Our "haul" I put them in foodsaver bags so the kids can't sneak any, not that they would ever do that though hahahahahaha


Tigger, the only way to get him to let me paint his face was with a pacifier, usually only allowed when he's in bed.

Buzz Lightyear

Queen Amidala from Star Wars, the actor looked serious in her pictures so Morgan wanted to copy, she was too cute and actually had someone almost guess who she was they thought she was Princess Leah, she said no I'm her Mom hilarious.

The Hulk

Happy Halloween

I will post some pictures later tonight or tomorrow of our costumes, etc. but thought I would share what we've done with our day so far. It was Cale's turn to bake something so we decided to finish off the last of our apples making Apple Muffins. They turned out awesome and were fun and easy to make. Now we have to decide if we want to pick more apples, we are going through apple chips, applesauce and apple butter like crazy. Anyhow, here are some fun pictures of Cale baking and of course the recipe. I got this from a fun blog called Mennonite girls can cook.

Apple Muffins
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/4 cup oil
1 cup coarsely grated apple
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Beat egg...stir in milk oil and apples.
Mix in remaining ingredients, just until flour is moistened...batter should be lumpy.

Fill greased muffin cups 2/3 full.

Bake at 375 F for 20 minutes...or until golden.
Immediately remove from pan.
Yield...12 muffins (or double the recipe, as I did.)

"School pictures"

I was messing around with the camera the other day and got some cute pictures of Morgan and Cale, they are calling them their school pictures. I'll have to get some of Ty, and Brock when the sun comes out again. I couldn't resist taking the pictures in the beautiful fall leaves.

Our pumpkin carving slide show

BROCK IS 2!

Can you believe I forgot to post this yesterday or I guess Saturday on Brock's actual birthday! He's 2 yes my baby is 2 makes me so sad. We went to the pumpkin patch where all the pumpkins are $1 yes $1 it was fun we got a lot and carved the rest of the day but had a great time with the kids! It was so fun seeing them all running around trying to find the perfect one! I will add a slide show of our carving adventures but first enjoy Brock and all his cute two year oldness!

Delicious Scones!

Here ya go Mom! My mom's favorite breakfast to make is Orange/Cranberry Scones. She always uses the scone mix from Costco and adds her own things so when a daycare kid brought an orange I thought, hey I've got cranberries and went to my trusty internet to find a recipe. They have been a huge hit and we're super delicious. The kids asked for those instead of waffles for breakfast Sunday which never happens.

Ingredients

3 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon grated orange peel

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

3/4 cup dried cranberries

1 cup chilled buttermilk
Preparation

Preheat oven to 400°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda into large bowl. Mix in orange peel. Add butter and rub in with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Mix in dried cranberries. Gradually add buttermilk, tossing with fork until moist clumps form. Turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface. Knead briefly to bind dough, about 4 turns. Form dough into 1-inch-thick round. Cut into 8 wedges. Transfer wedges to prepared baking sheet, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake until tops of scones are golden brown, about 25 minutes. Let stand on baking sheet 10 minutes. Serve scones warm or at room temperature.

The only thing I did differently was add two tablespoons orange peel and just sprayed the cookie sheet with Pam. Someone mentioned freezing them for future use, I would also cut them into sixteen wedges as they make rather large scones for kids! Have fun cooking!

Good morning!

I just had to share my morning pleasures. I am enjoying a chai latte from Costco, the make your own of course. There are two loaves of bread rising in the oven and my computer which has been having issues with downloading pictures was repaired by a covert agent at Geek Squad this morning, YEAH! Oh and God is providing in amazing ways this week, I have had two more families join the daycare, both part time, one little girl is three days a week three hours a day and the other is two little girls kind of on call. We are excited, we stepped out on faith with just two families in the beginning and just through word of mouth over the past four months three more families have joined! God is good!

It was benign

Well the results just came in on Mr. Moley! He was a benign mole YEAH! My nose is still healing looks interesting with a little crater on it but hey it will heal right?

My wonderful husband!

Last weekend I did not have to cook a single meal, Don did it all and happily. This weekend he's already made breakfast and is planning on dinner tomorrow! We have figured out how to make home fries, basically potatoes cubed and cooked in the frying pan with spices, yummy. They go with any meal and are delicious. He is smoking a small turkey breast tomorrow for dinner! I love that he helps me so much in the kitchen especially since he is a way better cook than I am. Oh yeah he made dessert tonight too! Thanks Don, love ya!

Our fun day!

Danish Pastry Apple Pie Bars

Ty and our friend Nolan being silly

Yummy Homemade Bread


Today has been a busy day so far, I decided this morning that I was making my last batch of applesauce thank goodness, my little peelers are getting tired (thanks Morgan and Cale I couldn't have done it all without you two!) I also have been longing to figure out how to make homemade bread so I got out my trusty Kitchenaid and the cookbook it came with and made two loaves of wonderful smelling and tasting bread. I was short about half a teaspoon of yeast so I am guessing they would have raised more had it not been for that. I'm heading to the store tonight to get some more, I find myself baking with it more and more, I love the smell of freshly baked bread. I wish I had a way for you to smell my house right now, homemade bread and applesauce in the crockpot, yummy! Oh and last night I made a Danish Pastry Apple Pie Bars, oh man they were awesome the crust was delicious.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup shortening
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup milk

10 apples - peeled, cored and thinly sliced
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 egg white

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C.)
In a large bowl, combine flour and salt. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Beat egg yolk in measuring cup and add enough milk to make 2/3 cup total liquid. Stir into flour mixture until all flour is damp. Divide the dough in half. On floured surface, roll half the dough into a rectangle and fit into a 9x13 inch pan.
In large bowl, combine apples, brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Put apple mixture in pan. Roll out remaining dough and place over apples. Seal edges and cut slits in top dough. Beat egg white till frothy and brush on crust.
Bake in the preheated oven for 50 minutes, or until golden brown.

I got the recipe from my favorite website. http://allrecipes.com/ I am so embracing my domestic engineering career aren't I?

More and more apples

Ty and Brock helped get rid of apples in their own way!



Today we went and picked an additional 62 pounds of apples, when we got down to less than two pounds left from our original 32 I figured maybe we needed some more. Today we canned an additional three large jars and one small of applesauce and my poor little dehydrator is going and going and going with apple chips. I called all over trying to find an apple peeler/corer even though my mom offered me hers, I didn't want to wait until December but unfortunately was unable to find one, I think it was a God thing. I did however figure out another option which is much more cost effective. The kids did the peeling while I cored and sliced, they had their little ninety nine cent Ikea peelers and had a great time. They were begging and begging for more applesauce so if they want it they have to help I guess. We will be peeling and cooking apples for the next month I'm sure but we all love it and I am loving my stocked pantry knowing we did it ourselves!

Just an update

Brock loves to "fly" gotta love that smile

So cute!


This is Cale's handiwork on the back slider, amazing cursive don't you think?

I feel like if I don't post every day I need an update post for my adoring fans, NOT! This past week flew by for sure. I only had Monday and Tuesday with daycare so Wednesday we went apple picking which brought back fond memories from my childhood. My camera was MIA that day so I don't have any pictures but we had a lot of fun. We picked 32 pounds in under an hour, came home and got to work. I have a food dehydrator which seems to have been running non-stop since then making apple chips, it is currently making banana chips, the majority of my family loves these, gag me with a spoon =) I've managed to can two jars of applesauce, six jars of apple butter, and three jars of apple pie filling, way easy especially when the first two were made in the crock pot. I am somewhat keeping to the no cereal breakfast this week except for Thursday, had to go to the doctor at 8:15, yes AM, in the next town so we had to leave here at 7:45 yuck so it was plastic baggies with cereal that day. I did get the mole on my nose removed and it's been sent to pathology at OHSU so I will let you know what the results of that are. Needless to say I have a rather large sore on my nose but hey either a huge mole or a small scar eventually right? Don was gone all week again, he got home yesterday around 1 and then we headed to the library for a Star Wars thing for the kids which they said was lame, oh well at least we tried to do something fun. I think that's about it from our oh so thrilling lives, but you're caught up. Oh school has gone well, we're looking for new math curriculum because the 3rd grade is a little overwhelming, roman numerals, measurements, multiplication and subraction with borrowing all at the same time. Now that my camera has reappeared I'll try and keep up on pictures, etc. Have a great weekend!

In the kitchen

Drying basil


I've been spending a lot of time in my kitchen over the past few weeks baking, cooking, etc. I'm trying to figure out new recipes kind of put some new life into my boring menu. Today I found a recipe online for biscuits that were so easy I thought I would share them. I also went out and cut some basil out of the garden and have it in our food dehydrator, hope it dries well. Don and my thoughts and prayers have been like I've said recently to live somewhere away from civilization where we can live off the land and only have to make one trip a month into a city for supplies, etc. So with that in mind I realized I can do that right here in our little subdivision, maybe not to the degree you could other places but I have been canning this year freezing, and drying a lot of things in the garden and things we've picked other places. I am trying to learn to make a lot more things from scratch, one reason is to make things more affordable and also to try and be more healthy and as organic as we can. I feel like I'm becoming a granola, I live in Oregon, I am fanatical about recycling, I garden, we homeschool, the kids and I try to walk as many places as possible, we do most of our eating at home which consists of as much from scratch foods as I can figure out how to make. I am not a tree hugger and have given up my Birkenstocks for Crocs and Danskos so don't know how that fits in, haha. I was reading a blog this morning where someone was talking about giving up breakfast cereals and trying to do something more affordable and definetly healthier so I'll be working on that my only ideas so far are pancakes, waffles, biscuits, oatmeal, eggs and toast but beyond that I'm stuck, any ideas would be great, I know it will be more work but the kids will help, they love doing that thank goodness. Okay I've droned on enough on to the recipe:
2 cups self rising flour, I made my own 2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons baking powder
3 tablespoons crisco
1 cup milk
Combine flour and crisco, add milk stirring until sticky. Knead out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll out 1/2 thick, cut out place on a lightly greased cookie sheet Bake at 450 for 10-12 minutes.

Bathtime fun!

I had to catch it, I know they'll hate that I took their picture when they're older but this is the first time both boys lay down in the water. Ty has been completely paranoid to put his ears under water but after he did last night he kept saying this is so fun, etc. Of course I think the only reason he did it was Brock did it first. Brock will stick his face in the water when he's on his tummy but finally realized last night that he could lay on his back and it was fun.

Morgan's success

Yesterday I decided to let Morgan make Cinnamon Swirl Bread all by herself. I stood by and helped her understand the recipe but she literally did everything by herself except taking the bread out of the oven. She did so well, our biggest issue was we had both loaves cooling on the rack on the counter I hear Morgan screaming so of course I go running into the kitchen and find a half eaten loaf of bread on the counter and my poor daughter saying she wants to sell the dog. So we ended up with one and a half loaves of bread. She's growing into such a sweet girl who loves to help in the kitchen, hopefully I can instill in her my love of baking. Hey maybe she can learn to cook and take over mealtime! What a girl can dream can't she?

Happy Anniversary!

Don and I have been married 14 years today! Looking back we seemed so mature but man do our pictures tell me otherwise!