Sunday 30 November 2008

The Haunted Mansion



Cousin D. took this photo in October. Have I never posted a picture of the outside of our city home? Huh. Well, here it is!


This is what we woke up to this morning. Lovely, wet, slippery, sticky snow. It will be gone by Tuesday. Such is life in Iowa!

More of Our Week in Photos

Lil'Bug's first ceramic at art class. She was defiant and set on painting the owls feathers blue even though the project was supposed to use 7 different colors of brown for the feathers and belly. It was her first testing of the teacher, my guess. The teacher just smiled and complimented her creative color choice! Score. She's a keeper, someone who understands kids, and nurtures my kids creativity.

Thank you EC for stating somewhere on your photography site that better pictures of children could easily be had by setting the focus on their eyes. It just keeps on getting better! What you can't see in this photo is that her hair sticks about 6 inches straight up. I keep thinking that the longer it grows, the more likely it will get heavy enough to lay down. Nope. So we put a token bow in the upshoot and claim intention. Ha.

Aunt Deedle with Blueberry. We had such a good time with her. I wish she'd come more often.

The bread I made. We ate it with bean soup today. Not worth 24 hours worth of work. This week I am testing a 3 hour bread.

Friday 28 November 2008

More Catching Up With Photos

This was our Halloween ensemble a la Lil'Bug. She wanted to be a spider. Then she wanted me to be the web and Blueberry to be the egg sack hanging on the web. It worked out pretty well I think. I used a Mei Tei for the egg sack, stretched webbing over a hula hoop and purchased a spider outfit for the tot.

We went roller skating soon after her birthday. She was not a fan, but had a pretty good time with friends anyway.

We've been building. Lil'Bug asked me to include this picture in the blog. She's just become aware of the blog and is excited, curious, and wants to participate in content. Cool.

Giving Thanks for Food!

Every meal that we say grace Lil'Bug says, when it is her turn, "I AM THANKFUL FOR OUR FOOD!"
I am too.
The last couple weeks I have taken pictures of a couple beautiful food moments.

This is the very successful attempt at preparing a Shank Boil. I altered the recipe just a bit. I used a Dutch Oven, skipped the parsnips, and instead of cooking on the stove top, used my oven at 350 degrees for 3-4 hours. Good stuff. One of the best beef meals that we've done from our grass fed local side of beef, ironically on of the cheapest cuts and I was so nervous about it I set aside the cut with the tongue, heart, and liver. Sooooooo very good.

This is how we roast pumpkin to make pumpkin puree for pies and soups. Under each half is a tablespoon of salted butter.


Beans and ham. Easy. The beans are actually underneath the onions too. This is the heartiest, simple meal I know of. Usually I also add celery, but we were out. Another local mama adds cabbage. I want to try that in the future. The beans soak overnight, the soup cooks all day until the ham falls apart. Even yummier as leftovers and freezes very well.

One random afternoon Aunt Bee showed up bearing these. Tur-oreo-crispins. A play on turduckens of our heritage. She is so cool. I am thankful that I lent her my kids a cookin' cook book. ;)

I am thankful that we eat as well as we do, for less than most families manage, and that we've been blessed to live the life we do. Food is our fuel, how we maintain our bodies and mind, nourish. We thank God for the abundance we are granted, the generosity of friends and family that have helped stocked our pantry this year after our miserable garden output.

May you and yours also be blessed this Thanksgiving and the Thanksgivings following.