I have been a bit on the busy side. Not complaining, just putting the blog on the back table.
Getting the girls' Easter picture taken today, that in itself is exciting but very concerning to me. Our Christmas pictures turned out OK, but Little Miss O put up a bit of a fight. Here's hoping it goes well!
My seedlings are turning into plants and doing very well. The tomato plants, the super snap peas and pumpkin plants are all going strong. The banana peppers, red peppers and egg plant are just starting to show themselves. I planted melon and watermelon yesterday to finish off the tray where I started the red peppers. Also got the lettuce, carrots and strawberry plants planted directly in the garden. We aren't turning on the sprinklers till next week. We had planned to turn them on this weekend, but the extended forecast showed a bit of rain every day this week. So we thought that seemed pointless. So we will wait.
In playing outside yesterday I got a little carried away and cleaned out the back yard flower beds. The front beds got a good hair cut last fall, so there isn't as much debre in there. However the back garden was a mess. So I de-debred it!
I have a cake to make for a friend's daughter's first communion next week.
Easter is this weekend. Cousin C and the girls did make paper mache eggs last week and hope to have them painted tomorrow! Pictures to follow, of course, with some of these projects the pictures can not been taken during the project, as my hands are all too busy!
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Something's Fishy
Big Girl J has recently gotten bigger! She turn 4! Last weekend we celebrated with all of her preschool friends and our friends and family. That actually made for a very big crowd! Seems Big Girl J has more friends than mommy and daddy!
We do not have a large house, just a large yard. So the weather of any decide BBQ we host is very important. The children don't do very well crammed into one room, that seem to turn into a small tornado and just tear up the whole room. So having a week of questionable weather for Saturday, we were grateful when the weather dude said Saturday should be the best day of the weekend with a break from the wind and chance of showers. Well, some how, weather dude turned out correct, at least for the time while the birthday party was happening.
I love smoking meat, I love brisket. However time barely offers that option. So when we find a reason to invite over more than a few friends, we buy brisket and smoke it! 35 pounds of brisket later.... The kids had a blast and the adults enjoyed the food.
Oh yes, on to the cake! Big Girl J had decided on a fish themed party a few weeks prior. I had decided on a cake 'style' a few weeks prior also. The problem with making a cake for myself, I mean my family. I tend to cut corners. Well don't let me get ahead of myself.
I wanted to try a technique called color flow. It is basically royal icing, powdered sugar and water with a color flow powder mixture, that dries rock hard. I printed coloring book pictures of fish found with searching just that on the internet.
I put wax paper over the printed pictures, outlined it with a thicker mixture of the color flow icing. Let it dry for about a day, then filled in the outline with a much thinner mixture of the color flow. The thin icing kind of floods the outline. You can see where some of it went over the outline, but this was my first try. Unfortunately, my cake tried to step over this pan with no success and stepped on a few pieces, after they had dried. So they shattered :( My fault, I had her food on the counter and didn't put these away that night. So I save the three or four that survived and whipped up another batch.
I was a bit happier with round two. I was able to make them a bit thicker and I think they looked better over all. Now onto the cake and where I cut corners. When pre-stacking the cakes I realized the base cake was not thick enough in comparison to the top 2 tiers. So I decided to make the cake a little off set, maybe like a coral reef, yeah that's it, I'll off set each cake so that it will look like a coral reef!
Unfortunately, I didn't have any dowel rods to support stacking the cake, so it began to lean, and just before cutting I was certain it would fall if left up to gravity much longer!
This picture was taken prior to the big lean. Of course when the cake tastes good, it doesn't matter if it leans.... 
The aftermath.... And about 2 minutes later that chocolate cake was gone!
We do not have a large house, just a large yard. So the weather of any decide BBQ we host is very important. The children don't do very well crammed into one room, that seem to turn into a small tornado and just tear up the whole room. So having a week of questionable weather for Saturday, we were grateful when the weather dude said Saturday should be the best day of the weekend with a break from the wind and chance of showers. Well, some how, weather dude turned out correct, at least for the time while the birthday party was happening.
I love smoking meat, I love brisket. However time barely offers that option. So when we find a reason to invite over more than a few friends, we buy brisket and smoke it! 35 pounds of brisket later.... The kids had a blast and the adults enjoyed the food.
Oh yes, on to the cake! Big Girl J had decided on a fish themed party a few weeks prior. I had decided on a cake 'style' a few weeks prior also. The problem with making a cake for myself, I mean my family. I tend to cut corners. Well don't let me get ahead of myself.
I wanted to try a technique called color flow. It is basically royal icing, powdered sugar and water with a color flow powder mixture, that dries rock hard. I printed coloring book pictures of fish found with searching just that on the internet.
Unfortunately, I didn't have any dowel rods to support stacking the cake, so it began to lean, and just before cutting I was certain it would fall if left up to gravity much longer!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Learning to be a green thumb
Note for the Bird Cake post: Jan, I made the bird from rice crispy treats. I mixed up a very small batch and formed a large ball and a small ball then pushed them together till it stayed. Then covered it in fondant.
This will end up as a series of blogs, that will last all summer and into the fall. If my garden lasts that long, I hope it does, but this is a first. Well the real first. Last year I did a few seeds with Big Girl J, mostly for her to see the growth. After it went into the ground it didn't survive. However, this year, we have a better set up. I have a 200 square foot garden, with a sprinkler system. The sprinkler system is new to my front flower garden last year. And we extended it into the back flower beds in the fall. We got the vegetable garden 'framed' with the railroad ties, cleaned out, and the sprinkler system was ready to be finished. After finishing it off with the compost from the winter, the last of the sprinkler heads, and three yards of dirt, I think I am ready.
Yesterday I took the girls out back, armed with dirt, potting cups, and a few seed packets, we were ready to rock this garden.
Big Girl J remembered how to fill the cups with dirt, from last year. She started to fill the cups, and was doing wonderful. Little Miss O was playing else where when Big Girl J started filling the cups. Little Miss O was very interested in what big sister was doing, and wanted to do the same.
So they figured out how to work together, and they filled all the cups. They switched jobs occasionally, however Little Miss O had a hard time keeping the dirt on the shovel from bucket to cup. But she tried!
The only problem is I spent about an hour digging through my dirt cups for seeds to re-plant them. I had no chance with the tomato seeds, so I will need to buy another pack of those, but the rest have been found and salvaged.
This will end up as a series of blogs, that will last all summer and into the fall. If my garden lasts that long, I hope it does, but this is a first. Well the real first. Last year I did a few seeds with Big Girl J, mostly for her to see the growth. After it went into the ground it didn't survive. However, this year, we have a better set up. I have a 200 square foot garden, with a sprinkler system. The sprinkler system is new to my front flower garden last year. And we extended it into the back flower beds in the fall. We got the vegetable garden 'framed' with the railroad ties, cleaned out, and the sprinkler system was ready to be finished. After finishing it off with the compost from the winter, the last of the sprinkler heads, and three yards of dirt, I think I am ready.
Yesterday I took the girls out back, armed with dirt, potting cups, and a few seed packets, we were ready to rock this garden.
Next we tried to shove 6 packets of seeds into 15 cups. Can you say 'overcrowding?' Of course the super snap pea seeds looked edible, this picture was just after I had told Little Miss O to take that out of her mouth. I am not sure if it was the dirt or the rock hard seed, but she didn't try it again.
Later that evening, the empty seed packets were laying on the counter and I noticed the tomato packet said the entire packet would produce about 20 plants.
Well then gosh! I have a 200 square foot garden, I might as well get the most out of my packet that I can!
So I went to the local hydroponic store and found a very helpful owner. He set me up with some trays and grow media 'plugs' that fit into individual slots. It is perfect.
Tada! Wish them luck on a prosperous season.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Bird Cake
I made a cake this weekend. I know, you're surprised. Me, making cakes? I must say this one was a bit less frustrating, after the frustrating part.
I made butter cream fondant. I made the grass and tree leaves about 5 days early. When it was time to put them on the grass wasn't dry enough, and the blades that stuck out the furthest wanted to break. So I had to cut a few down. I also made almost all the blades too long and had to cut some down because of that. So my next time note is to mix it with gum paste, for better drying and quicker drying. Or at least that is what it does with store bought fondant, so hopefully it will do that with this fondant, because I really liked the way this one felt and tasted.
Now my second frustration was my own fault. I made two batches of fondant. On the second batch I tried talking and cooking. That is never good when I am trying something new. So I added too much salt. I was told it wasn't that bad, but I could tell a huge difference. I decided that batch could be for decoration and not covering. I was really hoping I could make that work, however I ran out of pink for the bottom tier. In covering it, I had to roll the fondant thin and then piece it together. At least this layer would be mostly covered and the crack/fixes might not be too obvious.
On the middle and top layer, I had plenty of fondant and I was very happy and much less frustrated with how it covered.
The part, I feel, looks like an after thought is the branches, that kind of look like short fat trees. I was having a hard time getting a dark brown. On my first batch I added a touch of black and I though it looked like army green once it was mixed. The day of the cake I tried making a smaller batch of brown with a lot of food coloring. But still a soft poop color. Still not what I wanted. I wish I had thought about doing this before I tried the fondant, but I think melted chocolate would have done a much better job, and I probably could have made them look like twigs and branches rather than short fat trees. I am referring to piping melted chocolate on wax paper and sticking it in the fridge to harden. That would have given me a perfect color and finer lines.
However, this was for a little girls first birthday, so I don't think she looked at my poop color branches and thought, "OMG, who would put that on a cake!" Or at least I hope she didn't....
Next cake, Big Girl J's birthday cake. My big girl is turning 4 and getting even bigger! I will give you a hint, in case you didn't read the post about the invites. It will be fish themed.
Now my second frustration was my own fault. I made two batches of fondant. On the second batch I tried talking and cooking. That is never good when I am trying something new. So I added too much salt. I was told it wasn't that bad, but I could tell a huge difference. I decided that batch could be for decoration and not covering. I was really hoping I could make that work, however I ran out of pink for the bottom tier. In covering it, I had to roll the fondant thin and then piece it together. At least this layer would be mostly covered and the crack/fixes might not be too obvious.
On the middle and top layer, I had plenty of fondant and I was very happy and much less frustrated with how it covered.
The part, I feel, looks like an after thought is the branches, that kind of look like short fat trees. I was having a hard time getting a dark brown. On my first batch I added a touch of black and I though it looked like army green once it was mixed. The day of the cake I tried making a smaller batch of brown with a lot of food coloring. But still a soft poop color. Still not what I wanted. I wish I had thought about doing this before I tried the fondant, but I think melted chocolate would have done a much better job, and I probably could have made them look like twigs and branches rather than short fat trees. I am referring to piping melted chocolate on wax paper and sticking it in the fridge to harden. That would have given me a perfect color and finer lines.
However, this was for a little girls first birthday, so I don't think she looked at my poop color branches and thought, "OMG, who would put that on a cake!" Or at least I hope she didn't....
Next cake, Big Girl J's birthday cake. My big girl is turning 4 and getting even bigger! I will give you a hint, in case you didn't read the post about the invites. It will be fish themed.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Blank Slate
Over the end of last summer and the last week I have been working towards a goal. A very large vegetable garden!
I'm not the best at math and figuring out square footage, but that is a big garden!
I got a very nice plastic compost bin, last summer from my mom, and it belonged to grandma prior to that. It had So I started the compost at the end of last summer. I hadn't done much other than add some stuff and so had Wonderful Husband. He at one point put a few too many grass clippings in the bin, that prevented some of the pre-compost from composting during the winter. Now that area of pre-compost must have seemed perfect to some mice, who had gross food to eat and a sheltered home. That I found last week. ICK!
Our house backs to open space, where the mice and the fox run free. Our back yard is fully fenced, so no worries about the foxes however, those dirty little disease carring vermin, don't care about the fence. They literally can't take a hint.
A week ago I bought 15 packs of seeds. I borrowed a grow light and a tray from mom, another thing that used to belong to grandma. On monday I went out with my pitch fork, my shovel, my gloves and my gardening shoes. Ready to get dirty! I picked up the compost bin and dug in. I started to spread and dig, and hold my breath. Then I found the nest. I flipped a chunk of compost to the side a large mouse went running, then a couple babies just kind of wiggled around. Too young to do anything more than bury themselves in the compost. Another reason to not like mice, they are horrible parents. Just leaving the little babies to take care of themselves when they are much too young for that.
I can't just kill them, they are babies. So I used the pitch fork and flipped them closer to the fence in hopes they will find their way to another home with slight abandonment issues and a slight fear of flying. Back to the grind, and another 4 larger mice scatter. This time I jump. And yell. And yell. Then I said in my yelling voice, "I hate MICE!!!!"
A small voice behind me says, "I found a mouse."
I am still trying to calm down when I hear this. I turn to see Big Girl J walking towards me, holding her hand out, showing me a dead mouse. One that she seemed to be proud of, until mommy went crazy and started shouting "drop it!"
That poor little girl looked so surprised and didn't think she had done anything wrong. But mommy was yelling at her like she had done something horribly wrong, like picking up a disease carrying dead vermin, that probably died of one of those diseases that is carries.
After taking Big Girl J inside and scrubbing the skin off her hands in hopes of decontaminating her, I was drying her hands and realized how scared or ashamed she looked. I finally had the realization of how she was showing me something she was proud of, but then randomly got yelled at for.
Thinking back to every time we have taken her to the pet store and let her look at fish, the cats, the birds, and finally the hamsters and the mice, I decided it was my own fault. She thought she had found a new pet, a dead new pet. And now she isn't allowed to go in the pet store with me anymore.
I left the mess and the other mice that might be there and stayed away for a week. I did let the dog have free reign and dig through the compost in hopes of making the mice mad enough to move. I also saw the cat staring at the piles, waiting. Like a good cat. Today, I ventured out and finished the job. I spread it out, wet it down and Wonderful Husband brought me a truck load of dirt. We shoveled it out with Big Girl J's help. She thought the shovel was too heavy so she used a small plastic cup. And with her help we finished with the second load of dirt just in time for the sprinkles and cold front that cooled us all off.
I am hoping for a good harvest this year!
I got a very nice plastic compost bin, last summer from my mom, and it belonged to grandma prior to that. It had So I started the compost at the end of last summer. I hadn't done much other than add some stuff and so had Wonderful Husband. He at one point put a few too many grass clippings in the bin, that prevented some of the pre-compost from composting during the winter. Now that area of pre-compost must have seemed perfect to some mice, who had gross food to eat and a sheltered home. That I found last week. ICK!
Our house backs to open space, where the mice and the fox run free. Our back yard is fully fenced, so no worries about the foxes however, those dirty little disease carring vermin, don't care about the fence. They literally can't take a hint.
A week ago I bought 15 packs of seeds. I borrowed a grow light and a tray from mom, another thing that used to belong to grandma. On monday I went out with my pitch fork, my shovel, my gloves and my gardening shoes. Ready to get dirty! I picked up the compost bin and dug in. I started to spread and dig, and hold my breath. Then I found the nest. I flipped a chunk of compost to the side a large mouse went running, then a couple babies just kind of wiggled around. Too young to do anything more than bury themselves in the compost. Another reason to not like mice, they are horrible parents. Just leaving the little babies to take care of themselves when they are much too young for that.
I can't just kill them, they are babies. So I used the pitch fork and flipped them closer to the fence in hopes they will find their way to another home with slight abandonment issues and a slight fear of flying. Back to the grind, and another 4 larger mice scatter. This time I jump. And yell. And yell. Then I said in my yelling voice, "I hate MICE!!!!"
A small voice behind me says, "I found a mouse."
I am still trying to calm down when I hear this. I turn to see Big Girl J walking towards me, holding her hand out, showing me a dead mouse. One that she seemed to be proud of, until mommy went crazy and started shouting "drop it!"
That poor little girl looked so surprised and didn't think she had done anything wrong. But mommy was yelling at her like she had done something horribly wrong, like picking up a disease carrying dead vermin, that probably died of one of those diseases that is carries.
After taking Big Girl J inside and scrubbing the skin off her hands in hopes of decontaminating her, I was drying her hands and realized how scared or ashamed she looked. I finally had the realization of how she was showing me something she was proud of, but then randomly got yelled at for.
Thinking back to every time we have taken her to the pet store and let her look at fish, the cats, the birds, and finally the hamsters and the mice, I decided it was my own fault. She thought she had found a new pet, a dead new pet. And now she isn't allowed to go in the pet store with me anymore.
I left the mess and the other mice that might be there and stayed away for a week. I did let the dog have free reign and dig through the compost in hopes of making the mice mad enough to move. I also saw the cat staring at the piles, waiting. Like a good cat. Today, I ventured out and finished the job. I spread it out, wet it down and Wonderful Husband brought me a truck load of dirt. We shoveled it out with Big Girl J's help. She thought the shovel was too heavy so she used a small plastic cup. And with her help we finished with the second load of dirt just in time for the sprinkles and cold front that cooled us all off.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Search for the Ring
Wednesday, I woke up to my bed moving. Our bed is tucked into a nook in the wall. We don't have a traditional bed frame, so when my husband dreamt that he lost his ring in the night, he was able to pulled the mattress out from the wall and successfully woke me up. At first I laughed at him, because I had no clue what this statement would mean to me having to search for this ring. I told him it was bed sheet day and not to worry. I was sure it would show up. But now that I was awake, I might as well get up. And he immediately started to strip the bed. This made me laugh a little more because he admitted to feeling naked and really wanted his wedding ring back. Now it has been five years of constant wear, and I very much understand feeling naked without mine, but for him to act as I would if I lost mine, made me happy.
Without success Wonderful Husband left for work, and left me with a pile of bed sheets and a missing ring. I had thought a few days prior about rotating the mattress so that our personal divots could fluff back up. My thought was today must be as good of day as any. So I prop the mattress against the dresser. Move the box springs completely to the side and find.... nothing. Our custom built bed frame has shoe cubbies underneath. So out comes the super bright flashlight and get down on my hands and knees. Still nothing. After putting my room back together, making the bed and washing the sheets, there was still no ring.
Next stop, closet. Now I don't have reign of the closet. It is a small closet and I moved into this house that my husband was living in, and he had a full closet. I have roughly 5 items in the closet, good thing I don't wear dresses. So 7 or 8 years ago I adapted and have essentially been without a closet to call my own. So this closet has a pile of snow boots and other uncommonly used shoes, a backpack and a few other random items. I pulled it all out, acting as an actor from CSI where I inspect everything with a flashlight, except my flashlight was too big for the job. However that did not help. The ring was not there. After another search of the shoe cubbies, and a few other far fetched places in the room, I decided there was no way that ring was in the room.
Even the girls helped in the search.
See the over sized flashlight, but still did not help us find the ring. So the girls kept looking.
It was not under Big Girl J's bed, but I am glad they checked, because they did find toys and other random items.
Then the horrible thought crossed my mind. What if the dog ate it. Oh crap, literally.
So, my Thursday morning, while Big Girl J was at preschool, Opal and I spent an hour and some picking up a winter's worth of doggy poopy from the back yard. And it is a big back yard and our dog seems to not want to poop within a foot of another pile. So that wasn't fun. But now we had a clean slate, for the fresh poop search. Now to wait a day and then more searching. UGH!
Now it's Friday, I have things to do. So I will do whatever I need to do to avoid the poop. On a trip to the near by town and then to the local library for story time, I received a call.
Wonderful Husband called from work, seems he found his ring, in Wisconsin! Yes, my husband's ring came off while loading up a box for a customer in Wisconsin, and he only dreamt about it that night, he didn't actually loose it in bed, nor did he loose it with in five hours of bed time. But alas it was found and more importantly it was discover in said box and not thrown away for us to never have a clue about.
So all is well. I got the bed sheets cleaned, the dog poop picked up and I didn't have to dig through any of it.
Without success Wonderful Husband left for work, and left me with a pile of bed sheets and a missing ring. I had thought a few days prior about rotating the mattress so that our personal divots could fluff back up. My thought was today must be as good of day as any. So I prop the mattress against the dresser. Move the box springs completely to the side and find.... nothing. Our custom built bed frame has shoe cubbies underneath. So out comes the super bright flashlight and get down on my hands and knees. Still nothing. After putting my room back together, making the bed and washing the sheets, there was still no ring.
Next stop, closet. Now I don't have reign of the closet. It is a small closet and I moved into this house that my husband was living in, and he had a full closet. I have roughly 5 items in the closet, good thing I don't wear dresses. So 7 or 8 years ago I adapted and have essentially been without a closet to call my own. So this closet has a pile of snow boots and other uncommonly used shoes, a backpack and a few other random items. I pulled it all out, acting as an actor from CSI where I inspect everything with a flashlight, except my flashlight was too big for the job. However that did not help. The ring was not there. After another search of the shoe cubbies, and a few other far fetched places in the room, I decided there was no way that ring was in the room.
Even the girls helped in the search.
It was not in the bathroom, or in the bath tub.
Then the horrible thought crossed my mind. What if the dog ate it. Oh crap, literally.
So, my Thursday morning, while Big Girl J was at preschool, Opal and I spent an hour and some picking up a winter's worth of doggy poopy from the back yard. And it is a big back yard and our dog seems to not want to poop within a foot of another pile. So that wasn't fun. But now we had a clean slate, for the fresh poop search. Now to wait a day and then more searching. UGH!
Now it's Friday, I have things to do. So I will do whatever I need to do to avoid the poop. On a trip to the near by town and then to the local library for story time, I received a call.
Wonderful Husband called from work, seems he found his ring, in Wisconsin! Yes, my husband's ring came off while loading up a box for a customer in Wisconsin, and he only dreamt about it that night, he didn't actually loose it in bed, nor did he loose it with in five hours of bed time. But alas it was found and more importantly it was discover in said box and not thrown away for us to never have a clue about.
So all is well. I got the bed sheets cleaned, the dog poop picked up and I didn't have to dig through any of it.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Ginger Bear Update
Since my picture of Ginger Bear that I took 3 days ago, Little Miss O has fallen in love with it. Now she has become a bit of a hoarder of stuffed animals. She has grown attached to a certain blanket that goes to be and nap with her, she insists on both stuffed animals that have pacifiers attached and now Ginger Bear.
It makes me happy to see my little girls get so excited when I find Ginger Bear and hand it to her with a final goodnight kiss. I also like that Ginger Bear is getting love on a regular basis, not just sitting on a shelf holding onto its own memories. Now Ginger Bear and Opal get to make their own memories!
It makes me happy to see my little girls get so excited when I find Ginger Bear and hand it to her with a final goodnight kiss. I also like that Ginger Bear is getting love on a regular basis, not just sitting on a shelf holding onto its own memories. Now Ginger Bear and Opal get to make their own memories!
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