Spring is here

Spring has finally arrived at our house. I know it's been a long time since we posted, but spring is a very busy time at our house. We spend a lot of our extra time trying to stay ahead of the lawn mowing, garden cleaning-out, planting the vegetable garden, spring cleaning the house, etc. It's been hectic. We also had ten windows in our house replaced (actually 9 windows and 1 door). The difference is incredible. I had no idea that we were living in such a drafty house. I just figured we were too cheap to turn up the thermostat.

We've also been having problems with our rental property. Looks like we will be heading to the courts once again to deal with tenant problems. After this experience we have definitely changed our format for handling management issues. Even though it's painful, expensive, and time-consuming I look at the experience this way: the only way we learn is from making mistakes. If we did it right the first time we would have no way of knowing why it worked or if we were just lucky. When we make mistakes it forces us to look at the underlying issues and decide if the problem is us, the tenant, the property, etc. That way we actually know why it works.

Onto lighter topics: everyone's doing well. Adam's job is still there, mine is still there, the kids are still there only a little bigger and suntanned. They keep telling us they need a bigger swingset. We have opted to build them a big teeter-totter in the meantime since it's about one percent of the cost of a swing-set. We'll post pictures when it's done.

I've also been busy making strawberry freezer jam. Trying to keep up with the demand in our household. Little kids will eat a lot of jam if it's good! I confess this is a really good batch. Like candy. I bought a flat of strawberries (8 lbs.) for $4.99, spent $6 on pectin and made three batches of jam. Made about 11 pints of jam. Only 9 pints made it into the freezer. IT'S GOOD!!!

Bearded Baby

I just had to post this picture of Brayden. We checked a book out of the library called Whopper Cake. It is about a grampa that makes a HUGE cake for his wife's birthday. It is so big he has to bake it in the bed of his pick-up truck. At the end of the story they give the recipe. It is one of those old fashoned, made-from-scratch type recipes. We happend to have all the required ingredients so we whipped it up. It baked for 50 minutes even though the book said about 30 minutes. It didn't come out of the oven too pretty because we had to keep checking it and that made the cake fall. It was one of the moistest cakes I have ever had. You will have to check the book out of our library to get the recipe.

New Bread Recipe

On Saturday Wendy's aunt stopped by to visit for a little while and brought over a DVD for us to look at. It was a instruction video from Pantry Secrets on how to make bread in less than 1 hour. It piqued our interest, especially since our bread machine takes 2 hours on the rapid cycle.

This recipe calls for 6 ingredients and about 10 minutes of prep time. It makes 4 loaves of bread, or a few dozen rolls, or pizza crust, bread sticks, hot dog buns, or whatever you want. Pretty amazing. The video calls for the dough to me mixed in a Bosch universal kitchen machine (which we have) but you can mix the dough by hand if you want the exercise.

10 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt
3 heaping tablespoons yeast
4 cups hot water
3 tablespoons Soy lecithin

Wendy's aunt figures she can make a loaf of bread for about 12 cents. WOW!! Just that day we had visited the bread store and filled our freezer with about $40 worth of bread. According to her calculations we could have made 300 loaves for the same price as our 30 that we bought.

That convinced us to get some soy lecithin (I mean, who stocks that in their pantry).
After I left for work on Monday Wendy got down to work and whipped up some bread following this recipe. Here are some pictures.






The braided loaf was a desert filled with a sugary cream cheese filling.

Today, Wendy made pizza with this recipe and it was AWESOME.

Rock Band

This morning I was wandering around the house doing the usual mommy stuff and decided to check on the kids. I could hear them up in my bedroom jumping around and making noise so I peeked around the corner ever so cautiously. Moira and Sabrina were in their swimming suits (dancing outfits). Moira was prancing in front of the mirror holding my miniature ironing board in front of her and apparently strumming it like a guitar. Sabrina was standing on the other side of the room in front of my full-size ironing board playing on it like drums or a keyboard. They were both dancing and singing in unison: When I grow up, I want to be a rock star! Hilarious. What surprised me is that it sounded like a real song (maybe from Barney?) and that they knew all the words to the chorus. Brayden just danced around in between them obviously delighted to be in a rock band too (back-up dancer). I was so impressed with how creative they were to use the ironing boards and that they had their first song put together. I'm waiting for the release of their first album, it'll go platinum I can tell!

Looking for some action?

Yes, I'm posting twice today. So go check out the previous one. I just had to write this one down for future generations and to give all my girlfriends something to laugh hysterically about.

A few weeks ago I put the kids down for the night, left Adam home, and ran to Kent's Market to pick up a few items we needed. It had been one of THOSE days. You know the kind: wearing yoga pants, flip-flops, an over-sized t-shirt, no makeup and hair up in a bun. Yeah, I looked HOT!! (not) I'm standing in the check-out line with my few items and this guy behind me starts making conversation about my stuff. We continue talking and I mention how my husband & kids really like this or that. His eyes got really big and he says, "What? You're not wearing a ring! That's false advertising!"

I was floored! What!? Could this guy possibly be hitting on me? or maybe he's just drunk? Cause I know what I looked like at that moment.

I retorted that I wasn't doing false advertising, and he continuted to claim that I was sending the wrong message (to lonely guys like him, apparently). Well, I left the store, went home and told Adam about it. And even though he was likely to downplay the situation I can still proudly claim that a guy tried to pick me up when I looked like a scrub. That night I felt down-right AWESOME!

He's growing up

Brayden started walking about three weeks ago. It took him about two weeks to gain strength and confidence enough to stand up in the middle of a room without aid. And now he is off and running, literally. That boy doesn't have a slow bone in his body. He runs everywhere. But since he's still a little unstable he runs into EVERYTHING: walls, chairs, sisters, my arms. That's the best part, he runs into my arms and gives me loves. I love it!!! Heavenly Father designed this age of development to help parents propagate the species. After a year of caring for a near helpless baby and all the sleepless nights, they reach this stage of development where they are loving and sweet and everything they do makes you laugh and smile. So you decide, Let's have another one! No, I'm not having another one anytime soon. I'm smarter than wanting to have two kids in diapers.

Brayden also just broke his four top teeth at once. After four months of only having the two bottom ones he's finally going to be able to tear into his food in earnest. I'm sure he won't know what to do with himself. No more gumming for this little chap-o!

I'll post some video of him walking. He is a handsome guy! You need to get a close up of his eyelashes, I would die for those beauties!

Thought about time

I hear this country song on the radio that talks about time going by "faster than you think, don't blink." I ponder if I am using each day to the fullest. I am sure there is more I can do, but I have developed habits with those I care about that allow me to "blink" as often as needed. I tell Wendy and the kids each day that I love them. If it to all end tonight I would be content knowing that I have loved and lived well.

Adam