November/December 2009

These are in no particular order. In fact I think they are backwards. lol

What do your kids do when you pack all of their toys without thinking? They make a mouse house!

Marah enjoying the snow

Naomi not really sure what it was

Christmas Eve reading the bible

The three older kids and Joe went to zoo lights.

Someone turned 9!!

Gingerbread cookies

Drawing with Daddy

They played dress up

This is a game called Star Mars. Think StarCraft and Mars Mission combined. The kids made it and its really quite fun.

Michael checked out this book from the library and fell in love with it. Its The Little Red Hen only with a burrow who grows corn and makes tortillas.

We of course had to make our own tortillas.

If you haven't heard yet we are moving! This Saturday to be exact. The house is wonderful and on an acre. We are super excited. Not sure how much blogging I will be doing as the house is so far out in the country that the options are dial up or satellite. Satellite is not in the budget yet so we are giving the stone ages, I mean dial up, a go. I posted more about the move over on my blog with some pictures and I will try to get new house pics up there if I can later. have a great 2010 everyone!!

September Update

I love that this is considered fun for the kids. Michael found his Miquon math workbook the other day and asked what it was. I told him and he asked if we could do it. Sure! So Maddy got hers out to and they spent the next hour and a half or so doing math. At one point Michael was struggling with something and Madeline asked him if he wanted to copy her work. He said "No thanks, all the answers I need are in my brain." I love this, just love it. :)


Even snack can turn into a fighter jet. Didn't you know? In case you wonder its cracker with peanut butter, an apple slice, and banana slices.


Look it really flies and even has missiles.

We sold the chicken run and 5 of the chickens. I was really sad to see them go but its for the best right now. We still have the coop and 4 of the chickens. Maddy is hoping to take them to another 4-H chicken show in the next few months.

We have been canning. If you want to know what it all is head on over to Lally. I just did a canning post.

Kids being silly.

Our church, Living Hope Church, had a family fun night/come and meet the Kids World teachers. Marah's teacher asked if people could bring snacks. Cupcakes, yum! Marah got to choose the frosting color since they were for her classroom. Which she actually goes to now and no she no longer hits other children over the head with chairs. Amazing really how much she has grown in the last year or so. lol So soon when Naomi will let us take her to childcare we may actually get to leave the parents room.

Head on over to the Sewing Alley blog for previews of some items that will be stocking on October 6th over at Hidden Element.

Bread Recipe

I keep getting comments and emails to share my bread recipe. First I will say it is not my recipe. :) I found it on someone elses blog (drawing a blank on who???) and tried it out. Now I just want to say that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this recipe. It is so easy. It requires no kneading and it keeps in the fridge for a few weeks, that is if it lasts that long. We have yet to make it three days with a batch of this bread. I love that I can make so many different things with this one recipe by just adding different ingredients. I have made Naan, dinner rolls, sandwich buns, loaves, cinnamon rolls, and even made it in a loaf pan for white sandwich bread. I also use the whole wheat recipe, which is several pages in to the article. I make at least 2 or 3 batches of ww dough a week and we use it for toast, sandwiches, everything. I do find that I get less loaves per batch but I make them really big. :) So no more from me here is the recipe:

Five Minutes a Day for Fresh Bread

Okay just a little more from me. The article suggests reading the whole article/recipe before you start. Take their advice. lol There are lots of tips in there on how to handle this gooey, sticky mass of runny wet dough. It took me several batches before I understood how to shape the loaf. The ww dough is even wetter! Each recipe has a different technique on how to do it, well the artisan loaf and the ww anyway. I have not made the other recipes just made variations of my own. So go enjoy some fresh bread!

Today's loaves of ww sandwich bread baking in the oven


Tonight's sandwich rolls rising for Salmon sandwiches.

Birthday girl, chicks, and baking day

Small update for March. We had to build a second fenced area for the chickens. They used to come out and free range all over the yard but the poop was just too much. We realized Naomi cannot even crawl around the backyard this spring unless we somehow get rid of the poop. So fence it was. We will figure out how to move this every so often or split it in two so that they can have a fresh area all the time.


The coop, run, and new fence.

Chicken bottoms. Don't try to take their picture when you just threw them a bunch of scratch. lol


Baking day. This is a no knead 5 minute artisan loaf. You can refridgerate it for up to 3 weeks and we get about 3 loaves in the batch. It says 6 but we make large loaves I guess. It takes about 5 minutes to mix and then you let it rise and then in the fridge it goes. I have also made Naan, rolls, and cinnamon rolls out of this dough. Yummy!

Pancakes for the freezer.

A busy baker making cookies.

The pancake flipper.

The painter

Nomy's first birthday. We had dinner and cake. Look mom I'm one! Really its look at this sugary slimy stuff, should I eat it?

Her first cake, carrot with cream cheese frosting.

The baby chickens getting out while I cleaned the brooder.

This is Michael playing the drum set he created the other day.

Cookies!!!

The first annual MDC Holiday Cookie Exchange and MNO was a great success! Despite horrible, icy (very un PNW like weather) several mamas were able to make it (and several were missed). We gathered, sans kids, and ate, drank, and traded cookies. 8 moms, lots of appetizers, and about 32 dozen cookies made for a very fun night.

The cookie table

Again the cookies. :)

Individual cookie pictures. I would post what they are but well I can't remember all of them.

Sorry no people pictures I was too busy eating and chatting. We planned on a group shot when Joe got home to take it but well we forgot. LOL.