Baby Blessing

Ok.  This baby is so darn cute!!  I want to snuggle and eat her at the same time.  We had a fun little conversation taking these pictures.  We got some in her blessing dress, which was made from the actual fabric her mother's wedding dress was made out of.  So sweet!!

Sweet baby smiles!

My favorite.  I LOVE this cute little expression:

We are going to try to take monthly pictures with this flower to gauge her growth.  :)

Crafty Every After

I have realized that crafting is like breathing for me.  It is just something I need to do in life.  To survive.  You know what I mean, right?
Here are a couple of things we have done in the crafty arena lately:

T-shirt shrug!  This is our first version of converting a tshirt into a shrug.  Totally worked!  Super cute!!  I am going to try one of mine next.  I am not as cute as Sweet G, but hopefully it will give me a new look.  :)

Wheat grass!!  This is my spring centerpiece.  I got three metal pails from the dollar spot at Target and made some black vinyl numbers with the Silhouette.  Planted the wheat berries, and voila!!  It took about a week to get it this tall.  Perfect for Easter weekend!  Oh-and the grass pails needed a sweet table runner to sit on, so I paid $2 for a piece of burlap and fashioned this ruffled beauty. 

In love!  Burlap was easier to sew than I expected, and about as itchy as I expected.  Don't think I'll be making pants out of it anytime soon...

Avocado bubblegum?

On the way home from school on Friday, Dr. D and I were talking about different foods.  He told me he didn't like avocados because they taste like "bubblegum that has lots its flavor".  :)

Alrighty, then.

Oh!  Here's a random picture from our trip to Mexico.  We bought a bag of bolillos to make sandwiches on the trip, and one of them looked just like lips!!

Artichokes

One of our favorite vegetables was on sale this week: artichokes.  They had a bit of brown on the leaves, but they were a good shape and boy, did they ever cook up well!! 

Here's how we eat an artichoke.  Step 1, boil the smack out of it.  Step 2, let it cool a bit so as not to burn one's self.  Step 3, pour a gob bit of this sauce into a small bowl for dipping. :

It is a lemon goddess tahini dressing, and is MADE for artichokes, let me tell ya.  Step 4, peel off the leaves until you start to see some "meaty" part at the base.  When you see the meat, dip and scrape it off with your teeth.  Step 5, when you get to the heart, remove the fuzzy choke, do a happy dance, dip and eat.  This is your reward for getting through all the leaves!  :)  And sometimes, by the time the little kids are done with the leaves, they leave the heart!  YES!  I am happy to clean up their mess in these cases.  hehehe

Next time maybe I will try to make them like the Cheesecake Factory does.  Boil them until done, then cut in half, season with salt and pepper and grill.  Oh, baby. 

Army dudes

DH thought it was time for the boys to have a set of plastic soldier guys.  They got a $3 bucket of them from Walmart, and went to town! 

And here's the secret: the girls had fun with them as well.  Blondie actually set up this scene and then let the boys destroy play with it.  :)

Too bad the "prisoners" are all armed...  hehe

Strawberry Freezer Jam

We had our jam session!  Naunee came over and we jammed our little hearts out.  The easiest, tastiest kind--strawberry freezer jam!  I love freezer jam because of the fresh taste.  Since it isn't cooked, it has the best just-picked taste, and is such a gorgeous bright red color.  Yum!  We made about 8 pints, and I am going to go buy some more berries and make more.  In quarts this time.  :)
Strawberries are only 99 cents a pound at the Ranch Market by me, and they are good ones.  Here is the recipe we followed:  (from Chef Tess)

4 cups crushed berries (used food processor)
1 1/2 cups honey
1 pkg freezer pectin

We used a gel kind of pectin and the powder kind.  The powder kind set up better.  I was going to add some Clear Jel to the runnier jam, but we are just using it on pancakes instead.

How do we like our jam?  Well, if it were proper I would eat it with a spoon out of the jar.  But, to be a good example to the children I try to use it on other foods such as toast, biscuits, pancakes, in yogurt (makes beautiful parfaits-just layer plain yogurt and strawberry jam), on ice cream, you name it!  I think I will have some for lunch on this lovely bread~

(see how pretty it comes out with good wheat?  yay!)

What's with my wheat?!

The last couple of weeks I have been trying to make all sorts of things.  And FAILING!    Yep, lots of fails.  I have made yogurt, tortillas, bread, cookies, etc.  The tortillas began as big crackers, the bread tasted good, but wasn't pretty and crumbled apart.  I wasn't very happy about all this.  Then I went to a nutrition/cooking class on breads and used a couple of pointers from that class to change my results.  Now...drumroll...they all came out great!!  
My problem?  I was using old(ish) wheat.  I canned it in 1998, and I thought wheat was just wheat and could last for 30 years and come out as good as ever at any time.  NO.  Not so!  I opened a bucket of wheat I bought a month ago, used it, and everything came out beautiful!  Lesson learned.  Use new wheat for breads and keep the old for cereals.

Also...I won a blog drawing!!!  And guess what I got!  A canning set!  I won it off of my all time favorite food blog Chef Tess Bakeresse.  I am so excited, what with my obsession with food storage and all.  Can't wait to use it...I am thinking salsa should be a good inaugural project.  Although, I am planning a jam session first.  Strawberry freezer jam, that is.  Trying it with honey this time, because Chef Tess said I could.

Off to eat my homemade whole wheat tomato basil tortillas.  Who wants to come over for lunch?  :)

LDS cannery prices

Here is another good reason to be thinking food storage.  Prices are going up everywhere, including LDS canneries.  Here is a little article about it.  I have always wondered if there was going to be some kind of big natural disaster, or maybe war that would make it so we would have to use our food storage and not be able to get other food easily.  But lately I have been thinking more along the lines of financial disaster in our country.  It could be ANY of these things, or just hard times, that drive us to use our food storage.  For whatever reason I hope to be on the right track and at least be trying to get stocked up.  I believe that if we are trying, the Lord will help fill in the rest.

Grandma

My beautiful Grandma G just celebrated her 90th birthday.  I have always looked to her as an example of what I want to be when I grow up.  She is a family history expert, and remembers more than I can.  She used to have a deep auburn hair, but in her old age it has turned pure white.  I hope my hair does the same thing when I get older.
I love her strong testimony and spunky spirit.  She is a little lady, like me, and I hope I get her longevity as well!! :)

I love her hair flower!

My brother came down from Utah for the party.  We don't see each other enough!!  It was great to be with him.

 

My dad and our family:

All my uncles and aunts: (my dad is the oldest)

With their spouses:

I love my (quirky) family!!  :)

Dollar Store Fruit

I had to get a couple of things at the dollar store today, and perused the food aisle.  Sometimes they have some really swanky foods that were overstocks or something, so it's always fun to check.  Today I saw canned strawberries!  Maybe these have been there, but I haven't noticed them before.  I don't much care for canned fruit, but berries are one of our family's favorite foods, so I got some to try.  If we were in a situation where we couldn't access fresh fruit, I think these berries would be a welcome addition!!  (here's hopin' they taste good...)