Wild Child

Do you see this? This child is 9.5 months old! That is not a safe activity. Where is her mother?!




Here she is again, charming me. I know she is thinking, "Mom, I don't know why you get upset when I wake up Sissy. You know you are wrapped around my wee little finger. Just give up and melt." It is true. This child just melts my heart. What a doll!



Why are there not as many pictures of her sisters you may ask? Well, Pnut doesn't like to have pictures taken anymore apparently. She wants to do the taking. It is fun.

I need to brag about the Pnut a little bit. Two days ago I was putting away the laundry, and she came in independently and put her underwear away and then took mine to our room and put it away. I have never asked her to do that. I have never told her where my clothing goes. So not only is she responsible, she is also a genius and observant! What a sweetie!!!

Button Bracelet

Today we had a good day. Yesterday was a very bad day. Pnut washed Pilly's penguin with toilet water, rubbed my stamp pad (multicolor) on her face, and peed her pants. What I really like about the stamp pad is that she mixed some of the colors together now. Sigh. But yesterday is over. As I said, today was a pretty good day. We painted a pumpkin since we don't really have tools to carve one, we did school, and this afternoon we made a button bracelet. On Saturday, I went to the fabric outlet, was disgusted that I had to buy at least a yard of each fabric that I wanted, and only ended up with two different ones. But I did come out with a bag of buttons. They sell a large plastic cup of buttons for $2.98. A lot of buttons will fit into a plastic cup! So today we made a button bracelet for the Pnut. Pilly was sad that she couldn't have the buttons, but we know that she will eat them. This is the finished bracelet. Do you like the anchor button? Pnut picked that one out herself!



My dear friend Carolyn just got back from a trip to the Philippines, and she brought us these beautiful little mother of pearl dishes and spoons. Pnut is sad because I put them up. I am afraid they will break if she plays with them. She also brought us a hot pad made out of dried pine needles so when you put a pan on it, it smells like pine needles. How neat is that?!

Blueberry Muffins

These muffins are really really good. I made them for Bible study, and they were a hit!

1.5 cups flour
3/4+ cup white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup mild
1 cup fresh blueberries

1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners. Combine 1.5 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt, and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup, add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with the flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture. To make topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1.5 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork or pastry blender and sprinkle over muffins. Bake for 20-25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

Some little notes: I read some reviews that suggested adding a little more sugar to the muffin recipe, so I filled it just a little higher. I thought they were plenty sweet enough. I used blueberries I had frozen myself since blueberries are not readily available at this time, and they turned out great. I am not sure if blueberries from the store are somehow different. I put the blueberries in frozen because I had read that helps them retain their juices. I made mini muffins, and they only took about 10 minutes to cook. These are great!



I made these the night before, and I actually thought they tasted better today than they did right out of the oven!

How I Almost Burned the Apartment Building Down

I made chicken for supper tonight on the George Foreman Grill. I like the grill, but we don't often use it. We recently rearranged the counter, and I haven't used the grill since then. After the chicken was done, I propped the top open. I used to do this all the time against the canister that we had. We then proceeded to finish get supper and sit down to eat. All the while, I could smell something burning, but I could not figure it out. It smelled like wood burning. The fire alarm started going off. We would fan it and sit back down and it would go off again. It was very frustrating and we couldn't figure out what was going on. We couldn't see any smoke, but we opened the windows and made sure all the burners were off and everything was alright. After at least five minutes of this, probably more, we finally located the burn. When I propped the top of the grill open, I leaned it against the toaster. It pushed the handle down so that the toaster was on. Unfortunately, to make room for the grill, I put Joel's Pringles and his cheese curls on top of the toaster. They melted into the toaster partially and were blackened. The toaster is ruined. I had a hard time not laughing. I don't think Joel thought it was funny. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment:)



Joel was not pleased that his chips were ruined.



It melted the plastic on the toaster too!



This is a sad little blackened cheese curl!

Busy Weekend

We had a very very busy weekend. Joel had both football and basketball on Friday, so that means he was gone most of the day. He was home for about 20 minutes for supper, and Pnut cried when he left. He felt bad and wanted to wake her up when he came home. I said no. I am cruel like that.

Saturday, Joel was in a dodgeball tournament that a guy friend church asked him to do. Thankfully, my awesome sister Randa and her family came to my parents' house this weekend so we went there. I haven't seen Randa for almost two months so I was just on the brink of despair. We talk on the phone, but it is not the same. We can talk for 90 minutes and get off and I realize there are 10 more things I wanted to tell her. So we had fun with them there. My grandparents (who live 2 hours away) dropped in as well. Pnut loves to play with her cousins. We went out to dinner in the evening and didn't get home until after seven. We skipped church on Sunday morning and just went to Sunday School. The girls have colds and aren't sleeping that well so I wanted them (and me) to be able to sleep in. We try to make it consistently to Sunday School though because it is good for Pnut to be able to count on that. It wouldn't be so bad if church didn't start at 8:00. The second service is too late, it messes with naps too much. So anyways, after SS we went to my parents again. My other sister Kacy was also there cleaning the whole house. When my mom and Randa's family finally got home from church, my dad made lunch on the grill and then Randa and I went shopping:) I think that she may be a more energetic shopper than I am. Or it could have been just that I didn't have any money. That is always a downer. But we had a fun time out together. We got home at seven again last night and were all wiped out. Joel and I went to bed at 9:30. I would have gone earlier, but Pilly was not interested in going to bed until after 9:00 because she fell asleep in the car.

I think that Randa and Eric et al should move here. Eric can find an internship with some company here and I can have them close. Randa and I are only 18 months apart, and we have always been good friends. It is not right that we should be separated like this, especially since everyone else has moved here since we did. They didn't move because we did, circumstances just brought them here. My dad had to transfer to the NH plant here and Kacy is going to school down here. Hopefully, Eric can be influenced through me sending messages from my brain to his through the air.

I have to work now. I will stop doodling:)

Tomato Salad

This stuff is better than salsa in my opinion. I don't like really spicy things so that may be why. But it also doesn't have that taste that comes from tomato paste. I had some salsa that was made with tomato paste, and I didn't like it very much. Pnut loved it though. It is one of her two vegetables that she will eat. Anyways...it is super simple.

Tomato
Red Onion
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Sea Salt

Dice the tomato and put in bowl. Thinly slice the onion. I don't use a whole onion in mine because that makes it too spicy for me. Drizzle with olive oil and pour on the salt. Mix it together with your hands because that gets everything well coated. Adjust salt and olive oil to taste. Eat with tortilla chips or on tacos or anything lovely like that!



That lovely plate is a Cars plate in case you wanted to add it to your collection!:)

GROSGRAIN MINI STORE OPENING!!!! AND BIG PREVIEW GIVEAWAY!!!!

GROSGRAIN MINI STORE OPENING!!!! AND BIG PREVIEW GIVEAWAY!!!!