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!