Our cooking adventures

I've had several friends and family who've made subtle comments about how I haven't been keeping up with the blog. I find that when I haven't posted in a while, it just gets harder and harder to create a post, because there is soooo much I have to share and I get overwhelmed and decide to wait longer. Makes sense right?

I don't think I've posted since we were in Oregon and while there my lovely sister-in-law kept talking about Dave Ramsey. I've always leaned toward Suze Orman's financial advice, but I was curious about what Mr. Ramsey had to say. I waited for weeks for his book to be returned to our library, but when it was around 3 weeks late, I decided to fall back to old faithful, Suze Orman and read "The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom." This resulted in revamping our budget, other financial areas of our life, and our eating habits.

My toddler and I have been baking and cooking many more recipes from scratch, which I've had people asking me about so I've decided to share a few of my favorites with you here. She does love to help with all the cooking, including whisking, beating, cracking, dumping, pouring, and even on occasion stirring with her toes. If you see an item of interest, just click on the link

1. Mayonnaise : don't forget to pasteurize your eggs before creating to avoid salmonella. Pasteurizing eggs is also great when cooking or baking any recipe that involves an uncooked egg. When making Mayo, please don't add too much salt, it is also a bit of a different color than store bought mayo.

2. Pita Pockets : time consuming, but turned out great!

3. Pumpkin Bread : My new favorite pumpkin bread recipe! Recipe calls for 1c honey, but I use 1/2 c honey and 1/2 c apple juice and recipe turns out great. Honey is a bit expensive for our family to use that much in one recipe.

4. Tortillas : Amazing! My whole family loved these and they were so good straight off the griddle. This website is written by a Mom whose family is debt free and has many great reads.

5. Wheat Bread : The best homemade bread recipe that I've ever used. I make the dough in my bread machine and bake the bread in the oven. If you scroll down the page, she'll tell you how to do it. We use this bread for about half the bread we consume monthly and it is fabulous. The recipe calls for 2T brown sugar, and we've made it with 2T, 1T and no brown sugar and all three tasted great.

6. Yogurt : My toddler loves this yogurt! The recipe calls for 1/2c plain yogurt, but we prefer to use 1/2c vanilla yogurt for a bit of added flavor. Yogurt CANNOT be frozen and thawed. We also use 1 or 2% milk and add 1 packet unflavored gelatin. This results in a nice thick yogurt that is easier for Abby to eat. When using the gelatin, refrigerate for the gelatin to solidify. I also love this website for her other crockpot recipes. She will list a regular recipe, but also a gluten free version, as her family does not consume gluten.

I've been using 1/2 wheat and 1/2 unbleached flour in all recipes that call for flour and our family has been perfectly happy with the taste. I usually always leave out all sugars and replace with honey, apple juice, or apple sauce. Agave nectar is also supposed to be a great alternative, but it's more expensive in our stores.

Let me know if you try any and how they turn out and I'll continue to post recipes that I find to be wonderful.

To church on time

It seems as though every Sunday morning since I was a kid there was always something, should I say someone, trying to prevent us from making it to church, at least on time. I'll not mention any names, but I think we all know who the culprit is. This last Sunday was one of the worst as far as pee-pee and potty is concerned.

On Saturday, our toddler peed in her car seat, as seems to be the trend lately. I washed it and hung it out to dry, so it would be ready to re-install on Sunday morning. I packed up her snacks, drink, my purse and the cover, and put it on the table. At some point when I wasn't looking, she pulled the cover down off the table and left it on the floor. I happened to find it a few minutes later with dog pee on it, ahhhh! Our little squirt man has picked up the bad habit of peeing in the house.

At some point during the weekend one of our kitties urinated on something in the laundry room. I swept and mopped the floor on Saturday, took absolutely everything out that could be removed on Sunday, wiped it down before church, and the room still stunk!!! Our toddler has also decided that she needs to use the potty chair all by her big girl self. She occasionally misses the potty and this send a lovely aroma through the bathroom.

While cleaning the bathroom, I noticed how well behaved and quietly our toddler was playing in her room. I popped my head in to see what she was up to and found that she had ripped up four colors of play-dough into pea sized pieces all over the floor. Yay...another thing to clean up before church! Once this was all picked up, we managed to make it out the door and to church on time.

I've learned my lesson, all I need to do is shower an hour before my normal time, as I did on this Sunday, then I'll have time to clean up all of life's little disasters. It turns out that the cat had relieved itself in Mat's shoe when it was sitting in the garage and Mat placed his shoes in the laundry room to dry, where the smell was multiplied 100 fold by the heat of the dryer. Stinky!

Anyone have any other Sunday morning stories?

Our Babies

I've begun feeling the baby kick quite often within the past few weeks. The biggest difference I've noticed between this one and when I was carrying my firstborn, is the intensity this one has. My firstborn was always wiggling around and I was constantly feeling little flutters and quick movements. When the current little one moves, s/he means it! I don't feel the baby as often, but the kicks are very strong, possibly a future soccer player! Soccer Dad has even been able to feel the kicks on several occasions. Other than that, I seem to be carrying the baby the same as the first. My allergies have been much worse and I've had more skin problems (my wedding ring doesn't like me). I did find out that my Aunt had the same problem with her ring when she was pregnant as well, phew, I'm not such an odd ball.

Our other baby isn't such a baby anymore! She's already two, I can't believe it! She watches mommy get ready for work everyday and wants to be just like me :) She puts makeup on with me, plays with unplugged curling irons, and picks out her own clothes, which she changes about 5 times per day. She especially loves all of her pretty dresses. Last week she noticed that I had a different pair of earrings on that I don't normally wear, and she wanted to wear earrings too! Normally I hang bracelets or rubberbands on her ears and she's satisfied with that, but I remembered that I have three pairs of Grammy's clip on earrings. She was so tickled to wear her great grandmother's green sparkly clip-ons, that I couldn't get her to take them off until bedtime for two days in a row. I know how much those earrings pinch, but she's a tough little thing and didn't seem to mind. I hear her calling me now, have a fabulous afternoon!

Watermelon Festival

One thing I love about small towns are all the little events that the whole community gets into. The Watermelon Festival started on Wednesday went through Saturday. We live within walking distance from the Fest, and were able to make it everyday except Wednesday, wahoo! In preparation for the Fest, watermelon flags and banners, begin popping up all over the place, even at many houses. My aunt took me out for lunch on Wed. and the special included watermelon salsa, Yum! It was organic and 100% homemade from the owners garden outback.

Our first try at the Fest was a flop, we arrived, and not five minutes later, there was a severe thunderstorm warning announced over the loud speaker. Luckily we had just purchased dinner and were seated under a large tent. We did have to move to the inside of our table, because the wind was blowing the rain sideways and it was pelting our backs. We stayed under the tent for about 30 minutes during the downpour, then walked home when there was a break. There were no complaints about the rain though, because we were very much in need of it. The lights only flickered once during our meal :) Our toddler had a fabulous time upon arriving home, donning her rain boots and stomping in many a puddle.

Our second and third visits to the Watermelon Fest were fairly uneventful. We wandered through the craft fair and carnival zone, ate free watermelon, and had some yummy homemade hot fudge cake. We were both expecting there to be more homemade crafts and homegrown produce, possibly some watermelon, for sale, but it was mainly like any other fair with a few small town touches.

On Saturday, we took our toddler to her first parade and passed the 5k racers on the walk to main street. She loved the clowns and bands, but was a little nervous about the large and loud motorcycles. Things were wrapped up on Saturday night with a fireworks show, which we could hear loud and clear from inside our house. Luckily, our toddler stayed sound asleep, but poor Boo boo was a little terrified. Apparently the cats were happy with us on Saturday as well, because I awoke this morning to find another bird on the floor of our bedroom. At least this time it was dead.

Sam's Club Winner

Our Sam's Club gift card winner is Pixie, who is planning to give the gift card to her starving student :) Congratulations! I guess it was pretty good odds, since only two entered the giveaway.

Rain!

Praise the Lord it's finally raining! We've been praying for rain for weeks, especially for the farmers. This is just another way that this small town is different from So. Cal., not a bad different, just different. In So. Cal. EVERYONE has sprinklers or some system of watering, other than relying on the rain. Here, the farmers, homeowners, and the whole town relies on rain. Our yard, the University's lawn, and the crops are all brown. The corn stalks are turning into spikes and the cotton plants are wilting. Hopefully these showers will bring a little life back to the plants.

It's also great to have a break from the heat, not only for us, but also for the wildlife. The birds have been spending their time on Mat's practice field in the sprinkler and Abby and I saw a big bull frog in a pipe, where there was about one cup of water. We didn't realize the frog was there, so Abby was happily dumping fist fulls dirt into the pipe, when the dirt started moving. She came up to me with a very alarmed look on her face, so cute! We got out a water bottle and rinsed the poor little fellow off and Abby learned to say "ribbit." On our drive off the field (yes we park on the field) Daddy showed us an empty turtle shell. So many learning opportunities!

Reminder: Only 2 days left to enter the Sam's Club gift card giveaway!

Updates

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I look forward to sharing more of our lives with you! Don't forget to enter the Sam's Club gift card giveaway!