Archive | August, 2012

Tiny Explosions

29 Aug

Last week when it was a beautiful day but there was a bear in our yard I had to quickly come up with a craft to busy the children.

Pintrest to the rescue.  I quickly scanned my board of learning activities I had pinned earlier and had the solution.

And here it is.  So easy, so cheap and so fun.  Take a pan and fill the bottom with baking soda.  Fill a couple cups with vinegar then put a few drops of different food coloring into the cups.  We tried blue, green, yellow and red.

Use an old tylenol dropper to suck up the vinegar and food coloring and then place some drops into the baking soda pan.

its also fun to squish in between your hands (apparently)

Sit back and watch your kids faces light up and the magic begin.

Happy Girlies

25 Aug

Every time I give the girls an “airplane” ride (you know where the kid rests on your feet while you are laying down and you fling your feet and legs into the air with the kid on them) I want to take a picture.  They are so genuinely happy and their heads are silhouetted by the sunshine behind them.  They are almost glowing.

Well, I finally took some pictures of this and love how happy and joyful the pictures turned out.

 

I love my girlies so much.

It’s a BEAR!!!

21 Aug

Jared was heading to work this morning when he ran back in a couple seconds later and told us there was a bear outside.  It was trying to get into the compost bin.  We creeped back outside and it was in the woods making some strange noises, not very happy ones either.

It was scary looking into the woods and knowing that the black bear was right there because we could hear it, but since it was black we could not see it at all.

After a few minutes of staring into the woods, Jared had to head to work.  The girls and I kept glancing out the windows to see if the bear was sauntering around.

We couldn’t see the compost bin from the house though so I decided to step into the garage and look out the window to see if it was still there.  To my surprise it had tipped the compost bin over and was scrounging around in the mess.  I nervously snapped a few pictures and then darted back inside. Thats why these pictures have smudges on them- since they are through a dirty window:

After a few crafts for the kids I got curious again.  I put my big zoom lens on my camera and snuck out to see if I could get one picture of the bear without a dirty window.  Here is what I got.  Don’t try this at home, right?

I like the picture above, it looks like he is thinking, “Is there anything actually worth my while in this bin?”

It was a fun and interesting morning but after we get this compost cleaned up I hope we don’t see him again.

Pesto Delight

19 Aug

Pesto is divine.

But first you have to do some work:

pick the basil from your garden

wash the basil, I used our salad spinner to dry the leaves

carefully inspect each and every leaf (jk, that is just what Aleah did)

blend with a food processor (we used our magic bullet)

I have not had it since last spring spring of 2011 when we moved away from our basil plants.  Sad, I know.

So we were quite due for some pesto around our house.

Here is a recipe I sort of based my pesto on (it is all up to you, do you like more parmesan?  good add more, do you like a stong nut flavor?  good- add more walnuts or pine nuts) and it’s gluten free!

We actually did not have any nuts in our house so we did without and it turned our just fine.

Happy Cooking, hope you get to enjoy some of this delicious stuff soon.

My Garden Signs

16 Aug

You might remember this sign from our previous garden.  Jared, Aleah, and our good friend Hawker made it for me for Mother’s Day a few years ago.

I found these signs at an interesting consignnment store over in Tower, MN called Ric’s Relics.

I saw them and loved them.  They used to be signs in a National Park.  The only problem was that I couldn’t figure out what to do with them.  The Exit sign was $5 and the One Way sign was $7.  So…. $12 worth of signs I thought were cool but I was not sure where they would go.

Well, I took the risk and bought them, I thought perhaps we could put them in our driveway for fun.  But then Jared came up with the idea of putting them above the door into our garden.  I love it.  They are durable signs and will withstand the cold winter months and stay up there for quite a while.

Signs can really brighten up a garden.

Pumpkin Hopeful

12 Aug

I cannot believe our pumpkin plant started out as a tiny plant from the Watering Can.  Now it is literally taking over our garden-

Here is a little pumpkin on it’s way to (hopefully) being a really big pumpkin.

How cool would it be if we didn’t have to buy any pumpkins to carve this fall?

here is yet another pumpkin:

Aleah’s sweet peas are still cranking too!

Cukes!

10 Aug

Cucumbers are one vegetable that both girls LOOOVE to eat.  Having some ranch on hand doesn’t hurt either.  They have always loved them- peeled or not.

We lifted a big leaf from the cucumber plant yesterday and to our surprise discovered this ready-to-eat cucumber.

Here is one on it’s way to greatness:

It is amazing how different things taste coming from our garden than from the store.  There is no waxy substance, no hidden bruises, no bitterness.

Aleah was quite excited and carried the cucumber around the house like a baby.

We have a few that are almost ready to pick, can’t wait to eat them.  I love the meals that come from our garden.

Front Yard Jungle

8 Aug

The front of our house has an area for a garden.  Now that the sunflowers are almost blooming they are towering over everything.  It is making the front of our house look like a jungle.

Packs of flower seeds were on sale at our local dollar store early this spring so I bought a lot of them.

I dug two rows along the path of the walkway into our house.  And planted a mixture of all those seed packages.  Sounds like a great idea, right?  Well for the first month or so I have NO idea what was a weed or what was a flower I wanted to keep.  I guess it did end up working out because now the garden is exploding with beautiful flowers.

I love pulling up in the car and walking along the path into the house.  It is so happy and inviting.

Raspberry Picking

6 Aug

We have raspberry bushes surrounding our house and at least once a day we head out to check and see if there are any more ripe berries.

I love this picture because Aleah and Jared and bending over in the same way, like father- like daughter.

Sorry I left y’all hanging for a week, I have internet access again.  Thanks for sticking with me!