers on Jack, and we LOVE it. If (when) we have more children, they’ll be in cloth diapers as well – hopefully the ones Jack is slowly outgrowing. I can’t rave enough about them.

Beth (Happily Domestic) is featuring cloth diapering mamas throughout the month, and I am being featured today. Hop on over and check out her blog and see what I have to say about being a cloth diapering mama. I’m sure it’s amazing stuff. I’m always so profound on this blog, right?

*crickets*

Oh, and if any of you have ANY questions about cloth diapers, I’m happy to answer anything that I can.

Foto Friday - Water

2011-08-05T10:07:00.001-04:00

I decided kind of late to get a photo in for today, so these are unedited, untouched, and even unfocused. (Does that make them un-good?) But I wanted to show you some of my favorite shots from when Jack was playing in the sprinkler the other day.

I have to admit that some of my most favorite shots of him are when he’s not looking at the camera – when you can’t see his bright eyes, smiling dimples, or sweet expressions. This is a good thing, since he’s a toddler, and it’s very hard to get a good portrait of him these days.

In this one, I love how, even though you can’t see his face, you can tell that he’s running away from the water that just got him. You can almost hear him squeal.

He loved getting the water in his mouth. It was quite entertaining for me, since most times the water would splash him in his face while he was down there. Call me a mean mommy if you want, but I thought it was hilarious.

I have a TON of pictures of Jack’s back. I love them all.

And this shot is all wrong…the picture is blury, the color is wrong, and his wrists look like they’re broken. But I love his sweet face in this one.

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you go to La-La’s Home Daycare today and see the other photos showcased today.

Lasagna Recipe

2011-08-02T07:00:00.000-04:00

I don’t know what has gotten into me lately, but I feel like sharing my favorite recipes. Boy, I wasn’t kidding when I described my blog as me “rambling my way through life…” I really do ramble about random things. But that keeps you coming back for more, right? To see what amazing randomness I can come up with next. Or maybe it’s just that my blog is like a train wreck, and you can’t look away. I can live with that. Sometimes I feel the same way.

Anyway, this recipe is an old family favorite. Oh, and if you’re Italian, or an Italian food or Lasagna purist, you may want to skip this one. If you’re an Italian food lover, and you love easy, yummy recipes, you may proceed.

I’m not sure where my mother got this recipe, but it’s the only lasagna I ever remember being served growing up. It is called lasagna, but some of you purists may want to force me to call it noodle lasagna. I can live with that. As long as you let me call it YUMMY.

I think so highly of this recipe that I even posted it on Ree Drummond’s (aka The Pioneer Woman) Tasty Kitchen site. I’m pretty sure not one person has looked at it or saved it to their recipe box, but that doesn’t deter me from thinking it’s a great recipe. If you’re a member of Tasty Kitchen, feel free to go save my recipe to your box, rate it as 5 oven mitts, and comment about how amazing this recipe is. Or not. Whatever.

Look past the jarred sauce, noodles, and cottage cheese, and enjoy this recipe! Oh, and if you want to make it even easier than it already is, you can swap out all the seasonings with a good Italian Seasoning mix. I use Pampered Chef’s because I fell in love with it a while back.

Mama’s Lasagna

1 jar spaghetti sauce, at least 3 cups

1-2lbs ground beef

2 1/2 cups water

1 (12oz) box mafalda noodles (I use extra wide dumpling noodles)

1 (24oz) tub cottage cheese

1 tsp salt

dash pepper

1 Tbs parsley

1/2 tsp oregano

dash garlic powder

1 egg slightly beaten

1 large package shredded mozzarella cheese

grated parmesan cheese

----------------

Brown ground beef. Pour spaghetti sauce and water into a large pot. Bring to a full boil, stir in noodles; cover and cook 7 minutes, stirring occasionally until noodles are barely tender. Add beef. In a separate bowl, combine cottage cheese with seasonings and egg. In a greased high sided 9x13” pan, alternate layers of noodles/sauce with cheese mixture and mozzarella cheese, ending with noodles and sauce for top layer. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Let stand at least 5-10 minutes before serving. (Great re-heated)

Foto Friday–Down Low

2011-07-29T07:30:00.000-04:00

I recently mentioned that Jack has learned how to pedal his tricycle. He’s so excited and proud of himself.

While we were out on his first trike ride, I took a bazillion pictures. That’s nothing new. I always take a bazillion pictures. Especially of Jack.

This one was one that I fell in love with when I saw it on the computer screen. I think this is my new favorite picture of Jack. And it doesn’t even have his face in it! I kind of lucked out with this picture. The sun was so bright, I couldn’t see my view finder very well at all (my polarized sunglasses weren’t helping either), so I wasn’t actually looking through the camera when I took this shot. I just held my camera down to my knees and clicked a few times. I LOVE what I ended up with.

I ran an action called Heist, and I forget now who it’s by. Possibly Paint the Moon.

As always, head on over to La-La’s Home Daycare and check out some other Down Low photos. Thanks for stopping by!

Growth Chart Moments

2011-07-27T07:27:00.000-04:00

It’s been almost 5 months since I’ve done a Growth Chart Moments post. If you’re new to this blog (within the past 5 months anyway), these are posts where I list some milestones Jack has reached or cute things he’s doing lately. This one is more of a ‘cute thing he’s doing’ post. Jack’s certainly growing FAST, and there are a ton more that I could have listed. These are my highlights from recent moments we’ve had.

Jack can recognize when there are two things together. He’ll say both, or he’ll correctly say there are 2 of them. Sometimes he can identify 3 items, but not every time I don’t think. He loves to identify double trailer semis when they go by.

He can almost say his full name. His middle name is Emerson, which he sometimes pronounces Esserman. I love to hear him say “Jack Esserman!”

Some of my favorite words he still messes up (there are very few that he doesn’t say correctly) are Cabozer (bulldozer), Perftick! (perfect), Extavator (excavator) and Let’s metend! (pretend). I love those.

The other day we said “Jack, say, ‘No way, Jose!’” He said “No way, Hadozee!” We lost it. We ask him to say it almost every day now. He can finally say it right, but he makes sure to mess it up so we laugh. He loves to make us laugh. He’s always asking, “Is this fun?” “Is this silly?”

Any time Daddy asks him to give him a countdown, he shouts, “3,5,4,3,5,4!” while pointing his finger in the air.

He can put in and even change the DVD’s he wants to watch. He still asks if he can watch a certain video, but he can open the player, change out the DVD (I taught him to poke his finger through the hole), and push the right buttons to get it to play. My job here is done!

He rode his tricycle for the first time today – forward that is. He’s been able to pedal backwards for a while now, but forward is much harder. We went for a ride around our neighborhood this morning, and he loved it. He wants to ride all the time!

And anytime he’s around a new person, he’ll tell them that he’s a big boy now. And that he is. He no longer resembles the little baby boy he was.

Oh, and he’s calling me Hon now. Thanks, Hon. (Honey)

Pink Fluff

2011-07-26T13:10:00.001-04:00

Isn’t that just the prettiest bowl of pink fluff you ever done seen? Okay, so it’s actually kinda gross looking when you see it like this, but let me tell you, this dessert slash side dish slash snack is the most wonderful bowl of fluffiness you’ll ever taste. I bring it to every family gathering we ever have, and it’s usually received with big smiles and big spoons.

If you’re my husband, you won’t like this dessert. If you don’t like pineapple or cherries, you won’t like this side dish. If you don’t like pink, you may not want to make this snack. But I won’t hold any of those against you. If you want to get to know me, get to know this Pink Fluff and you’ll know a little more about who I am. Fluffy, sweet, and….pink? Let’s move on to the recipe.

Pink Fluff

1 can cherry pie filling

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 can crushed pineapple, drained (I’ve made it with chunks too)

8oz sour cream

1 T lemon juice

1 16 oz tub (large) Cool Whip.

Mix pie filling, sweetened condensed milk, pineapple, sour cream and lemon juice in a very large bowl. Fold in Cool Whip.

Refrigerate until ready to serve.

I see a theme with my two recipes I’ve posted this week. Do you? I must really like Cool Whip, and I REALLY like easy ‘mix and serve’ recipes. I think you’ll like this one. Let me know if you try it!

Triple Date Night & Recipe

2011-07-25T11:07:00.001-04:00

Way back in January, Rick and I started something new. We started dating again. Each other of course. I gave Rick some date night tickets for Christmas last year. There was one ticket for each month. We started off pretty well, but that lasted only about three months. We haven’t been on a date since March!

This past Friday, we made up for our lack of dating by doing a triple date with my two best friends from elementary school and their menfolk. We met at Heather’s ~~mansion~~ home, ate lots of food, talked and laughed a LOT, and played some xbox Kinect.

This spread was for 6 adults. We had a lot of leftovers! Heather and Greg made burgers the size of my head that were stuffed with cheese. They were delicious! Beth and I were to bring a side and a dessert. We each brought a couple sides and a couple desserts. Perhaps it was overkill, but it was a yummy overkill.

Since we were all together, we decided to celebrate Mark’s birthday (it was Saturday). We put candles in my famous Peanut Butter Pie. It’s super yummy! Mark is Beth’s beau. Remember Beth? She has now met someone WONDERFUL. We’re all excited for her and think this one is a keeper!

If you’re going to play xbox Kinect, (or any game on any game system really) the best way to play is with a projector screen. Boy, was this fun! We did a sports tournament game –girls against the guys – and I’ve never laughed so hard running in place or flailing my arms. It was such a fun time. Oh, and the girls won EVERY round. Just sayin’.

My friends Heather and Beth have been in my life for 26 years. We all met in elementary school and went through high school together. Beth and I shared lockers every single year of middle school and high school and dyed her hair every color that Kool-Aid comes in. Heather and I used to sing in my basement to Debbie Gibson using Lincoln Logs as microphones. We also sang in her room with her real microphone to any song we could find. These two ladies have been and will always be a part of my life and I couldn’t be luckier to call them friends. And at this point, I can’t de-friend them because they know too much!

Thank you, Heather, for hosting us and being such a warm and welcoming host. I love your blond moments and all the laughter that comes out when we’re together.

Thank you, Beth, for bringing your Mr. Wonderful to meet your wacky friends. He’s wonderful, and I hope we didn’t scare him away. After all the laughing, how are your cheeks?

Honey, thank you for coming with me on this loud and crazy date. It means a lot to me that you were willing to hang out with my crazy, loud friends. And thanks for snuggling with me on the couch during the games. I loved that most of all!

I’m hoping that we’ll be able to make this Triple Date Night happen at least once a year for all of our years to come. I love you guys!!

I hope you have friends like this in your life. Friends like these are rare treasures.

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Now, for the recipe for my mom’s SUPER YUMMY Peanut Butter Pie. Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Pie

8 oz cream cheese

1/2 cup peanut butter (smooth if you’re me, crunchy if you’re my mom)

2Tb milk

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1 tub (8oz) Cool Whip

1 graham cracker pie crust (chocolate in you’re me, regular if you’re Beth)

Mix cream cheese, pb, milk and sugar until smooth. Fold in Cool Whip. Put in pie crust. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Baby Moles

2011-07-16T15:51:00.001-04:00

Remember yesterday when I said “I don’t have any pets, so I can’t show you an animal picture.” Then I found some cows.

Well, today I found some other animals in my very own back yard.

Baby moles. At least I assume they’re moles. They could be baby chipmunks I suppose.

We’ve been using a tent to cover our sandbox, and it’s worked pretty well. It keeps the rain out, and we thought it kept the critters out.

We thought wrong.

Wednesday we took the tent off to mow around the sandbox and found a hole and itty bitty footprints all around the sand. Rick mixed up the sand really good and put the tent back on after mowing. Then Thursday we took the tent off to let the two artists play in the sandbox for a while. No traces of animals at all in the sand that time.

Two days later, today as a matter of fact, I took the tent off to let Jack play in the sandbox and found these:

There are four of them. two of them were blown about 4 inches away when I swooped the tent off the box. I immediately got my camera and took some pictures. Wouldn’t you? Then I helped the two blown-away babies back to their little warm pit with their brothers. Or sisters. Or brother and sister. I made sure not to touch them – I used a kiddie shovel to gently nudge them back over. I then covered them back up with the tent.

Poor Jack can’t play in his sandbox for a few days or weeks. I wonder how long it takes these little suckers to get full grown. It was fun for Jack to see the babies. He keeps talking about them. I was careful not to let him squish them.

I’m thinking I’ll take the tent off every day or two just to show Jack how they’re growing. I also want to make sure they survive. I hope their mom didn’t get spooked away for good!

Foto Friday–Animals

2011-07-15T22:46:00.001-04:00

Today’s theme is pets or animals. Since I don’t have a pet, I thought I’d skip this week’s Foto Friday.

Then we went to a dairy farm today. There were cows there. So, I took some pictures.

I have to admit that I actually took the pictures I’m showing here a few weeks ago. It was at the same farm, of the same cows, but the pictures I took today didn’t turn out so great.

This first picture was just a fun, lucky shot. It’s not all that pretty, but as the cows were coming into the barn for their lunch, I shot this picture. I could reach out and touch the cows, that’s how close we were. I’m a city girl, so that’s kind of fun for me.

The only thing I did with the picture was auto adjust the levels and sharpen the cow a bit. This is basically how it looked SOOC.

This was a neat shot of them eating. I love how you can see them all down the line. There were about 30 cows total in the barn.

I used The Pioneer Woman’s Old West action on this one, brought it down just a bit, then added a Kim Klassen texture on it, but brought it down to just barely there.

I think this is a fun shot. Weird, but fun.

I used The Pioneer Woman’s Vintage action on this.

Head on over to La-La’s Home Daycare to check out other Foto Friday entries. Especially if you’re an animal lover.

Marble Painting

2011-07-14T15:12:00.001-04:00

We had our first Educational Play Date today. (Bekah, I think we need to come up with a more FUN name for these dates)

We decided to try marble painting first. I went searching for marbles this week, since I don’t own any. Did you know that you can’t find marbles very easily? I ended up with some round decorative ‘gems’. They worked and they were very cheap. I also bought paint. I found some Tempera Paint and figured that’s what most elementary art teachers use, so I should be good with that.

Before giving them paint, we decided to show them how the whole marble painting thing worked. We gave them a marble and showed them how to move the box around to make the marble move back and forth. That also gave us a chance to see that we needed to tape down the paper. It was a good dry run for everyone.

Then the pretty paint came out. The boys kept saying “Can I paint now??” (notice their cute, PLAIN shirts? grrr)

We dipped the marble in the paint and plopped it into their box. Away they went!

They were cautious at first, even moving the marbles with their hands, but they got the hang of things after a few seconds and really started moving and shaking those boxes. I think one marble even landed on the floor because of the feverish winging of the boxes.

Cage’s box was a little more flat on the bottom, so his paint moved all around the paper. Jack’s box had a pretty bumpy bottom, so the marble tended to stay in the middle.

After they did one page of marble painting, they were ready to really paint. Evidently, marble painting to a 2 year old isn’t actually painting. So we gave them new paper, put the paint in their boxes (GREAT idea, Bekah!) and let them really paint until there little hearts were content. That lasted about 3 minutes.

Cage’s mom brought pom-poms and feathers to adorn on the paintings. (I love Cage’s chubby little hands!)

It was a successful Educational Play Date this morning, I’d say!

They boys ended up playing in our sandbox for the rest of the time. Which, we found out, has a mouse living in it. I guess the tent over the top of the box didn’t keep the mice/chipmunks/moles/whatever it is! from digging up from the bottom of the box.

Art Shirts

2011-07-14T09:14:00.001-04:00

Today, as this post is going out, my friend Bekah and her son Cage are coming over to be crafty with us. I Facebooked Bekah the other day and said “We need to set up an educational play date.” Thankfully, she didn’t disown me for being too nerdy, but said “YES!”

Bekah and I have only known each other for a little over a year now. We met at our library’s storytime. When we found out our lives were pretty parallel – she was a teacher for years before becoming a SAHM to her little boy only 3 months after I did – we decided to get to know each other better and have play dates for our boys. She was the brave one and, after months of seeing each other at storytime, she asked if we’d be interested in meeting for lunch afterward someday. When we finally made it to McDonald’s the next week, we were standing in line when I said, “By the way, my name is Amanda. What’s yours?” We had only known each other by our son’s names for the many months we’d been attending storytime. How embarrassing!

Anyway, we’ve been friend’s ever since, and love to get together to talk and let our boys play.

I finally figured out that, while I’d love to do all the great crafty activities I’m finding online with Jack, I’m too chicken to do it by myself. So I employed my teacher-friend to help motivate me. She said she was having the same problem about not doing a lot of stuff with her son, so it’s a Win-Win for both of us! (plus, my house gets clean if I have company over – that makes it a win-win-win for me!)

For today’s inaugural 'educational play date’, I thought I’d make an art shirt for our boys. I found plain little t-shirts at our local craft store for $2 each and decided to bleach the boys’ names on them. I didn’t have freezer paper, so I used contact paper as my stencil.

While I was drawing the letters, I imagined that I’d paint/bleach the letters solid. Then I started cutting out the letters I’d made and realized I was cutting them out backwards. So, instead of doing a normal stencil job, I did an opposite stencil job. What’s that called? Other than Mistake.

I took my Bleach Pen, traced the letters, then took a paint brush and brushed out the bleach so it would bleach all around the letter.

I love the look that I was getting. My mistake turned out to be a pretty good idea after all.

It took FOR.EVER for the color to change, so I’m glad I started early in the morning on these.

HOW EASY!??! I may become addicted to this technique and end up with lots of bleached shirts.

*Okay, that’s what I typed up in my drafts file yesterday while waiting for the bleach to work. Then, when I thought it’d turned white enough, I ran it through the washer to stop the bleaching process.

*ahem* this is how it REALLY turned out…

As soon as I pulled it out of the washer, the letters were GONE. No bleaching in sight!

Which means I totally started over.

I cut new letters and used straight bleach on them. I let it sit for about 5 hours and this is what they looked like…

No difference at all! Did I buy anti-bleaching shirts or something?? This was getting ridiculous!

So, before I went to bed last night, I tried again. On top of the non-working bleach from earlier, I put more of the Bleach Pen on the letters and brushed it out again. I decided to let them sit overnight.

This is what they looked like this morning. NO BLEACHING! ARGH!!

My final attempt was to put a line of the gel along the letters and let them sit. I am now going to wash and dry them so the boys can wear them while they paint today. My money is on the bleach NOT working again and they’ll have plain t-shirts to paint in. I have no clue what I did wrong!

*Back to my original post’s ending:

Hopefully, we’ll have many more ‘educational play dates’ in our near future. I spent a TON of money on supplies yesterday and have been pinning like crazy, scouring the internet for fun – easy- projects we can do.

First up, Marble Painting! I’ll try to be timely in a blog post to show you our artwork.

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Foto Friday–Around the Yard

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15And he said to him, "If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.”

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Pizza Dough (enough for 3 dough balls)

1/2 c warm water

2 1/4 tsp yeast (one packet)

1 1/4 c water, room temp

2 Tbs olive oil

4 c bread flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbs Italian seasoning mix (optional)

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Welcome!

I’m Being Featured Today

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Lasagna Recipe

Mama’s Lasagna

1 jar spaghetti sauce, at least 3 cups

1-2lbs ground beef

2 1/2 cups water

1 (12oz) box mafalda noodles (I use extra wide dumpling noodles)

1 (24oz) tub cottage cheese

1 tsp salt

dash pepper

1 Tbs parsley

1/2 tsp oregano

dash garlic powder

1 egg slightly beaten

1 large package shredded mozzarella cheese

grated parmesan cheese

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Growth Chart Moments

Pink Fluff

Pink Fluff

1 can cherry pie filling

¹⁵And he said to him, "If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.”