school play

Gus's school Christmas program was yesterday.

Is there anything more cute than a little boy all dressed up and fidgeting on stage?!

I was pleasantly suprised that they included the nativity and some hyms!

Gideon was so excited to go see Gus at school and was realy good, but didnt want to leave.

By his classroom tree

All ready to go home!

Gus documented our ride home with the camera (he loves to take pictures) so here are a few pictures he took. You can see that we have a nice thick blanket of snow!

Turkeys! we also saw a bald eagle!



Home again home again jiggity jig :)

2months

I'm not sure where the time has gone, but oliver is already 2 1/2 months old!

the 3 amigos!
He had his check up today and he's 12 lbs 15oz (49%)
and 24 1/2'' long (85%)! tall and skiny just like dad :)



snow day

Today was Gus's first ever snow day!

school was canseled due to the bad weather; i think he was a little disapointed at first.

i decided to cheer him up by making some snow ice cream!

They thought it was delicious!

i dont remember the last time we had so much snow so early! Hope you all stay warm in the cold snap that is coming!

butter

Gus and i made some home made butter today! he did this at school a few weeks ago, so he knew what would happen, but its still fun :)

i needed the cream to make some Christmas candies (making them a bit early to send over seas to my brother) and had about half of the container left.

it realy couldnt be easier! all you need is cream, a jar and some willing helpers!

just put the cream in the jar, put lid on tight, and shake away!

it'll turn to whipped cream first, but dont stop! a few mins after it turns to whipped cream it will clump up into a clump of butter with 'buttermilk' seperated from it. i poured it from the jar into a strainer to seperate the 'milk' from butter.



Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving

from our home to

yours!



onions

i recently ran out of my supply of dryed onion, so i thought i'd share how i make them :)
couldn't be simpler, just cut up a few of the large yellow (or whatever kind you like) onions in slices. the thiner the slice the less time it takes. place them on the dehydrator trays and turn it on! it takes mine about 2 days to finish. (dont forget to rotate the trays!) you want the onions to be brittle before you take them out. if you do apples you want them to be bendy.

they will be all shrivled up and yellow brown in color when done. then i just break or crush them up in my hand and put them in a jar and they keep for a long time! my last jar lasted almost a year before i ran out! i dont use a ton of onion in my cooking though. i do find though that just a little of these falkes will add a lot of flavor and not be to oniony. 

thats the finished product :) they realy dont take up much space! that jar in the picture is holding 4 large onions! a tip too, for getting that nasty smell off your hands is to wash after cutting them up with a small amount of hydrogen peroxide mixed with dawn dish soap! this is also suposed to get the skunk smell out of say your dog or whatever happens to unfortunatly meet one!

settle down dust

well once again its  been awhile since i've been on here. i've been pritty busy chacing around these 3 hansome dudes :) i'm constantly reminded of a little poem i found that goes like this..

"Cleaning and scrubbing can wate for tomorrow,

for babies grow up,

we've learned to our sorrow.

so settle down cobwebs.

dust go to sleep.

i'm rocking my baby,

 and babies don't keep."

sorce

We had a fun holloween, although gideon realy did not enjoy the lions hall kids party.

Oliver is realy growing fast!! he's such a snuggly baby :)

My parents were able to visit  about a week ago and we got started in on our remodle project! i'm realy excited about it! when we moved here there we 2 bathrooms (same floor), the washer and dryer were in a hall area just outside one of the bathrooms and there is a back empty/nothing room wich shares a wall with the 2nd bath. our plan is to make the empty room and 2nd bath into one big bath, and what my dad and chris worked on was putting the washer and dryer in the other 'bathroom' and turn it into a real laundry room.

this is after the first day, doesnt look pritty to the eye, but to me its beautiful! the dryer now sits next to the washer you see here and they work beautiful!! its soooo nice to have a functioning laundry room even if its not compleatly finished.

this is the other half of the room and eventualy the toilet and sink will be gone and there'll be a laundry sink. and the nasty green will be gone!!

this is where the washer and dryer used to be (right off the kitchen outside of the bathroom). its now the pantry area. as seen here...

eventualy the dark shelves will be replaced with bracket shelves that will span the wall; and the walls will be painted white. i'll keep you all updated on the progress as it happens!

Happy  Thanksgiving!



Miracle of Miracles

Welcome to the world Oliver Charles Gregory!

9lbs 21.5 inches

tons of hair!

I never expected to have an October baby, but then babies cant read calenders and God had other ideas :)

We prayed for a long time for a good birth and i couldnt have asked and still cant believe how well it went! The phrase keeps coming to my mind 'oh ye of little faith'. God went above and beyond what i asked for and granted me an amazing delivery. This was also my first time having a dula and she was awsome! i highly recomend getting one if you can! Chris was also amazing, and continues to be :) (love you deary!)

up to date

sorry i've been absent for so long! September proved to be a realy busy month! i'll try and catch you up on what we've been doing around here. This was taken on Gus's first day of school! he's in pre-k and absolutly loving it! He goes monday through thrusday 1/2 days. Gideon does pritty well with gus being gone, but is realy happy when he gets home and cant wate till he gets to go to school too.

This is me at 39 weeks, we all thought we'd have a september baby..little did we know haha :D

We picked a 5gal. bucket of grapes off our vine! I think grapes are the only food that brings out all the helpers!

Gideon was also in and out sneeking grapes to eat :) I dont remember exactly how much juice i ended up with, but i know it was more than enough for a few baches of jelly and some to drink. I love the was it makes the house smell!
I also canned 29 quarts of carrtos and made a bunch of spaghetti sauce from our tomatoes. the freezer also became stocked up with muffins, breads and cookies. I had to do something to keep busy and keep my mind off upcoming events ;)
The one thing we all were anticipating and expecting to happen in September never happend...in september! More on that in the next post!! :D

processing plant

It's that time of year, the time when my garden amazes and overwhelms me with the amout it produces!

ITS CANNING TIME!

We kicked the season of canning/freezing off with a load of broccoli!

We've gotten a few head here and there before this, and there is still some out there, but this was the major picking! Broccoli is a bit easier than other veggies cause you just freeze it and it only takes a few mins to blanch. This picking resulted in 11 quart freezer bags full! Gus took some pictures of me doing the blanching :)

Now onto the cucumbers! they've been producing like mad!! This is where i start to feel like my kitchen turns into a processing plant, i get out all the big bowls and canning gear (well not the pressure canner, just the water bather for pickles) call up grandma to wach the kids, and go to town on veggies for the day!

this is the first time i've ever canned on an electric stove, and this one's right out of the 50's! I much prefer gas over electric for all cooking purposes.

The results of a days work :) 4 quarts of refrigerator, 7 quarts dill, and 3 1/2 (plus a little extra) dill relish. There is still cucumbers growing in the garden so i think with the next picking i'm going to experiment with freezing them. I found a recipe that says if you freeze them in a brine they retain their texture. we'll have to see if thats true. Next up in the processing plant business will eather be tomatoes or carrots, depending on how fast the tomatoes ripen, its been slow, but is picking up with the hot weather this week. i'm hoping to get as much as i can done before our baby decides to come! :)

Garden Update

I thought i'd give you all a mid summer garden update :) Everything seems to be growing well, even if it did take 2 days of my mother in law and i weeding to find it. With moving and just being so busy and then some realy hot weather, the weeds kind of took over.

As you can see there's still a bit of weeding left to do, but it's shaping up to be a nice looking garden :) From left to right in this picture there are tomatoes, 2 rows of carrots, beets, lettuce, and cucumbers; then in the back same direction broccoli, 2 rows of potatoes, and 2 rows of green beens.

I started this broccoli in side this spring so we'd have some early to eat. We picked most of this one right after the picture was taken and ate it for supper! YUM! I dont think growing up that i ever realy appreciated all the fresh veggies we got to eat out of my parents garden. It was just something normal. Now that I'm grown and do the garden from start to finish along with my hubby, i can realy appreciate the food that comes out! Not to mention that its so much better than store bought. I also love the excitement my children get out of seeing the baby plants and getting to pick the ones that are ready!

Some baby cucumbers! Can't wate till they are ready!! We've had lettuce coming out of our ears this year! You can see some of the leaves in this picture. Lots of salad made with the lettuce and baby beet greens!