Home. Kids. Life.

In Color or Black and White?

2012-01-26T08:09:00.001-07:00

I know, I know. These photos I’m going to post look very similar to Chewy’s other routine photos of rest time. What I can I say? A routine is something you do quite often.

Chewy was resting on my bed with her Big Bear and the dog again. I was practicing white balance and light metering with my camera. I’ve just started shooting in the RAW. My camera isn’t the best at auto white balance all the time and I’ve found it difficult to change white balance in PSE8. Plus sometimes the white balance setting I pick isn’t the best. So I’m really liking that I can shoot in the RAW and change the white balance, exposure, and other items in the camera. A little tedious, yes, but it works for me. And some of you have just had your eyes glaze over as I ramble about photography stuff. Sorry. Oh, and I just ordered a gray card so I can do my own white balancing. Big stuff for me.

I do want to post a review of our family Christmas present, some party planning items, and goodness…just write sometime. But I’m enjoying my children and taking the interruptions as they come. Such as today…another call to the doctor when they open in a few moments for my poor Chewy. So you get pictures of Chewy. I know the grandparents will like that! And the rest of you….um….wanna joke? A termite walks into a bar and asks, “Is the bar tender here?” *smile*

Back to Chewy….here she is with her Big Bear. Thankfully she tells me that she loves me more than Big Bear. That must mean that she loves me A LOT! Because she sure loves that bear.

Sometimes I like the color photos and sometimes I like the black and white. Chewy always tells me to leave them in color or to “leave them the real way.”

This would be the nose shot below. I know you’re not suppose to “shoot up the nose,” but I still like this photo. And the nose is part of the reason she gets to go back to the doctor again. It seems my poor Chewy is jumping on the allergy train with the rest of us. At least she’ll be in good company.

Any interruptions lately? I’m with you.

Update: Chewy is being treated for allergies and slight asthma. Something we’re already familiar with since Scooter has allergies and asthma. Biker Boy also has allergies and has developed asthma when he exercises in the past couple of years. Me…just bad allergies in the spring. Guess it runs in the family. Chewy gets to see an ENT (for huge tonsils, snoring, and sleep apnea) and the allergy/asthma specialist. And poor Biker Boy came home from work sick. It’s been one of those days. But since I’ve got a quiet house (a napping husband, child, dog, and cat). I’ve been able to play with my photoediting. There’s so much you can do!

I took this not so great photo:

And after a little level brightening, color fill and gradient mapping to add haze, I got this: (Plus a little cropping and cloning, it’s not perfect, but I’m still practicing.)

Hope your day is going well. Hopefully my sick ones make a recovery soon!

Building A Media Center: Installing the Base Cabinets

2012-01-25T20:15:00.001-07:00

Let’s see how quick I can do this. I don’t hold much hope for myself, cause my fingers like to wander on the keyboard like my brain wanders, but I’ve drank 2 cups of tea and one 18 ounce bottle of bubbly water without a pit stop….so I’m just saying. Nothing like setting a goal for myself.

Follow our media center progress with the linky dinks: (Biker Boy would probably like me to say that he knows he’s not fast at this. But in his defense…the guy is amazing! I think he rocks!)

Chapter 1: Planning

Chapter 2: Installing the Pantry

Okay…we planned.

Biker Boy sawed the drawers off the cabinets. We planned to reuse them under a shelf.

Then we saw a plate covering the wall. Checked it out and deemed it to be wires for an outlet. Biker Boy just happened to have an outlet laying around. Shut off breakers and gave the kid a lesson on installing an outlet. The other plate covers a propane thing for a gas fireplace. We won’t be using that.

Because of the new outlet, shifted everything over 5 inches towards the pantry so we can access the outlet. It was too low to cut a place for it in the cabinet.

Installed the base cabinets. On risers. That way they match the spaced up pantry. We want everything nice and level.

Admired the beautiful installed and screwed to the wall base cabinets.

I said, “Let’s see how the drawers fit in the space.”

Light bulb or big whoops moment. DRAWERS!!! Moving the cabinets over meant the drawers would no longer fit side by side with a 48 inch shelf above them. WHOOPS!!!

Forgot to look at plan, so we are back to planning.

Biker Boy came up with a solution. He was working on it last night. He’ll be working on it again. Stay tuned.

I’ve got to go. I mean really go.

And you…..what are you up to?

Great Frozen Balls of Dough

2012-01-24T12:10:00.001-07:00

Yum! Anyone want a cookie?

I do! I do!

We all love cookies here. Except when I make cookies, I always make a double batch. And I never bake them all at once. We’d eat way too many that way. So let’s avoid the tummy aches, shall we? Let’s bake a few at a time. Or a dozen at a time.

Chewy and I made cookie dough last week.

We make the Original Nestle Tollhouse recipe quite a bit. Except we use the high altitude directions. The cookies turn out puffier that way. Puffy is good. In some cases, anyways. Not so good on me.

We sometimes throw in extra chocolate chips, or peanut butter chips, or whatever chips we have laying around. Just not corn chips or potato chips…we haven’t tried that.

Don’t forget to eat some chocolate chips while you’re making the dough. You deserve it.

Cookie dough is amazing stuff. And yummy too. Who likes the cookie dough better than the baked cookies?

Once the dough is made (and I lick the spoons behind the kids’ backs), I stick that big old bowl of dough in the refrigerator. Then I forget about it. I mean, I get to it when I have time. Sometimes that’s less than a day and sometimes that’s about 4 or 5 days. Or somewhere in between. Usually when kids are in bed.

This time Chewy was up and helped me. We rolled that dough into balls.

Then we threw them in a freezer bag.

Then I throw the bag in the freezer and let those cookie dough balls freeze.

Then when we want cookies I take the bag out. And yes, the balls will have frozen together. Give it good whack on the counter or the floor. Just keep the dough balls in the bag while you’re whacking away to get them apart. Or just pry them apart with your fingers. I prefer to whack them. It’s a stress reliever.

Put some frozen balls of dough on a greased cookie sheet and put the rest back in the freezer for another time. Turn the oven on to 375 F degrees. I throw the frozen balls in the oven while it is still heating up. I find they cook up better that way. Just add 4-5 minutes on to the original baking time (about 15 minutes for me). Just check ‘em and add more time if you need to. Then eat and enjoy fresh cookies whenever the mood strikes!

You can try this with other types of cookie dough too, not just chocolate chip. Do you freeze your own cookie dough too?

By The Book

2012-01-23T07:46:00.001-07:00

I love when things are convenient and just right. Cause most of the time, things don’t always work out as planned. So I love it when something is pleasantly surprising.

Last week I took photos of Chewy during her rest time. And now the I Heart Faces photo challenge for this week is “By the Book.” Love it!

Here’s a picture I love of Chewy reading one of her favorite story books at rest time:

Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope you all have a fabulous week! And maybe you’ll get a chance to read one of your favorite books!

Winter Projects: Degrout and Regrout

2012-01-20T08:19:00.001-07:00

Let’s see if I can make this quick and dirty.

Actually this project wasn’t quick, but it was dirty.

When you move into a new house, you expect that you won’t have to do much work to it. Right? Wrong! We’re the first owners of this house, we moved in just over 4 years ago after it was built. And since we’ve found lots of things that are well, wrong. Our master shower is one of them. The grout was cracking and coming out in places. Not to mention that some of it was stained beyond belief. But it was the cracked and falling out grout that got us into degrouting the shower.

We had never really anticipated having to “renovate” the bathroom, so it wasn’t really in the budget. Grouting isn’t too expensive. It just takes time. But let me tell you, both Biker Boy and I were tempted to take a sledge hammer to those shower walls and bust out the tile. But that would have been expensive and knowing this house….we’d find something behind the tile that would cause more work. So back to degrouting, ugh.

We’re not unfamiliar with degrouting and regrouting (more on that later). But there are new tools nowadays. Biker Boy used the electrical powered MultiMate tool to get out grout in the big gaps on the floor. We’d recommend using the Dremel brand attachment, not the cheaper ones (sorry Multimate brand). Believe me…we would have gone through a ton of the cheaper ones (and they weren’t that cheap) and the Dremel one lasted the whole time. And I’m not paid to say that. We just learned through experience. We also went through a lot of those little grout removal triangles to get grout out on the wall. It’s a different grout removal tool than we used a decade ago. But it worked and gave us a workout. Not to mention that we bought Lowes out of the replacement heads and found out Home Depot doesn’t carry them. Lots of lessons learned. It gets to be a dusty mess. We wore masks and safety glasses.

We had to be super careful to not wreck the tiles. One did pop out, but it was whole. A little thinset later and it was back in. Biker Boy did most of the shower work. I helped a little one day while Chewy was napping. Except her room was on the other side of the bathroom, so she could hear everything. A couple of tiles got a little “chipped” on the edges, but I couldn’t notice them.

A few weeks after degrouting (it took awhile), Biker Boy got to grouting.

We got unsanded grout for the walls and sanded grout for the floor. Check your grout line width and go with the appropriate grout for your width and application. Since we had such a hard time with stained grout before (and we had sealed it), we splurged and went for the grout boost additive. It costs more than the grout. Hopefully it works and we won’t have to rip grout out again in 4 years. Cause then we will be taking the sledgehammer to the walls. The lady at Lowes highly recommended the grout boost. I don’t think she worked on commission.

Shake, shake, shake that boost. Shake it baby! You pour your additive into your mixing container. Then you add your grout and mix, mix, mix. Mix it baby!

Then get to grouting. Biker Boy did the walls one day and the floors another day. You use the grouting float to push and smoosh the grout into the lines. Then you go back over with a sponge and fresh water to clean up. Then later you wipe with a dry cloth to remove the haze. Just follow the lovely directions on the package, they’re pretty good. You get a good workout. Your shoulders and arms will feel it after degrouting and regrouting.

Now the shower is better than it ever was new. It’s not perfect. Biker Boy told me that. But it’s oh so much better. And we’re waiting 10 days to use it. Thankfully we have another shower to use in the kids’ bathroom. Unlike the last time we did grout and bathroom work….we only had one bathroom.

Oh, and the painter’s tape up on the wall to protect it from grout? Yep, when we ripped it down we encountered Peeled and Chippy again. I was expecting it once I saw Biker Boy put the tape up on the wall. Ugh and double ugh. So I’ve got some touch up painting to do. Yep, one household project always leads to another in this house.

With that being said…I thought I would show the work we did on our first house. We bought it in 2001 and lived there till 2006. We did a ton of work on that house. Most of it before we even owned a digital camera. Let’s take a walk down memory lane.

Our only bathroom was a haven of tile. Lots of tile. Our first thing was to paint the seafoam colored walls a neutral color. That was after taking down the peach wallpaper border. The previous owners had a thing for seafoam and pink. We had pink walls everywhere and seafoam carpet. It sure was purdy. *cough, cough* We removed all the grout from the walls, sink, and the shower by hand and regrouted them. Look at all that tile. It was even in the tub. Lots of it.

Then just before we knew we were moving we took the bathroom down to the studs. We got rid of all the tile and the tub. The white tile with gold specks came off the walls, we got rid of the tiled vanity, and we even busted out the pink tile on the floor. All with a baby in the house. And we showered over a drain in our unfinished basement and put a towel over the small window. Oh the joys of homeownership.

We even did our kitchen and dining area. We ripped up three layers of linoleum and a layer of carpet over that in the dining area. Here’s the pretty befores. This must be scanned photos. You know I’m being sarcastic about the pretty. Oh, by this time we had a new cooktop and had started painting the drawers. And yep, we busted out that tile around the cooktop and replaced it.

We laid tile on the floor. The stained and pink linoleum wasn’t our style. I remember grouting the whole thing while Biker Boy was on a snowboarding trip. Yes, I did do that one!

Come to think of it….we did a lot in that house. Replacing flooring, ripping down wallpaper, painting every room (the kitchen was Pepto-Bismol pink when we moved in), roofing, siding, building a deck, painting cabinets, remodeling a bathroom, and a whole bunch more. Boy, the stuff you can get done when you don’t have kids. And you have summers off cause you teach. Yep.

So what house projects are you on to? Or what fun things are you up to? We’re currently building a media center. Give us time, just give us time.

Building A Media Center: Installing The First Cabinet

2012-01-19T10:11:00.001-07:00

Woot, woot! Yippee! We have 1 cabinet in!

If you’re not familiar with our slow media center building and planning, you can find the first installment here. This has been four years in the works. This will be in installments people. We’re not fast. And we don’t have a magic wand or a fairy godmother. Or a TV show that can get everything done in an hour. But a girl can dream.

The cabinet sat there in the corner for a couple days before Biker Boy “installed” it. We were getting a “feel” for it. Don’t ya love the little Vanna White showing off the cabinet?

In order to install the cabinet we had to decide what to do. At first we were going to leave the baseboards. That would have required some fancy notching out and stuff. Biker Boy thought it would be nicer to leave the baseboards for the next owners in case they want to remove the media center. What next owners? But then I convinced Biker Boy that we have no plans of ever moving so we should just do what we want and if we ever have to move…well, the next owners are on their own.

So Biker Boy cut out the baseboards to install the tall pantry cabinet.

There was a little shimming involved. Okay, maybe quite a bit of shimming. Biker Boy installed some wood pieces to help anchor the cabinet to the side wall. No photos of that. I was busy doing something and forgot to take pictures of the wood. I’m pretty sure I was getting kids ready for bed. Night time is the only time we can get work done around here and by that time….both Biker Boy and I are tired. Yawn.

Back to shimming….Biker Boy used his special trick of post-it notes to shim the backside of the cabinet. This isn’t the first time he’s used that trick (see that here). It really works when you need just a bit of shim.

I forgot…before bedtime Biker Boy cut out where the outlet goes. He had a little helper. Everything was safe, don’t worry. Biker Boy is a stickler for safety. I love watching the kids help their Daddy.

Okay…of course nothing is ever easy. Nothing is ever square. You just can’t plug a cabinet in and hope it fits. Okay, we hope it’ll be easy…..but we know it isn’t going to be easy. Thus lots of shimming and pushing and shoving. I got to do the pushing and shoving as Biker Boy drilled the cabinet into the wall. It’s fairly square right now. Biker Boy put a composite shim under one corner.

Hooray. We have one cabinet in. The other two cabinets are being prepped. Slowly. Stay tuned. And do you know how much stuff we can fit in that cabinet? It’s amazing! All our DVDs and VHS tapes fit in just the top cabinet. They’re stuffed in there right now. They’re not organized, but they’re out of the way! And they’re hidden. Hooray for concealed storage! Bring it on!

You may have to stay tuned for a bit. This is real life. With a real mess. But I’m loving it! And I really want to paint the walls, but that will have to wait a few years.

What are you loving lately?

Routine: Chewy’s Rest Time

2012-01-18T08:00:00.001-07:00

For my routine photos this week, I photographed Chewy’s reading and rest time. We read books, she rests (that involves looking at books, sucking on her Big Bear, or playing quietly), and sometimes Chewy actually falls asleep. At this age Scooter never fell asleep, but Chewy sure can use the sleep more than Scooter did.

Rest time was in my room this time. It’s super bright and sunny and warm during the winter. We read books on my bed. (Books by Patrick McDonnell, which I reviewed yesterday). Chewy read me her favorite book, “Wag!”

After books Chewy laid and sucked on her Big Bear. To curb the thumb sucking we don’t let Big Bear come out of the bedroom, but I think she now sucks her thumb more than ever. I’m pretty sure she’ll be going to kindergarten sucking her thumb. I’m not quite sure what to think about it. It does help her control her behavior at times. And she doesn’t care that she’s the only one in preschool who sucks her thumb. At least she’s confident!

I really didn’t expect that she would fall asleep on my bed, but she did! Chewy was laying on the edge of the bright sunshine that was hitting the bed. The dog was at her feet part of the time too. She didn’t sleep long, but it was beautiful!

For these photos I used my wide angle 18-55mm lens (I was too lazy to take it off after taking photos of our media center we’re building). ISO was at 100. Shutter speed at 1/150. White balance was auto (I did try the sun setting). F/5. I metered the light from the center and focused on her eyes or eyelashes. The processing was an experiment of mine. I tried my own black/white action. I’m still trying to find my groove.

And just because….here’s some of the unprocessed and unedited photos. I even got I in a photo!

I hope your week is going well! What’s your routine this week? Any thumb sucking advice?

Scooter & Chewy Read: Earl & Mooch Books

2012-01-17T13:49:00.001-07:00

Last week Chewy’s preschool visited the library and she brought home a book called “Wag” by Patrick McDonnell.

I have literally been reading this book a minimum of three times a day to one or two kids.

It’s so great that we got more books with the main characters, Earl & Mooch, from the library last week. We’ve check out “The Gift of Nothing” and “Just Like Heaven.”

These books are touching, funny, lighthearted, entertaining, and simple at its best.

“Wag” is still our favorite. I love it too. You know how sometimes you get tired of reading the same book over and over and over. Well, I don’t mind reading this book over and over. My kids laugh like crazy as I make voices for the characters. We’ve read the book so many times that Chewy is now “reading” it to me.

I would totally recommend checking out books by Patrick McDonnell. He’s also the one behind the comic “Mutts.” My kids love how Mooch says, “YESH!” for “yes.” So they have been imitating that like crazy. Chewy even showed me her favorite page in “Wag” and guess what page it is?

I think I know what I’m getting my kids for Valentine’s Day. They’re probably going to get their own copy of “Wag!”

Do you have any favorite books lately that you don’t mind reading over and over?

IKEA Hemnes 3 Drawer Dresser

2012-01-13T08:37:00.001-07:00

Meet Hermey.

He’s pretty. And he smells good too. (Oooo…dirty TV!)

He’s red. Red like Rudolph’s nose. Kinda reminds me of Hermey the elf, Rudolph’s friend. Plus he’s a Hemnes dresser from Ikea, thus he’s a Hermey. Anyone following me? If you’re keeping up, good for you. You score a point.

Hermey came from our winter vacation trip to Denver. Red is a surprising choice for me, but I actually like it. In the store Biker Boy and I couldn’t decide between the gray and the red. When we went down to get the dresser in the pick up area, they were sold out of gray. So we got red. Choice made. That was easy.

We wanted to replace our particle board/hand-me down TV stand that I spray painted blue a while back.
See it amidst all the pieces of Hermey? We were looking at TV stands at IKEA when it dawned on me that this room also serves as a guest room, besides a place to store our exercise equipment. So why not get a dresser to put the TV on and then we have drawers to store stuff? One of the drawers stores linens for guests, so those come out when guests are here and then they have a drawer to put stuff in. Cool, huh? I know, I’m so brilliant I could light up the tiniest room. Can you follow sarcasm in a blog?

After building a beast of a marble track the same day, Biker Boy attempted to build Hermey with a pretty assistant. According to him, it was super easy and fairly quick after a marble track. Biker Boy kept wanting me to take pictures of the process because he was so impressed with it. I’ll spare you the 30 photos and maybe give you 10. We took them with our cheapo camera, so the quality isn’t too great. But that’s real life around here.

Biker Boy got everything laid out and assembled according to those famous picture directions from IKEA. He’s probably not too happy that I think Hermey is a boy. Shhh, don’t tell him.

Fortunately for us (cause we can’t return it), all our pieces were in pristine shape. No dings, dents, warps, or anything.

Biker Boy was seriously impressed with the drawer slides. And I do have to say that they work nicely. The drawers slide so easily.

He was also impressed with these plastic things in the drawer sides and the plastic cover thingies. I’m not sure what he called them, but for some reason he really liked them. He took quite a few pictures of them in the drawer. I’ll give you a couple.

Assembly was pretty quick for a lot of wood pieces and screws and other assembly things. I probably could have done it too, but Biker Boy was really enjoying himself. He said we probably couldn’t have built a piece like this for much less because you’d have to get the higher quality pine wood that isn’t warped. Plus this was MUCH quicker than building one ourselves. We’re now kicking ourselves for not having picked up a slim bookshelf to put in this room too (for all those books now laying on the floor). Oh well.

Hermey is stained red. Not painted. You can still see the wood grain, which we both like. It’s oh so pretty. Or handsome. Isn’t he a pretty little piece of pine? And he smells oh so nice because he’s made of pine wood. So nice. It’s like a woodsy cologne.

And yep, I filled up one drawer with IKEA goodies that I plan to use for hostess gifts when I need them. Can you pick out the candles that the kids picked out? The top drawer is full of guest room stuff. The bottom drawer is holding camera gear. Aren’t the drawers just cute? Or handsome? I love the yellow and white stripes. It’s a little bit of cheer when you open the drawer. It’s like it’s smiling at you. And I’m smiling right now!

I like that the TV is higher now. I can actually see it.

That’s because this is my usual view of the TV. From the treadmill. It gets frequent use during the winter.

And for your final viewing pleasure. This is the guest room as of now, way below all this writing. (See it before here). We still blow up a big air bed when guests come. I’ve been on the search for a daybed to put next to the dresser (it’ll just fit), but since we’ve been spending money on building a media center…..a daybed purchase is going to wait a year or two. Bummer….since I found one for $75 the other day on craigslist. That’s okay. All you who visit still have a place to sleep. We just shove the treadmill in the hallway and put my bike and trainer back in the garage.

Anyone else have a Hemnes something? Love it, hate it, or undecided?

So far, we’re loving ours. We’d recommend it without hesitation. You can call that our review of the Hemnes dresser. It gets an A!

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Building A Media Center: The Planning

2012-01-11T08:43:00.001-07:00

Okay, I’ve been planning this media center since the day we moved in. Over 4 years ago. I’ve been saving my pennies and planning up a storm in my head. Biker Boy worries when I do that.

Biker Boy and I have talked and debated plans ever since I brought up the idea of a built in media center.
I’ve drawn up lots of sketches. Every one is different, but similar. Here’s three of them. I have many more. I sure do.

Well, after moving the desk out to the media wall, getting a new TV, and finally getting rid of the old entertainment center (you can see about all that here), we’re getting closer to building a built in media center.

That’s after Biker Boy finishes the grout in the master bath. That guy is one hard worker. Anytime I talk about starting the media center myself, he just shakes his head. It’s fun to tease him.

So…here’s the plans that we’ve come up with and Biker Boy worked out in his engineering program. He is an engineer you know. (Yes, I took a picture of the computer screen because that’s easier for me to figure out.) It’s nothing fancy, but it's just want we want.

There’s a tall pantry on the right to house all the DVDs, VHS tapes (yes, we have those), and video games. Plus extra stuff I don’t want seen. There will be shelves to the left of that to house the electronic components. Then there will be two 24 inch cabinets to house the computer and printer stuff. Then a desk for the computer monitor on the far left.

That’s the final game plan. I’ve been on the search for cabinets at thrift stores and ReStore for some time. No such luck. I knew eventually a big box home improvement store would have a 20% off sale on in stock cabinets. And they did. So we bought some cabinets. I trucked the two 24 inch ones home on my own with 2 kids. That same night Biker Boy went back to get the pantry one because we needed all the seats in the back of the mini van down to get that.

And now the cabinets sit in our master bedroom and await their final fate. They could be here awhile.

The 24 inch ones will be chopped. We’re going to chop off the drawers to make them desk height. (In the engineered drawing you can see where the countertop runs through the shorter cabinets, that’s where we’ll cut them off.) The drawers will be refashioned and reused inside the cabinets. It’ll look something like the picture below. (The babies laying on the dresser? That would be some little girl’s consequence for a behavior choice. They started to freak Biker Boy out and we had to move them. He kept thinking someone was there every time he would come out of the bathroom.)

I had wanted white cabinets with a butcher block top. For now we’re planning to leave the cabinets unpainted (they will match/mimic the kitchen cabinets across the way). Some day I may paint them. We talked about doing a white countertop of corian or something else with hickory cabinets, but the cost was way too high. We’re going to go with our original plan of a butcher block top. We had talked about using wood planks or reclaimed wood, but the idea of gaps and uneven spaces wasn’t too appealing with the counter holding monitors and TVs. Not to mention that I hope to write a lot on the desk.

And that, my friends, is the plan. We’ll see how it comes to fruitation.

How do you plan? Does it take you time and patience? Or do you just jump into things?

My Photo Challenge: Going To The Bus

2012-01-10T10:49:00.001-07:00

Alrightly….my only day at home for 2 hours by myself. And I spent a majority of it on the phone with a phone company. Yikes. Anyhoo….I was planning to post our new IKEA piece or our master bath mess or our new Christmas present, but that will wait till I have more time.

Cause yesterday morning I was awake enough to take the camera with me as I walked my boy to the bus. Yes, I walk him to the bus every morning. It’s not far and we live in a rural area, but I still won’t let him go by himself and wait there.

Oh, why the camera? Cause it’s my own personal photo challenge to take every day pictures of my kiddos. Find out about it here.

So that’s why the bus pictures.

Lately we’ve been walking up the driveway and down to the bus stop instead of taking “the back route” through the yard. There’s still too much snow, ice and mud in the yard.

It was a cloudy morning, it had snowed the day before. The light was really low and the sun hadn’t come up yet, so I had to bump my ISO up high. That’s why the photos are grainy. But I still like them.

It was a beautiful morning. I don’t think a camera captured the beauty. And I didn’t touch up this photo. This is the view from our bus stop. I know, I know…that power line just makes the view.

My little guy is so goofy. He makes faces while waiting for the bus. He also tries to stomp through the snow and ice.

And the sun was just peeking up through the trees as my boy boarded the bus. Beautiful.

Next week I’m going to have to get some photos of my little girl. I didn’t think to get photos of her temper tantrum this morning. Now that’s something I would always like to remember! (kidding) But maybe we’ll be able to laugh about it together someday. I sure do love that girl, even during the tantrums.

What’s your routine? Enjoy! And thanks for stopping by! Smooches to my sister….thanks for the call!

Where In The World Are….?

2012-01-09T07:52:00.001-07:00

There are so many fun things you can do with postcards. You can collect them from your travels, send them to your home from your travels, send them to loved ones, and just collect and display them. Do you do anything special with postcards?

Scooter and Chewy have an aunt and an uncle that get around the world quite a bit. In fact, they just moved across the ocean. (Miss you…the kids can pick out on the globe where you live now!) Aunt Bit (do you have a better nickname?) and Uncle Dos send the kids postcards from their travels. We love that they do this for the kids. It’s quite a special little treat.

It’s always an exciting day when a new postcard arrives! We read the postcard and if we get a chance we locate the place on the globe.

I’ve punched a hole in the corner of the postcards and strung them on a metal ring. That way the kids can easily flip through them and look at the pictures. Sometimes we read them again and again. It’s fun! I hope to put a hook up next to our USA map (with our travels) and hang the postcards next to it. Some time, when I find a hook.

The majority of the postcards are from Aunt Bit and Uncle Dos, but there are also a few postcards from grandparents and friends included in there. It’s like getting to travel for free, we’re really good at pretending here.

So…thank you for the postcards Aunt Bit and Uncle Dos! Did you ever get to send one from the last city you lived in?

Postcards…..what do you do with them?

Routine

2012-01-06T08:11:00.001-07:00

Do you sometimes get so stuck in a routine that you take it for granted?

Yep, happens to me. Probably too much.

I’m not good with resolutions, so I’m going to try something this year. I’ll try rather than resolve.

I’m going to try to not take for granted the little things, the routine, and the natural moments. I’m going to be thankful for all the small things. I’ll thank God for each and every little moment.

To help me do that I’ve decided to challenge myself to my own photography challenge. You may have noticed that I’m trying to improve my photography skills when I get a spare moment (which isn’t as often as I like, but I’ll take what I get). I’m thankful to my friends who let me practice on their families and kids! And I’m happy to photograph my own children in a “portrait” setting, but I want to get more natural moments.

It’s typical to take pictures of trips, school programs, first moments, birthdays, and things that don’t happen quite often. But I want to take photos of the natural moments, the routine, and daily life. I want to capture my kids doing the things they do quite often, but probably won’t do in the future. I want to capture their personality. And I’ve probably already done that in the past, but I want to be more deliberate about it so I don’t take it for granted.

I’m going to try to take photos of our hot chocolate Fridays, morning devotions, bedtime prayer, tooth brushing, doll dressing, Lego building, the fighting, the laughing, the tears, and the smiles. I want bedtime hugs and family movie cuddles. Dog petting, sleeping, waking up, coming home from the bus, saying good bye at preschool, thumb sucking, lip licking, shoe tying, dressing, chores, and more.

I know this is going to require some work on my part. I’ll have to get the camera out and I may even have to set up the tripod. But I’m going to try to get photos at least once a week of our normal life. That includes the messy, the clean, the pleasant, and the unpleasant. And the photos may not be perfect, but they’ll freeze a moment in time that happens more than once.

I started this morning getting my boy’s before school routine, that’s after I heard laughter coming from the bathroom. He amuses himself as he’s putting on his skin cream (for that dry skin from lip licking) and sunscreen. I had a high ISO (1600) to compensate for the lack of light, but I kind of like the grainy look. It makes it seem like the early morning, since it is! Can you see the white streaks on his cheek? He's still young enough that he doesn’t really care if he rubs it in fully.

Sometimes he combs his hair and more often I comb it. It’s crazy in the back! I think it’s time for a haircut!

And here’s a couple of photos from right after I grabbed the camera. My crazy and lovable boy! This is before the hair combing!

It kind of makes me tear up looking at these photos. I’m so proud of this kid. Sure, he doesn’t always make the right choices, but he’s learning. He’s emotional and sensitive and always gives the best hugs when mommy or daddy are leaving to go somewhere. He’s been through so much, yet being so young he looks right past it. He deals with his asthma like it’s a part of him and I guess it is a part of him. Considering we almost lost him when he was younger to a really bad attack, it makes each breath a precious gift. He’s been through a badly broken leg and yet you’d never know it today. God truly has blessed us and gotten us through many things. This kid has shown us what a miracle truly is. It’s a joy each day to see the little man that God is helping him to be and I’m blessed to be his mother. Each and every child was made for a reason and is truly a blessing. And each and every path to having a child is for a reason too. Go and hug the children in your life!

Have you made any resolutions for the new year? Anything that you want to try?

What do you not want to take for granted? It’s my prayer that everyone who reads this post is thankful for the small things in their life at this moment. I’m thankful and blessed if you happen to stop by and read this. Thanks! Geepers….I think I’m a little emotional today. Someone please get me a tissue!

Keeping it Real….A Holiday Recap

2012-01-05T13:41:00.001-07:00

I like to look at other blogs when I get the chance. I like the pretty pictures they have. But sometimes I wonder, “Is their house always that clean?” “Are their counters always that clear?” “Do they always look that good?” You ever wonder stuff like that too?

Then there is me. I like to try and put pretty pictures on my blog. Sometimes I have time to take them and sometimes I have time to touch them up. And most of the time I don’t. And that’s because I’m not quite sure how to find the time. Or I’m not good at balancing my time. I sit here writing this while my desk is piled high with stuff, it’s blocking my monitor.

So you’re going to get quick, unedited photos in this here holiday recap. Because it’s the memories that count, not the pretty pictures. And now I’ll stop feeling bad for myself and hope that someone else feels good about what they do or how pretty their pictures are. Cause you should feel good about yourself!
Our holiday break started off with bunches and bunches and bunches of snow. We had a white Christmas in the southwest with over 2 feet of the white stuff at our house. That meant breaking out the old sled and the new one and taking it down the 2 hills in our backyard. The dog even got in on the action. That air tube sled is awesome…it was recommended by some family friends. They rock! (The friends and the sled both rock!)

Christmas Eve had us trucking (I mean minivanning) up the mountain road towards the top of the mountain. We snowshoed first.

Then we drug out the sled and headed to an old sand pit to do some sledding. We were the first ones to track up in the fresh snow. It was up to my waist in some places. Biker Boy and I had to push the kids up in the sled. Whew…I got my workout that day. We made some awesome tracks with the tube sled. The dog was bushed by this time and cold, so he hung out in a backpack. Chewy was in the midst of a melt down. I eventually had to take her back to the van and sit with her while the boys made a jump for the sled. Yes, we wear helmets sledding. Need to protect what’s left under it.

Did I mention there was lots of snow? So much snow that in places there was no room for them to plow it so the road was down to one lane. So much snow that it was over the tops of trucks and SUVS where it was pushed up against the side of the road. Yep, lots of snow. We’ve never seen this much snow on the mountain before Christmas.

Christmas Eve evening was reserved for church and opening a few gifts. Like new pajamas and robes. Oh, our pastor and his wife at church have the kids come forward and they read the Christmas story to the kids. They ask questions and get lots of comments. It’s funny to hear and watch some of the kids and then be thankful that none of mine did anything that would embarrass us. Apparently Apple did well this Christmas, most of the kids at church wanted an “I” something or other when the Pastor asked them what they would like for Christmas. Mine wanted Legos and a Barbie.

Our kids got us up at 7am on Christmas morning. Not too shabby! Then it looked like the elf wrapping bomb went off in our house.

Bright and early the morning after Christmas we headed on an 8 hour drive to meet up with my parents and Biker Boy’s family. At a hotel. The kids were actually entertained with books on CD and we made one long stop at a McDonald’s for lunch and a quick potty stop at a Wal-Mart somewhere in Colorado for the potties and to buy a cheap point and shoot camera with a gift card. I wanted a camera I could put in my coat pocket so I didn’t have to lug my big one around. You can probably tell that most of these were shot with that camera. The picture below is the first one shot with the camera by Biker Boy. I have no idea what I’m doing. Recovering from the 8 hour drive by eating Christmas goodies?

We shared a 2 bedroom suite with my parents and were down the hall from Biker Boy’s family. It was a good time! The hotel had a pool and served us breakfast and dinner. You can’t beat that! Plus, we got out a lot and tired the kids out. It’s hard to share a bed with a four year old girl and her bear and her doll. After 4 hours she got it all to herself. We threw Scooter on the hide-a-bed and I got my usual bed partner back to myself!

We went to Hammond’s Candy Factory. That was a last minute decision the night before when I saw a brochure that said “Free Candy.” Yep, free candy catches my eye. That’s how I roll. So we went. And it was a yummy trip. You know those big huge beautiful suckers that some photographers using in styling photos with kids….yep, those suckers probably came from Hammond's Candy.

We went to the Downtown Aquarium. It was beyond awesome. Go there and check it out if you’re in Denver ever. When we asked the kids what their favorite thing about the aquarium was Scooter replied, “Everything.” And Chewy replied, “The mermaids.” Yes, mermaids. I want to be one when I grow up. We had front row sitting seats to the Mystic Mermaid show. They even waved to Chewy who was eagerly waving back. She even got her photo with the mermaids later on! Those mermaids have some fantastic breath holding skills. I wonder how much their tails weigh?

And apparently the aquarium made such a big impact on Scooter that he told his teacher about it. She asked me about when I was volunteering in his class today. That's all he told her about Christmas.

We saw a movie (The Muppets) and hit up IKEA another day. That big blue store was crowded. We didn’t get there until about 1:30 and decided to eat lunch first and the line was long! It was crazy busy. But we came home with a huge box and a whole bunch of other little things. I’ve promised Biker Boy I would share what he built from the box later. He was very impressed with it.

We hit up a recreation center with a huge water complex another day. That was the anticipated adventure since we also did that last year. Biker Boy tried to get Scooter to go up the huge water slide in the beginning and both Scooter and I freaked out. I had visions of the kid choking on water since he hadn’t yet been swimming much. Yes, both parents are swimmers and our kids are turtles rather than fish. I don’t mind. But after awhile Scooter started swimming all over under the water and decided on his own to try the slide. I was fine with that. Biker Boy went first and Scooter was to follow him with me behind Scooter. Well, once Scooter sat down to go he started to freak out. And there was a long line behind us. So what did I do? I shoved the kid. He did just fine. And he’ll tell you that mommy pushed him down the slide.

We also stopped at Dinosaur Ridge again this year. It’s a cool place if you like dinosaurs or a hike. We like both.

After our Colorado adventure with family (love all you guys and we had a great time, thanks!) we headed to Northern New Mexico to do some skiing and snowboarding. We stayed in a motel with “character” in a tiny town. You do know what I mean by “character,” right? Can you imagine what it smelled like? See for yourself below:

We hit up the Red River Ski Area on New Year’s Eve. Let’s just say that they didn’t have nearly as much snow as we had back at our home. Plus the wind was about 90mph and had blown what snow there was right off the hill or made it crusty. We made the best of it.

But to be honest, we probably won’t go back to Red River in the winter anytime soon. We love the place in the summer, but it was not real appealing this winter. It was the most expensive place we’ve been skiing as a family because we had to pay for Chewy. Every other place we’ve been to Chewy has been free, plus the adult tickets were even more expensive than other places we’ve been too. And speaking of Chewy. That girl had an up and down day. She’d be happy one minute and having a melt-down the next minute. So I got to spend a couple hours with her like this:

To be fair to Red River, we’ve been spoiled with great snow near us. We skied at Wolf Creek for 2 days when they got 4 feet of snow. Then we did 2 Saturdays of skiing at the 2 places nearest to us after it snowed. Plus our kids both get in free at the local places and Biker Boy and I have discounted tickets there. Apparently skiing 6 times in 5 weeks is having an impact on Chewy. On our drive home she started talking in her sleep. She was whispering, “Help, help.” When I asked her what was wrong she said, “My ski is stuck.” I think we tuckered the poor child out.

New Years Day was spent at Angel Fire. Again, the snow wasn’t the best but we all agreed we’d like to try it again when there is better snow. They have 2 high-speed lifts and in love high speed lifts. Although I spent a majority of the day on the small lifts with Chewy. She was up and down again in mood, but was having fun on the small lift so we went with that. We want the kids to enjoy what they are doing so we don't push them on the ski hills. The lift operators on the small lifts were awesome! They would put Chewy on the lift for me and get her off! Smooches to all you lovely lift operators! Cause goodness, I have enough trouble getting myself on and off a chairlift with my snowboard on. (Yes, I dislocated my shoulder 6 years ago getting off a chairlift….so I have a healthy fear of chairlifts. Biker Boy would say it’s an unhealthy free, but I disagree.)

Yes, we had a fun vacation and got to do lots of fun things. We loved spending time with the family members we got to see. And missed the ones we didn’t get to see. And yes, let’s keep it real. We shared beds with kids that kicked us, dealt with temper tantrums, bathroom issues, and fighting. But we also made wonderful memories, got lots of hugs, and enjoyed being with the ones we love.

When we got home we had loads of unpacking, marble track building, IKEA building, 7 loads of laundry, and lots of playing! But it was worth it. And hey DAD...we're even now on the marble tracks. And guess what you're getting for Christmas next year?

And now it’s back to the normal routine, but in a New Year! How did you spend your holidays? How do you keep it real?

Enjoy the rest of your week! And don’t worry if your room looks like Scooter’s does in the above photos. My whole house looks like that right now. It’s all good! We’re making memories.

And I'm Off Again...Or Is It On Again?

2012-01-03T20:01:00.002-07:00

Another New Year! Happy New Year to all of you regulars and those stopping by for the Ektorp reviews. I'm so happy you're here. I'm delighted to start another year with all you that I love and all you that I don't even know stop by. But I'm so happy you stop by! Thanks!

And I'm photoless. Apparently I've used up all my free storage space. Whoops. Or Whoopee! One of those. But that means I've got to throw down the moolah and purchase some storage space so I can get some pretty and not so pretty (that means normal) photos back up here on this blog.

And boy do I have plans. Lots and lots of them. I'm like the Willy Wonka of mommy plans. I just wish more of my plans include chocolate rivers and rooms made out of candy. Any hoo...I went and purchased some cabinets today to make our media center. I told Biker Boy that they would be 20 percent off pretty soon and boy they sure are! Biker Boy drove into town right now to get the big one that I couldn't get home all by myself (with two kids in tow). I bet those cabinets will be sitting in our master bedroom for about 4 months. Cause it's taking awhile to fix the tile and grout in the master shower. That's the current winter project. Personally....I haven't touched it yet, it's been all Biker Boy. There went some Christmas money! Up next....dishwasher buying for Christmas...cause personally I'm about to get all Karate Kid on my dishwasher. Except I think it will hurt me. It sure hurts my ears with how loud it is. Any one got dishwasher recommendations? Shoot them my way before I shoot my dishwasher. Cause I sure don't recommend the dishwasher I've currently got. And talking about shooting....my kid shot himself in the face with his new nerf gun just after we told him for the 20th time to never look at the barrel. "It's not working," he said as he pulled the trigger and I was yelling for him to stop. Luckily he didn't shoot his eye out. Kids.

Plus, I've got another IKEA review or 2 coming at ya. I got to go visit the big blue store on vacation. We managed to squeeze a big new heavy box into our already packed minivan. And it's red! That's your only clue. Some of you know what it is cause you were there when we bought it. Hi ya family!

Oh and I have tales of deep snow, shoving a kid down a waterslide, candy, mermaids, and mountains. Yes, you read that right.....I said mermaids. I've seen them you know. They are real. And I want to be one when I grow up. I do love to swim.

And perhaps I'll do a review of our fun family Christmas present we got for ourselves. So much fun! But maybe it's just the kid in me that really loves it. Anyone who visits us is going to subjected to hours of entertainment with it. Or maybe just a few minutes. It's got the word box in the name and you've got to move around with it. Seriously....I was sore after playing it the first time. I'll admit it. Jillian Michaels, I am not.

One more thing....this is personal....MOM and DAD....that marble set....it took hours to build! Much longer than the IKEA piece. Scooter started on it himself for 3 hours and then Biker Boy joined in later. Biker Boy says he's even now with you for marble track building. He lost his marbles building it. I did 7 loads of laundry, that's what I did.

Happy New Year! What are your plans for the New Year? I'll be back after I get myself some photo storage space. And find my marbles. I think I lost them. At least half of them.

Christmas Crafting With Kids

2011-12-22T07:39:00.001-07:00

My munchkins and I tried a new Christmas craft last week. It was an epic fail. While we had fun making the dough, playing with the dough, and just being messy…..the dough didn’t set up as we expected and is still drying. And we live in a dry environment so it should dry fast. Maybe if we put it in the oven?

Or maybe it’s all the snow we’ve been getting? We had a snowstorm on Monday and our fourth one of the season is expected today. We’ve been mostly housebound this week, except for yesterday. We had to make a donut run while we could get up the driveway. You know…celebrate the small things!

So if you’re housebound and looking for ways to entertain the bored children on Christmas break, I’ve rounded up some more successful crafts I’ve done with my children that you can attempt yourself or with the young ones in your life. Just click on the title to take you to the post with the details of what to do.

Have Fun!

Christmas Angel Ornaments

Applesauce & Cinnamon Ornaments

See one in the above photo, behind the angel.

Sun Catchers

Cornstarch Clay

Easy Chocolate Pretzels

Thrifty Household Activities

Check out the Thrifty Household Activities post if you’re at a loss for what to do with the kids. It’s a list of things you may have around the house and what you can have the kids do with them.

Any other favorite Christmas crafting that you’ve done? Or that you’ve done with some young ones? What have you made or would like to make?

Another Snow Day

2011-12-20T08:12:00.001-07:00

We got another snow storm yesterday. It’s our third one in three weeks.

Luckily it was our first day of Christmas break yesterday, so there was no school. The kids have already missed three days of school due to snow, so we don’t need to add on to that tally….especially since they need to make up the days at the end of the year.

The bummer was that I had one kid throwing up and the other not feeling well. So it was a quiet day in the house. I literally snapped about 200 pictures of the birds feeding at the feeder. They were going nuts for the seeds and nuts. I did end up deleting a bunch. It was just hard to decide which ones to throw out.

Biker Boy spent the evening on the tractor plowing the driveway. He had to use his chains to get up the driveway this morning. I have no plans to go anywhere. The sun is peeking out, the kids are feeling better, and the snow is calling us to come and play. And I probably won’t get Christmas cards done this year. Sorry people, I’m going to play with my kids. I think today is calling for a snowman of epic proportions.

We hope you are having a stress free and joyful week as Christmas approaches. Make sure to enjoy every little moment. Even the snowstorms. What are you up to today?

DIY Barbie Clothes

2011-12-19T20:29:00.001-07:00

Yes. Homemade Barbie clothes. Call me Crazy. CRAZY!

You see….every year at Christmas I try to make a homemade gift for each one of my darling children. That’s two kids. Two gifts.

I started early on Chewy’s. With Chewy. And it’s been fun. Really, I’m not being sarcastic about the fun part. We have been having a blast together.

I got her a special occasions doll dress making kit. It’s for designing and making Barbie clothes. It comes with a sketch book, pins, needles, fabric, embellishments, and all sorts of goodies. It was cheaper than me buying a bunch of fabric and stuff to sew dresses. Plus I got a good deal on it. I let Chewy open it early so that we could get to making the Barbie clothes. This was cheaper than buying Barbie clothes, but whoa….it takes time.

Chewy loves to draw the dresses and color them in the sketch book. She’s in charge of picking out fabrics and embellishments. I’m in charge of trying to execute her design. And that’s what I do execute. As in….I pretty much kill her design and hope for the best. Sometimes I get lucky and other times it’s good enough.

I started easy. With a simple dress from Craftiness Is Not Optional. Check out all her Barbie Clothes Tutorials. That woman is insanely talented. Call me a wee bit jealous and green. She’s got some serious skills, but is able to break it down for us less talented sewing people. As in I have no sewing talent and had no idea what a dart was, but I soon found out from her handy photos! That woman is amazing!

Yes, I sewed these with my machine and did the smaller things by hand. Let’s just say that my sewing machine and I had some serious talks. I found out that yelling at it didn’t make it work any better and sweet talking it didn’t make it work any better either. I apparently was gritting my teeth a lot while sewing and now it seems to be a habit. My jaw is a little sore. I wonder if I burned any extra calories off from sewing….I have been eating a lot of chocolate pretzels. You need chocolate when you sew. It’s required.

Okay…..Here’s my first dress from that simple dress pattern. Not too shabby. Don’t you love the material and ribbon Chewy picked out? That material is left over from the key chains I made for gifts.

Then I got brave and on my own decided to replicate my wedding dress. I love my wedding dress. I wore it nearly 13 and a half years ago. I still love that thing. I still have the shoes too.

Here’s my replica. The band around the chest is a little more sparkly than my real dress, but not too shabby for my second Barbie sewing attempt.

And then I did some more dresses. Just ignore Barbie and Ariel’s hair. You know…bad hair day. Or bad hair stylist. Or bad seamstress. At least she’s smiling!

I even attempted some “skating and ballet outfits.” That’s what Chewy requested. These were from my very own pattern. Let me know if you want it…I can maybe finagle a tutorial with a pattern. The one on the left has an attached skirt. The one on the right has a removable tutu made with elastic. The green hair ribbon is optional, but oh so fashionable. Don’t ya think?

After the one shoulder outfits I decided Barbie needed to be covered up a little more. I attempted a halter dress or something with straps over the shoulders. I’m not much with fashion terms. This one is the only dress, besides the wedding dress, that was of my own design. Chewy left me to go take a nap. My other child was sick in bed napping, so I sewed a dress.

I even attempted dresses for a miniature like Barbie doll. She’s teeny. With teeny dresses. She came with some pretty cheap dresses that pretty much fell apart instantly. Mine have lasted a little longer than instantly. We shall see how long they last. Can you tell which little dress matches an adult dress? Yep…matching dresses. And yes, the last dress has a see through skirt. I tried to persuade Chewy to put material under it, but that wasn’t in her design. At least it’s just a doll.

All this dress making nonsense made a serious mess in my room for a couple of weeks. I’m suppose to be cleaning up the mess now, but instead I’m writing this post.

The mess was worth it. Chewy and I had the best time. Nearly everyday she was saying, “Can we go make Barbie clothes?” Chewy did get to cut her own fabric and ribbons for her own creations. They’re held together by tape and have been remade a dozen times. She’s so cute. I really enjoyed the time we spent together doing this. Maybe another time we’ll break out stuff to make more Barbie clothes. But for now I need a break and have to plan what my little man and I are going to make him for his Christmas gift.

So spill it….have you attempted Barbie clothes? What other homemade gifts have you made?

Munching the Holiday Treats

2011-12-15T20:26:00.001-07:00

Isn’t food great? We’re so blessed to have an abundance of it and to be able to get a variety of types of food.

Food can be simple or difficult. It can be easy or hard. It can be quick or long lasting. I guess it can even be really good or really bad. Food is wonderful.

We’re in the midst of holiday yummies here.

Today I had to take a finger food and a treat to Chewy’s preschool party.

These aren’t the best pictures cause I took them this morning before we left, but I’ve already written posts on these before with step-by-step directions to make your own. Just clicky on the linky. I mean just click on the title and that will take you to the original post.

Stuffed Penguins

Hee, hee…is it only me that laughs? And it makes me wonder….what do penguins taste like?

These are your basic black olive penguins stuffed with a ranch flavored cream cheese. And yes, everyone comments, “Those look like a lot of work.” I mean EVERYONE! And yes, they are a lot of work. I won’t lie. But Grandma made these for the kids and Chewy has the most wonderful memory and she requested these for her party. I couldn’t refuse. They’re cute. And fun. And tasty. And yes….they take awhile to make. Maybe 30 minutes for 40 some little penguins. I guess that’s not as long as baklava.

Super Easy Chocolate Pretzels

There aren’t enough adjectives in my vocabulary to describe how absolutely delicious these things are. They are just the right amount of sweet, salty, and crunchy to satisfy any sweet and salty craving you may have. And they’re so tiny and bite-sized that you just might eat too many of them. I have no idea where all our left over pretzels went. Biker Boy? Plus these things are quick and easy to make. Especially if you get the kids to peel the chocolates. Can you tell that I made the pretzels this time and not the kids? 50 points if can tell that I made these pretzels and not the kids. Negative 50 points if you think the kids made them. Yes, I can be mean. But I’m mostly nice. I only pretend to be mean. I really won’t take away any of your fake points.

Up next week….peanut butter bonbons and maybe cookie dough bonbons. Biker Boy has requested peanut butter bonbons and I won’t deny the love of my life a requested sweet treat. Hey mom….I’ll do the bonbons. Will you do the fudge? Will there be any Christmas cookies left over? I might even do some salted caramels. We’ll see how the time goes.

What are your favorite holiday treats to eat or make? What’s on your food list this year?

How To Make Baklava Again

2011-12-14T08:25:00.001-07:00

It’s been almost exactly 2 years since I posted the original How To Make Baklava. (You should check it out, it’s got a picture of the original recipe from 1980 something!) It’s time for a refresher course. I only make this about once a year, so I’m going to post it again. Yes, my blog posting is going to be a little food heavy lately. Yum!

Who likes this nutty, sweet, sticky, buttery, flaky and totally yummy treat? My hand is raised, how about yours?

Whenever I make Baklava everyone’s jaws drop and they wonder how it can be homemade. It’s your turn to make jaws drop. You can do it, yes you can. I’ll cheer you on, I know you can make this. It’s easy, but time consuming. You’ll need a good hour to assemble this decadent treat. So if you have little babies at home….get your mom or mom-in-law to make this for you. Or your dad if he cooks. Or your husband if he cooks. (Not mine….love ya hon! He’s the best taste tester though!) With one child in school and the other one napping….I had myself a good hour to assemble this.

What you’ll need:

4 cups walnuts
½ cup sugar
1-2 tsp ground cinnamon (I use 2!)
1 pound or box of fillo (phyllo) dough
1 cup butter or margarine (2 sticks), melted
12 ounces of honey or 1-½ cups

What you’ll need to do:

1) Roast the walnuts. Put them on a cookie sheet or pan with sides, bake at 300 for 15 minutes. Cool, and then chop in food processor or blender in small batches. You could also chop with a knife if you don’t have something to chop them in. You could even roast the walnuts a day or two before you use them.

2) In a large bowl with spoon, mix chopped walnuts, sugar, and cinnamon until blended. It’s best to turn on some good music and dance a little while making this. Close the curtains if you have nosy neighbors. Be sure to take them some baklava when you’re done.

3) Line a 9x13 inch-baking dish with foil, leaving excess over the sides to use as a handle. Grease the baking dish/foil. Preheat oven to 300F.

4) Open phyllo dough. Keep dough under a moist, clean kitchen towel to prevent drying as you work with it. Phyllo is pretty forgiving, especially when you coat it in butter. So if it rips, breaks, or does something naughty….piece it back together with the butter. Butter can heal a multitude of things….with desserts that is. Wish I could same the same thing for me.

5) Place one sheet of phyllo in baking dish, brush with some butter. Don’t be stingy on the butter, but don’t use too much. Cover the entire piece of phyllo. Wait….can you use too much butter?

6) Repeat with 5 more layers of phyllo. Cover each layer with butter. You’ll have 6 layers when you’re done. If you’re tired of coating each piece of phyllo with butter, I suppose you could do every other layer. I’ve never tried it, let me know if you do.

7) Sprinkle with ¼ of the walnut mixture. That should be one cup of the mixture. Math….it’s a good thing.

8) Repeat steps 5, 6, and 7. The first phyllo layer on top of the walnut mixture is a little more difficult. Use buttered fingers to help hold the phyllo down while you brush it with butter. I like to butter the edges first and then do the middle. Repeat layers until you get to the last of the walnut mixture on top of your phyllo. That should be your fourth application of the walnut mixture.

9) You should now have your last walnut mixture down. Hooray. You should also have quite a few layers of phyllo left and a little butter. If you happen to have run out of butter by this point, go ahead and melt some more. It’s okay. I’ve done it before. Place all of the remaining phyllo on top of last walnut layer; brush just the top piece with butter. Yes, just the top. Whew!

10) With a sharp knife, cut just halfway through layers in a triangle pattern to make 48 servings/triangles. This is the most frustrating part for me. I’ve discovered you need to use well buttered fingers and butter the knife tip at times to keep the phyllo from sticking, pulling up, and wrinkling. If it does pull up, it doesn’t matter. Just push it back into place with your buttered fingertips. You’ll still eat it.

11) Bake in 300 degree oven for 1 hour and 25 minutes or until top is golden brown and crispy.

12) Just before baklava comes out of the oven or right after, heat honey in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until hot, but not boiling. Spoon hot honey over baklava. Cool in pan on wire rack at least 1 hour, then cover and leave at room temp until serving.

13) Use the foil handles to remove the baklava from the baking pan. Put on a cutting board. Finish cutting through the baklava with a sharp knife before serving. Enjoy with coffee, tea, milk, chocolate, and a bunch of other goodies. Wrap up pretty for the neighbors and take them a treat. Take it to work and impress your co-workers. Yum!

Other stuff: You can leave this out at room temp for a few days. I also put mine in the refrigerator after a day, it keeps well. You can even freeze it. Just wrap it up well and put in the freezer and thaw in the refrigerator before you want to use it.

Let me know if you try this, I’d love to hear how it turned out for you. Do you have a favorite baklava recipe or a place you get it from? Any other favorite holiday treats?

Enjoy your day! We’re having another snow day today! It’s our third one this year. The kids in town have to go to school, but the kids in the mountains have a snow day. Since our school district doesn’t build in snow days, the kiddos get the joy of making them up at the end of the year. Here’s hoping we get to play in the snow!

Psst…Bonus points if you noticed the little blue guy supervising the baking (he helped with the roasted applesauce too). And more bonus points if you noticed the bowl of roasted applesauce from this post that some child is eating for a snack. And a million bonus points and a pat on the back if you attempt baklava!

Cooking With Kids: Roasted Applesauce

2011-12-13T08:18:00.001-07:00

Yesterday Chewy brought her Highlights Hive Five magazine to me and asked if we could make the recipe near the back. (January 2012 issue, page 33). It was a recipe for Roasted Applesauce and I agreed that we could try it. So we gathered our items and set out to make some applesauce since it was our only day at home this week. I sure enjoy having Chewy home with me since her preschool days got cut in half! We’ve been having a lot of fun together. You’ll have to stay tuned for another project we’ve been working on.

Do you wanna try to make roasted applesauce too? If so, we’ll share what we did. It’s pretty easy. The longest and hardest part was cutting the apples.

You’ll need:

6 apples
1 1/2 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
dash salt

You don’t need the little blue guy to help. He’s optional. But he is a good supervisor.

To make the applesauce:

1) Preheat oven to 400F.

2) Peel, core, and quarter the apples. I skipped the peeling part. Put the apples in a roasting pan.

3) Cut butter into small pieces and add to apples. Add sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. I added more like 1 tsp of cinnamon.

4) Cover pan tightly with lid or aluminum foil. Cook for 20 minutes. Uncover and cook for 5-10 minutes more or until the apples are soft.

5) When the apples are cool, mash the fruit and eat. We put ours in a mini food processor and smooshed them that way.

The applesauce was a big hit here. It tastes like apple crisp without the crisp part. Even Scooter had two bowlfuls of it when he got home from school and normally he turns his nose up to anything that his sister touched.

I remember my mom making applesauce when I was a kid. Yummy! Have you ever made applesauce? How do you make it? Any special ingredients?

Photo Challenge: Furry Faces

2011-12-12T07:45:00.001-07:00

It's Ranger Danger again! That little pup wiggles his way onto my blog a lot.

Today I'm putting my furry little guy up for the I Heart Faces Photo Challenge of Furry Faces.

My little furry face has that adorable pink nose. And his yucky runny eyes. But they are clean now since Biker Boy gave him a bath last night. Except I hate wet dog smell. He smells yucky until he dries and then he's a tropical scented little ball of fluff. For 2 minutes, until he goes out in the snow again. Oh well.

I'm entering a photo of my energetic white ball of fur from this post. I love his pink nose, the serious look he has as he's trying not to get hit by the balls the kids are playing with, and I love how his yellow/brownish/greenish eye color came out. Plus I love that I happened to catch his collar with his name, to be honest that was purely an accident....I didn't notice it until later. Here's the photo again:

It's so hard to pick a favorite photo of a pet. Do you have a favorite of yours?

Thank you to everyone for stopping by! I'm so glad you did whether this is your first visit or your 100th (Hi mom and dad!). Have a great week!

2011 Christmas Decorations and Snow

2011-12-09T14:43:00.001-07:00

The decorations are up. It doesn’t take much around here. We have 2 storage totes full of Christmas stuff that we keep in the garage and that’s it. That’s all we can fit. Storage is at a premium here and if we have to store it for 11 months, then it doesn’t get much room. If something new comes in, something old has got to go out. Or something new has to go out or find someplace else to call home (or someplace else in our home to reside). And look at the poor little birdie below….he can’t get to his food. We eventually did go out and take the snow out of the feeder and give the birds some fresh seed. Okay, that was something totally random and out of nowhere. Moving on with the Christmas décor. But isn’t he a cute little birdie?

I’d love new Christmas décor or a scheme every year, but I’m happy with the simple things and love what we have. I love our potted Christmas tree and the red ribbons the kids put on it. Biker Boy put green LED lights on it this year. (Hooray for after Christmas sales! We’ve been able to replace all our broken and nonworking light strings with LEDs the past few years.)

I love letting the kids pick ornaments out of the ornament box to put in their rooms. Scooter hangs them on a mini fake tree we’ve had ever since Biker Boy and I got married. Chewy hangs them on her canopy bed. Biker Boy strung another string of green LED lights on her bed while Scooter has candy cane lights on his tree. No pictures, sorry. I haven’t taken any and Chewy is napping right now. You do not want to disturb that child while she is napping. And I’ll take the few free moments I get when she naps.

The burlap stockings I made a couple of years ago are hung up in our entry way. We usually hang kid art on these clips, but now the stockings have taken over. I hung some ornaments from our closet light on the tree branches. Yep…the closet light is no more. We have a new spanking LED light in there. It’s like awesome like awesome sauce. Moving on…. Then we put some ribbon from the ribbon stash around the vase and Bible for color. And that folks is the extent of our holiday décor. Pretty simple.

Oh…outdoor lights. I love me some colorful outdoor lights. It’s not as fancy schmancy as white lights, but it’s colorful and we like colorful. We have green lights on our fence and no picture of that. There are colored lights on our big juniper that we can see out our picture window and that people driving by can see if they happen to look down our steep driveway. Or maybe it’s just us that looks down our steep driveway as we’re driving down it to get to the house. It took me way too many tries to get up it on Wednesday when there was snow on it. And no chains since we broke one. Bummer, but I made it with my heart beating around 200 beats per minute. Moving on…..

We also have a lovely LED star hanging on our picture window. Biker Boy likes anything LED. He works with LEDs. I cannot tell you how many times we stop in the flashlight aisles of different stores. The guy loves his lights. He can recommend a really good headlight for night biking or skiing (at a great price) if anyone is interested. And he doesn’t get any commission on it.

Moving on…..the best part of Christmas décor is the stuff Mother Nature throws at us. There’s something to be said for the way God decorates, it’s the best. We had a lovely snow here this past week and it was gorgeous. I’ll throw in a few photos, though I’m not going to touch them up any. So here’s hoping I took them okay with the camera. From my bedroom window. I didn’t venture out to take these. Yes, you have permission to call me a wuss. And yes, people, even though we live in the southwest and in the high desert….it still snows. And it still gets cold. It just doesn’t last long.

Do you decorate for Christmas? What do you do?

Thrifty Homemade Gifts for Teachers

2011-12-08T13:43:00.001-07:00

It’s fun to give gifts at Christmas time. It’s also fun to make them…..sometimes. Unless it’s just a pain or you don’t have the time.

But we planned ahead this year and made Christmas gifts for the many teachers in our children’s lives. Maybe I need to change the we to I. I made these. The kids just picked out the items and Biker Boy would never attempt this.

After counting everyone up….we needed 11 gifts. That’s school teachers, preschool teachers, Sunday school teachers, bus drivers, children’s pastors, and the likes. 11 gifts can add up.

Those special 11 people will be getting personalized key chains this year. Plus a few of them will be getting other random purchased things that will be useful to them.

I made cloth wrist bands and attached key chains with hand stamped names and charms. Whew.

If you want awesome directions on how to make the Fashionable Fabric Key Chains you’ll need to check out this post at The Idea Room. That’s what I used. Except I couldn’t find purse strap clips, so I just used half circle or D-rings. And a split ring.

Making the Fabric Keychain

I got a fabric set at Hobby Lobby for $4.99, but with a 40% off coupon. And I only used half the fabric. I got the D-rings at Jo-Ann and they were on sale for $1.49 for packs of 2. I bought 5 packs. But wait….it gets better. When I walked in the store they gave me a $5 gift card to use that day because it was a grand reopening. I had no idea, but made out well! The split rings were a pack of 10 on sale for 77 cents. I got ribbon at 50% off at Hobby Lobby too. Just follow the lovely tutorial from The Idea Room to make the key chains.

Making the Hand Stamped Pieces

This just keeps getting better and better. I bought the silver colored blank stamps at 50% off of 1.99. Each package had 6 stamping blanks in it and I bought 2 sets. I bought the letter stamping set with a 40% off coupon. They are normally $19.99. I also got 4 charms at Hobby Lobby for 74 cents each, cause they were 50% off. I got a set of 6 school charms from this store on Etsy for $1.50 plus shipping. Super cute. I stamped the teachers’ names into a blank stamp that the kids picked out. Then I put it on a jump ring (77cents at Jo-Anns) with a charm. The kids picked out which charms to give to their teachers. I put the jump ring on a split ring and slipped it on the D-ring. Wah-lah….a handmade item for those special teachers.

After adding up all the money I spent, plus the money I saved with coupons and gift cards….I spent around $26. Actually less if you count that I only used half the fabric. That’s about $2.60 per keychain, cause I only made 10 fabric ones. Those are for the 10 ladies. There’s one guy who’ll be getting a hand stamped nametag and charm on a manly clip thing. The fabric key chains are more girly. And they’re red so you can locate them in a big purse. Cause I can never find my keys in my purse.

What do you give for gifts when you have a around a dozen people to give them too? I think I’ll need ideas for next year.

Taking Christmas Photos

2011-12-07T08:26:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I previewed all the Christmas portraits I’ve taken of my kids with point and shoot cameras (find it here). You can get good photos with point and shoot cameras, even the cheap ones. Just use good light, focus on the eyes, and you can use editing software if you have it.

This year I have a lower end dslr camera, so I practiced with that. I love playing with my camera.
And yes, school was cancelled for kids on our side of the mountain yesterday, so I was able to utilize the sunlight to get pictures of my children. Let’s hope I can get up the driveway this afternoon, because I’m suppose to pick Scooter up from school today. And one of our chains broke over the weekend and the new ones don’t arrive until tomorrow. Uff dah.

I bribed the kids with skittles and told them I would only be taking pictures of them for no more than 15 minutes.

In about 12 minutes I snapped some pictures, with a few breaks for the kids to get baby dolls and dogs.

I clamped a white fleece sheet on to two of my bar stools. Scooter is getting too tall to stand in front of a sheet at that height, so I put a wicker basket down for the kids to sit on. There were only a few squeals and whines of “he’s sitting on my side” or “she’s hogging the seat.” Good times. My “photography area” is facing a lot of south facing windows. There’s also a west facing picture window (that you can see in the photos below). You can see the reflections of the windows in the kids’ eyes. The light wasn’t directly shining on the kids, but there was a lot of natural ambient light. You can get a nice view of the mess below. And a view of the kids eating their treat once we were done with photos. I took the photos around 10am. We still hadn’t cleaned up from breakfast. Snow days mean hot chocolate.

I got a few decent pictures in less than 15 minutes. I took maybe 90 photos and a lot of the photos had the eyes closed in them. Oh well.

The outfits? Scooter is wearing a Docker 3 piece outfit from Sears. It cost $22. He’ll be wearing it to church a lot. He actually wanted to wear it to school today, but I vetoed that.

Chewy is wearing an American Girl outfit that is a wee bit too big for her. It was an early Christmas present. I got it for 75% off, along with the matching doll outfit for her Bitty Baby. Chewy’s dress was $18 and the hat was $5. The doll’s dress (with hat, tights, book, and shoes) was $12. Not too bad for usually overpriced American Girl stuff. The best thing is that Chewy loves it.

There is minimal editing on these photos. Mostly because I didn’t take the time to do it and when I did edit one, Biker Boy thought the kids’ faces were too washed out. So I just boosted the color a tiny bit and brought out the eyes a tiny bit. That’s it. I used The Pioneer Woman’s free actions. I used Bring Out the Eyes at 40% opacity. I sharpened the eyes with Sharpen This at 60% opacity and used the Boost action, but turned off most layers and only used the Zing (or is it zip?) at 40% opacity. Too much info for some of you?

The pictures with the dog didn’t work out so well. Oh well.

Have you noticed that Scooter has lost 2 teeth in the front? Yep. The tooth fairy has been here a lot recently. The dog photo and ones below have not been edited at all. That way you can kind of see the before and afters.

I think I like the outtake photos the best. That’s when you get the personality!

Have you done Christmas photos? Do you have to bribe your kids to get photos of them?

Point and Shoot Portraits: Past Christmas Photos

2011-12-06T07:41:00.001-07:00

I have always taken photos of my children for Christmas. I send them out to family and keep them on a page in a scrapbook for my kids.

From 2004-2010, I went through 3 different fairly cheap point and shoot cameras to take these photos.

The first few years I didn’t even have editing software to touch up the photos. The most I managed to do was write Merry Christmas with the year and the kid’s names.

I’m going to share all those past Christmas photos with you. Minus the text. You’ll be able to see my slow progression in photography. I still have to take our 2011 photo, but the light and timing aren’t cooperating with me. Maybe today I can do it if school is cancelled again! It’s only a 2 hour delay, so far.

2004: Scooter was not even 2 months old. I set up a white sheet against some chairs with a window in the background. Not exactly the best set-up, you could see the light through the sheet and all the wrinkles in it. I used a heavy weight to brace the Christmas box and padded it up with blankets. The baby was completely safe. Then there was tissue paper and I shot about 50 photos. This is the one I picked to add the text to.

2005: This was quick and dirty. I used the duvet off our master bed and set up against some chairs. This was done towards evening, so the light wasn’t great. Scooter didn’t quite fit in the Christmas box anymore, but I used it to show how big he had grown. And I threw in some Christmas bows I had laying around. There’s nothing like cheap props. And I only took about 10 shots.

2006: Okay, so this wasn’t one I took on my own. We took a cruise right before Christmas and had a photo of Scooter taken on the boat. He was so cute, minus the chapped red face. I was nearly 6 months pregnant at the time with Chewy, so she didn’t make the photo. The photo was taken on seamless white paper, at night, with a couple of soft lights. It turned out okay and cost way too much, but the kid was cute!

2007: A new addition to the photos. Chewy! Scooter was three in this photo and Chewy was 9 months old. I tried taking photos of them at 2 different times in the dining room of our new house. There was no posing involved, I just put out different Christmas things and even set Chewy in a box at one point. (I like the boxes apparently!) I got three different shots I like and snapped maybe 30 photos. I boxed out their names for posting on the web, so that would be the red boxes.

2008: There was no setting up for Christmas shots for the kids this year. I ran out of time, but found 2 photos I had taken of the kids that I liked. The first was from one of the snowstorms we had. The kids are sitting on a sled outside in our yard. The other one was one I took of the kids playing in a blanket on the floor in my room.

2009: These are probably still my favorites to this day. I had just gotten Photoshop Elements 8 and was trying to learn it. I did touch up the backgrounds of these photos and boosted the colors, that’s about it. I took the photos using that blanket from 2008 as a backdrop against the dresser in the master bedroom. I took these at about 10am when the sun was shining through the windows in the bedroom. I diffused the sunlight with the cellular shades. See the light from the window in their eyes? The outfits were what my kids wore at my sister’s wedding celebration a couple of months before. Too darn cute!

2010: Same set-up at 2009. This photo was taken around my birthday in November. I used it for Christmas because I ran out of time to do a typical “Christmas shot.” I like it well enough. I did the same touching-up to this photo as I did the previous year.

2011: Still to come. I better get in gear! Or else I will have to rifle through my hard drive and pick one taken recently!

Do you do Christmas family or kid photos? Any memorable ones?

Zoo Happenings

2011-12-02T14:09:00.001-07:00

Do you like to go to the zoo?

We love to go to the zoo. So much so that we have a membership to our local zoo. It’s a good deal. We get into our zoo, aquarium, and botanical gardens for free with our paid membership. We also get some free visitor passes. And our membership gets us free visits or discounted rates to zoos across the country, if we happen to visit them.

It’s a 30 minute drive to the zoo, aquarium, or botanical gardens for us. We visit one of them about once a month.

Right before Thanksgiving we visited the zoo. We also went to the aquarium the day after Thanksgiving, rather than messing with the crowds at the stores.

It was a chilly day when we went to the zoo. Want to come along with me? At least you can do it from the comfort of a climate controlled room (hopefully). No zoo here today, it's a snow day.

The kids were excited to go to the zoo. They are most of the time.

We started with the flamingos. You can’t miss them. They’re right inside of the entrance. And they’re bright pink from all the additives in their food. The additives make them pretty. Pretty in pink. Can additives make me pretty too?

The gorillas were next. They were pretty much only interested in their food. One time we saw them when the sprinklers were on in their enclosure. Funny!

Then came the orangutans. The baby stole the show. He always does. He’s like a normal kid. Messy. Throws his clothes around and is just darn cute. Plus he likes popcorn. Me too.

Birds. They’re just parakeets. You can see them in a pet store too. But these ones fly all around you. Just be careful if you happen to be under one at a certain time.

Koalas. Cute. This one just ate. And ate. And ate. And ate. Kinda like what I do at holiday time.

Rhino. Just saying “rhino” about covers it all.

Zebras. Or zebra butts. I had some pictures with just zebra butts, but I deleted them. It’s really not their better half. And yes, I’m saying butt. I say “behind” around my kids, but I’m thinking “butt.” Cause really….I say “but” a lot in normal language and now I’m just adding another t. Butt. And that is how my brain works sometimes.

Cheetahs. It was bath time.

Giraffes. There was a new baby, but he/she didn’t want to turn around for me.

Elephants. Did you ever notice how long of eyelashes they have? Jeepers. I like the zoom lens on my new camera.

Peacocks. They were everywhere at the zoo. You’d turn around and there would be another free zoo roaming peacock. Watch out…they bite.

Ducks. This is like the biggest attraction at the zoo for my kids and it’s just common ducks. We always have to remember to bring some bread to feed to the ducks. And these things will swarm you if you’re the only one with food. Watch out for the biting peacocks. And no, Scooter didn’t get bit. Or Chewy.

Seals and Sea Lions. I once swam on a swim team called the “Sea Lions.” Just some random info for you. They were soaking up the sun because it was chilly.

Chimpanzees. It was so chilly these poor things were huddled together. I can totally relate to the chimp being held by the other one. That would be me with Biker Boy’s arms around me. And yes, I'd probably be whining too....if the kids weren't around to hear it.

Tigers. They were very active while we were there. Usually they’re just laying around.

Mountain Lions. In a cage. They also live in the mountains around us and thank goodness I’ve never actually seen one in the wild. And I hope one has never seen us. But we have seen footprints. And there was the one time we went hiking with Scooter when he was 1 and a half and he pointed into the woods and said, “Big Kitty.” That’s a good story.

Kids. Wait. They live in my zoo, not the zoo we visit.

Crocodiles. Biker Boy is pretty sure they’re fake. They never move. They don’t even blink. And they are huge.

The reptile/amphibian house. Lots of little and medium glass tanks of scaly and slimy things. This is Scooter’s favorite place to visit. It was warm to visit on a chilly day.

The tropical rain forest building. I dislike visiting this one because it stinks. Literally stinks. A tiny warm and humid building with animals and their waste. Yuck. I always breathe through my mouth in this building and hurry the kids through it. But the little monkeys are fun to watch….for a half a second until I have to breathe again through my nose.

And for some reason I always get a picture of my children’s backsides while they are looking at something. Always. If I scrounge around my hard drive I bet I can find some from previous years, but I'm not going to right now. Let’s see…..do you want me to say butt? I have got to lay off the extra cup of coffee some days. Makes me talk/write too much. Or maybe it's lack of sleep. Or both. yikes.

What do you like to see at the zoo? I like the polar bears, but they weren’t out on the chilly day. What’s up with that?

And I hope you had a great weekend and a wonderful upcoming week. We spent a fun time skiing and snowboarding at Wolf Creek in the snow this past weekend. I probably had 10 years taken off my life by my blood pressure sky rocketing as we drove up and down the mountain in the snowy weather in a 2-wheeled drive vehicle (with chains). And I was just riding. It was the cars that skidded off the road in front of us that was scary to watch. We did fine on the roads and had 2 wonderful days in the powder! And now we're leash and hula hoop free. Chewy was off on her own skiing the last day! And we came home to a snow day! That was good timing because the kids didn't get to bed until 10:30pm last night Whew....do you have any snow stories?

The Bachelor Pad Television

2011-12-01T08:28:00.001-07:00

You know you want more messy house photos, right? Cause you’re going to kind of get them. Everything is out of whack here with the TV returning and getting. But that’s okay.

You might recall that we went all modern and got a big flat screen TV (find the story here). We went from a 27 inch CRT TV to a 46 inch flat screen LED LCD.

Then we returned it. All the bad reviews on it were true. People just weren’t making it up. It had awful sound, the video didn’t keep up with the audio, and it didn’t scale right for a full-screened sized movie on a DVD. (It was a Westinghouse, in case you’re wondering.) The TV was a good deal and it had great color, but everything else was awful. It wasn’t a good enough deal to keep it, so we returned it. We’ve been using “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” to gauge the different TVs we’re trying and the four kids just looked puffy on the Westinghouse because it wouldn’t accommodate the size. It looked like they had been eating a few too many Turkish delights. (And yes, we tried each and every setting in the menu to change size and it didn’t work).

We brought out our smaller LED/LCD Vizio from the guest/treadmill room to use in the mean time. Would you believe that was our first flat screen TV and we haven’t even had it a year? Totally true. We’re not quick on the technology stuff. And I like a TV to watch while I’m exercising on the treadmill and trainer, so that’s why we have 2 TVs. It gets boring running and going nowhere when the scenery doesn’t change.

We thought we would get another Vizio from Costco because we were happy with that one. The LED ones were really expensive, so we were just looking at a regular LCD one. But it wasn’t on sale, so we thought we would just wait and see what deals came up.

We didn’t have to wait as long as we thought. Biker Boy went swimming the other night in town (you know, we met on the college swim team) and thought he would look at a few stores in town. I got a call that he found a good deal and should he get it. I agreed and luckily the guy had brought the van, cause it’s a huge honking TV.

It’s a Toshiba 55 inch LCD TV. Yes, I said 55 inch. That was way bigger than what we thought we would get, but it didn’t cost anymore than a 40 or 46 inch TV. It was a floor model at Best Buy, so we got a stellar deal (really, really good deal!). At first we weren’t impressed with the coloring. Lucy (from the Chronicles of Narnia) looked sunburned and the colors just didn’t pop. But after playing with the settings for a bit, we think we like it. And I wasn’t use to how everything looks so real and lifelike. But so far, we’re happy and thinking we’re going to keep it. It’s our big family Christmas present. The kids say it looks like a movie theater, so we should have some fun family movie nights.

I’m happy to report that George looks great on the new TV and sounds wonderful. Chewy even said, “He sounds better on this TV than on the other one.” Now if we can just get a sale on the parts we want to use to build our media center, we’ll be on a roll. Give us a year or two.

What are your TV buying experiences? And how do you get rid of a CRT? We might have to pay to get rid of it!

The Thanksgiving Meal

2011-11-29T13:18:00.001-07:00

Are my lovely American readers still recovering from their Thanksgiving meal? We’ve already polished off the leftovers here. I used the rest of the turkey last night in our dinner meal. Except we are working on another pumpkin pie! Yum!

The food was wonderful at Thanksgiving, but the most wonderful part was spending time with family. This year we were blessed to have Biker Boy’s family visit us. Hugs and kisses to my family, we missed you!
We started Thanksgiving morning as we have for the past 4 years. Running a 5K race. Thankfully this year was the warmest that it has ever been for us. While Biker Boy and I didn’t run quite as fast as we did last year, we still did respectable. And Biker Boy beat me again, though I was able to keep up with him for a bit. I didn’t manage to get 2nd in my age group like I did last year, but I still was the first 34-year-old female across the finish line. That put me in 8th place out of 111 women in the 30-34 age group. Not too shabby. Biker Boy did awesome and I think got 11th out of 56 men in his age group. He placed 136th out of over 1600 people. Awesome job baby!

Scooter has been running the 1K kid’s race since he was 4. The kid ran crazy fast this year. I was barely able to get a photo of him because I didn’t expect him to get to the finish line that fast. Look at him striding through the air! He’s #782.

Chewy has been running the 1K kid’s race since she was 1. Yes, one year old! I think she was the last one across the finish line that first year, which is fine because she finished the whole thing at that young age! She was running fast this year at age 4!

Since we ran the 5K in the morning (with 1600 other crazy people), we put the turkey in crockpots. Just turkey breasts…that way we don’t have leftovers of turkey parts people won’t eat. I rarely feed my family poultry because I have an aversion to working with raw turkey or chicken, so it was a lovely treat to eat it. Even lovelier since my mom-in-law took charge of putting the turkey in the crockpot (and I don’t think she even knows I don’t like raw poultry). Oh...and since we had never tried turkey breast in a crockpot…I’m happy to report it worked out wonderfully. It was moist and tender and tasty. We cooked it on top of carrots.

After the race, we came home to clean-up, relax, and finish dinner preparations. It didn’t take long since the food was mostly easy stuff to prepare and the bird breast was in the crockpot.

The youngest girls made deviled eggs. My little one lasted about one egg.

We had a spread on the counter. Not a pretty presentation, but we just ate it and it was wonderful.

My niece requested dressing for the Thanksgiving meal and she made some wonderful stuffing. She was a wonderful helper to me all week in the kitchen.

We had turkey, squash, mashed potatoes, broccoli salad, jellied cranberries, carrots, lefse, and gravy. Yes, I made gravy from scratch. Thank goodness my mom gave me lessons on that years ago. Oh and there was pumpkin pie and turkey cookies. And of course, homemade whipping cream. Anyone else out there wondering what lefse it? Truly humoring to go to stores in the west and ask if they have lefse. You’ll get asked, “Is that a cleaning product?” But Biker Boy’s family always manages to find it. And my kids call lefse “tortillas”….yep, they live in the southwest.

I’m very thankful for my family, my loving husband, and my precious children.

I am so thankful to finally be healthy and feeling well and to no longer be on antibiotics or any other medication. I’m trying to be grateful for my health and how great I feel now after a year of feeling yucky. I am thankful there are medications that keep certain members of my family functioning and healthy. I am thankful my family made it through a broken leg, bad allergies, and every other challenging moment. I am thankful Scooter didn’t have any bad asthma attacks this year. I am just thankful for each moment I get to spend with my family. I am thankful for every little thing in my life, which are too numerous to write. What are you thankful for? I hope you enjoyed a Thanksgiving to remember.

Real Life Progression

2011-11-18T08:24:00.001-07:00

Okay…these are not pretty pictures coming up. They are unedited, unstaged, uneverything. They’re just real life happening here. Slowly. Like I’ve said before, “It’s a work in progress.”

Let’s see the slow progression of our living room wall. It’s a slow work in progress.

Here it is after we moved in. Hand me down everything. Hand me down stuff isn’t bad. We love it. We have a lot of it. It’s just finding a way to make it yours or using it till you find something else. The chair eventually got replaced by my beloved IKEA furniture. Funny how the black entertainment center was never our favorite, it was probably one of our least favorite pieces of furniture because we’re not big on dark things. But it was always “good enough” and we were thankful to have it.

Moving on to the beginning of 2010. Buh-bye old chair and hello new IKEA Tullsta chairs.

Six months later I moved a chair. And the fish got booted to Scooter’s room. Because of his allergies and asthma we had to keep his room pet free while his bed was on the floor. So he got the fish. But now that he has a loft, the pets can come in, though they rarely do because they were so used to not being in there.

Then I got the inkling to move our computer desk out of our “office/guest room” and into the living room. We had planned on doing that anyway as the kids got older. We want to be able to view the computer and TV and what is on them at all times from our main living area. Plus we hated intruding on guests to use the computer. And yes….seeing all those hanging cords drove me nutso. But I lived it with for awhile. And don’t you love the pile of laundry? The Tullsta chairs are still good for that to this day.

I ended up moving the Tullsta chair and plopping blue painter’s tape on the floor to mock up what I would like for a new built in media center. That was a year ago people. I had blue painter’s tape on my floor for a year. Yes, A YEAR! I’m sure some of you have seen it. I got so use to the blue tape I almost forgot it was there.

And you know what? Blue painter’s tape really sticks to a tile floor after being on it for a year. Luckily I had some eager helpers. They’ll do anything happily for a chore sticker.

We got a new TV the other day. Yes, we’re finally moving up in the technological world. Buh-bye big CRT TV and hello new big flat screen TV. The TV wouldn’t fit in the black entertainment center. Bummer. (Not really.) So we moved that beast of a heavy thing out of the way. We put it up for free on Craigslist and hopefully someone is coming to get it tomorrow. And you wouldn’t believe the number of dust bunnies that were multiplying behind that thing. Those were some frisky dust bunnies. Hence the vacuum that you see in photos. Otherwise I don’t vacuum that often. Unless guests are coming. Think I’m kidding?

We put the new TV on our old coffee table. It’s a hand-me down table and I really love it. My grandparents had it and then my parents and then my hubby and I. I always try to find a place for it. Scooter thinks it’s the best car driving table. We put some books to good use to push the TV up to cover the cords. Nice.

Now we’ve got what I call “The Bachelor Pad” look going on. Biker Boy drew up an initial design in his engineering program of what we would like to build. I’ve priced out everything from IKEA, Pottery Barn, and other stores of prebuilt desks and cabinets. It’s far cheaper for us to buy some kitchen cabinets and build our own desk and shelves. So I’ve been going to ReStore and thrift stores and browsing Craigslist for kitchen cabinets. No such luck. Striking out everywhere. How do some people get so lucky finding just what they want for so little? The used cabinets I have found are super old, super warped, and super expensive. So it may be awhile till we get something built there.

And you know what else…we’re probably returning the TV. It sucks. Make that a Sucks with a capital S. The audio gets ahead of the video both on DVDs and on the regular TV. We contacted the manufacturer and they gave us directions on how to reset the TV and we’ll try that this weekend. Even if it does work, the audio is horrible. The sound just sounds awful compared to our one other TV. Curious George just sounds wrong. (He’s on right now…did you know I love George?) Luckily we can return it and if we can't get the audio to work we will return it after the Thanksgiving rush. Thankfully with all these wonderful pre-Thanksgiving sales we found another TV we might get. But we’re not huge TV people, so no biggie if we don’t get another one right away.

Someday….someday…I’ll have this wall prettied up and organized. But it’s good enough for now. I would just love some concealed storage to hide away all that stuff. And yes…that’s a pile of VHS tapes under the table. We inherited them from a coworker of my husband’s. She was replacing all her Disney VHS tapes with DVDs. And yes, we still have a VCR. We’re slow on the technology uptake. We don’t even have a blu-ray, we use a PS2 for our DVD player most of the time though we did just get a cheap DVD player. They’ll probably have something new out by the time we get a blu-ray. But hey…we have more than others and we’re thankful for what we do have.

What’s your real-life? A work in progress too? Or all prettied up? Any TV recommendations? I wouldn’t recommend what we have, though it was cheap. Enjoy your weekend!

Turkey Cookie Reboot

2011-11-17T14:54:00.001-07:00

There are a whole lot of turkey cookies that happen this time of the year in the lady side of my family. My mom makes them, my sister makes them, my sister-in-law makes them, and I make them. I believe a cousin of mine was gifted a cookie cutter this year so she can make her own rather than getting a gift box of them from my mom. Go turkey cookies!

You know you needs lots of turkey to make these things? Right? Lots and lots of turkey if you’re making 12 dozen of these gobblers. Kidding. Totally kidding. Though there has been more than one person who thought “turkey cookies” were made with turkey. They’re not.

They’re a super yummy gingerbread cookie cut out to look like a turkey. You’ll have to scour antique stores to find the cookie cutter. My mom might have beat you to it. I love my turkey cutter. And my mom. And I love turkey cookies.

Only once a year you’ll find me making these babies. It’s a workout to roll out dough. Did you know that? Especially cold dough. My abs are talking to me. Or maybe my counters are too high.

Two years ago I blogged about turkey cookies here. I didn’t divulge the recipe. I think I can share it. I don’t believe it’s a nationally guarded secret. It’s even in a cookbook. If you can find a copy of “All Because of Grace” that features more than 200 award-winning children’s authors and illustrators and their favorite recipes…then you’ll find the turkey cookies in there from my sister-in-law. Check out Yes! Grace Rocks, Inc. to see if they have it. I couldn’t find it. Bummer.

Gingerbread Turkey Cookies (Makes about 4 dozen)

1 cup shortening (I use unsalted butter)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup molasses/honey combo (about 1/4 cup dark molasses to 3/4 cup honey)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon
6 cups flour

Basic cookie dough directions:

Cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs and beat well. Blend in molasses and honey. Add salt, baking soda, and other dry ingredients. Dough should not be sticky. Chill dough for at least one hour. If you don’t have time to chill, just deal with it.

Basic cookie shaping and baking directions:

Preheat oven to 375. Roll dough to 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness. I just roll it till the cookie cutter can cut it.

Place cut out turkeys (gobble, gobble) on a greased baking sheet. Bake for 4-6 minutes. I do 6 minutes.

Place candy corns in a fan shape on the tail area. Some people use 3. I always put a minimum of 5 because I buy the big bags of candy corns on clearance for 74 cents after Halloween. Some turkeys even get a whole feathered body of candy corns. Yum.

Bake 2-4 more minutes or until candy corns are squishy. I do it 4 minutes. Sometimes it takes longer if you accidently turned off the oven. I’m just saying….it’s happened to some people.

Remove from oven and take a fork and press the softened candy corn to flatten it and give the candy a “feathered” appearance. I spray my fork with a little nonstick spray before squishing. And you are free to eat all the misshaped candy corns rather than putting them on the tails of the turkeys. Just eat them. Leave the turkeys with pretty tail feathers before they get eaten too.

Let cookies cool on a rack. A cooling rack. Not the other kind of rack. You knew that.

When cool…baste those turkeys. I mean marinate those turkeys. No wait…I mean glaze those turkeys. You can use a glaze of 1-2 tablespoons of butter, hot water, and confectioners sugar. This year I went all rogue and skipped the butter. The cookies still get glazed, but have a more sugary look. You know what I mean….sugary. Brush that glaze on the turkey. Let dry. Eat and eat and eat. And pass around. That’s why I’ve made 12 dozen…..people kinda expect these cookies this time of the year now.

Do you want to know the best part of making turkey cookies? Well, the eating them ranks right up there. And I always eat the tail last. But the best part for me this year was making them with my little girl. I gave Chewy a 1/4 of the dough on Monday this week after I had made up another batch of it and she went to town next to me creating her own cookies.

She rolled out the dough with her own little rolling pin. She cut out the dough with her own little cookie cutters and my turkey one (which will one day be hers).

She put on her own candy corns and glaze. She was quite the dedicated and careful little worker.

I enjoyed every moment baking with her and being covered in flour with her. And her cookies turned out delicious.

What memories are you cooking up this holiday season?

Christmas Tree 2011

2011-11-14T09:15:00.001-07:00

I know, it still seems early to be thinking about Christmas. We've got to get through Thanksgiving first.

But we've had our tree since November 4 and I thought I'd share it and our past trees with you.

Yes, I said November 4. Chewy had a preschool field trip 40 minutes from where we live and it was near our favorite nursery where we got our Christmas tree last year. So we took a trip to the nursery and were pleasantly surprised to find they had 9 Ponderosa trees to pick from.

So I picked one. The one right in the middle of the pack of trees. The poor nursery worker had to move 3 trees to get at the one I wanted. And they're heavy. I know....I hoisted this baby out of the back of our van and then had to vacuum up a bunch of dirt.

Ever since we've moved into this house we have bought potted Christmas trees that we plant in the spring. We're blessed to have just over 2 lovely high desert acres with plenty of room to plant trees. It's keeping the trees alive that is the problem.

Let's tour the past trees, since I haven't ever done that.

2007: Austrian Pine
That lovely little bush looking tree is still alive. It just hasn't grown much.

2008: Austrian Pine
It's still alive. It's doing well. And just like the other Austrian Pine, it hasn't grown much. But it's alive.

2009: Baby Blue Spruce
It died this spring. It had a rough start in the spring of 2010 and it never recovered from our super cold February 2011. We dug it out this spring and transplanted an aspen into its place. No more baby blue spruces for us...to much baby sitting.

2010: Ponderosa Pine
We love Ponderosas. They're beautiful pine trees, native to this area, and get lovely huge pinecones when they are mature. We'll probably keep getting these if we can. The 2010 tree was planted in the spring and is still thriving.

You can see in the background of the picture below that we have one huge native Ponderosa on our property. It's a gorgeous tree. It's much more impressive in real life. (To the left of the baby 2010 Ponderosa in the back of the photo).

And because the kids and I took an adventure around the property the other day I took a few photos of the native Ponderosa. It's our hope that years and years from now the future owners of this property will be able to enjoy huge Ponderosas that were once our Christmas trees.

What are your Christmas tree plans for this year? Potted, real, fake or something else?

I have to say....keeping 3 out of 4 planted trees alive is a pretty good ratio for us. Our trick...to warm up our shower in the master bath we run the water out of the tub into a bucket...then later we hike out and dump that water on the newest planted tree. Plus we use water from our water barrels.

Have an awesome week!

Point and Shoot Portraits: Use the Window Baby

2011-11-11T07:40:00.001-07:00

Another quickie for you to get quickie portraits of your little ones. You can see my previous post about using auto mode on digital cameras to get portraits here.

And yep...these photos were taken before I knew anything about photography. My casio exilim point and shoot digital camera was on auto. I pointed the camera, focused, and took the photo. Super easy. And these photos were not touched up in an editing program. They are straight out of the camera.

Go find yourself a nice bright window. But you don't want sunlight streaming through it. You just want lots of glorious shaded or filtered light. North facing windows work wonderfully, but so do windows where you have an overhang or something shading the window. Just try and see what you get. Turn off all artificial lights and don't use the flash.

Case in point: My patio french doors. They face south and get lots of light. We have a porch overhang just outside the windows on the door. My....that's one dirty window. Oh well.

See my little Chewy looking out the window at her big brother. The cute thing was just turning 1 then and I thought I would get some one-year-old portraits.

Set up your background. My background? A white fleece blanket draped over a playpen. In the above photo the playpen would be to the right of the baby. Look closely at my "portrait" of Chewy and you'll notice where the blanket meets the blue and white rug on the floor. (Lower left of photo). You could use a darker color blanket to get more darkness in the background if you just want the face to glow.

Get your angle. Have the little one look out the window at something. Scooter was a good distraction to get Chewy smiling. The light made Chewy's face glow while the rest of the picture was dark.

Remember to focus on the eye closet to you. Then take a bunch of photos and pick out your favorite. My little one didn't even know I was taking photos of her because she was laughing at her brother making faces at her.

Have fun. And remember that sometimes it just doesn't work out. You'll still get a memory frozen in time, maybe just not the one you expected. But it's still a precious memory. Sometimes you'll get this:

And sometimes, just sometimes you'll get a shot you can share with family:

How do you point and shoot? Have an awesome weekend!

$6.40 of Fun

2011-11-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

I went to town with 2 objectives yesterday and pretty much came up empty-handed on both. Blah. But I'm not going back today.

But a trip to Target yielded $6.40 of fun!

The Halloween stuff was 90% off. Yes....Ninety Percent!

So we stocked up on Halloween costumes for next year. Because there is no way I can make 3 costumes for $6.40. Yes, I said 3 costumes. Stick with me.

Scooter loves Star Wars. He's never seen it, but he's fascinated with books about it from the library and anything Star Wars. So I found a $40 Boba Fett costume for $4 for him! He didn't even know who Boba Fett was, but that didn't matter. The kid wore his costume until bedtime.

So we spent the evening after dinner playing Star Wars. (Sorry about the bad photos, I wasn't using a flash.)

Another costume I came home with was $1. Yes. One. Dollar.

Did you see that.....SQUIRREL! (We like the movie "UP." That's where the "squirrel" comes from for us.)

The dog was humiliated to be wearing a costume of something that he should be chasing. But he's so cute!

The costume makes a great $1 toy. And that's what the dog preferred to do....drag it, lay on it, chew on it. You can't find a dog toy for $1. And funnily enough, the dog costume was the cheapest and by far of the highest quality. Go figure.

I may have to do some damage control on the squirrel costume if the Woodland Fairy is going to have a pet squirrel next Halloween.

The fairy costume was $1.40. Chewy has been instructed that if she wants to wear it at school next year she will have to wear leggings and a shirt under it. Chewy says she's Tinkerbell when she's wearing the costume.

The funny thing is that I thought the tag on the costume said, "Woodland Fairy." Only when I was showing it to Biker Boy last night did I realize it said, "Woody Fairy." Really? No wonder it was $1.40. I'll refrain from the comments I made to Biker Boy, plus the giggles. I was tired.

So, anyone want to make bets on whether these costumes actually make it to next Halloween? The kids are having too much fun playing dress up.

Have you found any great after holiday deals? I'm stoked about my 74 cent bags of candy corns to make hundreds of turkey cookies.

Point and Shoot Baby Portraits: All Auto Baby

2011-11-07T08:47:00.000-07:00

I'll preface this by saying that I'm not a professional photographer.

But I like a bang for my buck....which is pretty much nothing.

With my first child I took lots of photos with a point and shoot camera. We never took him to have portraits done. We were on a serious budget. If you have the budget, go ahead and invest in some portraits. But you can still shoot your own photos whether or not you have a portrait budget. While I didn't know much about photography 7 years ago, I was able to get some decent baby shots with just using an auto setting.

So I'll share what I've learned so that other mommies (or family members) can take pretty pictures of their babies and be happy to share them with others.

All of these photos are straight out of the camera and have not been touched up using editing software. It was a cheap digital camera with just an auto setting.

Use Natural Light

You want a sunny spot, but you don't want the baby actually in the sun. Use lots of natural light from a window, but not direct sunlight. The photos below show the east facing window in our old, old house that I used to take the pictures I'm going to show you. I put the baby on the end of the couch (at the bottom of the photo) and he was facing the window.

Again...Natural Light, but not Direct Light. Remember NO FLASH!

Below is the baby sitting on the couch I used for photos. But I waited till he was out of the direct sun. For these photos he was on the couch at the right of the photo. You want enough light that you don't have to use a flash. If the sun is strong, try drawing some light curtains or drapes in front of the window to get rid of the harsh rays. You should still have some good light coming through.

Set-Up Your Background

Just use something simple, I used a blue sheet over the couch. You could use any color blanket that you want to. I put the sheet over a bobby to prop up the baby. Always keep the baby safe.

Focus on the Eyes

Basic camera use here: Put the little focus finder on the baby's eye closet to you, push half way to focus the camera, and then push all the way to get your snapshot. After you push half way and focus on the eye, you can move the camera to where you want to frame the shot and then push to take the picture. See those little white things in his eyes? They're called catchlights. It's basically your light source reflected back in the eyes. In this case it's the light from the window. Apparently those are good to have.

Be Silly

Talk to the baby, wave toys, do anything silly to keep the baby happy and smiling. My little guy was 3 months old in these photos. Not able to move much, but able to smile!

The bonus of digital cameras is that you can take a ton of photos and then pick your favorites. Have fun picking out your favorites! And if baby isn't cooperating, you can always take photos another time. And enjoy those crying photos, the baby doesn't always have to be smiling or looking at the camera in the photos.

Pick up that camera and shoot away! They grow up so fast! What have you taken pictures of lately? And feel free to add extra tips, I'm still learning too.

Birdie's Wild Ride

2011-11-06T18:31:00.000-07:00

I probably have posted this before, but here it is again. I hope it makes someone smile.

My Scooter sure has grown up. Hard to believe he's now 7! And Birdie is still alive and loving kids as much as ever.

Now laugh away. Or maybe it's just me that still laughs at this.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope your weekend was a great one!

Gopher Wars

2011-11-04T17:13:00.003-06:00

Those pesky little varmints!

Okay, we started a year ago trying to get rid of moles/gophers...whatever we have...the humane way. We tried those annoying noise making sticks.

Didn't work. Believe me....they don't work at all. They're a waste of money. We had those things in the ground for nearly a year and the batteries didn't die. They just don't work. The gophers even dug tunnels next to the sticks. I'm sorry if you're the manufacturer of those things, but they don't work. You're free to come to my place and see. Or pat yourself on the back for making money off of those things. No hard feelings.

Oh...and those smoke bomb things that we just tried recently?

Yep, they don't work either. We resorted to sticking three or four bombs in at a time and just watched our money go down the stupid gopher hole. And I'm not kidding when I say that our house started to stink because the smoke was coming from the gopher tunnels under our house and up into our master bedroom. Nasty. Nasty smell and nasty gophers.

Our gophers are like the one from "Caddyshack." They're devious little evil things that try to make us go nutty. They were shoving the burnt out smoke bombs back out.

Yep, I took a picture of it once. It happened more than once.

Then one day as I was excavating the tilings and opening up the gopher holes for Biker Boy to bomb them, I found a hole I just dug open plugged back up with fresh dirt.

What did I do? I opened the hole back up and positioned my two little sentries at the door.

Stupid gopher. It drove me nutty. I'll say it again.... STUPID GOPHER. *deep breath*

My sentries went back to playing "house" in the woods and I kept watch over the hole. The dog was eager to help me. I stabbed at it (the gopher, not the dog) with a stick and a shovel, but couldn't get at it.

I'm not kidding when I say that gopher was taunting me. I even took a video. Yes, it was driving me that nuts. You can see that little sucker pushing dirt back out at me in the video. I took the video to prove I wasn't totally nuts. Only slightly. But it's too much to upload here right now. And moving on....

I cried and wept to Biker Boy when he got home how that stupid gopher wasted an hour of my day. Okay, I'm exaggerating a bit there, but Biker Boy got online and researched some non humane ways to rid ourselves of pocket gophers. Yep, smoke and poison are not humane, but they weren't working.

After some recommendations from local friends, Biker Boy ordered 4 gopher traps. Okay, they're not really traps. They're gopher killing machines. But they kill the gopher so quick that it doesn't even know what's happening. And, get this....they're called "The Gophinator." I laughed, you can too. I'm not sure where Biker Boy got them from, but they work when you bait them with peanut butter. Yum....peanut butter.

Score one for The Gophinator. We have one dead gopher so far. And you know what? They're huge. It was like a large rat with enormous teeth and claws. Rather freaky looking.

But we've got more gophers. And so goes our quest to rid ourselves of tunnel making, foundation compromising, grass wreaking little varmints.

Gophers: 612, Us: 1

Feel free to vent your gopher and mole stories. Any other "Caddyshack" gophers out there?

Photographing Chewy

2011-11-03T08:24:00.000-06:00

It only took 1 small bag of skittles to bribe my pretty little girl outside to take photos. We did this a couple of weeks ago, before the temperature took a dive. 22F this morning when we walked out to the bus....brr...and we don't live in the north.

I planned our little photo session for a morning that Chewy didn't have preschool. That would be one morning out of the week. Then it rained.

But it stopped raining and Chewy put on her boots and we headed out. With the skittles, of course. And a batman umbrella.

The sky was overcast, but the sun peeked out at times.

Here are some of my practice shots. And once again, I learned plenty to do better next time.

So...are you in the snow or the blazing warm sunshine? Or somewhere in between? Or are you in a sugar coma from Halloween? And please tell me I'm not the only mom who has kids begging to eat their Halloween candy at breakfast.

Quick Halloween Recap

2011-11-02T08:16:00.000-06:00

Crazy, crazy day on Halloween.

1 preschool performance and party, 1 first grade party, 1 birthday party for a boy who turned 7, 1 round of trick or treating, and 1 trick or treater at our house. By the time the day was over it felt like Tuesday and not Monday.

Scooter was Optimus Prime. If you couldn't tell.

And please don't tell Chewy she's a pretty princess. She'll remind you that she's a queen.

Hard to believe my boy turned 7. He's my little trick or treat.

Any idea who this is? Yep, I carved that into a pumpkin. Do you believe it?

The kids trick or treated at 6 houses in our neighborhood and came away with enough candy that it looked like they had been to 30 houses. We had one brave trick or treater venture down our drive way....and I rewarded him for it. Big smiles to the neighbor who gave me a full sized Snickers bar for driving the kids around. Yes....we drive the kids around....almost everyone in the neighborhood does that.

I'm crazily trying to work on photos for family to upload of the birthday boy and the festivities of that day. Watch your inbox for an email in the next few days.

How was your Halloween?

Cake Pops Galore

2011-10-28T10:07:00.001-06:00

Cake Pops? Heard of them?

Yep, they're everywhere. Cause they're yummy and they're good. And fun and cute.

Google them. I won't go in to details because you can find out about them at Bakerella. Go there. Drool. Wipe. Drool again.

I made them way, way back when I was pregnant with Chewy. I just made cake balls then. No sticks or anything.

I made them again just recently. We've got celebrations galore coming up. I had to deliver treats to Scooter's class today for his birthday and his Halloween celebration at school on Monday.

Scooter requested milk chocolate cake and I used canned pumpkin in place of the oil. I used cream cheese frosting. (Crumble the warm baked cake and mix with about 1 cup of frosting. Then form balls.) I also cut sugar cones to make them mini. Shhh...someone has been snacking on the tops of the cones. I dipped the cones in melted chocolate and put a cake ball on top. Then I froze and then I dipped the cake balls in more chocolate.

The cake balls are coated in Dove chocolate. Dark and milk chocolate. My extra special helper (Chewy) sprinkled the sprinkles on the cones.

Since I was already in the process of making cake pops or cake balls....I make them for Chewy's Halloween celebration at preschool.

She requested strawberry cake. I left out the oil and just added extra water. I added the cream cheese frosting. They are on mini cake cones. (Thanks mom for sending those! Do you like them?)

Again they are dipped in melted Dove chocolate and sprinkled like crazy by a little one.

I had a few extra chocolate cake balls and no cones left. So I stuck some sticks in them.

I stuck the stick in melted chocolate and then put it in the cake ball. Then I froze. Then I dipped in chocolate. Yes...it sounds like a lot of steps.

These babies are coming with me to my MOPS meeting next week.

A few tips:

While these are easy to make, it takes time. It took me a few hours over 2 days. Biker Boy thought I was crazy for doing this. I agree. This is something I'll only do once in awhile. Let's just say I'm not too eager to do my usual homemade decorated b-day cake for Scooter after these. And his birthday is on Halloween.
Freeze those balls before dipping them in chocolate. The chocolate sets up quicker.
Sprinkle quickly. The chocolate sets up quick from the frozen balls.
Perfection is not important if you're just going to eat them. They'll still be cute.
Stick the cones in styrofoam if you have it. I didn't. Transportation to school this morning was fun...to say the least. I think the cake cones are still okay though. We'll see on Monday.

So...have you tried cake pops? Any tips? What did yours look like? I love all the creative ones....but I just don't have the patience. Or maybe I don't have the time.

Have a great weekend!

Summer Projects: Trim

2011-10-27T08:15:00.002-06:00

I"m a little behind on this. Okay, way behind. Oh well.

I've got to add this on to keep track of all our summer projects. And this one is only half complete. We did the north and south sides of the house. Next spring/summer we'll do the east and west sides. Those sides have the gutters....so it will be a little more work.

The trim on our house was a pre-primed pressed wood kind of stuff. It was a sage green color. We discovered it was never painted. Yep, more things wrong with our "new" house. I guess it is 4 years old now. Oh, we painted trim. Did you get that? I get ahead of myself writing sometimes.

In order to prevent rotting boards....we had to put in some work. I did help some. Really.

Biker Boy pressure washed the boards to get off all the loose and peeling paint on the outdoor trim.

Then we primed with Kilz primer....cause we had it. We've always liked Kilz and we're not paid to say that. I picked up some Valspar outdoor paint in white to go over that. We originally were going to go with a color, but once we saw the white primer....we decided to go with white. The white balances out the white trim and doors. It just looks nice and bright. Plus I'm completely indecisive when it comes to deciding on a color. So white it is. Look how nice it looks with the white clouds. And it looks nice with the snow that is sitting on the roof right now. Yes....it snows in the southwest. At least on our side of the mountain.

My handsome guy did a lot of the getting on the roof to paint work. I could do it too, but he worries about me getting on the roof when I'm home alone. Gotta love my guy.

Oh, see those lights on the front of the house next to the garage. They were damaged in the hail storm last year and we just got around to replacing them. So they look different now. Gotta love a clearance bargain!

Any last minute house projects you've been working on? We're now on to eliminating pocket gophers. Still. Those things are driving me nutty.

Bubble Blowing

2011-10-26T08:33:00.000-06:00

We have a thing with bubbles lately. Do you like bubbles? I like bubbles. They're fun. And messy. But a clean messy.

We made homemade bubbles this summer and this past weekend we made bubble bread.

Bubbles, bubbles, and more bubbles. Half of the letters in bubble are b's. I'm so full of knowledge to pass on. *snort*

Oh yeah....we blew bubbles again this past weekend. Except they were the store bought kind. I didn't even realize we had any left till the kids found some hidden on a shelf in the garage. Then we blew bubbles.

After I had my turn blowing bubbles, the kids got to it. I ran to get my new camera to capture their fun. I also captured some "portraits." I have to remember not to tell my kids to look at me and smile. Some of the best photos are when I don't do that. Also...how long do I get to call my new camera a "new camera?"

Note to grandparents: I downsized these photos and will probably continue to do so on this blog to load faster. If you want any of the originals....let me know. I'll have to get together a big file of photos that I can upload for you to download sometime.

Let the bubble blowing begin.

Camera details (these are more for my benefit as I learn): ISO 200, Shutter 1/200, F5-5.6, Nikon D3100 with 55-200mm lens, white balance at shade setting. Dynamic focusing. Average metering.

This was in my post yesterday. I just love it.

My little Chewy.

I didn't realize I had caught a bubble bursting until I uploaded my photos. Cool.

She works so hard to get bubbles blown.

My little dude and his forced smile.

I have about 20 shots of them giggling and playing together. I love Chewy's face in this one. When she tries really hard...she doesn't get any bubbles.

They are too funny together. Most of the time. Sometimes they aren't.

I love the line of bubbles and the one popping. Don't worry Grandpa Doc...after seeing his hair like this...he got it cut.

My boy. I love him.

Funny smile, but totally awesome background. Can you say "bokeh?!" Love it!

Can I put any more photos in? (Yes, I probably could. But I restrained myself.) My name is Chrissy and I like taking pictures. There....I said it.

Any "good" addictions in your life? I'm off to play with my camera again if the weather holds out. Big clouds are building up....snow anyone? I think I'll bribe Chewy with some Skittles I got for trick or treaters. Have an awesome day!

I Heart Faces photo challenge: Let Them Be Little

2011-10-25T08:16:00.002-06:00

In order to improve my photography and learn from others, I've decided to try this out.

i Heart Faces has a weekly photography challenge.

Consider me in.

The challenge this week is "Let Them Be Little."

This is my youngest little one, Chewy. We were blowing bubbles together and I decided to get some pictures of the kiddos. I love her expression as she is trying to blow a bubble away from her. I also love the way she expresses herself by dressing herself. I wouldn't have put a yellow shirt under that dress, but it works for my little one. She's just being her little self. And there's just something about the way she has her hand. I love that girl.

Thanks so much for stopping by and be sure to visit the other entries at i Heart Faces.

Photo Details:
ISO: 200
Shutter: 1/200
F5
Nikon D3100 with 55-200mm lens

Tomorrow I'll hopefully be back with more photos from our bubble blowing session!

What photo do you have on your mind?

Bubble Bread

2011-10-24T08:24:00.000-06:00

How was your weekend? Anything out of the normal or just plain fun stuff happen?

We had a laid back weekend at home, which I love. We enjoyed an awesome tandem/train ride with some good friends. Yesterday while Biker Boy went on a few hour mountain bike ride with some guys I got to enjoy quality play time with the munchkins.

We played monkey in the middle, biked, watered grass plugs, played "house", hunted gophers, collected pine nuts, blew bubbles, and made bubble bread.

And today I'm going to show you our bubble bread. Sometimes it's called monkey bread. We blew bubbles, so we made bubble bread.

This was real play dough. Not the fake play dough that we made the other day. It's pretty much the same recipe, with just sugar and egg added.

The kids helped me dump all the ingredients in to our bread machine. I let the machine mix it up. You could make your own dough or just buy a frozen bread dough at the store and let it thaw. I'm all about whatever is easiest for you.

Bubble Bread Dough

1 egg room temp, plus enough warm water to equal 1 cup
3 Tbl oil
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
3 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast

Make dough and let rise. Then get to making the bubbles.

Roll a small piece of dough between your hands to get a "bubble."

It doesn't matter if the bubble isn't perfectly smooth or round. It's like playing with play dough. Have fun with it. Just make sure the kiddos wash their hands first.

Dip the bubble in melted butter. I melted 1/4 cup in the microwave and had plenty.

Dip the bubble in a cinnamon sugar mix. I just dumped stuff in the bowl. Maybe it was about 1/2 cup sugar with 3 or 4 tablespoons of cinnamon. Use lots of cinnamon. Remember....no licking until you're done.

Put the bubbles in a greased bundt pan. Or whatever kind of pan you have.

My kids were ecstatic to be able to lick their fingers when we were done.

Cinnamon sugar in the hair is optional. Note to myself.....next time put Chewy's hair in a ponytail.

Bake at 350F for 25-30 minutes. Smell the yummy goodness in the house.

Optional: coat with a powdered sugar glaze. Use 1/2 cup powdered sugar, about 3 tablespoons of milk or water, and about 1 tsp vanilla. Drizzle over the bubble bread.

Eat. You could dump out the bubble bread on to a platter and then glaze it for a pretty presentation. I didn't need a pretty presentation for my family. I saved time and dishes. We ate it right out out of the bundt pan. So no pretty pictures here. But it sure was good. Just pull bubbles off and pop them in your mouth. Yum.

Did you catch that this bubble bread is pretty much mini cinnamon rolls? Yep. It's easy and fun. The kids loved making it and eating it. We even enjoyed some for breakfast this morning.

What fun and easy creations have you made in the kitchen lately?

DIY Science @ Home: Gases

2011-10-21T08:11:00.002-06:00

Last month Scooter's class was studying the States of Matter. You know...solids, liquids, and gases. Let's not make it complicated with the plasma and stuff.

My kids love "to do science," so the science teacher mom in me set about to have a little fun with gases with my kids. And yes....we did end up talking about the gas your body makes and how it leaves the body. Good times.

You might also be interested in my DIY Science @ Home: Dissolve and Evaporate. They're kinda related.

Remember...I keep this pretty simple for the little ones.

We talk about what solids, liquids, and gases are. I have the kids give me some examples.

Solid: It holds its shape. It's stuck the way it is (the molecules can't move positions). You can hold it.
Liquid: It takes the shape of the container it is in. They are hard to compress (or squeeze together). It will usually flow together or through something (the molecules are more spread out than a solid and can move around).
Gas: It will take the shape of any container it is in and fill it entirely. The are easy to compress (or squeeze together). Gases are always bouncing around since the molecules are spread out even farther than a liquid and are full of energy. We talked about water vapor and how that's a gas and you can kinda see it.

You can get more information by just searching the web or going to the library. We checked out a few books from our local library since we're there once a week. Here are a couple of web resources:
Chem4Kids: Matter
Scholastic States of Matter
TLC Science Projects

We did a couple of experiments with gases.

1) Blow up balloons. My kids weren't real good at blowing them up, so I ended up blowing balloons up for them to play with. I used fresh balloons, not the spit slobbered ones my kids tried. Ewww. Ask the kids what is filling up the balloon.

2) Gases in liquids. We compared regular tap water to "bubbly" water. Put some of each type of water in glass cups. Add a couple of raisins to each cup. Ask the kids why the raisins dance in the bubbly water cup and not in the regular water cup. (As the gas bubbles attach to the raisin, they make it rise to the top, once the bubbles reach the surface they pop and then the raisin falls back to the bottom only to repeat that again.) Let the kids drink some bubbly water.

3) Make gas with a reaction and prove it. Put some baking soda in a bottle with a neck. Add some vinegar. Put a balloon over the neck of the bottom and watch as it blows up. Fun stuff. Totally amazes the kids.

4) Blow a wad of paper into a bottle trick. This is pretty advanced. I used this with my 9th grade physical science students when we studied pressure and it was so much fun. Kids always think they can blow a piece of paper into a bottle. Put a small piece of wadded up paper into the neck of a bottle and ask if anyone can blow it into the bottle. (Hint...it can't be done.) I always got the big burly kid who thought he could blow it in, even after watching other people not get it in. I did this with my kids for fun, without getting into an air pressure discussion. I got a movie of it and shut it off before my son gave a brilliant answer. Bummer. But he said you can't get the paper into the bottle because it's already full of air or gas. Smart kid. Watch the video and then go try this on someone else...even your co-workers.

So...go have some fun with gases. Any other gas experiments that you like?

Homemade Playdough

2011-10-20T10:57:00.000-06:00

You may know that my Chewy loves Playdough. Loves it. She'll play with it for hours if I let her.

The other day at my MOPS meeting, our fabulous craft leader had the moms make playdough. I didn't want to share my playdough, so I let the kids make some of their own yesterday afternoon.

Wanna make some playdough? You don't even need kids to do this. If you think you do...grab your own, some neighbor kids, some grandkids, or other kids you know.

Here's the recipe we used from www.cooks.com.

1 cup white flour
1/2 cup salt
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon alum (I didn't use with my kids because I didn't have it)
Food coloring
1/2 cup water

Mix first 4 ingredients well. Add food coloring to water. Gradually add small amount of water until mixture is consistency of bread dough. Store in airtight container or plastic bag to last a long time.

And you know me....I never follow directions. I put water in the bowls for the kids and then they stirred in the food coloring. Then we added the vegetable oil, flour, and salt. I let them stir and finally they just mooshed it all together with their hands. Good messy times. We did have to add a little extra flour to Chewy's mix because her stuff was really sticky.

And now some photos of my wee ones playing. These are straight out of camera. I only resaved them as a smaller file for quicker uploading to the web.

We like to get messy and creative sometimes. Here's a few links to other things I've done with my kiddos. Feel free to take a look!

Homemade Bubbles
Applesauce & Cinnamon Ornaments
Slime
Sun Catchers
Glitter Hair Gel
Cornstarch Clay

Do you have a favorite playdough recipe? How about a favorite creative activity to do with the little ones?