Father's Day

 Inspired by Kelle over at Enjoying The Small Things, I took the kids to a dollar store so they could shop for Chris for Father's Day.  I absolutely loved this idea!  They got to roam the aisles and pick something all by themselves!  I only encouraged them to "pick something you think Daddy will like."  
They were a hoot!
We left there with a card, a duster for your car dash, a bungee cord, and a pair of shoes.  They were so proud of themselves!  As soon as we cleared the door, Christian wanted to know if they could wrap the gifts too.  Why not?!  Letting them take ownership of this whole process made for such a fun experience!  Not only were they totally psyched that they got to shop, wrap, and write on the card, but those little people couldn't wait to give Chris those gifts!  
  

It was worth so much more than the ten bucks we spent to see their little faces light up at each stage of the fun!  

When it was time to write in the card, I asked them individually what Daddy did that made them happy.  

Holidays are what we make them.  
We had a great day!  Church yesterday morning, lunch and naps.  
This week I skipped a Sunday afternoon nap and made two batches of Kelli's Jellies instead! :)  Then last night my sister and her family came over and we spent the evening with Dad.  Great fellowship with family, and a great celebration of dads.  
Not only do I love this holiday because my dad has set such an amazing example of what being a great dad means, but also because I am thankful for the dad that Chris is to our kids.  He is teaching them, showing them what it looks like to love Jesus, to be kind, to have a great work ethic...so many things that I can already see showing in their little personalities.  
I married him because he loves the Lord and he loves me.  
The fact that he is amazing at loving our babies is an incredible little bonus.


I am one thankful gal.

ok, now what?

So we have all these home grown vegetables.  Now what do we do with them? 


Unless you like to have a side of steamed squash with every meal, if you grow food you probably want to find a variety of delicious things to do with those beautiful vegetables.


This fritter recipe came from my sister, but I'm not sure where she got it.  It's a good one (if you're into an easy ingredient list and fried food)!


Vegetable Fritters
1 large carrot
1 medium zucchini
1 medium squash
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black paper
1/2 cup vegetable oil


I've done this with carrot, squash, and zucchini or just with three squash.  Whatever you have, really.
Oh, and last time we used cheddar because we didn't have any Parmesan on hand and we liked it even better...but we are some cheddar-eating fools around here.


Shred the veggies and pat them dry with a paper towel.  In a medium bowl, mix the shredded veggies with flour, parm, salt, pepper, and egg.
In a 10-inch skillet, heat oil over medium heat.  Gently drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the heated oil.  As they cook, flatten slightly with a spatula.  Cook about 5 minutes (turning once) until golden brown.  Transfer to lined platter to drain.


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Since this is a Paula Deen recipe, you know good and well it's gonna be totally awesome.
I like squash and zucchini just fine, but I really love cheese.  This has both!
Squash Casserole

• 6 cups large diced yellow squash and zucchini
• Vegetable oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon House seasoning, recipe follows
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 1 cup crushed butter crackers (recommended: Ritz)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Saute the squash in a little vegetable oil over medium-low heat until it has completely broken down, about 15 to 20 minutes. Line a colander with a clean tea towel. Place the cooked squash in the lined colander. Squeeze excess moisture from the squash. Set aside.

In a medium size skillet, saute the onion in butter for 5 minutes. Remove from pan and mix all ingredients together except cracker crumbs. Pour mixture into a buttered casserole dish and top with cracker crumbs. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

House Seasoning:

• 1 cup salt
• 1/4 cup black pepper
• 1/4 cup garlic powder

Mix ingredients together and store in an airtight container for up to 6 months.

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Dill Pickles

I've talked before about my grandma making pickles.  I tried, and they were terrible.  My memory is that her pickles were so good that it was worth the old "try, try again" bit.  And so we have.  By we I mean that I roped Chris into pickle-making too!  As a matter of fact, he's started making some hot/spicy pickles too by using a variation on the old recipe.
One huge plus to making these is that there is no actual canner involved. :)  You cook the brine, but then once the jars cool off they just go into the fridge.  Score.
So, this is her recipe with the changes we felt made them awesome.

1 quart vinegar

2 quarts water

1 cup salt

cucumbers (Just however many you want to do.  My recommendation is to start small.  See if you like them.     That way you don't have a zillion pickled cucumbers if you end up wanting to make changes.)

Fresh dill

Garlic

Jars, lids, & bands (We prefer the wide mouth jars as it's easier to get the pickles out.  We have used quart and pint jars.)

Wash the cucumbers and cut of both ends of each one.  Soak them in a bowl of ice water for an hour before you can them.  This helps keep the pickles crunchier.  During that hour you can prepare the jars and brine.  Once my jars and brine are going, I usually go ahead and cut the cucumbers into whatever shape/size I want them and toss them back in the ice water.  This makes the process of packing them into the jars much faster when the time comes.  I always do some coins and some spears.  I'll caution you to do the coins at least an inch thick so they won't get too soft during the actual pickling process.  

Put one clove of peeled garlic, 2-3 pieces of dill stalk, and 1 flower of dill seed (the leafy-looking part) in each pint jar.  Of course if you are using larger jars, just double these amounts.

For the brine, mix one quart of vinegar, two quarts of water, and one cup of salt.  Bring to a boil.  (We've used sea salt, pickling salt, and regular old table salt and can find no difference in the results.)

Once the cukes have been soaking for an hour and your brine is boiling, you're ready to can.  Pack the cucumbers into the jars.  You want to get as many as you can in each jar, but without crushing them.

Fill the packed jars with brine, leaving a 1/4 inch head space.  Put on the lids and bands.  Let the jars cool a bit before moving them to the fridge.

Sometimes Chris can only wait 3 or 4 weeks before he gets into them, but I recommend waiting at least 6 weeks.  

Let me know if you try any of these!
I'll try to let you know what else we're doing with our home grown goodness.  

harvesting

And again I'll say, there is something so stinkin' cool about growing food!


These first couple of pictures were taken right at the end of April.  They were planting flowers along the outside of the garden.  Chris had just finished planting all the food and then let the kids help with the last bit.

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Then these were taken yesterday.  
It is completely amazing to me that food grows this quickly and that there's so much of it!  
When I was a kid, my godparents had a garden in their backyard and I remember thinking how weird that was.  
Little did I know...

Sharing a fresh-picked cucumber.

 Bell Peppers that I can't wait to skewer and toss on the grill.

 World's tiniest watermelon.  

Blueberries.  These have been so much fun!  The kids ask to pick and eat them almost every day. :)

Chris ate his first tomato from the garden yesterday with lunch, and he just raved about it!  I don't eat tomatoes, but I do eat a great many things made from them. :)  I'm looking forward to all the tomatoes we'll put up for winter.  We had some killer tomato sauce a couple of years ago when we tried gardening the first time.


Cool stuff.

You Choose

No, Karen Carpenter, rainy days and Mondays do not always get me down.  
In fact, this rainy Monday has been just lovely.
Because of the nature of our business, rain usually means having my husband home with me.  I like that.  He's a pretty cool guy, and we like to hang out.


Overall it's been a pretty lazy day.  We took a drive this morning to look at a house.  Yes, I know.  We are some of the movin'est people around.  We're not moving just yet, but we're looking. :)


We took care of some mundane, pen-to-paper, checkbook and bill kinda stuff.  We rearranged the pantry- big stuff, I know.
Leftovers for lunch and then off to my massage.  
Massage= time for me.


A little time for me is a necessity.  
Happy is awesome, but it doesn't always happen by itself.  
Sometimes you have to work at it.  
Sometimes you have to make it happen.  
Sometimes you have to choose it.


Part of me being happy and high on life is dependent on making some time just for me.  I am blessed beyond measure to have a husband who gets that.  
It's easy for me to get caught up in the monotony of regular stuff; to just go through the motions.  When I find myself doing that is when I also seem to be too tired and too snippy to be and do something I'm proud of. 

I choose to be a person, a wife, a mama who is present.  I don't just want to be present with my family in body.  I actually want to do things with them.  I want our time together to matter.  I want my kids to remember that I stayed home with them while they were little.  And that we didn't just take up the same space together, but actually lived life together!


That doesn't mean it's always easy or instinctive for me.  I have things I'm expected to do, like cleaning and laundry.  I have things I want to do, like peruse Pinterest, read some totally fantastic blogs, and catch up on General Hospital. 


I guess the most important thing for me is to find the balance.
Make time.  
Make time for me.  
Make time with Chris.  Sometimes that just means sending the kids to play in their rooms so we can talk about our day.  Sometimes it means a date!
Make time with the kids, and make it count.  This does not mean that I spend every waking moment with them sitting in the floor singing Kumbaya, but it does mean making that choice to pay attention to them.  Look at them, listen to them, watch Dora or The Avengers, play Don't Break the Ice, draw, play good cars/ bad cars (Christian's latest favorite).  Sometimes they are fantastic, and other times they are total turds stinkers and we cut it short.  


Whether these turn out to be memory-making experiences or total bombs is not really even the point.  

She wants to move up from her tricycle to a bike with training wheels...but she's not quite ready.  She said maybe tomorrow.  Maybe so.

So, maybe it's weird that we have a giant rug in our garage.  That's ok with me.  It sure makes for a nice shady, covered space to hang out outside.

Somebody has a loose tooth.  

I'm trying to teach baby girl how to use the mouse.  It's slow going.  That's ok too.

I am thankful that God put me right here, right now.
I choose happiness.    

Popsicle Project Fail

Piña Colada Pops

You can find the recipe I got from Pinterest if you click here...you just have to scroll down, as it's the sixth one on the page. :)

I saw this and pinned it and then as I normally do, I waited forever to actually make it.  Who knew it was such an ordeal to find those little popsicle-holder/maker things?!  And really even after I found those it took me awhile to get back to it.  

It calls for a can of pineapple, a banana, a can of coconut milk, and a little vanilla.  I don't really dig on this flavor combo but I thought the kids might.  

So, I let them help put them together.

Two of the loudest kids around, and they still feel the need to cover their ears when something or someone else is being loud.  

So anyway, we blended all this together and I filled up the little holders.  There was a ton left that got poured into an ice tray with toothpicks as handles.


A few days later I decide they would make a great afternoon snack.  The kids were super excited.

I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that this was no small feat.  I sustained multiple battle wounds.  Okay, let's face it- using a butter knife to break the handles free from the container was probably not my shiniest moment, but those suckers would NOT come out!  

The container is now broken.  The stick part of the red handle broke off inside the popsicle.  Seriously?  This should not be this difficult.

Eventually I did get two of them out.  It seemed like a fun idea, but next time we'll just stick with the ice tray idea.

our number line

When we went to register Christian for kindergarten, we were given this little calendar (which works out great since this is where we used to keep his pre-k calendar that told us what they would be doing each day).
This one has a small task for the students to complete each day for June and July.  Mostly these are review-ish type things...or they should be anyway.
The first task was to review your numbers 1-20.  We have been rote counting with Christian since he was big enough to talk.  He got to ten with no problem at all.  When we started to increase that to 15, it was like no matter how we tried the boy would not say the number 15.  Each and every time he would say 14, 16.
Sometime during this school year, he made it past that hurdle.  Wouldn't you know it that now he can get to 15 no problem, but is currently of the mindset that 16 isn't really necessary in a number line.  He just skips right over it on his way to 20.
Knowing him as I do, and being a visual learner myself, I decided to make a giant number line in the driveway to help us practice (and be successful) on the very first summer-before-big-school task.

The first few times through, I walked on one side of the numbers with Christian on the other.  Miss Sassy Pants here wanted in on the action.  And so together we counted from 1 to 20 about one bo-jillion times.

There may or may not have been M&Ms involved.

We came away happy.

I like that.

First Day-June

 Flashback:  two and a half years ago.  Audrey was only a few weeks old.  It was the first good night of sleep we'd had in a while.  So good in fact, that we didn't hear Christian get up.  He found his way into the sun room, got a red Sharpie off the desk and wrote all over himself and the couch!  Aaaahhh!  

I can be thankful that this time it was only an ink pen, that she only wrote on herself, and that it washed right off.  :)  

As my Daddy would say, "ain't life funny?"

 

 

One thing  I love about driving a van is that we are always ready for a picnic!  We picked up lunch at CFA and parked somewhere they could run when we were done.  Pretty fancy if you ask me.  Gotta love that.

That's right.  I forgot to take any pictures while we were on our dinner date, so we took one in front of our next stop: Wal-Mart.  Real life, people.

If you haven't checked out Nicole's blog, you should.  She's a pretty cool gal.